Louise Manny

Manny, Louise

Louise (Elizabeth) Manny. Collector, b Gilead, Me, 1890, d Newcastle, NB, 17 Aug 1970; honorary LL D (St Thomas College, Chatham) 1961, honorary LL D (New Brunswick) 1961. Taken to New Brunswick at three, she lived in Newcastle on the Miramichi River and developed an interest in the local history, on which she wrote and broadcast extensively. She was commissioned in 1947 by Lord Beaverbrook to collect and record the songs of the Miramichi lumbermen. Continuing to collect after the commission had been completed, she presented the songs in weekly broadcasts 1947-68 on CKMR radio, Newcastle. She founded the Miramichi Folk Festival and directed it 1958-69. Some of the songs she collected may be heard on the LP Folksongs of the Miramichi (1962, Folk FM-4053). Others are published in Songs of Miramichi (Fredericton 1968, 101 songs compiled, edited, and annotated by Manny and James Reginald Wilson). In 1967 she received the Woman of the Century medal from the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, and in 1969 her name was given to a mountain - Mount Manny - in New Brunswick's Historians' Range.