| Main entry | York, Eva Rose Fitch |
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| Birth place | Norwich Township, Oxford, Ontario |
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| Birth date | 22 December 1858 |
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| Death place | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Death date | 6 February 1938 |
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| Identifier | 0418 |
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| Birth name | Eva Rose Fitch |
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| Married name | York |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Baptist; Salvation Army |
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| Paid work | musician (organist); teacher and superintendent |
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| Other work | missionary and itinerant preacher |
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| Biography | Eva Rose Fitch (1858-1938) was born in Norwich, Ontario, the twin sister of Ida Fitch Baker.* Both inherited their interest in writing from their Baptist clergyman father, whose ministry created a migratory existence for the family throughout the 1870s. According to correspondence held between Ida and her future husband, Jacob, Eva was engaged to a Mr. McGillivrey in 1878, but broke it off because she felt the union would only have been based on wanting to benefit from his means. After graduating from the Canadian Literary Institute (Woodstock College) in 1879 and studying music, she married Dr. Winford York (c1842-1880), only to be widowed within a year. The ensuing breakup of her parents' marriage would have been additionally strenuous for Eva, who by 1881 was caring for her two step-children and her younger sister, Clara. Becoming a born-again Christian, she combined her faith, musical talent, and interest in literature to carry out several endeavours throughout her adult life. Her musical talent being the most obvious route to self-sufficiency, she attended the New England Conservatory in Boston, after which she taught at her alma mater, Woodstock College, in Oxford County. From there, Eva moved to Iowa City where she was organist at Catholic Cathedral Church and St. Mary's Church, as well as an instructor at the Conservatory of Music. While playing organ for a Methodist Church in Napanee, she lived in Belleville where she organized the chorus and orchestra of the Belleville Philarmonic Society, one of the first of its kind in Ontario. Through this work, she had the opportunity to conduct some of her own compositions (including the first Oratorio by a Canadian), although she unfortunately lost a great deal of her music in a fire at the Belleville St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. For a time, she served as editor of the DOMINION MUSICAL JOURNAL and edited a hymnal for Toronto's Catholic churches. In addition to serving as organist and choir leader at Grace Episcopal Church, she taught piano, voice, harmony, and English literature. In 1898, upon visiting a brother in Massachusetts, she converted to the Salvation Army, and subsequently dedicated fourteen years to founding and acting as superintendent of Toronto's Redemption Home for unwed mothers. For these women and their children, she supervised a sewing school, a day school for those of "deficient education," a Bible school, and a weekly recreation evening. FEATHERS WITH YELLOW GOLD (1920) recounts her experiences with her charges; her other books also display her intense religious feelings. In 1922, when ill health forced her to sell Redemption Home, Eva gave proceeds to establish the Eva Rose York Bible Training and Technical School for Women in India, which is still operating today. After an additional fourteen years of travelling across North America as an itinerant preacher--a task undertaken despite arthritic pains and high blood pressure--Eva died in 1938 of kidney disease and was buried at Baker Hill Cemetery in Toronto. A LAND OF CORN AND WINE (1938) was published shortly after Eva's death. In addition to a preface from the author and a biographical memorial by brother-in-law, Rev. J.J. Baker, the religious text also includes a note from its custodian, Ida Baker, whose home was Eva's "real home" for "over fifty years." |
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| Travel | Palmer, Massachusetts (c1898) |
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| Other notes | Marriage registry reads "Harwich" as birthplace. Death registry says buried at Stouffville Cemetery, suggesting that her remains were transferred following Ida's death. Eva's nephew, Ray Palmer Baker, wrote the introduction to FEATHERS WITH YELLOW GOLD (1920). While details of the latter part of the life of Eva's mother, Melissa (Wolverton) Fitch, are unknown, she should not be confused with a "Melissa L. Fitch" who lived in similar states and was an inmate at poorhouses and the Boston State Hospital (Asylum). |
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| Residences | Harwich?/Norwich? (1858-); Chatham, Kent (1861); Topeka Ward, Shawnee, Kansas (1870); Bayham, Elgin East, Ontario (1871); Simcoe, Norfolk (1879-1881); Boston, Massachusetts (1881-82); Woodstock, Oxford, Ontario; Iowa City, Iowa; Belleville, Ontario (c1885); Toronto, Ontario (c1890-c1894); Belleville (c1895-c1898); Toronto (1899-1914); travelling (c1916-c1930); Toronto (c1930-1938) |
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| Geographic regions | Ontario |
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| Primary genres | non-fiction; fiction; journalism |
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| Books | THE BANQUETING HOUSE (n.d.); CHAON ORR: PORTIONS OF HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1896); THE WHITE LETTER (1903); FEATHERS WITH YELLOW GOLD (1920); WHEN MY DREAM CAME TRUE (1935); A LAND OF CORN AND WINE (1938) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN BAPTIST; CHRISTIAN HELPER; DOMINION MUSICAL JOURNAL; INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL |
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| Other publications | Anthologized in: Rand, TREASURY OF CANADIAN VERSE (1900); ARROW AND ENGLICODE (1925). Oratorio: "David and Jonathan" (1887) |
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| Other arts | music (vocalist, organist, composer, editor, conductor) |
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| Father's name | Heman Parker Fitch |
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| Life dates of father | May 1835, Ontario - after 1920; m. 1856, divorced c1880-84; m. 1884 to Alma G. |
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| Father's note | Baptist clergyman; ancestors reputedly amongst the first settlers in Connecticut, and the first Fitch family in Ontario; son of Rev. Heman Fitch, one of pioneer preachers of Western Ontario; moved through Illinois, Nebraska, Georgia, Tennessee, to California by 1920 |
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| Mother's name | Melissa Wolverton |
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| Life dates of mother | 15 May 1837, Blenheim Township, Oxford, Ontario - 8 December 1907, Toronto; m. 1856, divorced c1880-84 |
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| Mother's note | accomplished musician; missionary in Central America during latter part of life; daughter of Enos Wolverton, founder of Wolverton, Ontario and reportedly owner of Ontario's first pipe organ; sister of Dr. Newton Wolverton; moved through Illinois and Iowa prior to moving back to Ontario at time of divorce |
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| Spouse 1 | Dr. Winford York |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | c1842, Simcoe, Ontario - 13 April 1880, Simcoe, Ontario |
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| Spouse 1 note | medical doctor; first wife, Elizabeth Berss |
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| Marriage 1 date | 14 May 1879 |
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| Marriage 1 place | Simcoe, Ontario |
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| Children number | 2 step-children |
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| Children's names and dates | Louise E. York (c1866 - );
Florence (9 September 1870 - ), m. to Amasa B. Miller |
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| Biographical references | Dagg, THE FEMININE GAZE (2001), pp. 318-19; Baker, J. J. "In Memoriam," A LAND OF CORN AND WINE (1938); Keillor, "York, Eva Rose," THE CANADIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, Historica-Dominion (Web, 2012); Baker, Introduction, FEATHERS WITH YELLOW GOLD (1920), pp. 7-11; 1861 Census of Canada; 1870 United States Federal Census; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; 1911 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1928; Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 421, 598, 905 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Image credits | Ida Baker and Eva York (right); image courtesy of Grace Eagan, great-great-granddaughter of Ida and Jacob Baker. |
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| Unverified titles | WAIF STORIES; THE BELIEVER'S GOODLY LAND (serialized by Marshall, Morgan and Scott of London, England) |
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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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