Helen Price (1898–1967), my grandmother, attended Ontario Ladies’ College (now Trafalgar Castle School) during her sophomore and junior years (the school years 1912–1913 and 1913–1914). We don’t know where she had spent her freshman year, but we do know that she left O.L.C. in 1914 to spend her senior year back in Toronto, at Malvern Collegiate.
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Easter of 1899 wasn’t Helen’s first Easter, but it was the first one for which she understood, in her way, what was going on.
My grandmother, Helen Fredrica Price, was the fourth child and second daughter of Joe Price and Lizzie Leslie. She was born on January 5, 1898, making her three months old when Easter arrived on April 10, 1898.
By the time of her second Easter, on April 16, 1899, she was a precocious child of fifteen months.
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It’s been almost five years since I first told you the story of my great granduncle Thomas Benson Warner, an older brother of my great grandfather, Harold Warner. I told you how Tom seemed to drift from job to job, moving back and forth between Toronto and New York City, how his first wife Maria died tragically young, and how his right hand was crushed in a trainwreck (a life-altering injury for a typesetter, as Tom was).
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I was honoured to be asked to give this presentation to the Governor Simcoe Branch of the United Empire Loyal Society of Canada on March 6, 2024.
It tells the story of my Loyalist ancestor, my fifth great grandfather Samuel Wells of Brattleboro, Vermont. You can watch the presentation here, or read the story below.
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The Life of a Loyalist in Vermont
This is the story of my Loyalist ancestor, Colonel Samuel Wells.
He ran an underground courier network, in the final years of the American Revolutionary War, that provided a vital communication link between the British commands in the cities of Quebec and New York.
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New Information about William and Hannah, Our Fourth Great Grandparents
When you do family history, every so often you get that big breakthrough — the moment when you find a missing puzzle piece that has eluded you for years.
This, for me, is one of those moments.
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In 1966, my parents (Joe and Lorraine Warner) bought a farm near Markdale, Ontario. Well, it wasn’t really a farm. It was half of a hundred-acre property in farming country.
Over the next fifty-seven years, it’s been a resort, a refuge, an activity hub, and a home for five generations of the Warner family.
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Another DNA Breakthrough
For almost three years, I’ve been posting articles about the Warners, my father’s side of the family. It makes sense, given the name of the website. This time, however, I’d like to talk about some people on my mother’s side.
Today’s story is about Sophia Lunn, my second great grandmother, and her family.
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It was 125 years ago today, on April 15, 1897, that my paternal great grandparents, Harold Rix “Harry” Warner (1874–1944) and Mary Jane Harber (1875–1942) said their wedding vows. It happened in Orillia, Ontario, on Lake Simcoe, about 130 kilometres north of Toronto.
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A few years ago I wrote about the DNA evidence that seems to confirm our descent from a couple who lived in Yorkshire in the second half of the eighteenth century. In the almost two years since then, I’ve found even more evidence.
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