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W.
J. Wood
Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Wood and family of five girls and one son arrived in
Killarney from Poplar, London, England in July, 1909. He had been
advised to move to a drier climate. His eldest daughter, Mrs.
Thomas Howell, was already established here so he decided to come to
them. At the time of leaving England, he was a foreman in the
boiler room of Clark’s factory for 15 years.
We left on the Empress of Britain and, on account of sighting icebergs,
were three days late arriving. So there was no one at the station
to meet us but as the train pulled away, a gentleman came and asked if
we were the Wood family from England. He said he had enlarged a
photo of Mr. Wood a few months before and he recognized him. He
was Mr. P. C. Edwards, the photographer. He directed us to the
Stone terrace where we spent a few days with the Howells, then we
rented a small cottage north of the terrace belonging to Mr. Lynn.
The first work Mr. Wood did in Killarney was mixing cement for the town
hall which was just being built. The family then moved to the Wm.
Hossack, Sr.’s house on Bay Ave. By this time he was working for
Dick Henry, the plasterer and was able to buy a piece of land from Jack
Hossack, Sr., where he dug his basement and Mr. Winram built the
house. There were 16 houses on Bay Ave. at this time, and seven
were owned by people from England and most of the others were rented by
English families, so it often was called Little England.
Mr. and Mrs. Wood took pleasure in the planting of gardens, flowers and
trees and in the winter, long evenings were passed with games of
dominoes, cards and checkers with the neighbors or family. Also
singing old songs and stories told of back home in the old
country. The children had good times skating in the Bay with a
bonfire to get warm by or sliding down the hills by the lake on
homemade sleighs or toboggans. A special treat was to go to the rink
Saturday nights and skate to the Killarney band. The W. J. Wood
family were all members of the Church of England.
Mrs. E. G. Hall
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