Edith Williams

Edith Williams
1941 graduation photograph
Born	Edith Bickerton Williams (1899-06-24)24 June 1899 York, Toronto Ontario, Canada
Died	24 November 1979(1979-11-24) (aged 80) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Other names	Bud Williams
Occupation	farmer, veterinarian
Years active	1927-1976
Known for	archive of letters with her partner Frieda Fraser

Edith Williams (24 June 1899 – 24 November 1979) was a Canadian veterinarian, the second woman from the country to complete her training at the Ontario Veterinary College and life partner of Dr Frieda Fraser. Initially entering university in 1916, Williams dropped out after one year. After a three year trip abroad while she worked as a clerk in a bank and the Canadian immigration office, she returned to Toronto and took up farming on a farm she had inherited. After ten years of raising livestock, Williams was accepted into veterinary school and graduated in 1941. For the next twenty-five years, she had a private small-animal veterinary practice in Toronto. During the periods when Fraser and Williams were separated, they wrote letters daily. Their correspondence was preserved and donated after Fraser's death to the University of Toronto libraries. It is a unique portrait of lesbian life in the early twentieth century, as few such records have survived.

Edith Bickerton Williams, was born on 24 June 1899 in York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Mary Jane (née Mitchell) and Arthur Robins Williams. Her father was originally from Birmingham, England and worked as an insurance clerk. She had two older sisters, Mary and Betty and was early on given the nickname "Bud", possibly because her parents had hoped for a son, or possibly because a niece or nephew had trouble pronouncing Edith. Williams attended a private girls' school, Glen Mawr, in Toronto for ten years before enrolling in University College in 1916. Joining the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Williams met Frieda Fraser in 1917, beginning a relationship that would last through her lifetime. After attending only one year, she dropped out but continued to see Fraser and exchanged letters with her whenever they were apart. After her father's death in 1921, Williams' family increasingly pressed her to find a husband. In 1925, concerned that the two women were spending too much time together, the family sent her to England to care for two aging aunts.

Arriving in England, Williams initially took a position in a bank in London. After some time, she began working as a clerk in the London branch of the Ontario Immigration Department, processing emigration forms for people wanting to move to Canada. During this time, the letters which she and Fraser exchanged became more intense and were an almost daily occurrence. In the letters they solidified their relationship discussing their parents objections, their devotion to each other, their work, and their dreams. They hoped to live together and raise a child, or even a set of twins. After nearly three years abroad, Williams returned to Canada initially settling in with her mother while she applied to the Ontario School of Agriculture, but was denied admittance. She had received an inheritance from a relative of a farm near Aurora, Ontario and wanted to gain knowledge about husbandry. For the next several years, she and Fraser lived apart but within a 30-minute walk from each other at various residences, while Williams repeatedly applied for admittance to the agricultural college and Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) and raised poultry on her farm.