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OGDEN, GRETA SUBMIT, artist, professor, and pioneer occupational therapist; b. 1 June 1875 in Sackville, N.B., daughter of William Ross Ogden and Alice Chase Barnes; d. unmarried 9 Aug. 1939 in Moncton, N.B.

Greta Ogden was born into an artistic and ambitious family. Her mother, Alice, had enrolled at age 13 in the first class of the Wesleyan Academy’s branch for women [see Mary Electa Adams*] in 1854, 11 years after the men’s academy opened. In 1856 the institution officially became Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy. The curriculum for women was designed so that “not only the Elementary but higher branches of Education” could be taught. In 1886 the ladies’ academy became Mount Allison ladies’ college.

After graduating, Ogden’s mother remained at the school as an assistant art teacher for four years. She maintained ties as an active member of the Alumnae Society, and at age 42 she enrolled again to study mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, music, and drawing. In 1868 Alice had married William Ogden, a shipbuilder and sawmill owner. Greta was the second of their three daughters. Her sister Sarah Ethel, six years older, became an accomplished painter and a student of John Hammond, professor of fine art and head of the art department at Mount Allison ladies’ college from 1893 to 1916. Ethel taught drawing and china painting in the same department from 1895. Greta’s sister Mary Haliburton, four years younger, was also a student at the college and a talented violinist. Like her mother and her sisters, Greta attended the institution for many years; she enrolled in 1883 at age eight and continued to take courses until 1896, with special interests in French and music. Her association with the college lasted most of her life. She may have assisted with teaching in the art department as early as 1901, and even in 1920, when she was 45, she was registered as a student in ceramics and metalworking.

China painting was a popular activity for women; both Greta and Ethel were practising it by 1889. Eight years later Ethel would travel to New York City to further her study of the technique. In her decoration of porcelain Greta experimented with metallic lustres and geometric patterns. She was also a potter and a skilled weaver, basket maker, and embroiderer. Harper’s Bazar (later Bazaar) of New York City reported that her embroidery ranked tenth among 3,000 entries in a competition held there in 1910.

In 1918 Greta left Sackville to attend the University of Toronto. There she completed the ward-aide training program, the first course of study in Canada to offer instruction in occupational therapy, which was to be provided to First World War veterans. The students learned how to apply the therapeutic effects of crafts such as basketry, weaving, and carving in the rehabilitation of soldiers recovering from injuries. Several applied-arts graduates from the Mount Allison ladies’ college attended ward-aide training programs in Toronto and at McGill University in Montreal. Upon completion, students were required to work in military hospitals, usually within their home regions, for at least one year. Greta was assigned to the Old Government House Military Hospital in Fredericton. By 1920 she had returned to Sackville, and in 1923 she joined the faculty of the ladies’ college art department. Her pioneering work in the application of crafts to occupational therapy must have been influential in an agreement reached in 1933 between Mount Allison University and the University of Toronto: the program at Mount Allison would provide the first year of training for occupational-therapy students, who would then complete their studies in Toronto.

The ward-aide training program included the fabrication of toys that were marketed commercially in local stores. During Greta’s first year as a faculty member, toymaking and children’s Saturday morning art classes – a teaching experience for applied-arts students – were added to the curriculum. Between 1923 and her resignation in 1938 she taught china painting, art embroidery, and basketry in the applied-arts program. She also gave instruction in sewing and embroidery in the household-science department. In addition, she was an active member of the Mount Allison Handicrafts Guild and the Sackville Art Association, both of which were founded in the early 1930s.

In 1928 Greta had supervised an overseas tour with her students, and later she designed and painted a set of eight porcelain plates inspired by 14th-century Italian damask patterns at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. These plates, part of a large collection of china hand-painted by Greta and Ethel Ogden, were donated by the descendants of their younger sister, Mary Haliburton Parlee, to the Owens Art Gallery at Mount Allison University in 2010. Greta’s porcelain work is also represented in the collection of the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John. Curatorial research has led to exhibitions of the Ogden sisters’ painted china and an increased understanding of their role in the history and development of the applied arts in Atlantic Canada.

Failing health had led to Greta Ogden’s early, reluctant retirement in 1938, and she died of coronary thrombosis the following year in a Moncton hospital. One of the first occupational therapists in Canada, she dedicated most of her life to assisting others in creating beautiful and useful things, and she was well known for her outgoing personality and collegial relationships with faculty and students. She was also recognized in her hometown as an avid and knowledgeable gardener who cultivated large beds of roses and daffodils, and her flowers were used when decorating for important receptions and events at Mount Allison. Well into the 21st century, roses and daffodils were still blooming on the Ogden property.

Jane Tisdale