Belcher, Margaret (1920-2003)

Margaret Belcher.

Saskatchewan Archives Board R-A26930

Margaret Belcher was a university professor, author and ornithologist, as well as a lover of literature, nature, and the Prairies. Born at Dilke on December 19, 1920, she was educated there and at Luther College, Regina. She then studied at the University of Saskatchewan and at Toronto. Belcher taught high school in Rosetown. Subsequently she became a professor of French at Regina College, where she was for a time Dean of Women, and at its successor, the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, now the University of Regina. Her book, Bird Imagery in the Lyric Poetry of Tristan L’Hermite (1987), combined her two main interests: French Literature and ornithology. Member, president, and recording secretary of the Saskatchewan Natural History Society, Belcher wrote its history, The Isabel Priestly Legacy (1996). For twenty-one years she was associate editor of the Society’s quarterly, the Blue Jay, and also authored The birds of Regina (1961, 1980). Margaret Belcher was honoured by the Regina Soroptomist Club in 1988, and named a Fellow of the Saskatchewan Natural History Society in 1989. In 1997 she was invested with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and in 2003 received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. She died on June 29, 2003.

Brian Rainey