| Main entry | MacDonald, Jane Elizabeth Gostwycke Roberts |
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| Birth place | Westcock (near Sackville), New Brunswick |
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| Birth date | 17 February 1864 |
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| Death place | Ottawa, Ontario |
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| Death date | 8 November 1922 |
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| Identifier | 0327 |
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| Birth name | Jane Elizabeth Gostwycke Roberts |
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| Married name | MacDonald |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Anglican |
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| Paid work | teacher; journalist |
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| Other work | social welfare work |
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| Biography | The younger sister of well-known poet Charles G.D. Roberts, Jane Elizabeth Gostwycke Roberts (1864-1922) spent much of her childhood in Fredericton in the rectory of Christ Church Cathedral where her father, the Reverend George Goodridge Roberts (1832-1905), served as canon and rector. She built up her youthful interest in literature by sharing poetry and reading communally with her siblings. She attended the Collegiate School and was among the first women to attend the University of New Brunswick. For one year (1891-1892), she taught in the Halifax School for the Blind. Obliged to return home due to chronic ill health, she began sending her poetry to prominent North American periodicals. Jane's supportive and encouraging father produced her first booklet of poems for private circulation in 1888; her second volume, NORTHLAND LYRICS (1899), was written in collaboration with two of her brothers, William Carman Roberts and Theodore Roberts. After marrying cousin Samuel Archibald Roberts MacDonald (1872-) in 1896, she continued to live in Fredericton, raising her two sons (a daughter died in infancy) and taking part in social reform work. She contributed OUR LITTLE CANADIAN COUSIN (1904) to Page's "Little Cousins" series (Boston), and published a third volume of verse in 1906. In 1912 the family moved to Nelson, British Columbia where she became a leader in the suffrage movement. When the family fortunes declined sharply, they moved briefly to Vancouver and then to Winnipeg in 1914 where Elizabeth became a special writer for the WINNIPEG TELEGRAM, signing her work as "Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald." After her husband enlisted in the Army Medical Corps, Elizabeth and her sons moved to Ottawa—a move perhaps prompted by Samuel's drinking habits. Fracturing her hip, likely from a fall, Elizabeth died at Carleton County General Protestant Hospital in 1922. Her death was registered by her husband, Samuel, indicating that the two had been together again; her remains were buried at Beechwood Cemetery. Both of her sons became newspaper editors. |
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| Other notes | Also went by "Nain" Roberts. Elizabeth is the subject of Hilary Thompson's "The Unexamined Voices of the Poet Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald" in DALHOUSIE REVIEW 73.3 (1993): 354-66. |
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| Residences | Fredericton, New Brunswick (1873-1912); Nelson, British Columbia (1912-c1914); Winnipeg (1914-1915); Ottawa (1915-1922) |
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| Geographic regions | New Brunswick; Manitoba; Ontario |
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| Primary genres | poetry; fiction (juvenile); journalism |
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| Books | POEMS (1885); NORTHLAND LYRICS (1899) with William Carman Roberts and Theodore Roberts; OUR LITTLE CANADIAN COUSIN (1904); DREAM VERSES AND OTHERS (1906) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN BOOKMAN; CANADIAN MAGAZINE; CENTURY; CHURCHMAN; HARPER'S; INDEPENDENT; OUTING; PETERSON'S MAGAZINE; WINNIPEG TELEGRAM |
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| Other publications | Anthologized in: Burpee, FLOWERS FROM A CANADIAN GARDEN (1909); Canadian Women's Press Club (Winnipeg), CHRISTMAS KNAPSACK (1914); Carman and Pierce, OUR CANADIAN LITERATURE (1934); Caswell, CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS (1919, 1925); Garvin, CANADIAN POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR (1918); Garvin, CANADIAN POETS (1916); Lighthall, SONGS OF THE GREAT DOMINION (1889); Maxwell, THE RIVER ST. JOHN AND ITS POETS (1947); Rand, TREASURY OF CANADIAN VERSE (1900); Stedman, A VICTORIAN ANTHOLOGY, 1837-1895 (1895) |
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| Organizations | Canadian Authors Association, Canadian Women's Press Club |
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| Father's name | Reverend George Goodridge Roberts |
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| Life dates of father | 25 December 1832, Saint John, New Brunswick - 11 October 1905, Fredericton, New Brunswick; 1857 |
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| Father's note | clergyman; canon, Christ Church Cathedral; rector, parish of Christ Church, Fredericton, New Brunswick; examiner of degree candidates at UNB |
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| Mother's name | Emma Wetmore Bliss |
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| Life dates of mother | 8 January 1836, Fredericton, New Brunswick - 27 February 1923, Ottawa, Ontario; m. 1857 |
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| Mother's note | Daughter of George Pidgeon Bliss, receiver general for New Brunswick |
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| Spouse 1 | Samuel Archibald Roberts MacDonald |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | 19 September 1872, St. Andrews, Quebec - after 1950 |
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| Spouse 1 note | druggist; lived in California in 1950s |
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| Marriage 1 date | 1896 |
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| Marriage 1 place | Fredericton, New Brunswick |
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| Children number | 3 |
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| Children's names and dates | Cuthbert Goodridge (10 May 1897 - 9 January 1967), m. Pauline Agnes Harney;
Archibald Gostwick (21 November 1901 - after 1911);
Emma Hilary (c1915-c1915) |
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| Biographical references | FEMINIST COMPANION TO LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (1990); GARVIN, "Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald" in his CANADIAN POETS (1916), pp. 222-26; Bone and Hennebury, "Jane Elizabeth MacDonald" on NEW BRUNSWICK LITERARY ENCYCLOPEDIA, St. Thomas University (Web, 2011); 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; 1911 Census of Canada; Acadia, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1670-1946; 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. 122, 169, 333 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | literary notebook, Elizabeth Robert MacDonald fonds, University of New Brunswick; manuscripts, Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald fonds, Library and Archives Canada; letter and poem, Newton McTavish papers, North York Public Library |
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| Image credits | Image from John. W. Garvin, ed., CANADIAN POETS (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1916). |
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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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