Saunders, Margaret Marshall
Writer ~ 1861-1947
Margaret Marshall Saunders was born in 1861 in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. She grew up there and in Halifax and later attended boarding schools in Scotland and France. Returning to Canada, she taught school and pursued her interest in writing. In her career she wrote twenty-five books but none achieved the acclaim of Beautiful Joe, which sold internationally and was translated into eighteen languages including Esperanto and Braille. It is based on the story she heard while visiting her brother in Meaford, Ontario about a dog who was horribly mistreated by a cruel owner and rescued by a Meaford miller, as told through the thoughts of the dog. The story, published in 1893, her second book, touched the hearts of many, and launched a successful career for Saunders. It was the first Canadian book to sell one million copies, and earned her an award by the American Humane Society. Saunders was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Acadia University in 1911, a C.B.E. from the King in 1934, and a medal from the Societe Protectice des Animaux in Paris, France the same year. Her story Beautiful Joe was made into a film in 1946. In 1994, the Meaford Town Council made Beautiful Joe a town symbol and dedicated a park adjacent to the pink frame house that had become the dog’s home after his rescue. The park is now a historical site and has been commemorated with monuments honouring the memory of Beautiful Joe, Margaret Marshall Saunders, and dogs of service and companionship. In a 1992 biography of Saunders by Elizabeth Waterston, she states: “her other books are described as adult romances and social problems fiction… Saunder’s commitment was not to animal causes but to such other issues as the abolition of child labour, slum clearance, better playgrounds, and greater recognition of the role of women in society.” Margaret Marshall Saunders travelled throughout Europe and America and settled in Toronto with her sister and lived in a house full of animals . She died in 1947, at the age of 86.
Additional information: Beautiful Joe Heritage Society website: www.beautifuljoe.org.
Sharon Cake Ed. Eminent Women of Grey County, Grey County Historical Society, Richardson, Bond, Wright Ltd., Owen Sound, 1977.
Dorothy Vick, From Quill to Ballpoint, RBW Graphics, Owen Sound, 1988.
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