Kate Eva Westlake (after marriage, Yeigh; pen name, Aunt Polly Wolly; 1856 – 4 March 1906) was a Canadian writer and an early editor.

Kate Eva Westlake
"A Woman of the Century"
Born1856
Ingersoll, Canada West
Died4 March 1906
London
Occupationwriter
NationalityCanadian
Spouse
Frank Yeigh
(m. 1892)

Life edit

Westlake was born in Ingersoll, Canada West.[1] The family moved to London, Ontario where her father succeeded in business. One of her first published works was a serial western story titled "Stranger Than Fiction," published magazine. She became a sub-editor of the newly formed St. Thomas Journal, replacing her brother who died in 1881 at the age of 27.

She was given the editorship of the Fireside Weekly, a family story paper published in Toronto. She sometimes signed her work "Aunt Polly Wogg." She was a Baptist and a Liberal. In 1891 a very successful book, Sitting Bull's White Ward, was published exploiting the death of Sitting Bull the year before. Westlake is believed to be its anonymous author.[2]

In 1892, she married Frank Yeigh, an author.[3]

She wrote for Canadian Magazine.[4] In 1906, she published A Specimen Spinster[5] which was her only book in her name. The book was about the views on life of Aunt Polly Wolly.[2]

Westlake died in London, Ontario in 1906.

References edit

  1. ^ "Kate Eva Westlake". Woman of the Century. Charles Wells Moulton. 1893. p. 761.
  2. ^ a b Ramsay Cook; Jean Hamelin (1994). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 1084–. ISBN 978-0-8020-3998-9.
  3. ^ Morgan, Henry James (1912). The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Handbook of Canadian Biography of Living Characters (Public domain ed.). W. Briggs. p. 1191. Retrieved 22 May 2022.   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  4. ^ Jerry Don Vann; Rosemary T. VanArsdel (1996). Periodicals of Queen Victoria's Empire: An Exploration. University of Toronto Press. pp. 97–. ISBN 978-0-8020-0810-7.
  5. ^ Kate Westlake Yeigh (1906). A Specimen Spinster. Griffith & Rowland Press.