In the winter of 1874-1874, the intrepid Thomas Crosby visited Ontario where he married Emma J. Douse of Hamilton. As the wife of Thomas Crosby, Emma Crosby opened the Crosby Girls' Home in 1879 in Fort Simpson to rescue Aboriginal girls from liquor and prostitution. She managed their boarding school for girls and wrote an undated account of their work, How the Gospel Came to Fort Simpson (Toronto: Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church). Emma Crosby was exhausted and sick for much of their stay in Fort Simpson, losing two of her children to diptheria, but there seems little evidence that Thomas Crosby was much concerned by his wife's difficulties or sacrifices for the greater glory of his mission. According to historian Jean Barman, "Emma Crosby was just as convinced as her husband that their brand of religion was superior to Aboriginal spirituality, but she was also concerned on the everyday level for the Tsimshian people's well-being and, despite burying 4 of her 8 children at Simpson, worked tirelessly in what she considered to be others' best interests."

See Thomas Crosby entry.

[BCBW 2005] "Missionaries" "Women"