You are here

Sheard, Virna

Main entrySheard, Virna
Birth placeCobourg, Ontario
Birth date24 April 1862
Death placeToronto, Ontario
Death date22 February 1943
Identifier0343
Birth nameVirna Stanton (possibly Virginia Stanton)
Married nameSheard
Marital statusmarried
Religious affiliationAnglican
Other workdoctor's wife
BiographyBorn into a United Empire Loyalist family, Virna Stanton (1862-1943) (whose birth name may have been "Virginia") attended school first in Cobourg and later in Toronto where she would live for more than half a century. In 1884 she married Dr. Charles Sheard (1857-1929), a surgeon whose career would include appointment as Toronto's Chief Medical Officer (1893-1910) and, from 1917-1925, election as Toronto South's Member of Parliament. Thanks to having inherited real estate from Charles's father, former Toronto mayor Joseph Sheard, the Sheard family lived in comfort, dividing their time between their house on Jarvis Street and their cottage on Hanlan's Point. In the early years of motherhood, during her late twenties, Virna began to write, sending her first poem to the famous American children's magazine, ST. NICHOLAS. With the encouragement of the editor of the latter she became a regular contributor of poems and short stories to THE GLOBE, SATURDAY NIGHT and MAIL AND EMPIRE as well as to prominent American magazines. Her first novel, TREVELYAN'S LITTLE DAUGHTERS (1898), displays her sensitivity to the perspective of children. As each of her four sons began to enroll at Upper Canada College, Virna began to write for a more mature audience. Her stories and novels demonstrate an interest in reconstructed pasts (Tudor/Stuart England) and melodrama. The first of her five volumes of poetry, THE MIRACLE AND OTHER POEMS (1913), was dedicated to her younger brother, the victim of a tragic accident at Niagara Falls in 1912 (see note). Unfortunately, Charles Sheard did little to support his wife's literary success and detested the publicity she received. Nevertheless, by the time of her death in 1943, Virna Sheard had become a well-known Canadian poet and novelist.
TravelEngland, 1923
Other notesVirna's brother and sister-in-law, Eldridge Stanton Jr. and Clara (Butcher) Stanton, were victims of Niagara Falls' legendary Ice Bridge Disaster of 1912: while attempting to cross an ice bridge with friends, the ground broke up beneath them and, despite attempts amongst one another and from bystanders above, Eldridge and Clara were washed away, their bodies never to be recovered. Virna's son Charles was also a medical doctor. War-era correspondence between sons Paul and Terence can be found online at the Canadian Letters & Images Project.
Honours and awards1st place for "The Disobedience of Betty," Best short story ($100) (THE GLOBE)
ResidencesCobourg, Ontario (1862-); Toronto, Ontario (1881-1943)
Geographic regionsOntario
Primary genrespoetry; fiction
BooksTREVELYAN'S LITTLE DAUGHTERS (1898); A MAID OF MANY MOODS (1902); BY THE QUEEN'S GRACE (1904); THE MAN AT LONE LAKE (1912); THE MIRACLE AND OTHER POEMS (1913); CARRY ON! (1917); THE GOLDEN APPLE TREE (1920); THE BALLAD OF THE QUEST (1922); CANDLE-FLAME [AND OTHER POEMS] (1926); FORTUNE TURNS HER WHEEL (1929); FAIRY DOORS (1932); BELOW THE SALT (1936); LEAVES IN THE WIND (1938)
PeriodicalsCANADIAN HOME JOURNAL; CANADIAN MAGAZINE; CHICAGO COURIER; THE GLOBE; MAIL AND EMPIRE; MASSEY'S MAGAZINE; NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE; ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE; PEARSON'S MAGAZINE; SATURDAY NIGHT; ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE
Other publicationsAnthologized in: Campbell, OXFORD BOOK OF CANADIAN VERSE (1913); Carman and Pierce, OUR CANADIAN LITERATURE (1934); Caswell, CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS (1919, 1925); French, STANDARD CANADIAN RECITER (1918); Garvin, CANADIAN POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR (1918); Garvin, CANADIAN POETS (1916; 1926); Garvin, CANADIAN VERSE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (1930); Garvin, CAP AND BELLS (1936); Gustafson, ANTHOLOGY OF CANADIAN POETRY (1942); Stephen, VOICES OF CANADA (1926); Toronto Women's Press Club, VERSE AND REVERSE (1921, 1922)
Father's nameEldridge Stanton
Life dates of father7 March 1834, Cobourg, Ontario - 11 February 1907, Toronto, Ontario
Father's notephotographer, Stanton & Butler in Baltimore (1860s), and Stanton and Vicars in Toronto (1877-); President of Photographic Association of Canada (1887-88); hand-writing expert; descendent of Thomas Stanton, who founded "Stonington," Connecticut in 1620; grandfather helped to settle Cobourg
Mother's nameElizabeth Butler
Life dates of mother18 July 1836, England - 25 December 1901, Toronto, Ontario
Spouse 1Dr. Charles Sheard
Life dates of spouse 115 February 1857, Toronto, Ontario - 7 February 1929, Toronto, Ontario
Spouse 1 notemedical doctor and surgeon; Toronto's Chief Medical Officer and head of Department of Health (1893-1910); professor, Trinity College (and then University of Toronto); Member of Parliament for Toronto South (1917-1925); father was Toronto mayor, Joseph Sheard; owned prosperous commercial real estate
Marriage 1 date10 July 1884
Marriage 1 placeToronto, Ontario
Children number4
Children's names and datesCharles Jr. (22 May 1886 - 12 July 1947), m. to Alice Elizabeth Ramsay; Paul Cedric (5 October 1888 - 11 February 1942); Joseph Louis (5 January 1891 - 20 May 1954), m. to Marjorie Helen; Terence (17 February 1898 - 16 December 1985), m. to Lorna Gordon McLean
Biographical referencesMorgan, Henry, CANADIAN MEN AND WOMEN OF THE TIME (1912); WOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA (1914-15); French, Donald G., "Virna Sheard," CANADIAN BOOKMAN 12 (January 1930): 4-5; MacDougall, "Sheard, Charles," DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY XV, University of Toronto/Université Laval (Web, 2000); New, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LITERATURE IN CANADA (2002), p. 1037; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; 1911 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1928; UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
Bibliographic referencesWatters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 180, 391
Research referencescomplete
Archival referencesseveral letters to W.A. Deacon, Deacon Papers, Fisher Library, University of Toronto; letter to John Willison, Willison papers, National Archives of Canada; letter to J.D. Logan, Logan papers, Acadia University; 57 letters to M.O. Hammond, Hammond papers, Archives of Ontario; contract and letter, William Briggs files, Ryerson papers, United Church Archives, Victoria University; letters, Newton McTavish papers, North York Public Library
Image creditsImage courtesy of Library and Archives Canada (R12177-58, e008295889).
CopyrightThis 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.