Toronto

Great Grandaunt Emily Visits The Latimer Family In Canada

ianhadden1955 1 Comment

It was the Spring of 1933 when Emily (Squires) Wiggin set off on a trip around the continental United States and Canada. A year earlier, Emily became a widow when her husband Charles died in their home state of California. This trip would take her from the Pacific to the Atlantic and then north through Canada on her return home. The trip would also include a two-day visit in Orillia, Ontario to see how her niece, Mattie (Knox) Latimer was getting along.

(from left to right, Knox Latimer, Emily (Squires) Wiggin, Mattie (Knox) Latimer, and Albertine Latimer)


Mattie was the oldest child and only daughter of Emily’s older sister Amy (Squires) Knox. Amy and her husband Thomas were solid fixtures in California where Thomas had served for many years as Postmaster and Mayor of Livermore and then as a County Supervisor.  Mattie had not remained in California however, moving to Canada soon after marrying Edward Latimer in 1906.

Fortunately, Emily kept a diary of her trip and so we learn directly from her that on Saturday, May 6, 1933, she arrived in Toronto at 7:45 a.m. to a downpour where she was welcomed and greeted by Charlotte (Latimer) Mullett, the sister of Edward Latimer, Charlotte’s daughter Doris Mullett, and Albertine ‘Abby’ Latimer, Edward and Mattie’s eldest child who would accompany Aunt Emily to Orillia for her visit.

(left to right, Tess Latimer, Albertine ‘Abby’ Latimer, Emily (Squires) Wiggin, and Mattie (Knox) Latimer)


After a breakfast of coffee and toast, Aunt Emily and Abby reached Orillia by train around noon where they were met by Abby’s brother Knox Latimer. As Emily described the visit, “After dinner with Mattie and family, who all gave me a warm welcome, we went through a nearby hospital, then Knox took us, Mattie, Tess [Tess was Ellen’s mother Olive Theresa Evelyn (Latimer) Wagner] and me for a ride in a truck to a Park and Statue of Champlain…Hazel and Jack also came over to see me. Had a most enjoyable day.”

(Edward Knox Latimer, May 1933, Orillia, Ontario)

It sounds like it was also a tiring day, for in her entry for Sunday, May 7th, Emily starts off with, “Everybody slept late, but all were on hand for dinner. Ed [referring to Mattie’s husband Edward Latimer] not so hilarious today as yesterday.”  Following a Sunday afternoon drive around the town of Orillia to see the sites, Emily caught the 7:10 p.m. train back to Toronto where she purchased some post cards and her train ticket to Vancouver. After commenting in her diary that “Albertine was lovely and invaluable,” she “went to bed right away on the train and slept well.”

(Olive Theresa Evelyn ‘Tess’ Latimer, aged 13, May 1933, Orillia, Ontario)


Finally, my sincere thanks to Ellen’s cousin Pam Marino of Jamestown, California for the previously unseen by us photos and diary pages for which she granted permission for me to share with other family members through this post!

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

Fun With the 1921 Census of Canada?? Finding the Foley and Gaull Families

ianhadden1955 1 Comment

Well, the day finally arrived. The images of the 1921 Census of Canada became available through Ancestry.ca yesterday at 2:00 p.m. EDT and I immediately began the process of searching for family members.

Ancestry is working on a nominal index for the census records but that searchable index is estimated to not be available for about two or three months. In the interim, the 1921 Census of Canada images are available indexed on a geographic basis. Ancestry describes this geographic index this way, “For the 1921 census, each province was divided into census districts. These districts were divided into sub-districts. Districts were roughly equivalent to electoral districts, cities, and counties. Sub-districts were typically towns, townships, and city wards.”

As my paternal Hadden family members did not arrive in Canada until 1923, I focused on finding my maternal Foley ancestors. I knew that one of my maternal great grandfathers, John Foley and his family lived on Pickering Street in the east end of Toronto.

I chose the Province of Ontario and the Toronto East district. This provided me with a list of 70 sub-districts to choose between, including the inmates of the Toronto ‘Don’ Jail. Some of the sub-districts had geographic boundary descriptions, in rather fine print, that assisted me in eliminating them from my search. I also grew up on Pickering Street so I know all the various street names in the neighborhood. Nothing seemed to match; nothing seemed to be even remotely close geographically. 

Convincing myself that I was simply misreading or misunderstanding the sub-district listing, I began browsing through the images of the Toronto East sub-districts. No, I had been correct. The enumerated streets were in Toronto’s east end but still quite a distance from Pickering Street.

A moment before I was about to inform Ancestry that they had forgotten to upload my great grandparent’s sub-district, I took a moment of forced calm to again review the available district list. At the bottom of the list I found York East  and scrolling the the sub-district listing I saw street names attached to sub-district 37 that were from my old neighborhood.

Finally, in sub-district 39, I found Pickering Street!

Listed on page 17 of the sub-district census record, living at 96 Pickering Street, was my great grandfather John Foley, his second wife Annie (nee McElroy), and three of his children – Gerald (my namesake misidentified in the census record as Clarence (Clarence was married and was found living in his own home at 9 Pickering Street), my then 23-year old grandmother Gertrude, and John Joseph Foley.


All of the frustration in locating known family members dissolved  But who else was living in the area?

Scanning through the census pages, I found George Gaull, my paternal Hadden great grandmother’s brother. George was a driving influence in my family’s decision to settle in Toronto’s east end after their immigration from Scotland and a few years of farming in Saskatchewan. George and his wife Mary (nee Coulson) can be found living at 67 Pickering Street, a house from which he operated his grocery store. With them was their one-year old son George Leonard ‘Lenny’ Gaull as well as George senior’s sister Elsie Findlater and brother William Fowler Gaull. I knew that Elsie had lived in Toronto for some time before returning ‘home’ to Scotland but I was unaware that William Gaull had joined his siblings in Canada. According to the record, William arrived in Canada in 1920 and in 1921, he was working as a labourer at a lumber yard, perhaps the lumber yard that was located just a few blocks away from their house.


Patience, something I don’t possess a lot of at times, ruled the day. If you are going to search images that are not yet indexed, it can handy to pack a little extra patience in your tool box.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

The 1949 World Softball Champions

ianhadden1955 6 Comments

Softball, specifically men’s fastpitch, also known as fastball, was very popular in Toronto, Ontario during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Kew Gardens, located on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto’s east end area referred to as ‘The Beaches’, became a baseball destination for the thousands who turned out to cheer on their favourite teams.

Like in most sports, fastball teams were hit hard by World War 2 and the loss of most of the league’s best players. In 1946, however, the men were back from the war and eager once again to don their gloves and swing their bats. Sam Shefsky, the manager of the Tip Top Tailors team, was ready to greet them and sign them up to play for his team. Sam said his line-up would look a lot like it did in 1940. “They were tops then, nothing has come along to replace them since and their places are open if they wish to play for Tip Tops,” Sam was quoted in the Toronto Star newspaper as saying.

Sam signed shortstop Ed Geraldi and outfielder Art Upper, both fresh from stints in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Lenny Gaull (pictured below in September 1949 in the Toronto Star newspaper), my first cousin, twice removed, was signed as the catcher following his time in the Canadian Army.



In 1949, the Toronto Tip Top Tailors team won the right to represent Canada at the Amateur Softball Association Championship, at the time considered the world championship of men’s fastpitch. They had defeated a team sponsored by Peoples Credit Jewelers two games to none in a best two-out-of-three match in the annual Canadian National Exhibition tournament. They were off to Little Rock, Arkansas, the scene of the world championship tournament for 1949.

It was a culture shock for the team in Little Rock from the time they arrived. According to Bill ‘Babe’ Gresko, a Toronto resident and team member quoted in a 2009 Toronto Sun newspaper story, at the airport, there was sign to the left that said ‘Whites’ and a sign to the right that said ‘Blacks.’ The team decided to stay together and walk right down the middle. At the hotel, the three black members of the team were told to leave immediately. In response, the whole team left and stayed in the black section of town along with three or four other teams who had faced the same problem.

The Toronto Tip Top Tailors went through the world championship tournament undefeated, setting up an exciting climatic championship game against a team from Clearwater, Florida for the world title. 

On September 23rd, 1949, the Toronto team faced legendary softball Hall of Fame pitcher Herb Dudley, known for his strikeout ability. With Toronto down by a run in the final inning, Lenny Gaull, who had earlier in the game broken Dudley’s bid for a no-hitter, again reached base and scored the tying run on a hit by his battery mate, pitcher Charlie Justice who was one of the three black players not welcomed at the hotel. The game went into the 18th inning before Lenny Gaull again reached base and scored on a two run single delivered by Art Upper. The final score: Toronto 3, Clearwater 1.

The team was celebrated on their return to Toronto with a civic reception and in 2009, they got their due by being inducted into the Canadian Softball Hall of Fame. Sadly, when the team was inducted only three of its members were still alive.

The list of surviving team members became shorter on February 2nd of this year when my cousin, Lenny Gaull (formally George Leonard Gaull) passed away at the age of 93. 

My thanks to Lenny’s daughter, Margaret who informed me of her father’s death. May he rest in peace!

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

The Wedding of My Maternal Grandparents – J. Graham O’Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley

ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

I have many fond memories of my maternal grandparents, John Graham O’Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. I was their first grandchild and grew up living just two doors away from their home. My grandmother, Nana as I referred to her, spoiled me, not that I’m complaining.  My maternal grandmother died when I was seven years old and my grandfather when I was 24 years old. I therefore only knew them in their twilight years. It is hard for me to picture them as children, teenagers or even young adults for to me as a child, they were old.

I’m certain that photos exist somewhere, held by someone, of my grandparents’ wedding but I have never seen one. So it was especially helpful when I was finally able to discover a small article contained in the Toronto Star newspaper (June 25, 1926 edition, page 24) that described the marriage of my grandparents, J. Graham O’Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. 

I have searched for newspaper articles about family members for many years, typically relying on a surname as the search term in the local newspaper database. This approach can lead to long and tedious hours of examining multiple search term hits that are not related to my family members. I was successful this time however for two reasons: one, I used the surname Foley for my search rather than the O’Neill surname I had previously been using. As it turned out the article about my grandparents wedding consistently misspells the O’Neill surname as “O’Niel” so my prior searches for the surname skipped over this article. Two,   knowing their date of marriage, I was able to narrow the timeframe for my search, allowing me to search all sections of the newspaper without worrying about receiving an overwhelming number of results.

So here is my transcription of the small article that details my grandparents’ wedding:

O’NIEL – FOLEY 


St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church was the scene of a smart June wedding on Wednesday when Miss Gertrude Ellen Foley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Foley, became the bride of Mr. John Graham O’Niel, son of the late N. J. O’Niel. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Father Armstrong, while during the signing of the register Mrs. Summerfell sang ‘O Salutaris’ and an Ave Maria. The bride wore an attractive frock of peach georget with hat to match, while her bridesmaid, Miss Mary McCormack, was in powder blue georget with hat to match. The bride carried a shower of Ophelin roses, while her attendant carried Columbia roses. The groom was supported by Mr. John Hammall. Following the ceremony a reception was held at the home of the bride’s parents on Queensdale boulevard, where Mrs. Foley and Mrs. O’Niel received with the bridal party. The former wore a becoming gown of cocoa brown crepe, while Mrs. O’Niel was in black crepe. The groom’s gift to his bride was a white gold wrist watch, to the bridesmaid a silver mesh bag, to the best man monogrammed green gold cuff links. Following the reception Mr. and Mrs. O’Niel left on a honeymoon trip to Rochester, Cleveland and Detroit. Upon their return they will establish their home at 189 Pickering street, the house being the gift of the bride’s father.

Some final observations: I’m uncertain as to who authored the article. I doubt that it was submitted by a family member due to the O’Neill surname misspelling. Also, my grandfather’s father was not N. J. O’Niel (or O’Neill) but rather William Emmett O’Neill, who had died two years before this wedding. The term ‘georget’ was also misspelled  as it should have been ‘georgette.’ And finally, the last line of the article confirmed a family story that the house at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto was a wedding gift to my grandparents from my great grandfather John Foley. It was also the house that I lived in with my parents for the first nine and one half years of my life.
Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

Gertrude Ellen (Foley) O’Neill

ianhadden1955 Leave a comment


Exactly 50 years ago today, on Friday, July 13, 1962, Gertrude Ellen O’Neill (nee Foley), my grandmother, passed away in Toronto, Ontario.


‘Gertie’, as her husband J. Graham O’Neill always called her, was born in 1898. The exact date of her birth is somewhat of a mystery. The baptismal register for St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Toronto, signed by a Father McEntee, does not list a date of birth but rather lists her date of baptism as March 16th. The civil registration (available through Ancestry.ca), signed by her father John Foley , lists the date of birth as April 16th but the genealogical extract, prepared by the Office of the Registrar-General in Ontario for me in 1985, again lists March 16th. Her marriage registration, death registration, obituary and gravestone do not list a date of birth at all. John Foley was reputed to be illiterate, but had been taught to sign his name for business purposes, and may not have fully recognized the error in the information he was attesting.

Gertrude’s mother, Mary Jane (nee Fitzgerald) Foley, died a few days after Gertrude, or “Nana” as I knew her, turned one year of age. Four years later, John Foley re-married, this time to Annie McElroy. It appears that life was good for Gertrude and her brothers Gerald and Clarence as their father’s contracting business flourished. They lived in the largest house on their street and when Gertrude married my grandfather in 1926, the wedding gift from her father was a house that she actually turned down, convincing her father to provide the house instead to her new in-laws, William and Margaret O’Neill. Later, after the deaths of both William and Margaret, the house came back to Gertrude and her husband Graham. It then became my parent’s home and thus the house in which I was raised.

Gertrude had numerous medical problems including diabetes, a heart condition, and near the end, likely cancer. Conveniently, my mother was a registered nurse and we lived two doors away, which in Toronto’s east end meant our front door was about forty feet away from Gertrude and Graham’s front door so my mother made at least daily visits to administer her mother’s insulin injections. It was very convenient as well for me as Gertrude’s first and eldest grandchild and therefore the ‘one who could do no wrong.’

On Friday, July 13, 1962, I was in the kitchen of my best friend Bob Dobson’s house, directly across the street from my house, when my mother returned from the hospital. My friend Bob heard the news first. He stopped, looked at me and asked if I had heard. I hadn’t heard anything but then immediately heard my mother calling across the street, explaining to Bob’s parents, Eunice and Jack Dobson who sat on their front porch, that ‘Nana’ had died.

Some family memories are indelible.


Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

The Fitzgerald Kids

ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

In my last post I promised to share the information I found in the Ontario Roman Catholic Church Records, posted on FamilySearch, for the children of my maternal second great grandparents, Lewis and Ellen (nee Daley) Fitzgerald.


Canadian census records had provided me with the names of their nine children as they entered the family unit and eventually left the family, to strike out on their own or perhaps, through an early death. I have found no evidence of the deaths of these children with the exception of my great grandmother, Mary Jane Foley (nee Fitzgerald).

As previously posted, Lewis Fitzgerald married Ellen Daley at St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Basilica in Toronto on 11 September 1856. Their marriage was recorded in the church’s register by Father J. FitzHenry. Searching the subsequent Canadian decennial census records, starting in 1861, produces a list of nine children however with the exception of the 1901 census, the records for 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891 only provide an age and place of birth, not an exact date of birth.

In 1861, the Lewis and Ellen Fitzgerald household included three children. In 1871, the household included six children however the eldest child, Mary Rebecca, listed in 1861 was no longer present. The census records for 1881 provide the most complete family picture as eight children are present in the household with again the eldest, Rebecca as she was known, the only child missing. By 1891, the there were only five children living at home in the household and by 1901, only Alice, the youngest of the Fitzgerald children was part of the household.

This is where the church records came an important role, especially as civil registration had not yet been instituted. These records helped provide exact birth dates and verification that there were no other children who may have been born after a census was taken and died before the following census.

The baptismal records of St. Paul’s Basilica provide the following names and dates for the Fitzgerald ‘kids’:

1. Mary Rebecca Fitzgerald, born 14 November 1857
2. Margaret Fitzgerald, born 25 April 1859
3. Anne Fitzgerald. born 23 December 1860
4. Ellen Fitzgerald, born 20 May 1862
5. Mary Jane Fitzgerald, born 22 May 1864
6. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, born 11 February 1866
7. Catherine Fitzgerald, born 28 September 1868
8. Lewis Albert Fitzgerald, born 16 August 1872
9. Alice Caroline Fitzgerald, born 29 December 1874

At least five of the Fitzgerald daughters married. In addition to Mary Rebecca whom I suspect died at an early age, I have found no record that suggests Margaret or Elizabeth married. Similarly, I have found no record indicating that Lewis Albert married.

Mary Jane Fitzgerald married John Foley on 25 April 1894 in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, the marriage event entered into the church register by Father William Bergen. Although I don’t yet have many of the details, I have been contacted by a local Toronto historian who has informed me that Lewis Fitzgerald was one of the founding members and contributors to St. Joseph’s Church which is located in what is now the east end of the city of Toronto, in an area known as Leslieville.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

William and Catherine Shaughnessy

ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

It sometimes takes me a little while but eventually I get around to tracking down the siblings of my more direct ancestors. Such is the case with Catherine Foley, the sister of my great grandfather John Foley.


Like her older brother John, Catherine was born in Barrie, Ontario, Canada in 1865, the daughter of William Foley and Bridget McTague. On November 28, 1883, in Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Roman Catholic Church in Barrie, at the age of 18, Catherine married William Shaughnessy, also a native of Barrie, Ontario, the son of Michael Shaughnessy and Catherine Miller. The record of their marriage appears both in the Ontario marriage registrations and in the church register. Finding these records was made all the more difficult due to the frequent misspelling of the Shaughnessy surname – in the records the name is spelled as ‘Shanacy.’

Not long after their marriage, William and Catherine headed south for the ‘big’ city of Toronto where William found employment as a brick maker. In 1887, when their third child was born, the Shaughnessy’s were living on Verral Avenue in Toronto’s east end. By 1911, Catherine and William had taken up residence at 10 Brighton Avenue, just one block away from the Blong Avenue homes of where Catherine’s older brothers, John and Thomas had lived. Below is an image, captured from Google street view, of the house at 10 Brighton Ave. as it looks today. I suspect it didn’t look too much different 100 years ago.




By the time they lived in this house, William Shaughnessy had left the brick-making industry and became a teamster, then a contractor. A pattern of employment identical to Catherine’s brother, John. It just seems too coincidental that William would work for some years years as a teamster and then work as a contractor.

Although I have never heard it suggested and have no family stories to base it on, I suspect John Foley was the head of a ‘family’ business that employed Thomas Foley and brother-in-law William Shaughnessy. It will be interesting to see if records exist that might corroborate my suspicions.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

Solving My Foley Family Puzzle

ianhadden1955 1 Comment

I have shared previously, and most recently in July 2011, about the uncertainty of information about one of my maternal great grandfathers, John Foley. This past week, fellow Canadian genealogy blogger, John Reid of Anglo-Celtic Connections, posted a note on Google Plus that Family Search had added 126,534 Ontario Roman Catholic Church Records to their online databases.


I immediately thought of my Foley ancestors and the puzzlement about verifying John’s birth. Census records have provided conflicting information ranging from locations in the United States to Barrie, Simcoe County, Canada West (now Ontario) and birth years ranging from 1860 to 1865.

Fortunately, the Ontario civil registration for John Foley’s marriage to Mary Jane Fitzgerald on April 25, 1894 provides the name of the church in Toronto in which they married. My first stop then was the church records for marriages at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in 1894. Unfortunately, the images added by Family Search are not yet indexed so finding the church marriage registration meant ‘surfing’ through numerous images. The church registrations are in chronological order so using the marriage date, I was able to find the marriage registration information fairly quickly. All of the information contained in the church record was identical to the civil registration record.

When he married in April 1894, John gave his age as 29 years, meaning he was likely born around 1865. John’s gravestone in Toronto’s Mount Hope Cemetery lists his date of birth as February 16, 1864 but due to the various pieces of conflicting information, I have always been suspicious of the date.

I then proceeded to viewing the church baptismal records for Barrie, Ontario, the location John had maintained was his place of birth. The church record images available through Family Search for Barrie consist of one Roman Catholic church – Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary including two mission, or satellite, locations. The baptismal records cover the period 1858 – 1875 and consist of 218 images in the main church register.

Like scrolling through microfilm images, I went through the baptismal records one image at a time, hunting for the Foley name. Fortunately, this was made easier as the family surnames were printed, not written, in the left hand column of the register book. On image #86, line #706, I found it! The baptismal record for John Foley, although the surname was misspelled as ‘Froley.’

The parish priest, Father P. Rey, listed: Froley, John; Date of Birth – 16 Feb. 1863 in Essa (a small town near Barrie); Date of baptism – 21 March 1863; Parents – William Foley, Ireland and Bridget McTigue (misspelling of McTague); Sponsors – Joseph Cain and Elizabeth Hussey.

So, at long last, I know that my great grandfather was born in Essa, part of the Barrie, Ontario area, on February 16, 1863, exactly 125 years before his great great granddaughter, my daughter, Jenna was born! Finally, a puzzle solved.
Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

Connecting With Family Through Ancestry

ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

I am often asked if it’s true that simply searching for a name of Ancestry (.com; .ca,; .co.uk;.au,etc.) can produce a shaking leaf providing you with a full family tree or an instant connection with a distant, previously unknown relative who sends family photos that you have never seen before as is suggested in some television advertising. My answer is usually along the lines that if it were that simple, I’d be really disappointed in myself for spending so much time over the past thirty years when only a few keystrokes and a mouse click were needed.

Ancestry is certainly a great Internet site to search for historical records and documents. I have maintained a world deluxe subscription for many years (and by way of disclaimer, I pay for this entirely myself, with my own funds). It has been a tremendous source of documentation and collaboration. I have previously posted that there is benefit to exploring the ‘public’ member family trees in spite of any criticism that the family trees may frequently contain erroneous information.

A recent additional benefit for me has been making new connections with cousins I didn’t know about who either sent a message to me asking for some additional information based on details found in my posted tree or who I sent a message to with a similar request.

I have three (!) examples to offer from the past three months.

Donius contacted me offering a correction to a date associated to her mother who appeared in my posted family tree. It turns out that Donius is my wife Ellen’s 4th cousin. They share Andrew Kimmerly, a United Empire Loyalist, and his wife Susannah Sagar as common ancestors.

Another Andrew Kimmerly and Susannah Sagar common ancestor connection was made when Pat contacted me with some questions about my family tree file. Pat, as it turns out is married to my wife Ellen’s 5th cousin.

I have been able to share information, tips, sources, and photos with both Pat and Donius. A truly great connection experience.


My favourite recent connection was one that I instigated. Recognizing that new trees get added and older trees updated frequently on Ancestry, I found one of my second cousins of whom I had no previous knowledge, had posted a family tree. More important to me is that this cousin and I share a great grandfather, John Foley, in common. My maternal grandmother, Gertrude Ellen Foley, was John’s only daughter. My cousin Margaret’s grandfather was John Joseph Foley, my grandmother’s half-brother (pictured above), and John’s third son but only child from his second marriage (to Annie McElroy).

John Foley without a doubt has been my greatest genealogical challenge. I have posted previously a number of stories about John who was, in modern terms, a self-made millionaire, despite his inability to read or write. I am a namesake of John’s oldest son who was my mother’s favourite uncle and whose funeral I can vividly remember attending when I was ten or twelve years of age. Various records provide various dates and locations of John’s birth. John appears and then ten years later disappears in census records. The only thing certain seems to be that John married my great grandmother, Mary Jane Fitzgerald in 1894 in Toronto, Ontario, that they had three children before Mary Jane’s sudden death at age 33 in 1899, and that John married Annie McElroy in 1903 in Toronto, Ontario. John died suddenly in 1927 while on a business related trip to Los Angeles, California in 1927.

I have never seen a photograph of my great grandfather John Foley although I feel certain that one must exist somewhere. Fortunately, through the Ancestry connection I may be getting a step closer to breaking through this stubborn brickwall.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com