Educator, civil servant, historian.
Born at Starbuck on 22 June 1902, the youngest in a family of six children of Mortin Otis Olsen (1858-1934) and Orpha Minerva Henry (1863-1943), she became a teacher and taught at Golden Valley School (?-?), Prairie View School (?-?), Cartwright School, and Dayton School (?-?). She later joined the federal civil service and worked for 30 years with Canada Manpower, retiring as Regional Coordinator of Women’s Employment for the Prairie Region. She served as Chair of Trades and Professions for the Manitoba Council of Women.
Active in her church, she was a member of St. Stephen’s Broadway United Church and Starbuck United Church. In 1931, she graduated from the Deaconess Program at Manitoba College and served as a Deaconess at Knox United Church in Calgary, first as a Deaconess Candidate (1931-1932), then as a Designated United Church of Canada Deaconess (1932-1936). She was also a member of the Business and Professional Women’s Club. In 1973, on behalf of the Starview Manor Society, she wrote a booklet entitled Starbuck Seedlings: A History of Starbuck and Vicinity.
She died unmarried at Winnipeg on 21 August 1984 and was buried in the Starbuck Cemetery.
Birth registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1911 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.
1931 Vox Wesleyanna, University of Winnipeg Archives, page 31.
Death registration [Mortin Otis Olsen], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Retiring Manpower officer has own re-training program,” Winnipeg Tribune, 5 January 1968.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 24 August 1984, page 44.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
We thank Caryn Douglas for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 11 February 2023
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