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Milton Acorn was a Canadian poet born on March 30, 1923 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He mainly worked as a carpenter by trade, but also wrote poetry influenced by Marxist ideas as well as experiences from the working-class. Acorn published various collections of his writing and gained recognition from fellow poets for his nationalism and activism. Throughout his life, Acorn lived in various cities across Canada including Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver before moving back to Charlottetown, where he died on August 20, 1986.

Beulah Misener was a missionary to Kenya. She married the Rev. Ross Alloway in Oshawa, Ont. on June 11, 1949. In 1954 the couple left for Africa to serve as missionaries to the Kipsigis tribe for the Africa Inland Mission. They served first at Litein Station in Western Kenya, 20 miles from Kericho, moving in 1958 30 miles to Sitotwet. Two of their three children were born in Africa. On Feb. 8th, 1960, two weeks before her intended return to Canada, Beulah Alloway died of what is described in the fonds as "cerebral malaria".

David Shannon Bowlby was born in Berlin (Kitchener) Ontario January 24, 1874. He attended the University of Toronto graduating with a B.A. in 1895, and an LL.B. in 1896. In 1893 he received his call to the Bar. He was appointed Crown Attorney for Waterloo County in 1917. Bowlby died October 11, 1938.

Lester Paige Breckenridge was born in Meriden, Connecticut, on May 17, 1858. He received a Ph.B degree at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1881. From 1882 to 1891, Breckenridge was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh University. He later taught at the Michigan Agricultural College from 1891 to 1893. Until 1909, Breckenridge was a Professor and Director of Engineering for the Experimental Station at the University of Illinois. From September 1, 1909, and onwards, he was a professor at Sheffield Scientific School. In 1904, Breckenridge was also the engineer in charge of the boiler division of the United State Geological Survey fuel testing plant in St. Louis, Missouri. He was also an inventor, having created an automatic recording machine in 1901, as well as contriving and equipping dynamometers to cars in 1897 to 1899. Breckenridge was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Western Society of Engineers. He also wrote many articles in technical journals, reports, and bulletins.

D. Calthrop was born May 2, 1878 in London, England, the son of actors. He was introduced to the stage while still a young boy. He wrote a number of books and was also known for his paintings. He died in England March 1937.

Elaine Maud Clark was born November 14, 1889 in Bath, England, daughter of Frederick Charles and Annie Matilda (Whittington) Clark. Educated in private schools in Guildford, Surrey, Elaine married Sydney Charles William Catley in December 29, 1915. After he served in the Imperial Forces for four years they settled in Calgary, Alberta, in 1920, where they raised four children.

Elaine began writing verse when just thirteen, and won three prizes from John O'London's Weekly. In Canada her poetry and journalism regularly appeared in the Calgary Herald and other papers. Active in the Canadian Authors Association and the Canadian Women's Press Club, she included Nellie McClung, Laura Goodman Salverson, W.T. Allison and John W. Garvin among her friends. Her six volumes of verse span a career of 58 years. Elaine died in Calgary July 29, 1984.

Mary Buckminster Churchill nee Brewer was born circa 1817 in Massachusetts to Darius Brewer (b. 1785) and Harriet Buckminster (b. 1793). Mary married Asaph Churchill (b. ca. 1814) a lawyer on May 1, 1838 in Dorchester Massachusetts. Mary died in 1870.

Eugene Ferrin Clark was born March 19, 1899 in New London, Connecticut to parents Daniel Edgar (1868-1942) and Grace "Gracey" Emilie (nee Crocker) (1872-1938). He enrolled as a member of the U.S. Army in New Haven on September 12, 1918 at which time his draft registration card listed him as an employee of English & Mersick Co.' Radiator Department. Clark married Luella Chase Mosher, sometime after 1930, and died August 24, 1973 in Tranverse City, Michigan.

Maria Louisa Dole Clough (nee Dole was born in Alna, Maine to Rebecca and Albert Dole. On November 20, 1856 Maria married Lucien Bonaparte Clough, a lawyer and later judge, and the couple had two children, Rebecca (b. 1864) and Albert (b. 1870). The Clough family resided in Manchester, New Hampshire where Maria died in 1906.

Eleanor Hallowell Abbott Coburn was an American author and frequent contributor to Ladies Home Journal. Abbott was born in Cambridge Massachusetts and grew up in the company of famous authors such as Longfellow. She attended Radcliffe College and worked as a teacher while she began to write poetry and short stories. Her work was picked up by Harper's Magazine and she eventually published seventy five short stories and fourteen novels.
Abbott married Dr. Fordyce Coburn in 1908 and the two moved to New Hampshire. She and Dr. Coburn lived in New England until her death in 1958.

Dr. Henry H. Crapo was a faculty member at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Pure Mathematics. Crapo donated a sizable volume of rare books and materials for the history of dance for Special Collections & Archives at the University of Waterloo. Crapo also helped to organize the Vestris Prize choreography competition with Boston Ballet in 1967

Rienzi Crusz was a poet and retired librarian living in Waterloo, ON. Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, Crusz was educated at the University of Ceylon (B.A. Hons.) and was employed as Chief Research Librarian for the Central Bank of Ceylon. After emigrating to Canada in 1965, he attended the University of Toronto (B.L.S.) and the University of Waterloo (M.A.). He worked at the University of Toronto Library and in 1969 was appointed as a reference and collections development librarian at the University of Waterloo, a position he held until his retirement in 1993.
His creative work first began to appear in periodicals and newspapers in 1968, and in 1974, his first collection of poems was published under the title Flesh and thorn. Since then, numerous other collections have been published. Crusz was an active voice among Canadian immigrant poets, and his work depicts the contrasts between South Asian and Canadian life. In 1994, he won the literature award in the Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Awards. He died in Waterloo in 2017.

Bertram Rolland Davis was born Bristol in 1897. Financial and familial situations prevented him from attending University, and after high school he began to work for the cable company established by his father, where he would stay for forty years. When not working he spent his free time as an amateur scholar with an interest in the Romantics and their links to Bristol. In particular, his interests tended towards former Poet Laureate Robert Southey and boy poet Thomas Chatterton. He corresponded with many of the leading Romantic scholars and critics of the twentieth century including Raymond D. Havens, E.H.W. Meyerstein, Maurice H. Fitzgerald, and Earl Leslie Griggs, and others. Davis also played an active role in preserving the history of Bristol and its famous residents.
To support his research, Davis purchased as many documents relating to the Romantics as he could afford. He amassed a collection of forty-five manuscript groups comprised of original documents by Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their contemporaries as well as an extensive library relating to his academic interests. His library is known as the Bertram R. Davis “Robert Southey” collection.
After Davis’ death, his personal library, manuscript groups, correspondence, and research files were by the University of Waterloo.

John Galt was a novelist, political and social commentator, and founder of the city of Guelph, Ontario.

Armistead Churchill Gordon, lawyer and writer, was born December 20, 1855 in Virginia. Gordon attended the University of Virginia, and later studied law, being called to the bar in 1879. Involved in many aspects of higher education in Virginia he was a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary and the University of Virginia, as well as being the first chairman of the Virginia State Library Board. Outside of his work in the law, he published multiple books on the history and peoples of Virginia, as well as collections of poetry.

Alice Egan was born in Halifax in 1872. She attended Mount Saint Vincent Academy and the Victoria School of Art and Design (later the Nova Scotia College of Art), as well as at the Osgood Art School in New York. One of her first commissions came when she was selected to paint twelve plates for the Lady Aberdeen State Dinner Set, presented to Lady Aberdeen by the Canadian Senate at the time of the retirement of her husband as Governor General in 1898. In 1901 Alice Egan married John Hagen, an official of the Halifax and Bermuda Cable Company, and in 1910 transferred with him to Jamaica where she continued to work and teach. Her work was widely exhibited in the Islands and for her contribution to art in Jamaica Mrs. Hagen was awarded the bronze, and later the silver Sir Anthony Musgrave Medals, the first woman to be so honoured. In 1916 the Hagens returned to Halifax, settling finally in 1932 in Mahone Bay, where Alice Hagen began a new career as a potter, teaching, exhibiting and winning awards. Forty-eight pieces of her handpainted china, glass and pottery were presented to the Nova Scotia government and are displayed at the Citadel Museum in Halifax. Alice Mary Hagen died in January, 1972.

John Herbert was a Canadian playwright and theatre director. Born and raised in Toronto, Herbert attended Dora Mavor Moore's New Play Society and the National Ballet School of Canada. In 1960 Herbert founded the Garret Theatre with his sister Nana Brundage, and in 1964 wrote his most famous work, Fortune and Men's Eyes, which was in part inspired by his arrest for dressing as a woman and subsequent time spent in a youth reformatory. It was first staged in 1967 in New York and remained his most popular play. Herbert died in 2001.

Annie Elizabeth MayHewlett (1887-1974) was a writer in Saskatchewan. She was born Annie Elizabeth May Brown in Sutton-on Hill, Yorkshire, England, on February 25, 1887. At the age of 12 she established a newspaper that continued to circulate in her district for years after she immigrated to Canada. She attended teachers college in London and taught school prior to her sailing for Canada in the spring of 1911. That summer, she taught painting at Banff, and in December of that year, she married Arthur Hewlett. Early in 1912, Arthur and Annie Hewlett moved to Cannington Manor in southeast Saskatchewan. During the depression years, Annie wrote a column called "Down on the farm" for the Saskatchewan Farmer. In 1970, at the age of 83, she published her first book, A too short yesterday, and in 1972-1973 a serial, "The gate," appeared in the Western Producer. Exhibitions of her watercolour paintings were held at the Regina Public Library, as well as one in Laguna Beach, California. She was the first president of the Saskatchewan Homemakers' Association for farm wives, and a member of the Canadian Women's Press Club.

E. (Ella) Cora Hind was born in 1861, educated in Flesherton and Orillia, Ontario and in 1882 moved to Winnipeg where she became the first typist in western Canada. She was Financial and Agricultural editor of the Winnipeg Free Press from 1910-1930 and was a recognized world authority on grain and livestock. She was a founding member of the Canadian Women's Press Club. In 1964 Cora Hind's portrait was hung in the Hall of Fame at the Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto.