The mother of poet Dorothy Livesay, Florence Hamilton Randal Livesay was widely known in the first half of the twentieth century as a journalist, poet, and interpreter of Ukrainian culture. Her lyrical translations of Ukrainian songs and other folk literature are credited with helping English Canada to overcome its distrust of its Eastern European immigrants.

Florence Randal was born 3 November 1874 in the English-speaking town of Compton, Quebec, the second of the six children of Stephen and Mary Louisa Andrews Randal. While attending Compton Ladies' College (now King's Hall) she published her first poem, "Remorse," which, she recalled in a 1917 interview for Canadian Magazine, "created no end of comment amongst her schoolmates, who were not to be convinced that it did not represent a penance for some darkly secret sin." Her father, who had been a merchant and real estate agent, died in 1888, and to help support the family...