Emily assumed that people would not agree with her new and different ideas. She understood that the struggle for women’s rights meant that she would be insulted and criticized.
Emily said: “My life was one of much struggle characterized by the usual persecution which attends everyone who pioneers a movement or steps out of line with established custom.”
This great person, whose work still affects Canada, passed away on April 30, 1903, one day before her seventy-second birthday. For five decades, she had fought for her belief that girls should have the right to design their own future. She had helped them add pattern pieces to their lives, but the work was not complete.
Like an unfinished quilt, women’s lives were still missing many pieces. Augusta, Emily’s daughter, continued the long struggle for equality.
CREMATION
Emily wanted to be cremated when she died.
“I have never done an act upon earth to pollute it, and do not wish to do so in dissolution.” There was no crematorium in Toronto. Her body was taken to Buffalo and then the ashes were brought back to Toronto.