Kate Simpson Hayes

Charles Bowman Simpson

(m. 1882, separated)

PartnerNicholas Flood DavinChildren4

Canadian writer (1856–1945)

Kate Simpson Hayes (née, Hayes; after first marriage, Simpson; after separation, Hayes; pen names, Mary Markwell, Elaine, Marka Wohl, Yukon Bill; 6 July 1856 - 15 January 1945) was a Canadian playwright, author, journalist, poet, teacher, milliner, and legislative librarian. She was a founding member of the Canadian Women's Press Club, and the first woman journalist in Western Canada.

Biography

Catherine Ethel Hayes was born in 1856, in Dalhousie, New Brunswick. Her parents were Patrick Hayes, a lumber merchant and storekeeper, and Anna Hagan Hayes, a school teacher.

A founding member of the Canadian Women's Press Club, she was the first woman journalist in the Canadian West.^[1]^[2] Hayes wrote for the Free Press, Winnipeg, and wrote poetry using the pen name Mary Markwell for the Regina, Saskatchewan Leader.^[3] She married Charles Bowman Simpson in 2 June 1882; they had two children before separating in 1889. She had a relationship with Nicholas Flood Davin, and they had two children.^[4] She was opposed to women being given the vote and she worked in the UK for a time encouraging other women to emigrate to Canada. She died in British Columbia in 1945.^[5] Her papers are housed at the Saskatchewan Archives, McGill University, and National Archives of Canada.^[2]

Personal life

Simpson had four children: Burke Hayes Simpson, Anna W Elaine ("Bonnie") Simpson, Henry Arthur Davin, and Agnes Agatha Davin.^[2]

Kate Simpson Hayes died in Victoria, British Columbia, 15 January 1945.^[5]

Selected works

Prairie pot-pourri
The legend of the West, 1908

References

^ Lewis 2006, p. 10.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Hayes, Kate Simpson". Simon Fraser University. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
^ Powell, Williams & University of Regina. Canadian Plains Research Center 1996.
^ "Hayes, Kate Simpson (a.k.a Mary Markwell) - City of Regina". www.regina.ca. Archived from the original on 10 August 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
^ ^a ^b Wishart 2004, p. 330.

Bibliography

Lewis, Norah L. (1 January 2006). Dear Editor and Friends: Letters from Rural Women of the North-West, 1900-1920. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-88920-732-5.
Powell, Barbara Pezalla; Williams, Myrna; University of Regina. Canadian Plains Research Center (1996). Piecing the Quilt: Sources for Women's History in the Saskatchewan Archives Board. University of Regina Press. ISBN 978-0-88977-090-4.
Wishart, David J. (2004). Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-4787-7.