Biographical Timeline

1839

Eaton’s father, Edward Henry Eaton, born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England.

1846

Eaton’s mother, Achuen Amoy (pictured in the etching above), born in China, perhaps in/near Shanghai. As a young child, she is sold to Chinese acrobat and knife-thrower Tuck Quy (Teh-Kwei) and tours China, the United States, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland with the “Chinese Magicians” (also known as “Chinese Jugglers”), beginning in 1851.

1855

The Chinese Magicians perform at Drury Lane (poster featured above). Achuen Amoy is rescued from her knife-throwing owner Tuck Quy in London’s East End by Christian missionaries just before he and his wife Wang Noo sail for China.

1860

Edward Eaton’s father purchases a chemical manufacturing business.

1861

Achuen Amoy is baptized “Grace” in London and travels to China to work as a missionary.

1863

Edward Eaton and Achuen Amoy marry more formally at Shanghai’s Trinity Church, after being married on board ship.

1864

Winnifred’s brother Charles Edward (pictured above) is born in China. The Eatons return to England soon afterward, settling in Macclesfield.

1865

Winnifred’s sister Edith Maude (who later writes under the pseudonym “Sui Sin Far,” pictured above) born on 15 March in Macclesfield. Edward sails for New York City in May. His wife Grace and the two children sail to New York from Liverpool in June aboard the “City of London.” Family settles in Jersey City and Edward opens a drug and dye wholesale outfit on Pine Street in New York City.

1867

Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen (pictured above) born in Jersey City on 24 January.

1868

Eatons sail back to England in February on the “Denmark” and settle in Bow/Poplar area of London. Winnifred’s sister Sarah (pictured above, on right, with husband Karl Bosse and sister Rose) born.

1869

Winnifred’ brother Ernest George born.

1871

Winnifred’s sister Christiana Mary “Agnes” (pictured above with her children) born.

1872

Eaton family sails from England back to North America via New York and settles in Montreal. Edward is listed in Lovell’s City Directory as commission merchant, based at 16 St. Sacrament (a centrally located building that includes offices of brokers, mining companies, merchants, and notaries).

1873

Winnifred’s sister May Darling (pictured above), named after the Darling family who lived next-door, born.

1874

Edward listed in Lovell’s City Directory as a clerk with the Grand Trunk Railway. The growing Eaton family settle in working-class French-Canadian neighbourhood of Hochelaga in row housing leased from John Bombreary, at rue d’Iberville. Winnifred’s brother Ernest George dies in February.

1875

Winifred Lily born August 21, the eighth of fourteen children, two of whom die in childhood. Baptized, with sisters Christiana Mary “Agnes” and May Darling, at Montreal’s American Presbyterian Church as “Lillie Winifred,” although she soon drops the “Lillie” and adds a second ‘n’ to Winifred (Birchall 5).

1876

Family live at 101 rue d’Iberville, leased from J. Rolland. Edward working as a clerk.

1877

Winnifred’s brother George born.

1879

Winnifred’s brother Lawrence born.

1880

Winnifred’s sister Rose (pictured above) born. Eatons living at 42 rue Seaver, company housing for Hudon Mills workers.

1881

Winnifred’s brother Hubert born.

1882

United States government passes Chinese Exclusion Act limiting immigration to US. Winnifred’s father Edward stops working as clerk, allegedly to devote himself to art career. Family live at 97 rue d’Iberville near Ste. Catherine.

1883

Winnifred’ father Edward Eaton listed in Lovell’s as an “artist” living at 104 rue Drolet at Roy. Winnifred’s sister Edith working in composing room of the Montreal Star.

1884

Winnifred’s brother Lawrence dies at age two, possibly of smallpox during the epidemic, and is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

1885

Winnifred’s sister Florence (pictured above, left) born. Canada passes the Chinese Immigration Act, levying a $50 head tax on each Chinese labourer entering the country.

1886

Gilbert and Sullivan’s light opera The Mikado, a favourite of the Eaton girls, staged in Montreal.

1887

Eaton family listed as living at 488 boulevard St. Laurent. Winnifred’s sister Beryl (pictured above) born.

1888

Winnifred’s brother Charles Edward marries Isabelle Carter at Montreal’s St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.

1889

Family living at 610 boulevard St. Laurent, leased from Napoleon Deschamp. Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen working as stenographer and typewriter in an office she rents in the Standard Life Building at 157 rue St. Jacques.

1890

Winnifred stays in school until age fifteen, at which time she begins to work (possibly as an apprentice dressmaker). Family living at 180 avenue Cadieux.

1891

Eaton family living at 619 rue St. Urbain, leased from Catharine Mitcheson, widow. Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen marries British immigrant journalist-editor Walter Blackburn Harte in Montreal on 20 April and moves to Boston where Harte has been appointed, three months earlier, Assistant Editor of The New England Magazine. Winnifred’s brother Charles Edward and his young family living at 122 rue Crescent. Winnifred’s Japanese-born cousin Alfred Eaton arrested in San Francisco for bribing a Customs Officer to permit his Japanese fiancee and her aunt to land. Alfred’s father, Isaac Eaton, returns to Macclesfield after living for several decades in Japan.

1893

Winnifred’s sister Sarah advertises her services as an artist and art teacher in Montreal. Winnifred’s sister Christina Agnes marries Eloi Emmanuelle Perrault, a widower thirty years her senior and with two children, on October 13.

1894

Eaton family living at 828 avenue St. Laurent. Winnifred’s sister Edith opens own stenography office.

1895

Eaton family living at 83 rue de l’Arcade. Winnifred publishes her first serialized story in a Montreal magazine. Winnifred goes to Jamaica as general writer and reporter, covering legislative council meetings, stenography; her fare is paid by the Gall’s Daily News Letter, and her salary includes free board and lodging at Myrtle Bank hotel (owned by Gall). Winnifred stays in Jamaica for about five months. Winnifred’s sister Christina Agnes gives birth to Mary Gertrude May Perrault on November 25.

1896

A poem “Sneer Not,” by Winnifred Eaton, published in Gall’s Daily News Letter, in March. Winnifred leaves Jamaica, goes to Boston, via the “Barnstable” in early April. Her father Edward is arrested in New York State in June for smuggling Chinese into the US and he is put in Plattsburgh, NY, prison; he and his accomplice escape and he returns to Montreal in August. Winnifred moves to Cincinnati, where her brother George lives, probably in October. Assumes Japanese persona as “Kitishima Taka Hasche,” or “Kitishina,” or “Tacki Hashi” a Yokohama-born girl whose pen name is “Onoto Watanna.” In November, publishes her first Japanese-themed story, “A Japanese Girl,” signed Onoto Watanna, in the Cincinnatti Commercial Tribune, a newspaper that Japanese poseur Lafcadio Hearn contributed to in the 1870s. By November, Winnifred working as chief stenographer in Cincinnati, probably at the Commercial McKinley Club, during the 1896 presidential campaign. Winnifred’s sister Edith assumes Winnifred’s Gall’s Newsletter job in Jamaica beginning in December.

1897

Winnifred (pictured above) settles in Chicago, probably in May. Does stenographic work in the stockyards, probably for the soap department of Philip Armour and Company, and writes. In September, she claims to be heading to Alaska with the Woman’s Alaska Gold Club, a group with 150 members founded by Chicago patent lawyer Florence King, to pan for gold. Sister Edith returns to North America, probably to Montreal, from Jamaica in April or May.

1898

Onoto Watanna’s work prompts notices in numerous literary publications including Ev’ry Month and Chicago Daily Tribune, many of which Winnifred pastes into her scrapbook (pictured above). As Onoto Watanna, Winnifred writes an “Introduction” to Love Lyrics, a book of poems by her friend Chicago journalist Frank Putnam. Publishes stories in Chicago magazines such as American Home Journal, Conkey’s Home Journal, and Carter’s Monthly. Nephew Horace Blackburn Harte is born to Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen. Winnifred’s sister May moves to San Francisco. Winnifred’s sister Edith also moves west, first to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles.

1899

Publishes short stories in Chicago Magazine, Puritan Magazine, Conkey’s Home Journal, Woman’s Home Companion, and Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly; non-fiction in Book News, the Ladies’ Home Journal and the St. Louis Dispatch; and poetry in the Christian-Science Monitor. Claims to have published in Japanese magazines Kokumin-no-Tomi and Hansei Zasshi although none of these publications has been located. Publishes her first novel Miss Nume of Japan (Rand & McNally), a controversial story of interracial romance. This publication makes her the first person of Asian descent to publish a novel in the U.S. Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen’s husband Walter Blackburn Harte dies in New York on June 8, probably from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Winnifred’s sister Christina Agnes gives birth to Henri Laurent (Henry Lawrence) on June 10.

1900

According to the 1900 Census (pictured above), Winnifred boards at 3105 Groveland Avenue in Chicago, a house owned by feminist Dr. Helen R. Kellogg. Meets and becomes close friends with Japanese poet Yone Noguchi, who visits Chicago for several weeks after living in California for seven years, where he met San Francisco bohemians including Gelett Burgess, Adeline Knapp, Blanche Partington, Ina Coolbrith, Edwin Markham, Joaquin Miller, and Charles Warren Stoddard. Noguchi uses Winnifred’s address as his Chicago mailing address. Winnifred publishes stories and non-fiction in Frank Leslie’s, Conkey’s, and Smart Set, and serializes a novel (The Old Jinrikisha) in Conkey’s. Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen and her son Horace visit both Eaton and Harte relatives in England.

1901

Winnifred moves to New York,where her sister Grace Helen works as a legal secretary. While writing and modeling for the Women’s Pages of the Brooklyn Eagle, (pictured above), beginning as early as February, Winnifred meets writer-journalist Bertrand Whitcomb Babcock, whom she marries July 16, 1901 in New York. Winnifred claims to have worked as private secretary to Frank Munsey but quit once she started selling her fiction. Publishes stories and non-fiction in Woman’s Home Companion, Harper’s Monthly, The Idler, and Frank Leslie’s, also releasing novel A Japanese Nightingale (Harper and Brothers), which she claims sold 200,000 copies. Winnifred’s sister Christina Agnes gives birth to Joseph Francois Perrault on September 1.

1902

Publishes another novel, The Wooing of Wistaria (the frontispiece of which is pictured above), as well as various stories and non-fiction articles in Frank Leslie’s, Smart Set, New York’s Metropolitan Magazine, Harper’s Monthly, Woman’s Home Companion, and Critic. Accuses playwright David Belasco of stealing her characters and incidents from A Japanese Nightingale and The Wooing of Wistaria in his new Japanese play The Darling of the Gods. Belasco sues Winnifred for libel. She is arrested but quickly released on bail (Birchall 79). Winnifred’s brother Hubert drowns in the St. Lawrence River.

1903

William Young’s adaptation of A Japanese Nightingale (pictured above) opens at Broadway’s Daly’s Theater to scathing reviews. The play runs for only forty-four performances on Broadway but is later successfully staged across the continent. Winnifred and Babcock’s first child, Perry, is born June 23. The family are living at 2445 Grand Avenue in Fordham Heights. Winnifred publishes in Century Magazine, Smart Set, Ladies’ Home Journal, New Metropolitan Magazine, and Current Literature. She also publishes a novel, The Heart of Hyacinth (Harper and Brothers). Winnifred’s sister Grace Helen and her son Horace move to Chicago where Grace Helen works as stenographer while attending Law School. Winnifred’s sister Christina Agnes gives birth to Leo Henri Perrault on October 11.

1904

Winnifred is accused by Professor John Van Cleve of reproducing a sonnet by him in A Japanese Nightingale without attributing it to him. Winnifred denies the accusation, claiming sole authorship of the sonnet, and Van Cleve eventually drops the case. Winnifred and Babcock’s second child, Bertie, is born September 29 while the family are living on 183rd Street in Fordham Heights. Russo-Japanese War creates further demand for Winnifred’s writings on various aspects of Japanese culture. She publishes stories and non-fiction in Woman’s Home Journal, New Metropolitan Magazine, and Ladies’ Home Journal, as well as two novels: Daughters of Nijo (MacMillan) and The Love of Azalea (Dodd, Mead, & Co). Reviews, beginning with a review of Daughters of Nijo in the Baltimore Sun, begin to suggest that Winnifred is not entirely or even half Japanese.

1905

Winnifred attends 70th birthday party (pictured above) for her friend, author Mark Twain. For about three years, family live, with three female servants, at 146 Walton Avenue in Long Island’s Orienta Point, later known as “Hollywood in the East” because it was considered a desirable neighborhood by movie stars such as Lillian and Dorothy Gish and filmmakers such as D. W. Griffiths. Winnifred enjoys riding horses in Central Park.

1906

Winnifred and Babcock’s third child, Doris (pictured above with Winnifred), born. Winnifred publishes A Japanese Blossom.

1907

Yone Noguchi rebukes Eaton for her masquerade in an article. Writing as “Winnifred Mooney,” Winnifred begins to try to publish works that are not on a Japanese theme or signed “Onoto Watanna.” Winnifred publishes an Irish comedy, The Diary of Delia (Doubleday, Page and Company). Fourth child, Charley (pictured above), is born. Profiles of “Onoto Watanna”begin to claim that her mother is part Chinese and part Japanese.

1908

Winnifred’s play A Japanese Nightingale is staged at Winnipeg’s Theatre.

1909

Winnifred’s son Bertie dies, weeks before his fourth birthday, from convulsions and heart failure caused by encephalitis.

1911

Winnifred’s eldest brother, Edward Charles dies of accidental gunshot wound in Montreal, while sleeping. Her sisters Edith and Florence working as stenographers and living with family at 1737 rue Mance.

1912

Winnifred publishes The Honorable Miss Moonlight (Harper Brothers). Her sister Edith, under pen name “Sui Sin Far,” publishes a collection of stories about Chinese and diasporic Chinese entitled Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Her sister Grace Helen, after studying at Chicago-Kent College of Law, qualifies for the Illinois bar and begins a career specializing in real estate law, particularly landlord-tenant law.

1914

Winnifred’s sister Edith dies April 7 of heart disease in Montreal and is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery (gravestone pictured above). Winnifred co-authors A Chinese Japanese Cookbook with her sister Sara Eaton Bosse. Winnifred’s works begin to be optioned by filmmakers such as Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago.

1915

Winnifred’s father Edward is arrested again for smuggling Chinese into New York State but he dies of cancer before going to trial. Winnifred anonymously publishes Me, a fictionalized memoir of her early career in Jamaica and Chicago, first in monthly installments in Century, and then as Me: A Book of Remembrance. After completing Me: A Book of Remembrance, Winnifred writes first two chapters of silent film Gloria’s Romance as an entry in a Chicago Tribune contest and wins the $10000 prize.

1916

In eight monthly installments, Hearst’s Magazine serializes Marion: The Story of an Artist’s Model, based on Winnifred’s sister Sara’s biography. It is published anonymously by “Herself and the author of Me.” Winnifred goes to Reno and divorces Babcock. She finds it difficult to write afterward.

1917

Winnifred’s divorce from Babcock granted February 3. She gains full custody of her three children and marries Francis (Frank) Reeve, an American businessman who owns a New York tugboat firm, in Greenwich, Connecticut in April. They move to Calgary, Alberta, then to a grain farm in Beddington, a village 15 miles north of Calgary. Winnifred begins to publish in Canadian magazines.

1918

Frank buys the 4000-hectare Bow View Ranch, “a mecca for all aspiring fishermen and hunters,” near Morley, Alberta, 60 kilometers west of Calgary, and he and Winnifred relocate there with the children. A Japanese Nightingale is made into a silent film starring Fannie Ward as Yuki, W. E. Lawrence as John Bigelow, and Japanese actor, newspaper editor, and Vitagraph technical director Aoyama Yukio as Taro. Her story “$5000 Reward” also made into a silent film.

1919

Publishes a serialized novel Other People’s Troubles: An Antidote to Your Own in Alberta’s Farm and Ranch Review.

1920

Lord Burnham (Imperial Press Association) brings a party of English publishers and editors including Frank Newnes (publisher of the Westminster Gazette) to Bow Valley Ranch. Winnifred rents a small house at 1737 26th Avenue West, Calgary, in order to have a “room of her own” in which to write. She returns to writing “as if I had turned on a mental faucet” and writes Sunny-San, her first Japanese-themed work in over 6 years, in five weeks. Her children board at Calgary’s Mount Royal College and Western Canadian College. Winnifred begins to write fiction set in Alberta.

1921

Winnifred reads her complete story “Sinners” aloud at Canadian Women’s Press Club luncheon in Calgary after the magazine in which she had published the first instalment folds. Attends a talk by John Murray Gibbon (founding president of Canadian Authors Association), an event that turns into a founding meeting of the Calgary branch of the Canadian Authors Association. Winnifred is elected Vice President of the branch. Works as screenwriter, title writer, literary advisor, and scenario editor for Universal and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer intermittently between 1921 and 1930. Winnifred adapts Wilbur Daniel Steel’s play Ropes for the silent feature film False Kisses (Universal Pictures), starring Miss DuPont, Pat O’Malley and Lloyd Whitlock, and receives her first screenplay credit.

1922

Winnifred makes presentation to delegates headed to Ottawa to meet with Minister of Justice regarding copyright for Canadian authors. Winnifred’s mother Grace dies in May in New York City while Winnifred is visiting. Winnifred publishes Sunny-San, her first Japanese novel in ten years, in serial form in UK beginning February and in book form both in UK and North America, with the help of her friend and literary agent, fellow Calgarian author and feminist Nellie McClung. Winnifred lives with husband on Bow View Ranch but also rents house at 902 20th Avenue West in Calgary (pictured above) where she can write. Winnifred attends Canadian Authors Association meetings and convention in Ottawa and lobbies federal Minister of Justice about updating the Canadian copyright act.

1922

Winnifred attends the David Thompson memorial celebration with other Western members of the Canadian Authors’ Association in Windermere Valley, British Columbia in August of this year. She is pictured here with fellow writers, including Bliss Carman and Frederick Niven.

1923

Publishes Cattle in Great Britain first. Elected President of the Calgary branch of the Canadian Author Association. Organizes Calgary’s “Book Week.” Rents house owned by Sam Nickle with a fabulous view of downtown Calgary at 330 Scarboro Avenue which becomes, according to the national literary publication Canadian Bookman “a centre for people of literary inclinations and literary aspirations.” Assists in the founding of, and named first honorary President of, Calgary’s Little Theatre.

1924

Publishes Cattle (W. J. Watt) in Canada and the US under her married name: Winifred Eaton Reeve. Icelandic-Canadian author Laura Salverson publishes a critical review of it in January. Winnifred reacts by accusing Salverson of paying for a positive review of her own novel, Viking Heart. Canadian poet Bliss Carman gives a recital of his poetry in Calgary. Alberta is in the middle of a depression. Depression in cattle prices due to American tariffs threatens foreclosure on Bow View Ranch and nearly ruins her husband Frank, making it difficult for Winnifred to continue to afford “a room of her own” in Calgary. Winnifred negotiates a four-year contract to run Universal Pictures’ East Coast scenario department and be the new story editor (Birchall 155). Universal’s head Carl Laemmle Sr. wants her to encourage her network of literary contacts to write for Universal. Winnifred and children take train to New York in December and live at 593 Riverside Drive. She hopes husband Frank will follow. Winnifred’s son Charley gets job with the New York Mirror, first as copy boy, then Bronx reporter. Winnifred’s daughter Doris elopes.

1925

Dedicates her final published novel, His Royal Nibs (W. J. Watt), which she publishes under the signature Winifred Eaton Reeve, to Carl Laemmle Sr.. Over the next seven years, she turns her energies to screenplay writing and commutes between New York, and later Los Angeles, and Alberta. Universal Studios hires her as scenario editor, “Editor-in-chief and literary advisor.” She spends July through September at Universal’s Hollywood studios (pictured above). Gives lecture at MacDowell Club of Allied Arts in December. Sells film rights to Cattle. Blind Players perform From Far Japan, a dramatic adaptation of Winnifred’s novel Sunny-San. Daughter Doris has son, Paul George Rooney (“Tim”), then separates from her husband and returns to live with Winnifred in California when the baby is four months old. Francis Reeve sells Bow View Ranch and founds F. F. Reeve and Company, a brokerage firm, in Calgary and invests in what becomes an oil boom in Alberta’s Turner Valley.

1926

Winnifred quits job at Universal Studios in December due to lack of creative license. Her son Perry develops severe mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia, and is eventually committed to a state hospital (DB 167). Winnifred moves to Metro-Goldwyn Meyer where she is given an opportunity to write original screenplays as well as do adaptations.

1927

Winnifred does ghostwriting.

1928

Winnifred attends Canadian Authors Association meeting (pictured above). Returns to Universal Studios as a screenwriter rather than as a story editor. Continues to work on silent films but also begins to work on “talkies.” Begins contributing fiction and interviews to movie magazines.

1929

Winnifred loses all her savings in stock market crash. First Hollywood picture for which she is credited with writing the dialogue--Mississippi Gambler--is released. Also credited for writing Shanghai Lady.

1930

Winnifred living in Los Angeles with daughter Doris and grandson. Writes screenplays for Undertow, Young Desire, and East Is West (Universal). Universal releases Undertow, starring Mary Nolan and Johnny Mack Brown, in March and then lays her off. Winnifred learns husband Frank has a mistress (Mrs. Margaret Hill) in Calgary.

1931

Frank Reeve files for divorce but he and Winnifred reconcile by August and spend a romantic week at Lake Tahoe. Frank returns to Calgary to end relations with his mistress. Winnifred returns to Calgary.

1932

Winnifred and her husband live in Suite 19, Barnhart Apartments, considered one of the finest apartment buildings in Calgary at the time, located at 1121 6th St. NW Calgary, where she writes Second Honeymoon.

1933

Winnifred at work on novel about Calgary’s economy called Boom City.

1935

Daughter Doris, after ten years in Hollywood, moves back to Calgary with young son Paul and works as stenographer for her stepfather Frank until his death in 1956.

1936

Winnifred and her husband live at 1205 19th Ave. SW, where Winnifred writes Sins of the Fathers. Frank’s oil investments do well and he (pictured above, centre) becomes one of the wealthiest men in the province.

1937

Winnifred continues to be a member of the Canadian Authors Association, Calgary branch, executive committee.

1938

Frank named President and Managing Director of Commonwealth Drilling Company and named Vice-President of Commoil. Frank, his stepdaughter Doris Rooney, and her son Tim cross border at Montana en route to legendary Hollywood hotel, the Hotel Roosevelt, where they plan to stay for three weeks, perhaps to visit Winnifred. In November, in her Calgary home at 801 Royal Avenue, Winnifred hosts a tea for author Laura Salverson--the author she accused in 1924 of paying for a positive review.

1939

Winnifred and Frank buy 801 Royal Avenue, former home of American diplomat, journalist, author James Davidson. Frank serves on board of YMCA and is member of Glencoe Club and Petroleum Club. In May, Winnifred hosts annual general meeting for Calgary branch of Canadian Authors Association at her home.

1944

Winnifred’s son Charley, a writer, now going by the pen name “Paul Eaton Reeve,” marries Helen Finkelstein.

1945

Winnifred’s only granddaughter, Diana, born to Charley and Helen in December. In the aftermath of World War Two, Winnifred expresses regret for having posed as Japanese. Winnifred writes plays for the Calgary Little Theatre community.

1947

Ex-husband Bertrand Babcock dies of diabetes and alcoholism.

1950

Winnifred and Frank take cruise to Honolulu from Los Angeles in February.

1953

Winnifred being treated for diabetes at the Mayo Clinic.

1954

Winnifred dies of heart attack in Butte, Montana, en route with Frank to Calgary from California. She is buried in Queen’s Park Cemetery in Calgary. Her estate is worth $313,000.

1956

Husband Frank Reeve dies.

1957

Sister Grace Helen dies, 8 February.

1980

Reeve Theatre (pictured above) at University of Calgary opens, funded in part by a $1 million donation from the Reeve Foundation founded by Frank Reeve after Winnifred’s death.