- Person
- 1915-1991
From daughter, Caroline Bieler Brettell:
"Zoë Winifred Browne-Clayton, the daughter of Lionel Denis Browne-Clayton (1874-1946) and Winifred Constance Bell (1880-1938), was born in Okanagan Mission, a small orchard community near Kelowna, BC, in 1915. ... »
From daughter, Caroline Bieler Brettell:
"Zoë Winifred Browne-Clayton, the daughter of Lionel Denis Browne-Clayton (1874-1946) and Winifred Constance Bell (1880-1938), was born in Okanagan Mission, a small orchard community near Kelowna, BC, in 1915. Shortly after her birth, her father enlisted with the British military in the First World War, and Zoe and her mother crossed the Atlantic to live with her grandparents in her mother's home in Oxfordshire, England. In 1917, her brother Robert was born, and in December 1919 the family returned to Okanagan Mission. There, they established an orchard on the 20 acres Lionel had purchased in 1912. According to her biographer daughter, Caroline Brettell, Zoe and her brother enjoyed a relatively idyllic upbringing in the peaceful Okanagan Valley, which she wrote about in The Montreal Star (11 July 1973). Zoe attended high school in Kelowna, graduating in 1932, and was one of the few students to continue on to university, mostly at the urging of her mother. In the autumn of 1932, Zoe entered the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, where she immediately became involved in the university student newspaper, The Ubyssey.
Zoe's journalistic dreams were solidified by her success at The Ubyssey. Shortly after joining the paper in 1932, she was an editor: in the 1933-34 school year she became assistant editor; in 1934-35 senior editor; in 1935-36 news manager; and in her final year, 1936-37, editor-in-chief. In 1934, she interviewed Aimee Semple-McPherson for the paper; her probing questions were predictive of her future as a journalist of intelligence and integrity.
Zoe earned her BSc in agricultural economics in 1936, delaying her graduation for a year to earn her BA and to serve as editor-in-chief for The Ubyssey. After graduation she returned to the Okanagan Mission to help take care of her mother, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. After her mother died in June 1938, Zoe travelled to Europe, where she experienced first-hand the rising political tensions that led to the Second World War. Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939; on 15 September 1939, at the urging of her relatives, Zoe sailed for Canada, arriving safely in Okanagan Mission in late September. Unable to find a position as a journalist, Zoe found work as an advertising copywriter for the Hudson's Bay Company in Vancouver, BC. In the summer of 1941, she moved to Toronto where she worked as an advertising copywriter for Eaton's department store for three months. She then secured a position with the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, and moved to Ottawa, ON, where she met Jacques Bieler, an engineer working for the Department of Munitions and Supply. A year later, the couple were married by Jacques's clergyman father, in Lost River, QC.
In 1943, Jacques's job took them to Montreal, where Zoe was hired by the Montreal Standard. Women's roles in journalism were somewhat curtailed after the war, but Zoe managed to carve a space for herself, working alongside journalists such as Mavis Gallant and Dorothy Sangster. In 1949, Zoe and Jacques adopted a baby boy—Brian Charles—who was joined the following June by their biological daughter, Zoe Caroline. Zoe then turned to freelance writing. In 1954, both children began pre-school, leaving Zoe free to accept a position as a full-time feature reporter at the Montreal Star.
By 1957, Zoe's dedication and journalistic ability were recognized when she became editor of the women's pages for the Montreal Star; no woman had previously held this post. For many years it was her section of the newspaper that generated the most advertising revenue. Zoe remained in this position for eleven years; in 1969, though, the hierarchy at the Star changed, and the work atmosphere along with it. Zoe's interest in science enabled her to take a job as medical reporter at an advantageous historical moment—the national health insurance plan was being developed at that time—and during this period she saw some of her stories make the front pages of the paper and win several awards. Her feminism informed her insightful investigations into significant social issues such as child abuse, alcoholism, abortion, birth control and infertility, drug addiction, and the role of women in the army and the business world.
Like her father, Zoe was active in socialist politics. In the early 1970s, she was a member of the negotiating committee for the Newspaper Guild, and later elected to the executive. The Guild was involved in the negotiations during strike action in 1975 that was resolved after two months. Strike action by the Montreal Newspaper Printing Pressmen's Union in 1978, however, shut down the Star for eight months, and it never recovered. The company folded in August 1979, and Zoe, like many others, was without a job. At 64 years of age, after over 25 years of service, her severance package amounted to a decent retirement fund. She retired, but did not stop writing, working as a freelance writer for the Canadian Medical Association Journal; in 1980, as well, she was commissioned by Positive Action to prepare a report on English-language education in Quebec. At 66, she was offered the job of editor of the People section of the Montreal Gazette. She found The Gazette chaotic and the job frustrating. She retired and ceased freelance writing by the mid-1980s. In 1988, she was diagnosed with cancer; she died in September of 1991.”
Zoe's husband was the youngest brother of Québec muralist, Andre Bieler.
When she moved to Montreal, after marrying, she worked with the [Montreal] Standard: one of her colleagues was Mavis Gallant.
News clippings that were in articles are from offices of the Montreal Star, which she rescued.
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