Women's History Month: Who's Your Heroine?

March is Women's History Month so let's talk about the heroines in our family trees. Do you have a female ancestor who inspires you or who achieved success in the face of hardships? Or perhaps one of your ancestors was the first female to do something quite amazing or unheard of in her time.

My Grandmother Ruth Simpson 1894-1985

I have several female ancestors whom I admire. One is my maternal grandmother. Ruth Simpson was born in 1894 in Kent, Ramsgate England. She was a pampered and somewhat sickly child who was called Dolly by her family because she looked like a little china doll. A timid woman, Grandma Ruth was not one to take risks or seek adventure. 

But at the age of 19 she left the comfort of her home, left her friends and family, to follow her fiance to Canada. Grandma was terrified of water so this was a very brave and large step for her to take. She was also used to being cared for and pampered but starting a new life in a new land required her to be strong. 

Soon after their marriage in Toronto Ontario in 1914, she and her husband moved to Guelph where they began family life. Grandma had two daughters in quick succession and settled down to be a homemaker. After her third daughter was born in 1923, Grandfather bought Grandma a small store so that she would not be bored. Grandma ran the tiny Tobacco Shop for several years then decided she wanted to have fewer headaches than being a female business owner in 1925 gave her. She applied for, and got, a job selling high-fashion women's dresses in a large department store. Sadly her husband (my grandfather) died when Grandma was only 45 years old. She had to survive on her own.

My mother, aunt and Grandmother in the 1970s

That terrified her but she did it. That's what I admire the most - that as frightened as she was, she drew a reserve of strength from somewhere and did what had to be done. It was WW2 and she soon met Sam R.,  married him and moved to Ajax where she got a job in the Munitions Factory in that town. 

When  Sam died some 10 years later, Grandma moved back to Guelph and got her old job back in the dress department. And yep, you guessed it - she met and married Fred B. She was 62 years old at the time of her third marriage. 

After Fred died Grandma moved in with her two eldest daughters. After a few years in an apartment they sold all their possessions and started traveling around N. America in a Winnebago. She and my mother and aunt were written up in two driving/touring magazines where they were featured as "The Merry Widows" who took a Mechanics Course and did their own repairs as well as driving all over N. America and into Mexico. 

My Grandmother Ruth is my heroine. Who is yours?

WW1 Photo Album Doris Simpson p. 31

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is page 31 in my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's album.

I don't know who anyone is in these photos except for the photo of the two ladies in bathing suits. Doris herself is the gal on the left.  I love the old car! 

 

More Ways to Use Evernote to Create Virtual Genealogy Binders

Ready to send files from Frank Simpson folder on my computer

As a followup to my last post on using Evernote to create virtual Genealogy Binders I have continued playing with organizing my genealogy files using Evernote. There are a few more features I've discovered along the way which I want to share with my readers.

First, a caveat - be careful using the "Merge" feature! Once you merge notes, this action cannot be undone. Supposedly you can retrieve the original notes from your Trash and restore them to Evernote as individual notes but I am using a Mac and the notes I accidentally merged are not in my Trash.  

UPDATE! I found the trashed notes. They are not in the computer Trash bin but in the Evernote Trash. If you choose to view all notebooks, the Trash bin is displayed and opening it will show you the original notes. You can easily restore them to your binder or notebook so that you don't have to redo them.

Merging notes is something I do want to play with as I can choose PRINT in Evernote and then save the merged notes as a PDF file. That would allow me to more easily share or print the merged file for a hardcopy binder if I choose to do so.

Right click option to Send to Evernote

Next, a nice little feature I discovered this morning is a much easier way to insert notes into a binder (notebook). I have been creating a notebook (Frank Simpson) then within Evernote choosing the option "New Note in Frank Simpson". An empty note window opens and I then select "File>Attach Files" and search for whatever picture or document I wish to add. Then I give the new note a title and it's done.

The original notes restored and the merged notes still in the notebook/binder

This morning I found that I could do this in a different way. I open my Finder window (in a Windows computer that is the same as Explore) which shows all the folders and files on my computer. I go to where I know I have photos and docs for Frank Simpson. Yes I actually have some of my genealogy files organized so that I can choose a folder which contains all the documents and photos I have for an individual. 

Once I see the files for Frank I select the first one, right click and choose "Add to Evernote". The photo or document pops up in my default Evernote Notebook. It isn't in Frank's notebook but that's okay. I rename the note using the year as the first word in the title. I could also rename each note with surname then first name then description. Whatever I use as my renaming convention it needs to be consistent. 

I  continue sending all the photos and documents to Evernote. They are all in my default notebook. Now I make sure I am in that notebook and choose View>Expanded Card View. That pops up all the notes in that default notebook and because I have chosen alphabetical order for my notes, I can easily see all the notes I just added for Frank.

Next I highlight all the notes for Frank, right click and choose "Move to Notebook...." There is a small arrow which allows you to choose the notebook you want for those notes. I choose SIMPSON FRANK and bingo, all the notes I inserted from my hard drive are now in Frank's virtual binder. 

This method appeals to me as a more efficient way for me to put all my genealogy photos and documents into Evernote. Some of you might be asking "Who is this Frank Simpson?" Well he was my grandmother's younger brother. He came to Canada from England at the age of 15 to live with his older brother, but sadly died of appendicitis in Toronto in 1908 shortly before his 19th birthday. My grandmother often spoke of him and how much she missed him. I have the book he won at the age of 12 which is inscribed to him, and also the receipt for his funeral and burial plot so I feel very connected to him.

WW1 Photo Album: Page 15 Canadian Soldiers in the CEF

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is page 15 in my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's album.

There are only two WW1 soldier photos on this page. Unfortunately they aren't labelled and I don't recognize the individuals. I suspect the one soldier on horseback was in the same Cavalry Unit in Toronto as my Uncle Ernest Simpson.

Sharing Memories & Women's History Month: Who Was Your Favourite Relative?

Ruth Simpson 1907

Sharing Memories is a series of weekly prompts to help all genealogists (including me!) with writing up memories of our ancestors and our childhood. 

We all love to find a diary or letters written by great grandma or grandpa where they talk about their lives and share their memories. Think how excited one of your descendants will be to read about your memories and your stories! These stories will be lost after a few generations unless we preserve them. And what better way than in a weekly themed post. 

At the end of the year you will have 52 stories written about your childhood, your parents, grandparents and who knows what else.

If you write your own blog please use the hashtag #52SharingMemories if you are posting on Twitter or Google+  You can also  post your stories as comments on this blog post or in a private journal. It's your choice! The important thing is to write those memories down now! 

I'm also posting this as part of my challenge for Women's History Month. See Women's History Month: A Challenge to Geneabloggers! for 10 suggestions for honouring women in March. I'm writing about Prompt #4: Write a biography of your favourite female Ancestor. Be sure to tell us why she's your favourite
Hands down it was my Grandma Bates. I think of her as Grandma Ruth but we never used her first name. Grandma was fun and lively and loved the colour red. She often wore a red pantsuit with a white blouse or a red skirt and white blouse and she always wore her ruby ring. That ring is now mine and I wrote about it coming back to me on Grandma's Ruby Ring

Born in Ramsgate Kent England in 1894 to parents David George Simpson and Sarah Jane Stead, Grandma was a sickly child and spent a lot of her days in bed only able to peek out her bedroom window.  Her family called her Dolly because she was so tiny and cute. 

Miss Mulligan's Dance Classes. Ruth is back row center

She didn't attend school when she was supposed to, being to ill to begin. But eventually she did go to the Ellington School in Ramsgate. I have pictures of her in her dance classes at the school.  

Simpson Family ca 1900
Grandma is 2nd from left

She suffered from rickets and in later life had a little twitch which I thought was quite endearing! She would have a genteel sniff and tiny twitch of her head as she was talking. 

She and my mom did not get along, and they fought constantly. Grandma was rather delicate and could become quite frightened or upset very easily. The wind bothered her and she would become very agitated on windy days. She was terrified of water and when I would visit her when I was in school she would only allow me a few inches of water in the bathtub in case I drowned. 

Her husbands adored her! She was their little princess and had them wrapped around her little finger. She married three times, and outlived all of her husbands. They waited on her hand and foot and never seemed to mind her idiosyncracies. 

I loved listening to her stories of her life in Ramsgate and about her siblings and parents. In fact she was the reason I became so fascinated with family history and stories at a young age. 

Ruth and daughters Lillian (left) & Joan (right)
Guelph ca 1918

Grandma's dad was a coal dealer, an epileptic who was often under the weather recovering from a seizure. Her mother, who Grandma said was a wonderful cook, ran a boarding house to make extra money for the family. 

In 1913 at the age of 19 Grandma sailed for Canada with her fiance Charles Fuller. They were joining her older brother Ern in Toronto Ontario and would make Canada their new home. Grandma never recovered from the terror of that sea voyage. Years later when she was in a home and near death she would tell me how much she longed to see her mother again and in a shaky voice ask me repeatedly "Do we have to go by boat?" At that point she could not remember that her mother was long gone. 

Grandma and her husband Charles settled in Guelph Ontario where they raised a family of 3 girls, including my mother. After Charles died, Grandma married a man who was hired as a guard at the DIL Munitions Factory in Ajax Ontario during WW2 so Grandma also took a job there. 

My mother followed suit and also moved to Ajax with her sister and their 4 children while their husbands were overseas in WW2. Mother also worked at the Munitions Factory during the war. Grandma didn't build bombs, instead she worked in the Cafeteria at the plant. Grandma was a bit unusual for her time as she almost always had a job of some sort. Her first husband bought her a Tobacco Store beside the Movie Theater in Guelph so that she would have something to keep her occupied. After working in the Munitions Factory during WW2, she moved back to Guelph and took a job at a large department store. She worked behind the counter of the women's dress and glove department and she loved it.

Fuller family in Guelph 1923
Baby Eileen, Ruth, Charles,
my mother Joan seated & Lily standing

Grandma was the person I went to when my mom and I would fight. As a teenager I'd take the bus to Guelph (where she lived with her third husband) and spend a few days with her sharing my frustrations and anger. It was very sad to see her later in her life as the aging process took its toll. 

My family have always told me I am just like Grandma Ruth. My mother told me that's why she and I didn't get along because I was, in her words, "...just like my mother!" 

Here's the odd bit - Grandma married 3 times. So did I. Grandma was 47 when she was widowed. So was I. 

Grandma ended up living with my widowed mother and another widowed daughter but that was quite stressful for all concerned as she and my mother could not go more than an hour without arguing. 

Eventually she had to be moved to a home in Owen Sound where she became increasingly confused and frightened. It was very difficult to visit her and see how far she had slipped from reality. She died in 1985 at the age of 90 and I remind myself she had a good long life and was loved by many. But I miss her.

52 Ancestors: Great-Grandpa's Horse Saves the Day!

1882 Wedding
David George Simpson & Sarah Stead

Amy Johnson Crow has a new challenge for geneabloggers called Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy challenges genealogists to write about one ancestor once a week. I'm having fun with this and I hope you are too! 

My great-grandfather David George Simpson (1861-1921) was a coal dealer in Ramsgate England. My grandmother, his daughter Ruth, used to tell me stories about her dad. I loved hearing them! 

One I remember most was how her dad made his daily rounds with a cart and his horse to deliver coal to his customers. Great-grandpa had epilepsy and so frequently he suffered seizures on his route. Apparently his horse, knowing the route well, simply carried on without any guidance from David.  

At each house on the route, the horse would stop and the customer would come out, check on Great-grandpa, take their allotment of coal and send the horse on its way. Then the horse would take Great-grandpa home when the route was done.

Grandma Ruth also told me that her father had what she called "a withered left arm". I don't know exactly what she meant by that but she said he had no use of it, and when I look at photos I have of David George it does seem that he hides one of his hands. 

My Great-grandpa had a sad childhood. When he was 13 his father died suddenly of pneumonia. David's mother was pregnant with her 5th child and David was her oldest. Two months after the father's death, David's youngest sibling was born but sadly that child died at the age of one month. David's mother had to take in laundry to support her family. After David married his widowed mother came to live with the family.

David George died of an epileptic seizure at the age of 59 at his home in Ramsgate. 

Simpson Family Ramsgate, Kent England ca 1900

Standing Left-Right: Ruth (my grandmother), Albert, Lillian, Ernest (Uncle Ern), Frank
Seated: David George & wife Sarah Stead. In front is Uncle Syd. Syd, Ern, Frank and Ruth emigrated to Canada while Albert settled in Australia.

WW1 Photo Album Archive page 14

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is the 14th page in my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's album.

3 of the 4 photos here were taken in Toronto Ontario. One was in Ramsgate England

 Uncle Ern Simpson on the right, unknown man on left

Front Left to Right: Auntie Cordie (Cook) Simpson, Uncle Ern Simpson, unknown woman. Unknown man in back (Same man as in photo above)

A very unusual photograph of a woman in a WW1 uniform! Is it a joke? It looks like Auntie Cordie and if so, she must have been playing around and dressed in Uncle Ern's uniform

Grandma's sister Lilly Simpson and their father David George Simpson. Taken in England