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- Rhodes, Lily Bell
Rhodes, Lily Bell Back to ALL Bios Lily Bell Rhodes 1889 - 1975 “Quick! Get a jar. Take it to Lily Bell!” With those words an oddly attractive, but rare insect would (to its astonishment) find itself trapped behind glass and on its way to be sketched by Lily Bell, an avid artist and lover of all things natural. And whatever that bug looked like, she would kindly turn it loose when she was done. Daughter of Francis Rhodes and Totie LeMoine, (grand-daughter of Colonel and Anne Rhodes) she would likely have been brought up in the LeMoine family home, known as Spencer Grange, in Quebec City, which became the Lieutenant-Governor’s residence, and then a Canadian Heritage property and museum. Lily Bell had a sister Frances and two other sisters who died in infancy. One of those, Anne, died before she was born but the other, Gertrude, was born when Lily Bell was seven years old. She was distraught when that child died, and whether that contributed to her nervousness as a young girl can only be speculated upon at this point. Neither Frances nor Lily Bell ever married. Lily Bell was always very good at sketching and devoted a great deal of her time to developing her artistic skills. Her maternal grandfather was the Canadian author, historian and past President of The Royal Society of Canada, Sir James McPherson Le Moine (1825-1912). Lily Bell studied art at Les Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City under Henry Ivan Neilson (Professor of Painting, Drawing and Anatomy), as well as with instructor and noted Canadian artist Jean Paul Lemieux. It was said: “Although Miss Rhodes painted for her own enjoyment and is not a listed artist, her competency of composition, perspective and palette … underscores an undeniable and elevated degree of ability.” But in Tadoussac she was remembered for being very soft-spoken and sweet. She adored children and would take her young nieces on walks in the woods, telling them the names of all the flowers and mushrooms they could find, and firing their imaginations by insisting there were fairies dancing under each of them. Not surprisingly she was a great gardener along with her sister, Frances, and loved animals, particularly dogs which she used to sketch often. She even had a favourite white sweater made from the fur of a long-haired dachshund she used to own. She would often be seen sitting very still on a log or rock under a shapeless sunhat quietly sketching some composition that had caught her eye. Many of these sketches became very small paintings that were often given to her many cousins in Tadoussac. In the summers she usually stayed with her cousin, Lennox Williams, for a week or so, and then after he died, she was made welcome in the home of her friend, Grace Scott. Looking back now, one can only imagine there was a depth to her which few of us knew. What we remember is her loving kindness and her reverence for nature. And some of us are still trying to collect her delightful paintings when they come available. Alan Evans Quotation from: ernestjohnsonantiques.com See many Photos of LILY's ART at https://www.tidesoftadoussac.com/lilybell-rhodes
- Campbell, Robert Peel
Campbell, Robert Peel Back to ALL Bios Robert Peel William Campbell 1853 - 1929 Robert Peel William Campbell was born in St. Hilaire Québec in 1853. He was the second son of Major Thomas Edmund Campbell, seigneur of Rouville, and his wife Henriette-Julie Juchereau Duchesnay. Thomas Campbell became seigneur upon his wife’s inheritance of the seigneury from her father, Ignace-Michel-Louis-Antoine d’Irumberry de Salaberry. Robert’s great uncle was Charles de Salaberry, CB, who led the Canadian troops at the Battle of Chateauguay in their defeat of a numerically superior American army advancing on Montreal during the War of 1812. Robert grew up in the Manoir Rouville, a Tudor-style mansion located on the south bank of the Richelieu River, in the shadow of majestic Mount St. Hilaire. His youth would have been spent exploring the countryside of St. Hilaire and helping his father with the development of his 150-acre model farm, a large portion of which was devoted to the nurturing of trees. Owing to his mother’s French-Canadian roots and his father’s British heritage, he was completely fluent in both English and French. This ability would serve him well later in his life. He attended Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville. He continued his studies at the University of Bishop’s College completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in June of 1873 and a Masters of Arts degree in June of 1876. At the age of twenty-two, this was quite an accomplishment for the day. He went on to study law at Laval University and with the completion of his L.L.B. was awarded the Dufferin Gold Medal. The medal was an official British commendation awarded by the then Governor-General Lord Dufferin, to Canadian students who had achieved high excellence in academics and athletics. While at BCS he would have met boys with ties to Tadoussac. Colonel Rhodes’s boys were all around his age and because Robert’s father Thomas and William Rhodes were both officers in the British Army in Canada at one time in their lives, it is entirely possible that there were family ties before the BCS days. Robert became a great friend of the Rhodes and Williams families and spent many summers visiting their summer home on the banks of Tadoussac Bay. One can imagine these young men leaving Québec on a steamer bound for Tadoussac with the entire summer ahead filled with outdoor adventure on the Saguenay River. Robert was called to the Québec Bar in 1877 and practised law in Québec City. He was appointed Assistant Clerk of the Legislative Council of the Province of Québec in 1883. The Legislative Council was the unelected upper house of the legislature in the province from 1867 to its disbandment in 1968. Concurrently, he was appointed English Journal and English Translator for the Council, no doubt because of his proficiency in both languages. In 1893, he was appointed Clerk of Private Bills and Railways for the Province. He became Clerk of the Legislative Council in 1909. The title of King’s Counsel was conferred upon him in 1903. At some time between 1882 and 1885, Robert purchased the property known as Kirk Ella from John Burstall. The eighty-three-acre property was located on the opposite side of Rue St. Louis from Godfrey Rhodes’ residence Cataraqui. The house on the property was destroyed by fire in 1879 after Burstall had done extensive renovations. A new residence would have been built by Robert Campbell. He lived at Kirk Ella until his death. Robert Campbell never married. Throughout his life, he was devoted to the institutions which were responsible for his education and to the church. For many years he was a member of the Board of Directors of the University of Bishop’s College. He took a leading role in the administration of the affairs of the University. In 1907 and in recognition of his many years of service he was awarded the degree of Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University. He was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of BCS from 1908 to 1912 and a Trustee of King’s Hall Compton. It was probably through his association with the Anglican Church in Québec that he came to be such good friends with Lennox Williams and his wife Nan. Robert became Chancellor and secretary of the Diocese of Québec in 1905 and had been associated with the church in Québec for many years. While six years older than Lennox Williams, Robert would have known him and his father James at BCS, and certainly would have developed a close bond while Lennox was the minister at St. Matthew’s Anglican Church in Québec City. Robert died at Kirk Ella in Québec City in 1929. The stories of his time in Tadoussac are lost to the passage of time. The plaque placed in his memory in the Chapel recognizes his long and dedicated service to the Province of Québec, his university, his church, and the great esteem with which he was held by the summer residents of Tadoussac of that generation. Lennox John Leggat _______________ Sources: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Volume X – Thomas Edmund Campbell Wikipedia – Thomas Edmund Campbell Prominent People of the Province of Quebec in Professional, Social and Business Life, 1923 The Mitre, University of Bishop’s College Volume 37 No.3 December 1929 Pedigree, The Children of the (Late) Colonel William Rhodes of Benmore, Quebec, Canada
- Russell, William Edward & Fanny Eliza (Pope)
Russell, William Edward & Fanny Eliza (Pope) Back to ALL Bios William Edward Russell and Fanny Eliza Pope (1849-1893) (1856-1936) William Edward Russell, son of Willis Russell and Rebecca Page Sanborn, was born in Quebec in 1849. As a child in Tad in his mid-teens, William (Willy) was a playmate of his neighbor, Godfrey Rhodes, Colonel Rhodes's son, and many of their teenage exploits are detailed in Godfrey's diary. Fanny Eliza Pope, wife of William Edward Russell, was born in Chatham, England, in 1856. Her father, Lieutenant Colonel James Pope, later became the commander of the English army stationed in Quebec and at some point, her and William Edward Russell's paths crossed and they married at Trinity Cathedral in Quebec in 1874 - Fanny being then the tender age of 18. William Edward inherited the hotel business from his father, Willis, but unfortunately, William was not much of a businessman and died practically insolvent 6 years after his father's death - leaving Fanny Eliza as a young widow of 37 with 5 children - at least three of whom (Florence Louisa “Nonie” Russell, Willis Robert Russell, and Mabel Emily Russell) continued summering at Tad. It was Fanny Eliza Pope's sister, Louisa Floriana Pope, that later had a profound effect on her goddaughter and grandniece, Ann Stevenson, future wife of the Rev. Russell Dewart. As Ann Stevenson relates in her book, “Nose to the Window”, “Louisa, or 'Auntie Totie' as she was called, was born in Malta in about 1852, where her father, Colonel James Pope, was stationed with the British Army . She was a tall, white-haired maiden lady, straight as a ramrod. When she died from a heart attack at the age of eighty, she still did her "daily dozen" and could touch her toes. She always wore black, with a big white scarf at her throat and several strands of robin's-egg blue and crystal beads, which she strung herself. At her waist she wore a reticule, which was a kind of hanging pocket of black moiré for her hanky and spectacles. In winter she wore black wool wristlets to ward off chilblains. Mum said that she had once been very much in love, but that her father had taken a dislike to the young man ‘because the back of his head didn't look a gentleman's.’ The relationship was broken off, and she never married. This absolute power of one's father to determine a daughter's life existed even into my own life. If the suitor didn't meet with parental approval, or if the chosen career was not conformable to what the parents deemed best, the necessary pressure was brought to bear until the girl gave in. Generally, the young man was told that his attentions were not welcome. To go against one's parents' wishes was more emotionally traumatic than to give in and simply suffer the loss. As the sole surviving member of the older generation, Auntie Totie was the arbiter of speech and manners. When the Dionne Quints were born and no one knew how to pronounce this strange new word, ‘Quintuplets,’ she announced that the accent should be on the first syllable. Like most Victorians, she idolized the Royal family, and it was she who always proposed the toast to the King at Christmas dinner. After she had said grace, we would all stand with her and say "The King! God Bless Him!" and drink to his health. However, because Auntie Totie's name was Pope, and because Mum was particularly fond of the tail of the turkey, known derisively in Protestant England as the Pope's nose, when Dad carved the turkey he would turn to Mum and say, ‘Nonie, do you want the Pope's nose? ‘ We would have to stifle our giggles with our napkins and try not to look at Auntie Totie. ” Louisa died in Quebec in 1934 and her sister, Fanny Eliza, died 2 years later in Toronto. Brian Dewart (with excerpts from Ann Stevenson Dewart’s writings)
- Rhodes, Monica
Rhodes, Monica Back to ALL Bios Monica Rhodes 1904 – 1985 Monica Rhodes was born on April 7th, 1904, in Sillery, Quebec, and died in Montreal in 1985. Her father was Armitage Rhodes (born in 1848) and her mother was Katie von Iffland of Sillery, Quebec, the daughter of Reverend von Iffland and the second wife of Armitage Rhodes. She was the sister of Armitage (Peter) Rhodes and half sister of Dorothy Rhodes and of Charlie Rhodes. Monica’s father, Armitage, died in 1909 and a couple of years later her mother took her young family to England. She lived first in Caterham, Surrey, where she attended Eothen School, along with Imogen Holst, daughter of the musician and composer Gustav Holst. After the end of the First World War, her family moved to St Marychurch, Devon and finally, after her younger sister’s marriage, to Chiddingfold, Surrey. After her Mother died in 1938, Monica studied at St Christopher’s College, Blackheath to be able to work for the Anglican Church in Canada. She served as a Bishop’s Messenger in Manitoba. She was deeply religious and after she retired, she moved to the Town of Mount Royal where she was a member of St. Peter’s Anglican Church. Monica often stayed with her sister Dorothy, Grace Scott, and at Boulianne’s Hotel during the summer in Tadoussac. Monica is interred in the Rhodes family plot at Mount Hermon Cemetery in Sillery, Quebec. Michael Skutezky
- Barnston, George
Barnston, George Back to ALL Bios George Barnston 1800 - 1883 The following biography of George Barnston (1800 – 1883) was drawn from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography. He comes across as a hard-working and very intelligent man, who worked hard and successfully for the Hudson’s Bay Company. He developed a strong interest in botany and insects and his study in that area was recognized by professionals in those fields. There is a window in the Tadoussac Chapel dedicated to his memory. George Barnston was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and educated as a surveyor and an army engineer. He joined the North West Company in 1820 (at 20 years old) which united with the Hudson’s Bay Company a year later. Barnston started his career as a clerk at York Factory in Manitoba, then transferred to the Columbia District in 1826, where he was to assist Amilius Simpson in surveying the Pacific Coast. In that job he deemed Simpson to be incompetent and did most of the work himself. He then helped James McMillan to establish Fort Langley (near present-day Langley, B.C.) before serving in two other forts in what is now Washington State. Records indicate that from 1825 until the mid-1830s, Barnston was frustrated and unhappy. Simpson described him as “touchy . . . and so much afflicted with melancholy or despondency, that it is feared his nerves or mind is afflicted.” Barnston felt that advancement was not coming quickly enough. He attacked Simpson in a letter and even resigned, but he was deemed a valuable employee and in 1832 he rejoined the service. In 1829 he had married Ellen Matthews, a mixed-blood daughter of an American Fur Company employee and he subsequently fathered 11 children. The oldest of these was James, who, in 1847 went to Edinburgh for a medical degree. At his death in 1858, he was a professor of botany at McGill College in Montreal. George Barnston’s writings and other records of these years also reflect much personal sensitivity and introspection, and a strong moral sense which was respected by Simpson, who described him as “high spirited to a romantic degree, who will on no account do what he considers an improper thing, but so touchy and sensitive that it is difficult to keep on good terms or to do business with him. . . . Has a high opinion of his own abilities which are above par. . . .” This portrait is reflected in the one Barnston gives of himself in his letters to his friend and fellow trader James Hargrave. In the ten years following his re-employment with the HBC, Barnston served in the northern US and in Ontario where his work was well-respected and he was able to develop a friendship with his old adversary, James Douglas. It was after a year’s furlough in England that Barnston was appointed to Tadoussac in 1844, a move that he said made possible “having my children better educated, an object ever near to my heart.” It is likely that education took place in Montreal, as Tadoussac would have been a very isolated and undeveloped community at that time. In fact, Barnston described Tadoussac as “an extended, troublesome, and complicated” charge, (as Simpson had warned him it would be); one beset by free traders, smugglers, and encroaching settlement. But it was an opportunity for him to prove his abilities and justify Simpson’s confidence in him, and in March 1847 he was promoted to chief factor. He served in Tadoussac for 7 years, then later took posts in Manitoba and Ontario before retiring to Montreal in 1863. Even in retirement, Barnston did not go quietly. The HBC was sold to the International Financial Society without consulting the company officers. Barnston corresponded with the London secretary in 1863 regarding the protection of the interests of commissioned officers of the company, and travelled to England the following year on what his friend James Hargrave called the “sleeveless errand” of telling the company directors that they had “treated their old officers of the Fur Trade very scurvily.” Retirement freed Barnston to pursue scientific research, primarily in botany and the study of insects - areas in which he had already done a great deal of work in the field and as a writer. At Martin Falls, Barnston first studied insects and he also kept a journal of temperature, permafrost, flora, and fauna of the area for the Royal Geographical Society of London. On furlough in England in 1843–44, he visited several scientific societies. “Finding that I was kindly received at the British Museum,” he wrote to George Simpson, “I handed over without reservation all my Collection of Insects to that Institution, at which the Gentlemen there expressed high gratification.” Over half his specimens were new to the museum. He later gathered an extensive herbarium at Tadoussac, which he described in his correspondence with Hargrave, and in 1849–50 sent a collection of plants to Scotland. He also supplied specimens to the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.) and to McGill College. After 1857 he frequently published articles, mainly in the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist. An active member of the Natural History Society of Montreal, he served as its president in 1872–73 and later became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882. It would appear that in his retirement, George Barnston lived in Montreal but spent summers in Tadoussac studying the natural world. George Barnston died in Montreal in 1883, and the funeral was held at Christ Church Cathedral. The Royal Society of Canada paid tribute to Barnston as both a “diligent naturalist” and “a man of kind and amiable character, loved and respected by all who knew him.” Note: The painting at the top of this page is of George Barnston. Barnston is the central figure in the painting wearing the traditional Hudson’s Bay Company coat. Alan Evans
- Price, William Gilmour
Price, William Gilmour Back to ALL Bios William Gilmour (Gilly) Price 1910 - 1940 William Gilmour (Gilly) Price was the fifth child and the eldest son out of ten children of Henry Edward Price and Helen Muriel Gilmour. Muriel was the granddaughter of John Gilmour who was a contemporary of the original William Price and an equally renowned lumber merchant in Quebec City at that time. The Harry Prices lived at 2 and then 16 St. Denis Ave, near the Citadelle. At the time they were comfortably off during Gilly’s childhood, as his sister Helen talked of trips to Europe in 1913, 1921 and 1928. Gilmour attended Trinity College School, Port Hope from 1924 to 1928. After leaving TCS, he lived with his parents, and according to his family, he loved children and had a wonderful rapport with them. Later, during the depression, the family lost their money with the bankruptcy of Price Brothers. William Gilmour worked for Price Brothers and in 1940 was working in a maintenance position in the paper mill at Riverbend. Gilly was very much of the family tradition of the Price family of working your way up the ladder from the lower ranks. He married Maimie Ida Elizabeth Fletcher from Lachute in 1938 or 1939. He had been courting her for many years but was not allowed to marry earlier due to the company policy at the time. His nieces Joan and Susan Williams were flower girls at their wedding, and remember the reception at 16 St. Denis Avenue. Gilmour died in an industrial accident while maintaining a paper machine at the Riverbend Mill on July 9, 1940, at the age of thirty. This was two months before his son, also named William Gilmour (and usually known as Gil), was born. Ida was living in Kenogami at the time of the accident. In those days industrial plants did not use lock-out techniques (known in French as cadenessage) to ensure that equipment could not accidentally be put into motion while workers were in vulnerable situations, such as when they were repairing a machine. Since that time when workers needed to maintain a piece of equipment such as a paper machine, the maintenance worker physically locks the control panel and keeps the key with him to ensure that nobody can accidentally start it up. A beautiful stained glass window in remembrance of Gilly was commissioned and initially located in the Anglican chapel in Riverbend. Later it was moved to the Sir William Price Museum in Kenogami where it is found today at one end of the chapel facing the stained glass window made in memory of Sir William Price at the other end. Ida worked as a teacher to support herself and Gil and was Vice-Principal at the High School of Quebec for many years. She spent the summers running a shop in Metis Beach and sent Gil to Sedburgh School near Montebello. After retirement, she went into real estate in Montreal. She died in 1990. Gil married Gayle Lennon and had two sons, Andrew Gilmour in 1970 and Peter Llewellyn in 1972. Gil later moved to Constable, N.Y. near Cornwall, Ont., and was remarried to a woman named Lady. He died in 2019 after picking up a disease in the Philippines. As a postlude to the tragedy of Gilmour’s death, Ida and her grandsons Andrew and Peter were part of the Saguenay tour prior to the 1992 Price Family reunion in Tadoussac. While in Kenogami, Ida had an emotional meeting with the woman, a former employee of Price Brothers, who had brought her the news of Gilmour’s death over fifty years before. Greville Price
- Stairs, Dennis & Sue
Stairs, Dennis & Sue Back to ALL Bios Dennis W. Stairs 1923-1975 & Susan E. (Inglis) Stairs 1923-1978 Dennis was born and grew up in Montreal. After attending Bishop’s College School, he joined the Royal Navy and served on the British aircraft carrier Indefatigable as an airplane navigator. He started coming to Tadoussac at an early age, and in his teens went on trips to Les Escoumins and the Marguerite in nor’shore canoes with his brothers and his cousin Peter Turcot - twenty miles rowing is a long way! He was a tennis and skiing enthusiast and was on the McGill University teams for both sports. He graduated from McGill with honours in engineering and took a position with what was then the Price Brothers Company in Kenogami. He married twice having four children by his first marriage and three by his second. Sue Inglis was born and grew up in Pittenweem, Scotland. She moved to London during the war and served in an anti-aircraft unit defending the city. She married Dennis Stairs in 1957 and together they had three children, Alan, John, and Sarah to add to Dennis’s previous four, Judy, George, Felicite, and Philippa, and she treated all seven with the same mixture of poise, no-nonsense strength, and kindness. Sue had left her home in a thriving metropolitan city to move to Kenogami, a small town a mere ninety miles from Tadoussac. She adapted well, learning skiing as well as other winter activities. She also learned French well enough to lead the Girl Guides in the Lac St Jean region! She came to Tadoussac soon after arriving and embarked on the full range of activities – witness her name on the Mixed-Doubles Tennis Trophy in more than one place, her embroidery creations in the church, and the Scottish-dancing parties she hosted - not to mention numerous picnics around Tadoussac on the beaches, in the hills, and along the shores in the freighter-canoe Seven Steps. She tirelessly nursed Dennis when he took ill, enabling him to spend the last few years of his life in the relative peace and comfort of his own homes in Montreal and in Tadoussac. Dennis passed on to us all, with varying degrees of success, his love of the outdoors whether hiking, cross-country skiing, chopping wood, or fishing. He passed along to us his love of small boats, be they canoes, rowboats, motorboats, or even how to use a freighter canoe as a sailboat! And of course, he led by example in tennis and skiing. Perhaps most of all he tried to teach us to be honest, fair, hard-working, and family-oriented people. Many a time we were cajoled into doing unpleasant tasks with the words "you're not going to let your poor father do everything are you?" We and the entire Tadoussac community remember them as good parents, good friends, and good people to have in your corner when the going got tough. George Stairs
- Evans, Maria Stewart
Evans, Maria Stewart Back to ALL Bios Dean Evans's first wife, but what else can we find?? Evans, Marie Stewart 1850 - 1903 She was the first wife of Dean Lewis Evans so the mother of Trevor Evans and grandmother of Ainslie Stephen, Phoebe Skutezky, and Trevor and Tim Evans. Said to have the nick-name “Mae the Flirt” (!) Described as Maria in her birth record, and Marie in the marriage index, (It says Marie on her plaque) her full name was Maria Stewart Bethune, born August 20 1840, the second of four children (all girls) of Strachan Bethune (1821-1910) and Maria MacLean Phillips (1826-1901). In 1873 at the age of 23, Maria Stewart Bethune married Dean Thomas Frye Lewis Evans (1845-1920) (he was one of 12 children of an Irish rector called Francis Evans). Dean T.F. Lewis Evans and Maria Stewart Bethune had 5 children: Harry Basil Ashton (1873 – 1958), Muriel Maye (1877 – 1952) Trevor Ainslie (1878 or 9 – 1938 or 9), Cyril Lewis (1882 or 3 – 1887), Ruby Bethune (1885 – 1947). The Dean had a sixth child, Lewis Evans, with his second wife Emily, also a Bethune. In 1903 she (Maria) died at age 63 and is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery. Alan Evans
- Smith, Charles Carington & Aileen (Dawson)
Smith, Charles Carington & Aileen (Dawson) Back to ALL Bios Charles Carington Smith 1867 - 1952 & Aileen (Dawson) Smith 1874 - 1959 Charles was the third son of Robert Harcourt Smith and Amelia Jane (LeMesurier) of Quebec City. He was educated at Upper Canada College. His banking career began with the Toronto branch of the Quebec Bank. He won many awards in the 1890s for rowing and canoeing. In the early 1900s, he moved to Quebec, continuing his career with the Quebec Bank, and was a member of the Quebec Bank hockey team that won the bank hockey championships in Montreal in 1900. In 1901 Charles married Aileen Dawson. Aileen was the daughter of Col. George Dudley Dawson and his wife of County Carlow, Ireland, and was born in Toronto. Charles and Aileen had four children: Doris Amelia (1902), George Noel (1904), Herbert, (1906), and May (1908). Their daughter Doris married Jack Molson and their Molson descendants continue to summer in Tadoussac. The family moved to Montmorency Falls where they lived for the rest of Charles’s working career, which continued with the Royal Bank of Canada after their take-over of the Quebec Bank in 1917. They retired to Kingston, Ontario from where annual summer visits to Tadoussac were much enjoyed. Eve Wickwire
- Molson, Doris Amelia (Carington Smith)
Molson, Doris Amelia (Carington Smith) Back to ALL Bios Doris Amelia Carington Smith 1902 - 1975 Born in York (Toronto) on October 15, 1902, Doris was the first of three children whose parents were Charles Carington Smith (a Quebec City banker and first generation Canadian in a family from Hertfordshire) and Aileen Dawson. Aileen’s father, the renowned McGill scientist George Dudley Dawson, also had connections to Tadoussac in its earliest days as a summer resort. Doris was raised in a sprawling Victorian house built at the top of Montmorency Falls. She had a younger brother Noel, and a younger sister May. As a girl, Doris took up figure skating, swimming, and golfing, and pursued these sports into her adulthood. The family spent their summers in Tadoussac. She was 20 years old when she was invited to a debutante party held on board the H.M.S. Hood, a military ship anchored in the St. Lawrence River at Quebec in August of 1924. There she met another of the guests, Colin John Grasset “Jack” Molson, age 21. They fell in love and were married two years later. Their son Robin was born in 1929 and their daughter Verity in 1932. Doris was small and spirited, bright and energetic, devoted to her family and her friends. She always had a much-adored dog whom she would train to do extraordinary tricks. Doris was especially known for her warmth and sociability, her concern for others, and her love for Tadoussac. Here, in the 1950s, she hosted bread-making parties where bread would be baked in their iconic outdoor clay oven, and in the 1960s and early 70s, her cocktail parties were lively occasions. Early every morning, weather permitting, she would go down to the beach for a bracing swim in the bay. Later she would rouse up friends and neighbours for picnics, or Sunday evening bonfires on Indian Rock. She was also a mainstay of the Tadoussac Protestant Chapel, where, when she wasn’t playing the organ herself, she sat as close to the organist as possible so that her singing voice would give encouragement to the player. Her faith was strong. Had Doris been able to choose the manner of her passing, she may have well chosen to go the way she did. On July 14, 1975, she was enjoying a game of golf at the Tadoussac Golf Club with her best friends when she began to feel dizzy. She sat down; her heart failed; her friends gathered around her. She was 72. Karen Molson
- Williams, Caroline Anne (Rhodes)
Williams, Caroline Anne (Rhodes) Back to ALL Bios Caroline Anne (Nan) Rhodes Williams 1861 - 1937 Caroline Anne (Nan) Rhodes Williams was the seventh child of Col. William Rhodes and Anne Catherine Dunn. She was born in Sillery, Quebec on January 10, 1861 and died at Tadoussac on July 30, 1937. Her family called her “Annie”, but to her children she was known as “Nan”. The ages of her brothers and sisters were spread over almost 20 years, yet they grew up actively engaged with each other. Army, her eldest brother made her a big snow house; Godfrey took her and her sister Minnie skating and sliding. They all spent summers in Tadoussac together, Nan with her dog “Tiney”. She and her brother Godfrey frequently “apple-pied” all the beds, causing bedlam in the house. Growing up at Benmore the family home in Sillery, she was surrounded by an endless collection of birds and animals - geese, chickens, bantams, rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks and ponies and even beehives. All were welcome inhabitants of her family’s farm. Her brothers, Godfrey and Willy procured a bear cub and had a pole for it to climb. The family meals often included Caribou and rabbit meat from her father’s hunting trips. Croquet was a favourite family game on the lawn. In winter, Nan and her sister Minnie traveled by sleigh through the deep snow to their lessons at dancing school. Nan was a lively young girl who always loved jokes. Her father described her as “full of play”. Nan became engaged to a young clergyman at St. Micheal’s Anglican Church in Sillery. She and Lennox Williams were married there on April 26, 1887. Her sister Gerty and her best friend Violet Montizambert were her bridesmaids. Their first child, James, was born in 1888, followed by Mary (Wallace), Gertrude (Alexander) and Sydney Williams. As their children were growing up in Quebec, Lennox served at St.Michael’s. His work always involved people and when he became Dean, and later Bishop of Quebec, his duties extended over the vast geography of the Quebec Diocese. Assisting him in his work brought Nan in contact with the many different people in the City and the Province, some of whom would go overseas to serve in the South African (Boer) War, WW1 and WWII. Winter of 1913-14 in Quebec was the last carefree time before WWI began. Nan always welcomed her children’s friends around the Deanery for supper or tea. According to one of her future sons-in-law, “On some evenings it was quite amusing. The Dean and Mrs. Williams sat in his study, Jim Williams and Evelyn Meredith sat in an upstairs sitting room, Mary Williams and Jack Wallace in the drawing room, and Gertrude and Ronald Alexander in the dining room. Mrs. Williams was a very understanding person.” This was still the age of chaperons. Before going overseas, Jim and Evelyn were married, and both enjoyed summers in Tadoussac with the family at Brynhyfryd. In November, 1916, Nan received the news that her son Jim was killed at Grandcourt, the Battle of the Somme. Two months later in January 1917, she and Lennox, accompanied by their daughters, Mary and Gertrude, sailed to England. Mary went to see Jack Wallace and Gertrude to be married to Ronald Alexander. They stayed in London at Queen Anne’s Mansions and remained there until April. After the War, Nan and Lennox continued their active life together as Lennox had been consecrated as Bishop of Quebec in 1915. The Rhodes family house in Tadoussac, built in 1860, had been left to Nan. It was to burn down in 1932 and be rebuilt the next year. Brynhyfryd remains in Nan’s family today. When Lennox retired in 1934, they had more time to spend in Tadoussac and ten grandchildren to enjoy it with them. One day, walking to town with one of her ten grandchildren, Nan discovered that her grandchild had lifted a bit of candy from Pierre Sid’s general store. She marched her back to return it and to apologize. To one of her grandchildren “Granny was always game for some fun and she had lots of energy”. Nan loved to be out rowing the boats and like others her age, she swam regularly in the refreshing salt water of the Bay. On June 30, 1937 she climbed up the path from the beach and reaching the house feeling a bit tired, she took a rest and died suddenly that evening. Micheal Alexander
- Powel, Robert Hare
Powel, Robert Hare Back to ALL Bios Powel Family who built the Bailey house Robert Hare Powel – 1825 – 1883 & Amy Smedley Powel – 1825 – 1908 The Powel family came from Pennsylvania. Robert’s father - John Powel Hare (1786 – 1856) was an American agriculturist, politician, art collector, and philanthropist. He was born John Powel Hare and was adopted by his mother's widowed and childless sister, Elizabeth Willing Powel. He legally changed his name to John Hare Powel when he attained his majority and inherited the immense fortune of his late uncle, Samuel Powel. He was educated at The Academy and College of Philadelphia and after college joined a counting house. As part of his job in mercantile affairs, he travelled to Calcutta and returned at age twenty-two with $22,000 as his share of the profit. Robert’s mother, Julia (De Veaux), was the daughter of Colonel Andrew De Veaux. She and John married in 1817. They had seven children: Samuel, De Veaux, Henry Baring, Robert Hare, Julia, John Hare Jr., and Ida. The couple and their young family lived on the Powel family farmland known as Powelton, in west Philadelphia, where John began efforts to improve American agriculture. Robert Hare Powel married Amy Smedley (Bradley) who had been born in 1825, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Together they had six children: Julia De Veaux (1851), William Platt (1853 who only lived one year) Robert Hare jr. (1857), Amy Ida (1858), De Veaux (1861) and Henry Baring (1864) Robert and Amy purchased land in Tadoussac in 1865 from Willis Russell and built a house next door to him (The Bailey house). The adjoining lots were connected by a gate and Mrs Powel visited Mrs Russell nearly every afternoon. These Rhodes, Russell, and Powel properties were referred to as “our three cottages” by the men and the three of them often played whist together in the evening. Mr Powel was said to be “the life of every party” and they were very generous and hospitable to young people from Tadoussac who visited them in Philadelphia, not least some of Col. Rhodes’s sons who worked in Mr Powel’s rail yards. Both Robert Powel and Willis Russell were charter members of the Marguerite Salmon Club. There were a number of other charter members, all American, Willis Russell being the only Canadian. Robert died in 1883. His obituary, taken from The Daily News of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, describes his activities during his career. “Robert Hare Powel, the great coal operator, died suddenly at Saxton, Bedford County, on Monday evening last. His death was caused by indigestion … On Monday morning he was unable to get up and continued to grow worse until about 7 o'clock in the evening when he expired. Dr Brumbaugh, of this place, had been summoned, but the train did not arrive at Saxton until five minutes after Mr Powel died… The intelligence of his sudden death was received here the same evening, and could scarcely be believed, as he had been well on Saturday and was in the best of health. Mr Powel's loss will be greatly felt in this section. He was the first to penetrate the semi-bituminous coal region in this county and the first to ship the coal to the east. He continued to develop not only the vast deposits of coal but of iron and while wealth accumulated as the result of his foresight and sagacity, he sought other channels for investing his means, thereby giving employment to thousands of workmen. He was honest and honourable in business transactions, plain and unassuming in manner, a self-made man.” 4 His widow and family continued to come to Tadoussac in the summers and it wasn’t until 1906, a year before Amy’s death, that the house was sold to Sam and Alfred Piddington.