Catherine Sheldon-Williams (left)
and her sister, Dorothea.
Born in Hampshire, England in May 1869, Sheldon-Williams was educated in private schools. After her father died, her mother brought the family to Canada in 1889 to farm in the Cannington Manor area. She began to teach in Wolseley, then in 1920 moved to Regina, where she began to work for the Department of Education. In 1925 she started the Outpost Correspondence School, which developed into the Saskatchewan Government Correspondence School. Her interests in education were many. In 1922-24 she was convenor of the Local Council of Women (LCW) Education Committee. She served on the Collegiate Board for two decades (first elected in the early 1920s as the LCW candidate). She was also elected to the Public School Board in 1935, where she served four years, and led a campaign for the construction of a technical school in Regina. Briefly engaged in politics, she announced her candidacy as an Independent in the 1938 provincial election; this was a quixotic venture: she never campaigned, merely stating that she stood for non-partisanship, and dropped out before the election. Sheldon-Williams received a life membership in the Local Council of Women in 1949. She died in April of the same year.
Ann Leger-Anderson