Grandpa Crown and my mother Vera
In the spring of 1919, Bertie Crown discovered she was pregnant with her second child. It must have been a wonderful time for the Crowns. The world had survived a devastating war, which killed nearly 67,000 Canadians, and they had also battled through the Spanish flu which killed 50,000. As they looked towards expanding their family, they hoped by the time Bertie gave birth, it would be smooth sailing ahead.
On February 28, 1920, Bertie went into labour. A few hours later, her baby was dead and she was bleeding out. Three days later, the former Bertie Becken died leaving her husband, Loyal Crown, a 28-year-old widower, with a three-year-old child. She and her infant daughter are buried in Victoria Lawn Cemetery in St. Catharines.
A few years earlier, Mary Ina O'Neill received the terrible news that her husband Herbert had been killed in Etapes, France in an enemy raid on the hospital where he was recuperating from gunshot wounds. Ina was 25 when she became a war widow; she looked toward a sad future raising with her own four-year-old who was born with a mental disability.
A year after Bertie's untimely demise, Ina met Loyal and decided to blend their families. Despite their combined losses, they brought another two children into the world. One of them was my mother Vera.
To families like mine, love and loss were too sides of the same coin.
Ina's mother, Mary, lost three of her 10 children in their infancy. Had those little ones been born in the modern era, they probably would have lived long and healthy lives. But there was no universal health care back then, no shiny hospitals equipped with NIC units, or family doctors armed with life-saving vaccines and medicine to save kids who died from preventable infections and fixable heart defects.
My mother Vera had to raise three kids alone after lost her husband in a car crash. She also lost her favourite cousin, Bobby, who died at the young age of 20 when his plane took enemy fire during the Second World War. His body was never found, and his passing is recognized by a marker in France.
Going through my Ancestry.ca journey, I've been struck by the fact there was so much death and tragedy. But I'm also reminded how changes in social policy have made life so much better for families like mine.
Thanks to the social safety net that was created in the 50s and 60s, my mother was given a lifeline that her parents and grandparents never had. After my dad died, we were supported by mother's allowance, and all of her three children went to university on government-sponsored student loans and grants.
The social safety net was there to catch families like ours by guaranteeing universal health care and by crafting income support programs that allowed families to catch their breath after they suffered tragedy.
Those programs came just in time. Today, fewer of us can count on our families to help out in bad times. Often it's left to strangers and the body collective to take us to our appointments, and to sit with us in times of trouble and infirmity. Charities and social media are also there to prop us up.
I know in my own case, I don't have much in the way of close family, other than my children and my husband to be there for me. When I became a single parent, I was pretty much on my own, and relied on friends, not family, to get me through.
Still, I am proud of the fact my family had a tradition of stepping up for the sake of the children. Many of my Simpson cousins were adopted by my aunts and uncle from a mother who didn't have the resources to raise her own family. These kind souls didn't think twice about taking these children, many of whom I consider friends today.
I'm cut from that cloth. I may not have a big strapping family to keep me warm through the cold, but I have a heart, and a conscience inherited from good stock. Anybody who knows me know I am there for anybody in trouble. I credit my ancestors for showing me the way.
To families like mine, love and loss were too sides of the same coin.
Ina's mother, Mary, lost three of her 10 children in their infancy. Had those little ones been born in the modern era, they probably would have lived long and healthy lives. But there was no universal health care back then, no shiny hospitals equipped with NIC units, or family doctors armed with life-saving vaccines and medicine to save kids who died from preventable infections and fixable heart defects.
My mother Vera had to raise three kids alone after lost her husband in a car crash. She also lost her favourite cousin, Bobby, who died at the young age of 20 when his plane took enemy fire during the Second World War. His body was never found, and his passing is recognized by a marker in France.
Going through my Ancestry.ca journey, I've been struck by the fact there was so much death and tragedy. But I'm also reminded how changes in social policy have made life so much better for families like mine.
Thanks to the social safety net that was created in the 50s and 60s, my mother was given a lifeline that her parents and grandparents never had. After my dad died, we were supported by mother's allowance, and all of her three children went to university on government-sponsored student loans and grants.
The social safety net was there to catch families like ours by guaranteeing universal health care and by crafting income support programs that allowed families to catch their breath after they suffered tragedy.
Those programs came just in time. Today, fewer of us can count on our families to help out in bad times. Often it's left to strangers and the body collective to take us to our appointments, and to sit with us in times of trouble and infirmity. Charities and social media are also there to prop us up.
I know in my own case, I don't have much in the way of close family, other than my children and my husband to be there for me. When I became a single parent, I was pretty much on my own, and relied on friends, not family, to get me through.
Still, I am proud of the fact my family had a tradition of stepping up for the sake of the children. Many of my Simpson cousins were adopted by my aunts and uncle from a mother who didn't have the resources to raise her own family. These kind souls didn't think twice about taking these children, many of whom I consider friends today.
I'm cut from that cloth. I may not have a big strapping family to keep me warm through the cold, but I have a heart, and a conscience inherited from good stock. Anybody who knows me know I am there for anybody in trouble. I credit my ancestors for showing me the way.
My family's story reminds me how incredibly lucky we were to live in this age, even as we battle through our own pandemic. The world has changed; there aren't many families who are willing and able to swoop in to save the day. But we are fortunate to live in a country that doesn't abandon families in their times of need.
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