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Memorable Manitobans: Mary Scorer (1911-1988)
Bookseller, publisher.
Born in Newcastle, England, daughter of William and Elizabeth Scorer, she came to Canada with her family at age three. Educated at Winnipeg, she worked as a secretary for Purity Flour for many years. During the Second World War she went to Britain as an ambulance driver, then worked for an English publisher after the war. She returned to Canada in 1950, worked at Eaton’s book department from 1950 to 1959, and then opened her own bookstore in 1959. She established Peguis Publishers in 1967, which was Manitoba’s first full-time publishing company. At Peguis, Scorer published many books on Manitoba history. The bookstore initially financed the publishing, but she gradually moved full-time into the publishing business and sold the bookstore to other parties. She was given a Manitoba Good Citizenship Award in 1975. She was named YWCA Woman of the Year in 1982 and was inducted into the Order of the Buffalo Hunt in 1984. She died at the Concordia Hospital on 23 January 1988 and was survived by six sisters. An annual prize for the best book by a Manitoba publisher is named in her honour.
Sources:
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 27 January 1988, page 43.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 November 2022
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