Amelia Yeomans (''née'' Le Sueur; March 29, 1842 – April 22, 1913) was a Canadian physician and suffragist. She and her adult daughter

Lilian Lillian or Lilian can refer to: People * Lillian (name) or Lilian, a given name Places * Lilian, Iran, a village in Markazi Province, Iran In the United States * Lillian, Alabama * Lillian, West Virginia * Lillian Township, Custer County, Ne ...

B. Yeomans, M.D., were the first female physicians in

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

Early life and education

Yeomans was born on March 29, 1842, in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

Canada East Canada East (french: links=no, Canada-Est) was the northeastern portion of the United Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new ...

, to Peter Le Sueur and Barbara Dawson. Her father was a civil servant. She was privately educated. Le Sueur married Augustus A. Yeomans, a medical doctor, on October 16, 1860, in Quebec City. They had two daughters.Vera K. Fast,
LE SUEUR, AMELIA
" in ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'', vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed April 11, 2019. After Augustus's death in 1878, Amelia Yeomans, along with her daughter

, decided to enter the medical profession. Since Canadian medical schools did not accept women students, Yeomans and her daughter enrolled in the Ann Arbor Medical School at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Yeomans received her degree in 1883. She then moved to

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, where Lilian was already practicing midwifery and medicine. Yeomans's second daughter, Charlotte, became a nurse and joined the family in Winnipeg in 1890.

Career

As physicians, Yeomans and her daughter frequently treated sex workers, homeless women, and others being held in the local jail. These experiences led Yeomans to write a pamphlet educating women about sexually transmitted diseases. The pamphlet was released by the

Women's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

(WCTU). The WCTU was the first English-speaking organization in Manitoba to espouse

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

. In 1893, the first year of recorded WCTU activity, Yeomans served as an officer for the organization. On February 9, 1893, Yeomans and the WCTU staged a mock parliament in the Bijou Theatre in Winnipeg, organized by Arminda Myrtal Blakely, and invited the Manitoba legislature to attend. Yeomans played the

premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

, while other members, including Nellie Letitia Monney and Ella Cora Hind, presented pro and con arguments. In 1894, Yeomans helped to form the Equal Franchise Association in Manitoba. Yeomans served as the provincial president of the WCTU from 1896 to 1897.

Later life and death

Yeomans's daughter Charlotte moved to

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

for work in 1904, and both Yeomans and Lilian followed her there. Lilian would later become a pentecostal evangelist. Amelia Yeomans died on April 22, 1913, in Calgary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeomans, Amelia Created via preloaddraft Canadian suffragists 1842 births 1913 deaths 19th-century Canadian physicians 20th-century Canadian physicians 19th-century Canadian women physicians 20th-century Canadian women physicians University of Michigan Medical School alumni 20th-century Canadian women scientists