(1870-6 Mar 1956), dentist. (Dr Munroe, M. A. Munroe, M. Anna Munroe, Margaret Munroe) Born at St. Elmo. Parents: William Munroe and his wife Janet McEwen. In 1905, having completed the three-year course of study (1902-1905), she graduated from the University of Buffalo’s dental school. Her graduating class contained only one other female student, and 67 males. Within that year, on 24 Oct. 1905, she registered with the College of Dental Surgeons of Saskatchewan. Late in 1905, she began practice as a dentist in Davidson, Sask., and she continued to practise there for a period remembered as being more than 30 years, which would have been from her mid-30s to her mid-60s or beyond. She is said also to have practised in Edmonton. At any rate, it was in Edmonton that she died. She was unmarried. It has been said that she was the “first lady dentist in Canada.” (Campbell) However, the “first Canadian woman to graduate from a dental school” was Dr C.L. Josephine Wells, who qualified in the 1890s though she apparently did not begin to practise immediately, and at least two women were licensed in the 1890s to practise dentistry in Quebec province. (Gullett) All the same, Dr Munroe was a dentist at a time when women dentists were rare indeed. She is remembered to have been a tiny woman with sharp features. For early women dentists, see also Georgiana McBain. Margaret Ann Munroe was the sister of Hugh Edwin Munroe.

University of Buffalo alumni bulletin, April 1956 * Campbell, Tannis and Stewart, MacDougalls, 230-231, 234 (portrait) * information from the Canadian Dental Association and University of Buffalo Archives * early women dentists: D.W. Gullett, A History of Dentistry in Canada (1971) 87-89 * Prairie Tapestry: Davidson, Girvin and District (Davidson and District Historical Society, 1983) 90 (portrait) * Henderson’s Greater Edmonton Directory 1955 p. 755 * graduates, Glengarry News 12 May 1905