Edna Jaques

Born: Jan­u­a­ry 17/18, 1891, Col­ling­wood, On­tar­io, Ca­na­da.
Died: Sep­tem­ber 9, 1979, Wil­low­dale, On­tar­io, Ca­na­da.
Buried: Trin­i­ty Unit­ed Church cem­e­te­ry, Col­ling­wood, On­tar­io, Ca­na­da.

Daughter of Charles Adolph­us and Ma­ry El­len Don­o­hue Jacques, Ed­na grew up in Brier­crest, near Moose Jaw, Sas­kat­che­wan. She be­gan writ­ing verse as a teen­age­r, her first ef­forts ap­pear­ing in the Moose Jaw Times. After fin­ish­ing her stu­dies in the pub­lic schools, she moved to Cal­ga­ry where she wrote a po­et­ic re­sponse to In Flan­ders Fields, which was read at the ded­i­ca­tion of the Tomb of the Un­known Sol­dier in Wash­ing­ton, DC. This vault­ed her in­to the pub­lic eye, and the ed­it­or of the Cal­gary Her­ald of­fered to pay her way to the un­i­ver­si­ty. But she had the tra­vel bug, and in­stead went to Van­couver, where she worked in a hos­pi­tal, and as a sten­o­graph­er and wait­ress be­fore be­com­ing a jour­nal­ist for the Van­cou­ver Pro­vinc­es. She mar­ried Will­iam Er­nest Ja­mie­son, No­vem­ber 21, 1921, and they they moved to a farm near Prince Al­bert, Sas­kat­che­wan. She and her daughter Joyce later to Victoria, where she worked as a sten­og­raph­er and wrote ar­ti­cles and po­ems for news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines.

In World War II, Jacques worked in a fac­to­ry for a time, and on the War Time Pric­es and Trade Board. Her lit­er­a­ry cir­cle in­clud­ed Nell­ie Mc­Clung and Mil­dred Val­ley Thorn­ton. Mc­Clung was in­stru­men­tal in the pub­li­ca­tion of her book, My Kitch­en Win­dow. By the time of her death, Jacques’ po­e­try had sold a quar­ter mil­lion co­pies. Her works include:

In Flanders Now, 1919
Wide Ho­ri­zons, cir­ca 1932
Drifting Soil, 1934
My Kitch­en Win­dow, 1935
Dreams in Your Heart, 1937
Beside Still Wa­ters, 1939
Britons Awake, 1940
Aunt Hat­tie’s Place, 1941
Roses in De­cem­ber, 1944
Back Door Neigh­bors, 1946
Hills of Home, 1948
Verses for You, cir­ca 1945
Fireside Po­ems, 1950
The Gold­en Road, 1953
Belle Plain Dis­trict His­to­ry, 1966
The Best of Ed­na Jacques, 1966
Uphill All the Way, 1977
Prairie Born, Prair­ie Bred: Poetic Re­flec­tions of a Pioneer, cir­ca 1979

Cyber Hymnal