Elsie Jury

She also worked with J. J. Talman, a historian and fellow librarian at Western, on a re-edition of a novel by Anna Brownell Jameson, published in 1838 as Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada.

Of Scottish and Irish descent, her father was David Cameron Murray (1873–1938), a doctor, and her mother was Lucy L. Robinson.

The family later relocated from Perth to Toronto, where Elsie attended the Riverdale Collegiate Institute.

Elsie McLeod Murray Jury (11 October 1910 – 31 March 1993) was a Canadian archaeologist and historian known for her pioneering work on the historical archaeology of Ontario, especially her work on the excavations at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons.

She worked with her husband playing a key role in establishing the Fanshawe Pioneer Village and Museum of Ontario Archaeology.

She is buried in the First Lobo Baptist Cemetery, in Lobo, Ontario.

Mary Alice McLeod Murray, who went by the first name Elsie, was born in Perth, Ontario in 1910.

She studied at the University of Toronto, obtaining an undergraduate degree in history and English in 1933, and Columbia University, graduating with an MA in history in 1935.

Her Master's thesis was on the Scottish settlers of Perth County.

After graduating from Columbia, Jury returned to Toronto to work for the Toronto Public Library, at the same time studying for a degree in library science from the University of Toronto, which she completed in 1938.

Her first publications, published in 1940 and 1942 in the Ontario Library Review, were based on research that completed at the Toronto Public Library.

They had a long relationship with the Society of Jesus due to their work in Sainte Marie I. Both Elsie and Wilfred envisaged Fanshaw Pioneer Village, in London Ontario, as an educational facility to preserve local heritage during the 1940s but it was not until 1959, in conjunction with University of Western Ontario when it finally opened.

In 1942, Jury moved to London, Ontario, to take a position at the library of the University of Western Ontario under Fred Landon, whom she had met earlier through the Ontario Historical Society.

She undertook research and wrote articles published in the Ontario Library Review, Library Journal, School, Food for Thought and two publications of the Ontario Historical Society.

She also published in two periodicals started by Landon, Western Ontario Historical Notes and Western Ontario Historical Nuggets.

From 1942 until 1947, she wrote articles for several newspapers, including the London Free Press.

Jury met Wilfrid Jury in 1944.

Wilfrid was an archaeologist who had previously worked with Fred Landon to gain Western University's support in establishing the Museum of Indian Archaeology and Pioneer Life (now the Museum of Ontario Archaeology), and he initially hired Elsie to conduct historical research relating to his excavations of the Fairfield Mission.

The two married in 1948 and after returning from their honeymoon Elsie joined Wilfrid at his excavations of the Crawford prehistoric village in Lambton County, their first joint archaeological project.

This site demonstrated the westernmost edge of Iroquoian sites in southwestern Ontario and it was dated to the Middle Iroquoian period (1300-1350 A.D.).

Thereafter the Jurys collaborated on almost all of their subsequent excavations starting with the Burley Site, followed by Sainte Marie 1 followed by the military and naval establishments at Penetanguishene.

They co-authored a report on the site which was published in Ontario History (1951) and subsequently as a Museum of Indian Archaeology Bulletin #9 Penetanguishene contained one of a number of sites that exist in the region between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay which archaeologists working in Ontario call "Huronia".

Wilf Jury died in 1981.

Sole author:

Joint author:

The sites in this region were occupied by Iroquoian-speaking Huron indigenous peoples between the 15th and the 17th century.

At Penetanguishene, Jury noted that hay for livestock was imported to the site by scow.

At Sainte-Marie, she and her husband recognised the importance of the Catholic identity of the inhabitants to the interpretation of the site.

Both Elsie and Wilfred worked on the excavation and reconstruction of the Penetanguishine Military and Naval establishments for many years.