William Stewart Dickie

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-193260
• Occupation: 1883, Puslinch Twp., Wellington Co., Ontario, Canada; farmer

William — Hannah Frances Shepherd Hall. Hannah was born 1860; died 13 May 1887, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , New Hope Cemetery, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Interesting: life story, education, honoured
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-200229
• Residence: 1891, South Dumfries Twp., Brant Co., Ontario, Canada

Notes:

Educator Donalda Dickie (1883-1972) was born in Hespeler, Ontario. After the death of their mother in 1887, Donalda and her two younger brothers were cared for by their paternal grandmother and great-grandmother in South Dumfries, Brant, Ontario. During this time, Donalda often assisted with child care and household tasks in neighbours' homes. She completed elementary schooling in Souris, Manitoba, finished high school in Moose Jaw, went to Normal School in Regina, and taught for two years in Westview, Saskatchewan. She finally returned to Ontario to complete her senior matriculation at Galt Collegiate, thereafter entering Queen's University as an "extramural" student (distance education) in 1906. Although she had been pursuing a baccalaureate degree, Donalda was awarded an MA in Humanities from Queen's in 1910 because of her academic excellence. Throughout her life she held teaching positions at a number of institutions, including the Practice School affiliated with the Calgary Normal School, the Provincial Normal School in Camrose, Alberta, Edmonton Normal School, and Calgary Normal School. During this time, she also enrolled in post-graduate courses at Columbia and in 1916 began a B.Litt program at Somerville College, Oxford, even though women could not supplicate for degrees there until 1920. With a brother killed at Vimy Ridge and a fiancé failing to recover in Winnipeg from being gassed at the front lines, Donalda left Oxford and returned to her post at Camrose in 1917. Her continued studies at Somerville in 1921 once again met hindrance when her supervisor died. She again taught until the 1926-27 school year, when she finally transferred her studies to the University of Toronto, successfully defending her thesis and earning a PhD in History in 1929. This institution also awarded her an honorary LLD in 1952. She often taught summer school at various institutions, including Queen's University in 1944. An advocate of child-centred progressive education, she pioneered the enterprise method of teaching. She published many textbooks and from 1937 edited THE CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE. Also supportive of gender equality and multiculturalism, her works often sought to demonstrate the importance of both men and women's roles within a community, and to challenge racist stereotypes, especially those concerning Canada's Aboriginal peoples. During the Second World War, the government recruited her to compile remedial readings for soldiers. Her history of Canada, THE GREAT ADVENTURE (1950), won the Governor General's Award for juvenile literature. After a long career as a leading educator in Alberta, Dr. Dickie retired in 1944 and eventually settled in Vancouver. At the time of her death in 1972, a history of the Commonwealth nations remained unfinished.

Dickie, Donalda James. (2018). SFU Digitized Collections. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/ceww-617/dickie-donalda-james

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When the Alberta Teachers' Association awarded an honorary membership to Donalda Dickie in 1961, it recognized an extraordinary woman's 60 years of service to education. Dickie had earlier won the Governor General's Award for juvenile literature (1950) and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto (1952).

Dickie claimed to be "just a teacher," but she was an influential educator. The intersection of her life with Alberta's early days reminds us how important teachers and public education are in building strong, socially conscious societies.

Born in Ontario in 1883 and orphaned early, Dickie migrated west with her grandmother, to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In 1901, she attended the Regina Normal School, with H. C. Newland, who also had an illustrious career as ATA president (1920\endash 22), as the first editor of the ATA Magazine and as a leader in educational reform in Alberta. Newland. Dickie taught in a rural school for two years and then attended Queen's University (with William Aberhart, who became Alberta's premier in 1935). She won gold medals in history and English, and in 1910 was granted the advanced MA.

Someone in Alberta recognized Dickie's talents, and she was recruited to work in the Calgary Normal School. In 1912, she helped set up the Camrose Normal School, and over the next 30 years she taught in each of Alberta's normal schools, preparing elementary school teachers in various subjects. She was respected by her students and extolled for her sense of humour. A poem in the 1924/25 Calgary Normal School yearbook talks about Dickie as a strict teacher but goes on to say:

Who calls us all children dear?
Whose voice is it we love to hear?
To us it seems, ah, very clear.
Miss D.

After continuing her education at Columbia University and the University of Oxford, Dickie earned a PhD in history from the University of Toronto in 1930. This made her one of Canada's best-educated normal school instructors.

Dickie was also a textbook author. While teaching, she realized that the history texts used in schools were "literally incomprehensible" for young readers. She produced eight student-friendly readers for elementary schools. Soon, she was writing textbooks in various subjects, producing more than 60 over her lifetime.

Textbooks shape what teachers teach and what students learn. The popularity of Dickie's books gave her interpretation of the world a special legitimacy. She encouraged tolerance through her appreciation of diversity, multiculturalism and the strengths of Canada's Aboriginal population. She promoted community values and argued that a nation should look after its weak and poor. Through her writing for children, Dickie helped form the Canadian identity.

In the 1930s, Dickie established Alberta as a leader in child-centred, activity-oriented education. She wrote a teacher education textbook, and as D. J. Oviatt (a Department of Education colleague) observed, she "did more than any other single person to make the implementation of the activity movement in Alberta education a reality."

This glimpse into the life of Donalda Dickie does not do justice to her contributions, which also included developing readers featuring Aboriginal children as protagonists (an early example of inclusive curriculum materials), editing a children's magazine and writing delightful children's fiction. Dickie's leadership in education in Alberta made her an exemplar. She deserves to be remembered.

This is an abridged version of an article by Rebecca Priegert Coulter that originally appeared in the ATA Magazine 86: 2 (2005). Her article "Getting Things Done: Donalda Dickie and Leadership Through Practice" appeared in the Canadian Journal of Education 29 (2006).

Pages - Donalda Dickie . (2018). Teachers.ab.ca. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20Magazine/Volume-93/Number-2/Pages/Donalda-Dickie.aspx

Other Events:

• Name: Ormiston Dickie
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-200230
• Residence: 1891, South Dumfries Twp., Brant Co., Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1915, Maple Creek, , Saskatchewan, Canada

David — Myra Aretta Orr. Myra was born 30 Dec 1891, Greer Depot, Greenville, South Carolina, United States; died 7 Aug 1978, Maple Ridge, BC; was buried , New Hope Cemetery, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Military: WW1
• Misfortune: killed in WW1
• Name: Hall Dickie
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-200228
• Residence: 1891, South Dumfries Twp., Brant Co., Ontario, Canada
• Occupation: 1915, , Saskatchewan, Canada; tinsmith