Two Janes

My great-grandfather, William Gray, was married twice. His first wife died shortly have childbirth. He and she had one child, Catherine Jane Gray, and apparently an official or unofficial, adopted son, Robert Ferguson. They all lived in the Bon Accord settlement, in the country surrounding Elora, Nichol Township, Wellington County, Ontario. His second wife, was my great-grandmother Jane Reid Gray. Her picture is to the right. She was born in the Puslinch (Holstein), Wellington County, Ontario, where she was also raised. Her parents were William Reid and Hellen (Helen/Ellen) Gillespie residents of Holstein, Ontario, and her brother Hugh Reid married William's sister Catharine. Where was and who was William's first wife? It seemed a huge puzzle. In the spring I had found an old marriage register (remember this was before internet research) showing the marriage of Thomas Gray (I think his name was Thomas William), to Jane Allan, but that was all the information I had. So, off I was, in July of 1983, on another adventure. I had made arrangements with my father's elderly cousin, Amy Young, since deceased, to pick her up in London, Ontario and have her take me on a little tour of the Elora are. The Elora Cemetary is a beautiful, quaint, country cemetary, near the town of Elora, Ontario. The Elora Gorge waterfalls over the Grand River and a wonderful old mill that has been turned into an inn and great restaurant, make Elora a great day destination. I walked the rows and rows of the cemetary finding many deceased family members, Lillies, Grays, Downings and towards the back, BINGO, William Gray, with not one but two headstones, finally solving the question, who was William's first wife. In my letter the next month to Bertha Vickers Beug, Jane Allan's granddaughter, I wrote;

"Visiting the Elora Cemetary I found four headstone in the early Gray area. One in the ground for William Gray. One to the immediate left for Jane Reid and William Gray , it is much newer and was probably placed there at the time of Jane Reid Gray's death. One to the left of that one for the three small children of William Gray and Jane Reid, Godfrey McDonalld Gray, Helen Gillespie Gray and an infant daughter, who they named Margaret, but the one I think you would be most interested in is an upright old white stone just to the right of Williams's Gray's flat marker in the ground. It is almost impossible to read and I tried to get a rubbing with black wax, but it was very hard and the words carved into the stone are not raised above the stone, but I did get some information. I can't tell you all the wording, but it did say, "Jane, wife of William Gray, and lists her death date as September 1st, 1866, aged 28 years 11 months" ...

Jane Allan, TWO "JANES." She died a little more than a week after her daughter Catharine Jane Gray (pictured at left with her husband, George Vickers, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota), half sister to my grandmother Helen Gray Lillie, was born, August 22, 1866. Solved, just in time to let Catharine Jane's daughter Bertha, who then lived in Minnesota, know who her grandmother was. Civil registration in Canada did not begin until 1869, so there would be no other official record of her death, and the local church does not have that particular record anymore. I am often alone in rather remote cemetaries and often wonder, especially before cell phones, if any would ever find me if something happened. On a day to day basis I rarely tell people where I am or where I am going. But, wonderful discoveries and really peaceful and exciting days amongst the stones and trees of beautiful cemetaries.