Granny Seymour with Mayor Dezell

Granny Seymour with Mayor Dezell

Granny Seymour (Margaret Mary Boucher) 1852-1966

Granny Seymour practiced traditional herbal medicine and saved mold in a baking powder can, to put on open sores. If you had an infection, she would use a knife and spread the mold on it. If someone stepped on a rusty nail, she would put a thin slice of pork on the foot and then wrap it up for the night. The morning after she would unwrap it, remove the pork, wash the foot and put jackpine pitch on and it would “dry heal”. She was a midwife “to both Indians and white people” – Prince George Citizen newspaper, March 16, 1966.

Granny told her children that hate and greed can kill people – “Love and sharing are more important”. At the age of 105, she still lived alone in a South Fort George cottage, splitting her own wood and walking two miles to church every Sunday. For many years on her birthday, telegrams arrived from the Queen and Prime Minister. Granny Seymour passed away on March 16, 1966 at the age of 114. The newspapers called her a “Legend”.