Found Photos - Bios - Ancestories

FOUND PHOTOS - BIOGRAPHIES

Behind every photograph there is a story. Much of the joy I personally take from this little hobby is in discovering the stories behind the photos and sharing these stories with the wider world. I used to be on Facebook, and I once enjoyed writing these stories to share with the group "Lost and Found Vintage Pictures" (it's a great group, incidentally - if you're on Facebook, check it out!)

Some stories are easier to research than others. Most of the time, I find images that depict normal hardworking people - people who would have been my classmates, my elders, my neighbours, and my friends. Sometimes I find a baby picture of someone who turned out to make an incredible contribution to the world. Sometimes I find a photo of someone whose story I can't find, no matter how hard I pore over historical records and newspaper archives. Sometimes the story finds me.

Here are some stories, in no particular order - some I've researched myself, and some have been contributed by the families of the people in the photos. To these contributors - thank you for sharing the stories of your loved ones. You are the guardians of their memories, and they live on through you.

CLEOTA (BARNETT) SALTER

The image of Cleota is one of my favourite found photos. When buying photos, I usually don't even look at the images themselves. I'm focused on finding identified photos, so I tend to look at the reverse side. Once I saw that this picture was identified, I was thrilled. She's such a confident-looking and happy child, and the 'over-the-top outfit' made such a statement! I was instantly intrigued. What kind of woman had she become?

I was contacted in November, 2019 by Cleota's 'nephew.' He had been Googling family members, as I know I myself have sometimes done, and he'd come across my website and this picture. He was gracious enough to share the following reminiscences about his aunt, and he agreed to have me publish them here.

Cleota, or 'Coty' as she was known to her family, was indeed confident and happy throughout her long life, and she made an impact far beyond what most women were able to do in her day and age. I wish I'd had the privilege to know her. Many thanks to her nephew for providing the following biography and article - his love for this remarkable woman obviously shines through.

This photo has gone home! :)

I'd be happy to tell you what I can about Cleota. As you note, she was my “aunt” by association, not blood. I always referred to her as “Coty”, an acquired family nick name.

She was born in (Jolliet IL) USA and her mother Matilda (Tilly) Barnett apparently left her father and they came to London, Ontario. I believe there was some family here. My mother's family were in the hotel business in London. In those days, it wasn't proper to raise a young girl in the hotels, so my mother was boarded out with family friends outside the hotel. Coty and her mother moved into the same home and she and my mother were raised like sisters. Coty was 9 years older, and essentially was my Mom's baby sitter. They maintained close family contact throughout their lives. My mother gave her the name Coty, because as a child she couldn't say Cleota.

She grew up in London, and at some point, came to Toronto to work. She ended up working on Bay Street in the financial sector. In and around 1950, she went to NYC as the Secretary Treasurer for the brokerage firm Bell – Gouinlock. She opened their New York Office and continued in their service until she retired. An impressive position for a woman at that time. That's how she got to Montclair NJ. She never came back to Canada to live, but visited friends and family often. Work also brought her back. I remember travelling to Montclair with my parents on vacation in the summer of 1969. On that vacation, we all watched the first moon landing. The irony is that Montclair NJ was the hometown of Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. The town was pretty excited about the event and I remember it vividly.

Following her retirement, she moved from Montclair to one of the first gated adult living communities in the US. It was called “Rossmoor” and was situated in Jamesburg NJ, which was a few miles outside of Princeton, the university town. I remember travelling to visit and meeting a lot of her friends in the community. Needless to say they were all old retired folks, but they were full of life and a lot of fun.

As for the photo, I am not surprised by your comment about her disposition and attire. Her mother, I understand, was a bit of a “stage mother” and may have had ambitions for her daughter to pursue an entertainment career. Coty was an accomplished pianist and loved to sing and practiced both in local theater groups. Throughout her life, Coty was a very happy, gregarious and fun person. She loved to travel and did so extensively throughout the world. She loved to collect jewelry from the various places she traveled to and had an extensive and beautiful collection. She also collected antiques. In her later years, her home was exclusively decorated with them. I remember that she had a couple of portraits in her home of a US Union Civil War officer and a Man with a Powder Wig. As a kid, they used to creep me out because the eyes of the portraits seemed to follow me around the room. Funny the things you remember. LOL

She was very generous and spoiled me as best as she could from being at a distance, and was one of the lights of my young life.

Hope this quells some of your curiosities about the little girl in the “over-the-top” outfit. She had a good heart, was very good to me and all these years later, I miss her. With thanks for jump starting my memories of a lovely person.

THE DANIEL WRIGHT McDONALD FAMILY

This photo stood out to me from the moment I first saw it - it has a distinctly home-made, poorly-proportioned, out of focus character that I haven't seen in any other studio portraits before. As usual, my primary concern was researching the family to get the photo home; at the same time, I figured I'd do some research on the photographer.

I must say - the story of the photographer is more interesting than the story of the family.

There are lots of dead ends with this photo. I'm glad to have a record of this family, and this photographer, who would perhaps all be forgotten without this single image.

If descendants of the photographer could be found, I would be pleased to send the photo to them. If relatives of the sitters are interested, the photo could go to them, as well. I have not yet reunited this photo with either family. Please contact me if you have any connection or information.

This is the Daniel Wright McDonald family of Collins Bay, Ontario (now a part of Kingston, Ontario.) Daniel was born in 1862 and worked variously as a farmer and a blacksmith. Daniel married Sarah Ida Smith in 1887; their early married life was marred by tragedy, as their first-born Andrew Earl McDonald died in infancy in 1888. Daniel and Sarah's two daughters, Phyllis Elvira McDonald and Ada Mariah McDonald, followed in 1893 and 1895 respectively.

There really isn't much known about this decidedly working-class McDonald family. For anyone who's familiar with Canadian history, I will say that there's no evidence that they were related to first Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald's family who happened to be from the same area. Daniel died fairly young, succumbing to appendicitis in 1908. His youngest daughter Ada died of influenza in 1921. Phyllis married H. Edwin Bell and took care of her mother after her father's death; husband Edwin died in 1936, and mother Sarah died in 1938. I don't believe Phyllis and Edwin ever had children, and Phyllis herself died in 1955. The entire family is buried at Cataraqui United Church Cemetery, across the street from where "Sir John A" himself is laid to rest. This McDonald line died with them - I have an email out to someone who has this family in their tree, but I'm not hopeful that they're close relatives. We'll see.

The photographer was intriguing. The photo is so poorly composed, and the imprint so basically hand-written (and misspelled, at that!) - I simply had to learn more about this guy. The photographer was one Benjamin R Watson, born in Kingston around 1870. Early census records list his profession as a motorman on the railway. He makes his first appearance in the city directories as a photographer in 1902, apparently having purchased the studio of William Kelly at 159 Wellington Street. He continues to appear as a photographer until 1905. In 1906 he is listed as a guard at Kingston Penitentiary, the most iconic prison in Canadian history. I have a feeling that Watson was just such a bad photographer that he couldn't make a go of it. His clients were probably the lower-echelon of society, as the blacksmithing McDonald family was, because they couldn't afford something more professional. I haven't come across another photo from Watson in "KINGSON" anywhere else. There probably aren't too many out there.

Benjamin married a Lillian Dalton in 1906, and they had a son Stewart. Stewart died in Florida in 1984, but I can't figure out if he had children or not. I would be pleased to send the photo to the descendant of the photographer, if one could be found, seeing as the people in the photo don't have descendants themselves.

PHOEBE ANN (BISSELL) CROSS

This young woman is one of my mysteries, but one I always knew I would be able to solve. I feel her sadness, her image almost fading away - she didn't even have her own name when I first encountered her. The inscription on the back reads, "Mrs. John Cross (his first wife)." A preliminary search of records on Ancestry showed several John Crosses in Leeds County, so I figured I would start with the photographer to see if I could get a timeline for when the photo would have been taken.

The photographer is Daniel Edson Pelton (b. 1868); he bought out a photo studio in Kemptville in 1895, and added a studio in Merrickville shortly after. Good news for me (though bad news for Pelton) is that he died in 1901; even though his brother Charles took over the studio, he changed the name from D E Pelton, so this gives me a 6 year window during which the photograph would have had to have been taken.

The first John Cross I came across that had a wife the right age was a John William Cross, born about 1870 who married Sarah Free, born about 1875. They were married in 1893 and lived in the same county as Merrickville, near Lyndhurst Ontario. Sarah Free died in 1926 and her husband survived her, but I couldn't find info to say John remarried. After investigating this family for awhile, I found a better candidate.

I found a marriage record for John Henry Cross, born (variously in 1867 or 1870) in Easton's Corners, Ontario to John and Susan Cross. Easton's Corners is literally the next town over from Merrickville. John married Emma Estella Bissell, 20 year old daughter of Philo and Eliza (Wilton) Bissell on November 10, 1898. John died in 1959, and "Stella," as she was known, outlived him by 6 years. I figured I must have the wrong John again, since they were listed as "bachelor" and "spinster" on their marriage record and they lived "until death do us part." That "bachelor" notation was a lie or a mistake. John HAD been married before - to Stella's sister, no less.

John Henry Cross, son of John and Susan Cross, married FIRST to Phoebe Ann Bissell on 18 March 1891. The marriage record says her maiden name was Russell, but her parents were "Philo and Eliza" (sound familiar?). As well, birth records for their children have Bissell as mother's maiden name, and the 1881 census record shows both Phoebe and Emma Estella as children of Philo and Eliza Bissell.

John and Phoebe had at least three children - Bertha Eliza (b. 1892), Emma Myrtle (b. 1893), and Annie (b. ca. 1895.) I can't find any trace of her after 1895 - actually, I can't find a birth record for Annie, but census records presume she's Phoebe's daughter. Since D E Pelton opened his studio in 1895 as well, and John remarried in November 1898, I assume Phoebe died within that three year span, but I can't find a death record or cemetery record for her anywhere. John and Stella went on to have 3 more children (Jenny b. ca. 1900; Lawrence b. ca 1904; and Jean b. ca. 1905).

John's obituary in 1959 lists his surviving wife and children, but makes no mention of his first wife. Stella's obituary in 1965 lists her 3 children, AND separately her "step-children" Bertha, Myrtle, and Annie. Yay! Confirmation that a first wife existed, at the very least. John and Stella are buried at Wolford Rural Cemetery. Phoebe's resting place is not known.

THIS is Phoebe Ann Bissell Cross, first wife of John Cross. Now, she has her name back. The photo has not yet gone home.

HARRY PEVERELL AND SONS HARRY, JR. AND SAM

When I first saw this photo of a father and his two young sons, I thought "how sad - it must be a widower/divorcee with his two boys." I've never seen a family photo without the wife before. Well, in this case the wife was alive and well when this photo was taken. Knowing that his wife could have been in the photo but wasn't makes this image touching in a different way - to see such obvious tenderness at a time when the masculine ideal was much rougher - I think it's lovely. Maybe Harry had this photo taken as a gift to his wife.

With the help of Sheri Gray from Calgary, who is a member of the Facebook group "Lost and Found Vintage Pictures", we were able to get this photograph back to the Peverell family.

After comparing this image to other pictures of his ancestors, Sam's son could definitively say that this is a picture of his grandfather, his father, and his uncle. He said he never remembered seeing his grandfather with a moustache - I'm surprised he didn't keep the moustache, as he wears it so well!

Below is the little biography I was able to put together and post on Facebook. It helped reunite the photo with its family.

This is Harry Peverell, Sr. and his two sons, Harry Peverell, Jr. and Samuel Peverell of Calgary, Alberta. The elder Harry was born in Bishop Auckland, Durham England in January 1877. He married Elizabeth Jane Atkinson in 1907, and they had their sons in fairly quick succession. Harry was born in 1909, and Sam was born in 1913. The Peverell family moved to Calgary that same year, and Harry worked as a car foreman with the Canadian Pacific Railway. He died in 1967, and his wife outlived him by 11 years.

The older son, Harry, was mechanically inclined. After marrying Edith Lewis in 1933, the pair went back to England where Harry helped to build the first production Spitfire airplane. They returned to Canada some years later, and Harry worked in the aircraft industry and for the Canadian Pacific Railway, like his father had done before him. The pair eventually settled in Edmonton, where Harry worked his way up from city building inspector to Director of Buildings and Maintenance. Harry and Edith moved to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia and he died there in 1979. They did not have any children.

The younger son, Samuel, married Muriel Sweett in 1937, and the two of them relocated to Cochrane, Alberta where Sam went into the dairy business. He managed the Cochrane Creamery and eventually purchased it in 1954, owning the business until it closed in 1975. Sam was a dedicated Freemason, as was his brother Harry, and he and Muriel had three children.

MARY JANE "MAY" (DEWAR) MINIELLY

It's not often that I come across an "old soul" in an old photo, but I've never had such a strong feeling about what's behind someone's eyes as I have about this girl. This is Mary Jane Dewar, born 3 July 1887 to Neil Dewar and Elizabeth Stirrett in Plympton Township, Lambton County Ontario. Her father was a farmer, but she has the air of being so much wealthier and more sophisticated.

Mary Jane (or "May" as she preferred to be known) married Robert Minielly in 1910. Robert worked variously as a farmer and a carpenter, and he and May had 6 children together. Robert died in 1959, and May outlived him by 20 years. The two are buried in Wyoming, Ontario having spent their entire lives in the same county where they were both born.

I have attempted to contact May's descendants online, with no response as yet. If you have more information, or are a related to the Dewar or Minielly families of Lambton County, Ontario - please drop me a line.

HERBERT ALVIN SHERRIFF

This smiley little guy is Herbert Alvin Sherriff, born on 15 October 1906 in Georgetown, Ontario to William M Sherriff and Margaret Jane Ford. He was the eldest of 7 children, and the family grew up in Hamilton, Ontario.

Records are difficult to come by post-1921, but it appears that Herbert worked as some sort of technician, he married a woman named Leah, and that they eventually moved to Burlington, Ontario. Online family trees say he died in 1974, but I can't find a burial site or an obituary for him.

This photo has not yet gone home. Please let me know if you can reunite this picture with Mr. Sherriff's family.

VERDA TAYLOR VINCENT

I have occasionally lamented the fact that the compelling stories I end up finding on these random people belong mostly to the men. I really enjoy finding photos of ladies who turn out to be "more than a housewife" (not that that's any less demanding an occupation - I hope you know what I mean.)

This sweet baby's name is Verda Taylor Vincent of London, Ontario. The name meant nothing to me when I plugged it into Ancestry. I discovered she was born to Albert Edward Vincent and Bertha Mercer on 28 May 1904. I learned she never married, and that she died on or around 15 September 1960. It's what she did in those intervening 56 years that's quite the story! This is her full obituary, as printed in the Windsor Star:

Verda Vincent Dies in London
Medico-Legal Analyst First Woman Criminologist

London, Ont (CP) - Verda Taylor Vincent, once Canada's only woman criminologist, died at her home here. Ill health had forced her to give up her job as a medico-legal analyst for the Attorney-General's Department of Ontario in 1950.

In Toronto, Dr. Ward Smith, director of the medico-legal department, paid tribute to her work. "We owe her a debt of gratitude for the development of lab work in the department," he said. "She was always willing to go any place for a case."

Her job took the five-foot, 110-pound woman throughout Ontario, often to study the grisly details of a murder case. Miss Vincent had wanted to be a doctor from the time she was a child but her father was prejudiced against "female medical men." She compromised with a general science course at the University of Western Ontario here and graduated as gold medalist of her class. She did post-graduate work at the University of Toronto and Harvard University.

At a laboratory job at Grace Hospital in Toronto in 1935 she met Dr. E R Frankish, who asked her to become his assistant at the medico-legal lab he founded in 1932. She visited the lab and agreed to accept the job. Then she saw Dr. Frankish was boiling a skull in preparation to cleaning it off, and hastily told him she needed time to reconsider. Later she phoned and said no, but the doctor persuaded her to change her mind.

She worked as his assistant until 1941 when he died, then was placed in charge of the lab.

Miss Vincent remained soft-hearted about her job. In an interview she said: "Often I can't sleep at night before an appearance and I can't look at the accused. I feel sorry for him."

Her first case in 1935 had been to sift through the ashes of a stove to prove they were those of a baby. She was not keen about reading murder stories. "I guess I'm too critical of the detectives," she said.

Surviving is her mother, Mrs. Bertha Vincent.

There's an amazing Macleans article from 1943 which interviews Verda and details her work. You can read that here: https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1943/5/15/miss-sherlock-holmes

Since Verda was an only child, and she never married, I'm not sure to whom I should send this photo. Surely there are cousins out there, but it will require a bit more research. So no reunion story just yet. What a fascinating life! If she's related to you, please let me know. I'd love to learn more about her.

MILDRED, MADGE, AND IRENE TURNER

These beautiful little girls are the Turner girls of Tillsonburg, Ontario (later Niagara Falls, Ontario.) The first two are really close in age - I think it's Madge on the left, Mildred in the middle, and Irene on the right. The back of the photo says "Irene, Madge, and Mildred / The Turner girls saying prayers / When father was overseas."

In 2019, the research below helped reunite this photo with a daughter of one of the three girls, through a granddaughter who had posted a private family tree online. It was one of a series of photos taken that day, I'm told. I'm so glad it's back with the family!

"Father" was George Holderness Turner, born 6 Nov 1879 in Skirlaugh, Yorkshire England. I'm not sure when he immigrated to Canada, but before he did, he served 3 years in the British Royal Army Medical Corps, and another 5 years with the South African Mounted Police. Somewhere along the way he picked up a Chinese dragon tattoo on his left arm. He ended up in British Columbia sometime before January, 1910 and married Ada Jennie Pearl Lutes, a woman originally from Ontario who was 12 years his junior (and who was about 17 at the time of the marriage.) Irene was born not too long afterwards, and Madge followed the following year. In the next few years the family moved to Tillsonburg Ontario, and their youngest, Mildred, was born there.

George's chosen occupation was fairly rare for men at the time, and his skills would have been in high demand when the war broke out. He was a male nurse (and a tattooed one, at that - I imagine him as the coolest nurse at the hospital if he were working today.) He enlisted in 1916 and was sent to France, and then Belgium, where he was wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele on 3 Nov 1917. Sustaining gunshot wounds to the head and arm, he was sent to various medical facilities on the front, and then in England, to recover. His head and arm evidently healed, but his legs were in constant pain. George was discharged from the army as medically unfit for service in May 1918. He returned to his family in Canada. The girls' prayers had worked, evidently.

I'm going to assume that he recovered fully from his leg pain issues, as in 1921 he had moved the family to Niagara Falls, Ontario and was working as a mail carrier. Peaceful family life would soon be interrupted, as his wife Pearl died in April 1925 from nephritis. She was only 33 years old. Having three young girls still to raise, George married Ruby Taylor, a woman (again) about 12 years his junior. Records don't tell me much after that - I'm not sure where the three girls ended up, but I do know that their father died 15 Jan 1956. After I reunited this photo with the family, I received a lovely note from one of the daughters of these girls - she thanked me very much for my efforts in getting the photo home, and said that her cousins and extended family were also excited to be reunited with this beautiful memento of their mothers' early lives.

THE CHILD FAMILY

This photo of a graceful woman and her two children is one of my greatest finds yet. One of these two children went on to win Canada's Governor General's Award for English Language Fiction, which would be the Canadian equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Some other recipients of this award include Margaret Atwood for "The Handmaid's Tale" and Michael Ondaatje for "The English Patient" (and there are many other amazing writers whose works may not be as well known south of the border.)

I picked this photo up at an antique shop like I always do, not paying attention to the image and not recognizing the names on the back - just another family I was hoping to send home. As is often the case, the females had rather unremarkable lives, at least on paper. It was the boy who achieved Canadian literary greatness. He is Philip Albert Gillet Child, and his novel "Mr. Ames Against Time" won the GG's Award in 1949. I confess I've never read it, but I'm for sure going to find a copy of it now!

The following is taken word for word from the introduction to a new version of one of Child's books called "God's Sparrows" published by Dundurn Press. The intro is available as a Google preview online and it runs 20+ pages, if you want to read all about his life. This is just the first bit, detailing his family and early life. I wanted to pay particular attention to Helen Mary Child, Philp's sister.

Philip Child's father, William Addison Child, was born in 1862 in Mayville, Wisconsin... [he] emigrated to Canada in 1883 and became secretary of the Ontario Rolling Mills. The company would later amalgamate with the Hamilton Steel and Iron Company, and eventually become the Steel Company of Canada; from 1883 to when he retired just before the First World War, William Child would be a key player in the development of Hamilton's steel industry, and one of the city's more prominent citizens.

In 1892, William Child married Elizabeth Helen Harvey (b. 1857) of Hamilton; within a year they had a daughter, Helen Mary Child (b. 1893). Five years later, they would have a son: Philip Albert Gillet Child was born on January 19, 1898.

The Child household was affluent, scholarly, and civic minded [the book talks about the family's contributions to charitable, artistic, scientific, and literary causes in Hamilton.] There was, however, a spectre hanging over the Child household: Philip's sister Helen was diagnosed with epilepsy as a young girl, and she was prone to seizures and fainting spells throughout her childhood. Helen's health was a constant concern, and the medical wisdom of the period advised her to avoid any excitement, lest it cause a seizure. The Childs were quiet, thoughtful people by nature, but Helen's condition added an additional impetus for personal restraint to the household. For Philip, his sister's condition would elicit a sense of responsibility and protectiveness, a feeling that weighed heavily on the much younger Philip throughout his childhood.

Helen died as a result of her epilepsy on September 6, 1912. Philip was fourteen at the time of her death, and would carry a tremendous sense of grief over the loss of his sister for the rest of his life. In many of his early unpublished poems, he alluded to her and how she shouldered her illness with grace.

The biographical introduction goes on to detail Philip's life as a scholar and student athlete in Toronto, as a soldier during WWI, as a student again at Cambridge and Harvard, and as a prolific published author. He married Gertrude Helen Potts in Toronto in 1925, and they had two children: John Philip Child (b. 1927) and Elizabeth Helen Child (b. 1931). His mother died on March 25, 1928, and Philip himself died February 6, 1980. He's known for his war novels and his poetry. The book I've taken this from, "God's Sparrows," is described as "a great Canadian war novel, with a large cast of characters and an epic scope that addresses Canada's war experience in a way few Canadian war novels can match." His archives were donated to Library and Archives Canada in 1970.

EVA TANNER

This lovely young nursing graduate is Miss Eva Tanner. She was born August 1 1903 to Thomas Henry Tanner and Levina Lines near Walkerton, Ontario and she graduated from the Owen Sound General and Marine Hospital school of nursing in 1925. After graduation, Eva went to work for a time in Windsor, Ontario and then back in Walkerton, Ontario before taking a position at Olean Hospital in Olean, New York in 1930.

Not long after - tragedy struck. The following is from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, dated November 27, 1932:

Patient and Nurse Killed in Accident

Car Hangs in Branches of Tree After Highway Skid

Pulaski, Nov 26 - (AP) - A crippled young woman being taken by automobile to a doctor in Canada at the expense of friends in East Aurora in the hope of restoring her health was killed with her nurse today as the car crashed two miles south of here.

The dead are Mary Kuczmanska 23 of Buffalo and Eva Tanner 28, the nurse of Walkerton Ont.

The car, a light coupe, skidded on a level stretch of road, hit a culvert, and bounded into a tree. There were marks on the road indicating the brakes had been applied. The car came to a stop several feet off the ground, being held here by the branches of the tree. It took nine men half an hour to get it down and to remove the bodies. The identity of the women was established through a diary kept by Miss Kuczmanska.

They were bound for Williamsburg, Ont., for an examination of Miss Kuczmanska by a Doctor Locke, an orthopedic surgeon. Funds were supplied by popular subscription at East Aurora, where Miss Kuczmanska had been cared for at a private sanitarium in which Miss Tanner was assistant superintendent. The patient had suffered for years from arthritis.

Eva Tanner was buried in Walkerton, Ontario alongside her parents, both of whom outlived her. I have not been able to reunite this photo with her family, as yet.

The story of Eva is very sad, but if you've got a few minutes, the story of the doctor they were on their way to see is absolutely fascinating. Read this article from MacLeans:
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1954/9/15/dr-locke-and-his-million-dollar-thumbs

WILLIAM EDWARD O'BRIEN

For some reason, I really like photos where the sitters are strabismic. This is William Edward O'Brien, and he sat for this portrait in New Hamburg, Ontario. Ancestry shows a farmer named William E O'Brien living in nearby Douro Township, Perth County. He would have been born in about 1871 to William O'Brien and Hannah Leahy; he was married to Mary Frances Condon in 1896, and the family moved to Peterborough, Ontario where William started selling insurance. They had at least 7 children: George, Mary, May, Irene, Genevieve, Fergus, and Gerard.

William died on October 15, 1940 in Peterborough, and he's buried at St. Joseph's RC Cemetery, Douro Township, Perth County. As always, I would love to reunite this pic with the family!

MABEL, HENRY, AND MILLIE REICHERT

This photo is one of my favourites, and it took me a bit of time to figure out who these kids were. On the reverse, it reads, "Dec 14th 1897. This is my three children that are in the orphans home Flat Rock Ohio. They have grown quite a bit since you saw them last. Your sister Fanny. Wishing you a Merry Christmas."

These are three of the children born to Ernst Carl Reichert and Veronica "Fanny" Metz near Berlin (now Kitchener) Ontario. Something happened to Ernst between 1892 and 1897 (divorce? death? desertion?) as these kids ended up in the Ebenezer Orphanage in Flat Rock, Ohio. I found them there in the 1900 census as well, and their mother was separately listed as a widow in Rochester, New York. Her children joined her later, and all three subsequently married. Their names are: William Henry "Harry" Reichert (b. 25 Jan 1886; m. Lillian Schneider 25 Nov 1916); Mabel Reichert (b. 1887; m. Fred Hartung 21 Jan 1914); and Maria Melinda "Millie" Reichert (b. 20 June 1890; m. William Albert Sombke 16 Sep 1925). There were two other girls in this family - Annie Reichert (b. 28 Aug 1889) and Lizzie Reichert (b. 18 Dec 1892.) I can't figure out what happened to father Ernst, or the other two daughters - cemetery and death records are not giving me any answers. I would love to know the whole story, if anyone has more information.

* MAYBE * ARTHUR EDWARD TOWNSHEND

This is an other intriguing unidentified photo, with just enough information to potentially determine who the sitter is. On the reverse, it has only "Born May 22nd 1874. Died Sept 12th 1918. Aged 44." The portrait was taken in Clinton, Ontario - a town of several thousand inhabitants in Huron County.

After looking through Ancestry's indexed death records for people who died on that date, I found one Arthur Edward Townshend, a cloth presser who died of heart disease in Kitchener, Ontario. His death record states his age at death to be precisely "44 Yrs., 3 Ms., 21 Days." This corresponds to a birth date of exactly May 22, 1874. Further, the death record states that Arthur Edward Townshend was born in Goderich Township, Huron County - one of two townships that the town of Clinton straddles. While the young man in the photo looks more affluent than a simple labourer would have been, the photo might have been taken on a special occasion. Through extensive online searching, I cannot find any other person who died on September 12 1918 and who was born on the correct day, in the correct place, and of the correct gender.

Arthur Edward Townshend was born to farmer William and Lavinia (or Louisa) Townshend (nee Sheard). One of at least 6 children, he married Mary Ann Harrison of Bayfield, Ontario on October 11 1905. The couple had two children: Robert John Townshend (b. 1906, married Elizabeth Watson on May 23 1928); and Dorothy Eileen Townshend (b. 1910, married Philip Arthur Presant on January 25 1936.) After Arthur's death, Mary remarried in 1920 to a widower insurance salesman named John Smith. They raised their combined 6 children in a blended household. When Mary died in 1965, she was buried alongside her first husband Arthur in Goderich's Maitland Cemetery.

If anyone has another photo of Arthur Edward Townshend to which I could compare mine, please let me know! If there is another good candidate for who might be in this photo besides Mr. Townshend, please let me know that, too. If you're a descendant of Robert John Townshend or Dorothy Eileen Presant, I would love to get this back to you, if this photo is indeed your ancestor. Please get in touch.

ANN ROWSE - MEMORIAL CABINET CARD

These black and gold cabinet cards were popular starting in the 1880s, and are just one style of many kinds of memorial products that have been produced from the 17th century to the present day. These cabinet cards were intended to be displayed in a regular photo album, and often include a Bible verse or poem. Ann Rowse's includes an epitaph that commonly appears on gravestones commissioned at the time.

I was able to reunite this cabinet card with Ann Rowse' 3G-Granddaughter Lisa, and she graciously allowed me to print the following information about her ancestors:

The Rowse’s were great record keepers. One of the things I treasure most is a bible I have that belonged to her and her husband James. It was given to him by his mother the day before he sailed to Canada to begin a new life with his family. The emotion that would have gone into that gift overwhelms me every time I hold it. I wish I had a picture to share with you of them, but no luck there - I can tell you James and Ann were well loved in their community. The were farmers in the North Dorchester area [Ontario], and natives of Devon, England. Below I have copied part of a diary that talks about James and Ann’s arrival to Canada and settling in Dorchester. A glimpse into the past!

In 1855 James H. Rouse and Richard Looley came to Canada. They sailed from Plymouth April 11th and arrived in Quebec five weeks and 5 days later. Came from there to Hamilton by boat, then by train to London where they hired a man with a team and wagon to drive them to the village of Belmont. They arrived at journeys end June 1st 1855. They were acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Prouse who were also from England and had started a hotel there. Mr. Rouse soon found a house to live in and he and James H Rouse Jr. worked at anything they could get and looked about for a farm. He purchased and moved to the Harrietsville homestead on October 22, 1855. Do not know how much was cleared or what buildings was on the place at that time. The family consisted of Mrs. Rouse (Ann Lethbridge), James H. Rouse Jr. age 16, Ann Eliza age 10, and John 6 years. Richard Looley bought a farm west of Harrietsville. His family consisted of wife and sons; Richard, William S. and one son John and one daughter Bessie, both families were members of the Harrietsville church and began close friends of our family.

This is the first recollection of Mr. Rouse. During the winter of 1858 or 1859, Father and Mother gave a party. We were living on the 50 acres. The house had 2 large rooms, pantry and ladder leading to one upstairs room. The guests were,; Rouses, Looleys, Mr and Mrs. Easterbrook (who were related to the Looleys and had come to Canada in 1857), Mr. and Mrs. Skinner (who I think came when the Rouses did and who lived in Belmont in 1855), also Mr. and Mrs. Parker of Dorchester, then called Edwardsburg district. It was a dinner party one o'clock sharp. All were to stay all day and evening. Just as the guests were arriving a sleighload of Springfield friends drove in. Mrs. Fanning had come to spend a week or two. Father said they had come at the right time, before the goose were carved into. Everybody came and there were several children. It started to snow early in the p.m. and Springfield folk struck for home. The storm developed in to one of the worst. As it grew dark, fences, stumps, gate posts, everything was covered and no one thought it safe to start out. I remember story telling, singing, laughing and Father coming to the room the kids were in and the cradle with a load of a wood to keep the box stove well filled, but it was the scene the next morning that has always been so clear to me.

Sister Eleanor held me up to the window. Near the door stood Rouse holding the lines. Himself, horses and bobsleigh covered with snow. The other men were around him, someone was sweeping the snow off of him, another shoveling so the women folk could get to the sleigh and everybody laughing and talking and drinking tea, etc... They could not make Rouse come in, so they made a ring around him and sang "For he's a jolly good fellow", providing words to suit the occasion. As soon as Mrs. Rouse could, she got out in the sleigh and away they went, whip cracking and bells ringing. When I was older I understood that the morning was as calm as the night had been stormy. Rouse slipped out to the horses, removed the bells, took a shovel and struck for home, then roused someone, hitched another span of horses to the bobs, and out to the 5th concession where the other sleigh broke the road to Center road and he returned to get Mrs. Rouse. So all the others got through without getting out to tramp and without dragging over top of stumps. No wonder they acclaimed and insisted on him having a sandwich and a mug of hot milk. To me the picture stands for James H Rouse, not saying so much but doing for himself and others with a whimsical smile and always at call.

In recalling incidents prior to 1864, I see them ride into our door yard, the horse prancing, backing never still. He wouldn't come in, had been near and wanted to know what price the buyers from London had offered for Father's fat steer. His two would soon be fit , but he would say "Kitty bring us out a drop of water will'ee my dear." Or again as we would start home from church (when roads were bad he and Mrs Rouse would walk) He would jump in our wagon stand behind Father and they would talk of the crops or stock, how the young apple trees were growing or if such a ditch had done what he had hoped it would do. Often we would stop a while to finish the chat or wait to say good bye to Mrs. Rouse.