17 March 1842 – 30 November 1901
Born in Creemore, Ontario, Matilda Madill was the third of nine children born to Richard and Mary Ann Madill, both of Irish descent. She married a carpenter, James Langtry, Jr., in May 1861, and they produced four children. James died around age 40, in 1874, which left Matilda to raise the children herself. Soon thereafter she was running a boarding house in Barrie, Ontario. Her first two children, Mary and Jane (aka “Jennie”), joined the Salvation Army in Ontario and, after her son Richard moved out to Virden, Manitoba to take up farming, Matilda joined the Army, too. She was universally loved by the men and women of the Army for the tender loving care she lavished on convalescing officers while she was the Matron of the Army’s Home of Rest in Toronto, from 1886 to 1893. After a short stint assisting at the Army’s Rescue Home in Montreal, she was posted to Helena, Montana and then Spokane, Washington from 1896 to 1899, acting as superintendent of the Women’s Rescue Homes in those cities. The “wild west” was then in its last throes and she was part of it. In this capacity, she was particularly attentive to the plight of homeless women, deserted wives, neglected children, prostitutes, young unsupported mothers-to-be, battered women, and women addicted to alcohol and heroine. She led a hard, selfless life.
Born in Creemore, Ontario, Matilda Madill was the third of nine children born to Richard and Mary Ann Madill, both of Irish descent. She married a carpenter, James Langtry, Jr., in May 1861, and they produced four children. James died around age 40, in 1874, which left Matilda to raise the children herself. Soon thereafter she was running a boarding house in Barrie, Ontario. Her first two children, Mary and Jane (aka “Jennie”), joined the Salvation Army in Ontario and, after her son Richard moved out to Virden, Manitoba to take up farming, Matilda joined the Army, too. She was universally loved by the men and women of the Army for the tender loving care she lavished on convalescing officers while she was the Matron of the Army’s Home of Rest in Toronto, from 1886 to 1893. After a short stint assisting at the Army’s Rescue Home in Montreal, she was posted to Helena, Montana and then Spokane, Washington from 1896 to 1899, acting as superintendent of the Women’s Rescue Homes in those cities. The “wild west” was then in its last throes and she was part of it. In this capacity, she was particularly attentive to the plight of homeless women, deserted wives, neglected children, prostitutes, young unsupported mothers-to-be, battered women, and women addicted to alcohol and heroine. She led a hard, selfless life.