Mary A. Wawrykow fonds
Mary A. Wawrykow, a prominent judge and community leader of Winnipeg, was the first woman of Ukrainian origin to practice law in Canada, and only the third Manitoba woman. She was born in Wakaw, Saskatchewan in 1911. Her parents Mykyta and Anna Zakus had emigrated from Ukraine and settled on the Canadian prairies. Mary graduated from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law in 1934. She started practicing law in Gimli, Manitoba in 1940. Prior to that, from 1936-1940, she was employed in the Attorney General's Dept. In 1942 she and her husband moved to Winnipeg where she became a prominent figure in the law community. In 1955 she became president of the Women Lawyers Association of Manitoba and was named “Women of the Year” by the Winnipeg Tribune. In 1959 she ran for the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba in the provincial constituency of Inkster. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1965. The Roblin government appointed her a part-time judge of the Winnipeg juvenile and family court in 1968 and in 1975 Mary was appointed a judge responsible for the Provincial Judges’ Court of Winnipeg (North). She was very active in many Ukrainian Canadian organizations. The digitized material from the Mary Wawrykow fonds consists of photographs of Mary Wawrykow's family, of several Ukrainian women organizations, and of St. Joseph's Parish.
Spencer Family fonds
Percy Spencer was born in England and came to Canada in the 1880s. He homesteaded in the Russell area, where he and his wife had seven children. One of his daughters, Lucy, became an R.N. in 1931. Her diaries are particularly interesting for what they reveal about women's education and careers in the first part of the twentieth century. Scholars in the fields of Women's Studies and History will find useful information in these diaries. Historians will also find the diaries kept by Percy Spencer himself very useful. He wrote consistently and over a long period of time on the difficulties of homesteading. The digitized material from the Spencer Family fonds consists of diaries and account books of Percy Spencer between 1884 and 1886, which detailed an English immigrant family's homesteading experience in the Russell, Manitoba area. Also included are diaries written by Lucy Spencer, which reflect the status of women's education in the early-1900s, her nursing certificate, and photographs of her graduating class.
Sybil Shack fonds
Sybil Shack was born in Winnipeg on 1 April 1911. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a B.A. in 1929 and attended Normal School to become a teacher the following year. Due to a lack of teaching positions, she supported herself writing editorials for Weekly News, the Independent Labour Council newspaper, taking general assignments for the Western Jewish News, marking papers or giving private tutorials. She also found placements as a substitute teacher before finally securing a job at Foxwarren, Manitoba. After three years in rural Manitoba she returned to teach in Winnipeg. In 1945 Shack returned to the University of Manitoba and received a M.Ed. degree the following year. Between 1950-1952, she took post-graduate courses at the Ontario College of Education. She was principal of several schools starting with Sargeant Park School in 1948 and retired as the principal of Kelvin High in 1976. For thirty years she was involved in school broadcasts over television and radio with the C.B.C. In 1969 she received an Honorary Doctorate (LLD) from the University of Manitoba. Shack is the author of several books. Shack was an active board member for several organizations and was the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Order of Canada and Provost of the Buffalo Hunt. Shack died on January 22, 2004. The digitized material from the Sybil Shack fonds includes textual and photographic records pertaining to Shack's teaching career, her CBC educational broadcasts, and her writing and research on women and education. A video of a discussion with Shack and other female educators is also digitized as well as documents pertaining to her Russian immigrant father, correspondence and articles relating to immigrant children, an article on antisemitism, notes on Jewish refugee children from the Second World War, and photographs of her family adapting to life in Canada.