Remembering Mary Ann MacKinnon
Catherine MacLellan debuted a new original song on Friday, December 5, 2025 at a special performance during the annual Charlottetown Memorial Service to mark Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.The service honours the young women killed in the 1989 Montreal Massacre, Island women who have been killed by someone they know, and missing and murdered Indigenous women from across the country.
The song highlights Mary Ann MacKinnon's strengths while acknowledging her violent death. This is not just a story about the past. Mary Ann's community and her loved ones still live with painful after-effects. In addition, we still live in a world where girls and women are not safe from violence and, if we resist, we risk serious consequences.
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As we listen, let's think about how we can collaborate to end violence and support survivors.
Mary Ann's daughter, Maureen Howlett, and great-granddaughter, Joanna Howlett, lit a candle in memory of Mary Ann and all other women lost to gender-based violence prior to 1989.
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Photos: PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women
Who was Mary Ann MacKinnon ?
Mary Ann (MacAulay) MacKinnon was my great-aunt. I never got to meet her but I think we would have shared a lot of interests. Born in St. Catherine's, near Souris, PEI, she spent her early years on the family farm with her parents, Aeneas and Susan (Mooney) MacAulay and her six brothers. Mary Ann's life changed when her mother died due to complications following the birth of the youngest boy. Thanks to the generosity of an uncle in "the States", Mary Ann boarded at St. Mary's Convent, receiving a thorough education there and visiting at home in the summers. After leaving the convent, she married a farmer, J.C. MacKinnon, and had a large family but still found time for visitiing with friends and neighbours, reading, playing piano, and writing poetry and a regular column for the "Guardian" newspaper. It sounds like her marriage was a happy one, but she faced another loss when her husband died young, leaving her to care for her eleven surviving children.
In the summer of 1951, a neighbour and former boyfriend abducted and raped Mary Ann’s daughter. Distraught and injured, she reported this to her mother, and together they went to the RCMP barracks to complain. The police investigation led to criminal charges. The young man publicly blamed Mary Ann for these circumstances. On the night of November 8, 1951, shortly before his trial was to begin, he rode over to the MacKinnon family farmhouse, aimed a gun through the kitchen window, and shot Mary Ann while she kneeled at the family rosary. Already widowed, she left behind eleven orphaned children. The assailant was later found not guilty on the murder charge because of “insanity due to alcohol” and he never had to face the original charges.
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Since I first heard about Mary Ann, I have wanted some sort of public acknowledgement of her as a person and a recognition of the courage she showed in standing up for her daughter. This is a woman and a story that should not be forgotten. I knew I could count on Catherine's sensitivity and artistry to create something beautiful that honours Mary Ann and sparks conversation around gender-based violence in Island communities.