Evah McKowan, from a 1922 publication

Evah May McKowan (February 6, 1885 – February 22, 1962) was a Canadian writer.

Early life

Evah May Cartwright was born at Carlisle, Ontario, the daughter of George Cartwright and Clara Cartwright. As a teen she moved west with her parents and three younger sisters, and lived much of her adulthood in Cranbrook, British Columbia.[1] She remembered skiing with her students when she was a teacher in 1903. Cartwright said that she and her sister were the first girls in the area of Kimberley, British Columbia to ski.[2]

Career

McKowan published two novels. Janet of Kootenay (1919)[3] is about a young single woman who buys and runs a farm named "Arcadia" in British Columbia, told in a series of letters to her friend back east.[4] Janet Kirk, the title character, eventually marries a disabled veteran of World War I, making the book a "surprisingly progressive" and timely romance in its day.[5] McKowan's second book, Graydon of the Windermere (1920)[6] is a "bright breezy story of adventure and love",[7] about a Toronto man who moves west.[1]

She served on the British Columbia provincial committee of the Canadian Authors Association,[8] and addressed the association's annual convention in 1937.[9] She took over as president of her husband's business, Cranbrook Sash and Door, upon his death in 1947. She sold the business in 1956.[10]

Personal life

Evah Cartwright married lumberman Harry A. McKowan in 1907; they had four daughters.[11] She was widowed in 1947, and died in Cranbrook on February 22, 1962.[12]

References

  1. 1 2 Mike Selby, "Cranbrook's Evah McKowan: 'Janet of Kootenay'" Cranbrook Daily Townsman (November 28, 2014).
  2. ↑ Chic Scott, Powder Pioneers: Ski Stories from the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains (Rocky Mountain Books 2005): 114. ISBN 9781894765640
  3. ↑ Evah McKowan, Janet of Kootenay: Life, Love and Laughter in an Arcady of the West (George H. Doran Company 1919).
  4. ↑ Florian Freitag, The Farm Novel in North America: Genre and Nation in the United States, English Canada, and French Canada, 1845-1945 (Boydell and Brewer 2013): 154-155. ISBN 9781571135377
  5. ↑ Amy Tector, "'Mother, Lover, Nurse': The Reassertion of Conventional Gender Norms in Fictional Representations of Disability in Canadian Novels of the First World War" in Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw, eds., A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland during the First World War (UBC Press 2012): 308-310.ISBN 9780774822596
  6. ↑ Evah McKowan, Graydon of the Windermere (George H. Doran Company 1920).
  7. ↑ "Evah McKowan" Winnipeg Tribune (November 19, 1921): 39. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  8. ↑ Lyn Harrington, Syllables of Recorded Time: The Story of the Canadian Authors Association (Dundurn 1981): 51. ISBN 9781459713628
  9. ↑ "Steam Roller Inauguration of Confederation Omitted from Canadian Histories" Winnipeg Tribune (June 29, 1937): 2. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  10. ↑ D. M. Wilson, "Lumbering in Cranbrook" The Virtual Crow's Nest Highway (February 16, 2016).
  11. ↑ "Eva May McKowan" in Charles Whately Parker, Barnet M. Greene, eds., Who's Who in Canada (1922): 240.
  12. ↑ "Kootenay Pioneer Dies, 74". Calgary Herald. Cranbrook, British Columbia. February 24, 1962. p. 26. Retrieved July 14, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
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