The Christmas Past

I thought I would show a couple of pictures from a Christmas past. These photos are from 1959 we are living in Conway Ontario.
The first two photos show all the family members, the only person missing would be Uncle Sid and I'm sure he is there somewhere,

The next photo shows a centerpiece. For many years Molly Purchase would send us a centerpiece for our Christmas table. They usually had a theme, and packed inside was a present for everyone. Leading out from this box were ribbons with name tags. After the meal we would pull on the ribbon and our present would be tied to the other end. I do not know how this started, or why she did it. And I'm not sure if my mother reciprocated in any way.  

From my research I learned their where several connections of the Warwick family to the Purchases. Mary Emily (Molly) married Chuck Purchase. His mother was Isabel Warwick (Purchase). Isabella was known in the family has aunt Bella, and aunt Bella was my father's aunt. Likely from this connection led to the other connection. Both families lived in Toronto, and surely they connections with common ancestor, and eventually lived in the same neighborhood.  

 

The following picture, is from the same year 1959.It is one of the very few photograph I have found showing the Warwick family posed altogether.

So this is a Christmas past, and we are enjoying or about to enjoy Christmas present, the unknown will the Christmas future.

Merry Christmas

Just in case you were interested

Photographs. A little poem, and a little advice,

by Pamela Harazim

Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people;
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like.
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be tossed away?

Make time to save your pictures,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The pictures in the box

I found the poem here

http://forgottenoldphotos.blogspot.com/2010/12/photo-number-396.html

Sitting at my desk I am haunted by the relatives silently waiting for me to pull out their photo and identify them. Many will become unidentified, and as time passes the chance of identification will disappear, and so will the photo.

I am, amazed, in awe of, and depressed by, the volume of photos in this room. There are 2500 slides from the Bresser side and I have about the same. There are boxes and boxes of actual photos, unsorted, no information printed on the back. Then there are all the digital photos in my computer, currently 7096. Many are scans of existing photos.

My next project will be to scan some of the old Bresser, DeBlaauw photos and negatives, and try to identify who is staring out at me.

In the past photos were expensive, and they were usually taken at special occasions. The person would wear their best clothes, making dating by clothing styles, or events in their lives possible. As photography

became less expensive, photos were taken at random, making dating next to impossible. The digital images have cured that problem, but at the risk of a fragile existence, with computer or disk failures.

My parting advice is, be very aggressive deleting digital photos when you download from your camera to your computer, and caption everyone. Captioning them, will help you delete.

And BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.

Just in case your interested

A bit of history, the Canadian flag

Genealogy leads to a study of history. Why did my grandfathers and mothers come to Canada. An earlier post tells of Stanley Paige going to the Boer War. What was the Boer war?

The other day I was invited to attend a one hour lecture, and then lunch, by my employer and his wife. Who can turn down a free lunch. The lecture was the Canadian flag, who cares. The lecture was about how Canada adopted the current Canadian flag. It happened only 46 years ago, and it was a very bitterly fought battle, in and outside Parliament.

The flag debate was started my Prime Minister, Lester B. (Mike) Pearson. During Pearson's time as Prime Minister. His minority government, introduced Universal Health Care, Student Loans, the Canada Pension Plan, the Order of Canada, and the current Canadian Flag.

He had won the Noble Peace prize, while serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs under a previous Prime Minister. He won the Peace prize, for his work, in resolving the Suez crisis, and it involved peace keeping troops. One problem was Canadian forces looked similar to British, and Britain was part of the crisis. Canada didn't have a flag which was truly Canadian, we used the red ensign so Pearson decided to get a distinctive Canadian flag using the maple leaf, when the opportunity arose.

There was a huge howl of protest, when Pearson announced it, lead by the opposition leader John Diefenbaker. Both Pearson  and Diefenbaker had served in the first world war. Pearson made a decision to open the debate by going to a Canadian Legion Conference in Winnipeg. He was greeted with boos so loud he almost couldn't complete his speech. But he persevered  and pointed out , the coat of arms has many maple leaves, all military badges had the maple leaf as their background, and other examples. 

Canadian Coat of Arms



The selection of the new flag was sent to a parliamentary committee, where they selected three possible flags from the thousands that were submitted.  When it came to vote on the flag to be recommended to Parliament , the Conservatives thought the liberals would vote for the flag with three maple leaves, but the Liberal Committee Chairman, had gone to Pearson, and asked if he would accept a single maple leaf flag, Pearson's response was, yes. In attempt to split the vote, the Conservatives voted for the single leaf flag, assuming the liberals would vote for the three maple leaf flag. The final vote was 100% for the current single maple leaf flag. In the House of Commons, the debate raged, and was one of the longest debates in Canadian history. It ended, when the deputy prime minister of the conservative party, stood up and asked for closure. This ended Diefenbaker's political career, and is the only time an opposition has asked for closure of a debate. Parliament passed legislation on December 15, 1964, and the inauguration of the flag occurred on Parliament Hill February 15, 1965.

John Diefenbaker had fought tooth and nail to keep the red ensign. When he was buried, the red ensign covered his coffin.



St George's flag



I was 22 years of age at the time of the debate. I do remember people having very strong feelings about replacing the ensign. I don't remember having  feelings one way or the other, my father had recently died, so other things occupied my mind. The only attachment I might have to the red ensign, was the Union Jack in the corner. My mother told me, my middle name, George, was picked as I was born on St. George's Day. The Union Jack is made up of many flags, one of which is the St. George's flag.

 

So who cares. I care

 

Just in case you where interested

P.S. I hope I don't go to jail for using the flag images. They are covered under copy write. However in this case, they would fall under fair use, I hope.  











Stanley Arnout Paige

Stanley is my grandfather's youngest brother. He was born 1891, and I know little about his early life, except that his mother died when he was only seven. I find him in 1911 at the age of 20, living with his brother and sister-in-law. His job at the time is listed as shop assistant, again I have no idea what shop assistant meant.
In 1914 he is returning from Bombay India, I can only assume they went to visit his brother Reginald, who was in the Indian Army, or possibly his sister Gertrude Annie, whose husband worked in the oil fields . Shortly thereafter, in early 1915 he marries Doris Emma Firth.
The first record I have found on his travels to Tobago are 1925, the last 1932and is listed as a merchant. It appears he may have avoided the English winter by going to Tobago in October or November returning back to England in the spring. Some of the records show they may have had a permanent residence on Tobago. On many of those trips, his wife, and daughter accompany him.
His daughter was born in 1919 her name is, Pamela Constance Paige.The next record I have of him,he is traveling Mombasa Kenya, in 1947, and then in 1951 returning from Kenya, his listed occupation is engineer.Other than finding that he died in 1969, I had no other records of his life, until today.
Today I found out that at the age of 71, he married 47 year old Catherine Tipping.
My search will continue

just in case you are interested

Follow up on Frank Paige

No luck in searching for other directories. I found that the 1914-15 and the 1915-16 directories are missing. So we will have to see if they might be somewhere else, possibly Queen's University archives. If you would like to look around some of the other directories go to:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=kingston%2C%20directory&page=1
You might look at J.B. Bunt hardware, Frank worked there for 30 years and took over form J.B.Bunt, I assume with my fathers help in 1948/9. Other hardware stores I remember were Chowns and Dalton.
Scanning and digitalizing old records saves them from the ravages of time. When I visited the Kingston Library and looked at the actual directories they where showing the signs of age and wear. Even when I was very very careful, there where small pieces of paper on the desk after I had finished.
On Nov 11 Jack Robin passed away, he was 92. In my high school days, I hung out with Herb Roblin, Jack's son. Jack, and his wife Mildred, who passed away last year at 100, where like a second family at times.

Was Frank Paige (133) a painter

Sometimes pays to be a member of a genealogy Society. As a member of the Kingston Genealogy Society, a recent newsletter contained a notice that the Kingston Public Library had digitalized the city directories from 1873 to 1920.

Last year  I had spent a pleasant afternoon in Kingston Library on Johnson Street, going through the directories, looking for Frank Paige and Sidney Applebee, among others. I missed, the fact there was an area for Portsmouth. However when a printed records are digitalized, they become searchable, and this makes it much easier to find what you are looking for.

The directory doesn't give an address for Frank, but Portsmouth was a very small town.
So the next thing I must do, is go back as far as 1913, when Frank immigrated to Canada, and see when he shows up in the directory. Using the directories, I have been able to trace the residences, and emplyment, of Frank Paige and family since their arrival in Canada.

If you want to search, here is the link
http://www.archive.org/details/kingstoncitydir191617gui%20himl

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Reginald Herbert Paige

This week I downloaded from "Find my Past" a record pertaining to Reginald (225). He was my Grandfather, Frank Paige's younger brother. He joined the Royal Medical Corps of the British army, 9th of February 1900, he was 22 years old. After several months at a training school, he is sent to South Africa, and the Boer War. He was in South Africa for one year and 62 days, then he returned to England.
He remained in England for a period of time and then was dismissed from the service as unfit. He received 5 pounds as required by the government. This was in 1902.
What is interesting is that he must have gone to India shortly after this, as he marries Jean Campbell Martin (513), in Calcutta in 1906. (OOPS I have 1906 in my records, but they have a son, Reginald (558), born about 1905 or so it says in a ships passenger list. "O NO" I forgot to enter the scource of the marriage information.  better put that on my to do list) 
By 1922 I find him returning from India on the ship with his wife and one child, and is listed as retired Army officer. maybe there are more records of his service in the British Army, which have yet to be transcribed.

Just in case you're interested