Category Archives: genealogy

Dundee, genealogy, Institutions, Scotland

Great Uncle James Went to Reform School

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James Orrock, my two-times great-grandfather, was a farm labourer in Scotland in the mid 1800s. Agricultural labourers did not work all their lives on one farm. It was common for farm servants, both men and women, to attend farm hiring fairs. They would then hire themselves out to the highest bidder.1

Hiring Fair

According to the 1851 census, James worked on a farm in the village of Marykirk, Kincardineshire.2 His wife-to-be, also a farm servant, worked on a different farm located in the same village. They married two years later. By then they had moved to Kirken, in County Angus.3 Mary and James went on to have seven children and it is no surprise that their children were born in different villages, as James would have moved from job to job, always as a farm servant. The various censuses indicate that James worked as a ploughman, farm servant, or agricultural labourer. His family followed him as he moved for work. In 1863, their daughter, Martha Linn died of small pox at the age of three.4 Two years later tragedy struck again when James died at the age of 33 from tuberculosis.5

When Mary became a widow, her situation would have been precarious. James had been sick for a long time and had been unable to work. Mary had to find a way to provide for her children. Farm servants were usually lodged at the farm where they worked. Families often had small dwellings, with a small yard, where they could have a garden and a henhouse.  With the death of James, Mary would have also lost her home. It is no surprise that she moved to Arbroath, perhaps in the hope of working in the jute and sailcloth mills. At the time of James’ death, demand for jute was high due to the American Civil War6 and work was available in the mills. Mary would soon learn that, while Arbroath provided employment, it also provided additional worries about her son, James.

The 1871 census shows Mary living with four of her six remaining children in Arbroath.7 Her eldest son, Alexander, 17, worked as a farm servant in a village about 10 km away, in Kirkden.8 Ann and Jemima, 16 and 14, would have been working. David and Jane were in school. But where was James, only 12 at the time?

I found James in the 1871 census listed as an inmate at the Mars Training Ship for Homeless and Destitute Boys, about 35 km away from his family.9 This ship was moored on the river Tay at Woodhaven Harbour, Wormit, Fife from 1869 to 1929.10

The HMS Mars was built in 1848 and saw military service in the Crimean War. Deemed surplus in 1869, it became a training ship with space for 400 boys with the objective to take destitute and homeless boys off the streets of Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and train them for service in the Royal Navy or the Merchant Marine at their discharge at age 16.11 

The Mars Training Ship was an initiative put forth by Lord Provost William Hay and members of the elite. Truancy and vagrancy were rife in the cities of Scotland, due to overcrowding, unemployment, and poverty. The inmates of the Mars were often picked up for truancy or for begging and were sent to the training ship for five years by magistrates. The boys were poor, orphans, beggars, or homeless or sometimes they had just fallen in with the wrong crowd.12

Mars Training Ship Institution 13

The move from farm life to a bigger urban centre would have been difficult for James. He was 12 when he shows up as an inmate in the Mars Training Ship and he was probably sent there at the age of 10 or 11. There is no way to know why he ended up there. We know that his family was poor. It is probable that he wandered the streets while his mother and two sisters worked long hours in the jute mills. He may have been a difficult child as he suffered from mental illness later on in life.14

The Mars Training School was an industrial school, as opposed to a reform school. The boys did not have a criminal record; however, in some ways they were prisoners. All of the boys were very poor and many of them were homeless. For those who did have homes, they were deliberately given very little opportunity to maintain connections with family and friends.15

Upon arrival on the ship, a medical officer examined the boys once they were stripped. The children then washed, put on their uniforms, and were assigned a number. From then on, they were only referred to by their number. Even the boys called each other by their numbers.16

The day on the Mars ship would begin early, at 5:30 a.m. The boys scrubbed the deck, had breakfast, and then said their prayers. In the morning they learned English, arithmetic, geography, and music. The afternoons were dedicated to practical skills such as shoe repairing, clothing and sail-making, woodworking, metalworking, tailoring and seamanship. The boys were attended by doctors and dentists and were well fed. There was less disease onboard than in the crowded and unsanitary cities of Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. To further reduce the chance of disease, the boys would make an annual trip to Elie, a coastal town, allowing a skeleton crew to fumigate and clean the ship. 17

James would have been discharged from the ship when he was 16. Records of his later life did, indeed, indicate that he worked as a seaman.18

  1. https://www.historyscotland.com/history/farm-servants-and-the-hiring-fairs/, accessed 15 March 2023. Picture of the engraving of a hiring fair courtesy of History Scotland website.
  2. National Records of Scotland, 1851 census, Parish of Marykirk, County of Kincardineshire, James Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 27 March 2023.
  3. National Records of Scotland, Old Parish Registers, Church of Scotland marriages, Kirken, James Orrock and Mary Watson, Scotland’s People, downloaded 27 March 2018.
  4. National Records of Scotland, 1863 Deaths, Parish of Dunnichen, County of Forfar, Martha Linn Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 8 March 2023.
  5. National Records of Scotland, 1865 Deaths, Parish of Dunnichen, County of Forfar, James Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 9 April 2018.
  6. The Textile Industry of Arbroath since the Early 18th Century, Turner, W.H.K., The Abertay Historical Society, 1941, p.15
  7. National Records of Scotland, 1871 census, St. Vigeans, Arbroath, Mary Orrock (Watson), Scotland’s People, downloaded 16 March 2023.
  8. National Records of Scotland, 1871 census, Kirkden, Angus, Alexander Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 23 March 2023.
  9. National Records of Scotland, 1871 census, Woodhaven, Forgan, Fife, 1871 census, James Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 15 March 2023.
  10. Wikipedia, HMS Mars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Mars_(1848)#:~:text=HMS%20Mars%20was%20a%20two,July%201848%20at%20Chatham%20Dockyard.&text=She%20served%20as%20a%20supply,the%20River%20Tay%2C%20off%20Woodhaven, accessed 19 April 2023.
  11. The Mars Training Ship and Elie, Gordon Douglas, 13 January 2017, https://www.eliehistory.com/uncategorised/mars-training-ship-elie-gordon-douglas/, accessed 23 March 2023.
  12. Maritime Trail Dundee, Mars Training Ship, https://www.dundeemaritime.co.uk/Mars, accessed 23 March 2023.
  13. The Herald Scotland, From Mars to Dundee: The prison ship that shaped generations, Ron McKay, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17996129.mars-dundee-prison-ship-shaped-generations/, accessed 24 March 2023.
  14. General Registers of Admissions in Lunatic Asylums, 1888, James Orrock, downloaded 22 March 2023.
  15. Whyte, Christine, HMS Mars: An industrial school in the late 19th century, Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, Volume 20.2, https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/84204/1/Whyte_SJRCC_2021_HMS_Mars_an_industrial_school.pdf, accessed 11 April 2023.
  16. Ibid
  17. The Mars Training Ship and Elie, Gordon Douglas, 13 January 2017, https://www.eliehistory.com/uncategorised/mars-training-ship-elie-gordon-douglas/, accessed 24 March 2023
  18. National Records of Scotland, 1930 Deaths, Parish of Liff and Benvie, County of Angus, James Orrock, Scotland’s People, downloaded 8 March 2023.
genealogy, Quebec

Ypres Gas Attack Survivor Returns Home

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Part Two of Two

Six months after surviving the battle at St. Julien, Belgium, and the German gas attack in 1915, something entirely different brought Captain Stanley Bagg Lindsay (1889-1965) to his knees. He slipped and fell in the trenches while on active duty, and needed surgery on a hernia on his left side. He was officially declared unfit for duty and was granted sick leave to recover back home in Montreal, Quebec, for the winter.

Stanley Lindsay – winter 1916

Within months of his return to England, the hernia recurred on his right side needing immediate surgery and his health never fully recovered after that. Several bouts of influenza also plagued him throughout the war, before and after his hernias, and weakened him for the rest of his life.

He was 29 when the war ended. He returned to Montreal, but did not resume his studies at McGill University, choosing instead to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a stockbroker. His salary as a Captain had brought in an average of $142 per month during his four years of service. This translates into $3900 per month in today’s dollars. He quite possibly returned to civilian life with a decent nest egg with which to begin his new career.

Stanley’s health issues did not appear to hinder his long career as a stockbroker and eventually he became a partner at Crutchlow, Deare & Co. According to family lore, he purposefully sold off the family’s portfolio of stock investments just before the Great Crash of 1929.1 Perhaps his war experience left him with some kind of sixth sense.

Although Stanley never married, he remained close to his two brothers (and their families) and his three sisters.

Two of his sisters, Marjorie and Marguerite, had been nurses during the war with the Information Bureau,2 a Canadian Red Cross organization in London which cared for Canadian soldiers. Marguerite died young in Cartwright, Labrador, in 1926 while volunteering with the Grenfell Mission.3

Stanley lived with Marjorie and their parents at 455 Sherbrooke Street West (previously known as The Prince of Wales Terrace) until their father’s death in 1931. Then they moved with their mother into an apartment at 1009 Sherbrooke Street West until her death in 1938 and remained there until their own deaths: Marjorie in 1961 and Stanley in 1965. His eldest sister Ada lived in Vancouver with her husband Julius Griffith and their only son, Julius, who became a well known Canadian artist.4

Stanley’s two brothers – my grandfather Sydenham5 (an Anglican priest) and Lionel (a pediatrician) – provided him with ten nieces and nephews to spoil. He absolutely adored my mother Ann and showered her with his love and gifts. He must have been devastated when she died of Hodgkin’s Disease at the age of 36 in November, 1961, having lost his sister Marjorie earlier that year.

Stanley Lindsay (far right) at Ann’s baby’s christening party 1953

Luckily for me, he devoted his free time to the family history. I have pages upon pages of his beautifully (legible!) handwritten notes about that side of our family. All the usual dates and facts were recorded, but in a clear, more descriptive fashion.

One of his pages about his grandmother, Catherine Mitcheson Bagg, recalled a visit to her home as a boy:

“We can remember her well sitting at the front drawing room window at Fairmount with her white lace cap on, looking out at the people passing.

“We used to play in Granny’s garden. There were apple trees, especially one which was easy to climb and play house in. There was an iron bench under it, painted blue green…. There was a chestnut tree which we loved, the summer house, the white statutes of Adam and Eve with no arms, … the bleeding hearts, snowballs and lilacs … Nora the housemaid and Jessie the cook, who made good ladies fingers and sponge cakes and who we could always see through large sunken window which gave light to the kitchen.

“There were the stables, the horses, the rockaway and the brougham and Willis the coachman with white mutton chop whiskers whom we liked and who afterwards drove a wagon for Joyce the confectioner. We were very fond of Odell Comtois who did sewing…. She was practically one of the family.

“The garden became very shabby. It seemed a large garden to us. It went as far as our house which was at the corner of Milton Street. The west side adjoined the Wilson-Smith property. Long before our house was built, a large house called Tara Hall stood just north of Milton Street. Mother [Mary Heloise (Bagg) Lindsay] remembers it burning down one night when she was a child. Where the house used to stand is a street called Tara Hall.”

As well as being everyone’s favourite uncle, an excellent family historian and a successful stockbroker, Stanley belonged to several local clubs including the Canadian Club, the University Club and the Royal Montreal Golf Club.6

After almost dying at Ypres during the Great War, Stanley lived another fifty years.

1https://wiki2.org/en/The_Crash_of_1929 – as referenced 2023-02-23

2https://genealogyensemble.com/?s=the+mothering+bureau

3https://genealogyensemble.com/2022/07/27/miss-lindsay-the-early-years/

4https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/julius-griffith – as referenced 2023-02-23

5https://genealogyensemble.com/2016/04/05/the-priest/

6Obituary – The Gazette, 1965-03-03

genealogy

The Meter Man

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Lately, we have been reading about the rising costs of heating and fuel around the world which reminded me of childhood memories of the ‘Meter Man’

The main power we used when I was a child was coal and gas. Our electricity meter was in the cupboard, under the stairs, similar to Harry Potters’s bedroom. The cupboard was a tiny addition just enough room to hold the meter. The only time it was opened was to insert a shilling for an allotted amount of electricity and gas. However, we usually packed it full until someone forgot and, we are all watching the telly, when….a blackout! Everything electric shut off.

Everyone I knew had a meter there were no monthly electricity bills at least not for our working-class family. We all had a handy supply of shillings ‘for the meter’ a kind of ‘pay as you go’ system.

The British Shilling

For some strange reason, we did not have any torches – or a flashlight as you call them here. Instead, we would scramble around in the dark, to the cupboard under the stairs to find a shilling, – usually piled on the top of the meter, thank goodness – hastily shoving it in the meter or ‘feeding’ it as we used to say, and everything lit up again and back to the programme on the telly.

An Old Shilling Meter Of The Type We Used

Once a month, the ‘meter man’ would come, open the meter with his special key and sit in the kitchen with a cuppa and count out the shillings in the meter, calculate what we owed and then leave a pile of shillings for us. That rebate at the end of the month was a godsend we would pack the meter until you could not get any more in. Sometimes, though, we forgot to feed the meter, hence the blackouts!

There is an old 1966 movie called ‘Funeral In Berlin with Michael Caine as British Spy Harry Palmer. Palmer goes to someone’s flat in London and the man there asks him for a shilling to put in the gas meter or no heat or electricity and no cup of tea.

Arriving in Canada in 1979, was a shock to see the waste of electricity, water, and all the sources that as a child were drilled into us NOT to waste. The first thing we noticed downtown was all the offices ablaze late at night.

Montréal From Mount Royal, Pre-1970

Not to say that we in England did not leave lights on at night, but they were street lamps and certainly not office lights left on all night. Even the Christmas decorations were turned off after midnight. However, as the capital city, London was the biggest culprit, with Piccadilly Circus ablaze with advertisements at night.

The Outskirts of London at night

I have to say, that even when I was a child, we were ALL very careful about heat and not wasting it. The usual cry when we left a door open or failed to close a window ‘Shut that door! Were you born in a barn?! We had curtains up inside the front door and long slinky ‘sausages’ made from one old nylon stocking and stuffed with rags, on the floor of each door to keep the draughts out.

British homes were never really insulated well. In fact, they still are not. My son’s home in London built in the late 1800s has stone blocks with ‘air spaces’ in between for ‘airflow’ because of the humidity! He is just as vigilant about keeping an eye on the meters as we were. We taught him well. I just hope that the so-called ‘new builds’ in England, are better insulated. If not all the heat just goes out the walls and up the chimney.

Houses in the UK were and are not ever, really warm and cosy as they are here, in Canada, even with the addition of central heating which is strictly regulated or timed, as Hydro Quebec is urging us to do now, to come on in the morning as we get up, turn off as we leave and on again at night.

Today, it is a case of ‘been there, done that’ and still we do it. Old habits die hard. Although now we are retired we keep the heating on at a nice comfortable 21C and during the Summer, the A/C is on ALL DAY!! Gasp! My husband still patrols the timers though…

I have to wonder, how we are going to cope in the future with climate change and fuel prices soaring. How will North America manage? Will we be bringing back the old meters? Only time will tell.

During research for this article, it would appear that in England, pre-paid meters are indeed now being used again. Called smart meters they can be paid with a credit card, as defaulting on monthly billing payments seem to be on the rise.

genealogy

Life Changing Events

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A simple act followed by a direct command can be life changing.

Such was the case for my Dad. At the outset of his working life, my father’s new challenges of a career in the gold mines of Colorado were dashed through no fault of his. In some ways it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened. It launched his career in the mining industry and he travelled to mines around the world. Would he have been so fortunate in Colorado?

Kaarlo Victor Lindell was born in the early winter of 1905 in Ashtabula, Ohio, a port on Lake Erie, not far from Cleveland. He was the second child of Ida Susanna Karhu and Johan Hjalmar Lindell, a blacksmith. They had immigrated to the United States from Finland in the mid-1890s.

As a young man, my father worked as a cook on the iron-ore boats on the Great Lakes and, although he loved sailing the lakes, he wanted something more fulfilling. He enrolled at the Michigan College of Mines in Houghton, graduating with a degree in Mining Engineering in 1928. Many years later, in 1972, he gave the Commencement Address to the graduating students at the Michigan Technological University, as the College is now a university. At that event he received a Doctor of Engineering and the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

After graduation In 1928 he received a job opportunity at Royal Tiger Gold Mines in Breckenridge, Colorado. He packed his Model T Ford and set out for the west with hopes and dreams, doing something he truly enjoyed. He was a young man ” going west”.

Not long after arriving at the mines, he discovered that the owner-manager was tampering with the assays (a scale used to measure gold). When the owner realized that his new employee was aware of his actions, he ordered him “out of town by sundown.”  Kaarlo didn’t back down and said that he would leave, “as soon as I can get my Model T on a railroad car to carry it over the mountains”.

Aspirations of working in the gold mines were crushed. Being a young go-getter, he immediately contacted the College to see if they knew of any openings for newly graduated mining engineers. They responded that there were openings in Canada in the nickel mines in Copper Cliff – Sudbury area in Ontario.  It was time to head north.

Kaarlo  crossed into Canada on the 31st of January 1929 at Bridgeburg, Ontario with hopes and dreams of a rewarding career and a new challenge. He found a room in a boarding house and began working for the International Nickel Company (INCO) in Copper Cliff and Frood Mine. He spoke Finnish and soon made friends with his coworkers, among them many Finns.

Before long he met a pretty, vivacious young lady named Estelle (Esty) Jodouin and wasted no time seeking her hand. They were married on September 6tth, 1930, in Sudbury. While Grandpa Jodouin was happy to have Dad as a son-in-law, he was concerned that he practised the Lutheran faith.  In the meantime, Kaarlo legally changed his name to Karl and had started studying the Catholic faith.

His employer took advantage of his knowledge of Finnish and in 1934 Karl was seconded to Mond Nickel of England and sent to Petsamo, Lapland, in northern Finland, near the Russian border, close to the Barents Sea. Dad’s task was to open a new nickel mine in the area.

In 1939 Petsamo, now Pechanga, was seized by Russia and consequently closed off Finland’smain access to northern waters.

Finnish Inn 1934

With WW11 on the horizon, Karl wanted to serve his new country. He became a naturalized citizen on the 8th of August 1939, however, with four children and a fifth on the way, his services were needed in the nickel industry. He remained at work for INCO. Nickel production was crucial for ammunition during the war years.

After working for seventeen years with INCO, it was time for a change. The Canadian Johns-Manville Company (CJM) had sought his expertise and hired him to design and oversee the construction of a headframe and shaft for underground mining in Asbestos, Quebec.

In November 1945, the family moved to the rolling hills of the Eastern Townships of Quebec where a new chapter would enfold.

Finland is a country of lakes and saunas.

It is presently rated (2023) as the happiest country in the world.

genealogy

The Judicial Archives During the British Regime and Lower Canada -1780-

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The database below focuses on the early Judicial System in Quebec and consists of an extensive list of authors who have written  on the subject. Complete books and articles are available online, publishers are also noted.

The Judicial Archives during the British Regime & Lower Canada__ 1760-1867 – Final version 2022-10-04Download
genealogy, Quebec, United States

Mathilde Bruneau Career Woman

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Marie Mathilde Bruneau

I never expected to find much information about my great-grandfather’s sister, Mathilde Bruneau. I knew her name, dates, the fact she had a twin brother and that she never married. That was all. Then when searching Newspapers.com, Mathilde, born on a farm in southern Quebec appeared on the social page of the Fall River, Massachusetts Daily Herald. It was reported that she had been visiting her brother Aimé Bruneau and then returned to her teaching duties at the Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf in Providence, Rhode Island, only twenty miles from her brother’s home.

Sophie, Helene & Mathilde Bruneau in New York

Mrs. Mary Ann Lippitt founded the school in 1876. Her daughter Jeanie became deaf after a bout of scarlet fever so her mother taught her daughter to speak and read lips, as no schools for the deaf existed at that time. Mary Ann’s husband Henry Lippitt was the Governor of Rhode Island and had political influence, so he persuaded the state to take over the operation of the school. In 1893 the school moved to a large new building which could hold 60 students. This might have been the time Mathilde began teaching there. The school is still operating today.

I don’t know how Mathilde ended up teaching deaf students. Did she answer a newspaper ad while visiting her brother? Before teaching the deaf, Mathilde had been a French teacher in New York City along with her sister Virginie. Virginie didn’t stay there but returned to Quebec to marry.

Mathilde had not yet moved to Rhode Island 1887 when the social page reported on an earlier visit to her brother Aimé, in Fall River. I don’t know where Mathilde obtained her teaching credentials as I haven’t found records of her training. Her sister Virginie attended McGill Normal School. Did Mathilde begin her teaching career in Montreal before moving to New York?

Mathilde was one of thirteen children of Barnabé Bruneau and Sophie Marie Prudhomme, born in St-Constant, Quebec, south of Montreal, in 1844. She had a twin brother Napoleon, one of very few twins in my family tree. In the 1871 Canadian census, she was listed as living with her parents in St-Constant (and two years older than her twin brother), so she was at least 27 when she moved to New York City. Napoleon stayed on the farm but he also had a career as a veterinarian and a Justice of the Peace.

Sisters Sophie, Mathilde& Elmire with Washington Huntley

Although some of her siblings became American citizens, it seems she never did. After Mathilde retired from teaching, she moved back to Quebec. She maintained her independence and didn’t live with her twin brother in St-Constant or even with one of her sisters, instead she was a lodger in John Dooley’s house on Bordeaux Street in Montreal.

Mathilde Bruneau

She appeared again in a newspaper in April 1912, “Miss Matilda Bruneau 68, 1149 Bordeaux St. fell on the sidewalk corner of Mary Ann and Erables last night and broke her left leg. She was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital” reported the Montreal Gazette. The weather the day before, Easter Sunday, had been very rainy and well above freezing so an icy sidewalk probably wasn’t the cause of her fall.

She died only four months later. PerhapsHer her leg never healed. I didn’t find a death certificate or cause of death, just a certificate of burial signed by two of her sisters. Marie Mathilde Prud’homme Bruneau was buried with her parents in the Baptist cemetery in Grande-Ligne, Quebec.

Notes:

Rhode Island School for the Deaf https://rideaf.ri.gov/AboutUs/index.php

Mabel Hubbard, who later became the wife of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell was deaf and also taught by Mrs. Lippitt. Jeanie Lippitt later went to Dr. Bell for voice training lessons. Dr. Bell had to discontinue these lessons to devote himself full-time to the development of the talking machine.

Fall River Daily Herald June 30 1898, Page 7. Newspapers.com accessed Jan 12, 2023. Miss M P (Prudhomme) Bruneau was an instructor at RI School of the Deaf.

The Providence News February 21, 1893 Newspapers.com accessed Feb 17, 2023. A new school building was dedicated. 35 pupils enrolled with a capacity for 60. 

In the 1911 Canadian census, Matilde was living on Bordeaux Street in the Maisonneuve district of Montreal as a lodger with a Mr John Dooley and his family.

Fell and Broke Leg: Montreal Gazette April 8, 1912, page 3. Newspapers.com accessed Jan 23, 2023.

Her sisters Virginie and Sophie signed her burial record. There is no cause of death April 15, 1912.

genealogy, Quebec

Laura Lacombe, Who Were You?

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Perhaps the only picture of my mother’s cousin, Laura Lacombe, fourth from left in a Crepeau family picture circa 1914.

Genealogy is a gift that keeps on giving. A few years ago, when the 1921 Canadian census came online, I anxiously consulted it to see a Crepeau listing for my mother (4 months old), my uncle Louis, my aunts Alice and Cecile (20 and 17) and my 15 year old Aunt Flo, listed as adopted under the name Florida St-Martin.

Bingo! That’s what I had been waiting to see for 10 years!

In the 1911 census, my Aunt Flo is listed with her birth family, the St-Martins but I wasn’t 100 percent sure the listing was hers. (I had only a vague recollection of her birth family’s name. The family name St-Martin had come to me in a light-bulb moment in the middle of the night!) So this 1921 listing confirmed my subconscious’ powers. I suddenly felt very smart.

Aunt Flo peeking out at my mother in around 1925.

But, I also noticed another name in the Crepeau household on the 1921 census, Laura Lacombe, niece, born 1892. I had never heard this name before, so I took another peek at the 1911 census. Laura Lacombe is listed there, too. I had missed it.

Now I was really confused. (I suddenly didn’t feel so smart.) I rationalized that I might have missed Laura ten years earlier when the 1911 census came online because the Crepeau family listing is at the bottom of one page and Laura’s name comes up on the top of the next. Or maybe I did notice Laura’s presence on the census and just assumed she was one of the many young girls brought in over the years to help my grandmother, Maria, keep house.

Whatever the reason, it did not take long before I figured out who this Laura Lacombe was. She was the daughter of my grandmother’s sister Melina Roy Lacombe who had died in the mid 1890’s leaving behind two young children, Raoul and Laura.

On the 1901 census Laura is living with her grandmother (my great-grandmother) Melina Gagnon Roy and my grandmother, Maria; also Maria’s brother Louis and sister Eugenie who is married to a James Deslaurier. Maria and Louis are mistakenly listed under Deslauriers. (For this reason, I had a lot of trouble finding Maria on the 1901 census at first. ) Melina Gagnon Roy is listed as chef or head of the household.

So, when Maria, my grandmother, got married later in 1901 to the ambitious Jules Crepeau, she took in the twelve-years-younger Laura. Or maybe Laura moved in with them in 1906, after the death of the grandmother.

Now, the real question begs: how come I never heard about Laura before? Was she for some reason a family secret?

Over the decades, I never heard my Aunt Flo or my own mother speak of this cousin – and they both liked to talk about the Crepeau family in the early days.

The answer might lie in another document I found: Laura’s death certificate. You see, she died only a few months after the 1921 Census man came around – and a few months more after my mother’s birth. My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, signed her death certificate. No reason for the death is given, which makes it all very sketchy. (I’m not embarrassed to say, I looked for the name “Lacombe” among my many French Canadian DNA cousins on Ancestry. The name hardly appears at all. Phew!)

Still, I have to ask. Why the silence surrounding Laura’s life. A real mystery, it is.

genealogy

BanQ and the Loyalists 1783

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BAnQ & The Loyalists 1783Download

Click the above link to download the database in a new window..

The above file contains information on the arrival of Loyalist Families in the Province of Quebec ( 1873) after the American War of Independence as noted by varaious authors. These books and articles are available, many upon request at numerous BanQ websites for consultation, while a number of articles may be downloaded.

genealogy, Military, Quebec, WWII

Auntie Madge, the Riveter

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Page one of the Montreal Star read “Canada is Now Officially at War.” The article goes on to describe the declaration of war on Sunday, September 3, 1939:

“The declaration of war called forth a feverish activity, disturbing the quiet of a mellow Sabbath day on the very edge of autumn. … Thousands of people … heard the roll of bugles and drums, but, this time, with a martial motive. The Army Services Corps were parading with placards calling for volunteers in their vital lines of military service.” 1

Both my dad, Edward McHugh, and my uncle, James McHugh, volunteered to serve in the Canadian military. Edward went into the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and James joined the Royal Canadian Hussars, the armoured car division of the Canadian Armed Forces. Edward was stationed in Yorkshire, England and James saw active duty in France.

While the McHugh brothers were in Europe fighting the war, Canada was being transformed. Madge Angell, James’ wife, worked in one of the many factories that manufactured armaments for the war effort. She was a riveter and one of the one million Canadian women who worked in plants that produced munitions, weapons, and equipment during the Second World War. Veronica Foster, Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl, represented these women and became a Canadian icon. Foster worked for the John Inglis Company Ltd. on the production line for the Bren light machine guns. She was photographed for a propaganda campaign under the direction of the National Film Board of Canada. These pictures were used to encourage Canadian women to participate in the war effort.2

Unknown photographer, Veronica Foster, an employee of John Inglis Co. Ltd. and known as “The Bren Gun Girl” posing with a finished Bren gun in the John Inglis Co. Ltd. Bren gun plant, Toronto (May 10, 1941), contemporary print from vintage negative. National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada e0007604533

Canada not only needed women to directly support the war and work in the munitions industries; it was also essential that they fill jobs traditionally held by men. Women worked on airfields, in factories, and on farms. They developed a reputation for fine precision work in electronics, optics, and instrument assembly. With the men away from the farms, the women took on the extra work. Lumberjacks became lumberjills. They also drove buses, taxis, and streetcars. Notably, Elsie Gregory MacGill was the first woman in the world to graduate as an aeronautical engineer. She worked for Fairchild Aircraft Limited during the war and in 1940, her team’s design and production methods were turning out more than 100 Hurricane combat aircraft per month.4

Elsie MacGill. Source: Library and Archives Canada 5

Canadian women wanted to play an active role in the military and lobbied the government. As a result, more than 50,000 women served in the armed forces:

  • The Canadian Women’s Army Corps;
  • The Women’s Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force;
  • The Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (Wrens); and
  • Nursing sisters. 6
Second World War painting, Private Roy, Canadian Women’s Army Corps, by Molly Lamb Bobak.7 

For women who did not work or were not members of the military, there were also many opportunities to contribute to the war effort. Women were asked to reduce their consumption of goods that were in short supply and to recycle. Goals were set to collect tons of rubber products to transform them into tires and other needed items for the war. Ration books were assigned.8 My grandmother, Grace Hunter, loved to cook and bake and she would often speak about the challenges of rationing during the war. At that time, all baking was home made, so the rationing of flour, butter, and sugar was difficult.

Scarcity of food lead to rationing.9

My grandmother also knit socks, gloves, and other knitted clothing for the troops that were delivered by the Red Cross. Women made warm clothing for the soldiers at the front, as well as quilts and bandages. As well, women groups sent books, newspapers, and treats to military hospitals.10 Nana was also active in organizing the “send off” and “welcome home” parties for the Montreal servicemen. My mom, Patricia Deakin, was a teenager during the war and her mother recruited her to help at these parties. She enjoyed these parties and felt that she was doing something for the war effort. An extra bonus was that she thought that the servicemen were very handsome.

  1. The Montreal Star, 4 September 1939, page 1, Newspapers.com, accessed 4 January 2023.
  2. Wikipedia web site, Veronica Foster, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Foster, accessed 9 January 2023.
  3. National Gallery of Canada web site, The Other NFB: Canada’s “Official Portrait,” Rynor, Becky,  1 March 2016, https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/the-other-nfb-canadas-official-portrait, accessed 16 February 2023.
  4. Government of Canada web site, Women at War, https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/classroom/fact-sheets/women, accessed 16 January 2023.
  5. Goldstream News Gazette, Canadian women making history: A life of firsts in flying colour, 29 April 2017, https://www.goldstreamgazette.com/business/canadian-women-making-history-a-life-of-firsts-in-flying-colour/, accessed 30 January 2023.
  6. Government of Canada web site, Women at War, https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/classroom/fact-sheets/women, accessed 16 January 2023.
  7. Private Roy, Canadian Women’s Army Corps, painting by Molly Lamb Bobak, Beaverbrook Collection of War Art (online), Canadian War Museum, 19710261 1626, accessed 16 January 2023.
  8. Government of Canada web site, Department of Veterans Affairs, Timeline – Women and War,  https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/those-who-served/women-veterans/timeline, accessed 30 January 2023.
  9. The Montreal Gazette, 1943, Library and Archives Canada, PA 108300, accessed 30 January 2023.
  10. Government of Canada web site, Department of Veterans Affairs, Women on the Home Front,  https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/those-who-served/women-veterans/homefront, accessed 30 January 2023.
England, genealogy, Military, Montreal, WWI

Captain Stanley Lindsay

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Part One of Two

Somehow my great-uncle Stanley survived the Battle of St. Julien1 which was part of the larger Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 25 May 1915). There were around 100,000 casualties in that battle alone.

Stanley Bagg Lindsay (1889-1965) fought in The Great War with the 13th Battalion, Royal Highlanders of Canada (RHC). The Germans deployed poisonous chlorine gas in Ypres, Belgium, against the Allied armies (Belgium, French, British Expeditionary and Canadian Expeditionary Forces) for the first time.

This is the letter he wrote home to Montreal on April 27, 1915, from the trenches in Ypres, Belgium:

You must know by now that we have been getting a rather exciting time of it and it is honestly beyond me to understand why I am still alive.

I will tell you briefly what took place.

On the evening of the 21st we took over the trenches from the 14th Battalion. Everything was very quiet. The French were right next to us on our left. About 5 PM on the afternoon of the 22nd bombardment such as I never thought possible began by the Germans. Shells (coal boxes) shrapnel for about two hours, and then the Germans attacked and captured the French trenches which brought them right next to us on our left.

Stanley signed up to to serve with the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Forces (CEF) on September 23,1914, according to his attestation papers. He left his studies at McGill University at age 25 to do so.

Seven months later, he witnessed the horrors of the German war machine first hand. His letter home continued:

During the night they rushed troops through this gap and next morning were right in behind us. We, however, held onto the trenches for 24 hours in spite of the fact that they had machine guns behind us, and shelled us heavily. The night of the 23rd we had orders to evacuate those trenches, and dig-in in another position which we did. The next morning we were shelled and shelled and finally shelled out of the trenches. By this time the casualties were high. I took up on a position with MacTier and a few men and stayed there for sometime till we had orders to evacuate. Since then the biggest battle ever fought has been going on. I am afraid the casualties will be very high.

Guy Drummond, Major Norsworthy and Lees are killed and some are wounded. You might telephone to Mrs. C.K.2that he is alright.

Many of these men’s families knew each other socially before the war as they all lived near one another in Montreal’s “Golden Square Mile”. 3 Hence, his suggestion to let their friend, Mrs. Clark-Kennedy, know that her son was still alive.

The events that took place next, with these men specifically mentioned, were written up in – Montreal and the Battle of Ypres 1915 One Hundred years4 – in a book on Canadian Military History.

With German infantry hot on their heels, Captain Clark-Kennedy, with Lieutenants Stanley Lindsay and William MacTier, conducted a resolute rear guard. But the new battalion position proved as hazardous, for it was quickly taken under observed fire from the Germans in occupied Canadian trenches.

Numerous individual and section duels took place during the two long nights when the 13th held the division flank unsupported by artillery, low on ammunition and without food or water. How these exhausted men, without sleep for over seventy-two hours, managed again and again to march, dig, and do battle is the stuff of regimental legend and legacy.

Somehow, during this chaos, Stanley found the time and energy to write his letter home and described the same experience in his own words:

I believe that the authorities think we did well and are pleased with us. The conduct of my own men was absolutely splendid, and I am sorry to say that many of them have been killed and wounded.

I don’t know when I shall be able to write again, so don’t worry. Just now we are in a dugout with heavy shell fire going on. The fight up ahead is heavy. We hope to get a rest soon, as we are all pretty much all (done) in.

The total cost of the battle to the 13th Batallion was 483 all ranks or 49 percent5.

The waiting crowd at Southampton docks burst into cheers when some of these remaining Canadians disembarked the train.

Even the normally reserved Imperials took notice and embraced their colonial brethren. Recruiting posters in Glasgow and Edinburgh for Scotland’s Black Watch, now proudly added, “with which is allied the 13th Canadian Battalion, RHC.” 6

1https://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_St_Julien – as referenced 2023-02-08

2Captain Clarke-Kennedy fought with Lieutenant Stanley Lindsay.

3https://wiki2.org/en/Golden_Square_Mile – as referenced 2023-02-09

4Roman Jarymowycz (2015) “Montreal and the Battle of Ypres 1915 One Hundred Years,” Canadian Military History: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 11. Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss1/11

5Roman Jarymowycz (2015) “Montreal and the Battle of Ypres 1915 One Hundred Years,” Canadian Military History: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 11. Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss1/11

6Roman Jarymowycz (2015) “Montreal and the Battle of Ypres 1915 One Hundred Years,” Canadian Military History: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 11. Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss1/11