I had submitted records for two sisters who were BHC to the Perry Snow Database in 2010. I now have significant more information on these two sisters. Significantly these children left England 118 years ago today. Bertha Hilda Winters (name sometimes recorded as Winter) was born June quarter 1891 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England. Her sister Ethel May Winters was born in September 1892. Their brother Herbert Mays Winters was born in March 1894 and their baby sister Gladys Grace was born in September 1896. They were the children of Robert John Winters and Mary Naomi Bridges. Mary Naomi, died in the December quarter of 1896 leaving Robert with 4 young children, the oldest only 6 years old. On May 5, 1899 the three oldest children came to Canada with the Annie McPherson agency. They sailed on the Gallia and were sent to Stratford Ontario. By the 1901 census Bertha was living with the Sparling family in Plympton Twp. Lambton County Ontario and her sister Ethel was living with the Core family in nearby Forest, Ontario. (this family is related to my husband). I have not yet been able to find Herbert in 1901. Little Gladys is living with her father as lodgers still in Cambridgeshire, England. Once I had found the parents of the Winters children I was able to track them here in Canada. In 1914 Bertha married another BHC named Frederick Pike. In 1920 the sisters sent for Gladys and the ships records indicate her passage was paid for by her sister Ethel and in 1921 Gladys is living with her sister Bertha and her family. In 1925 Ethel married Arthur Hastings in Port Huron, Michigan. I picked up the trail of Herbert and found him living in New York State where he joined the US Army near the end of WW1. Herbert remained in the US and after his death, his sister Ethel applied for and received a military headstone for him, which is placed in the Lakeside Cemetery in Port Huron. Gladys never married and Herbert may have been married and divorced but neither of them had children. Bertha and her husband Fred Pike had 8 children and Ethel and her husband Arthur Hastings had one daughter. The most heart warming part of this story of such young children being sent to Canada and separated, is that they appear to have stayed in touch all of their lives.
