And What about Grandpa?

   Joseph Childs met Sophia Weston while she was in New Zealand. Followed her back to England where they were married. Edna tells me that they lived in a house named Dollis Hill Lodge on Dollis Hill Lane before they came to the USA in 1910. They used to walk across Gladstone Park to meet their father coming home from work on the train to Willisden Green. He was an inventor and thought he would do better in America. He had a Mr. Kneeland as a business associate. This business venture fell through before it really got started. Grandpa came to America about a year before he sent for his wife and family. They arrived on the "Majestic" - a White Star Liner - October 9, 1911 and went to Rochester NY.

   They moved to a rented house on the Morgan farm in April 1912 on River Road between Lewiston and Youngstown NY. Later they moved to a house in the village of Lewiston. From both homes the three girls were sent to a Catholic Girls' School (Stella) about three miles out of Lewiston.

   Grandpa Childs obtained financing for his project - a wind turbine for making electricity - from Mr. Norrie. When he couldn't market sufficient of them to make the project pay, both Grandpa and Mr. Norrie lost their money. To keep body and soul together and to put food on the table Grandpa also worked as an accountant for companies like Curtis and Pierce Arrow.

   Grandpa started a mission while in Lewiston and Mr. Norrie's daughter, Ruth Black of Leesburg FL, [now deceased] tells me that while their family had been faithful Presbyterians before this mission started, they used to love to go to the mission meetings Sunday evenings. She especially loved the rousing singing, so different from the Presbyterian service.

   When his parents died in New Zealand in 1919 Grandpa thought he would like to live on a farm and so bought one (Lakeside) in 1922 just outside Port Robinson with the money he received as his inheritance. Every morning Edna would have to get up early to harness the horse and put a bag of feed in the buggy so that Margaret and Norah could ride to Niagara Falls to go to high school.

   In December of 1922 the family were living at 60 Louisa Street in St. Catharines, according to the US Immigration Deptment Border Crossing records.

   He was still installing his windmills and from Nov 1920 to May 1922 was in Conley, near Danbury, Connecticut taking with him first Mig (Margaret) and then Edna to look after him. She got a job as a telephone operator there and then attended Bethel Bible Institute of Newark, NJ, graduating in 1924.

It was at Lakeside, in 1927, that Grandma and Norah were shot accidently shot by a hunter while they were on the steps of their home talking to a neighbour. Grandma had one bullet pierce her neck and lodge in her lung. Norah had six bullets in her legs, three which could not be removed.

   Not long after that incident they moved from the farm. Norah went to Hamilton first and then later came to Toronto to work for the Excelsior Life Insurance Company, and in the Toronto City directory for 1933 Joseph G. Childs is listed as a civil engineer, the householder of 262 Gerrard St. East.
Grandpa died 28 November 1940, sitting in his arm chair in the living room.  Norah told me that he did not respond to her call, and she went in and found that he had peacefully passed away.  From the Toronto Tellegram , 29 Nov 1940:  CHILDS, Joseph G. -- Suddenly at Toronto on Thursday, November 28th, 1940, Joseph G. Childs, husband of the late Sophia Rebecca Weston and beloved father of Edna, Margaret and Norah, in his 71st year.  Resting at the Chapel of McDougall and Brown, 1491 Danforth avenue. Service in the chapel 4 o'clock Saturday. Interment, St. John's Cemetery, Norway.