Fonds glen-1421 - John Lee Laurie fonds

John Lee Laurie, 1899-1959, was born on a farm in Blenheim Township, Oxford County, Ontario. He was educated in Ayr, Galt, and Trinity College and served in First World War. He came to the west in 1920 and in 1923 began teaching at Western Canada College in Calgary, later moving to Crescent Heights High School. Laurie became very familiar with the Stoney people and in 1944 volunteered to work as secretary with the Indian Association of Alberta. For the next ten years he spent all of his free time promoting the cause of Alberta Indians. In the mid-1950s his health failed and he resigned as a teacher in 1956. From 1955 to 1959 he worked for the Glenbow Foundation compiling information about the Stoneys. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta in 1956. For further information see Donald B. Smith's article "John Laurie" in Citymakers : Calgarians after the Frontier / Max Foran and Sheilagh S. Jameson, eds. - Calgary : Historical Society of Alberta, Chinook Country Chapter, 1987; and Laurie Meijer Drees and Elizabeth Churchill's article, "John Laurie and the Indian Association of Alberta" in Native Studies Review. -- vol. 10, no. 2 (1995), p. 97-120; and John Laurie, Ruth Gorman and the Indian Vote in Canada / Frits Pannekoek, ed. - Calgary : University of Calgary Press, 2006.