Sophia Almon Hensley

George Dance Sophia Margaretta Almon Hensley (May 31, 1856 - February 10, 1946) was a Canadian poet and journalist.

Life
Sophia Almon was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia to Sarah Frances (DeWolf) and Rev. Henry Prior Almon. Homeschooled by a governess, she was later educated at St. Monica's School in Warminster, Warwickshire, UK, and Miss Watson's School in Paris. After graduation she lived in lived in Windsor, Nova Scotia, with her parents. She became a protege of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, then teaching at King's College, who encouraged her to publish her poetry. She began contributing poetry, first to the King's College Record, and then to magazines such as The Current and the Dominion Illustrated Monthly.In 1889 she published her first collection of poetry, Poems, and married Halifax lawyer Hubert Arthur Hensley.

In 1890 the Hensleys moved to New York City, where Hubert Hensley became general manager of an investment banking group. Sophia Hensley became active in feminist and child welfare causes, as a member of the Society for Political Study, co-founder of the New York City Mothers' Club, secretary of the New York State Assembly of Mothers, and founder of the Society for the Study of Life. She also wrote more verse, and a novelette. The couple also collaborated on a musical play.

Hensley moved to the Channel Island of Jersey in 1937, but lost her home when the Nazis took the island in 1940. She returned to Nova Scotia, where she died in 1946.

Poetry

 * Poems (by "Sophie M. Almon"). Windsor, NS: privately printed by J.J. Anslow, 1889.
 * A Woman's Love Letters. New York: J. Selwyn Tait, 1895.
 * Out of the Silence. Westwood, MA: Ariel Press, [1900?]
 * The Heart of a Woman (as "Gordon Hart"). London, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1906.
 * The Way of a Woman, and other poems. San Diego, CA: The Canterbury Co., 1928.

Plays

 * Princess Mignon: a musical play in three acts (as Almon Hensley, with Hubert Hensley), 1900.

Fiction

 * Love and Company (Limited) (as "John Wernberny and Another"), 1897.
 * (as "J. Try-Davies and Mary Woolston"). Montreal: W.F. Brown, 1901.
 * A Semi-Detached House and other stories (as "J. Try-Davies"; illustrated by Robert Harris). Montreal: Lovell, 1900.
 * The Lost Sard, unpublished novel (listed in Who's Who'', 1904).

Non-Fiction

 * Historical Sketch of Boisbriant. [Montreal?], [189-?].
 * Woman and the Race. Westwood, MA: Ariel Press, 1907.
 * Love and the Woman of Tomorrow. London: Drane's Danegeld House, 1913.

Anthologized

 * Theodore Harding Rand, A Treasury of Canadian Verse, 1900.
 * Burpee, A Century of Canadian Sonnets, 1910.

''Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Simon Fraser University and WorldCat.