the opportunity to stay in England and attend the University sponsored by his father's family, but he chose to accompany his mother to Canada to start a new adventuresome life.
Charles was born in Marylebome section of London, where his father was a dental surgeon at Guys Hospital. His mother, Louisa Pavey, came from Stockland (near Exeter), Devon, the youngest in a family of 8 children. When her own mother died, her older sister Caroline helped to bring her up. Thus, Louisa after finishing school at 12 years of age, went to work as a housekeeper. Much later she moved to London where she met her husband, Charles Alfred Roberts who was four years her senior. Louisa's first child, a daughter, Margaret, died in infancy. Charles Alfred Junior was born January 2, 1895. Five years later his father died of diabetes. He was the son of Charles Duncan Roberts Esquire of Ramsgate, Kent. In 1990 there was no known cure for diabetes. Louisa had nursed her husband carefully for several months before his death in the countryside of Watford just outside London. In the cathedral churchyard in Ramsgate, Kent, he was buried in the Roberts family grave site. Louisa, now a widow at 30 years of age returned to Exeter with her five-year old son to make her own 1 iving. In Exeter Charles went to school and his mother became employed as a housekeeper as well as a special caterer. One Christmas, when his mother had to work at a fine country estate for the holidays, she had asked a neighbor to hold on to a special gift to be given to Charles on Christmas morning. Charles woke up on Christmas morning and eagerly looked into his stocking only to find several pieces of black coal that the neighbor's child had placed as a joke. For a sensitive lad who had known the pleasures of loving parents, this was crushing. Later in life Charles told about one wonderful birthday gift his father had given him...a whole army of soldiers made of chocolate. He remembered also that his father had put him on his shoulders outside their home at 19 Weymouth Street in Portland Place, London, to watch the grand 60th Jubilee parade of Queen Victoria in 1897. He also remarked on his father's great love for hunting and that the cane he carried could even be turned into a simple gun.
While in Exeter, Louisa was introduced to "Pleasant Sunday Afternoons" at an evangelistic church which she enjoyed, and where she began her study of the Bible.
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