There are times when the absence of information really stands out. Often the records about the women in our communities are lost in their marital status, their identities reduced to Mrs. So-and-So, the daughter of, the mother of, and then the Widow of.
When I was doing research on the women of Emily Township, over and over again in the census records, I kept seeing the notation “Last whatever name, Widow”. No given name, just Widow. The men however, were noted with their given names. All of the other census data stayed the same – describing the property, their religion, their children, their livestock, but the women, as head of household, were just, “Widow”.
“Holroyd Widow”
In the surviving index to the 1841 Emily Township census, the head of this household appears simply as “Holroyd Widow”, while in the 1826 and 1830 Census records we see her husband William fully named. Other records noted William as a successful, thriving pioneer farmer and major land-clearer once he came to Canada. Prior to leaving England in 1820, his occupation of “cloth drawer” was listed, a highly skilled textile worker. It was a significant change to become a farmer, working to clear the land at Concession 3, Lot 20 in Emily Township. The 1841 census records show 4 males over the age of 16, 3 females over the age of 16, 2 horses, 2 cows and 4 other livestock, but not her name.
Let me introduce you to Mary Hanson. Born between 1778-1782 in Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1802, she married William Holroyd at St. Peter’s, Leeds. The family emigrated to Upper Canada around 1820, with their children Stephen N., Mary, Eliza, and William. Their first son, also named Stephen, passed within his first year in 1809. Their youngest child, William, was just a year when they made the crossing. After arriving in Upper Canada, settling in Emily Township, the family grew to include James and Henry.
William died in 1839, leaving the substantial acreage already under cultivation, their large family, and Mary to carry on and manage the farm, herself in her late fifties or early sixties. The record does not say the farm disappeared or that another man assumed the running of it. Maintaining an established farm was substantial economic work. She inherited responsibility, not merely a marital condition. She was a landholder and the continuing occupant of that Emily farm during the extraordinarily difficult first generation of settlement.
Mary Hanson Holroyd died August 21, 1862, in her eighties, and she was certainly much more to her family and her community than the label of “Widow”. By recovering other records, we can restore the name the census omitted: Mary Hanson Holroyd. In other communities, however, the woman behind the word “widow” is harder to recover—even when the work she performed remained plainly visible.
“Mrs. Joseph Goulais”
Imagine the joy of a new marriage, you build your life, have 3 children, are married nearly two decades and suddenly your husband decides that the family will open a new family enterprise: the Rockland House resort hotel in Bobcaygeon. It was operated by the Goulais family, from 1882 for several years.
Image Courtesy of Kawartha Lakes Public Library
There is so much evidence of Joseph Goulais and his life. He was born in Canada in 1843 and moved to Verulam Township in 1855. He married his wife likely in 1864-1865, as their first child Sarah Jane Goulais was born in 1866. Two more daughters, Clara and Katherine, followed. Joseph had big dreams and commissioned the building of the Rockland House resort hotel at the junction of the Pigeon and Sturgeon Lakes. It opened in Bobcaygeon in 1882. It was easy to find him.
So here we have a wonderful young family, husband and wife, three young daughters, and just a year or so later, in 1883, tragedy struck and Joseph died at the age of 40. Records are unclear about the cause of death.
His wife carried on as the hotelkeeper, keeping the Rockland running for several more years before finally selling to Harvey Thompson. I found evidence of their daughters’ marriages, the births of grandchildren – one even named for his grandfather, Joseph Goulais Kilmer. His name lived on… and throughout it all, I could find nothing of her early life. She was simply and always referred to as “Mrs. Joseph Goulais”, or the widow of Joseph Goulais.
Victoria Warder, March 28, 1884
A year after his death, the advertisements for Rockland House still carried his name “Joseph Goulais, Proprietor”. She carried on business, raised her daughters, sold property, and lived well into her senior years. At some point after she sold the hotel she moved to Lindsay. A June 11, 1908 newspaper item notes “Mrs. Goulais, of Lindsay, was the guest of her daughter, Mrs. M. B. Brandon, over Sunday.”
Still Mrs. Goulais.
And then I found her…
Her name is Ann. She was born in Ontario in June of 1835, and finally in the 1911 census, at the age of 76, the document names her. Ann. I still don’t know her maiden name, but now at least, I can call her Ann.
“Wife of the Late John Morison, M. P.”
Agnes Smith came to Victoria County from Greenock, Scotland, in 1852. She married John Morison, a Woodville merchant, postmaster, reeve and the Liberal MP for Victoria North from 1867 until 1872. He died on December 5, 1873, aged 55.
Following Confederation, John Morison became the first federal Member of Parliament for Victoria North. To suit his new position, John Morison commissioned a new home to be built at 145 King Street in Woodville. John Morison had been a successful merchant and that continued on. He also did business from his home, acting in his capacity as an M. P. and handed out land grant documents to Scottish Immigrants from his front parlour.
“Residence to be erected for John Morison, M.P.—Smith & Gemmell, Architects.”
Architect Plans, courtesy of the Beaver River Museum, Beaverton
The plans are not merely an illustration of her husband’s status. They let us ask what happened inside the house after he died—when it became the home and perhaps the working base of a woman managing property, conducting business, raising an adopted child and contributing to local improvements after her husband’s untimely death.
After John’s death, an 1880s biographical directory recorded her as:
“MORISON, MRS. J., wife of the late John Morison, M.P. Resides on Lot 15, Con. 15, and owns 250 acres, worth $20,000.”
The 1881 County Atlas lists her occupation/status explicitly as:
“Widow of John Morison, M. P.”
That is not a dependent woman of uncertain means. Agnes controlled a considerable property holding. Yet the directory did not call her a landowner, farmer, proprietor or merchant. Its opening identification was still her relationship to a dead man.
The public record called her a widow. Her own records show what she actually did.
“NEW GOODS OPENED MONTHLY AT MRS. A. MORISON’S.”
The story here is not simply that Agnes Smith married an MP and later occupied his impressive house. After John Morison died, she remained a substantial landowner, mother to her adopted daughter, operated a Woodville retail business and contributed financially to community infrastructure—while formal records continued to define her principally as “wife of the late John Morison, M.P.”
Two separate Woodville Advocate advertisements promote goods at “Mrs. A. Morison’s.” One advertises “New Spring Prints”; another announces “New Fall Goods,” including first-class winceys and hoop skirts. “Mourning prints” is an especially poignant detail in this particular article. A woman repeatedly defined in public records by her own widowhood was selling the fabrics through which other women publicly expressed theirs.
Both use the repeated style of “Mrs. A. Morison”. In an era when a married woman—even a widow—would ordinarily have been identified using her husband’s initial, the expected form was “Mrs. J. Morison.” The appearance of her own initial was not a casual typographical choice. Agnes was deliberately presenting herself to the community as Mrs. A. Morison.
Woodville Advocate, January 7, 1884
Woodville Advocate, September 1, 1884
Agnes is no longer merely “the widow of John Morison, M.P.” She is a Scottish immigrant, mother by adoption, property owner, merchant, and contributor to her community —a woman making deliberate decisions about how she wants herself to be known in the community. No longer Mrs. J. Morison, she has chosen to be seen as herself. It is a subtle but telling detail: Agnes was a woman claiming her own identity and accomplishments, while the public records continued to relegate her to remain in her dead husband’s shadow.
Did she have to insist upon it? We cannot know. But the printer did not arrive at “Mrs. A. Morison” by following convention.
Mary, Ann and Agnes did not live the same life. One carried on an Emily Township farm, another operated a Bobcaygeon hotel, and another controlled property, sold goods and contributed to the development of Woodville. “Widow” tells us something that happened to their husbands. It tells us almost nothing about who these women were, what they did, or what happened next. That is the history we have to recover.