Born Mary Blanche Hales in Apsley, Ontario on 10 March 1892, at some point in her childhood, she moved to Lindsay, Ontario.

In a letter to the editor of the Canadian Statesman (Bowmanville), she remembers hearing about the newspaper “as a girl in Lindsay.”

Squires attended Lindsay Collegiate Institute. In fact, she was in the same class as Watson Kirkconnell, another Kawartha Lakes writer.

Miss Hales was a teacher in Galway (Watchman Warder, 27 Oct 1911, p. 5) and Lindsay until 1913 when she left to take an assistant teaching position at Hampton public school (Watchman Warder, 5 Sep 1913, p.2.)

From there, she also taught in Hamilton and Parry Sound.

On 6 August 1920, she married Elmer Francis Squires in Sudbury. Elmer was a telegrapher for Canadian Pacific Railway and stationed in North Bay and Algoma District in northern Ontario.

Blanche and Elmer had three children: Churchill Douglas Squires (1921-1989), Betty Squires (1923-2012) and Robert Hales Squires (1926-2002.)

Squires wrote poems and articles for the Globe and Mail, and for seven years she was a newspaper correspondent.

She died 2 June 1971 in Waterloo, Ontario.

Publications:

“The War Has Made Me Over,” The United Church Observer, 1 June 1944.

“Winter Night,” A New Canadian Anthology, edited by Alan Creighton and Hilda M. Ridley, 1938.

Watching the World Go By, edited by Robert Hales Squires, 1999.

numerous articles and poetry in the Globe & Mail.