The Parents' Information Bureau (PIB) was a clinic for family planning and birth control set up by A.R. Kaufman of the Kaufman Rubber Company in the 1930's in Kitchener, Ont. Kaufman became interested in birth control during the Great Depression after determining that seasonal employees with large families were disproportionately impacted by layoffs. He began offering family planning services to his employees, eventually extending them to anyone in Canada with the founding of the PIB. At its peak, the organization employed approximately 50 people in locations across the country who provided services to families in their homes, rather than at clinics. The model allowed families to order supplies by mail, receiving kits that included spermicides, condoms and information about purchasing additional items like diaphragms
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a lexicographer of the English language. Born in Waimata Valley, New Zealand, Partridge and his family later moved to Australia where he studied at the University of Queensland. After his time serving in the First World War he returned to university obtaining his BA and later becoming the Queensland Traveling Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, working on an MA and a B.Litt. He later taught at the University of Manchester and the University of London and spent fifty years researching at the British Library for his over forty books on the history of slang and the English language. Partridge died in 1979.
The daughter of academic parents, Nancy-Lou Patterson was born in 1929 in Worcester, Mass. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Washington in 1951, afterwards working for two years as a scientific illustrator at the University of Kansas and at the Smithsonian and then for nine years as a lecturer at Seattle University.
In 1962 she moved to the Waterloo Region with her husband, Dr. E Palmer Patterson, who was to teach at the University of Waterloo. In addition to her position as Director of Art and Curator of the University's art gallery, in 1966 Professor Patterson taught the University of Waterloo's first Fine Arts course, and in 1968 she founded the Department of Fine Arts, twice serving as Department Chair.
As a scholar Nancy-Lou Patterson is well known for her writings in the area of mythopoeic art and literature, with particular focus on the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, Charles Williams and Dorothy L. Sayers. She has written extensively on the traditional arts of Swiss German and Dutch-German Mennonites of Waterloo County, and also on the art of Native Canadians. Her work includes both book and exhibition reviews, and exhibition catalogues. She has published both poetry and fiction, including her three novels Apple Staff and Silver Crown (1985), The Painted Hallway (1992), and Barricade Summer (1996). Nancy-Lou Patterson's artistic career began in 1953 when she created a mural for an Anglican Church in Kansas, and includes a series of stained glass windows designed in 1964 for Conrad Grebel Chapel at the University of Waterloo. Her liturgical commissions have involved work in textiles, stained glass, wood, metal, terra cotta, and calligraphy.
In 1993 Nancy-Lou Patterson was named "Distinguished Professor Emerita" by the University of Waterloo, and in the same year received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in recognition of "a life dedicated to expression."
Patterson died in Kitchener on October 15, 2018.
George Elmore Reaman was an author, educator, lecturer and columnist. Born at Concord Ontario on July 22, 1889, he received his later education at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1911; M.A. 1913), McMaster University (M.A. 1916), Queen's University (B. Paed. 1917), and Cornell University (Phd. 1920). Employment included teaching at Moose Jaw College (1913 14), Woodstock College (1915), Educational Director of the Y.M.C.A., Toronto from 1920 to 1924, editor at the Macmillan Co. of Canada, Superintendent of the Boys Training School at Bowmanville from 1925 to 1932, principal of Glen Lawrence School, Toronto from 1932 to 1939, Head of the English Department, Ontario Agricultural College from 1939 to 1954 and Director of Adult Education at the University of Waterloo from 1957 to his retirement in 1967. In 1967 he was awarded a Centennial medal; in 1969 he received an honourary doctorate from the University of Waterloo.
G.E. Reaman was active in a number of organizations and held office in most of them: first Canadian president of the International Association for Exceptional Children, also first Canadian President of the International Platform Association. He was founder of several historical organizations, among them the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, the Ontario Ontario Genealogical Society and of the Huguenot Society of Ontario. He also published more than twenty books, the first of which was English for New Canadians, first published in 1919 and re-published over a period of 30 years. His historical publications include Trail of the Black Walnut (1956); Trail of the Huguenots (1963); Trail of the Iroquois Indians and History of Agriculture in Ontario, 1969.
G.E. Reaman married Flora Josephine Green in 1914 and had one daughter, Elaine. He died December 7, 1969.
Dr. Olive Ruth Russell was born in Delta, Ontario on July 9, 1897. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1931 and from the University of Edinburgh in 1935 going on to teach at various schools and colleges from 1920 to 1942. During World War II, she served as a personnel selection officer with the Canadian Women's Army Corps, 1942-1945, attaining the rank of Captain. From 1945 to 1947 she was an executive assistant to the director general of the Rehabilitation Branch, Dept. of Veterans' Affairs.
Dr. Russell was a Canadian delegate to the Inter-continental Conference of the National Council of Women, 1946; a fraternal delegate from the World Federation of United Nations Associations to the Conference of the International Federation of University Women, 1947, and a member of the board, National Commission for Beneficient Euthanasia, U.S.A. She was Assistant Professor of Psychology, Winthrop College, S.C., 1947-1949, and Professor and Chairman of the Dept. of Psychology, Western Maryland College, 1949-1962. She authored Freedom to Die: Moral and Legal Aspects of Euthanasia (1975) and campaigned vigorously in favour of euthanasia. She was also the author of numerous articles on euthanasia, education and psychology.
Russell died on May 25, 1979 at her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland at the age of 81.
Dr. Russell was a Canadian delegate to the Inter-continental Conference of the National Council of Women, 1946; a fraternal delegate from the World Federation of United Nations Associations to the Conference of the International Federation of University Women, 1947, and a member of the board, National Commission for Beneficient Euthanasia, U.S.A. She was Assistant Professor of Psychology, Winthrop College, S.C., 1947-1949, and Professor and Chairman of the Dept. of Psychology, Western Maryland College, 1949-1962. She authored Freedom to Die: Moral and Legal Aspects of Euthanasia, 1975 and campaigned vigorously in favour of euthanasia. She was also the author of numerous articles on euthanasia, education and psychology.
(from Library and Archives Canada)
The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson (1892-1962) was an English author and poet, winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and aristocrat. Vita as she was commonly known was born March 9, 1892 to Lionel Edward Sackville-West, the 3rd Baron Sackville, and his wife Victoria Sackville-West. In 1913 Vita married the writer and politician Harold George Nicolson (1886-1968), son of Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. Vita and Harold lived abroad for many years in Constantinople and traveled frequently. In the 1930's the couple acquired Sissinghurst Castle which had been once owned by Vita's ancestors. They settled here with their sons Nigel (1917-2004) and Benedict (1914-1978).
Although Vita and Harold remained married until her death they were in an open relationship and both had numerous extra marital affairs. The couple's relationship with the Bloomsbury Group of authors lead to Vita's most well known affair with Virginia Woolf.
Vita wrote a number of novels, namely The Edwardians and All Passion Spent, poetry, and a gardening column for The Observer. In her later years she was heavily involved in gardening creating the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle (that are now run by the National Trust) and becoming a founding member of the National Trust's garden committee. Vita died at Sissinghurst on June 2, 1962.
The Schantz Family in North America is large and widespread; alternative spellings of the last name includes variations such as Tschantz, Shantz, Shonts, and Schanz.
The family descended from Jacob Schanz (June 12, 1710-February 5, 1781) who emigrated to the United States of America in 1737 and settled in Pennsylvania. In 1810 Jacob’s son Christian Shantz (July 11, 1769-April 7, 1857) came to Waterloo County and settled at Freeport on the Grand River.
Christian’s son Benjamin Shantz (September 2, 1811-November 9, 1868) was an early Waterloo County inhabitant and one of the founders of Port Elgin, Ontario where he settled in 1854 and established a grist and flour mill. Benjamin married Lydia Kolb (May 13, 1814-November 9, 1862) on April 10, 1842 and together they had ten children; Josiah K. Schantz (December 5, 1834-August 3, 1913), Catharine Schantz (May 17, 1836-February 28, 1917), Hannah Schantz (April 1, 1838-August 20, 1841), Christian Schantz (January 20, 1840-?), Tobias Schantz (April 10, 1842-April 16, 1925), Abraham K. Schantz (September 20, 1844-?), Benjamin K. Schantz (December 5, 1846), Menno K. Schantz (January 31, 1849-July 6, 1888), Lydia K. Schantz (August 17, 1851-July 16, 1900), Sarah K. Schantz (April 1, 1854-April 10, 1878), and Enoch K. Schantz (October 7, 1856-May 25, 1888).
When Lydia died in 1862, Benjamin remarried his housekeeper, Margaret Swinton. Benjamin and Margaret left Port Elgin, Ontario and settled in Dallas County, Missouri. Correspondence in the collection between Benjamin and his son Tobias recount Benjamin’s settler experiences in Dallas County, Missouri.
The Schantz Russell Family Papers centre around Tobias Schantz, his wife Mary Schantz and their descendants, drawing together primary sources relating to several early pioneering families of Waterloo County, primarily the Schantz, Moyer/Meyer and Bowman families, and material relating to descendants of the Moyer pioneers of Lincoln County, Ontario.
Elizabeth Smith was born Jan. 18, 1859 at 'Mountain Hall', Vinemount. She was educated by a governess in the home, at Winona School and at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute. She attended Queen's University, Kingston and received her degree in medicine at the Royal Medical College in 1884 (one of the first 3 women M.D.'s in Canada). She also received a diploma from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.
For two years Dr. Elizabeth Smith practised in Hamilton. She was married Dec. 3, 1886 to Adam Shortt. They moved to Kingston where Elizabeth lectured at Queen's on Medical Jurisprudence and Sanitary Science. She worked for the first Y.W.C.A. in Canada and served as its president, and was a sponsor of the Kingston Musical Club and presided over it for seven years.
In September 1908 she and her husband, Dr. Adam Shortt, moved to Ottawa where she became very active in the local, provincial, and National Council of Women affairs. In connection with these organizations she wrote pamphlets on social aspects of tuberculosis, housing, inspection of markets, clean-up weeks, fly control, pasteurization of milk, care of mentally deficient, child welfare, and mother's pensions'. In 1911 she was the first Convener of the Public Health and Mental Hygiene Committee of the National Council of Women. She was also Convener of the Committee on Immigration in the Council and was instrumental in organizing a hostel for women immigrants in Ottawa. She was largely responsible in convening a committee to petition the Provincial Government to establish Mother's Allowances in Ontario, and when this was accomplished in 1920, she was appointed vice-chairman of the Provincial Board of Mother's Allowances and acted in that capacity for seven years. She died in Ottawa Jan. 14, 1949.
Muriel Shortt and Roger Clark married in 1917 and settled into fruit farming in Vineland. Her portion of the fonds contains details of the struggle to become established in this field.
Lorraine Shortt, a graduate of Queen's, chose a field in the public service - social work, and the collection traces her successful career in this area.
Damaris Isabella McGee Smith was an author and teacher. She was born Sept. 27, 1831 at Somerville, New Brunswick. She moved to Ontario when she was 18 and taught school in the Lee neighborhood [of Hamilton?]. She married Sylvester Smith, son of a United Empire Loyalist, in 1853. She wrote "Pioneer Wife" which describes the condition of life in the early days of settlement in the area. She died Nov. 18, 1913 and was buried in the Stoney Creek cemetery..
Mauritana Smith Coon was the daughter of Damaris Isabella Smith and sister of Elizabeth Smith Shortt, who was one of the first three female medical doctors in Canada. Mauritana was born on August 9, 1856, to a loyalist family in Winona, near Hamilton, Ontario. She was educated by a governess, in the Winona School and at the St. Catharines Collegiate Institute. She taught in the Lee neighborhood and at Hamilton Beach, and the Waterford Public School. She married Hervey A. Coon in 1887. She died June 18, 1946.
Children's author and librarian Barbara Classen Smucker was born September 1, 1915 in Newton, Kansas. Barbara began writing in elementary school and would later go on to earn a degree in journalism from Kansas State University in 1936. After university she taught English and eventually returned to her hometown in 1939 to work as a reporter for the Evening Kansas Republican until 1941. In 1939 Barbara married Donovan Smucker who she had interviewed for the paper. Donovan was a Mennonite Minister and the couple moved to Wadsworth, Ohio where he pastored a church. Donovan later took a job at the Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Chicago where Barbara got the idea for her first book, Henry's Red Sea. From 1967-1969 the couple lived in West Point, Mississippi where Donovan was president of Mary Holmes College. In 1969 they moved to Ontario when Donovan accepted an offer to teach at Conrad Grebel College.
Barbara became a children's librarian at Kitchener Public Library (1969-1977) and then head librarian of Renison College (1977-1982). During this time Barbara continued to write, producing some of her most famous works including Underground to Canada (1977) and Days of Terror (1979). In 1993 the couple moved to Bluffton, Ohio where she would continue to write and speak to children about reading. In all, Barbara wrote 12 books which were published in 16 countries and translated into such languages as Japanese, Danish, Swedish, French and German. She and her books received numerous awards including the Canadian Council Children's Literature Prize and an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo. Barbara Smucker died in Bluffton in 2003.
Catherine Taylor (1874-1967) was a nurse in the US and England. She was born on June 11, 1874 in Clinton, Ontario. She graduated from St. Luke's Hospital, N.Y. and was head nurse in the Private Pavilion at that Hospital. In 1917 she went to England, and was given charge of a hospital at Shipston-on-Stour near Stratford-on-Avon for the British Red Cross. She assisted in opening a hospital in Liverpool for the American Army and converted the Guest Mansion in London into a showplace Navy hospital in 23 days. In 1918 she returned to the United States and assisted in combatting the influenza epidemic. In 1920 the American Red Cross sent her to New Mexico to initiate public health programs in the schools there. Later, in California, she taught health and hygiene, organized summer camps for underprivileged children and qualified as a state audiometrist. In 1951 she moved to Ontario, California. She died February 1967 in Barrie, Ontario.
Waldo Thompson was born in 1813 and was part of the New England Genealogical Society. Thompson was the author of "Swampscott: historical sketches of the town". The book, published in 1885, provides a historical overview of Swampscott, a town located in northeastern Massachusetts.
John Walter, Jr. was a Canadian politician and businessman. The eldest of four children, he was born April 10, 1892 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to John and Caroline (nee Drier). He attended elementary school in Milwaukee and Detroit, Michigan before attending high school at the Crane Technical High School in Chicago, Illinois. He immigrated to Canada with his family in 1912 and worked alongside his father and brother as a manufacturer with the family company, John Walter & Sons. He married Olga Klehn, of Kitchener, on August 9, 1922. They lived for a time at 32 Fairview Avenue in Kitchener, Ontario.
In the 1930s Walter served first as Vice-President and later President of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F) party's Kitchener branch. He ran against and lost in the 1935 federal election to William Daum Euler. In addition to his affiliation with the C.C.F., Walter served as a Kitchener public school board trustee for nine years during the 1920s and 30s.
Walter died on April 17, 1978.
The Canadian Women's Press Club was founded in 1904 by a group of Canadian woman reporters returning from a complimentary trip to the St. Louis Exposition. The club was suggested by George Henry Ham, the CPR's publicity director, and the first president was Kathleen Blake "Kit" Coleman. The Toronto Branch was founded in 1909, one of 15 regional branches organized over the years. Established as a "craft club" to help and promote its members in the profession of journalism, the Club remained active until the 1990's, counting as members most Canadian women journalists of note. In 1971 the Canadian Women's Press Club became the Media Club of Canada, and the Toronto Branch of the Club became the Media Club of Canada, Toronto Branch. In 1976 the Toronto Branch became an autonomous group under the name Toronto Women's Press Club, later changed to the Women's Press Club of Toronto. The Toronto Branch ceased in 199? and the Media Club of Canada suspended operations in 199?
By the 1980's the Women's Press Club of Toronto had launched a history project and put Kay Rex, a long-time member, in charge of collecting materials and writing a history of the Canadian Women's Press Club to 1971. Her book No Daughter of Mine: The Women and History of the Canadian Women's Press Club, 1904-1971 was published in 1995 by the University of Toronto Press.
Florence Wyle was a Canadian sculptor. She was born in Trenton, Illinois, and studied medicine at the University of Illinois and then art at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she later taught classes. She then worked in New York where she shared a studio with Frances Loring. Loring and Wyle moved to Toronto in 1912, and in 1920 bought an old church and converted it into a studio. Loring and Wyle were both active in Canadian art movements and were founding members of the Sculptors Society of Canada in 1928. Their work can be seen at the National Gallery in Ottawa, Art Gallery of Toronto, and in the streets of Toronto on such buildings as the Toronto General Hospital and Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, and on memorials in small towns in Ontario, New Brunswick and Maine.