Aunts, Uncles and Cousins – Part II by John Caverhill My Grandparents, Wm. A. (Carpenter Bill) and Cecilia had six children. My Aunt Winnifred (Winnie), their oldest, was born in 1881, in a frame house that replaced the original cabin on our farm. The remaining five children were born in the new brick house completed in 1883 by my grandfather. One section of the frame house was joined to the carpenter shop and became a blacksmith shop. The other section was moved over to the barns behind the new house and became a pig pen. This gave rise to a standing family joke. If Winnie made a kid’s typical blunder, as all kids do, the standard comment was, “What can you expect? She was born in a pigpen!” Eventually, Winnie married Jack Campbell, a London school teacher, in 1917, and they had two sons, Lloyd and Glen. Before they were married, Uncle Jack (as I knew him) would ride his motorcycle from London to visit his fiancée in Lobo, and he could do the trip in less than twenty-five minutes, which meant pretty high speeds over rough unpaved roads. After they married all mention in Father’s diary of the motorcycle ceased, so one may infer that this departure coincided with the bride’s arrival. In 1946, with things returning to normal after the war, Uncle Jack bought a new motorboat. It was a mahogany-hulled beauty with tiller steering. Its larger-than-usual outboard motor gave it a fast top speed (which Uncle Jack didn’t use when Aunt Winnie was present). For several years after the war, a good stretch of the Thames River in London’s Springbank Park was a popular place for motorboats. Springbank Dam was still operative at this time. Kung Fu & Tai Chi School EXPERIENCE MARTIAL ARTS AND WELLNESS BOOK A TRIAL CLASS AT https://kungfu-taichi.ca Dedicated classes for children • Day Camps Classes for teens, adults and seniors. (226) 998-8703 Enhance Physical Health, Confidence and Self Esteem with Sifu Carlos Ferraz 190 Wortley Rd. Martial Arts and Wellness Programs in the Heart of Wortley Village
In the later 1800s, three steamboats, Forest City, Princess Louise, and Victoria ran daily excursions from the Forks of the Thames down to Springbank Park. River depth varied from 20 feet behind the dam to less than two feet in some other stretches, which meant the steamboats had a draught of only 16 inches. Victoria had two decks, both above the water line, and on the day of the disaster had over 800 passengers, three times her safe capacity; so being top-heavy, she overturned with a loss of at least 182 lives. The Victoria Day Disaster in London, Ontario, as depicted by the Toronto Litho Company on June 13, 1881.
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Wortley Villager Jan-Feb 2024 • Page 15
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