Graham Family of Nova Scotia
Individuals on this page are included in my periodically updated "ReunionIndex" Ancestry database but substantive information is only updated here on this page. Last update of page: 23 October 2023.
The Grahams are one of the better known Scottish clans. They are believed to be of Norman origin (originally of Scandinavian Viking stock) and to have passed through England before becoming established in Scotland, perhaps by about the 12th century. There are two major branches: Grahams of Montrose and Grahams of Monteith; apparently our Grahams belong to the former but confirmation needed. For a brief history of the Graham clan and links to the tartans, badge, etc., see the Fredericton-based Gathering of the Clans.
The Graham lineage covered here is the following:
Hugh Graham of Scotland, b. ca. 1730 --- m. --- Agnes Alan (four children)
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Rev. Hugh Graham, b. 1758 (emigrated to Nova Scotia) --- m. --- Elizabeth Whidden, b. 1593 (six children)
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James Graham, b. 1808 --- m. --- Rachel Creelman (7 children)
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Frank Graham, b. 1856 (moved to Alberta) --- m. --- Mary Muir (5 children)
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Paul Graham, b. 1894 --- m. --- Mildred Maxwell (4 children)
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William Muir Graham, b. 1929 (moved to Ontario)--- m. --- Margaret Barclay (3 children)
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Douglas J. Graham, b. 1958 (moved to Washington, D.C.) --- m. --- France Marcoux (2 children)
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Camille Graham, b. 1992 and Stéphanie Graham, b. 1994
Hugh Graham, b. ca. 1730
The first known Graham in my lineage was Hugh Graham, born sometime around 1730 (estimated from known birth date of his son). He was a farmer and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church -- first at Torpichen, then at Bathgate, and lastly at Whitburn under the Rev. Hugh Brown. Bathgate and Whitburn are in West Lothian County, just east of Edinburgh, Scotland. The only thing we know of Hugh's parents is that his mother's birthday was on the same day as his own and of his son. The son, the Rev. Hugh Graham, later wrote on this matter to his sister in a letter dated 10 July 1828:
"Our father was born on the 16th of October, and his mother was born on the 16th of October, only in her day they reckoned in the old style. It is somewhat singular for three generations to commence on the same day of a month. May we all meet in the same Father's house, the house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens! The time was when you and I lay in the same womb; may we through eternity lean on the same bosom of bliss; and all through grace, rich and free, and all to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved!"
My sister, Karen Graham, also has her birthday on 16 October. Note that the son Hugh would later die on April 9, 1829; my father was born in 1929 on the 100th anniversary of his death and I was born on April 9!
Hugh Graham married Agnes Alan (or Allan). She was "among the excellent of the earth" according to her son's writings. Hugh and Agnes had at least four children, considered below.
Rev. Hugh Graham, b. 1758, and Siblings
Hugh Graham and Agnes Alan had at least four children (chronology unknown; Source: Robertson's book):
1) Peter, m. and had a daughter Mary who married a Mr. Brenton. Peter at one time planned to enter the Ministry but it is not known if he did or not. Mary Graham Brenton (see Sources below) was a granddaughter of Peter Graham.
2) Margaret, m. a Mr. Hamilton. They lived in Whitburn, Scotland. She was later widowed.
3) William, also migrated to Nova Scotia as did his brother Hugh. According to (1) he resided in Upper Stewiacke. He is mentioned in Miller's book as having a daughter Agnes who married David Creelman (see Creeleman chapter), son of James Creelman and Margaret Graham (both born in NS, Margaret Graham b. in Pictou, apparently a non-related line of Grahams). GeneJane (2) provides information on William's 6 children. His wife's name is not mentioned but he was apparently married in Scotland because daughter Margaret is recorded as being b. in 1804 in Whitburn, Scotland.
4) Hugh Alan, b. 16 October 1758 at Slateheuch, West Calder, which is just outside of Lothian County in Scotland. The birthdate is from Robertson's book; GeneJane (1) gives date as 1754. There is considerable information available on Hugh Graham but first a mention should be made of an alternate version of his ancestry. The one presented above seems to be the most adequately documented (Thomas Miller's book and Mary Brenton's document; see Sources below), but other handwritten records in the papers of Ethel G. Graham state that Hugh Alan's father was James Graham, b. 1720, who was married to Jane Campbell or to H. Brown. The father of James would have been Rob Graham, b. 1681. These individuals very likely existed but perhaps as another branch of the family? The Agnes Alan version favoured here accounts nicely for Hugh Alan's middle name and is given in Robertson's book.
Hugh Graham received a university education at Edinburgh and then he studied theology at Haddington (just east of Edinburgh). In 1781 he was licensed to preach the gospel by the Edinburgh Presbytery. He originally received a call to go to South Shields (in N. England?), but since the Nova Scotians in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia were sending petition after petition requesting a Presbyterian Minister, it was decided to send him there.
He sailed from Greenock, Scotland on 22 June 1785 and arrived in Halifax eight weeks later. A short time before he left he married Elizabeth Brown (Mary Brown?), an "eminently pious woman". She died en route. The death of his first wife is noted in Robertson's book but I have not yet relocated the source from which I obtained her actual name; it presumably would have been a notation of my great-aunt Ethel Graham, most likely from an unnamed source. After spending a few days in Halifax, he proceeded to Cornwallis. Cornwallis had been settled in 1760 by settlers from Connecticut who were apparently not very devout Presbyterians.
The Rev. Hugh Graham was the third Presbyterian Minister to arrive in Nova Scotia. Shortly after his arrival, on 2 August 1786, the Presbytery of Nova Scotia was formed by himself, Rev. Daniel Cock of Truro, Rev. David Smith of Londonderry, Rev. James McGregor of Pictou, Rev. Gilmore of Hants Co., and two Elders, John Johnson, and John Barnhill.
On 29 August 1786 he preached his first sermon in Cornwallis "to a large audience". In regard to his new situation, he wrote a letter to his parents on 2 September 1785:
"I have found a number of very intelligent, serious Christians among them. The forms of civility and religion are bettter observed than I expected, and there exists among them a considerable spirit of religious enquiry. Almost all, however, that I can say as yet (I wish I could say more) is that I have not repented of my obedience to the Synod in coming to this distant and destitute corner of the Vineyard. Let not my dear parents feel nor fret that the Lord should employ one of ten in a place where my services are greatly needed."
Despite these promising beginnings, the Rev. Graham soon began to feel uneasy about "the mixed character of the population" and particularly of the presence of a few troublesome individuals. This caused his friends in Scotland to petition the Church in May 1788 to return him home. The Church agreed but in November of that year, the Rev. Hugh changed his mind and decided to stay on. This was due to the fact that "they had got quit of two or three persons who were the real authors and unwearied fermenters of the contests and troubles". Some time during this period, he started a night school for boys without schooling. He was "appalled at the ignorance of the youth".
In 1792 he married Elizabeth Whidden, b. 15 December 1768 in Cornwallis, daughter of John Whidden and Elizabeth Longfellow (see her chapter for much more information on the Whiddens). He and Elizabeth had six children, from 1793 to 1808. The youngest child was James, grandfather of Paul Ashmore Graham. See section below for James and his siblings.
In 1799 he received a call from another township and he deemed it his duty to accept, so on 27 August 1800 he was inducted into the United Congregation for Stewiacke and Musquodoboit. He must have been in that area at the beginning of the year because it is recorded that the first time he preached in Middle Stewiacke was on the first day of the week, the first day of the month, the first day of the year, and the first day of the century. As soon as the people of Stewiacke got a minister, they built a church. In 1804, when they were finishing the interior, it burnt down. They resolutely built another which was used till 1848.
Hugh Graham also had a literary career of sorts. In 1798 he presided at the induction of Mr. Waddell to the charge of Truro and he afterwards published the sermon and addresses he delivered as well as the discourse he preached on the following Sabbath. It was printed at Halifax in 1799. He later co-published, with Dr. McGregor, a small religious pamphlet in 1822. It was entitled: "An Address to the Congregations under the Inspection of the Presbyterian Synod of Nova Scotia, Exciting them to a Public Spirit in the cause of Christ". It is also known that he was worrking on a history of the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotiia entitled "Notitiae or Notices concerning the State of the Church and Religion in Nova Scotia in former and later times". The manuscript perished in a fire at Stewiacke.
By 1815, Rev. Hugh's congregation had multiplied so greatly that it was found necessary to split it into two congregations. In March 1815 Musquodoboit was taken over by another Minister while Hugh retained the Stewiacke congregation.
On 12 June 1816 his second wife died, aged 42. He died 9 April 1829 (Source: Miller?; GeneJane (2) says 5 April), aged 75. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Upper Stewiacke. See also an account of a visit to his grave in 1846 in Robertson's book!
James Graham, b. 1808, and Siblings
The Rev. Hugh Graham and his second wife, Elizabeth Whidden, had six children. Unless otherwise noted, the information here comes from Miller's book.
1) Hugh Graham, b. March 1793. (Born 21 November 1792, according to (1), which calls him Hugh Graham, 2nd). He m. in Nov 1819 (1817, according to (1)) to Janet Kennedy, b. 1795, daughter of James Kennedy and Janet Dickey. He settled on the mountain on the south side of the Stewiacke River (Newton Mills according to GeneJane) where they reared their family and spent the remainder of their lives. She died 26 July 1832 in Stewiacke and he died 18 January 1857. They had four children (see GeneJane and Miller's book for details).
2) John Whidden Graham, b. 22 February 1795 in Cornwallis. GeneJane says he was also known as John Whidden. Miller's book records only a marriage to Rebecca Croker but GeneJane (1) includes a first child by Jane Gammell, b. 3 May 1804, daughter of Robert Gammell and Margaret Kennedy. Their child was Isaac Gammell, b. 1 March 1820. The fact he was given his mother's name suggests they were not married. Various sources on the web also conclude he must have been an illegitimate child. She married, had children, and d. 30 Nov. 1836.
John m. in 1821 to Rebecca Croker, b. 15 February 1800. He died at Stewiacke on 22 June 1867 and she died 15 June 1869. They had 10 children (see GeneJane and Miller's book for details).
3) Elizabeth, born in 1797. She died when only 16. GeneJane has somewhat different birth and death dates. Databases on the Web (e.g., WorldConnect) that show Eliza, b. abt 1785, a daughter of the Rev. Hugh, m. to Michael Davison, must be in error.
4) Isabell, b. 25 December 1799. On 29 February 1820 she m. James Tupper, son of Samuel Tupper (see Tupper chapter). They had 7 children (1) or 8 children (e.g., "gcbodie", WorldConnect).
5) William, b. 1 August 1804. He died a bachelor on 15 June 1849, aged 45.
6) James, the last child, b. 30 April 1808. GeneJane calls him "James D. Graham". On 4 March 1845 he married Rachel Creelman, daughter of William Creelman and Hannah Tupper (see Creelman chapter for more details on her). James died in 1887 (23 Jan. 1881 according to GeneJane) and Rachel died in 1894. See the next section for their 7 children.
Frank Graham, b. 1856, and Siblings
James Graham and Rachel Creelman had 7 children. I would be interested to know more of what happened to their grandchildren, all cousins of my grandfather Paul. I was not able to find any of them in WorldConnect in August 2005.
1) Hugh Alan Graham (who went by his middle name), b. 19 June 1846. His name is from Ethel Graham's own notes; GeneJane (1) notes his name as "Hugh Allen (aka Allen)". Miller notes it as "Allen". He m. Elizabeth Fraser and/or Margaret McGlasham (possibly a sister of his sister Isabell's husband, spelled "MacGlasham"?) . They had one daughter Elizabeth who married and one son [sic] Allison who married and was probably a farmer. No likely links found for him in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005.
2) Samuel Creelman, b. 1 May 1848. Miller gives the birth date of "Samuel"; his full name given in our family records which records him m. to Sophia Rutherford with ten children. She is the sister of Agnes below, married to Samuel's brother. No likely links for either found with any of the 102 Rutherford/Graham marriages in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005. Their children were as follows:
1. Walter Graham, d. unmarried.
2. Ralph, m. his cousin Ruby Graham in 1956. They had no children.
3. Isabel, m. and had one daughter and one son.
4. Douglas, had a childless marriage.
5. Bertram, d. unmarried.
6. Marguerita ("Rita", married and had three sons and one daughter. They moved to the U.S.
7. Helen, m. Frank Weeks and they lived in Vancouver with their one son. No likely links found with any of the 18 Weeks/Graham marriages in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005.
8. Frank, m. and had one son and one daughter.
9. Roland ("Rory"?), d. unmarried. While they both lived in Ottawa, Roland was a friend of his cousin Ethel Graham.
10. Maurice, m. and had two sons and one daughter.
3) William, b. 28 May 1850. He died unmarried (family notes). He died 15 June 1878 and is buried in Upper Stewiacke (1).
4) Elizabeth ("Bessie"), b. 19 August 1852. Family records note her as "Elizabeth" or "Bessie". Miller's book calls her "Bessie" and GeneJane (1) calls her "Bessie F.". She studied to be a preacher. She m. Henry Baird, and had two daughters but then he died. She remarried to Rev. James Blair and had another daughter and a son. GeneJane records only her marriage on 15 Feb. 1877 Pictou Co., to Baird, but calls him Edwin B. Baird, prob. more reliably, b. abt 1852 in Onslow, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Jane Hamilton. He was a merchant in Truro (1). No likely links found with any of the 52 Baird/Graham marriages or 4 James Blair/Graham marriages in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005.
Her children by her two marriages (family records) were:
1. Edith Baird, m. Dr. George Tullock of Boston. No likely links found with any of the 7 George Tullock in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005.
2. Eleanor Baird, d.unmarried.
3. Elizabeth Blair, married and had no children.
4. James Blair, married.
5) David Tupper, b. 14 June 1854. His name comes from family records; Miller records him as "David" and GeneJane (1) as "David Fraser". David married Agnes Rutherford. Like his brother Samuel, who married Agnes' sister, David had seven sons and three daughters. They lived in Campbelltown, NB. Their children (source: family records) are listed in order of (prob. unreliable) family records. See different order in GeneJane (which does not however give any supporting birth dates). They were:
1. Frank Lockhart Graham (GeneJane (1) calls him "Frank Leslie Graham"), m. Florence Read (GeneJane calls her "Florence Warner"), and had two daughters and one son (see Index GEDCOM). She was an American. Frank was a Bank of N.S. Inspector for the Western Division. He died in 1967 and his widow lived in Vancouver. His eldest son was named Alen (sic) according to Ethel Graham's notes but this does not match at all with GeneJane who calls him "Hugh Rutherford Graham". One of his daughters was Elizabeth, a nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. She married Dr. Alan Frieze, a dentist, and they lived in N. Vancouver with four or five children.
2. Helena Longman, lived in Toronto and died unmarried. GeneJane (1) calls her "Helena Lockhart", prob. explaining the origin of Lockhart in supposed name of her brother.
3. Edward. "Ted" was a bank worker and lived in Vancouver and/or Hamilton, ON. He was unmarried. GeneJane (1) calls him "Edward Creelman Graham".
4. Roy, d. in infancy. GeneJane (1) calls him "Edgar Roy Graham".
5. Ruby, a Royal Victorian nurse. She m. her cousin Ralph Graham in 1956 when she was in her 50s or 60s. GeneJane (1) calls her "Ruby Rutherford Graham".
6. Mary, m. Arnold Murray. Mary, said to be very good looking, lived in Hamilton. They had three sons: Bill, Eric, and Aubrey. GeneJane (1) calls her "Mary Elizabeth ".
7. Aubrey, m. Mary Murray and lived in Truro with two sons. GeneJane (1) calls him "Aubrey Fraser Graham".
8. Blair, d. unmarried.
9. John, d. in infancy. This child does not appear in the list of 10 children given by GeneJane (1).
10. Fred, drowned as a young man. GeneJane (1) calls him "Frederick Allison Graham".
11. Hattie Fulton (1). She does not appear in our family records, only in GeneJane.
6) Frank, b. 28 April 1856. Frank m. in 1889 to Mary Elliott Muir, daughter of William Muir and Harriet Wisdom (see Muir chapter). Originally they lived in New Glasgow, NS where they operated a small dairy. Mary had a small private school which evolved from private lessons she gave to her own children. In about 1909 they moved west to Calgary, Alberta. They lived there for many years and later moved to Vernon, BC.
In contrast to the memorabilia left behind by his wife, little is known of the undistinguished Frank Graham. Eventually he left his family and went from job to job. At times he went evangelizing in the BC lumber camps. See a fascinating essay written by my father about his grandfather Frank with speculative but carefully thought-out ideas about who this man was. Much evidence points to a man with major drinking problems (the head of a long-line of problem-drinking Grahams!), an absentee father, and a family where Mary Muir was solidly in charge.
Mary died in 1920 and Frank died in 1928 aged 72. For his children, see the next section.
7) Isabell Fraser, b. 4 May 1863. She m. Edward MacGlasham (possibly a brother of her brother Hugh's wife, spelled "McGlasham"?) and they lived in Boston. No likely links found with any of the 15 M[a]cGlasham in WorldConnect in Aug. 2005. Their children were:
1. Jean Rutherford MacGlasham, m. E. MacMullen.
2. Archibald, m. with no children.
3. Ann Elizabeth, d. unmarried.
4. Ruth Creelman, m. and had one daughter.
Paul Graham, b. 1894, and Siblings
The five children of Frank and Mary Graham were the following:
1) Ethel Gordon Graham, b. in New Glasgow, NS on 8 August 1890. Ethel became a nurse and graduated from the Calgary General Hospital in 1915. Her graduation had been delayed a year or two because of a diptheria infection she contracted. She lived in B.C. for a while and then in 1918 went to Newfoundland and Labrador to work with the Grenfell Society (her aunt, Ethel Muir, had previously been involved with Dr. Grenfell). She went for the summer but ended up staying for 21 years. She worked as a public health nurse and eventually was in charge of several nursing stations along those remote coasts. She worked more or less continuously in that area but would on occasion take a job elsewhere to earn some money (the Grenfell Mission paid her only $300/year). She also took time out to attend McGill University in Montreal and in 1925 she received her degree in Public Health Nursing. When her mother's health began to fail, she moved to Vernon, BC to be near her. She worked from June 1919 till her mother's death in February 1920, at the Jubilee Hospital in Vernon.
After she retired from active nursing in 1948 she transferred to the Ottawa office of the Grenfell Labrador Medical Mission where she worked as Secretary to the Mission. She retired completely in 1955 and moved to Annapolis Royal, NS where she lived for 17 years. In July 1966 she was struck by a taxi in London and spent a month in hospital. Subsequently she visited the Grahams in Kenya. In January 1972 she went to Thunder Bay, ON to spend her last days near my father and his family. Almost until her death, she maintained her own apartment. She died 17 January 1975, aged 85, after a decade-long struggle with cancer.
She never married for her suitors were plagued with misfortune. One apparently died in WWI and another was Dr. Charles Parsons, an American who worked with Ethel with the Grenfell Mission in Newfoundland and Labrador. Ethel and Charles were engaged for many years but Ethel would not marry him because of his drinking. Charles eventually travelled on an expedition to China with the famous Dr. Norman Bethune. He abandoned the expedition in Honk Kong because he would not work with the communists (2) or, according to information passed on by Ethel, because he was drinking away the expedition's funds. He was an alcoholic, later married an American woman, and purportedly committed suicide.
As the oldest chid in the family, and because of her strong personality, Ethel can be said to have occupied an almost matriarchal position in the Graham family. She had a strong influence on my father as a young man and was always a key person in all the main decisions and events of all her nieces and nephews.It was Ethel who helped make the "Family Reunion" possible. She was always very interested in her family history and collected much family information, largely in boxes and boxes of bits of paper and various family records, all of which, regardless of how valuable and old, are covered in her scrawled notes! She lived with my family in Thunder Bay when I was 14 to 17, a period during which I wrote the bulk of the first version of this family history, initially drawing largely on her notes and records. Ethel ensured that key family heirlooms stayed in the family, as for example the desk of her grandfather William Muir, which now inspires my father's writings.
2) Roy Tupper, b. 1892. Roy was a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in WWI. After the war, often with his brother Paul, he lived a Rabelaisian life in southern Alberta. In the 1930s (?), he married Mrs. Winnifred ("Win") Hill who by a previous marriage had two daughters, Peggy and Doreen (Hill was presumably her married name). They lived in an ancient log house at Bonnington Falls near Nelson, BC where he was a chicken farmer. Win was perhaps a nurse? Like his brother Paul, he was a well-read socialist but there seems to have been little contact between he and the rest of the family.
He died in 1954 and she died a few years later. They had no children. He was an epileptic, apparently as the result of a car accident.
3) Paul Ashmore Graham, b. in New Glasgow, NS 30 August 1894. With his parents, my grandfather moved to Calgary as a teenager and a few years later, in 1913, graduated from Central High School. In 1921 he married Mildred Maxell (see Maxwell chapter for much more information on Milly and her family).
Almost all his life he worked in the natural gas business. Eventually he worked for a number of small gas companies in southern Alberta towns (including Calgary, Burdett, Tofield, and Wainwright). He also briefly sold insurance during this period. After about five years in Wainwright, where my father was born, he obtained in 1932 a more permanent position in Edmonton with Northwestern Utilities Comp. He worked as a meter man, doing meter installation, and on furnace installation. For his last four or five years in Edmonton he ran the pipeyard. In about 1942 he was fired for being a communist (he had been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party but had quit in 1936 at the time of the Stalinist purges). A history of heavy drinking as well as his radical politics made it difficult to find a new job. Eventually he was hired by Mr. Bowness, General Manager of the Canadian Western Natural Gas Comp. in Calgary. The family returned to Calgary where Paul held a number of minor positions: working in the pipeyard, meter reparman, clerical positions, complaints man. He retired in 1957.
He had a pronounced hunchback as result of a bad scoliosis. He died 12 June 1959 from cancer and uremia.
The Graham household in Edmonton and Calgary was always a centre of activity: a centre for intellectualizing, drinking, radical politics, atheism, and for the rearing of their four children. See also extensive writings of my father on his father and on his early days at home. See the next section for their children.
4) Rachel Creelman, b. 1896. She was a newspaperwoman in Vancouver. She married Bernard E. Stehelin but they had no children. She died in 1932, aged only 36, from cancer. A vivacious, partying woman, she was also apparently a lesbian. Her sister Ollie nursed her at her deathbed and shortly after married her widowed husband.
5) Olive Wisdom ("Ollie"), b. 29 January 1901, was the fifth and last child of Frank Graham and Mary Muir. Ollie was a nurse who graduated from Vancouver General Hospital. As a young woman, she nursed in several southern Alberta towns in the 1920's. She also taught school during that period. Sometime before 1932 she married Bill Whitlaw. That marriage only lasted a few years at most. Bill lived in Edmonton and later remarried.
Ollie nursed her sister Rachel on her deathbed and shortly after married Bern Stehelin, Rachel's widowed husband. They lived in Vancouver and had one daughter, Yvonne, but the marriage only lasted a few years.
In about 1939 she married Eldrid Elile ("Ed") Leary who had been married before and had one daughter. They were in Calgary in 1955 but mostly lived in Vancouver. Ed Leary was a President of the Vancouver Labour Council and a trade union leader in B.C. for 25 years. Ollie was also a political activist and after taking a secretarial course, she worked in various union offices. Leary's career was seriously compromised when his picture was printed in the paper as that of a "known communist". He died on 10 February 1953.
After going through the inheritance resulting from sale of their house, Ollie lived with Paul and Milly Graham in Calgary. For several years she worked as a nurse at the Morley Indian Reservation. Later she moved to Nanaimo, B.C. (she was there by March 1960) where she worked at the Indian Hospital.
In Nanaimo she met and married in about 1962 to Charles Francis ("Chuck") Stiven, her fourth husband. Chuck was a carpenter and also received an army pension. He had two sons by a previous marriage. A heavy-drinking alcoholic and partier for most of her life, she and Chuck surrounded themselves with voluminous quantities of home brew. They both lived in Nanaimo till their deaths. Ollie died on 13 July 1971. Bill and Marg Graham bought the house from Chuck who continued to live in it rent free until the summer of 1980. Almost completely blind by then, he moved into a nursing home and died in early 1981.
Ollie and Bern Stehelin's only child was Yvonne Ethel Stehelin, b. 13 September 1934. As a teenager, in about 1953, she married Duncan (Doug) Green. They lived in Richmond, B.C. where she worked as an accountant in the credit sections of various department stores. She was estranged from her mother, Ollie. Doug worked for Safeway in their warehouses. Yvonne was quite ill for the last ten years of her life requiring constant dialysis treatments for a kidney ailment and finally succumbed to brain cancer. She died on 4 February 1994. Doug lived on in Richmond. They had three children:
1. Stephen Duncan Green.
2. Wayne Stanley.
3. Cheryl Ethel.
William Graham, b. 1929, and Siblings
Paul and Milly Graham had four children. Little or no information is provided here on living individuals. The children were:
1) Mary Elliott Graham, b. 25 March 1922, was the oldest child of Paul Graham and Mildred Maxwell. She was born in Barnwell, Alberta (according to her sister Elizabeth; other records say Burdett). After her grade 11, in about 1940, she went into training at Victoria Hospital in order to become a nurse. Being the war years, she interrupted her studies to go to work at Boeing Aircraft in Vancouver where she lived with her aunt Ollie. She returned to Calgary in the summer of 1943 and worked as a foreman at West Steel, making rivets for war planes.
She became engaged to a scrap iron dealer, Lee Lowrey, but on a train trip out to Vancouver with Ollie, she met Donald Fisher, then with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). About a week later, on 28 November 1944, they were married. Don worked as a logger and a cat operator in British Columbia. Mary and Don lived in several towns, such as Creekside (in 1955), Birken (in 1960), Mount Currie (in 1963), and eventually living at New Westminster where Don worked in the office of Gibson Brothers. Mary died of cancer on 12 June 1963 aged 41.
Don remarried in 1973 but later divorced. For the last 15 years of his life he lived near his daughter Donna, continuing to work in logging camps. He died on 17 January 1988. The Fishers had two children:
1. Donna Lavone, b. 12 December 1945. She married Marvin Shier in 1961. They lived in Powell River where Marvin was employed with a logging company as a mechanic. Donna designed, made, and sold clothes locally. Marvin died young of cancer in early 1984. Donna lived in Gibson, B.C. with John Hjilt. She drowned in a river in an accident on June 25 2003. They had two children.
2. Carol Pauline.
2) Elizabeth Maxwell. She married on 27 March 1948 to Paul Greenwood, who died about 11 December 2001. They had four children:
1. Allyson Elizabeth Greenwood.
2. Paul Graham.
3. James Howard, b. 4 January 1954. Deceased.
4. Douglas Austin.
3) Pauline. She married Bob Leathem (deceased).
The Leathems had three children:
1. Leslie Leathem.
2. Larry.
3. Roy Robert.
4) William Muir Graham, b. June 30 1929. Married to Anna Margaret Barclay. For their children, see next section.
Douglas J. Graham, b. 1958, and Siblings
William and Margaret Graham have three children:
1. Janice Roslyn Graham
2. Douglas John. I am the author of this family history.
3. Karen Mildred.
Sources
Much of the information on the Rev. Hugh Graham and his immediate relatives comes from Thomas Miller's history of Colchester County. Another very useful source was a document of 17 pages typed out by Mary Graham Brenton. She in turn had extracted the information from a book called "History of the Mission of the Secession Church to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island from its commencement to 1765" by Rev. James Robertson of Portsborough Church in Edinburgh.
Information on more recent generations of my family is largely based on papers of my great-aunt Ethel Graham and writings and recollections of my father, William Graham.
Footnotes
(1) More detailed information is available at "GeneJane's" (Jane Wile) database on Nova Scotian families: http://www.genealogynet.com/resident/genejane/index.php. At least on the Web, this site does not provide any source information. As of October 2023 it is offline.
(2) “Norman Bethune", by Roderick Stewart, Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd., Markham, Ontario, 2002.
