(8 July 1868-6 Aug. 1947), missionary. (Libby or Libbie McLennan) Said in the Morgan biog. dict. to have been born at Williamstown, but the actual place where she was born and grew up in GC seems more closely defined to have been a little farther east, at Glen Gordon. It is also stated as the 2nd Concession of Charlottenburgh Township. She attended local schools, including Williamstown High School, Queen’s University (B. A., 1899), the School of Pedagogy at Hamilton, and the Ewart Training School in Toronto, with some period also at Normal School in Ottawa. Both before and after attending Queen’s she taught school. She is recorded as having been a teacher in GC at Williamstown and in 1887 and 1888 at the Big Beaver School (Lot 7 in 8th Concession of Kenyon Township).

     Elizabeth McLennan left for Honan, China, in 1905 as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church, and was afterwards a missionary of the United Church. In Weihweh, Honan, China, she was the principal of a girls’ school. When military disturbances closed the school in 1927, she was for a time a teacher in Korea of the children of missionaries. Returning to Weihweh in 1929, she taught in a school for young married women and did evangelistic work in hospitals and rural communities. She continued her work after the Japanese invaders reached her area of China in 1937. Postponing her retirement for some two years, as the current emergency increased the need for missionaries’ work, it was in Honan that she celebrated her 70th birthday. She returned to Canada, 1939. In retirement, she lived in Edmonton, and was active there in church work. She died at her home in Edmonton. She never married.

Standard Freeholder 16 Aug. 1947, Glengarry News 22 Aug. 1947, United Church Observer, 1 Dec. 1947 p. 29 * Isobel McFadden, Her Chinese Cherubs: Elizabeth McLennan of Honan (Toronto, The Women’s Missionary Society of the United Church of Canada, 1948; pp. 32, with portrait): her life story told in the manner of a short historical novel (includes separate biog. note) * Morgan (1912) 782 * Winifred Warren, “Elizabeth MacLennan–a Tribute,” The Missionary Monthly [publication of the United Church of Canada Woman’s Missionary Society] (Nov. 1947) 495-496: biog. information, portrait * 1 page biog. outline (typecript) in in United Church Archives * Queen's University Archives * Anglin: group portrait of Glengarrians at Queen’s, 1896 * MacMaster 333 *16-line poem by A. Gertrude Wood in tribute to her abilities as a teacher, perhaps not published, copy in present author’s files * dedicated as missionary at Hepzibah Church, Williamstown, leaves for Honan, GN 20 Oct. 1905, Cornwall Standard 20 & 27 Oct. 1905 * honoured at reception in GC, while home on furlough, Cornwall Freeholder 23 May 1913 (Glen Gordon column) * reception, 4th Charlottenburgh, to honour her as returned missionary, SFH 19 Aug. 1940