Grube, Gwenyth Deen Macintosh

Gwenyth Deen Macintosh Grube, Classicist, teacher, and active member in the C.C.F. and N.D.P., was born 24 September 1900 in London, England. In 1919 she entered Girton College, University of Cambridge, where she gained Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1921 and Part II in 1922 and received an M.A. degree in Classics. She continued her studies in 1922, doing post-graduate work at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Gwenyth Macintosh met George Grube at Cambridge, and after their marriage in 1924 she taught Latin and Greek at Bedales, a co-educational boarding school in Hampshire. She came to Canada in 1928 when her husband was appointed a professor at Trinity College. Gwenyth Grube returned to England for the period 1932 to 1934 with her two children in order to teach at Dartington Hall, a progressive school in Totnes, Devon.

A supporter of the Labour Party in England since her college days, Gwenyth Grube joined the C.C.F. in 1934. In the 1950s she was a member of the Ontario C.C.F. Provincial Executive. She ran unsuccessfully in 1945 for election as trustee of the Toronto Board of Education in Ward I, a post her husband had held previously. She was the C.C.F. candidate for the riding of Eglinton in the federal election of 1957. She was always particularly interested in educational and welfare issues and a number of her articles were published in various journals. After her children were adults, she was a part-time teacher at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in the 1950s. Along with Agnes Macphail she was an active member of the Board of the Elizabeth Fry Society. Gwenyth Grube died in Toronto on 24 March 1987.

George and Gwenyth Grube had three children: Antonia (Toni) Joan (m. Swalgren), born in England in 1927, John Deen (1930-2008), born in Toronto and Jennifer Julia (m. Podlecki), born in Toronto in 1935.