Mary Susannah Edgar

Mary Susannah Edgar was a Canadian writer, educator, camp leader, and hymn writer born at Sundridge, Ontario, in 1889. Her education included Barrie High School and Havergal College in Toronto, followed by extension study at the University of Chicago, lectures at Teachers College, Columbia University, and graduation from the National Training School of the Young Women’s Christian Association in New York in 1915. Before founding her own camp, she worked in YWCA girls’ programs in Canada, served as Girls’ Work secretary in Montreal, and directed Camp Oolahwan in the Laurentians.

In 1920 Edgar spent several months in Japan doing volunteer work for the YWCA and purchased property on Lake Bernard near her hometown. Glen Bernard Camp for girls opened there in 1922, and she directed it until 1956. Her work also involved Canadian Girls in Training, the Girl Guides of Canada, and provincial and national camping organizations. The outdoor educational setting that occupied much of her adult life provides important context for “God, Who Touchest Earth with Beauty,” written in 1925 for a camping-association hymn competition. Edgar also published books including “Wood-fire and Candlelight,” “Under Open Skies,” and “Once there was a Camper,” as well as plays, poems, and other hymns. Archival records at Trent University preserve material relating to her career and writings.