Daniel John McKay Brown and Ida Frances Pike
The woman in that picture looks like she knows this might not be a good idea, this wedding thing, don't you think?
Ida Frances (Pike) Brown is my maternal grandfather's mother and my favorite mystery. We know very little about her, and it seems she wanted it to stay that way. My grandfather is still alive and still sharp at 92 years old, but he doesn't have much to tell about his mother. As a young woman, Ida came from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia on her own, looking for work. She was on her way to Halifax, but lingered in Sydney where the boat had dropped her off and met handsome and charming Dan Brown. They married on 16 Nov 1912 and went on to have twelve children. As for her life in Newfoundland, there isn't much to go on. The name Billard, the area of Channel/Port aux Basques, and that perhaps her grandparents were lighthouse keepers.
Ida died in Halifax on 1 Jul 1963. I sent away for her death certificate, but all the info was supplied by one of her sons, who didn't know any more than my grandfather does. The only parent information completed was Name of Father: PIKE. It did confirm her birth date as being 10 Nov 1890 (although again, info given by her son).
Newfoundland was not part of Canada until 1949, and the first census of Channel seems to have taken place in 1921, long after Ida had left. Not really knowing where to look next, I hopefully posted her information (scanty as it was) on a message board and moved on to other branches of the tree. Happily it wasn't long before I got something.
A man in Newfoundland doing research on his own family noticed a baptismal record* for an Ida Frances in Channel, Newfoundland. She was born 10 Nov 1890, baptised 21 Nov 1890, and the daugher of Louisa Pike! In the space for her father, though, there was only the word "Illegit." (this is where the name Billard came in: Ida felt that should have been her name). Very exciting, but poor Ida. And poor Louisa too, for that matter.
And that's all I've got. Other than that, I see a Timothy Pike was a lighthouse keeper in Channel in 1891, but I can't find any connection to Ida or Louisa. I also can't find Ida in the 1911 Canadian census, so she may still have been in Newfoundland then. [Nope, she wasn't.]
If Ida's situation wasn't ideal in Channel, I'm sorry to say it didn't improve much after her marriage to Daniel Brown. He was an incorrigible womanizer who often drank away their food and rent money. Daniel would run up debts all over town and then the family would pack up and move in the middle of the night to escape his creditors. He may also have been physically abusive--I'm not sure--but it certainly wasn't an easy life.
(One story tells that Daniel was on a ferry from Halifax to Dartmouth when the ferry crashed into the dock and began to sink. At the time, the men and woman were segregated on the journey, with the men upstairs and the women down. Well, Daniel had snuck down to be with the women, which made him a first responder, so to speak. Afterwards, he was hailed as a hero and his picture appeared in the paper. The family moved that night.)
*On microfilm: Channel Anglican Church Reel 1/8.
