Kate Ames Carlson - An Unknowing "Alien"

Citizenship for Women in Canada

(1966)

Canadian citizenship laws have evolved over the years.   Prior 1947 Canada didn’t have any citizens of its own.  People born in Canada were classed as British subjects, with a status equivalent to that of any other subject of the British Empire.

Furthermore, if a female British subject married a man who wasn’t a subject of the British Empire, an “alien”, she automatically forfeited her status as a British subject, and acquired her husband’s nationality.  That law was changed on Jan 15, 1932
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Nearly four months later, on May 7, 1932, Miss Katherine Evangeline Ames married Mr. Joseph Arthur Carlson, a Swede working in Amesdale.  One would have presumed her status as a British subject was secure, but as it turned out the new law excluded some nationalities, and one of those was Swedish.  Consequently, Kate unknowingly forfeited her status as a British subject.  At marriage Kate became a Swede, and remained so after Art became a naturalised British subject.

Throughout their marriage Kate voted in every election, served as an elections officer, and was the most loyal Canadian one could imagine - until the 1970s when her Old Age Security application was denied.  By official letter she was informed by the Canadian Government that she wasn’t Canadian; she was a Swede.   Incredulous and furious, frustrated and several protest letters later, her daughter Elvera was finally able to convince her to relent, give up the fight, and fill out the paperwork to establish her Canadian citizenship.

Dual citizenship, Canadian and Swedish, was eventually granted.  Nevertheless, future vacation travel to Sweden was made just a bit easier since Kate didn’t require a Swedish visa – as did Art.