“I am alone in this world”: The identities of Marie Rose Smith

Marie Rose (Delorme) Smith was born in the Red River area on October 18, 1861, to parents of French-Metis ancestry, and died in the Plains region of southern Alberta, on April 4, 1960. As a young girl, Marie Rose experienced the somewhat nomadic lifestyle of Plains traders, until her mother effected a trade with Charles Smith, a Norwegian "Indian" trader. The family received $50, and in return Marie Rose became his wife and they eventually settled on a ranch in the Pincher Creek district. During her lifetime, which spanned almost a century, Marie Rose experienced the large-scale settlement of the West, and its evolution to an economy reliant on industrialized agriculture. Marie Rose's various roles included those of mother, wife, business partner, medicine woman, homesteader, widow, and author, roles which allowed little time to negotiate her identity. A close examination of her manuscripts reveals the portrait of a Metis woman of varying and multi-faceted identities.