RootsWeb.com Mailing Lists
Total: 1/1
    1. [GEORGE-L] Young Immigrants to Canada
    2. It sounds like my grandmother may have been among this group. Her name was GEORGE, Helen Florence (b.March 24, 1892). Her parents: William George and Alice (WINTERMEYER) George, both died of Tuberculosis in 1896. She and her siblings were placed in various "homes" in London. She was sent as a young girl to work in Toronto, Canada. We think Helen would likely have made the trip to Toronto about 1906-1907. She was to have been a domestic. She had some experience in London. She ran away & found her brother, Alfred GEORGE (b. abt. 1895) who had been sent earlier; he was working in a logging camp. When she found that she couldn't stay with her brother (a logging camp was no place for a young girl!), she left to New York City. Eventually, by working hard she went to nursing school, married into an Irish immigrant family of LARKIN and moved to Rhode Island. These LARKINs included US Civil War veterans, and politicians of some influence in local Pawtucket, Rhode Island history. In June 1950, tragedy struck the GEORGE family again. After she and her siblings had located each other, they held a family reunion. Flying home from that happy event, her brother Alfred William GEORGE was killed when his plane crashed in a lake outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. That was the first and last of their reunions. Found among her belongings after her death were personal invitations from US Presidents Roosevelt & Kennedy to attend social functions in Washington, DC. We have no idea what reason existed to warrant such invitations. Her ancestry includes the SOUTHEY surname. She always said she was related in some way to Poet Laureate Robert Southey of Camden (1774-1843). Helen's grandmother, Jane (SOUTHEY) Wintermeyer, is buried in St. Pancras Cemetery. Helen's story is one of hardship overcome by faith and persistence. We loved her dearly. She is buried in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA.

    02/28/1999 12:24:35