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PICKERING TOWNSHIP HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PATHMASTER
•WINTER EDITION VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2•


WHAT'S INSIDE

Louise Richardson Rorke, a Quaker descendant of the Richardson family of Pickering Township, wrote three of her popular youth novels while she was resident in Pickering Village in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Woodruffs were among the earliest settlers in Pickering Township and, as officeholders, entrepreneurs, and farmers, deserve some recognition as among the founders of the community.

In a letter to friends, Annie Hodgson, a former student at Pickering College reminisces about her resident years at school.

Alfred Bunker, railway engineer and naturalist, is remembered in an anecdote related by a longtime friend.

Names in the News: Louise Richardson Rorke:
****** Children's Author and Journalist *****

by Kyle Jolliffe

Illustration: Portrait of Louise Richardson Rorke, cl910, probably as principal of Thornbury Public school.


The front page of the Pickering News for Friday, 29 July 1949, recorded the death of Louise Richardson Rorke the preceding Saturday. It was said that she and her sister Jessie had come from Toronto some years earlier and had built a comfortable home in the northeast section of the village. This house still exists, much altered, at 19 Sherwood Road East, Ajax. The obituary noted that while she had been the editor of The Canadian Teacher, retiring from that position in 1945, she was better known for her youth novels Lefty (described as 'very popular'), Sugar Shanty, and Lefty's Adventures. A fourth book, Black Vic, was published in the fall of 1949.

Louise Rorke was born near Thornbury, Ontario (west of Collingwood and east of Meaford) on l7 August l878. Her father George Rorke had come to Grey County in the late 1840s, after his father's business in the Picton, Ontario area had failed. Louise's mother Elizabeth Richardson Rorke grew up in the Pickering area and during her childhood Louise frequently visited her many Richardson relatives in Pickering. A precious view of Louise Rorke's childhood comes from a diary she kept during one such visit to Pickering in 1889. A copy of this diary has been deposited in the Local History Room of the Pickering Central Library. She also drew upon childhood memories as well as family anecdotes for her story 'One Quaker Girl' about her grandmother Elizabeth Valentine's emigration from Ireland to Canada in 1832. This story was published in 1937 in The Canadian Countryman.

After teaching at a country school near Thornbury, Louise enrolled in teacher's college at the Ontario Normal College in Hamilton. After obtaining her teaching certificate, she taught at the Norwich, Ontario Public School from 1899-1907. From 1907 to 1910 she was the principal of the five-room Thornbury Public School. In September 1910 she became the Associate Editor of The Canadian Teacher.

Louise Rorke was a very prolific author. Besides her work for The Canadian Teacher and her children's books, she also wrote short stories, travel stories, local history, and devotional literature, which were published in various Canadian magazines. From 1936-1949 she was the editor of The Canadian Friend, the national magazine of Canadian Quakers. In 1920 Louise purchased from a relative for $250.00 a quarter-acre of land in
Pickering Village, upon which she built a summer cottage. It was evidently a special place for her, as she named it Innisfree, evidently after the popular poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree' by the Irish author William Butler Yeats. It therefore seems certain that her lyric poem 'Prayer for a Little Cottage' is about Innisfree. It is a beautiful benediction, full of vivid images of nature and heartfelt prayers for the residents of the cottage. This poem is part of a collection of verse published in 1921 by members of the Toronto Branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club.

In 1933 Louise Rorke and her sister Jessie left Toronto and moved permanently to Innisfree in Pickering. After their move to Pickering, both Louise and her sister took an active part in local activities. Louise was President of the local Women's Club, a member of the Pickering Women's Institute, a member of the United Church Women's Auxiliary and Women's Missionary Society, and taught a class of young women in the United Church Sunday School.

Rorke was someone who through her way of living and writings manifested to others a practical