Dec 16, 2022 | Notable Women of Aylmer
Marjorie Davison (1915-67)
Marjorie Davison was born in Aylmer in 1915. She was a member of one of the pioneering families. Her great-grandfather, James Finlayson Taylor, was one of Aylmer’s first inhabitants and a contemporary of Charles Symmes, the city’s founder.
In 1921, when she was only six years old, Marjorie was deeply affected by the great fire that ravaged much of the city. Perhaps this explains her fascination with the fires that marked her professional life! Marjorie documented many fires. A talented photographer, she was one of the first women in the country to join the national press in the 1940s, at a time when the world of journalism was still fiercely male. As part of her journalistic duties, she interviewed and photographed numerous political figures, as well as several dignitaries from varied backgrounds.
Marjorie quickly gained prominence as her photos appeared in prestigious magazines and newspapers such as Time, Mayfair, Life, Saturday Night and The Globe and Mail. The success and toughness of this determined woman in a male-dominated environment would go on to inspire many stories about her career. She eventually realized her dream by creating and running her own Ottawa news agency, the Capital Press Service, which employed six people.
Marjorie was passionate about history and antiques and went on to write a book on Canadian furniture with her husband, Philip Shackleton. Her archives are held by the Aylmer Heritage Association. They are a valuable resource for knowing and appreciating our regional history and heritage. (Photo: Aylmer Achives)
Dec 15, 2022 | Notable Women of Aylmer
Yvette Debain (1926-2008)
Born in Ottawa in 1926, Yvette Bond was passionate about literature, French culture and exploration. For a few years, she corresponded with Pierre Debain, a young French artist who lived in Algeria and Morocco. He decided to come to Canada to marry his sweetheart Yvette, who was 26 at the time.
Yvette and Pierre started a family in a heritage house in Old Aylmer at 7 Front Street. In the 1970s, they built the L’Imagier Art Centre as an annex to the house using wood from the old barn located behind it and recycled materials. L’Imagier was officially opened in 1975. Successive exhibitions reflected contemporary regional artistic expression in an educational space created for Yvette Debain, who strove to convey the pleasure of discovering works of art.
Yvette loved animating tours and making young audiences experience a sense of wonder at the sight of a picture or sculpture. She always welcomed her visitors with her legendary smile and kindness. She appreciated the pleasure people felt in discovering artworks in the spaces of L’Imagier.
In 1987, in partnership with the City of Gatineau, Yvette created the Parc de l’Imaginaire, a small outdoor museum with sculpted benches and a Japanese fountain featuring musicians and professional performing artists. A pavilion welcomes artists during the summer months. In 2005, the city awarded the Ordre de Gatineau to Yvette Debain. The Imagier Art Centre and Parc de l’Imaginaire will continue to thrive with artistic performances. (Photo: Ville de Gatineau)
Jan 20, 2021 | Notable Women of the Gatineau Valley
CATHERINE (TIMLIN) O’BOYLE HOLMES (1825-1911)
Catherine, known as Ketty, was born in County Mayo, Ireland, to tenant farmers. She experienced the horrors of the Great Irish Hunger of 1847 and the death of a husband and two children before immigrating to Canada. She embarked on the perilous Atlantic crossing with her sister, brother-in-law, and their children. One by one, the family died, and Catherine, always a religious woman, bribed the sailors with biscuits to ensure they were allowed a small wake before being thrown into the sea. After making her way to Kingston, where she was quarantined, she joined a group of people walking the nearly 200 kilometres to Bytown (Ottawa), where she found work as a maid.
Through friends in Cantley, Catherine met and married another Irish immigrant, William Holmes. Thus began the second phase of Catherine’s life as a busy farm wife and mother of nine on an isolated farm in Wilson’s Corners. She worked the land, raised a large family, smoked a clay pipe, and never missed saying the rosary at night. Her faith saw her tramping through the bush with her two-week-old daughter, ferrying across the Gatineau River, and continuing the journey to St. Stephen’s Church in Chelsea on foot to have her baby baptized.
Catherine and William worked their piece of farm land for 14 years before receiving their land grant, and the farm has remained in the family ever since. Although Catherine received letters from Ireland, she never returned to her homeland.
To view video of Catherine’s life click HERE
[PHOTO: COURTESY OF AGATHA HOLMES DALY]
Jan 19, 2021 | Notable Women of the Gatineau Valley
ALICE (CROSS) WILSON (1870-1948)
Alice Cross Wilson led a busy life, as lively as the powerful set of rapids beside which she made her home.
Alice and her husband, Samuel Wilson, ran the Peerless Hotel, a four-story, 30-room brick hotel at the heart of the community of Cascades. In addition to guests, which included workers from the log drive and the Chelsea dam, the hotel housed the town’s post office, telephone exchange, and general store. It was also home to Alice’s ten children, her mother, and her grandfather, who lived to be 104.
In addition to the task of raising a large family, running a hotel, and hosting a variety of social activities, including fundraising events during the First World War, Alice played organ at Anglican and United services for over forty years. Her children remember her practicing hymns at night, after she had put them to bed, the music wafting up through a stove-pipe hole in the large dining-room ceiling. One of their favourites was “Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river,” which they always assumed was about their beautiful Gatineau River and the unusual, bustling home their mother had built for them, and many others, there.
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Jan 18, 2021 | Notable Women of the Gatineau Valley
ADA ALMIRA (BROWN) REID (1874-1948)
Female writers were not commonplace at the turn of the century, and young girls had even fewer opportunities to have their voices heard. And yet, at the age of fourteen, Ada Almira Brown became the valley correspondent for the Ottawa Evening Citizen.
Ada was the third generation to work the land on her family’s Cantley farm. Well versed in farm life, she was also a prize-winning student at Cantley’s one-room school, where, after completing the curriculum, she spent her final year studying the dictionary.
For several years between 1895 and 1907, Ada was paid for her writings with a subscription to the Citizen, a pad of yellow paper on which she wrote her notes, and an honorarium of $30 a year. She wrote in a cheerful, down-to-earth manner about country life, informing her readers of the climate and soil of Quebec, the seasons (spring being her favourite), and the types of crops sown and animals raised on local farms. She also offered her observations on the larger world, giving us a glimpse of Ottawa as a booming capital of 40,000 with policemen constantly patrolling the streets to keep order.
In 1905, Ada married Charles Howard Reid of Kirk’s Ferry, where she spent the rest of her life as a busy farm wife and mother of five children. Her descendants still live in Chelsea. [PHOTO: GVHS 00834]
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