Stevenson, Florence Louisa Maude "Nonie" (Russell) & Dr James

Florence Louisa Maude “Nonie” (Russell) 1877-1940 & Dr James Stevenson 1878-1957

Florence Louisa Maude Russell was born in Quebec in 1877, the daughter of William Edward Russell and Fanny Eliza Pope and granddaughter of Willis Russell. When she was sixteen, she went to Montreal, ostensibly to visit Trevor Evans's family (he was an old beau from Tadoussac days) but instead falsified her age and enrolled as a student nurse at the Montreal General Hospital.
By her own admission, her course marks were never very good, but she was tops when it came to working on the wards. Tall, strong, and energetic, she did twelve-hour shifts and often twenty-four. It was while she was at the M.G.H. that she met her future husband, James Stevenson, who was at McGill University studying medicine. Upon graduation, she returned to Quebec as Night Supervisor at the Jeffrey Hale Hospital, and James Stevenson followed her there as Surgical Resident. They married in the summer of 1905.
Ann Stevenson described her parents in her book Nose to the Window, excerpts from which appear below.

“Dr Stevenson was born in Montreal in February 1878, the youngest son of Pillans Scarth Stevenson and Annie Story Harris. The Stevensons had come out from Leith, Scotland, where they were ship owners, settling near Ottawa after the Napoleonic wars. They were a large family but we have lost touch with all except the Scarth connection. Dad's mother was a Harris from a Boston family who had married into the LeBrun de Duplessis-Charles family and settled in Montreal.
Mum was a completely uninhibited person, especially for a Victorian woman. Her father had taught them all that it was far better to talk about a thing or do it than to keep it inside and stew about it. She loved laughter, bright lights, sweet music, fine furniture and silver, and good food. Reading, other than light novels, was beyond her interest, nor did she do any handiwork or sewing, having lost the sight of one eye during pregnancy, although as a girl she had shown considerable talent with oils.
When she hated, she hated with every fibre of her being. When she loved, it was total. There were no half-measures in anything she did. If a project didn't turn out, she kept at it until it did. In spite of her love of life, she was subject to frequent bouts of depression. Dark days depressed her, death frightened her, and thunderstorms terrified her. Then she would pace the floor wringing her hands and shrieking at every bolt. (The house at Tadoussac had been struck when she was a child, and she had been knocked unconscious).
She attended church at the Cathedral quite regularly until she took issue with the Dean over a sermon he preached on the text, ‘Think well of thyself,’ and we all transferred to St. Matthew's. She didn't return to the Cathedral until the Dean moved on up the line and became Bishop somewhere. Her Anglicanism didn't prevent her from having a few miraculous medals or making offerings to St. Anthony to help her find lost trinkets.
Compassion was her religion. We were taught to pick flowers and take them to the old people at St. Bridget's Home across the street, as we, too, might be old and lonely someday. As a child, I would be sent on the streetcar to take a hot casserole to a destitute widow. Unfortunately, I was also sent on the same streetcar to bring home a bottle of straight alcohol which she kept hidden in her bureau drawer and imbibed secretly at bedtime. (This was before the days of sleeping pills and tranquillizers.) It was also my task to dispose of the empties over the fence of the nearest vacant lot. During this time, she was very unhappy, and she and Dad fought bitterly until the small hours of the morning. Everything Dad did annoyed her, and she didn't hesitate to tell him so. He, in turn, retreated more and more into his books. It was an unhappy time for all of us.
Mum was a fabulous cook and fed anyone and everyone who came in her door. She fought a continuous, losing battle with her weight because she had to sample everything to see if it was up to standard. She would hold a piece of cake to her ear and press it lightly to "hear if it had enough eggs in it." Crusty bread, rich cakes, suet puddings, sucre à la crème, and huge roasts issued from the kitchen with joyous profusion, to be devoured by our boyfriends, who enjoyed her company as much as ours. Because of her weight problem, she walked miles each day in all weather and for a while took up curling when walking in the winter was too difficult.
In later years Mum's health began to deteriorate. The long hours on her feet, cooking, walking, and working collapsed her arches and she suffered from prolonged and frequent bouts of phlebitis and varicose veins, and probably arthritis. Her heart, worn out by work and the intensity of her emotions, began to fibrillate, and for three years she was too weak to leave her bed. Late in January 1940, I arrived unexpectedly in Quebec to visit her in the hospital. Though no one had told her I was coming, she said to the nurse, ‘Is Ann here yet? Will Elizabeth get here in time?’ They thought her mind was wandering, as it so often had during her illness. Somehow, she who had seen so many people die, knew when her own time had come. She died that night.
Dr James Stevenson remained at the Jeffrey Hale Hospital where he was the head surgeon. Although he had great compassion for the widows and the needy, he showed it in very practical ways. When he suspected that little Leontyne Déschênes at Tadoussac had tuberculosis of the hip, he took her out of the hands of the local ‘ramancheur’ (bonesetter) and brought her to Québec for six months of free hospitalization and care. If a person was poor, he never charged a cent. However, he made it up by charging the wealthy patients whatever the traffic would bear. He held free clinics on his weekends at Tadoussac, doing minor treatments on his front gallery. He was a skilful surgeon and a charter fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Canada).”
‘Nonie’ Russell and Dr. Stevenson had three daughters, all of whom married and eventually had their own cottages in Languedoc Park on land given to them by their cousin, Erie Russell Janes Languedoc. Margaret Stevenson married John Reilley, Elizabeth Stevenson married Lionel O’Neill, and Ann Stevenson married the Rev. Russell Dewart.
‘Nonie’ died in Quebec in 1940 and Dr. Stevenson died in Montreal in 1957.

Brian Dewart (with excerpts from Ann Stevenson Dewart’s writings)

Photos below
The Stevenson sisters Ann (Dewart), Elizabeth (O'Neill) and Margaret (Reilley)
The 3 families, with 8 of the grandchildren, Russell Dewart maybe taking the photo - mid 1950's