Nationality Canadian Name Olive Diefenbaker | Role John Diefenbaker's wife | |
Full Name Olive Evangeline Freeman Born April 14, 1902 ( 1902-04-14 ) Roland, Manitoba Other names Olive Palmer (first marriage) Known for Wife of John Diefenbaker Died December 22, 1976, Ottawa, Canada Spouse John Diefenbaker (m. 1953–1976) | ||
Olive Evangeline Diefenbaker (née Freeman; April 14, 1902 – December 22, 1976) was the second wife of John Diefenbaker, the 13th Prime Minister of Canada. Diefenbaker's first wife, Edna Brower, died in 1951.
Olive Freeman was born in 1902 in Roland, Manitoba. Diefenbaker proposed to her in Paddockwood, Saskatchewan, while she was a school teacher, and they were married on December 8, 1953. They had no children together, but they raised a daughter from her previous marriage to Toronto solicitor Harry Palmer, who died less than three years after the birth of the child.
On her husband's death in 1979, her remains, buried in 1976 in Ottawa, were reburied in Saskatoon in 1979.
Legacy
Olive Diefenbaker Drive in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan is named in her honour.