Martha Jane (Richards) Hample 1859–1927

Personanteckningar

http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/hample_mj.shtml

Born at Shropshire, England, she came to Canada with her father Samuel D. Richards. In 1888, she married Adolph Gideon Hample. They had two children: Carl Samuel Hample (1890-?) and Bessie Edwina Hample (1892-1969, wife of Charles Elwyn Fillmore). She ran a successful catering and confectionary business, and built the Hample Building on Portage Avenue, the first commercial building in the city by a woman. Hample sold her namesake building in 1918, but the name “stuck” despite the passage of time. She owned a tract of land at Sturgeon Creek, where she had a summer cottage, and had interests in ranching. In 1911, she built a home at 808 Wolseley Avenue. She was also politically active as a member of the Political Equality League, which lobbied the Manitoba government for female suffrage. Meetings were held at her home, and she bankrolled its activities. Other founding members included Nellie McClung, Lillian Beynon Thomas, and Cora Hind. In 1907, she help to found the Knowles Home for Boys to care for abandoned and orphaned boys. In 1917, she became a member of the Winnipeg School Board, one of the first women to hold the position. In the 1922 provincial general election, she was one of eight Progressive candidates for a Winnipeg seat in the Manitoba Legislature, the others being George F. Chipman, Thomas J. Murray, Richard W. Craig, Patrick J. Henry, Peter McCallum, Charles K. Newcombe, and Arthur W. Puttee. In 1923, she moved to Long Beach, California, where she died on 9 December 1927 and was buried there.