SEE UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM.
Mom remembers being split up in homes. I tried to find documentation from the Children’s Aid Society in North Bay, but I could find nothing. At some point, Grampa managed to get the children back together again by hiring a young, pregnant, unwed mother – Mary Margaret Morrison. Mary was born in 1910, so in 1930, she would have been only 20 years old.
Another hint in the timeline comes from the death of Mary’s son, Donald, who was killed in a car accident in June 1950. His obituary states that he was 22 and that he’d “lived with his family in Mattawa for the past 20 years.” If this is true, then the Gallson’s were in Mattawa since 1930 meaning that after Gramma was committed to the hospital Grampa quickly gave up the Widdifield farm to go to Mattawa. This also indicates that Donald was 2 when he came with Mary to live with the Gallsons within months of Gramma leaving the home.
Jackie must have been born sometime between summer 1930 and January 1931, as Jimmy was conceived in February 1931 and born in November.
I want to think the best of Grampa Gallson and I will never know the true circumstances surrounding their lives and Gramma’s mental well-being, but he took little time in determining that she was not coming back. There’s no way he could ever have her back into a home where he’d been sleeping with Mary. Therefore, without anyone advocating for Gramma’s well-being on the outside, she would have been left in the mental asylum to live out her days.
UPDATE!!
Below is the 1931 Widdifield Township census. Its very interesting.
Mary Morrison is with the family in Widdifield, with Donald and John (Jackie). Mary was likely pregnant with Jimmy when this census was taken, yet she’s not assumed the surname of Gallson and she still is recorded as a housekeeper. Its very evident that her salary of $240 annually is being paid by someone else, as Grampa only claims he’s making $75 annually which would have been his pension. Who was paying Mary? Also interesting is that the house is only worth $300 and only had 3 rooms, although on other pages of the census, there were homes worth a lot less. It’s hard to imagine how Grandma felt moving from an apartment in Endicott, NY into this house.