Item 0006 - Letter, 2 August 1882

Annie Linda Jack, née Hayr was born on January 1, 1839, in King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, England.

She was a teacher, author, horticulturist, and horticultural columnist. In 1852, she moved to Troy, New York where she attended Troy Female Seminary. Here her interest in writing became evident. She became a schoolteacher in Châteauguay, Quebec, and married the Scottish-born local fruit farmer, Robert Jack, and settled at his farm, Hillside. An acre of this farm was set aside for her, which she cultivated into an extensive garden of flowers, fruits, and vegetables for pocket money and experimentation. Over the next fifty years, Annie Jack raised 11 children while also developing and maintaining her garden and contributing gardening articles to the American Horticulturalist, Canadian Horticulturalist, Farmer’s Advocate, and the Rural New Yorker. Her popular book "The Canadian Garden: A Pocket Help for the Amateur" (1903) was the only Canadian gardening manual available until the end of World War I. She published a series of articles on social topics in the Montreal Daily Witness, written under the pen name “Loyal Janet”. In 1897, she was made an honorary member of the Montreal Women’s Club. She also published a collection of short stories "The Little Organist of St. Jerome", (1902) and a small book of poetry "Rhyme-Thoughts for a Canadian Year"(1904).

In 1860, she married Robert Jack (1821–1900). She died on February 15, 1912, in Châteauguay, Quebec.