| Main entry | Rody, Margaret Ellen Strain Vance |
|---|
| Birth place | Manitouaning (now Manitowaning), Assignack, Manitoulin Island, Ontario |
|---|
| Birth date | 29 September 1881 |
|---|
| Death place | Winnipeg, Manitoba |
|---|
| Death date | 13 September 1970 |
|---|
| Identifier | 0339 |
|---|
| Birth name | Margaret Ellen Strain |
|---|
| Married name | Vance, Rody |
|---|
| Marital status | married |
|---|
| Religious affiliation | Methodist |
|---|
| Paid work | chief telephone operator |
|---|
| Biography | With only a grade four education, Margaret Ellen Strain (1881-1970) had to work all her life in relatively menial jobs to support herself and her two children, but the praise of her friends encouraged her to continue recording in verse the thoughts and experiences of country life. She was born on Manitoulin Island in Manitouaning, a Native village where her father worked as a contractor. She grew up in Thessalon, Ontario where she met her first husband, George William Vance (1880-1907), an expert harness maker. After only four years of marriage and four months after the birth of her second child, Margaret's husband died of typhoid fever in 1907. A widow with two small children to support, Margaret married homesteader John "Jack" Rody (1875-) in January 1914 and separated from him before the end of the year. From 1919 to 1942 she was a telephone operator in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, where she wrote most of her poems which appeared in the KAMSACK TIMES. Margaret published several editions of her two books of verses herself, hoping to augment her income. After her retirement in 1942 she spent a number of years in Vancouver but finally chose to settle in Winnipeg where she died of a heart attack in 1970. |
|---|
| Other notes | Ontario birth registry reports a "Mary Ellen Strain" born to "Thomas Strain" and "Rachel Garrow" on 12 September 1878 at Glenelg, Grey, Ontario, just southeast of Manitoulin Island. No birth records have been located for "Margaret Ellen Strain" born at Manitouaning.
Son, Fenton Russel Vance, was an engineer and a well-known botany photographer. |
|---|
| Residences | Manitoulin Island, Ontario (1881-); Thessalon, Ontario (c1880s-c1914); Oliver Township, Thunder Bay, Ontario (1915); Kamsack, Saskatchewan (1919-1942); Vancouver, British Columbia; Winnipeg, Manitoba (c1950-1970) |
|---|
| Geographic regions | Ontario; Saskatchewan; Manitoba |
|---|
| Primary genres | poetry |
|---|
| Books | GLEANINGS (1931); BEAUTY AND THOUGHT IN VERSE (1942) |
|---|
| Periodicals | KAMSACK TIMES |
|---|
| Father's name | Thomas Amaziah Strain (also Thomas Albert Strain) |
|---|
| Life dates of father | 25 April 1854, Hoggs Hollow, Toronto, Ontario - 9 July 1937, South Porcupine, Ontario; m. 1876 |
|---|
| Father's note | mason and contractor |
|---|
| Mother's name | Rachel Gerow |
|---|
| Life dates of mother | 18 January 1858, Flesherton, Ontario - 9 June 1937, South Porcupine, Ontario; m. 1876 |
|---|
| Spouse 1 | George William Vance |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 1 | 12 April 1880, Thessalon, Ontario - 31 August 1907, Thessalon, Ontario |
|---|
| Spouse 1 note | harness maker and saddler; died of typhoid fever; buried at Pine Grove Cemetery |
|---|
| Marriage 1 date | 17 August 1903 |
|---|
| Marriage 1 place | Thessalon, Algoma, Ontario |
|---|
| Spouse 2 | John William ("Jack") Rody |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 2 | 19 May 1875, Brant, Bruce, Ontario - |
|---|
| Spouse 2 note | homesteader and farmer; first marriage to Matilda Mowers, with whom had five children |
|---|
| Marriage 2 date | 20 January 1915 |
|---|
| Marriage 2 place | Rody home, Oliver Township, Thunder Bay, Ontario |
|---|
| Children number | 2 |
|---|
| Children's names and dates | Catherine Gladys Vance (16 November 1904 - 28 June 1985), m. to Smith;
Fenton Russell Vance (26 April 1907 - 2 April 1997), m. to Irene |
|---|
| Biographical references | 1901 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913; Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1928 |
|---|
| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 170 |
|---|
| Research references | complete |
|---|
| 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. |
|---|