Marjorie Allison Wickwire
Marjorie One of First Women to Letter In Sport
Marjorie Wickwire was among the first women to receive an athletic “A” from Acadia University. She grew up in Wolfville and even as a school girl played on town-based girls’ sports teams such as the St John’s Church School team in the Wolfville Girls’ Basketball league. She attended Wolfville High School and entered Acadia in the fall of 1917 where she became active in the sports available to women students. She made the women’s hockey team in her freshman year; although the team did not play in an organized league, the Acadia women were able to play games with local teams from Wolfville and from nearby towns such as Canning and Windsor. In her sophomore year, she made the basketball team. In Wickwire’s senior year, an intercollegiate women’s basketball league was formed with Dalhousie University, Halifax Ladies College and King’s College joining Acadia; Mt Allison University of New Brunswick joined in 1923. The women on the varsity team, including Marjorie Wickwire, were therefore eligible to receive athletic “A”s on the same basis as the men.
Wickwire also played on her class teams; in 1919, the Athenaeum noted that in a game between the sophomores (Wickwire’s team) and the juniors on 9 April, “the Sophomore forwards showed much improvement.” By her Senior year, she was captain of her class basketball team. “The interclass games have also roused a great deal of enthusiasm and a great display of class spirit. By a hard fight the seniors won the championship with the juniors only one point behind.” The June 1921 Athenaeum noted that Wickwire “has distinguished herself in girls’ athletics....Altho very fond of sports she has not neglected her studies.”
After graduation, she became a librarian at the Acadia University library and was there until 1943. During this time, she continued to be active in sports playing for women’s town-based teams. An account of a basketball game between the women at Whitman Hall–an Acadia women’s residence–and the town team notes that “the game was lively and of interest from whistle but the outcome was never in doubt....The shooting of Miss Wickwire was the feature of the game.” Wickwire moved to Ontario in 1943 where she held several jobs, but returned to Wolfville after retirement where she once again worked in the university library.
(Acadia Athenaeum, May 1919, 241; June 1921, 146 & 93; April 1924, 48)
