Best, Edna May Williston (Sexton)

DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Lois K. Yorke, “BEST, EDNA MAY WILLISTON (Sexton),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/best_edna_may_williston_15E.html
DCB profile notes:
- Feminist, social activist, and war worker; b. 25 June 1880 in Shediac, N.B., daughter of James Edward Best and Maria Porter; m. 25 June 1904 Frederic Henry Sexton, and they had a son and a daughter; d. 14 Dec. 1923 in Halifax.
- May Best’s father, a merchant and native of Horton, N.S., fell on hard times after the death of his first wife in 1864. He moved to Shediac, where he remarried, taught school, and then took up farming. Both he and his second wife died prematurely; May was subsequently raised by family in Boston. Endowed with “striking intellectual ability,” she completed the Girls’ High School there, entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1898, and obtained a bachelor of science degree in 1902 with high honours in chemistry. After working briefly in the research laboratory of the General Electric Company at Schenectady, N.Y., she married colleague Frederic Sexton (MIT, sb 1901), who had just been appointed to Dalhousie University, Halifax.
- Frederic Sexton’s appointment in 1907 as founding principal of the Nova Scotia Technical College positioned the young couple to become leaders in progressive education and social reform. During 1908–9, for example, May Sexton campaigned vigorously but unsuccessfully in favour of an industrial school for young women, arguing that such training would equip them to enter the workforce with a competitive advantage as skilled domestics, dressmakers, seamstresses, and milliners. As the issue of female enfranchisement resurfaced provincially during the pre-war years, both husband and wife publicly supported the appointment of women to school boards. This was viewed as a preliminary step in the campaign for voting rights and was a measure endorsed repeatedly by the LCW. In April 1913, as yet another enabling bill proceeded through the legislature, Sexton was one of a trio who represented the LCW before the Legislative Council, “making out their case with admirable clearness and reasonableness”; yet again, however, the initiative was lost.
- In order to attract the considerable sums needed to sustain these and other Red Cross initiatives, Sexton began fund-raising in 1915 through a series of patriotic lectures delivered around Nova Scotia. Audiences warmed to her “charming and clever manner” as she presented “Principal Sexton’s New War Slides,” accompanying them with a commentary which “brought the awfulness of war home to us,” the minutes of one organization recorded, “in a way that all detailed newspaper accounts never could.” On one occasion in Halifax, her presentation to the Rotary Club resulted in commitments from over 500 city businessmen, each undertaking to contribute $2.00 per month indefinitely for hospital supplies. On another occasion, she persuaded miners and steelworkers in New Glasgow, Trenton, and Westville to pledge payroll deductions totalling $5,000 monthly for general war work.
- In the aftermath of the Halifax explosion in 1917 Sexton’s formidable abilities were called upon yet again. On the day of the disaster the Canadian Red Cross set up a medical supply committee, co-chaired by Sexton and responsible for coordinating 44 volunteers in the purchase and delivery, twice daily, of all the supplies required by each of the 57 temporary hospitals and dressing stations scattered throughout Halifax and Dartmouth. For a time this initiative largely diverted the work of Sexton’s hospital supply teams and entirely drained their inventory. The committee, which worked 12- to 15-hour days initially, continued well into 1918.
- With the end of the war imminent, the focus of attention shifted to returning soldiers; once more, Sexton was in demand. In 1918 she became replacement convenor of the Red Cross hospital committee. She immediately enlarged it and introduced the most recent British standards regarding convalescent care and volunteer services. Libraries and sun parlours were installed in Camp Hill Military Hospital and a large roster of weekly visitors was organized. Also during 1918 the military canteen in Halifax originally established by the American National Red Cross was briefly under Sexton’s “brilliant management”; in one month alone, 3,000 meals were served to transient soldiers.
Second Great Granddaughter of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2829
Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/208038323/edna-may_williston-sexton