Fonds 32 - Ethel Mary Granger Bennett fonds

Ethel Mary Granger Bennett (1891-1988) was a teacher, academic and writer. She was born in Shroton, Dorsetshire, England, the daughter of James Henry Granger and Julia Ann Hutchings. She married Harold Bennett in 1919. She died in Toronto, Ontario.

Granger Bennett was raised in Collingwood, Ontario. After graduating from Collingwood Collegiate Institute, she taught briefly at a nearby school before entering Victoria College, Toronto, in the autumn of 1911. She received a B.A. in modern languages in 1915 and a Ph.D. in French literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1931. She taught at several colleges: as an instructor in modern languages at Ontario Ladies College, Whitby (1915-19); as a professor of French and German at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania (1922-28); and as a special lecturer in French at Victoria College (1945-47).

Granger Bennett wrote several books of historical fiction featuring women in 17th-century New France which were published by Ryerson Press: Land for Their Inheritance (1955), A Straw in the Wind (1958), and Short of the Glory (1960), which won the Ryerson Fiction Award for that year. She contributed short stories for children in Discovery, a magazine for children published by the United Church of Canada. She also contributed entries for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography in the early 1960’s. After her husband died in 1973, she continued to write stories for friends and relatives until her death.