Evah McKowan
{{Short description|Canadian writer (1885–1962)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}}
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.Mike Selby, [http://www.cranbrooktownsman.com/opinion/cranbrooks-evah-mckowan-janet-of-kootenay/ "Cranbrook's Evah McKowan: 'Janet of Kootenay'"] Cranbrook Daily Townsman (November 28, 2014). 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.Chic Scott, [https://books.google.com/books?id=v8gBZNYK4qMC&dq=Evah+Cranbrook&pg=PA114 Powder Pioneers: Ski Stories from the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains] (Rocky Mountain Books 2005): 114. {{ISBN|9781894765640}}
Career
McKowan published two novels. Janet of Kootenay (1919)Evah McKowan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1wAeAAAAMAAJ&q=Evah+McKowan Janet of Kootenay: Life, Love and Laughter in an Arcady of the West] (George H. Doran Company 1919). 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.Florian Freitag, [https://books.google.com/books?id=B88VAgAAQBAJ&dq=Evah+McKowan&pg=PA154 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}} 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.Amy Tector, [https://books.google.com/books?id=OChrRPwO3MQC&dq=Evah+McKowan&pg=PA309 "'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}} McKowan's second book, Graydon of the Windermere (1920)Evah McKowan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1gAeAAAAMAAJ&q=Evah+McKowan Graydon of the Windermere] (George H. Doran Company 1920). is a "bright breezy story of adventure and love",[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13058874/evah_mckowan_1921/ "Evah McKowan"] Winnipeg Tribune (November 19, 1921): 39. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} about a Toronto man who moves west.
She served on the British Columbia provincial committee of the Canadian Authors Association,Lyn Harrington, [https://books.google.com/books?id=If9ooXhEVxkC&dq=Evah+McKowan&pg=PA51 Syllables of Recorded Time: The Story of the Canadian Authors Association] (Dundurn 1981): 51. {{ISBN|9781459713628}} and addressed the association's annual convention in 1937.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13059247/e_mckowan_addresses_canadian_authors/ "Steam Roller Inauguration of Confederation Omitted from Canadian Histories"] Winnipeg Tribune (June 29, 1937): 2. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} 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.D. M. Wilson, [http://www.crowsnest-highway.ca/cgi-bin/citypage.pl?city=cranbrook#8 "Lumbering in Cranbrook"] The Virtual Crow's Nest Highway (February 16, 2016).
Personal life
Evah Cartwright married lumberman Harry A. McKowan in 1907; they had four daughters.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTkzAAAAMAAJ&dq=Evah+May+McKowan&pg=PA240 "Eva May McKowan"] in Charles Whately Parker, Barnet M. Greene, eds., Who's Who in Canada (1922): 240. She was widowed in 1947, and died in Cranbrook on February 22, 1962.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55383751/kootenay-pioneer-dies-74/ |title=Kootenay Pioneer Dies, 74 |newspaper=Calgary Herald |location=Cranbrook, British Columbia |page=26 |date=1962-02-24 |access-date=2020-07-14 |via=Newspapers.com}}
References
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Category:20th-century Canadian women writers
Category:Canadian women novelists
Category:20th-century Canadian novelists
Category:Writers from Hamilton, Ontario