Alma Frances McCollum Biography

Alma Frances McCollum was a Canadian poet.

LifeShe was born in a village outside Chatham, Ontario, the youngest of six children of Irish immigrants. Her father, Edward Lee McCollum, died when she was a child, and the family moved to Peterborough, Ontario. Alma McCollum began to write poetry, like her father, early in life, and most of the poems collected in her one book, Flower Legends and Other Poems, were written when she was in her teens.

She was a frail child, and in 1900 spent time in a sanitarium (where she experienced the visitation written about in her sonnet, "The Angel of the Sombre Cowl").

In 1905 she moved, with her mother and two sisters, to Toronto, where she enrolled at University College, University of Toronto. However, she had to discontinue her studies due to ill health after a few weeks. In 1906 she was diagnosed with incipient appendicitis, and died during the operation.

Writing
Peterborough Examiner: "Her poetical compositions, conspicuous for their tender delicacy of sentiment and graceful literary form, constitute a permanent and valued addition to native Canadian literature."

William Henry Drummond: "On the whole my judgment tells me the volume is a valuable addition to our Canadian literature. The only faults are minor ones, and consistent with the writer's youth; and who would have it otherwise?"