Her incredible story soon appeared in publications throughout France, beginning with accounts by King François I’s sister, the Queen of Navarre (1558),[3] and André Thevet (1575). Marguerite was one of the earliest heroines in Canadian history, one who enthusiastically joined a colonial expedition but was instead forced to survive a horrific ordeal.
The chief pilot on the La Rocque expedition named Île de la Demoiselle after Marguerite in 1542, though it is believed that the actual island of her exile is one of the Harrington Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[4] In the small village of Harrington Harbour, Quebec, local lore links the heroic colonist to Marguerite’s Cave, where she may have sought shelter while marooned.
Quote:
“The poor woman buried him [her husband/lover] in a grave which she made as deep as she could; the beasts, however, immediately got scent of it, and came to devour the body, but the poor woman, firing from her little dwelling with her arquebuse, hindered her husband’s body from having such a burial.”[5]
Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkié.
Album de Gaspé, 1860–1870
“The Woman Skilled at Needlework”[1]
Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkié
1783–1865
She ensured the survival of the Huron-Wendat by turning Native crafts into a big business.
Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkié was born in the Mohawk community of the Bay of Quinte, on the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, and raised in a dynamic family known for its involvement in politics, diplomacy, and defence.
At twenty-four, “the beautiful Huron girl”[2] married Paul Picard Hondawonhont in Jeune-Lorette, a Huron settlement near Quebec City. She remained in the region for the rest of her life. Though Marguerite gave birth to many children, the only survivor was her son, François-Xavier Picard.
During the early years of their marriage, Paul spent months at a time in the forest, trying to support his family. In his absence, his extremely intelligent and creative young wife turned her talent at handicrafts into an important source of income.
Marguerite became a renowned artisan and entrepreneur whose needlework was prized in Quebec and England. She learned to embroider moccasins with porcupine quills and moosehair, having mastered the art of finely detailed, sophisticated embroidery practised by the Ursulines. Marguerite’s skills enabled her “to embellish the thousands of trinkets sought by the curiosity of the English and the Americans and which they buy at its weight of gold.”[3]
Taking advantage of the strong tourist market for Native curiosities, the Picards developed a thriving business. Their main product was snowshoes, but Marguerite also made mittens, moccasins, gloves, and coats. The family was reported to be rich and they lived in a comparatively fine house.
While the Picards prospered, many other Native peoples were facing hard times as settlers flooded the countryside. The traditional Huron lifestyle disappeared with deforestation and resource depletion. They needed a new source of livelihood and Marguerite provided it:
>[The Huron’s] precarious condition of life aggrieved Lawinonkie, the mother of François-Xavier; and first, among the Huron women of Lorette, she attempted to rekindle the fire while the warriors and chiefs were away; she created a new industry.… One year when the hunters returned from their expedition, they each found in their home a full pot or boiler, which they had left empty.[4]
Marguerite fostered the development of an industry that used modern techniques and new materials for traditional handicrafts. She taught Huron women techniques for making and decorating garments and handicrafts, including moosehair embroidery and the use of natural dyes. By assigning duties and adapting traditional handicrafts to available materials and markets, Marguerite was able to increase handicraft production to meet the growing demand.
Through Marguerite’s leadership in teaching techniques, Huron crafts became famous in the nineteenth century and a new Huron industry was born. The Picard business grew. Paul had men working to fill large government contracts for snowshoes, sleds, and toboggans for soldiers, while Marguerite supervised women to produce moccasins and crafts. Huron women gained a way to contribute to their family’s survival and the growth of the community.
The people of Lorette prospered as more artisans were needed. In 1861, just one delivery of moccasins and snowshoes to Montreal brought in $1,200. By 1879, sixty of the seventy-six families in Lorette depended on needlework for income, and 30,000 pairs of moccasins and embroidered shoes were made a year for Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Kingston, and other markets.
One traveller, who visited the Picards when Marguerite was seventy-seven, described her as “an old Norna-like figure, wrapped in a large black shawl, and sitting silent and motionless by the fire.” She was a woman who had seen “her family prosper and the spirit of industry spread increasingly among her compatriots.”[5] Marguerite died at eighty-two and was buried in the chapel at the Jeune-Lorette Mission.
In 2008, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada designated Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkié (Picard) a national historic person because of the role she played in fostering both the development of the Huron handicraft industry and the entrepreneurial spirit that enabled her community’s survival. Marguerite and Paul Picard’s home in Wendake, Quebec, is now an interpretive and cultural centre. A few of her finest pieces of work are preserved in museums, including the headdress she made for her son, >who became Grand Chief of the Huron-Wendat.
Quote:
“The woman skilled at needlework … knew how to earn a livelihood through her ingenuity. Paul, the hunter, the guide or the warrior, could leave without fear. All was well at home.”[6]
Florence Lawrence
The Girl of a Thousand Faces
Florence Lawrence
1886–1938
Fans loved Florence — even when they didn’t know her name. She made history as the first movie star.
In the early years of silent movies, studios refused to reveal their actors’ names, fearing that stardom would lead to demands for higher wages. Audiences nicknamed one of their favourite leading ladies the “Girl of a Thousand Faces.” As one fan wrote, she was an exquisite delight, “whether comic, pathetic, dramatic, tragic or any other old thing, she simply took the rag right off. The power of expression that lay in her features was nothing less than marvelous.”[1]
That girl was a Canadian performer named Florence Lawrence, petite with wavy blonde hair and expressive blue eyes. She was born in Hamilton, Ontario, on January 2, 1886, the daughter of the unlikely union between young vaudeville actress Charlotte “Lotta” Dunn and middle-aged carriage-builder George Bridgwood.
Florence began sharing the stage with Lotta by the age of two and was soon known as “Baby Flo, The Child Wonder Whistler.”[2] She toured with Lotta’s production company, Lawrence Dramatic Company, and Lotta changed both their surnames to Lawrence. By ten, Florence Lawrence was a veteran actress with five full-time touring seasons, but her mother pulled her from the stage after George died suddenly. The family moved to Buffalo, New York, so they could live with her grandmother, Ann Dunn.
Florence began attending school, where she thrived in the stable environment. It is thought that she went to the Loretto Academy in Toronto as well as to a school in Buffalo. In addition to playing the violin and clarinet, the young tomboy loved horseback riding and other sports. Florence returned to vaudeville with her mother in 1906 — when she saw her first moving picture and became fascinated.
In 1907, Florence appeared in her first silent movie, Daniel Boone, which was produced in New York by Edison Studios. She performed in more than 250 movies, many of them short films shown in small nickelodeon theatres. Florence was the first woman in America to play the role of Juliet in the movies. She also made costumes and painted backdrops.
Florence was hired in 1908 as a leading actress at a film studio called Biograph, where her ability to perform stunts and tricks on horseback in Western movies was an asset. Florence jumped at the opportunit
y to join Biograph, especially at a weekly wage of $25 and no other duties. One of her most successful roles was that of Mrs. Jones in a series of slapstick comedies. Though actors were still working anonymously, audiences soon recognized their favourite actress, “The Biograph Girl,” and began sending her fan mail.
Florence adored working with the talented director D.W. Griffith and became one of Biograph’s most popular performers. When Carl Laemmle created IMP Company in 1910, he wanted to capitalize on Florence’s popularity. Laemmle lured her to his studio by offering public recognition, publicity, and an impressive salary of $300 per week.[3]
Laemmle launched a clever publicity campaign, seeding rumours that the actress had been killed in a streetcar accident. He then arranged for Florence to make a public appearance in St. Louis. For the first time in the industry, the studio identified her by name. Newspaper articles with photos and biographical information followed, introducing fans to the actress said to be the most popular and highest-paid in America.[4]
Florence Lawrence on a magazine cover, 1916.
When Florence’s train pulled into St. Louis on March 25, 1910, she was mobbed. The crowd rushed to get a closer view of the woman they “instantly recognized as Miss Lawrence, their heroine,”[5] with a zeal usually reserved for famous explorers and presidents. She became the first movie star and revolutionized the film industry.
Florence continued to act in movies, but did not attain the fame and fortune of fellow Canadian and rival Mary Pickford. Florence was one of the first women to own a production company, the Victor Film Company,[6] but her career suffered a major setback in 1914. She was supposed to carry a 175-pound man down a flight of stairs during a fire, but fell and injured her back. Some accounts indicate she was also badly burned while rescuing a co-star. The accidents derailed Florence’s career, bringing her back pain, surgery, and medical bills.
She still loved to drive. As early as 1913, Florence had purchased an automobile. She began developing accessories to improve cars and made two significant inventions that she never patented. MIT recently featured Florence as Inventor of the Week, crediting her with inventing the first turn-and-stop-signal devices for automobiles.
Florence’s first husband died in 1920. A second marriage ended in divorce, and a third marriage lasted only a few months, after she realized that her husband was an abusive alcoholic. In 1937, she was diagnosed with a rare bone-marrow disease that resulted in severe pain, anemia, and depression.[7] There was no cure. Florence committed suicide on December 28, 1938.
Thanks to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, Florence was buried in Hollywood Memorial Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her grave remained unmarked for many years, until an anonymous British donor bought a bronze marker in 1991. The inscription reads: “Florence Lawrence, The Biograph Girl, The First Movie Star.”
Her once-famous face has been largely forgotten, except by film historians. Few of her films have been preserved. Author Kelly R. Brown, determined to ensure that her contributions to film were not lost forever, published a biography in 1999 so that “she will … be remembered as she deserved to be.”[8]
Quote:
“The moving picture business is trying on the nerves … much more than theatrical work.”[9]
The Healer
Marie-Henriette LeJeune-Ross
1762–1860
She nursed Nova Scotia pioneers even when she was blind.
Time and incomplete historical records have blurred legendary Marie-Henriette LeJeune’s story. She was a gifted healer who served as midwife and nurse to early settlers in Cape Breton for at least sixty years, when no other medical aid was available. Her reputation was larger than life.
By the time this remarkable Acadian settled in Cape Breton in 1793 with her Scottish spouse, James Ross, she’d been exiled to France and outlived two previous husbands. Marie-Henriette LeJeune was born in Rochefort, France, after her Acadian parents, Joseph Lejeune and Martine LeRoi, had been deported from Cape Breton in 1758.[1]
Margaree Valley along the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia Economic and Rural Development and Tourism
The family returned to North America at the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, but continued to be uprooted by wars and power struggles. They moved back to Little Bras d’Or in Cape Breton where they had settled in the first place, and stayed for eleven years before again being deported to France. Small in stature, with blue eyes and a dark complexion, eighteen-year-old Marie-Henriette wed widower Joseph Comeau, fifty-four. At the end of the American Revolution, the Acadian families were permitted to return to North America, and Marie-Henriette and her husband settled on the island of Saint Pierre.
Joseph drowned, making Marie-Henriette a widow at twenty-two. When the LeJeunes moved back to Little Bras d’Or, she married a cousin, but he also died. At thirty-one, the well-travelled Marie-Henriette settled down with third husband James Ross, and the couple had four children, two of whom survived. In 1800, they relocated to the North East Margaree Valley, where there was ample land for Ross’s brothers to settle nearby. Marie-Henriette enjoyed a happy life with her third husband.
As a young adult, Marie-Henriette began nursing the sick and delivering babies. She also learned about medicinal plants. When smallpox threatened settlers, she treated the sick in a makeshift infirmary in a cabin in the woods. One of her descendants noted that “she knew the effects of vaccination and persuaded the inhabitants to allow her to vaccinate them. She used serum she brought from France in a small glass vial, and she renewed her supply with serum from the sores of the ill.”[2]
Marie-Henriette’s reputation spread, and settlers counted on her as a midwife and nurse. She travelled throughout the countryside by foot, horseback, or on snowshoes, armed with a pine torch to guide her at night and a loaded musket to fend off wildlife. She was known to have shot at least one black bear and fought another with a fire shovel. The healer was renowned for her courage and determination, as well as her love of adventure and travel.
When Marie-Henriette lost her eyesight she was still committed to helping people who needed her services. She couldn’t hit the trails on her own, so her relatives transported her in a modified wheelbarrow or a sled during the winter.
Marie-Henriette LeJeune Ross, known fondly as Granny Ross, died in 1860 at ninety-eight. The Cape Breton midwife and healer is still proudly remembered by her many descendants. She continues to be a popular figure in Nova Scotia folklore.[3]
Irma LeVasseur, about twenty years old.
Courtesy of Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus
A Pioneering Pediatrician
Irma LeVasseur
1877–1964
One of the first women doctors in Quebec, she opened children’s hospitals and became a leader in pediatric care in Canada.[1]
Four-year-old Irma wept when her beloved little brother Benjamin died. Infant deaths were not unusual at the time, when children under two weren’t accepted in hospitals and one in four babies in Quebec didn’t survive infancy. Irma’s only remaining sibling was an older brother, Paul, who was mildly handicapped but showed a certain musical talent. This made her particularly sensitive to the special needs and gifts of such children.
Irma LeVasseur was born and raised in Quebec City. Her father had been forced to quit medical school due to financial problems, but as a man of many talents, he became a journalist, soldier, historian, accomplished musician, and prominent political and cultural figure. Irma’s mother, singer Marie-Anne Phédora Venner, abandoned the family when Irma was ten. The little girl was inconsolable. But she had a dream: to become a doctor and care for needy children.
Just one problem: when Irma completed school, women weren’t accepted at any francophone university in Canada. At seventeen she went to study medicine at the University of Minnesota, where a friend of her father’s had a successful medical career. He no doubt served as a mentor.
After six years of study, Irma graduated as a medical doctor
and surgeon in 1900. She completed a two-year residency in New York City, where Irma worked with a prominent husband-wife team: neurologist Dr. Mary Jacobi and her husband, Dr. Abraham Jacobi, who was considered the father of pediatrics.
Dr. LeVasseur was eager to return home to practise medicine, but Laval University refused to admit women to the courses required for the provincial exams to practise medicine in the province.[2] The medical community, religious elites, and franco-Catholic society preferred women to be teachers or homemakers.
Irma appealed to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec and was licensed to practise medicine in 1903, becoming the first francophone woman to register as a doctor in Quebec. Unfortunately, this symbolic event didn’t make it easier for other women to enter the profession. Though Bishop’s College had accepted some women, McGill didn’t admit females until 1918, the University of Montreal until 1924, and Laval until 1936.
Despite ongoing prejudice against female doctors, Dr. LeVasseur managed to have an exceptional career in her chosen field. She opened a care facility in Montreal called the Crèche de la Miséricorde where she and other doctors treated “illegitimate” children. Anxious to improve her pediatric skills, she spent two years in children’s health institutions in France and Germany to learn about the latest advances in bacteriology and immunotherapy, including vaccinations and milk pasteurization.
100 More Canadian Heroines Page 18