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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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DEMERS, SUSAN (JARDINE) (1850-1939)

DEMERS, SUSAN (JARDINE), milliner and grocer; b. Williamstown, c1850, d/o John Jardine and Susan Goggin, natives of Ireland; m. 1886, Joseph Demers, a former resident of Point Levis, Que.; d. Chatham, 18 Feb 1939.

Susan (Jardine) Demers conducted a millinery shop in Newcastle from the early 1880s until after her husband's death in 1902. She sold out at that time in order to take charge of the grocery business which he had started three years previously. As elsewhere noted, she later transferred this business to her son A. A. Stewart Demers.

Demers was one of the Miramichi's most dynamic businesswomen. While conducting the millinery, which fronted on the Town Square, she frequently attended fashion and sales events in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, and she was a regular and creative advertiser. She also experimented with additional lines of goods and services, such as the "steam dyeing and cleaning" service which she advertised in 1895. To the grocery she introduced a stock of glassware and chinaware to which she later devoted a large part of her advertising budget.

Demers was keenly interested in education and served on the Newcastle School Board from 1908 to 1924. She was also a devoted member of the Catholic church. She and her husband had two sons.

Sources

[m] official records [d] Leader 24 Feb 1939 / Advocate 13 Jan 1886 (ad), 10 Dec 1890 (ad), 3 Jun 1896 (ad), 1 Sep 1897, 16 May 1899, 13 Aug 1902, 10 Sep 1902, 22 Sep 1915 (ad); Hamilton (NE); Leader 6 Jul 1906; Whelan (P&S) (ad)


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