Mona Louise Parsons

Mona Louise Parsons (February 17, 1901 – November 28, 1976) was a Canadian actress, nurse, and member of an informal Dutch resistance network in the Netherlands from 1940 to 1941 during the Nazi occupation. She became the only Canadian female civilian to be imprisoned by the Nazis and one of the first and few women to be tried by a Nazi military tribunal in the Netherlands.

She received commendations for her bravery in helping Allied airmen evade capture from both Air Chief Marshal Lord Arthur Tedder of the Royal Air Force on behalf of the British people and from General Dwight Eisenhower, who expressed the gratitude of the American people.

Early years Parsons was born in Middleton, Nova Scotia. Upon graduating from the Acadia Ladies' Seminary in Wolfville, Nova Scotia with a certificate in elocution, Parsons attended the Currie School of Expression in Boston. She returned to Wolfville to attend Acadia University for a time, where she acted in several productions. After leaving Acadia, Parsons briefly taught elocution at Conway Central College in Conway, Arkansas. She studied acting and moved to New York City in 1929, where she became a Ziegfeld chorus girl in the Ziegfeld Follies revues. She later became a nurse after attending the Jersey School of Medicine from which she graduated cum laude in 1935. She was employed in the Park Avenue offices of an expatriate Nova Scotia otolaryngologist. In February 1937, Parsons' brother introduced her to millionaire Dutch businessman Willem Leonhardt. The couple married in Laren, Netherlands on September 1, 1937.

Based on information available at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation, Mona Parsons' biographer Andria Hill learned that she was arrested by the Gestapo at her home on September 29, 1941. She was taken first to Amstelveense Prison and then to Weteringschans Prison in Amsterdam (present day Holland Casino). At her trial on December 22, 1941, Parsons was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. She is reported to have responded to her sentence with such dignified calm that the chief judge permitted her to appeal. The sentence was commuted to life with hard labour.

On March 6, 1942, Parsons was taken with several other prisoners for transport to Anrath Prison in Germany. Parsons was transferred to Wiedenbruck, where she worked on an assembly line creating plywood wings for small craft, then on a line assembling igniters for bombs. She became ill with bronchitis several times and, when put in the infirmary, was tasked with knitting socks for German soldiers. On February 6, 1945, the prisoners at Wiedenbruck were herded onto a train bound for another prison in Vechta. Close by were two hospitals, an airfield and a major train junction. Parsons was put to work both in the prison and on occasional details outside to take food from the prison kitchen to wounded soldiers and other patients in the hospitals.

In 2005, Historica Canada released a Heritage Minute on Parsons, detailing her arrest, and her eventual escape. In May 2017 a statue in her honour titled The joy is almost too much to bear was unveiled in Wolfville. In November 2023, Parsons was featured on a Canada Post stamp.