| Main entry | Hayes, Kate Simpson |
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| Birth place | Dalhousie, New Brunswick |
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| Birth date | 6 July 1856 |
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| Death place | Victoria, British Columbia |
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| Death date | 15 January 1945 |
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| Identifier | 0305 |
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| Birth name | Catherine Ethel Hayes |
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| Alternate names | Mary Markwell; Elaine; Marka Wohl; Yukon Bill |
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| Married name | Simpson |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Catholic |
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| Paid work | teacher (school); shopkeeper; librarian; journalist; milliner; actress; organist at St. Mary's Church, Regina |
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| Biography | The first woman journalist in Western Canada, Catherine Ethel Hayes (1856-1945) grew up in New Brunswick. She obtained her teaching license from the Normal School in Fredericton, teaching there and then briefly in Ontario before embarking in 1879 for teaching opportunities in the North West Territories, then a vast region that included much of the prairies. After her 1882 marriage to Charles Bowman Simpson (c1852-1931), she called herself "Kate Simpson Hayes." The couple had two children before Kate decided to leave. Early in 1885 she moved to Prince Albert and worked briefly as a governess, before settling in Regina in 1886, where she sold millinery. Though Roman Catholic, Kate obtained a legal separation in 1889, having become the long-time companion of then-married politician Nicholas Flood Davin (1840-1901). Shortly after her arrival in Regina and continuing through the 1890s, Kate wrote plays and other works as "Mary Markwell" or occasionally "Marka Wohl," earning income from their production, both as playwright and actress. The plots of the plays often reflected concerns emerging in her own personal life, including divorce (which was then cumbersome or impossible) and illegitimate children, two of whom she had with Davin. While many of these plays were successfully staged, few have survived. Davin had great influence on Kate's professional life: he hired her to write for the REGINA LEADER, where she published her first poems, and encouraged her towards a position with the predominantly male-operated territorial government, where she worked from 1888-1900, mostly in the Legislative Library. Nevertheless, their nine-year relationship ended abruptly in 1895 when, tired of waiting for Kate, Davin married someone else instead. Although Davin was successful in retrieving their son Henry from a caretaker, Kate was uncooperative in the search for the couple's daughter, Agnes, who had been adopted out to another family after living at a nunnery. Henry died while serving his country in the First World War, while Agnes surfaced years later, to defend her parentage. After Davin's marriage Kate carried on writing. From the writings she had produced over the previous decade, she compiled the first work issued in the Territories: PRAIRIE POT-POURRI (1895) was a collection of poetry, short prose and drama published by subscription. In 1897, Kate and her two acknowledged children from her first marriage moved to Winnipeg where she became the editor of the women's page of the MANITOBA FREE PRESS (later WINNIPEG FREE PRESS). As a journalist she also worked for the OTTAWA FREE PRESS and the VANCOUVER PROVINCE. Later, as "Yukon Bill," she published DERBY DAYS IN THE YUKON, AND OTHER POEMS OF THE NORTHLAND (1910). She also published a novella. With Kit Coleman and others, she founded the Canadian Women's Press Club (CWPC) in 1904, serving first as Secretary, then as the second President (1907). She was made honorary President in 1932. Through the CWPC, Hayes established friendships with a wide network of women authors, including Nellie McClung,* Marshall Saunders,* Isabel Ecclestone Mackay,* and Pauline Johnson.* Around the turn of the century, Kate was employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a writer, and in 1906 was sent to England by the Dominion government on special immigration business (to bring "high class" women to Canada). She returned frequently to England and Ireland in the years from 1907 to 1914, and also travelled to Rome in 1907 where she had a private audience with the Pope. Other than one final visit to Dalhousie around 1920, Kate spent most of her later decades on the West Coast, between Victoria and Vancouver. Kate died in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1945, as "Catherine Simpson," never having received her divorce. |
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| Other notes | Some sources list first name as "Katherine" or "Kathleen." Davin killed himself in 1901, reportedly in part due to an unhappy meeting with Kate. |
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| Residences | New Brunswick (1856-); Port Arthur's Landing, Ontario (1879); Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (1879-); Winnipeg, Manitoba (1881); Prince Albert (1885); Regina, Saskatchewan (1885-); North Dakota (1889); Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (1891); Winnipeg (1900-07); Victoria, British Columbia (1908-09); Winnipeg (1911); Victoria (1920-25); Winnipeg (1925-30); Vancouver, British Columbia (1930-35); Victoria (1935-45) |
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| Geographic regions | Prairies; West Coast |
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| Primary genres | poetry; fiction; drama; journalism |
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| Books | PRAIRIE POT-POURRI (by Mary Markwell) (1895); "AWEEMA": AN INDIAN STORY OF A CHRISTMAS TRYST IN THE EARLY DAYS (by Mary Markwell) (1906); THE LEGEND OF THE WEST (1908); DERBY DAYS IN THE YUKON, AND OTHER POEMS OF THE NORTHLAND (by Yukon Bill) (1910) |
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| Periodicals | CAMPBELLTON GRAPHIC; CANADIAN BOOKMAN; CANADIAN MAGAZINE; DAILY COLONIST; MACLEANS; OTTAWA FREE PRESS; PACIFIC MONTHLY; REGINA LEADER-POST; ROD AND GUN IN CANADA; SATURDAY NIGHT; TORONTO GLOBE; VANCOUVER PROVINCE; VANCOUVER WORLD; THE WEEK; WESTERN HOME JOURNAL; WINNIPEG FREE PRESS |
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| Other publications | Lyrics for TWO IRISH EYES; (1919), music by Wellington Rawlings and THE LAND WHERE THE CHINOOK CALLS (1932), music by Grace McNeil Killoran. Anthologized in: Benson, LITTLE MANITOBANS (1900); Lighthall, SONGS OF THE GREAT DOMINION (1889) |
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| Organizations | Canadian Women's Press Club |
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| Other arts | music (wrote songs) |
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| Father's name | Patrick Hayes |
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| Life dates of father | c1821, Kerry, Ireland - c1860s, (likely) Restigouche, New Brunswick |
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| Father's note | lumber merchant; storekeeper |
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| Mother's name | Anna Hagan |
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| Life dates of mother | 11 June 1825, Prince Edward Island - 30 September 1909, Victoria, British Columbia |
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| Mother's note | teacher; resided with Kate and the children (c1890s-1909) |
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| Spouse 1 | Charles Bowman Simpson |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | c1852, Canada - 7 June 1931, Toronto, Ontario |
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| Spouse 1 note | Legally separated 1889; died at House of Industry (shelter and elderly home); buried at Bowmanville |
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| Marriage 1 date | 2 June 1882 |
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| Marriage 1 place | Prince Albert |
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| Children number | 4 |
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| Children's names and dates | Burke Hayes Simpson (6 March 1883 - after 1901);
Anna W Elaine ("Bonnie") Simpson (10 February 1885 - 22 October 1973), m. to Daniel Boyce Sprague;
Henry Arthur Davin (18 October 1889 - 13 June 1916);
Agnes Agatha Davin (11 January 1892 - ), m. to Robinson |
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| Biographical references | Constance Anne Maguire, "Convention and Contradiction in the Life and Ideas of Kate Simpson Hayes, 1856-1945," MA Thesis, University of Regina, 1996; O'Neill, "Town Hall vs. the Barracks: Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Regina," PRAIRIE FORUM 21.1 (1996), pp. 1-15; 1861 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; 1911 Census of Canada; British Columbia Death Index: 1872 to 1979 |
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| Bibliographic references | Bird, REDRESSING THE PAST (2004); Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 88, 224, 309, 688 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | Catherine Simpson-Hayes Papers, Saskatchewan Archives, Regina Office; several letters to W.D. Lighthall, Lighthall Papers, McGill; several letters to Henry Morgan, Henry Morgan Papers, National Archives of Canada. |
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| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
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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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