James William Young: England to Canada
James William Young was born on November 13, 1873 at Windsor, Emgland to William and Emma Young. James had two sisters, Maud and Kate. William's father drove a horse and cab and worked very long hours for very small pay.
As a result, when James's mother died when he was nine years old, William arranged for family friends to raise the children. He managed to place the two girls but was unable to find anyone to look after James.
In 1884, when he was 10 years old, William took James to Porstmouth and put him on a Navy training ship. The ship was for boys aged 12 years old, but William managed to convince them to take James. James worked very hard under strict discipline and missed his sisters a lot. He sailed all over the world with trips to Africa, China and India
Life was difficult in the navy. Instead of bread, they had barrels of biscuits which they would tap on the table before eating because of the maggots in them. Meat was salted. They were given 1 ounce of Jamacan rum each day and a dose of Quinine to prevent scurvy. They slept in hammocks made of heavy cord. To save their boots, they went barefoot except when in port.
James distinguished himself in the service, receiving two medals, one a Bronze Start from the Humane Society for saving the life of a sailor who fell into the crocodile-infested Nile river. He also received an Oak framed certificate from Queen Victoria. (Unfortunately the medals were lost in a fire at daughter Ivy's apartment at Warren in 1984)
When he was thirty years old, James requested his discharge from the Navy and married Grace Francis Samson on December 14, 1904 in Dover. (Grace Samson was born on October 15, 1883). James found work on ships carrying vegetables between Dover and Calais, France. Daughter Ivy was born in Dover on August 07, 1905.
In the fall of 1906, James left his family behind and travelled to Canada landing in Quebec. Despite being unused to the cold weather and the snow, he spent the winter working in a lumber camp in Quebec. During the winter, a fire burnt down the bunk house and he lost everything including his savings for his family's passage to join him. In the spring, he travelled to Ottawa and purchased a double lot at 101 Overton Street (later renumbered to 14). He built a one room tarpaper shack with a secondhand cook stove. He managed to find the odd days work during the summer and suffered a starvation cold winter with a job shovelling show on the Ottawa River. His cold shack was frozen solid along with everything in it.
In the spring, the family crossed the Atlantic to join him and landed in Quebec on May 14, 1909, then by train to Ottawa. By this time, James had started to work for E.B.Eddy Co. and started to build a nice home with a large garden and flower garden. Daughter Ivy attended Sunday School at the Baptist Mission (only missed five Sundays in 9 years) and went to school on Victoria Street in Eastview.
Son Albert was born around 1915. Ivy passed Grade Six with honours (called Sr. Fourth in those days), but instead of continuing in September, had to stay home to tend for her mother who had Tuberculosis. James was working twelve hour shifts for the Ottawa Gas Company when Grace came down with tuberculosis in 1919. She spent three months at the Lady Grey Sanatorium on Carling Aveneue and Grace passed away at home on June 3, 1920. Ivy was 13 and Albert was 5.
In 1925, Ivy married Ernest Olsen and started a family with children Dorothy and Donald. In 1930, with the depression on, Ivy and her family moved to Hugel, near Warren. That winter, Ivy's brother Albert camt to visit. He developed apendicitis and was taken to Sudbury General hospital where he died on March 31, 1931, just 16 years old.
After the death of his son, James sold everything he owned in Ottawa and moved to Kipling, purchasing a farm. Ernest and Ivy and their family moved in with James for a while before purchasing their own farm south of Warren. James stayed on the same farm growing beautiful flowers until his death on February 17, 1946.