Malcolm MacLeod was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1918. He began working for the Canadian Press in 1937, managing the office in Cape Breton. In 1939, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a flight trainer in Ontario. He died in 1943 in Europe, at age 25, as a squadron leader.
Robert Norwood was an Anglican and Episcopal clergyman, poet, and author from Nova Scotia. He was born in New Ross, Nova Scotia in 1874, and entered the University of King's College in 1892. He withdrew due to a lack of funding, and worked as a lay reader in Jeddore and Ship Harbour for a year. He was able to return to King's in 1894, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1897, when he was also ordained deacon the Church of England. He was ordained as a Priest in 1898. He became the curate of Holy Trinity Church in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia in 1900, and obtained a Master of Arts from the University of King's College in 1904. After attempting to pursue an MA at Columbia University, he returned to Nova Scotia in 1907 to become a rector in Springhill. Two years later, he moved to Montreal, Quebec to be the curate of Trinity Church, then to London, Ontario in 1912 to be the rector at Cronyn Memorial Church. His popularity as a preacher in London saw him appointed to St. Paul's Overlook Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States in 1917. He then moved to New York City, New York, United States to serve at St. Bartholomew's Church. Despite living in the United States, and even becoming a US citizen in 1923, Norwood continued to spend time in Nova Scotia, building a summer home in Hubbard's Cove with his wife. He received an honourary Doctor of Civil Law from the University of King's College in 1921, and was part of The Song Fishermen, a group of Maritime poets led by journalist Andrew Merkel. He passed away in 1933 in New York, and was buried in Hubbard's Cove, Nova Scotia.
He published poetry, plays, and religious writings throughout his life, starting in 1898 with Driftwood, which he published with William Vernon.
Other publications of his included:
His Lady of the Sonnets (1915) The Witch of Endor (1916) The Piper and the Reed (1917) The Modernists (1918) The Man of Kerioth (1919) Mother and Son (1925) The Heresy of Antioch (1928) The Steep Ascent (1928) The Man Who Dared To Be God (1929) His Glorious Body (1930) The Hiding God: Divinity in Man (1933)
Theodore Goodridge Roberts was an author, poet, and journalist from Fredericton, New Brunswick. Born in 1877, he was the younger brother of Charles G. D. Roberts. He attended the University of New Brunswick, but did not graduate, however, later in life he was granted an honourary Doctorate of Literature from the university. His first poem was published when he was eleven-years-old, and he wrote prolifically for the rest of his life. He found work with The Independent and moved to New York City in 1897, and lived there with his brothers. In 1898, he went to Tampa, Florida to cover the Spanish-American war, but contracted malaria aboard a ship to Cuba, and was sent back to Fredericton to convalesce. Afterwards, he went to Newfoundland for three years, helping to found The Newfoundland Magazine. His time there inspired numerous written works, including writings on the Beothuk people. A five month sea journey to the Caribbean and South America inspired other poems and stories, but a relapse of malaria sent him back to New York, where he fell in love with and married his nurse, Frances Seymour Allen. He and wife lived in various places over their lives, and had four children. In 1914, Roberts enlisted in the army, and was eventually commissioned a Lieutenant in 1915, in the 12th Battalion of the Canadian Army, then was promoted to Captain in 1916. He established Acadie magazine in 1930. He passed away in Digby, Nova Scotia in 1953.
Some of his publications include: Northland Lyrics (1899, The House of Isstens (1900), Comrades of the Trails (1910), The Harbour Master (1913), The Wasp (1914), Thirty Canadian V.C.’s (1918), and many more. He published over 30 novels throughout his lifetime, as well as poetry and stories.
Seumas O'Brien was the author of The Whale and the Grasshopper: and Other Fables and Duty: and Other Irish Comedies
Rev. Dr. Robert Darwin Crouse (1930-2011) was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts to Merle and Sarah (Crooks) Crouse. His family had moved to Massachusetts from Nova Scotia, where his family had been for generations. Before her marriage, Sarah was trained in telegraphy and worked with the Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal, moving back to Nova Scotia to train in the medical field at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax. She graduated in 1924. Merle was an agent at the Mutual Life Insurance Company. Merle and Sarah were married in 1926 in Lunenburg County. When Robert was only a few months old, his family moved back to the aptly named Crousetown in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Sarah died from tuberculosis when Robert was six years old, and he and the rest of the family moved into his grandparent’s house next-door.
His schooling began in a one-room schoolhouse in Crousetown, and he later went to King’s Collegiate School in Windsor, NS from 1943 to 1947. After secondary school, he completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of King’s College in Halifax in 1951, and spent a year studying philosophy and theology at King’s and Dalhousie University. He later received a Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1954, and was ordained into the priesthood of the Anglican Church of Canada by Bishop Waterman in the same year. He went on to complete a Master of Theology in 1957 at Trinity College in Toronto, Ontario. While finishing his degree at Trinity College, he contributed significantly to the Scholastic Miscellany, edited by the Revd Dr. Eugene R. Fairweather. Crouse’s master’s dissertation was on St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Justitia. He took a break from schooling but returned in 1970, completing a Ph.D (Honorius Augustodunensis). At King’s, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2007.
Crouse was an accomplished educator and theologian. He also had a deep appreciation and love for poetry, literature, architecture, and music. He began teaching in 1960 at the Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Québec. He remained there for three years, before returning to Nova Scotia. He took up a position teaching in Dalhousie’s Classics Department and King’s Foundation Year Programme. Crouse was also one of the driving forces behind the Foundation Year Programme. He remained at King’s/Dal until his retirement in 1995. From 1990-2004, he was also a visiting professor at Patrology at the Augustinianum of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, making him the first non-Catholic invited to this position. He became a Carnegie Professor at King’s in 1979 and served as Clerk of Convocation from 1972-1994. He was Vice President of King’s for two years, and served as Director of the Foundation Year Program for one. He was made the Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Saskatchewan in 1996, and was a member of the Primate’s Theological Commission from the 1990s into the early 2000s.
Crouse wrote over 70 academic papers and books, with his research focusing on the works of Augustine and Dante. He was an important figure at the annual Atlantic Theological Conferences and cared deeply about the Maritime context in which he was raised. Crouse was also a musician– he played the organ at several parishes throughout his lifetime and established the Summer Baroque concerts in Crousetown. He found the last tracker organ in Nova Scotia, which he installed in St. Mary’s in Crousetown. He also established the choir for the Thursday Solemn Eucharist at the King’s Chapel.
He loved hosting people to his home, students and colleagues alike, and was an avid gardener. Many friends remember his extravagant salads, which at times had “30 or more ingredients.” Notably, he did not own a telephone or a computer and faxed all of his communications. He preferred to have time to sit and contemplate his responses. He died at the age of 80, in his grandparent’s house in Crousetown, where he lived his entire life when he was not studying or travelling.