| Main entry | Boa, Myrtle J. |
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| Birth place | Shefford, Shefford, Quebec |
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| Birth date | 17 February 1891 |
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| Death place | Montreal, Quebec |
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| Death date | 25 March 1971 |
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| Identifier | 0452 |
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| Birth name | Myrtle Jessie Boa |
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| Married name | Armstrong |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Methodist |
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| Paid work | stenographer |
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| Biography | Myrtle Jessie Boa (1891-1971) was born in Shefford, Quebec, and at the age of nineteen she married farmer Thomas William Armstrong (1883-1982) in Chateaugay. The couple lived for a short while in Shipton, where their daughter Lucy was born, and may then have moved to Montreal, where Myrtle issued two books under her maiden name. The first, IDYLLS OF OUR ISLAND (c1923), was published as a fundraising initiative for the Canadian Red Cross Society and sold for one dollar. It included photographs of Montreal, as well as Myrtle's descriptions of "the many beautiful buildings and charming scenery" of the Island. She later published RAINBOW RHYMES OF THE TIMES (1933), which included some poems that had previously appeared in the SHERBROOKE DAILY RECORD. In addition to describing scenic landscapes, these poems occasionally discuss aspects of political and spiritual "topics of the times." Through the late 1930s until at least the 1950s, she contributed poetry to the MONTREAL GAZETTE. Myrtle died in 1971 and was buried at St. Andrew's Cemetery in Melbourne, Quebec. |
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| Other notes | Myrtle is listed in both Armstrongs' household and William Boa's household in 1911. |
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| Residences | Shefford, Quebec (1891); Shipton, Quebec and Melbourne, Quebec (1911); Montreal, Quebec |
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| Geographic regions | Quebec |
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| Primary genres | poetry |
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| Books | IDYLLS OF OUR ISLAND (c1923); RAINBOW RHYMES OF THE TIMES (1933) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN BOOKMAN; SHERBROOKE DAILY RECORD; MONTREAL GAZETTE |
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| Father's name | William Henry Boa |
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| Life dates of father | 16 August 1861, Cartierville, Montreal, Quebec - 10 September 1914, Melbourne, Quebec; m. 1886 |
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| Father's note | farmer |
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| Mother's name | Agnes Forsyth Hislop |
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| Life dates of mother | 26 January 1861, St-Laurent, Quebec - 9 June 1953, Melbourne, Quebec |
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| Spouse 1 | Thomas William Armstrong |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | 7 March 1883, Melbourne, Quebec - 7 July 1982, Montreal, Quebec |
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| Spouse 1 note | farmer |
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| Marriage 1 date | 1909-1910 |
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| Marriage 1 place | Chateaugay, Quebec |
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| Children number | 1 |
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| Children's names and dates | Lucy (September 1911 - ) |
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| Biographical references | Death Notice, LE CITOYEN (6 April 1971); 1911 Census of Canada; Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 20 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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