42 Facts About Muriel Duckworth

Muriel Duckworth was a practising Quaker, a religious denomination committed to non-violence.

Muriel Duckworth argued that money spent on armaments perpetuates poverty while reinforcing the power of privileged elites.

Muriel Duckworth was a founding member of the Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace, a provincial branch of the national peace organization called the Voice of Women.

Muriel Duckworth was the first woman in Halifax to run for a seat in the Nova Scotia legislature.

Muriel Duckworth led community organizing efforts seeking improvements in education, housing, social assistance and municipal planning.

Muriel Duckworth received many honours and awards including the 1981 Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case and the Order of Canada in 1983.

Muriel Duckworth was one of five children born to Anna Westover and Ezra Ball.

Muriel Duckworth was so deeply affected by the landscape that she returned nearly every summer for the rest of her life to the cottage her aunt and uncle built in 1913.

Muriel Duckworth's mother supplemented the family income by taking in summer boarders, while her father sold lightning rods.

Muriel Duckworth attended a local one-room country school until she was seven, then transferred to a larger school in the town of Magog where she boarded during the week with two siblings and an aunt.

Muriel Duckworth fed hungry men and gave shelter to homeless young women who came to Magog on the trains and raised funds to establish a home for the elderly and started a community lending library.

Muriel Duckworth was an admirer of Nellie McClung and Agnes Macphail, two political activists who championed women's rights.

Many decades later, Muriel Duckworth told an interviewer that her mother's example helped lead her into social activism.

Muriel Duckworth's mother cared passionately about what she did, Muriel said.

Muriel Duckworth believed she could have a positive effect and did.

The 15-year-old Muriel Duckworth was too shy to participate in drama even though her aunt was the school's drama coach.

Muriel Duckworth especially remembered James Endicott, then a missionary in China, who went on to become a prominent church leader and a lifelong acquaintance.

Muriel Duckworth undertook studies at Montreal's McGill University with the help of a small college bursary and money from her Aunt Abbie.

Muriel Duckworth was enrolled in the university's Bachelor of Arts program and in her graduating year, took the education courses required to qualify for a high school teaching diploma.

Muriel Duckworth tried to overcome her shyness by entering a public speaking contest and volunteering to take minutes at student meetings.

Muriel Duckworth's participation in the Student Christian Movement at McGill was a life-changing experience.

In 1926, Muriel met Jack Duckworth, a McGill student who was active in the SCM.

Muriel Duckworth was attending university to qualify for a job with the YMCA where he had been a volunteer working with boys in Vancouver.

Muriel Duckworth decided to continue studying theology after earning his MA degree from McGill.

Muriel Duckworth enrolled as a full-time student at Union Theological Seminary in 1929.

Muriel Duckworth was registered as a part-time UTS field student and worked with poor teenage girls at a community church in Hell's Kitchen on New York's West Side.

Muriel Duckworth met these 16- and 17-year-old working-class girls twice a week in a recreation group and in a Sunday School class.

Muriel Duckworth visited their homes gaining first-hand knowledge of the conditions experienced by working-class immigrants who lived in cramped, windowless flats beside "booming and clattering" elevated trains.

Muriel and Jack Duckworth returned to Montreal in 1930 where they began raising a family.

The family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1947 where Jack Duckworth served as general secretary of the YMCA, while Muriel worked in adult education.

From 1948 until 1962, Muriel Duckworth was a part-time parent education adviser for the Nova Scotia Department of Education.

Muriel Duckworth's pacifism was reflected in her religious beliefs and her work on behalf of peace organizations.

Muriel Duckworth was a founding member of the Nova Scotia Voice of Women, a provincial branch of the Voice of Women.

Muriel Duckworth served as the National President of VOW, now called the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, from 1967 to 1971.

In 1969 and 1971, Muriel Duckworth helped organize two highly publicized visits to Canada by Vietnamese women directly affected by the war.

Muriel Duckworth was active in community organizing, electoral politics and the advancement of women's issues.

Muriel Duckworth became the first woman in Halifax to run for a seat in the Nova Scotia Legislature when she campaigned as a New Democratic Party candidate during the provincial elections of 1974 and 1978.

Muriel Duckworth was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1981 Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case and the Order of Canada in 1983.

Muriel Duckworth was granted 10 honorary degrees including one from Mount Saint Vincent University in 1978 and another from Dalhousie University in 1987.

Muriel Duckworth was awarded a posthumous Order of Nova Scotia on September 2,2009.

Muriel Duckworth fell and broke her leg in August 2009 while at her Quebec cottage.

Muriel Duckworth was treated in hospital in Magog, Quebec, where her condition deteriorated.