Helena Jane Coleman (1860 - 1953)

Born 27 Apr 1860 in Newcastle, Durham, Canada West

Died 7 Dec 1953 at age 93 in Toronto, York, Ontario, Canada

Biography

Helena Jane Coleman was a Canadian music teacher, poet and writer.

Born in Newcastle, Ontario, she was the daughter of Francis Coleman and Jane Gould. She lived with her brother, A.P. Coleman, in Toronto^[1] and spent summer holidays at their cottage in the Thousand Islands.

Coleman was educated at Ontario Ladies’ College, Whitby, where she received the Gold Medal in Music, and became the Head of its Music Department (1880–1892). She took a one-year leave of absence to pursue post-graduate studies in music in Berlin, Germany. Coleman contributed poems to a large number of Canadian and American journals. She was a member of the Author’s Society, the Canadian Author’s Association, the Rose Society, and the University Women’s Club in Toronto. She did not publish under her own name until the release of Songs and Sonnets in 1906. Her short stories and articles continued to appear under pseudonyms long afterwards.

She died, unmarried, in Toronto in 1953 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ "Canada Census, 1901," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHPS-Y9G : 23 February 2021), Helena Coleman in household of Arthur Coleman, York (west/ouest), Ontario, Canada; citing p. 5, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
2. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89079998/helena-jane-coleman: accessed 26 May 2023), memorial page for Helena Jane Coleman (27 Apr 1860–7 Dec 1953), Find A Grave: Memorial #89079998, citing Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Toronto Municipality, Ontario, Canada; Maintained by LMK (contributor 47573469).

• http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/collections/special_collections/f8_helena_coleman