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Williams, Flos Jewell

Main entryWilliams, Flos Jewell
Birth placeDundalk, Grey, Ontario
Birth date2 October 1889
Death placeNorth Saanich, British Columbia
Death date20 January 1970
Identifier0044
Birth nameClara Flos Jewell
Married nameWilliams
Marital statusmarried
Paid workteacher (school); journalist
Other workspeaker (local clubs) on current events
BiographyAfter attending the Jarvis Street Collegiate and the Toronto Normal School, Clara Flos Jewell (1889-1970) taught in Bobcaygeon in the Kawartha Lakes District which furnished her setting for her first novel. Married iin 1915, she began to write after she moved from her native Toronto to Calgary in 1923. Away from friends and family, as well as her travelling salesman husband, she picked up her pen to pass the time. She submitted THE JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON to the Hodder & Stoughton Canadian contest and won a runner-up prize of $2500, a surprising success for one who had not written previously. In Calgary she devoted herself to raising her twin sons and contributed sufficient poetry, short stories and articles to Canadian periodicals to qualify for membership in the Canadian Women's Press Club. In 1949 she won second prize in the Ryerson book contest for FOLD HOME, set in the Cariboo District of British Columbia. Her novels dramatise the experiences of immigrants trying to build a new life in the harsh Canadian rural environment. Later in her life, Flos seems to have migrated west to British Columbia, where she died in 1970.
TravelMichigan, 1923; Montana, 1940
Other notesWhile several accounts list Toronto as Williams' birthplace, her birth record is for Dundalk, Ontario.
Honours and awardsOne of four runners-up for JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON, Canadian Contest (Hodder and Stoughton, c1925); 2nd place for FOLD HOME, Annual Canadian Book Contest (Ryerson, 1949)
ResidencesDundalk, Ontario (1889-1891); Cabbagetown, Toronto; Toronto, Ontario (1911-1923) Calgary, Alberta (1940); North Saanich, British Columbia (-1970)
Geographic regionsAlberta
Primary genresfiction; poetry; non-fiction; journalism
BooksJUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON (1925); NEW FURROWS (1926); BROKEN GODS (1930); FOLD HOME (1950)
PeriodicalsALBERTA POETRY YEAR BOOK; CANADIAN BOOKMAN, CANADIAN POETRY, CHATELAINE, ILLUSTRATED GOLF
Other publicationsAnthologized in: Creighton and Ridley, NEW CANADIAN ANTHOLOGY (1938)
OrganizationsCanadian Authors Association, Canadian Women's Press Club
Father's nameCharles Henry Jewell
Life dates of fatherc1853, England - 23 May 1931, Toronto, Ontario; m. 1884
Father's noteinsurance Agent
Mother's nameMary Ann Colgan
Life dates of motherc1862, Proton Township, Ontario - after 1931; m. 1884
Spouse 1David Selkirk Williams
Life dates of spouse 12 September 1882, Toronto - 11 August 1963, Sidney, British Columbia
Spouse 1 notemanufacturer
Marriage 1 date23 April 1915
Marriage 1 placeToronto, Ontario
Children number2
Children's names and datestwin sons
Biographical referencesWHO WAS WHO AMONG NORTH AMERICAN AUTHORS 1921-1939; 1891 Census of Canada; 1911 Census of Canada; Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895-1954; British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872-1990; Detroit Border Crossings and Passenger and Crew Lists, 1905-1957; Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913; Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928
Bibliographic referencesWatters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 418
Research referencescomplete
Image creditsImage from Alan Creighton and Hilda M. Ridley, eds., A NEW CANADIAN ANTHOLOGY (Toronto: Crucible, 1938).
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.