====== Dumbrille, Dorothy ====== (25 Sept. 1897-11 Nov. 1981), author. (Mrs J.T. Smith, Dorothy Smith, but she wrote under the name of Dorothy Dumbrille) Born at Crysler, Ont. Parents: Rev. Rupert John Dumbrille (Venerable Archdeacon Dumbrille), an Anglican clergyman, and his wife Minnie Fulton. Minnie Fulton was the daughter of Oscar Fulton, MP for Stormont, and was a cousin of the second Mrs John A. (“Cariboo”) Cameron. Dorothy Dumbrille attended Kemptville High School, and a business college in Philadelphia. From 1916 to 1921, she worked for the Dept. of Militia and Defence, Ottawa. She began writing at this time but did not resume it till World War II. From 1921 to 1924, she worked for Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company, Philadelphia. She was married on 27 Dec. 1924 to J.T. Smith, who was at that time a science teacher in the Alexandria High School and who was afterwards for many years the principal of the school. A few days after the marriage Mrs Smith arrived in Alexandria, which was to be her home for the remainder of her life. As the author Dorothy Dumbrille, Mrs Smith’s writings included histories, short stories and radio plays, but she first attracted public attention as a poet. Her poetry was popular during World War II, especially as a voice for women’s loyalty to the war cause and women’s endurance on the home front. The poems were often published individually in newspapers (e.g., Ottawa //Citizen// 16 Sept. 1944) and other sources, but were published also in her volumes of poetry //We Come! We Come!// (1941), //Last Leave// (1942), //Watch the Sun Rise!// (1943), and //Stairway to the Stars// (1946). Her novel //Deep Doorways// was serialized in the //Montreal Standard //(1941) //and// in the Cornwall //Standard-Freeholder// (1946-1947) and was issued in book form in 1947. The novel is set west of Cornwall, but it has GC passages. Another novel, //All This Difference// (1945, 1963), explores Scots-French relations in Alexandria. Dorothy Dumbrille remembered, “I lent the manuscript to one of the teachers to read and she said if I got it published Jim [J.T. Smith] would be run out of town to which Jim replied to me that if he did have to leave there were plenty of situations in Western Ontario and he would go… The day it [//All This Difference//] came out in the stores I did not know whether the Fr. Canadians or the English neighbours would shoot me.” (letter of 17 Sept. 1975 to present editor ) Dorothy Dumbrille’s novel //O Clouds Unfold//, set west of Cornwall, was serialized in the Cornwall //Standard-Freeholder// in 1949 but it was not reissued in book form. She wrote two books of GC history, //Up and Down the Glens// (1954) and //Braggart in My Step// (1956). These anecdotal collections have always been widely known and highly regarded throughout the continent-wide GC connection. Likely to last, they have been mentioned in the documentation of many scholarly works. They are all the more commendable through having been compiled at a time when relatively little was being written on the history of GC (which is true, even though interest in pioneer history and especially in genealogy remained intense at the popular level in GC). These volumes contain in well-organized and highly-accessible form a lot of material that would otherwise be difficult to retrieve today through library or archival research, or would have been lost outright. Little known and difficult to find are Dorothy Dumbrille’s //The Battle of Crysler’s Farm// (1967) and //A Boy at Crysler’s Farm// (1967 or 1968). She was a book reviewer for the //Globe and Mail// for some twenty years. She also did paintings. She belonged to the Ontario-St. Lawrence Development Commission (later called the St. Lawrence Parks Commission). She gave her papers to Queen’s University. From 1962 she was troubled by ill health, and her last years were a battle with illness. At this time she gave up most writing, but she continued to “paint pictures of the Glengarry countryside.” (letter of 7 Feb. 1977 to Ewan Ross) Dorothy Dumbrille did not get an honorary degree from Queen’s University which some of her acquaintances encouraged her to believe was in preparation for her. However, she is the subject of a biographical sketch in Blain, Clements and Grundy’s //The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present// (Yale University Press, and Batsford Ltd [Eng.], 1990). As she came to be known more and more in daily life by the literary name of Dorothy Dumbrille, she became, presumably, in effect the first woman in Alexandria to “keep her own name” rather than use the surname of her husband, though even so her //Glengarry News// obituary was headed “Mrs. J. T. Smith Dies.” She was an Anglican , but in Alexandria attended the United Church. She and her husband are buried in the little Protestant cemetery on the Main Street of Alexandria. No surviving children, but local people remembered her long and all-but-fatal illness after a miscarriage or stillbirth. Stuart McCormick illustrated several of her works. ---- //Glengarry News// 18 Nov. 1981 (by Marguerite Seger, dau. of Max Seger; valuable for personal knowledge), //QAR// (May-June 1982) p. 32 * “Dorothy Dumbrille Papers Arranged and Described by Anne MacDermaid,” typescript, Queen's University Archives, Nov. 1976 * biog. details in her //Up and Down the Glens// and //Braggart in My Step// and on the dust jackets of her books * see //Bibliography of Glengarry// for more information on her publications * biog., tribute, by G.R. Arnott, //Glengarry Life// 1976 * Arthur Prévost, “Elle écrit pour l’unité de tous les Canadiens,” //Le Petit Journal// (21-28 fév. 1960), illust. * biog. sketch in //Des’Avirons// (Alexandria, Ont., 14 juillet 1972) * Edward S. St. John, “The Image of the French Canadian in Glengarry Literature,” //Ontario History// 65:2 (June 1973) * MacGillivray & Ross 539, 561-562 * Royce MacGillivray, //The Slopes of the Andes// (1990) 154, and ”The Historians of Glengarry,” //Glengarry Life// 1996 * “Books That Need Reprinting,” //GN// 4 Feb. 1971: editorial on her histories * Ian Bowering, “Women in History,” Hometown supplement to //Standard Freeholder// 13 Jan. 1996 (portrait) * her mother (Mrs R. J. Dumbrille): obituary //SFH// 31 May 1933, and //Up and Down the Glens//, 128 *interview with Dorothy Dumbrille taped 3 May 1978 for Multicultural History Society of Ontario *personal knowledge * letters from Dorothy Dumbrille to Royce MacGillivray and Ewan Ross in files of present editor * honorary degree: information from C.C. Fraser in conversation 12 May 1978 * takes part in play, United Church, Alexandria, //GN// 16 Feb. 1934 * //GN// 8 June 1945, receives letter of thanks from Eleanor Roosevelt for tribute to FDR; see //Bibliography of Glengarry// 66 *Archdeacon Dumbrille to retire, //SFH// 2 March 1948 [<6>]