(18 March 1895-31 May 1963), novelist. (Grace Campbell) Born near Williamstown, GC. Parents: Alexander Grant, known as Sandy (Cinq) Grant, and his wife Caroline MacLennan. Educated at Williamstown High School and Queen’s University (B.A., 1915), she became a schoolteacher. She wrote two highly successful novels about pioneer GC, Thorn-Apple Tree (1942) and The Higher Hill (1944) These were well crafted pieces of romantic fiction, written in a brilliantly descriptive style but they are not the kinds of novels present-day critics admire and it may be guessed that in the long run the public will agree that the critics were right. By contrast the public has supported the best of the Ralph Connor novels through thick and thin and it is likely to reap the reward of its tenacity by seeing its views eventually confirmed and perpetuated by the most respected critics. GC also appears in Grace Campbell’s short story “Rorie Ban,” published Canadian Home Journal Sept. 1943. Her novel Torbeg (1953) touches on the pre-history of GC by dealing with the Rebellion of 1745 in Scotland and subsequent events in New York colony. In a work of non-fiction, the travel book Highland Heritage (1962), she includes a short passage on the settlement of GC. Other novels were Fresh Wind Blowing (1947) and The Tower and the Town (1950).

     Within a few years, sales of Thorn-Apple Tree had reached the 50,000 mark (Queen’s Quarterly, 52:1945-1946 p. 208). There was a separate entry for Grace Campbell in the old Encyclopedia Canadiana but she gets only a brief mention in the article on best-sellers in English in its successor (Hurtig, I, 210). However, she does get a fitting notice in Blain, Clements and Grundy’s The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present (Yale University Press, and Batsford Ltd [Eng.], 1990).

     She died at Niagara-on-Lake, and is buried at St. Andrew’s, Williamstown. She was married in 1919 to Harvey Campbell, who was born in Carlisle, Ont., and died 27 May 1976, aged 85. He was a United Church minister and Grace Campbell shared his life in his pastorates in Quebec and Saskatchewan. Their twin sons Alexander Grant Campbell and Robert Roy Campbell were killed in action over Europe within five weeks of each other while serving in the Canadian air force in World War II. Campbell Bay in northern Saskatchewan was named in honour of these airmen. Grace Campbell’s younger brother, Dr Donald Grant, a Montreal physician, returned to Williamstown (the Glen Road) in 1973 to live. He carried on a limited practice there till 1979 and died 13 Oct. 1982.

     See also David Bruce MacRae.

Obituary (undated ) from Standard Freeholder (portrait) * MDict * early picture, Glengarry News 8 Sept. 1911 * Campbell (1983) 595 * MacGillivray & Ross 539 & 540 (portrait) * Grace Campbell in Bibliography of Glengarry: index (includes notices of some of the reviews of the GC books) * death of twin sons, GN 26 May 1944 * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 188 * Dumbrille, U, 38-40 * Williamstown 200, 10, 66 * Edward S. St. John, “The Image of the French Canadian in Glengarry Literature,” and Royce MacGillivray, “Novelists and the Glengarry Pioneer” both in Ontario History 65:2 (June 1973) * Marin 394 * Rev. Harvey Campbell: obituary, Hamilton Conference Annual Meeting 1976 (copy in United Church Achives) * Dr Donald Grant: “Doctor Returns to Glengarry,” GN 24 May 1973; obituary, QAR, March-April 1983 * letter by Neil Grant to editor GN 18 June 1984 on location of the GC farm of Thorn-Apple Tree and Higher Hill * Clara Thomas and John Lennox , William Arthur Deacon (1982) 225, for Deacon and publication of Thorn-Apple Tree * Grace Campbell, “The Methods and Motives of a Novelist,” Canadian Library Association Bulletin, 7:5 (March 1951) * report on address given by her in Cornwall, SFH 30 April 1945 * praised with other GC authors in editorial, SFH 29 Oct. 1945