Series 20 - Kenneth Leslie

Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1892, Kenneth Leslie was an author, journalist, poet, and political activist. He attended Dalhousie University for his B.A., and the University of Nebraska for his M.A. He also studied at Harvard. He was a political activist in the 1930s and 40s, establishing an anti-Fascist journal called the Protestant Digest (later called The Protestant). He also circulated a comic book, called The Challenger, that challenged Fascism. From 1934 onward, he published poetry collections such as Windward Rock, Lowland's Low, Such a Din!, and By Stubborn Stars and Other Poems, for which he received the Governor-General's Award in 1938. The Protestant was discontinued in 1953, but Leslie continued to publish periodicals, such as One, New Christian, Man, and New Man.

Leslie's first wife was Elizabeth Moir, with whom he had four children. He and his family travelled to Paris before settling in New York City in the late 1920s. After he and Moir divorced, he married Marjorie Finley Hewitt in 1934. Leslie and Hewitt were married for twelve years, when Hewitt filed for divorce c. 1946. Leslie then married his secretary, Cathy, who eventually left him for his nephew, a man closer to her own age. In 1960, Leslie suffered a stroke. Despite this, he drove to California to comfort the widow of an old friend, Nora Steenerson Totten. He and Totten married soon after, and lived the rest of their lives together. Leslie passed away in 1974.

Journalist and poet Andrew Doane Merkel was born in New York State in the mid 1880s. He came to Nova Scotia as a boy when his father, Anglican Minister Rev. A. Deb Merkel, took over a parish in Digby. From 1904 to 1905, he attended the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, then moved to Sydney, Nova Scotia to attend the university's School of Engineering from 1905 to 1907. He did not complete this degree due to the closure of the engineering school, and represented his classmates to the King's Board of Governors while the school was closing. Merkel married Florence (Tully) E. Sutherland from Windsor and had three children: J. Arthur, Peggy, and Mary-Elizabeth. Merkel spent most of his adult life in Halifax and is known to have lived on South Park Street. He was a journalist for both the Philadelphia North American and the Sydney Record, in the 1900s, an editor for the Saint John Standard from 1908 to 1910 and of the Halifax Echo from 1910 to 1917, the Maritime News Editor for the Canadian Press from 1917 to 1919, and finally, the Superintendent of Canadian Press Atlantic Division from 1919 to 1946. He died in 1954.

Merkel was also a poet and avid historian. His first book length poem, The Order of Good Cheer, wasn’t published until 1944 although he completed it in the early 1920s. His second book length poem, Tallahassee, was published the following year. Both works illustrate his interest in Nova Scotian history; The Order of Good Cheer is about Nova Scotia’s first French settlers while Tallahassee is about Halifax during the American civil war. He published two works of non-fiction as well, Letters from the Front (1914), and Bluenose Schooner (1948). Merkel was also a member of the Halifax literary group called The Song Fishermen and often hosted meetings of the group, which included fellow writers such as Charles G.D. Roberts, Charles Bruce, Kenneth Leslie, and Robert Norwood.