Judy's Story

The author of Judy LaMarsh: Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage and several political novels was born in Chatham, Ontario and resided in Niagara Falls. She attended Stamford Collegiate there and the Normal School in Hamilton, although she never taught school. She enlisted in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps and served from 1943 to 1946, travelling from Halifax to Vancouver. In the army she spent a year and a half translating captured Japanese documents into English and attained the rank of sergeant.

After the war Miss LaMarsh attended Victoria College of the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall where she qualified as a lawyer in 1950. She then joined her father’s law firm in Niagara Falls and became a hard working lawyer specializing in criminal law. All through this period she was active in Liberal organizations.

Miss LaMarsh then contested a 1960 by-election in Niagara Falls and became a Liberal backbencher in Ottawa during the last of the turbulent Diefenbaker years. When the Pearson government took over in 1963 she became the first woman to serve in a Liberal cabinet. As Minister of Health and Welfare, the Canada Pension Plan was one of her responsibilities. Later, as Secretary of State, she was in charge of the 1967 centennial celebrations.

Miss LaMarsh retired from political life in 1968 and returned to Niagara Falls where she hosted an open-line radio show, conducted a weekly television show in Ottawa and made frequent national television appearances. She listed her hobbies as cooking, gardening, reading, knitting, bridge, chess, travel and conversation. As Robert Fulford once wrote, “Judy LaMarsh is better than genteel; she is alive.”

She died of cancer in 1980.