About Box of Poems

Our Great Grandmother, Isa Grindlay Jackson, left behind a cardboard box containing her life's work. This site is dedicated to documenting the poems and essays that she wrote over her lifetime; through two World Wars and a Great Depression.

Isa Grindlay Jackson

Eclectic readers of Canadian magazines may have come to recognize the name of Isa Grindlay Jackson (1884-1981), whose poetic contributions adorned a wide array of periodicals. Isa also published two volumes, Ripples in the Ranks of the Q.M.A.A.C. (1918), which focuses entirely on her service in the First World War, and Ballades & Bits (1937), a collection of light-hearted, often witty verses on everyday life.

Isa was born Isabella McDonald Stevenson on July 5, 1884 in Slamannan, Stirlingshire, Scotland, the eldest child of seven to mother, Isabella Stevenson (née MacIntyre) and father, John Stevenson. By sixteen, she seems to have completed her studies there, and in 1910, the twenty-five year old arrived in Canada. At her boarding house in Calgary, where she lodged while working as a bookkeeper at a real estate company, Isa met and married a fellow tenant, carpenter Charles Grindlay (1887-1916). After Charles's death overseas during the First World War, Isa married again, this time to farmer Leon Lester Jackson (1890-1955). The Jacksons lived in Lonira, Alberta for several years, during which time Isa sent many of her verses to prairie publications like THE FARM AND RANCH REVIEW and the daily newspapers of Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg. During the Second World War she moved to Vancouver where she remained until her death.