Jemima McKenzie Ross  1826 - 1912

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Jemima McKenzie Ross was born in Portneuf, Quebec on January 10 1826. Her father, Roderick McKenzie (1791-1830) was from Scotland, and worked as the Chief Factor of a local Hudson’s Bay Company post.  Her mother, Sarah Sutherland (1801-1827) was Metis and had been born at Red River. Jemima and her siblings were orphaned by the time she was four. 

Jemima moved to the Red River Settlement in 1832 to live with her maternal grandfather, James Sutherland, where she went to school at the Red River Academy. During this time, her sister Arabella (or Anabella) McKenzie was the center of a scandal at the Academy after she became pregnant by another student. The 14 year-old Arabella was blamed for ‘seducing’ a boy named Askenootow (or Charles Pratt),  and was married off to an older man.

Jemima McKenzie Ross, William Coldwell and grandson Clarence James outside of Ross House, c.1898

Jemima's story continued un-recorded until 1844, when she married William Ross at St. John’s Church. William was the son of a prominent figure in the Red River Settlement, Alexander Ross. His mother, Sarah, was a member of the Syilx (Okanagan) Nation.
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​Jemima and William had six children together over the next decade:

• Sarah Ann (January 19, 1846 - 1865)
• Jane Mary (November 23, 1847 - 1849)
• William Roderick (December 3, 1849 - June 7, 1894) He married his first cousin, Jemima Matheson (daughter of Hugh Matheson & Margaret Ross).
• Alexander (January 2, 1852 - 1872)
• Margaret  (April 8, 1854 - ?) She married Walter John Thurlow James.
• Jemima (June 30, 1856 - January 5, 1865)

Alexander Ross gave William and Jemima a plot of land at the southern edge of the Ross estate in 1852. William began construction of their family home on this land, which would be called Brookbank. Construction of the house was completed in 1854.

The couple lived in the home together for less than two years before William died of tuberculosis in 1856. As a result, Jemima was left by herself to care for her five children. She would have had support from her extended family on the Ross homestead, but this was a very difficult  task for a single woman in the 1850s.

Planned development on the Ross estate in 1872. William and Jemima's land is the un-developed section to the south.

Jemima’s solution to this problem was to make use of the land that William left their children by leasing and selling sections as the city grew around them. Much of Winnipeg’s north Exchange District was built on the Ross family’s river lot. In 1875 Jemima donated a parcel of land to the City of Winnipeg to build the city’s first market, and later City Hall, on the condition that the land would be reserved for public use. Jemima McKenzie Ross deserves to be recognized as one of Winnipeg’s founding mothers for her contributions.

Winnipeg's original market square and City Hall, built on land donated by Jemima Ross.

In 1875, Jemima remarried to William Coldwell. He was an Englishman who co-founded the first local newspaper, called the Nor’Wester. Jemima and Coldwell remained at Brookbank for another 30 years. They maintained their log home and a shrinking piece of the river lot farm as a modern city grew around them. Despite her advanced age, Jemima had a reputation for her wit and storytelling, and was described as one of the “Metis first ladies” of the Red River Settlement.

In 1907, Jemima and Coldwell moved to British Columbia to live with his son. That same year, William Coldwell died and Jemima returned to Manitoba, where she lived with her daughter Margaret in Grosse-Ile for the remainder of her life.
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Jemima McKenzie Ross Coldwell died on the 26th of March, 1912 at the age of 86. She is buried beside her children and grandchildren at St. Mark's Church in Grosse-Ile, Manitoba.