Jewish children used to pride themselves in being able to trace their genealogy back to King David or Abraham. Nowadays this is practically a lost art, which is a pity, for nearly everyone has interesting details in the lives of his or her ancestors.

I was intrigued by my mother’s remark, one day, that some of our ancestors, whose surname was Smith, were once Tories, or United Empire Loyalists. They sailed from England some few years before the American Revolution and settled in Pennsylvania. Being newly come from the old country, they were naturally loyal to their king. Because of their Torie loyalty, their property was confiscated after the war. We also suspect that a marriage had taken place between a member of the family and a member of the Amish community since we were always told that we had an ancestor of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction. That member would have been shunned by the community. Anyway, the family migrated to Ontario, Canada, immediately after the war and there they lived for several years. This would also explain why mother’s grandmother harbored such a grudge against Americans.

One of their daughters married a Mr. Sykes in 1827. Mr. Sykes was a muffin man by trade, in other words, the town’s baker. He drove his horse and buggy up and down the streets of London, Ontario, selling his baskets of cakes, crullers and buns. His grandchildren used to watch eagerly in hopes that he’s have a few muffins for them, which he hadn’t been able to sell. Mr. Sykes had only one child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who was born in 1835.

For some peculiar reason her father married her off to an old geezer by the name of Alfred Fitt at the age of 27. They had one son, Alfred (their youngest), born just before his mother’s death in 1862.

They had three daughters, Jenny, Lizzie and Hannah May. Jennie, the eldest girl, who was nine at her mother’s death, was taken out of school by her father in order to bring up the younger children.

"Girls don’t need an education," he said. "Women only need to read and write a little and do simple household sums."

Jennie married Sidney Hobbs, a very lovable person, in 1881. They lived for several years in Brandon, Manitoba. Because of her own lack of education, Jennie was determined that her daughters should have proper advantages. She sent her four girls to convent school, although they were not Catholics themselves. Sidney became a bartender in Rossland, BC.

They had moved there in the late 1890’s at the time of the big LeRoi copper-gold strike when their children were nearly grown. These were Winifred, Blanche, Beatrice, Olive and Frank. Winifred, the eldest, married George Stevens, who was an immigrant from St. Erth, County Hayle, Cornwall, England, in 1904. During the next years they lived in Rossland, Mother Lode Mine and Hedley. Then in 1917 they moved to Vancouver. George was a mining blacksmith by trade and followed the mining strikes.

They had eight children living at the time of her death age the age of 36. Winifred died very suddenly in the big flu epidemic of 1918. George was a talented musician and picked up a bit of money playing background music for the early silent movies. A great treat was for one of the children to get to accompany their dad and see the movie for free.

At the time of Winifred’s death, some of the children were boarded out with various relatives at different times, but six did spend time in the Alexandra Orphanage. The boys all stayed in Canada, but the girls all moved to the United States.

It seems odd to reflect that a sizeable segment of the family are again American, after the lapse of over a century and a half. Thank goodness my mother didn’t inherit the usually bitter attitude of the U.E. Loyalists toward the Yankees!