Agnes Cowan attended the Ewart Missionary Training Home, (Presbyterian Deaconess and Missionary Training Home) later graduating in 1900, prior to the existence of a Deaconess Order in the Presbyterian Church in Canada.   In 1912 she is designated a Deaconess by the Presbytery of Edmonton, “on account of her experience and fitness for the work”.   The program of study that she undertook in 1900 had evolved by 1912, in light of the expansion of work in Canada that graduates were undertaking.  It is noted that she was already at work in Edmonton under appointment of the Women’s Home Missionary Society (WHMS).  An investigation of the records of the WHMS might reveal the nature of her work there.

Agnes retired in 1914.  She is not on the List of Deaconesses entering the United Church Order in 1926.  She may have died in 1926, or she may have continued in the Presbyterian Order.

This biography was written by Caryn Douglas in 2012