Duff, Ethel S.C.

Ethel S.C. Duff (maiden name Ethel Sage Colter) was born near Balcarres, Saskatchewan on October 7, 1906, to William Henry Colter and Nellie Sage Moorehouse. As daughter of a minister who had to move every three years, she lived all over Saskatchewan during her childhood. After graduating from high school, she went to a normal school in Regina and started teaching in 1924. After the Great Depression hit, she went to United College and married her first husband, Aaron Magid (b. 1905), who was then a practicing physician at Sceptre, Saskatchewan. in 1934, the couple went to Winnipeg, where Dr. Magid practiced medicine in the north end of Winnipeg and at the same time actively involved in politics as a communist. In the spring of 1937, Dr. Magid went to Spain and served as a doctor in the front lines doing first aid work near the trenches. A year later, Ethel went to Spain to join her husband and stayed in Barcelona for a month before coming back to Canada. Two months after Ethel’s returning to Canada, in October 1938, Dr. Magid went back Canada as well. The couple went to Magrath and stayed there until 1948, when Dr. Magid bought a practice from a doctor in Niagara Falls and moved out there.