Waite Family History
"John E. Waite married Laura Caroline Akester in Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire, England, on Christmas Day, 1879. John was 19 years of age, Laura a year younger. A son Isaack was born within the year but lived only six months. A year later Laura gave birth to twin stillborn daughters. Three more children were born in England; Elizabeth Ann in 1880, and Rose Ellen and John William in the same year - 1885."
John E. and Laura ,along with John E.'s sister and brother-in-law, Emily Elizabeth and Wilson Windle, set bound for Canada from Liverpool, England, aboard the Steam Ship Sarmation on August 27, 1886, and disembarked in Quebec City on September 6. They made their way to Pembroke, Ontario, where the two men formed a partnership with a man named Hollinger and started the first brick yard in the Ottawa Valley. The operation was called the Windle Waite and Hollinger Brick Yard. Shortly after their arrival in Pembroke, Rose Ellen, just six months of age, choked to death with convulsions from whooping cough and was buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery grounds. Four years later their son, John William, died of fever and convulsions at five years of age and was buried in the same cemetery.Shortly after the death of his son, John E. dissolved his association with Windle and Hollinger and relocated a new brick yard at Port du Fort on the Ottawa side of the Ottawa River. When these clay deposits gave out, he located for a third time at Foresters Falls and for a few years as many as 12 men worked at the yard and at times as many as a dozen teams of horses with wagons would be lined up waiting to be loaded with brick or tile. Apparently John E. was trained in the art of boxing and a story was often repeated that one if his young workmen, who held a grudge, told his sixty year old boss "that he'd surely hang a beating on him he was was only 25 years younger". The old JEW told his antagonist that his nose had yet to be hit and challenged him to be the first. The workman took a wild swing only to have his fist knocked away setting himself up for a good punch which ended the brawl much to the amusement of the other hired hands. Most of the homes built within a forty mile radius of Foresters Falls were constucted with Waite brick, each bearing the initials JEW.
As an author and historian, I feel compelled to discuss a dream that I had on August 18, 1992, in the hopes that someone out there can shed some light. I dreamed that I was tape recording an older woman relative, maybe an aunt, and that she had produced an old photo album and that on one of the pages were two poor quality black and white photographs. The one photograph was of a good looking young man of about 20 years looking straight into the camera and smiling. He was wearing climbing gear and had a light coloured sash over his right shoulder which bore an inscription across his chest which read 'Hannah's Man of the Orange'. Across the bottom of the photograph was the scrawled signature 'John E. Waite'. The second image was of the same man and a companion standing beside a sign which read 'Man of the Orange Trail'. I got the impression that the hike was some kind of an initiation into the Orangeman fraternity. At first I assumed that I had been dreaming about uncle John Ellard Waite but then I realized that the young person in the dream was more likely to be my great grandfather John Edward Waite. The dream was so vivid that I awoke with goose bumps all over my arms and I immediately got out of bed and attempted to write everything down on a discarded envelope while sitting at the kitchen table. Later that same morning I wrote a letter to my father asking if he could shed any light on my strange dream. His reply was negative. The dream caused me to spend a great deal of time over the next month researching England's history at the local library.
I learned that the Protestant faith was the basis for the Orangeman fraternity and that its history in Europe dated back to the House of Orange in Holland and to William of Orange in England. The textbooks revealed that King Charles 1 of England, William's maternal grandfather, was publicly beheaded for not attending to the affairs of state on January 30, 1649. More likely the real reason was the fact that he took a French Catholic wife and then began practicing her religion. Charles 1 marriage to Henrietta Maria of France produced 9 children, 3 of which - Charles (later Charles 11), Mary (later Mary 11, Queen of Great Britain), and James (later James 11) - would later all struggle for the English throne following the death of their father. I learned that Parliamentarians, Protestants under the command of Oliver Cromwell, managed to wrest the reigns of governmental power from the English nobility for eleven years. During that period two of the beheaded king's sons - Charles and James - fled to their mother in France to escape their father's enemies. The pair secretly took on the Roman Cathloic beliefs of their mother while daughter Mary fled to Holland to marry William, Prince of Orange, and consequently embrace his Protestant faith.
Charles 11 gained the English throne after the death of Cromwell and ruled England for 25 years until his death in 1685 making way for his younger brother James - King James 11 - to rule the English monarchy. Almost immediately James signed a treaty with Louis X1V of France to Catholicize England's army and government. When James fathered a son in 1688, England's leading prominant Protestant statesmen, fearing the establishment of a Cathloic dynasty, invited Jame's sister Mary's son William (afterwards William 111 of Orange), to England's throne. This power struggle for the throne pitted Catholicism vs Protestantism . William of Orange, the son of Mary 1 (King Charles 1's daughter) had earlier married Mary 11 (King James 11's daughter), making him both a nephew and a son-in-law to the man he was destined to dethrone. William landed his army on English shores in November, 1888, promising to defend the liberties of England and Protestant religion. He marched unopposed to London since England's King James 11 had ignominiously fled to France. In London William met with a Protestant Parliament who denounced James 11 by offering the throne jointly to Wiulliam and his wife Mary. William 111 of Orange thereupon ascended the throne and immediately scuttled his father-in-law's treaty by declaring war on France. William's ambition was to make all of North America, including Newfoundland with it's valuable fishery, exclusively English. King Louis of France countered by appointing Louis de Frontenac, previously first governor of New France (Quebec), as the head of France's forces in the New World. William 111 of England came to be known as William of Orange and founder of the Orangeman fraternity. On July 1, 1690, King Billy defeated his father-in-law's army on Irish soil at the Battle of the Boyne. William's victory lead to the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, and the Penal Laws, which basically disenfranchised the majority Catholic population. Since the late 1790s, the Battle of the Boyne has been celebrated by the Orange Order, a Protestant organization, on the Twelfth of July. In a most simplistic explanation, religion turned England's royal rulers against each other and brought England into a bloody civil war.
While sleuthing in the archives at the Church of Latter-Day-Saints Family History Centre in Salt Lake City, I had read that a Thomas Waite was a member of Parliament and one of 41 judges to sign the 'warrant of execution' of King Charles 1.
The following quote is found in the Encyclopedia of Biography, R920.073, Volume 29, at the Family History Centre of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I have given my unforgettable dream a great deal of thought over the years and March, 1994, I returned to Renfrew, Ontario, to celebrate by Dad's 80th birthday during which time I visited several of Dad's sisters optimisticly hoping that one of them would produce the 'Hannah's Man of the Orange' photo of old granddad with his scrawled signature. Such was not to be the case but I did unearth some 'notes' from one aunt's data bank from a computer program identical to the one I had purchased in Salt Lake. The biographer was given as Mr. Terry Hamilton, 15 Leeds Close, Unsworth Bury, Lancashire, England, Bl9 8L9. What I found especially interesting was the fact that his notes were based on an interview that I had carried out with Gramma on October 19, 1975. Unfortunately my correspondence to him was never answered. Is there such a thing as passed down memory where a gene containing a 'memory' chip is passed from generation to generation? While in Renfrew I visited with as many relatives as possible and returned home with over 100 borrowed photographs, most of which I had never seen before. It was unnerving to study pictures of my father in his youth as his facial expressions and stance in so many images were identical to those of my oldest son. Are we not reborn through our children? I can yet vaguely recall attending Orange Day parades in my youth in Foresters Falls and seeing my uncles either marching in the parades or being chaufferered around town in antique cars. I believe one of them even got to ride a while stallion and lead the parade impersonating 'King Billy'. Apparently John. E. was the son of Joseph Waite (born 1828) and Margaret Ann Ward. They had seven children - Frederick, who married Sophia; Alexander; Charles, who was killed with a saw; John Edward - the subject of this biography; Joseph, who was drowned at the Battle of Jutland; and Emma, who married Windle. Frederick may possibly have came out to Canada sometime after 1886 where he went to Toronto to work for Massey Ferguson. I would very much like to obtain information on John E.'s and Laura Caroline's parents, Emma and her husband Windle, and the Hollinger in the Windle Waite and Hollinger Brick Yard. I've also always wondered if there was any connection between Jospeh Waite, father of John E., and Thomas Wayte, the regicide. Does a place called 'Hannah' exist in England? Could this have been a picture of J. E. just prior to his leaving England for Canada? Could the J. E. Waite have been from an ealier period?
'I was born in Forresters Falls on May 23, 1916. I was born in a house with a midwife and they thought I was going to die so said lets call him Ender and let that be the end of it. That's one of the ways I got my name. Actually, Dad got it off a mail box. Dad was driving the mail route one day for his brother Wilf down the Queens Line and saw Ender Campbell on a box and thought it was different so he gave it to me. When I was first born we lived in a little house in Forresters Falls called the Scobie house. They tell me I was born in that house. It wasn't far from Bell's Store. The Waite's went to the United Church in the Falls. As far as I know we lived in that wee house where I was born along with Gerald, Nemmie, lloyd and Orin. Dad worked in the brickyard with Grampa. Dad must have also lived over on the Elliot farm for awhile, and then the Queens Line before moving out to the Grant Settlement until John (a son) took over and he moved back to the Falls and built the house near Bell's Store. I remember living in the Falls in what was called the old Elliot farm. Orin opwned it for awhile and Arch owned it for awhile and I guess Dad owned ot for awhile. Wound up Orin's wife Muriel sold it to the Bells in the mid 80s . Then we rented out on the Queens Line for a year or so and the only dang thing that I can remember about that was that they had a whole bunch of steers and they run under a shed loft out in the barn yard. I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. And my Uncle Lot and Orin were in the horse stable, the building that ran parallel to that open shed. They wouldn't be very old either. Orin would be about 12 or 14 and Lot 2 or 3 years older. I don't know what I was doing up in this old shed loft but it had boards to hold the straw up and I stepped on the end of a board and it went up and I went down in among them steers. That scared me but it scared the steers just as bad thank God. I started to bawl and the steers snorted and started to run. Orin and Lot heard me and opened a window and it was up about 4 feet high. They jumped up on the window and hanging their arms out yelled at me to run to them. I did and the two of them pulled me in. I think I howled for a week.' '
Dad bought the Grant Settlement farm in about 1926 or '27 and times were real good but then the crash came in '29 and it came overnight. You could sell a cow to-day for $150 and less than a week you couldn't get $15 for her. That's how bad it was. We had terrible years. Things during the early thirties were desperate. Along with no money moving, cripes Kate, we got no rain and no grass grew, or hardly any hay or grain or anything. It was just unbelieveable. And then about '37 things started to improve a wee bit and in '38 it was better and then in '39 the war broke out and it just kept escalating. The war cost a lot of people their lives but the economy began to grow again.
In 935 Ender and neighbour Clifford May managed to get a job working on the Canadian National Railway line between Portage du Fort and Beachburg for 25 cents an hour less 90 cents a day for room and board. The trans-Canada rail line had decided to replace the old ties with newer and larger steel rails to service heavier and longer trains.
'There were ten men on each end of the rail with tongs and when we went to start the job I picked up a pair of tongs and made for a rail. The rails were damn heavy. There was no place for Cliff May and I to go so we went to the middle. That lasted only a day or two and Tom Heeney - a hell of a good fella - he was the foreman, beckoned me over. He said, 'Come here.' we I went over and he says 'You and your chum are working too hard.' I says, 'Oh, I don't think so' and he says, 'Oh, yes, sometimes when you lift in the middle both end go down' to which I replied 'I didn't realize we were lifting that hard.' He knew damn well we weren't doing any lifting. Heeney asks, 'Are you familiar with the farmers along the railroad?' and I said, "Yes, I know every farmer from Portage to Beachburg. Why?' He says, 'How would you like to be my head water boy? and I answers, "i'd love it.'
On hot days the four water boys were unable to satify the thirst of the 125 workers stretched out along almost half a mile of torn up track. Along one section of the line, the farmer's wells were 700 - 800 and even 1,000 yards from the track. This meant the water boys had to pump water from the wells and then carry the pails of water to the water wagon - a four-wheeled contraption that ran up and down the track. Once the wagon was laden with pails of water, the four water boys took turns cranking up and down on the wagon's hand pump in a race to get their precious ly cold cargo to the end of the track. Once at the end of the track each water boy grabbed a pail of water in each hand and began walking along the torn up section of rail line. The water boys had to hide the watering cups in their pockets to prevent the workers nearest the water wagon from stopping them and taking water meant for the men farthest away from the end of the track.
'One day it was cool and the men weren't drinking very much so old Tom Heeney says to us water boys, 'How would you lads like to give a hand shovelling ballast in between the packers?' Down we went. We were shovelling away and I dropped a shovel full of gravel on the rail. My back was so damn sore that I could hardly throw the gravel and once in awile I had to straighten up. I was shovelling in this balalst and it was making a noise and old Sam Gretta said 'cut that out' and I said 'cut what out?.' He said, 'Don't let your shovel hit the rail. It makes too much racket.' I don't know what made me hit the tiw with that short handled shovel right at his toe but anyways the shovel stuck in the tie. Gretta reached down to pull it out with one hand but he couldn't. It took both his hands. He said, 'You're fired.' There were different foremen. Heeney was head foreman but Gretta was the foreman over the packers. I said, 'I am like hell - I quit. I quit when I gave you the shovel.' He said, 'You're still fired.' I said, No, I'm not. I quit.' Up the track I went. I expected I was through. The water wagon was up there so I went back up. Heeney was standing there with his foot on the water wagon. I don't know where Cliff and the other fellas were. He said, 'Did you come back for a drink?. I said 'No, Sam Gretta, that God damn wop - he thinks he fired me but I quit'. Heeney says, 'He can't fire you - you're my man - not his'. I says to Heeney, 'I'll stay on but Sam Gretta will never get another drink from me. Piss on him. To hell with him. He can go dry.' Heeney says, I don't muind that'. I had a yoke that I'd gotten from Dad and I hook on a couple of pails and go down to water the boys. Gretta saw me coming and when I got close to him he said, 'You put those pails down and get out of here. Tou're fired.' I got into quite a bit of an arguement. I says, 'Let's say I quit and went back to the water wagon and was rehired and here I am. Do you want to fire me again?' He thought for a few seconds and said, 'If that's the case then give me a drink of water'. I said , 'To hell with you.' I had a cup in each finger and he grabbed my hand but I yanked it away. I picked up a pail of water and let him have it. The whole works. 'That's the last drink you'll ever get from me Sam.' The gang yelled and hooted. Poor you Sam got killed a year or so later on a hand car. Poor old guy didn't hear the train come up behind him.'
It was back breaking work and many men quit. One day Heeney asked Ender if he knew of any good man that he could hire or if he could talk some of those who had quit to come back and talk to him. A short time later Ender's brother Gerald began working on the railroad as a packer.
One cool day when it wasn't too busy on the water wagon I was talking with Mr. Heeney when he says, 'Do you suppose there is a man in this gang who could pick up that keg of nails and bring it up to the track?' He was referring to a 150 - 200 pound keg of nails that had rolled 60 - 70 feet down the embankment and up against a wire fence. Heeney stopped everybody. I'd been 2-3 months on the job. Heeeney says, 'You're a great bunch of lads but is there anyone here who can carry that keg of nails up to the tracks? Mac Code, the head spiker and a good little man who weighed 140 - 145 pounds, said he could. 'You can or you just think you can' retorts Heeney. He guzzled that keg of nails, rolled it up onto his knees and started up the embankment, his feet sinking up to his ankles in the soft gravel but he just couldn't quite make it and three quarters of the way up he packs it in and the keg rolled back down to the fence. Gerald went down and rolled it up onto his knees and worked his way up the embankment and thumped the keg down between the rails. He then walks up to Code and says, 'I'm a better man than you Code and By Jesus I can lick lick the shit out of you.' Everybody yelled and cheered. I said, Mr. Heeney, what do you think of that for a man?' He says, That's the best little man I ever saw.' I says, 'That's my older brother and I don't pretend to be that strong.' Heeney replied, 'Ah, but maybe you got more brains.' Gerald had the respect of every man in the gang after that.' Ender S. Waite tapes, Renfrew, Ontario, 24 June, 1992
Photo of Shanty Life @1937
In March or April of 1941 Ender managed to get work in the International Nickle Mines in Sudbury. He stayed with his older brother Orin, his wife Muriel, and their five children. Three years earlier he and his brother Gerald, along with Harvey Code, had taken the train to Sudbury looking for employment. Gerald and Harvey were hired from hundreds of applicants but Ender was turned down because the mine's medical doctor thought he had goitre. Ender was disappointed but had no recourse but to return home.
'I started in Sudbury for 55 cents an hour. When wages got to 60 cents an hour everyone thought they were rich. They really thought they were rich. But the unions came in a spoiled everything. They didn't know when to quit. They were good for the economy but upon my soul to God I still think they didn't know when to quit. I started first on the tracks. There were train tracks running all over and I started on it first putting in ties and cleaning rocks off the railroad. Quickly becoming a Jack of all trades, he soon managed to get a job in the pump house. 'It was crazy. I'll bet you spent 2 -3 weeks pumping water out of one hole into another one only to have a culvert bring it back into the original hole. August Switch, the foreman and a heck of a fine fella, knew what was going on. I'd work the afternoon or graveyard shift. I'd go to the coal bin and fill up 2 - 3 bags of coal and go down and get the fire going. On some nights the hoses were froze up and you couldn't get any water anyway. Later I'd hear a knock on the door and August would come in and curl up for a little snooze.'
Photo of Ender Stewart Waite, 1941 Engagement Portrait
I decided to try and get a tansfer to the open pit. I got all dressed up one night in that suit I had in Sudbury and with one of them white helmet hats that I used to wear all the time and went to the superintendent's home. Gerald and Harv were working up there and I told them what I was going to do and they said you won't get a transfer you'll get fired. I said, 'I don't care, I going anyway.' I wasn't a bad looking ald when I was all dressed up. I still remember. It took a lot of nerve to go and wrap on the door. His name was Kennedy. I knocked on the door or rang the door bell, I don't know which. I was a pretty spiffy looking lad all dressed up and took my white hat off and held it in my hand and I guess his daughter, a nice looking girl of 16 or 18, came to the door. She answered the door and I said, ' Good evening.' And she said, 'Good evening.' And I said, 'Is Mr. Kennedy at home?.' And sge said 'Yes.' And I said, 'I wonder if I could talk to him for awhile. I'd like to speak to him.' And she said, 'I don't know.' She went back in and said, 'There's some young man wants to talk to you Daddy.' I could hear Mr. Kennedy's reply, 'Tell him to go away and leave me alone'. She says, 'Oh, no, Daddy, let him come in. He's a good looking fella.' So God I walked in and talked for awhile and he said, 'What do you want? You want to see me about something.' amd I said, Yes, I do.' And he said, "What is it? and I said, I'm working out on the tracks out there for Inco and the odd time they send me up onto what they call the high dump where the dump the red hot slag.' And I went on to say, 'That's not a fit place for any white man and you probably already know that.' 'Yes, I know all about that.', he replied. And I pips up, 'I was wondering if you could give me a transfer to the open pit?' He jumps up and said, 'My God, do you know who you're talking to?' And I replied, 'Yes, that's why I'm here.' He said, 'Well, there's never been a man transferred from surface to the open pit yet. Any transfers I've had are from underground to the open pit.' I said, 'I belieeve you but there could be a first time.' I was very polite, don't ever think I wasn't. He said, 'Well, there's never been a man transferred yet.' And I replied, 'Well, Mr. Kennedy, I'm very happy to have had a chat with you and tell you what I would like anyway.' He says, 'Who do you think you are?.' I said, I'm myself and I'd like to get up the ladder same as you and the otherfellas. I'm engaged to be married and I don't want to bring my wife up here it I have to work where I am.' He took another look at me and then his daughter and she looked at me. So nayways, he says, 'I'm sorry.' I said, 'That's OK, it doesn't hurt to try.' And he said, 'No, it sure doesn't.' The next morning when I went out and punched my clock there was a transfer in the thing. Every time I saw the man after that there was a big, 'How do you do.'
In the open pit I drove a truck for awhile. They were bringing ore up from underground and dumping it in the crusher on the surface instead of underground. Then it went by belts here and there depending on the quality of the ore. As far as I know they processed it all and melted it and got the ore out of it and then what was left went to the slag dump in the big pots. That was the waste. Well, I drove a great big semi-trailer for awhile and then they gave me the great big trucks. Holy snortin' the wheels were as high or higher than a man. They used to drill big holes down so far and fill them with dynamite. Then they'd put them off and drop the wall down into the open pit. They'd do that 2-3 times a week. Any rocks that were big you drilled them and broke them up with dynamite. And then you drew them up with the great big trucks. The loading was done with big electric shovels capable of handling 10 tons. The big trucks would take ore that wasn't good or worth putting through the smelter and take it out to the high dump. And they put a rock on one of them big trucks one day. They shouldn't have done it. It took two shovels to load it. When the operator hoisted his load up with a big telescope to dump it and when it (the boulder) slid off the weight broke the telescope and upended the triuck. Fortunately the lad had the door open and he jumped to safety but the truck went down the high dump. I quit driving them big trucks. My nerves wouldn't stand it. I asked my foreman one night if there was anything else to do that my nerves wouldn't allow me to drive those big trucks with ease. They weren't hard to drive. He told me that I was the first man to ever ask to get off driving trucks.
Ender became a spotter. 'I was out there dumping them trucks one night with a little carbide light. You had to spot it on the ground and they put the back light whereever you spotted the light. It worked great for awhile but then the light went out. It was black dark and of course the trucks kept coming but I couldn't dump them. I sent word to the shift foreman with an empty truck that I couldn't dump them. (August) Switch came out and asked, 'What's the matter Ender?' And I told him 'My light's out.' He gave me his and I started dumping trucks and before he was out of sight his light went out and he came back and gave me a little pocket pen flashlight. The things shows a spot about the size of your thumb so I took it back and spotted and then went up and asked the driver if he could see the spot. He says, 'Oh, Jesus, bo, I can't see thqt.' I says, 'Well, I'm not going to risk you going over the high dump.' I went and told August and he said, 'You'll do it or else.' I said, 'Orx else what?' And he says, 'Or else you're fired.' I said, 'August, there'll be no more or else. I'm quitting right now.' He saus, 'You're not'. And I says, 'I am. You're asking me to break safety rules and you know what that means. If I go to the office and tell them you'll be in hot water.' He sayus, 'You've got the quickest temper of any man I know. Don't quit.' I told him that Dad wanted me back home anyway. I handed in my notice and they wrote 'rehire anytime'.