Alexander Louis Fraser

by George J. Dance

Rev. Alexander Louis Fraser (1870-1954), M.A., D.D, was a Canadian poet and cleric.

Alexander Louis Fraser (1870-1954) in Canadian Singers and their Songs, 1919. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Life

Youth and education

Fraser was born in Blue Mountain, Pictou County, Nova Scotia.

He was educated at Dalhousie University, Halifax; Pine Hill Divinity Hall, Halifax; and New College, Edinburgh.

Career

Fraser was the presbyterian minister in Great Village, Nova Scotia, in 1905-1914, and active in the village's Christophian (or Kritisophian) Literary Society founded by his predecessor, W.M. Crawford. As the History of Great Village described that body:

The Society met fortnightly in the homes of the members, to spend the evening reading and discussing great literature. A winter each was spent on Keats, Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Milton, Shakespeare, Dante, and two winters on Browning and Tennyson ....The Society did not long continue after Mr. Fraser left in 1914, but for ten years at least, each winter the Group had lived with great writers.

Rev. Fraser later wrote of the Society: "We found the little club worth while. We had college graduates, teachers, doctors of medicine, housewives, merchants, school girls. It gave color to their lives, and there are people from Halifax, N.S., to Vancouver, B.C., to recall with pleasure and profit the discovery of great lines and the hearing of great music.”

Fraser taught New Testament Greek at Pine Hill Divinity Hall, 1922-1923. In 1927 he was the minister of St. John's United Church, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

His poetry was published in The British Weekly, University Magazine, Dalhousie Review, Canadian Magazine, Acadiensis, Maclean’s, and Education.

Recognition

Fraser won a prize in 1912 for his poem, "Memorial Tower, Halifax."

2 of his poems, "November" and "A Gloaming Call", were included by William Wilfred Campbell in the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, 1913.

Publications

Poetry

• Sonnets, and other verses. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1909.
• At Life's Windows. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1910.
• Fugitives. Saint John, NB: 1912.
• The Indian Bride: A war legend. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1915.
• Aftermath. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1919.
• God's Wealth, and other poems. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1922.
• The Drained Cup, and other poems. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1925.
• By Cobequid Bay. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1927.
• People of the Street, and other poems. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1929.
• By Eastern Windows: A book of verse. Saint John, NB: Saint John Globe, 1932.
• Ruth, and other poems. Toronto: Crucible Press, 1946.
• Halifax, 1749-1949. Halifax, NS: [1949?]
• Moose River Mines, and other poems. Toronto: Crucible Press, 1949.
• For Thinking Hearts. Toronto: H.M. Ridley, 1954.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Canadian poets

External links

Poems

• "November"
• Fraser in the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse: "November," "A Gloaming Call"

Books

• Alexander Louis Fraser at Internet Archive
• Alexander Louis Fraser at Amazon.com

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