| Main entry | Herriman, Dorothy Choate |
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| Birth place | Lindsay, Victoria, Ontario |
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| Birth date | 1 September 1901 |
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| Death place | Orangeville, Ontario |
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| Death date | 13 June 1978 |
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| Identifier | 0080 |
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| Birth name | Dorothy Choate Herriman |
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| Marital status | single |
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| Religious affiliation | Methodist |
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| Biography | The professions of family members on both sides of the American- Canadian border created a learned environment for Dorothy Choate Herriman (1901-1978), rich in areas of law, medicine and science. Because her father, William Choate Herriman (1867-1945), was a pioneer in psychiatry, her early childhood was spent in the settings of his practice. She was born in Lindsay, Ontario where he began his medical partnership. In Orillia, where he headed the Hospital for the Feeble Minded, she attended the Central School and Collegiate Institute. When he advanced to the Toronto Rockwood Hospital she attended the Model School and Havergal College. While her relationship with her mother was sometimes strained, father William encouraged Dorothy's literary aspirations, believing that literature contained great therapeutic potential for his own patients. Active in the Toronto branch of the Canadian Authors Association, she often hosted local meetings and served a term as National Secretary. At twenty-five, during the year she studied at the Ontario College of Art, she became the youngest poet included in Garvin's CANADIAN POETS (1926). Three years later she published her single volume, MATER SILVA (1929), adorned with her own pen and ink sketches. Although she did not produce further work for public audiences, her collection of diaries, written between 1926 - 1944, has become Dorothy's greatest contribution to Canadian literary history. The accounts demonstrate the wit and emotional turmoil of a twentieth-century spinster, looking for hope and purpose during trying times like the Great Depression. Although she never married, Dorothy's diaries reveal an intimate relationship with a cousin, Ralph Wilson, during her mid-thirties; upon her father's disapproval, she turned her affections towards Eric Gaskell, National Secretary of the Canadian Authors Association. Dorothy died in 1978 and was buried at Port Hope Union Cemetery in Ontario. |
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| Honours and awards | Award for "Orioles," Montreal Poetry Contest (1935) |
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| Residences | Lindsay, Ontario (1901); Kingston, Ontario; Orillia, Ontario (1911); Toronto |
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| Geographic regions | Ontario |
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| Primary genres | poetry |
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| Books | MATER SILVA (1929) |
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| Periodicals | ATLANTIC MONTHLY; CANADIAN AUTHOR; CANADIAN FORUM; FIRST STATEMENT; MONTREAL POETRY YEAR BOOK |
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| Other publications | Anthologized in: Canadian Authors Association (Toronto), VOICES OF VICTORY (1941); Garvin, CANADIAN POETS (1926); Garvin, CANADIAN VERSE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (1930) |
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| Organizations | Canadian Authors Association |
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| Other arts | drawing (pen & ink) |
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| Father's name | William Choate Herriman |
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| Life dates of father | 27 April 1867, Orono, Ontario - 27 September 1945, Toronto, Ontario |
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| Father's note | medical doctor; various hospitals for the insane in Ontario; descendant of distinguished Choate family in USA |
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| Mother's name | Nellie Jane Williams |
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| Life dates of mother | 6 July 1862, Arlington, Vermont - 19 May 1934, Toronto, Ontario |
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| Mother's note | daughter of Lewis Williams of Pennsylvania (inventor and mechanic) |
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| Biographical references | Braz, Albert, "Dorothy Choate Herriman," THE SMALL DETAILS OF LIFE: TWENTY DIARIES BY WOMEN IN CANADA, 1830-1996, Kathryn Carter, ed. (2002), pp. 353-356; Garvin, CANADIAN POETS (1926), p. 527; 1911 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 91 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | documents (poems, diaries, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and newspaper clippings), biographical information, and bound copy of MATER SILVA, Dorothy Choate Herriman Fonds, Trent University Archives |
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| Image credits | Image from John. W. Garvin, ed., CANADIAN POETS (2nd ed., Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926). |
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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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