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  Elizabeth Chantler was born to Quaker parents in Surrey,
England, in 1820. There, she was educated in a Quaker college until she moved
with her parents to the Muddy York district near present-day Toronto. In the early 1840s she met and married George McDougall,
subsequently giving birth to eight children and adopting one
other.
Women in the Fur Trade, Part 6: Daniel Harmon and Elizabeth Duvall
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Elizabeth McDougall converted to Methodism with her husband during a
meeting held by lay preache r Peter White. She followed her husband
throughout his religious and missionary training in what is now Eastern
Canada, including Cobourg, Alderville,
Garden River and Rama. After George was ordained in 1854, the family moved
to their first mission at Rossville near Norway House. When George became the chairman of the western Methodist Missions
they moved again to the Victoria Mission on the north bank of the North
Saskatchewan River. Here the family spent a year living in a buffalo skin
tent before a house was finally built. In later years, with the establishment of each new mission,
Elizabeth and her
family moved-in 1871 to Edmonton and in 1875 once more to Morley.
Because men
were frequently away on trips for supplies,
hunting or visiting Aboriginal camps, Elizabeth McDougall was
often left to run the house and the mission, and her community involvement
grew. She sometimes
led sermons-her daughter Georgina translating them to the Aboriginal
community-and acted as a
nurse, particularly during a smallpox epidemic. In 1866, she
organized a group of Métis and Aboriginal women that gathered for
sewing and worship.
In 1876 George McDougall perished during a blizzard while on a buffalo
hunt. Elizabeth continued on at Morley for one year, then joined her son
George in the Eastern Canada. Tragedy struck again when George,
returning to Morley to start a homestead, contracted and died of pneumonia. Elizabeth,
nevertheless, remained and continued to live in Morley
until her death in March of 1904.
Small
Pox Epidemics, Part 1: Early Explorers and Fur Traders Bring Disease
to New World, 1520-1726
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 Small Pox Epidemics, Part 2: First Recorded Epidemic in West, 1736
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Small Pox Epidemics, Part 3: Epidemic of 1781-82 Wipes Out Native
Villages Across the West
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Small Pox Epidemics, Part 4: David Thompson's Journals and the
Tales of Sokumapi
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Small Pox Epidemics, Part 5
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