“She was hit by a car crossing St. James Street.”
That was the first thing I learned about my grandmother. The
second was that she was born in England.
She came to Montreal
in 1904 at the young age of 17 to join her mother and older sisters who had come
over the previous year.
I often wondered if she knew that within a year she would
take the biggest step of her life and marry a black man. On August 5, 1905, Mary Ann Grimshaw married
William Saunders at St George’s Anglican Church, on the corner of Stanley and De
La Guachetiere. The church is still there today.
They set up house at 291 Aqueduct Street in Old Montreal and
had nine children, seven who survived. My Dad was number five.
What was it like back then to be a bi-racial couple? What kind of problems did they face? That was the question that started me on my research. But before I could even begin with their
lives together, I found that on October 12, 1939 my grandmother was killed by a
drunk driver while crossing St. James Street.
Through my research I found several newspaper articles about
her accident. The articles were full of information about how and when she
died. One publication even had a picture of her at the time of her death. The only picture I had of her was taken not
long after she had become a mother.
I also was able to get a copy of her coroner’s report. The report listed all of her injuries and had
the testimony of the two gentlemen, who had tried to help her after she was run
down, as well as the name and address of the man who took her life. It took great deal of effort not to go
looking for his family members; you have to remember I had just read the coroner’s
report which stated that he had not stopped after hitting her.
Some would say that after reading these accounts, I would
lose the taste for genealogy, but as my fellow genealogists know, they just wet
my appetite.
As I look back on the years that I have devoted to the
research on my family tree, I’m always amazed with the facts and stories I have
found. The picture that is slowly emerging shows a family overrun with tragedy,
from falling from roofs to being struck by drunk drivers, it’s a wonder that I
am even here.
To me genealogy is a puzzle to be put total one person at a
time and when all the pieces fit, these are the people I call my family.
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