From: THE BRIEF STORY OF THE DOBSON FAMILY - by PERRY & FRANKLIN DOBSON (1967) Page four. KATHERINE MARGARET DOBSON. Born October 10, 1860 on the farm back of Port Hope. As the eldest of a family which grew up around her, KATE was the mainstay of mother and the companion and comfort of father. She used to tell of her days as a little girl in Port Hope - especially of wearing a pretty dress to Sunday School. In Peterborough, she was living at home helping run the house and look after the children. She went to Sunday School and Young People's Society and George Street Methodist church. At this time "JOE FLAVELLE" used to deliver flour at the house and showed some attention to KATE, although he married CLARA ASHFORD. KATE used to go to prayer meeting with father. About 1926 SIR J. FLAVELLE told me how he always remembered father's prayers and his good voice. In the hard days at Courtland, KATE used to read such books as "LOCK on the Human Understanding," propped up on the was tub and the ironing board. She attended the Courtland School. MR. BENNETT was the teacher. On one occasion, he tried to kiss KATE after school, but she threw her books in his face. During the later years in Courtland a friendship sprang up between KATE and LOU DEAN who taught a school about four miles east of our farm. KATE often told of driving "TIP" and the basket phaeton from Courtland to Binbrook when we moved there. When, a year later, we moved to Simcoe, KATE became very prominent in the church and had a big class of girls. She also worked in the store part of the time and taught music to a few pupils. I remember her pointing out the notes with a peacock feather. While KATE and ALVER were on a trip to the West, Lincoln and Denver, they met an attractive young man who was in the West for his health, ADELBERT HENRY GALE. He and KATE became interested in each other and he afterwards visited her in Simcoe. He had been married, but his wife, MARY LADD, had died at the birth of her daughter, MARY ELIZABETH. Page five. Some time during the four years in Simcoe, KATE took a course at the British American Business College in Toronto. She wrote a good hand and had shrewd business sense. She was also ambitious enough to take up the four year reading course conducted by the Chatauqua Literary and Scientific Circle and she graduated in the class of '87, with MRS. ALDEN, known as "PANSY." After our moved to Toronto, father's death, and her own serious illness, KATE took on new responsibilities in Parkdale and in Bowmanville, where mother died in 1889. Shortly after this, KATE married ADELBERT GALE and moved to Waterville, Quebec, taking over the direction of the beautiful house on the hill and the care of little MARY ELIZABETH then about five years old. Her son, WARREN DOBSON GALE, was born October 15, 1890. Even then KATE was not free from her DOBSON responsibilities. JULIA then about 19 had gone to MOULTON College in Toronto, but almost immediately had a hemorrhage and for several years fought T.B. with the constant care and assistance of KATE and ADELBERT. The old house in Bowmanville was broken up and after ALVER left, PERRY also made his home at times at Waterville. After JULIA's death, about 1898, ADELBERT took over the English branch of GEORGE GALE & SONS and the family moved to England, living first at Birmingham, then after the business was sold, in Oxford. ADELBERT returned to Waterville bringing the family and began to develop his interests there. But the old lung trouble returned and they went to Georgia where he went into the lumber business in Thomasville but died there in April 1901. KATE returned to Waterville with WARREN and MARY and sent for PERRY to come back from Oxford. MARY went to Annesley Hall, Toronto, and then to Columbia to study art. WARREN attended Stanstead College, Bishops College School, Toronto University then to Columbia. Meanwhile KATE was left alone a good deal in Waterville and married DR. REGINALD KING of Compton who came to live with her in the Waterville home. Page six. For some years they were quite happy together until his death. After that KATE lived alone at the Waterville house and built a little cabin near PERRY on Lake Memphremagog. There she spent part of each summer and made many trips to England in the Winter. She spent a good deal of time at ST. THOMAS and with MARY in Minneapolis, where she died in January 1943, while visiting MARY and ARNOLD HOBBS. PERRY went to Minneapolis where a simple service was held and then took his last journey with KATE, a very sad one, to Waterville where a great company of old friends and relatives were waiting. A beautiful service was held in ST. JOHN'S Church and we laid her body beside ADELBERT in the family plot under the spreading elm. KATE was a woman of strong character and fine ability. She was most artistic and appreciated fine things. She was a second mother to JULIA and PERRY, and was greatly beloved by the people of Waterville and all who knew her. ========================== NOTES: first beau of KATE's "JOE FLAVELLE" Flavelle, Sir Joseph Wesley from TCE Standard Flavelle, Sir Joseph Wesley, meat packer, financier, philanthropist (b at Peterborough, Canada W 15 Feb 1858; d at Palm Beach, Fla 7 Mar 1939). Inspired by Methodism's demand for personal holiness, self-denial and careful stewardship, Flavelle rose from humble origins to become one of Canada's most able, respected and influential businessmen as president of the British Empire's largest pork packer, William Davies Co of Toronto, and as chairman of the Bank of Commerce, the National Trust Co and Simpsons Ltd. Successful in business, he devoted much of his wealth and energy after 1900 to charities, needy individuals and public service. He played a major role in the affairs of the University of Toronto, the Methodist Church, the Toronto General Hospital and the CNR. Chairman of the Imperial Munitions Board in WWI, Flavelle converted a scandal-ridden and inefficient industry into a vast, well-organized operation and received a baronetcy in 1917 - the last resident citizen of Canada to receive a hereditary title. Shortly thereafter, he and the William Davies Co were accused of profiteering from the wartime bacon business and, though an inquiry exonerated him, the episode sullied Flavelle's reputation. Author J. LINDSEY FLAVELLE AWARD Sir Joseph Wesley Flavelle (1858-1939), a financier and businessman of Toronto, endowed a medal in 1924. The medal is awarded for an outstanding contribution to biological science during the preceding ten years or for significant additions to a previous outstanding contribution to biological science.