McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Lefevre, Lily Alice Mary Cooke, 1853-1938
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Cooke, Lily Alice Mary, 1853-1938
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1853-1938
History
Born in Belleville, Ontario, of Irish immigrants, oldest of seven children, future poet Lily Alice Cooke was sent to the Villa Maria Convent in Montreal for her education. In 1886, she married Dr. John Lefevre, the Pacific District surgeon for Canadian Pacific, and the couple moved to Vancouver where she spent the rest of her life. She was left a widow with no children when the doctor died in 1906, having had a successful career not only in medicine but also as a city councillor and as president of the Vancouver Board of Trade. Their home, known as “Langaravine,” was a magnet for artists, writers and intellectuals; she became a patron of the arts, while continuing to write and publish her own poety both in Montreal and Vancouver. Among her frequent guests were fellow members of the Vancouver Poetry Society, the editor of the Vancouver Sun, Robert Cromie, William and Annie Dalton, E.J. Pratt, and Pelham Edgar. In 1931, she helped found the Vancouver Art Gallery. When Edward VII was crowned in 1901, she organized a Vancouver branch of the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire.