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Lefevre, Lily Alice Cooke

Main entryLefevre, Lily Alice Cooke
Birth placeKingston, Ontario
Birth date5 April 1854
Death placeVancouver, British Columbia
Death date17 October 1938
Identifier0128
Birth nameLily Alice Cooke
Alternate namesFleurange
Married nameLefevre
Marital statusmarried
Religious affiliationCatholic
Other workdoctor's wife
BiographyEducated at the Villa Maria Convent in Montreal, Lily Alice Cooke (1854-1938) moved to Vancouver in 1886, after her marriage to Dr. John Lefevre (1853-1906) who was the Pacific district surgeon for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He later became a member of the Vancouver City Council and president of the Vancouver Board of Trade. Left a wealthy, childless widow after his death, Lily became a patron of the arts in Vancouver, helped found the Vancouver Art Gallery, and made her home, "Langaravine," a local gathering spot for writers, painters and academics. Her circle included members of the Vancouver Poetry Society, Robert Cromie (the editor of the VANCOUVER SUN), William and Annie Charlotte Dalton*, E.J. Pratt, and Pelham Edgar. A contributor of verse to the Montreal and Vancouver press, she won $100 from the MONTREAL WITNESS for the best poem with reference to the first Montreal Winter Carnival. Her other accomplishments include writing lyrics which may have been set to music, publishing three volumes of verse, and some proficiency with watercolours and charcoal. She also organized the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire in Vancouver on Edward VII's coronation.
TravelEngland, 1923, 1926, 1929
Other notesGraham House, now a meeting facility at UBC, was originally designed for Lily in 1915.
Honours and awardsAward, Best poem with reference to the first Montreal Winter Carnival ($100) (MONTREAL WITNESS, n.d.)
ResidencesKingston, Ontario (1854-); Elizabethtown, Brockville, Ontario (1871, 1883); Vancouver (1886-1938)
Geographic regionsBritish Columbia
Primary genrespoetry
BooksTHE LIONS' GATE AND OTHER VERSES (1895); THE LIONS' GATE AND THE BEAVER AND THE EMPRESS (1903); A GARDEN BY THE SEA, AND OTHER POEMS (1921)
PeriodicalsCANADIAN BOOKMAN
Other publicationsAnthologized in: Garvin, CANADIAN VERSE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (1930); Lighthall, CANADIAN POEMS AND LAYS (c1892); Lighthall, SONGS OF THE GREAT DOMINION (1889); Rand, TREASURY OF CANADIAN VERSE (1900)
OrganizationsCanadian Authors Association, Vancouver Poetry Society
Other artslyrics (may have been set to music); painting (watercolours, landscapes); drawing (charcoal)
Father's nameRichard Plunkett Cooke
Life dates of father12 October 1824, Birr, King's Co., Ireland - 27 January 1892, Vancouver, British Columbia
Father's noteengineer, Grand Trunk Railway; Brockville and Ontario Railway; engraver; contractor; buried in Brockville; petitioned to connect Mission and Chilliwack by rail
Mother's nameAnna Maria Plunkett
Life dates of mother17 March 1827, County Mayo, Ireland - 17 September 1893, Vancouver, British Columbia
Mother's notePossibly cousin to husband Richard
Spouse 1Dr. John Matthew Lefevre
Life dates of spouse 112 October 1853, Bellevile, Ontario - 15 September 1906, Vancouver, British Columbia
Spouse 1 notemedical doctor; Canadian Pacific Railway's district surgeon (Pacific Division); Vancouver City Council member; president, Vancouver Board of Trade; involved in real estate and in the early development of BC Tel
Marriage 1 date28 June 1883
Marriage 1 placeBrockville, Ontario
Biographical referencesWOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA (1914-15); 1871 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; British Columbia Death Index: 1872 to 1979; Canada, Ocean Arrivals (Form 30A), 1919-1924; Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935; Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1928; UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
Bibliographic referencesWatters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 112
Research referencescomplete
Archival referencescorrespondence, Canadian Authors Association papers, National Archives of Canada; correspondence, Queen's University Archives; letter to W.D. Lighthall, McGill University Library.
Image creditsLine drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia).
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.