- Apt 302
- 451 Bloor Street East
- Toronto M4W-1
February 14th 1977
Dear Nance:-
.I consider it a privilege to be the one out of our large family
to have the opportunity to try and tell you what I can remember
about the family... On a separate sheet I have listed the names
in the Register & Grandfathers marriage certificate (which is in
bad shape, soiled and torn).
I suppose we can begin with him [Bartholomew Watters]. He died
with what they called black fever at age 36. They could not get
him to perspire. Dad [John Watters] was seven years old and got
the fever also but he recovered because he could perspire.
That left grandmother [Mary, nee Malone] with a farm Tinryland
by name, one son [John] and 3 girls [Alice, Annie (marries
George Halpin) and Mary]. I don't know how long she lived but
she worked the farm with help from her brother - granduncle
Walter Malone, a bachelor as far as I can remember [widower of
Elizabeth (Bessie) Burgess, d. Rathmore 29 DEC 1872 aged abt 28]
had a lovely estate of his own with a mill & other attractions
on it, a small river ran through this, not sure if it was the
"Slaney".
I suppose that after Dad graduated from Trinity College in
Dublin and married Susan Burgess, Aunt Alice and Aunt Mary went
to uncle's home to live. Aunt Annie . went to Australia to
live, her name was Halpin. Her name was often mentioned but I'm
sorry I do not know anything further about her.
My first memory of Rathmore uncle's home, Aunt Mary was sick in
bed with gangrene in her toes and died there. Aunt Alice kept
house for uncle as long as he lived. When different ones among
the family grew old or sick, Uncle Walter & Aunt Alice took care
of them together. When we left for Canada, they were caring for
old Aunt Dora Bolton.
Uncle Walter died of a heart attack on his way home from a
shopping trip in the town [10 Jan 1910]. I suppose the Boltons
sold the Estate and your Uncle Jack [John Cecil Watters] took
Aunt Alice to live with them in Australia. His wife said that
she was a grand old lady and they loved her. I don't know about
relationship of the Boltons to us but I suppose they would be on
Grandmother's [Mary Malone's] side. I have no record of Dad's
marriage to Susan Burgess or of her death but she died in
pregnancy - kidney failure eclampsia, both mother and baby were
lost, it would have been her sixteenth child.
There is a large stone erected to her memory in the Cemetery
[Staplestown] with many other names upon it. I was unable to
decipher any of them due to age & weather when I was on a visit
in 1968 [I can supply an earlier, clear photograph].
She [Susan Burgess] was an aunt to Adelaide Corrigan, wife of my
cousin Fred of Killerig, my mother's oldest sister Adelaide
second son.
There was a Tom Burgess here in Toronto a first cousin of Dad's,
but no relation whatsoever to your grandmother. He died in
1952, his wife in '63 and his son Walter in '65.
This Adeline Burgess had two sisters Elsie and Emily. Elsie
married Tom, Fred's brother. Two sisters in the Burgess family
married two brothers in the Corrigan family. Emily married
someone else, she had one son. He is a farmer. I had dinner in
their home in 1968. Just at the moment their name escapes me.
I'm not sure whether your Dad [Charles Walter Watters 1876]or
William [William Bartholomew Watters 1874] was the oldest as a
sheet must have been taken out of the Bible and given to someone
or lost - also the marriage certificate & Dad's graduation
picture and perhaps a wedding photograph. ...
August 23 1894 John A Watters and Annie Singleton Arundell were
married in Rutland Church parish of Urglin County Carlow by
Reverend Hatchell. I have the certificate and a picture of
them. ...
Our part of the family is thus -
- Mary Ada. Born Dec 19, 1895, died in Toronto October 28 1959
- Nora Evelyn Jane was born Oct 18 1897 died June 10th 1898
- Frances Elizabeth born May 2nd 1899 died Toronto April 21 1963
- Yours truly Louisa Adelaide born Dec 16 1900
- Sarah Alice was born November 25 1905 died in Toronto May 10
1912
My earliest memory of Tinryland was of mother feeding me
Robinsons Patent Barley out of a bowl. Second memory was on
Halloween Night. My brother Henry was left at home to take care
of us kids and he sat by the fire with me roasting chestnuts &
making a chain out of others for us. When a great crowd of
young people came pounding on our kitchen door shouting and
singing, Henry had difficulty in keeping them out.
We left Ireland in 1907 after a party in Killerig. I hated to
leave the donkeys and the Moss Roses and the Carnations in the
garden.... The Moss Roses have all perished since.
We went from Carlow to Dublin then to Liverpool in England &
then on the big boat to Canada. Arrived Montreal September 1st
1907.
Our first job was bringing in the harvest and crops on a farm
near Montreal. Then to the town of Cornwall for the winter
where Dad, Henry and Bart got work. It was 60 below zero, quite
an experience for us Irish. Henry left for Toronto in the
Spring and never left it. He died with kidney infection in
1934, a bachelor. Our next move was to a rented farm in Wales
Ontario. Bart stayed about a year & then left for Toronto,
saved up his own money, returned to Ireland, married a girl in
Kilkenny, name Kathleen Eyre. After a while they returned to
Toronto. John William of Merseyside Wallasey England now was
born in Ireland Nov 15 1909. Reginald Eyre Watters was born in
Toronto April 15 1912. He retired from teaching in the Royal
Military College in Kingston. Three children Elizabeth Eyre
married to Ben Clausen, Graeme Married & living in Montreal and
Kit is attending St Lawrence College, taking up Art and Theatre,
perhaps you have heard this before.
Dad farmed here in Ontario on rented farms in 1908 9-10-11-12.
Then he did caretaking work but no work of any kind after 1918.
He died on Christmas Day1922... He was really too old to do
farming. Mother died from strokes also Dec 12 1925.
I think there must have been another Watters family as I recall
hearing about the Watters of Clonmore and Dad and I visited them
one Sunday for dinner. But I can't say if they were related to
us or not.
Grandfather was not only a farmer. He was
(a) tax collector and Dad got his job when he came of age and
also agent for the Singer Sewing Co.
(A person) was not quite as big a man (as Dad). Dad won the
heavy weight championships for the south of Ireland once.
Grandfather's Family Register
We Bartholomew Watters and Mary Malone were married by the
Rever'd John B. Maginess on the 26th December 1844.
- John Watters born June 5 1846 (Died Dec 25, 1922)
- Alice Watters born 24 October 1847
- Annie Watters born 5 October 1849
- Mary Watters born 24 May 1851
- Bartholomew Watters died 25 October 1851. Age 36 years.
I have the family Bible here with another record of some of the
first part of the family - but it is incomplete. I will record
them as written:
- Charles Walter Watters born March 22 1876
- John Watters born June 22 1877, died March 25 1878
- Henry Watters born August 7 1878, died in Toronto Canada in
1934
- Alice Ethel Watters born Nov 15 1879
- John Cecil [Jack] Watters born Jan 19 1881
- Samuel Watters born October 8 1882
- Sarah Constance Watters born Jan 25 1884
- Bartholomew Watters born
February 2 1886, died in Toronto Ontario Canada Dec 19 1936
- Dora Watters born June 19th 1887, died June 14th 1888
- (William, Annie, Florence, Ada Mary are missing & others,
perhaps two more.