Ethel Mary Granger Bennett
Introduction
Fonds:
#32
Title:
Ethel Mary Granger Bennett fonds
Dates of Material:
1926–1990
Extent:
45.5 cm of textual records
Biographical Sketch
Ethel Mary Granger Bennett (1891–1988) was a teacher, academic and writer. She was born in Shroton, Dorsetshire, England, the daughter of James Henry Granger and Julia Ann Hutchings. She married Harold Bennett in 1919. She died in Toronto, Ontario.
Granger Bennett was raised in Collingwood, Ontario. After graduating from Collingwood Collegiate Institute, she taught briefly at a nearby school before entering Victoria College, Toronto, in the autumn of 1911. She received a B.A. in modern languages in 1915 and a Ph.D. in French literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1931. She taught at several colleges: as an instructor in modern languages at Ontario Ladies College, Whitby (1915–19); as a professor of French and German at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania (1922–28); and as a special lecturer in French at Victoria College (1945–47).
Granger Bennett wrote several books of historical fiction featuring women in 17th-century New France which were published by Ryerson Press: Land for Their Inheritance (1955), A Straw in the Wind (1958), and Short of the Glory (1960), which won the Ryerson Fiction Award for that year. She contributed short stories for children in Discovery, a magazine for children published by the United Church of Canada. She also contributed entries for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography in the early 1960s. After her husband died in 1973, she continued to write stories for friends and relatives until her death.
Custodial history
The custodial history is unknown.
Scope and content
The fonds consists of records pertaining to Granger’s activities as a writer and to her personal life. It includes drafts and notes of fictionalized stories about the lives of girls and women in early French Canada, travel diaries of trips mostly to Europe and various regions in Canada (1926–1981), several short stories, personal files, work file and, an item produced in 1990 which incorporates extracts from a much earlier diary.
The fonds is arranged in four series:
- Series 1: Personal files
- Series 2: Professional files
- Series 3: Literary files
- Series 4: Files about Granger Bennett
Note(s)
Source of supplied title proper
Title based on contents of the fonds.
Extent
The fonds is stored in 4 boxes.
Immediate source of acquisition
Acquired from Margaret Bennett, a niece of the author, in 1988 and 1989. There were further accruals from Jacqueline M. Clarke, in 1994, and from an unknown source in 1996.
Language of material
English
Access conditions
Restrictions on access: No restrictions on access.
Finding aids
See Scope and Content
Accruals
No further accruals are expected.
Access points
Provenance access points: Bennett, Ethel Mary Granger, 1891–1988