Fanny the Writer: "Mother Amazed Us All."

Fanny’s writing demonstrates not only literacy but also talent. Her son George remarked,

Mother amazed us all. Within three or four years of her arrival in Canada, she was writing a series of articles for The Grain Growers’ Guide called ‘Mother’s Hens.’ These were chatty little stories on how to set hens and perform the many other little farm chores that were a woman’s lot on the prairie farm. With her reputation as a poultry authority well-established, she took to a wider field, that of public speaking. She gave the leading address to the Women’s Section of the Grain Growers’ Convention at Moose Jaw. The Free Press Weekly reported this talk with the heading: ‘Hens should cackle all winter, says pioneer poultry raiser of Saskatchewan.’ (Shepherd, 46)

Fanny wrote a regular column for the Grain Growers’ Guide (GGG), a journal published from 1908-1928 for the Prairie Grain Growers’ associations, along with several short stories that were published in the Guide, the Nor’-west Farmer, and the regional, British temperance magazine, Onward.

Source: George Shepherd, West of Yesterday. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966.