On returning to Montreal, Dr. LeVasseur established a clinic for sick children, but felt there was a need to create a specialized hospital. Thanks to the support of a group of socially active women in the city, in 1907 she opened the facility that would become the Hôpital Sainte-Justine.[3] It was the first francophone hospital for children in Canada, and the beginning of pediatrics in Quebec. Justine Lacoste-Beaubien, after whom the hospital was named, noted her admiration for Dr. LeVasseur: “She was the instigator of our hospital.… I thank God for having placed me in the path of this remarkable woman.”[4]
Dr. LeVasseur returned to the United States and worked for the New York City Board of Health from 1908–1914, and again from 1918–1920. During the First World War, she volunteered in Serbia. She spent much of her time treating soldiers on the front lines, burying the dead, and immunizing and treating the population in the midst of a typhus epidemic.
As enemy troops advanced, the indomitable doctor joined the Serbs’ desperate retreat across the Albanian mountains. She survived, though an estimated 700,000 others died.[5] A colleague later commended Dr. LeVasseur’s courage on the battlefields: “Deprived of any comforts in a country in which she did not understand the language, she remained smiling and silent. She was a woman of action who had an extraordinary amount of energy.”[6]
After helping the Red Cross in Paris, Dr. LeVasseur worked in New York until her mentor, Dr. Jacobi, died. She then went back to Quebec City, where she was eager to establish another hospital for children. The Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus was incorporated in 1923. The following year she created a clinic called Hôpital des Enfants Malades. Concerned about children suffering from tuberculosis and congenital diseases, she convinced the women in the Ligue de la jeunesse féminine to found an institution for disabled children. It was not until 1935 that the École Cardinal-Villeneuve was created in Quebec City.
During the Second World War, Dr. LeVasseur worked as the medical officer for the recruiting office at the Quebec City Armoury. Her activities after that are uncertain. At eighty, she was forcibly confined to a mental hospital for eight months when neighbours complained about her living conditions. Irma eventually managed to convince authorities of her sanity. She died in January 1964, destitute and forgotten. It took another forty years before her name was even added to the LeVasseur family gravestone. In November 2008, journalist Serge Bouchard of L’actualité wrote an article, “When Forgetting Becomes Scandalous,” about the amazing lack of recognition for such a notable historical figure.
In recent years she has been recognized by the naming of a mountain in Quebec, as well as with a commemorative plaque and an auditorium in the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, several streets, a school pavilion, a three-volume novel based on her life, and a scholarship created by the Quebec government. Quebec City paid tribute to this remarkable physician with a bronze sculpture in 2009, and Montreal opened a park in 2010 named in her honour. In 2008, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized Dr. Irma LeVasseur as a national historic person.
Quote:
“How many of these poor little creatures are destined for death by ignorance and negligence, by the absence of intelligent care, by poverty! … We want our children treated, as in all other large cities, in a hospital where specialists will give free care each day to poor families who bring in their sick children.”[7]
Frances Loring, 1912.
Courtesy of Ashley Crippen, Toronto
The Grande Dame of Canadian Sculpture[1]
Frances Loring
1887–1968
She brought brilliance and professionalism to Canadian sculpture, and opened doors for other artists.
Frances Loring was flamboyant, compelling, and charismatic, not to mention being a gifted sculptor with training in neoclassicism. When she settled in Toronto in 1911, at twenty-four, she had already spent five years experiencing the artistic wonders of Europe. Frances had studied sculpture in Munich, Paris, and Geneva. She arrived in Canada with much to contribute to a country where there was little interest in sculpture.
Frances was a privileged child, the daughter of mining engineer Frank Loring. She was born in a mining camp in Wardner, Idaho, but the adventurous family moved often. Successful more often than not, her father generously provided for his talented daughter and supported her artistic endeavours. Frances was just thirteen when she first experimented with clay in Geneva.
“Clay is so fascinating that once you start working with it you can’t stop. That’s when I started to be a sculptor,”[2] she said. After her early studies in Europe, Frances enrolled at the Chicago Art Institute in 1906. There she met an older student who would become her lifelong companion: Florence Wyle. From 1909 to 1912, Frances tried to establish herself as a sculptor in New York. Her father paid for the Greenwich Village studio she shared with Florence.
Despite some initial success in New York, the women lost an important sculpting job after one of their teachers claimed that they were lesbians.[3] Frank Loring convinced his daughter that Canada was a land of opportunity, so Frances and Florence moved to Toronto, eventually establishing themselves in a home studio they shared for the remainder of their lives. Some thought it odd for two unmarried women to live together. Biographer Elspeth Cameron wrote that friends didn’t believe they were lesbians, and that the true nature of their close relationship is unknown.[4]
With her impressive talent, Frances soon made her mark on Canadian sculpture. She preferred works on a grand scale, often architectural in style, with big themes. She loved climbing ladders to work on scaffolding, as when she sculpted a sixteen-foot figure of Miss Canada at Eaton’s in Toronto in 1917. Wearing comfortable overalls and a smock, the attractive brunette worked twelve-hour days to complete the statue that symbolized brave young Canadian men and women.
Frances gained renown for her large public statues, such as the First World War memorial at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, which includes a dramatic seven-foot-tall Carrara marble statue. She also sculpted war memorials at St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and Galt, Ontario, The Recording Angel for the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and the Robert Borden monument on Parliament Hill.
Frances was a popular speaker. She gave many public presentations and lectures, as well as radio broadcasts, to encourage the appreciation of sculpture. She and Florence inspired young artists. Frances was one of the founders of the Sculptors’ Society of Canada, as well as an organizer of the National Arts Council and the Federation of Canadian Artists.
Frances was one of Canada’s most talented and respected sculptors. In 1954, she became the first sculptor and first woman to receive the University of Alberta’s national award for “long and conspicuous service to the arts.”[5] She was also awarded an honorary degree from the University of Toronto.
Frances died in 1968, just three weeks after Florence. They donated the Loring-Wyle Studio at 110 Glenrose Avenue to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. The academy eventually sold the property and directed the proceeds towards the purchase and display of works by aspiring sculptors. As specified by Frances and Florence’s will, the profits from selling their remaining works went to the same fund.
The studio remains a private residence. A provincial government plaque at the site is a small tribute to the enormous role played by both Frances Loring and Florence Wyle in the development of Canadian sculpture. Frances’s famous lions, which once graced the Toronto entrance to the Queen Elizabeth Highway, were moved away and most of their sculptures are now in storage.
Quote:
“Canada [has] the inferiority complex of a new country, and Canadians [are] afraid to trust their own judgment in matters of art.… A work of art [has] to be endorsed by London, Paris, or New York before Canadians would accept it.”[6]
Laura Muntz Lyall, 1907.
Photo by Harold Mortimer-Lamb
A New Woman
Laura Muntz Lyall
1860–1930
This great Canadian Impressionist was a sensati
on in France — becoming the first female Canadian artist to earn recognition abroad.
Six-year-old Laura Muntz was so enthralled by an exhibit at London’s Crystal Palace that her mother could hardly drag her away. The experience sparked Laura’s passion for painting. Through incredible determination and perseverance, she became an independent professional artist who maintained a successful studio and had a teaching practice. Despite parental disapproval, sexism in the world of art, and the need to support herself, Laura Muntz evolved into what late-nineteenth-century society dubbed a New Woman — shattering traditional notions of women.[1] Believing it was too hard to devote yourself to both a family and art, she chose to be single.
Laura was born in a village near Warwickshire, England, to first cousins Eugene and Emma Muntz. In 1869, Laura’s family immigrated to Canada, where her father soon failed miserably at farming in both the Lake Simcoe and Muskoka regions. While Laura’s brothers were educated at private school, there is no indication that she was even tutored at home. In 1879, William Charles Forster, the drawing master at the Hamilton Public Schools, spotted her sketching. Forster gave her the opportunity to study with him and live with his family.
It is not clear if Laura’s parents were unable or unwilling to help her pursue an artistic career, but she was on her own in the male-dominated art world. Supporting herself by teaching and portrait commissions, Laura trained with William Cruikshank and Lucius R. O’Brien at the Ontario School of Art in Toronto and George Agnew Reid of the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. She also managed to spend three months in London, England, at the St. John’s Wood Art School. In 1891, Laura became a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) and earned first prize for a painting she exhibited with the group.
Like many serious Canadian and American artists of her time, Laura was eager to develop her talent overseas. At thirty-one she went to France. She studied at the Académie Colarossi and worked in Paris from 1891 to 1898, struggling to support herself with a loan from her grandmother, various jobs, and selling paintings. Surrounded by the works of the great Impressionists, the industrious student quickly adopted open brushwork, natural light, and uplifting themes.
Laura’s works from this period “remain among the most compelling and personal Impressionist-inspired works by a Canadian painter”[2] and earned her significant recognition abroad — the first Canadian woman to receive such acclaim. She exhibited regularly with the renowned Société des Artistes Français, earning a silver medal at the Colarossi and an Honorable Mention at the prestigious Paris Salon. Press coverage of her work included praise in the British International Studio and a feature illustration in the prestigious French publication L’Illustration.
During her years in France, Laura exhibited her work with the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA) and the Art Association of Montreal, as well as at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She also spent a number of summers teaching North American students in Holland, along with her friend Wilhelmina Hawley. After Laura returned to Toronto in 1898, the two women shared a studio and taught classes for several years. Laura was also the first woman to serve on the executive of the Ontario Society of Artists and the first invited to participate in an exhibition of the Canadian Art Club in 1909. At the time other Canadian women artists were not included in these male organizations.[3]
The Pink Dress, oil on canvas painted by Laura Muntz in 1897.
Laura actively worked as a professional artist until 1915, making a name for herself in Canadian art circles. In addition to teaching and maintaining a studio (usually in Toronto, but also in Montreal for a few years) she exhibited widely in Canada and the United States. In 1910, the National Gallery of Canada purchased one of her canvases: A Daffodil. Her preferred themes were women and children, a feminine subject that she painted with a masculine style. Laura regretted that she did not have more time for larger creative, allegorical works.
Laura faded into obscurity after 1915 when her sister, Ida, died. Laura married her brother-in-law, Charles W.B. Lyall (who was bored to tears by art), to manage his household and look after his eleven children. She was fifty-five at the time, and it wasn’t until 1924 that the frustrated painter was able to resume her professional activities, including exhibiting at the prestigious British Empire Exhibition in Wembley. But she couldn’t revive her career. She died in 1930, an unconventional woman who was once proclaimed by a leading artist as “the greatest painter in Canada, and the greatest woman painter on this continent.”[4]
Quote:
“I’ve always wanted to paint, and still wish to paint — all day — quite simple, isn’t it?”[5]
A Doukhobor Martyr
Anna Markova
1902–1978
She was passionate about family and faith — and forgiving of those who imprisoned her.
Anna Markova was finally permitted to emigrate from Russia to Canada in 1960 after enduring bitter hardship and persecution because of her Doukhobor beliefs. In a tearful reunion, she embraced the son she hadn’t seen for thirty-two years. Anna became a highly respected and influential elder in the Doukhobor community in British Columbia.
Anna and her brother, Peter, were born in Russia to Anna Fyodorovna and Peter Petrovitch Verigin, peasants in a small village called Slavyanka. They belonged to a sect of Russian dissenters who lived by the slogan of “toil and peaceful life.” Like other Doukhobors, they practised pacifism and rejected secular governments and formal churches, replacing the Bible with their orally transmitted psalms and hymns. And they were persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Anna’s grandfather Peter Vasilievich Verigin (known as “the Lordly”) was the Doukhobors’ leader in Russia, but he’d been exiled to Siberia. In 1902, he was allowed to immigrate to Canada with 500 Doukhobors, joining the 7,500 who had already been permitted entry.
Anna Markova (back row at right) with group of Tolstoyans in Moscow, June 1928, prior to the departure of Anna’s mother and son John Verigin (both at front right) for Canada.
In 1920, Anna married Ivan Semyonovitch Voykin, a young man who worked as a secretary for her father — leader of one of the groups of Doukhobors in the Caucasus area. Amid the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, Ivan was among a group of Doukhobor men who established a new settlement in the Don region. He died of pneumonia a month before Anna gave birth to their son, Ivan Ivanovitch.
The young widow and her child later joined her father’s household in the Don. Her father wanted Anna’s son to grow up with his surname, so he adopted the boy. Anna married Ivan Vasilievitch Markov and gave birth to her second son, Peter, in 1926.
That same year Anna’s father was arrested as a dissident and sent to Kazakhstan. Later he was allowed to substitute exile for an exit visa to Canada. He wrote to Anna’s mother, asking that she join him in Canada with their adopted son. Anna Markova’s oldest child disappeared from her life.
In 1935, Anna Markova, her husband, and her brother were arrested. Innocent of any crime save being Doukhobors, the threesome were sentenced to ten years in labour camps. She was torn away from her nine-year-old child: “Our son, Peter, was left to the mercies of fate since there were no close relatives who could take care of him.”[1]
Anna, her husband, and brother suffered horrendous conditions in the labour camps, where millions died. They were separated and often knew nothing of the others. Anna was the only one of the threesome to survive. Her husband was shot in 1938 and her brother perished in 1942. Anna was moved from one camp to another, criss-crossing eastern Siberia.
Friends cared for Peter for the first nine years of her incarceration, but he was arrested in April 1944 on charges of being a pacifist and draft-dodger. He was taken directly into the Red Army and put on the front lines in the Second World War. Peter was killed in battle near Berlin in April 1945.
Anna wasn’t liberated until 1947. She spent the next four years as a displaced person, earning money by doing housework. In May 1952, she was arrested again and sentenced to l
ife-long settlement in another region. She was finally freed in 1954 after an amnesty was declared. Dispirited and in poor health, Anna felt “denuded, despoiled and dispossessed.” [2]
Canadian Doukhobors appealed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Anna was allowed to emigrate. She became the first Doukhobor since the 1920s to legally leave the U.S.S.R. for Canada.[3] After a tearful reunion with her son, honorary chairman of the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC), Anna finally began a life in freedom in 1960.
Anna became an important figure in the Doukhobor community in Grand Forks, British Columbia. Eager to help preserve Doukhobor society and heritage, she organized and motivated women to work together. She supported efforts to build the Brilliant Cultural Centre and the creation of the Kootenay USCC Ladies Organization. Anna helped the less fortunate, shared her knowledge of Doukhobor history and philosophy, assisted the local choirs, and helped compile a hymn book.
Anna Petrovna Markova died after eighteen happy and fruitful years in Canada. One of the first Canadian Doukhobor social activists, she is still remembered as a visionary. The local newspaper noted, “She was zealous, but not a zealot, and a staunch advocate of enlightenment, family unity, spiritual and moral rebirth.”[4]
Anna was buried in Verigin Memorial Park in Brilliant, British Columbia. Markova Road and the Anna Petrovna Markova Room in the Doukhobor Village Museum in Castlegar were named after her, and local singers dedicated an album of hymns to her. The film Anna Markova: Forgiveness in Exile documents the extraordinary life of a woman who remained true to her faith despite the hardships she experienced because of it.
100 More Canadian Heroines Page 19