Edna Diefenbaker

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Edna May Brower Diefenbaker (Born: 1901 in Langham, Saskatchewan-February 7, 1951) was the first wife of future-Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker from 1929 to 1951. Before marrying him, she was a schoolteacher.^[1] She was his wife when Diefenbaker became a Conservative Member of Parliament, but died in 1951, before he became Prime Minister in 1957. She would visit towns before her husband so that he was prepared with information on the inhabitants.^[2]

She died of leukemia. MPs in the Canadian House of Commons gave her "unprecedented eulogies" for a non-MP.^[1] Diefenbaker later married Olive Palmer. Edna is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery beside Diefenbaker's mother Mary, his father, brother and an uncle.

[edit] Legacy

In 1982, Edna became the focus of Simma Holt's book The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker, which, among other things, described Edna being subject to shock therapy. Author Heather Robertson also wrote on her and other spouses of the Prime Ministers of Canada in the book More Than a Rose (1991).^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} "DIEFENBAKER, JOHN GEORGE," Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Library and Archives Canada, URL accessed 5 January 2007.
2. ^ ^{a b} Jim Romahn, "Author paints colorful portrait of PMs, their wives and lovers," Kitchener - Waterloo Record, Kitchener, Ontario: November 16, 1991. pg. E.8.