BOOK LAUNCH SUCCESS AT THE CLINE HOUSE                                               

Dozens of people attended the very successful launch of Ginette Guy Mayer’s new book, The Women of SDG & Akwesasne, this week buying so many books that Ginette is ordering a reprint.

The title The Women of SDG & Akwesasne says it all.  This may be the first book written in SDG that encompasses all of the founding cultures, the famous and the common folk, and English and French in one text.

 The sub-title “True Stories of Extraordinary Lives,” lets the reader know that this book is not a typical history and it circumvents the error many historians make focussing only on “famous” people.  Instead Guy Mayer presents a cross section of mini-biographies of women from SDG from the arrival of the Loyalists to today.

 She wrote “The women whose stories are highlighted here did not change the world.  I did not intend to write just about women who were ‘First at…’  If some were, it was part of a broader context of their life.  Rather, the book is about women and choices.”

In taking this approach Guy Mayer provides an outline of two centuries plus of life in SDG, too often ignored by male historians, who write about politics, religion and war and instead highlights domestic life and the role women have played in making SDG what it is today.

In this work, Guy Mayer has also uncovered important historical figures such as Annie MacDonald Langstaff (1887 – 1975), the first woman to earn her degree as a lawyer in Quebec in 1914, but denied the right to take her final bar exams because she was a woman.  Followed by Morrisburg’s  Dr. Marion Hilliard (1902 – 58), who helped develop a simplified PAP test and was a strong advocate for early cancer screening and was instrumental in founding Toronto’s Cancer Centre in 1948, credited for saving the lives of many women.

 Ginette balances these exceptional women with others such as Ella May Parisien (1885 – 1985) who lost an arm in an accident when she was young, but married to care for 18 children, 64 grand-children, see 115 great-grand -children and ten great-great grand-children by the time she was 95. 

Perhaps the most interesting story is that of the once enslaved Dorinda Baker ( 1759 – 1850), who was brought as a slave by Loyalist Major Gray to Gray’s Creek, and then granted permission to marry German mercenary Robert Baker, and then  freed by Gray’s son Robert when he accidentally drowned in 1804.

The book’s 21 vignettes provide a much needed female perspective on the development of SDG.  And for a mere $20 you not only acquire an important, informative and highly readable book, but also support the Cornwall and Area United Way from the proceeds of the sale.  I ask you, is there anywhere else you can receive such value for your money and support the community at the same time?

The book is available at Red Cart Books, Cornwall, and Dundas County Archives, Iroquois.  The ebook can be found on Amazon.  And if you want a signed copy, Ginette will have a table at Knox-St. Paul’s, Grand Bazaar on Nov. 16.  Price:  $20.

Finally, someone pinch me quick and remind me I am in Cornwall.  Four successful book events in as many months, Outstanding!

Photo 1 – Author Ginette Guy Mayer, SDG’ s leading contemporary female historian, has just handed a signed copy of her new book Women of SDG & Akwasane, to the region’s leading  modern male author and historian Stuart Lyall Manson. Photo 2 – When Ginette asked visual artist and member of the Cornwall Arts Hall of Fame, Rose Desnoyers if she would design the cover of her book, Rose jumped at the challenge and within days submitted four proposals.  Rose is seen here holding the meaningful cover the Ginette and she selected for the The Women of SDG & Akwesasne