Fearless Females: How My Grandparents Met

March 5 — How did they meet? You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?


I have my Dad's words on how he met my Mom and that will be in a separate post.


I have no idea how the shy stenographer, Vinetta Butchart, met my grandfather, John Bellamy.  My grandfather died when I was very young and Granny never spoke about herself.  I am presuming that they probably met about 1910 when Granny was working for a law firm, Boyle & Parlee on Jasper Avenue.  John S Bellamy worked and lived on Jasper Avenue, just two blocks to the east.  Jasper Avenue was the main street in Edmonton then and still is, but could this busy thoroughfare be the connection for this unlikely couple?


My paternal grandparents also met in Edmonton, but I have Grandpa's words from an interview done on New Years Day, 1980. 

Grandpa with his great-children about the time he related his memories

"At that time we came to Toronto and stayed from 1905 to 1911 and then I read all these placards that said "go west young man, go west" and I took that advice and I came west and arrived in Edmonton on Sunday, the 4th of April, 1911. 
So of course at that time a young man is looking for a gal. So my wife came over from England and she landed in Edmonton on Sunday morning at 6:00 and I met her at 10:00 and that was it. I didn't get married right away but I picked my gal right away. I didn't give anyone else a chance to get her."



My grandmother, Lucy Millicent Crockett arrived in Edmonton about September 1911 in the company of her sister, Lal. and her sister-in-law, Jessie.   She was only fifteen years old when she met Grandpa and he was almost twenty.  They married in November 1913.

We are so lucky to have Grandpa's personal memories on a tape.  His memory was still good even though he was eighty-eight when the tape was recorded.