Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Bennett, Ethel Hume
Parallel form(s) of name
- Bennett, Ethel Hume Patterson
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1881-[1956]
History
Ethel Hume Patterson, born in 1881, attended the best girls' schools in Toronto. Although her mother died when Ethel was only ten, the ardent student carried on, studying at the Huron Street Public School, Bishop Strachan, and the Harbord Street Collegiate. Before, during, and after completing her BA from Victoria College, University of Toronto in 1905, Ethel taught for two years in Stanstead and Sarnia. She was employed as head teacher at Havergal Collegiate from 1908 until she retired to marry U of T classmate John Smith Bennett in 1916. Although Ethel was over forty when she began to publish, she evidently was a skilled writer during her younger years: her graduating 1905 yearbook described her as "a little girl for whom is predicted a big literary career." In her books, she depicted the girls she knew from her years as a student and teacher, and adapted the English genre of girls' school stories to distinctly Canadian settings. The geography and history of Georgian Bay form the backdrop of CAMP KEN-JOCKETY (1923); CAMP CONQUEROR (1928) relates the heroine's struggles with fears of the vast Canadian wilderness. In addition, Ethel selected and edited two collections of animal stories by Charles G.D. Roberts, THIRTEEN BEARS (1947) and FOREST FOLK (1949), and NEW HARVESTING (1938), a poetry anthology which presented many previously unknown writers.