Jessie L. Beattie

Jessie L. Beattie, a noted Canadian author, was born at Blair, Ontario, and two of her twenty books, Along the Way and A Season Past, recall life in the pioneer home and village in which she grew up. Educated at Tassie Hall, Galt, the University of Buffalo and the University of Toronto, she taught school, spent six years in library work, two years in corrective educational work with the provincial government, one-and-a-half years as Director of Recreation, Community Welfare Council, and conducted a private school in Blair for four years.

Beattie wrote and produced several plays but is best known for her novels, biographies, books on travel, short stories and poetry. Strength for the Bridge is a deeply researched novel treating sympathetically the plight of the Japanese in Canada during World War II. In spite of poor health and eventual loss of her sight, Beattie continued writing through the years and received wide acclaim for her breadth of vision and the quality of her literary accomplishments.