| Category: | Athlete |
| Sport(s): | Track & Field |
| Years Active: | 1928-32 |
| Year Inducted: | 2004 |
Jean made her first significant impression at the Maritime Track and Field Championships held at the Wanderers Grounds on June 21, 1929. At this competition, Jean’s strong performance earned her one gold and two silver medals. The gold medal came in the baseball throw while her efforts in the javelin and the 880 yard walk produced silver medals. That same year she was awarded the Dalhousie Gold “D” for track and field. Of significance, she became only the second Dalhousie female track athlete to be so recognized.
In her sophomore year at Dalhousie, Jean had strong results at the 1930 Halifax Ladies Athletic Club Meet. At this meet, she won the championship in the baseball throw when she recorded a throw of 161 feet into a strong head wind. This was just 12 feet under the then Canadian record for the event at that time. Jean’s performance also merited second place awards in both the javelin and discus events. Later in 1930, she established the record for the javelin with an 80-foot, 11-inch toss.
It was in her junior and senior years at Dalhousie that Jean truly became noted as one of the elite track and field athletes in the Maritimes. In the spring of 1931, she took first place honours in both the javelin and discus events and established Maritime records in the process. In the fall of 1931, at the meet that Aileen Meagher first attracted the notice of the sports world, Jean’s performance merited first place honours in the baseball throw, the discus and the javelin. In the process, she established two new Maritime records, one of which came in the javelin where she broke her own record. Just after her graduation from Dalhousie in May of 1932, Jean once again broke her Maritime record in the javelin.
Jean continued her participation in track and field through to 1935 when she competed at the Sydney Nova Scotia 150th Anniversary Meet, a competition in which her performance produced three medals. It is interesting to note that all of her outstanding achievements in athletics came at a time when women’s participation in elite sport was neither highly encouraged nor recognized.
While studying at Dalhousie Jean organized and coached summer girls softball teams as part of her employment with the Halifax Playgrounds. She competed in the Nova Scotia Tennis Championship tournaments for several years. A top student, Jean sang with the Dalhousie Chorale and played violin in the Dalhousie orchestra.
She began her teaching career at Morris Street School in Halifax in the fall of 1932. While teaching, she wrote a regular column for the Halifax Herald with her own byline titled “Women’s Sport News,” later renamed “Women’s Sportlight”. At Dalhousie and later as a member of the Halifax Ladies Athletic Club, Jean enjoyed competition with teammates and rivals like Gertrude Phinney, Marion Eaton, Jean Fraser, Josie Lava and Aileen Meagher.
Jean later taught senior English at Guysborough Municipal High School, in the community where she and her husband raised their three sons and a daughter.