Family Facts

1. On my Father’s side, we can trace our ancestry back to England. Apparently my Great Grandfather Albert Edward Whipp, who was born in England in 1901, was sent in 1911, at the age of ten, to work on a farm in Manitoba. On the other side of my Father’s family, both of his Mother’s parents were orphans. Thousands of children were sent from England, Whales, Ireland, and Scotland in the early 1900’s to work on farms in Canada (The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2014). 

My Grandparents on my Father's Side

2. When my Granny was growing up, her family was dirt poor. She had four brothers and often they had to share boots. One winter night she had to use the outhouse, but there were no boots for her to wear. So she ran in bare feet to the cow, warmed her feet on her back, then ran to the outhouse and did the same thing coming back in.

3. As many poor families were uneducated, it was common for people to sign legal documents with an x. My Grandmother still has a legal document from the sale of a piece of land near our cottage from almost one hundred years ago. My Gredad (Jack) signed it with an x.

4. Gravenhurst was home to a Prisoner of War Camp during world war two. The camp was actually located right down the street from not only my Great grandmother’s childhood home but my Grandfather’s and my Mother’s as well.  My Great Grandmother, Mildred (daughter of Mina Middlebrooks), remembers the day a prisoner escaped the camp, just a young man, and was hiding out in her backyard. She actually talked to him, until her Father Jack came out a caught him. The prisoners changed the landscape. They farmed and built structures that are still her today. One is a fish pond and the other a stone wall that I often walk past on the trails.

Structures built by POW