Educated in Montreal schools, she grew up in a home where loyalism and devotion to British traditions were strong.
At twenty-one she married the Reverend Elisha Joseph Fessenden, a Canadian-born Church of England clergyman.
There, she raised her four sons and honed her writing skills as one of the first editors of the Niagara Women's Auxiliary Leaflet.
Always trying to find ways to strengthen Canada's links to the British Empire, Clementina identified herself both physically and spiritually with Queen Victoria.
A bronze plaque was installed in her memory on the wall of St John's Anglican Church in 1929, and a monument was placed by her grave in the churchyard which reads "Clementina Fessenden, Founder of Empire Day".