The+woman+who+fought+for+woman's+right-Mary+Two-Axe+Earley(Tenzin)



__Mary Two-Axe Earley __

__Childhood:__ Mary Two-Axe Earley was born on October/4/1911 on the Mohawk reserve at Caughnawaga on Montréal's South Shore. She spented most of her childhood there. At 10 years old, she went to North Dakota with her mother. Her mother was a nurse and a teacher. After a few years, her mother past away taking care of students during a Spanish flu epidemic. Her grandfather traveled west by train to bring Mary back to the reserve.

At age 18, she moved to Brooklyn, New York. After a few years, she married an Irish-American engineer, Edward Earley. Many Mohawks also lived in their neighborhood, becoming good at good payment as iron workers on the high beams. Mary and Edward later had two children, Edward and Rosemary.

Since Mary married a non-Indian, she lost her Indian status under the law of the //Indian Act //passed in 1876. If she lost her status, she could not live on the reserve where she was born, own land there, participate in the reserves political life, vote in elections, or be buried on the reserve.

"Who thought about status? We were in love," she told //The Gazette // in a interview at 1990. Each year, Two-Axe Earley would return to Kahnawake and spend the summer with her son and daughter in the house her grandfather had built on the reserve.

__The Campaign:__  In 1967, she took her case of gender difference to the //Royal Commission// on the //Status of Women//. She won and got her status back by writing many letters, making many speeches and protesting to government military/judge(in court) and ministers. Two-Axe Early was a pioneer in Aboriginal rights as she was the first to raise public awareness around the issue of gender difference.

In 1969, after her husband died, Two-Axe Earley moved back to the Kahnawake riverside log house that passed on to her from her grandmother. The leaders made it clear she was not welcome on the reserve, but a plan allowed her to keep the house and live there. She gave it to her daughter, who had gotten her status back by marrying a Mohawk man.

__R.I.P. Mary Two-Axe Earley__ Mary Two-Axe Earley died of [|respiratory system] on August 21, 1996, in Kahnawake, at 84 years old. She had been taken care of since February of that year, after several years of failing health. About 200 gathered people to express sadness at an old church on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reserve. Two-Axe Earley was described as a pioneer of Canadian female doctor who stood up for women right's and a leader to Aboriginal women. Most importantly, she was buried in the Catholic cemetery that is on a small hill in the heart of the reserve.

This is the reason I chose Mary Two-Axe Earley as a famous First Nation in Canadian history.

__<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Bibliography __
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 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Pictures- [|http://www.google.ca/searchhl=en&cp=8&gs_id=u&xhr=t&q=mary+two axe+early&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1025&bih=629&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi]
 * http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Mary+Two-Axe+Earley%3A+crusader+fought+for+equal+rights+for+Aboriginal...-a0173189815
 * http://www.scowinstitute.ca/library/documents/RightsofWomenFacts.pdf