1857–1929
Fifth Generation: William James Warner < James Warner < William Warner< William Warner < William Warner
My great granduncle (great great uncle)
William was the son of James Warner and Margaret Ann Quinn. He was born in Toronto on July 24, 1857.
William married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Clark in Toronto on March 10, 1877. They were both 19. They had four children, of whom one died in infancy and one was stillborn:
After Lizzie’s death in 1892, William moved to Detroit with a widow named Anna Elizabeth O’Connor (born Anna Elizabeth Otto). He was 35 and she was 27.
Anna had one child from her previous marriage:
- Ralph Ira Warner (who had been born Ralph Ira O’Connor)
Together, William and Anna would have one child:
William died in Detroit on December 24, 1929, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Detroit.
You can visit his grave (virtually) here.
Notes
As the first son, William was named after his grandfather, William, and his father, James.
William and Lizzie would live part of their married life in Toronto and part in Brockport, in upstate New York. William became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1882 (according to what he told the census taker at the time of the 1920 US census).
Lizzie died in New Hamburg, Ontario in March, 1892, at the age of 34, while trying to give birth to their stillborn daughter.
From 1892 forward, William and Anna lived together and apparently told everyone they were married, and she took Warner as her last name. It would be another 23 years, however, before the wedding actually took place, on March 29, 1915 in Windsor, Ontario. By that time he was 57 and she was 49.