Keith, Marion
Novelist ~ 1876-1961
Mary Esther Miller was born in 1876, at Rugby near Lake Simcoe. Mary studied to be a teacher in Toronto and taught in Orillia between 1899 and 1906. While there she was a regular columnist in the “Teacher’s Monthly” and contributed to local Presbyterian Sunday School publications. Mary Esther Miller wrote under the pen name “Marion Keith”, her first novel, Duncan Polite appearing in 1905, followed by The Silver Maple in 1906. She married a Presbyterian minister in 1909, becoming Mrs. Donald Campbell MacGregor. Her husband’s ministry postings took them to Toronto, then to Calgary and back to Toronto. Her life was dominated by church and home work, though amidst all, she managed to steal moments to write her manuscripts freehand, later to be painstakingly revised up to twenty times before her satisfaction was achieved. Her themes were rurally set, often with a spiritual nature including historical treatments and political forays. She was a serene, good-natured person with a good sense of humour, a wealth of experiences and keen observation, which lent realism to her characterizations of real people and universal themes; her stories were told in simple, honest language. In London, Ontario, local women of the St. Andrew’s Parish formed the “Marion Keith Club”, raising money for church-related projects. When her husband retired in 1940, the couple moved to Sydenham Township. He died in 1946, and she moved to her sister’s home in Owen Sound. Marion Keith was a member of Division Street United Church and active in the Senior Women’s Missionary Society. In all she wrote 17 books and a motion picture screenplay, for most of which, Sydenham Township inspired the background. In 1951, her sister died and she moved to Toronto. In 1960, she moved back to Owen Sound and she died there in 1961 at the age of 90.
Additional information:
Dorothy Vick, From Quill to Ballpoint, RBW Graphics, Owen Sound, 1988.
Sharon Cake Ed. Eminent Women of Grey County, Grey County Historical Society, Richardson, Bond, Wright Ltd., Owen Sound, 1977.
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