1891–1979
Edna Jaques

Introduction

portrait

Born: Jan­ua­ry 17, 1891, Coll­ing­wood, On­ta­rio, Ca­na­da.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 9, 1979, Wil­low­dale, On­ta­rio, Ca­na­da.

Buried: Tri­ni­ty Unit­ed Church Ce­me­te­ry, Coll­ing­wood, On­ta­rio, Ca­na­da.

portrait

Biography

Edna was the daugh­ter of Charles Adol­phis Jaques and Mary El­len Do­no­hue, and wife of Will­iam Er­nest Ja­mie­son (mar­ried No­vem­ber 21, 1921).

She grew up in Brier­crest, near Moose Jaw, Sas­kat­che­wan. She be­gan writ­ing verse as a teen­ag­er, her first ef­forts ap­pear­ing in the Moose Jaw Times.

After fin­ish­ing her stu­dies in the pub­lic schools, she moved to Cal­ga­ry, where she wrote a po­et­ic re­sponse to In Flan­ders Fields, which was read at the de­di­ca­tion of the Tomb of the Un­known So­ldier in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

This vault­ed her in­to the pub­lic eye, and the ed­it­or of the Cal­ga­ry Her­ald of­fered to pay her way to the uni­ver­si­ty. But she had the tra­vel bug, and in­stead went to Van­cou­ver, where she worked in a hos­pi­tal, and as a ste­no­gra­pher and wait­ress be­fore be­com­ing a jour­nal­ist for the Van­cou­ver Pro­vinc­es.

After marriage, she and Will­iam moved to a farm near Prince Al­bert, Sas­kat­che­wan.

She and her daugh­ter Joyce lat­er moved to Vic­to­ria, where she worked as a ste­no­gra­pher and wrote ar­ti­cles and po­ems for news­pa­pers and ma­ga­zines.

In World War II, Jaques worked in a fac­to­ry for a time, and on the War Time Pric­es and Trade Board.

Her li­ter­ary cir­cle in­clud­ed Nel­lie Mc­Clung and Mil­dred Val­ley Thorn­ton. Mc­Clung was in­stru­ment­al in the pub­li­ca­tion of Ed­na’s book, My Kit­chen Win­dow.

By the time of her death, Jaques’ po­et­ry had sold a quar­ter mil­lion co­pies.

Works

Sources

Lyrics