Martha Louise Purdy Black, nee Munger (1866 - 1957)
Martha Munger spent five years of her youth at St. Mary’s Catholic finishing school in Indianna and made her social debut in 1885 at the age of nineteen. She married a man of good social standing, Will Purdy, in 1887 and they lived well with support from their families and Will’s salary from his father’s railway company. They had two sons, Warren and Donald, in the first five years of their marriage and enjoyed a lively social life. They were excited by news of the Klondike gold given by their friends Sophy and Eli Gage. Sophy’s brother, Portus B. Weare, was president of the North American Transportation and Trading Company with headquarters in St. Michael. Sophy and Eli were in Alaska when the first boat carrying gold left the Yukon. Eli stayed to investigate the goldfields while Sophy returned home. When Eli returned home, he and Will made plans to join the Klondike stampede. Sophy and Martha campaigned to go north as well, and Martha’s parents agreed to keep her children on their ranch in Kansas. Sophy and Eli would go by boat through St. Michael and planned to meet the Purdys in Dawson. Martha’s younger brother George and a cousin [Harry Peachy] caught the fever and joined the Purdys. Will backed out of the trip in Seattle, distracted by news of riches to be made in the Sandwich Island, and he and Martha went their separate ways.1)
Martha’s third son, Lyman, was born in a cabin in January 1899. Martha was attended by two old sea captains who were members of their party. Martha’s father arrived in the summer of 1900 to escort mother and baby back to Kansas. They finally allowed her to divorce Will and return to the Klondike with her eldest son. A year later, they brought her two youngest sons to Dawson and stayed to set Martha up as the manager of a sawmill. She was considered socially acceptable as she was living in her brother’s house.2) Martha Purdy and George Black were married in 1904, and she became the chatelaine of his house and supporter of his political career. When George was too ill to run in the 1935 federal election, Martha, at age 69, was elected as the second woman in the Canadian House of Commons. She was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an Officer of the British Empire. Canada Post issued a stamp in her honour in 1997, and Mount Martha Black in the Yukon bears her name.3)
Martha’s autobiography, My Seventy Years, was published in 1938, and updated and republished by Florence Whyard as My Ninety Years in 1976. It was further updated after her death and published in 1998 as Martha Black: Her Story from the Dawson Gold Fields to the Halls of Parliament.