Constance Ann Pettit Scholarship in French
Constance Pettit (1913-1993)
Constance Pettit was born in the Montreal suburb of St. Lambert. She studied French at McGill University and after graduation she moved with her family to Victoria. After doing secretarial work in the Correspondence Branch of the Ministry of Education, she went to the University of Southern California to obtain a degree in Library Science. On returning to Victoria she worked in the Victoria Public Library where she met a History instructor at Victoria College – Sydney Pettit. As married women were not allowed to work at that time, she resigned at her marriage.
She was a widely read individual with a strong interest in current affairs – the hippy movement, drug culture, Watergate and society in general. She also had a strong sense of civic duty: collecting for charities (this was done door to door in those days), organizing rummage sales for the Victoria Fire Department Boxing Club and St. Michael’s School, running a cub pack for several years and serving as a board member for Al Anon.
This scholarship was created in 1994 in tribute to her by her son, Robert Pettit (BA Classics 1967), in recognition of her early academic interests.