About the ELA Foundation

ELA Foundation

Ethel Louise Armstrong

Margaret A. Staton

Deborah B. Lewis

About Ethel Louise Armstrong and her Granddaughter, Margaret Staton   Ethel Louise Armstrong (1875-1957) was a powerful and influential woman who overcame adversity and the constraints of her day. Ethel, the eldest of four daughters, grew up in Montreal. She wanted to be a doctor, but at that time McGill University didn't accept women into medical school. The Université de Montreal did, but due to her father's objections, she was not able to attend classes there. Forced to abandon her dream of studying medicine, she chose instead to study arts at McGill. She graduated in 1895 – graduating as president of her class and class valedictorian - with a bachelor’s degree. She was the first one in her family to graduate from college.   After graduation she married John Botterell, a grain and stockbroker in Winnipeg. It wasn't socially acceptable for married women of Armstrong's social position to work for wages in those days, so she did a lot of volunteer work, especially in the children's hospital. When her husband died suddenly in 1923, she was left at age 48 with four children to raise. She opened her house to boarders, and her eldest son dropped out of McGill to support the family. She later managed to put two children through the university. Ethel Louise Armstrong epitomized the values of independence, self-reliance, perseverance, dignity, and caring with a sense of humor as she forged new territory for herself and her family. It is with these same values that the ELA Foundation serves people with disabilities while honoring her memory.   One of Ethel’s sons became a physician, who treated spinal cord injuries in Great Britain during World War II and started the first spinal cord injury clinic in Canada. Her son, (Margaret’s uncle) was a neurosurgeon at this clinic, and it was here that Margaret Staton went for surgery and rehabilitation after a tumor was found on her spine at the age of two.