Jailed for living with Chinese fiance: Velma Demerson dies at 98

Velma Demerson, an Ontario woman who was jailed in 1939 for living with her Chinese fiance and went on to write a memoir called Incorrigible, has died at the age of 98. (CTV)

Velma and Harry were eating breakfast when police stormed into their Toronto apartment in 1939.

Officers arrested 18-year-old Velma Demerson under the Female Refuges Act of 1897, because her fiancé Harry Yip was Chinese. The law, which was repealed 25 years later, meant women were subject to strict moral code under the law. Women were jailed for “incorrigibility.”

Demerson, who would go on to become an activist and write the book Incorrigible about her experience, died on May 13 at the age of 98.

“The seizure, stigma and family turmoil that ensued from confining a woman in prison passes down through the generations,” she wrote in her memoir.

Upon her arrest in 1939, Demerson was taken to Belmont home for wayward girls, but after a few months was transferred to the Mercer Reformatory for Women. She was pregnant at the time, and reportedly escaped from hospital after giving birth to avoid a return to Mercer. According to the Toronto Star, Demerson’s son was later taken from her and raised in Ontario foster care. He died at the age of 26 from an asthma attack while swimming.

Demerson received an apology from the provincial government in 2003. The federal government apologized last year.

A documentary film about Demerson’s life is near completion, and writer-director Karin Lee started a crowdfunding campaign online to help with production and distribution.

“Before she passed away, Velma told me she would like her story to be heard, so that’s what we are trying to do,” Lee wrote online. “It’s really important to document and preserve Velma’s legacy and get her story told.”

Demerson was in a Vancouver hospital being treated for throat cancer at the time of her death.