Monica Storrs

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Monica Storrs (February 12, 1888 – December 14, 1967) was a British-born Canadian pioneer and missionary

Monica Storrs was born at St. Peters Vicarage, Grosvenor Gardens, in the City of Westminster, London to parents Lucy Cust and John Storrs. She was educated at Frances Holland School for Girls and St. Christopher's College, Blackheath, London.

Monica, at two years of age, developed a medical condition which left her unable to walk for ten years. Not physically capable of attending school during this time, her parents took the liberty to educate her.[1]

Storrs, although educated for a patrician English life, arrived in Fort St. John, British Columbia in October 1929 after her parents had died, as the Great Depression began. She was the first missionary to teach Sunday school take regular Christian services. The group of women, the Companions of the Peace, were funded by the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf (which based in Edinburgh, in 2007 still promotes links between the Churches in Canada and the United Kingdom.)

Although intending to work for one year, she stayed as missionary for more than 21 years in Peace Country, British Columbia. She was nicknamed 'God's Galloping Girl' for her marathon rides in all weathers and over rough terrain, to visit remote farm families and promote their welfare. “...we had another mile across stubble fields and between hundreds of ghostly stooks. Once I charged straight upon a barbed wire fence, and was nearly impaled...”[2]

Storrs and the other workers were all women, and sometimes regarded as feminist pioneers. Their pioneer chapel is preserved at Fort St. John - North Peace Museum, where it has been restored.

She left Peace Country in 1950 to return to England, where she lived at Peacewood, Farther Common, Liss, Hampshire. She contiued her work until 1967, when she suffered a stroke and died.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ W. L. Morton, "Introduction" in God's Galloping Girl: The Peace River Diaries of Monica Storrs, 1929 1931 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1979): xxiv.
  2. ^ God’s Galloping Girl: 154.
  3. ^ Monica Storrs. Companions of the Peace: Diaries and Letters of Monica Storrs, 1931 – 1939. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1999):200-202