| Main entry | Bellmore, Euphemia Russell |
|---|
| Birth place | Hamilton, Ontario |
|---|
| Birth date | c1842 |
|---|
| Death place | Whitby, Ontario |
|---|
| Death date | 15 March 1895 |
|---|
| Identifier | 0164 |
|---|
| Birth name | Euphemia Russell |
|---|
| Married name | Bellmore |
|---|
| Marital status | married |
|---|
| Religious affiliation | Presbyterian; Believe on Christ |
|---|
| Paid work | teacher (school) |
|---|
| Biography | Euphemia Russell Bellmore (c1842-1895) was a singularly unfortunate woman. While an adolescent, her left hand was amputated; then, when enrolled in Normal School, she lost her sight. With no other means of support, the blind author offered her poetry to the public in a collection simply titled POEMS. The appearance of at least eight editions of this slim volume (first under her birth name of Russell, then under her married name of Bellmore) demonstrates the measure of popular response to her work. Around 1873 she married a blind book agent and pedlar, Eli Bellmore, who had studied at a special institution in Michigan where deaf-mute instructors guided his education in braille. The Bellmores had at least three children before Eli's death in 1880. As a widow, Euphemia supported her small family with income from teaching until her death in 1895. |
|---|
| Other notes | Surname variants include Belmore, Bellemore, Bellmore, Bellemare. There is record of a "Euphamie Russell" living in Delaware, Ontario (1851), a "Euphemia Russell" incarcerated for vagrancy in Perth, Lanark (1861), and a Euphemia Russell who married Robert Hardy in 1862. That these are not the same Euphemia makes it difficult to determine which was our author. One Euphemia's parents' names were likely William and Jane Russell. In 1861, William shows up living in Perth, Lanark with his second wife, Agnes, and same children living in the 1851 Delaware household, without Euphemia. The Euphemia listed on the 1881 census with her son(s) Russell is registered as blind, so she, at least, is certainly our Euphemia.
Records concerning Euphemia's children also raise complications. Mabel was born 14 September 1873, and Alice Euphemia was born 28 July 1880, only a few months after the death of her father from tuberculosis on 28 May 1880, but died at the age of 6. On the 1881 census, Euphemia is registered as living with two sons with the same name (Russell and Russell Wells) both born in 1875; neither daughter is listed. The repetition of the “Russell Belmore” entry is almost certainly a transcription error, as the second Russell (listed as deaf-mute) is recorded on the page following his mother and the first Russell (not listed as deaf-mute) |
|---|
| Residences | Hamilton, Ontario; Delaware, Ontario?; Perth, Lanark Ontario?; Toronto, Ontario (1871, 1873); Brooklin, Ontario (1880); Whitby, Ontario (1881, 1891, 1895) |
|---|
| Geographic regions | Ontario |
|---|
| Primary genres | poetry |
|---|
| Books | POEMS (1869) also titled BOOK OF POEMS |
|---|
| Father's name | William Russell |
|---|
| Life dates of father | 31 January 1818, Auchterarder, Perth, Scotland - 28 March 1874, Mitchell, Logan Township, Perth, Ontario |
|---|
| Father's note | identity and details speculation only |
|---|
| Mother's name | Jane |
|---|
| Life dates of mother | c1820, Scotland - before 1860, Ontario |
|---|
| Mother's note | identity and details speculation only |
|---|
| Spouse 1 | Eli Bellmore |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 1 | c1843, Quebec - 12 March 1880, Ontario |
|---|
| Spouse 1 note | labourer; book agent and pedlar; blinded by "brain fever" at 15; seems to have been c1860s that he studied at Flint School and Dr. Morris' school in Michigan |
|---|
| Marriage 1 date | c1873 |
|---|
| Children number | 3 or 4 |
|---|
| Children's names and dates | Mabel (14 September 1873 - );
Russel (1875 - );
Russel Wells (1875 - );
Alice Euphemia (28 July 1880 - February 1887) |
|---|
| Biographical references | 1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; 1861 Census of Canada; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada Deaths, 1869-1936 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947 |
|---|
| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 15, 172 |
|---|
| Research references | complete; 02 |
|---|
| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
|---|
| 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. |
|---|