Born into a farming family in Elora, Ontario in 1881, Rose McQueen arrived in Stratford in 1912 after graduating from the University of Toronto. As leader of the English Literature Department at Stratford Collegiate (later Stratford Central High School), Rose would go on to inspire generations of Stratford youth as an educator and mentor – including Tom Patterson, whom she encouraged through her love of Shakespeare and theatrical performance to found the Stratford Festival in 1953.