While researching passenger lists at Library and Archives Canada, I've come across some very interesting information about the war brides and their families. The most recent was a whole family being sent into quarantine at Grosse Isle in August 1919 when they arrived in Canada on the Metagama.
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| Annette Fulford collection |
The passenger list shows a military dependent with three children who were taken to the quarantine station near Quebec. This piqued my interest. Who were they and why were they taken there?
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| Metagama Passenger List, August 1919, Library and Archives Canada |
Initially, I searched for baby Jack and found his entry in the Grosse Ile Quarantine Station database at Library and Archives Canada but his twin is listed as a female named Florence and her entry could not be found. I searched for just the surname Glover and it gave me five entries for the surname in the results. Database info shows the whole family was taken there on August 12, 1919, a day before the ship landed at the Port of Quebec.
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| Library and Archives Canada |
The information contained in the database indicated that the children had chickenpox and that they were released 10 days later on August 22. One of the twins listed on the passenger list as a girl was actually a boy named Lawrence.
On further investigation I learned that the parents were Alfred Cecil Glover, Reg # 117067 and his war bride Nora Augusta Prowse. They were married in Kent in 1916 and were travelling to Canada with their three sons: Stanley, age three, and twins Lawrence and Jack, age nine months. The couple lived in Lethbridge after the war.
Nora and Alfred had six sons before the death of Alfred in 1936 at age 46 in Edmonton. Nora died in Calgary in 1958 at age 63.
(c) Annette Fulford, February 2021
