An "All My Ancestors" website

Fourth Generation

8. Frank Ernest HILLMAN [image] ¹ was born ² on 28 Jan 1902 in Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada. He died on 12 Nov 1975 in Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada. He was buried on 14 Nov 1975 in Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada. He married ^{3, 4} Emma BOURNE on 20 Jun 1923 in Dundas, Ontario, Canada. [Parents]

Frank "was born in their small modest white frame house [on 12 Alanson Street, Hamilton]. They had no telephone so [his father] Ernest had found it necessary to call the doctor from a neighbours and, as was the custom, the birth took place in the home. The baby was born with cactaracts on his eyes and the couple were quite concerned. Leonora took young Frank to a local mission where he was prayed for and the cataracts disappeared.

"Ernest and Leonora had married only eleven months earlier in London, England and because of Leanora's longing for England, the threesome moved back to London, England where shortly thereafter another child was born. This child only lived a short time and then died. Ernest and Leanora had no other children so Frank was raised as an only child.

"In 1973 Frank recalled that his Aunt Petronilla Nicola was his babysitter and he used to do the rounds with his grandfather Francesco Nicola in Brighton as the older man sold fruit and vegetables from his street cart. Grandfather Nicola presented him with a special boat when the family decided to return to Canada. Unfortunately Frank thought he would sail the boat behind the ocean liner and when he threw the boat overboard with only a string attached, the string broke and the boat was lost.

"The family became involved at the United Church and later at the Baptist Church. Frank worked with the young people and was considering the ministry as an occupation. ...

"With both Frank and Emma working with the youth of the Dundas Baptist Church it wasn't long before they met. Frank was often visiting the Bourne home to work with Emma's brother, Fred. Frank and Emma soon started dating and after a courtship of two years were married on the hillside overlooking the Dundas Valley at the residence of the Bourne family ... After a beautiful ceremony they left for the popular resort of the day, Crystal Beach, for their honeymoon. Their first home was to be in the bigger city of Hamilton at 52 Cedar Avenue. In Hamilton, Frank accepted a job with the newly opened Firestone Company making automobile tires." ("Hillman Family Newsletter", January 1990, by GPH).

Four gen MCC 935027 submitted by Ja S.

9. Emma BOURNE [image] ¹ was born ² on 3 Dec 1899 in Springford, Ontario, Canada. She died on 16 Aug 1975 in Sarnia, Lambton, Ont. The cause of death was cancer. She was buried on 20 Aug 1975 in Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada. [Parents]

Sometimes known as "Sister Relief Society" for having held most of the positions available in her local church women's organization.

"23735-23 Frank Ernest HILLMAN, 20, tire builder, Hamilton, Dundas, s/o Ernest Peter HILLMAN (b. England) & Leonora NICOLA, married Emma BOURNE, 22, dress maker, Springford, Dundas, d/o Charles BOURNE (b. England) & R. SHARP, witn: E. COOPER of Toronto & J. W. MURRAY of Dundas, 20 June 1923 at Dundas" (From Ontario Marriage Registrations accessed 5 June 07)

[Child]

10. Albert Victor HITCHCOCK [image] ^{1, 2} was born ^{3, 4} on 26 Jan 1882 in Ortonville, Victoria, New Brunswick, Canada. He died ⁵ on 31 Dec 1952 in Ortonville, Victoria, New Brunswick, Canada. The cause of death was heart attack . He was buried ⁶ on 3 Jan 1953 in Ortonville, Victoria, New Brunswick, Canada. He married ^{7, 8} Ethel Mary WALDRON on 10 Jul 1912 in Tower Hill, Charlotte, New Brunswick, Canada. [Parents]

When he was nine months old he crawled through the woods toward the neighbouring farmhouse.

His mother died when he was 12 years old. She lay in bed sick for about a year before her passing. During this time, the family hired a woman to look after the household and the children. Albert got up one morning and decided to get his sister Addie up to help him. The "hired girl" told him don't do that, I had her up all night to be with me during the thunderstorm last night. Albert was determined to go upstairs and wake her up. If you do that, the hired girl warned, I'll wrap you around that table leg.

Albert did try to wake his sister up, and he was grabbed by one arm and one leg and wrapped around the kitchen table leg. It was extremely painful and one side was very bruised for a while. All this happened while his mother Charlotte lay sick in bed elsewhere in the house.

In 1901 the census taker found 19 year old "Albert V." as the third - oldest of several siblings living together with 26 year old Herbert C Hitchcock as "head of household." Their mother had passed away and their father was living with his second wife in Perth.

The 1911 census finds Albert as the head of household, though his father is listed on the line directly below. (See Automated Genealogy, and select page 14, line 21)

They lived in a small two storey structure that some years later was converted to a blacksmith shop with a forge, where Albert worked at metal work and horseshoeing.

One of his sons recalls dismantling one of the outbuildings, either the barn or the blacksmith's shop, years later and finding large wide home-made planks, which they discarded, not realizing the value they would have today.

As a 22 year old young man, Albert had a friend, 19 year old George Gee of Carleton County. George Gee had shot a rifle from a distance through a door of a house, accidentally killing George's girlfriend Millie Gee who was, unseen, standing inside the door (see Gee Trial). He had been drunk and angry, Albert believed, but had never intended to kill anyone. On April 29, 1904 he was sentenced to death and hung. As the late "Atlantic Monthly" columnist Alden Nowlan once noted, today he likely would have served a much lesser sentence for his irresponsible act. Before the hanging, as he waited in jail, Albert visited him. Neither Albert nor George knew what to say, and it was a very strained visit. After Albert left the cell, he felt so ill that he threw up.

Initiation into the Orangemen:
Albert was a member of the local Orange Lodge, a Protestant society. "He came home from having been to a Lodge meeting. And his undershirt was stuck to his back with blood. This was after they got married. And at first he wasn't going to tell her [his wife] what was wrong but she insisted on knowing it. .... [H]e had been initiated as a member of the Orange Lodge. .... He had been whipped so as to impress upon him the importance of never telling any of the Lodge secrets. That was supposedly the reason for doing it. And he never did tell any other of the Lodge secrets so we don't really know what he was impressed upon not to tell. .... The man who wielded the whip was his own uncle, Bunyon Hitchcock.

"Whenever Papa said it was time for Jasper to join the Lodge, Mama would say, no, Jasper is not going to join the Orange Lodge. Jasper was my oldest brother." (CHH Dec 2003).

Perhaps only coincidentally, the first Orangemen arrived in New Brunswick about the same time as Albert's soldier-ancestors: "The first Orangemen in Canada were military soldiers. Orangeism was introduced in Saint John, New Brunswick, by the medium of military lodges. Most of the British warships and regiments carried with them Orange warrants during the period of 1818 - 1824." (http://www.orangenet.org/stasi.htm). Several of Albert's ancestors were British soldiers who came to St. John in this time. (For sources on the Orange Lodge in New Brunswick, see http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/guides/orange.shtml)

Albert was a farmer and a carpenter. He built his own house, a modest two storey narrow structure that for years had an unpainted weathered exterior. I was surprised when I was taken to the Levi and Ada Gillespie home up on the hill above Ortonville, a large presentable two storey home with a broad front veranda and attractive staircase visible just inside the front door. 'You're Albert Hitchcock's grandson?" Levi Gillespie, seated on the porch, asked. He pointed to various components of the attractive home he lived in and told me that my grandfather had built this part here, and that part there, including (if I remember correctly) the staircase seen within the front door. Like many tradespeople, Albert Hitchcock did beautiful work in other people's homes, but did only enough to provide a serviceable home for himself and his family.

He had a 1910 black Model T Ford, with a convertible canvass top, which he would drive into Grand Falls. Even though it was only seven miles, it seemed a very long drive, up this hill and down that hill, dusty and uncomfortable, his daughter recalls. After a few years the Model T stopped working, and he dismantled it and used the drive train to power a saw. That was the first of two cars he owned. In the late 1940s he owned a perhaps 1930s dark green sedan delivery (?) vehicle. When they had no car, they rode the train, which ran across the front of the farm. "The station was only one farm away and was visible from our house. There was a shelter with seats." (CHH March 2004)

As a farmer, Albert attempted to run his farm in the old fashioned unmechanized way. While others around him were acquiring tractors and other machinery to do their farming, Albert and his sons attempted to farm using horses and wagons. It was not a very good recipe for farming success.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, however, the family was able to survive by eating the food, mostly potatoes, that were grown on the farm. "Boiled potatoes, hashed potatoes, mashed potatoes." (CHH March 2004).

"In winter there was meat when Papa butchered one of our animals (cow or pig) or both. The carcass was hung in the barn to freeze and Papa or Jasper would chop pieces off as needed." (CHH March 2004) At the worst of times there were only old potatoes in the cellar to eat, and it was prepared in as many different ways as was possible, with recipes such as "bubble and squeak", a kind of potato soup. Sometimes there wasn't any other ingredients.

Albert had a beautiful singing voice, which the family thought was inherited from the Dees. He once recorded a one-off record. We are not saying that he became a recording artist in any way, only recorded a single record. Part way through the recording he flubbed up, and exclaimed "Ah !@#$, I can't sing!" Some people who heard the record later were not impressed at that lapse.

His daughter said that he never struck any of his children. When a child misbehaved and would not stop, Albert might throw a heavy workboot at the child, always aiming to just miss. Once the boot actually hit someone, and he was very sorry, and comforted the child.

Albert could be very generous. A relative needed some land to build a house on, and he sold part of his 100 acre farm to him for a relatively small amount of money. When questioned about letting the land go for such a small amount, he explained that this man didn't have very much money and needed the land.

As an older man he gave his farm to his son, Jasper, who, a railroad employee and not a farmer, in turn sold it to their neighbours, the Dube family up the hill in the early 1960s. Jasper bought a new Pontiac with the money. Albert and Ethel continued to live in the farmhouse until Albert's death.

He died of a heart attack. Six months before the heart attack he suffered a stroke brought on by exerting himself to climb up the hill behind his farmhouse to pick strawberries. "You know what it looked like going up the hill, you had to go up through trees to get up the hill. There were a 100 acres then. He did quite a bit of traipsing around." (Chh 15 Sep 2003).

"The funeral:
"Well it was a ritual that the Orange Lodge put on when they died. The funeral was carried out at the Ortonville Baptist church. but instead of his coffin lying in the funeral home, it was home in the front parlour. And what they did, as I recall, was to hold two swords in an arch above the front door of our house, the coffin was carried out under the two swords, and the Lodge members present said something that I didn't get and there was a small ceremony in the front of the house. Previously to this he had been made a life member of the Lodge but it didn't elate him because he said they only did this for people who were about to die.

"Anyhow when we got to the church and the coffin was carried to the front of the church there were two swords that he was carried under into the church. Anyway the same thing happened after the service was over and he was carried out to the burial plot which was just adjacent to the church on the south side of the Baptist church. And then all of the Lodge members joined hands around the grave and they had their hands clasped and held high and they went up and down with their hands, raised and lowered their hands several times, during their ritual. And the only words that I remember from the ritual was 'he is not dead to us.'

"They threw black and gold ribbons on top of his coffin which were symbols of the Order of the Black Knight which were not quite accurate, actually was not his order. Except perhaps it went with his life order, that could have been. ... I can remember only one of the names of the men who were Orangemen. I can remember Otto Shannon was there. And he didn't live long after himself." (CHH 24 Dec 2003).

11. Ethel Mary WALDRON [image] was born ^{1, 2, 3} on 13 May 1890 in Tower Hill, Charlotte, New Brunswick, Canada. She died on 20 Mar 1959 in Perth, Victoria, New Brunswick, Canada. The cause of death was cancer of the bowel. She was buried ⁴ on 23 Mar 1959 in Ortonville, Victoria, New Brunswick, Canada. [Parents]

Attended provincial Normal school in Fredericton and was a schoolteacher. She met her husband while teaching school near Ortonville, New Brunswick, and continued to teach after her marriage until her two oldest children were among her students. She was paid $90 a month, "which was good; during the thirties [the teacher in Ortonville was] paid $40 a month." (CHH Aug 1988).

"Actually she was teaching in Undine" "and she was boarding with [Albert's] sister Ethel" (Hitchcock) Watson when she met Albert Hitchcock. (CHH 24 Dec 2003)

Burial 22 or 23??

[Child]

12. Candido Lagare ACMA was born ^{1, 2} in 1902 in Valencia,Bohol,Philippines. He died ^{3, 4} in Dec 1992 in Valencia, Bohol,Philippines. He married Efigenia Nalla PALACA. [Parents]

He was a farmer who also owned some fighting roosters.

When he was young he lived with his Godfather who was a comparatively "rich" man. Candido married and then he seemed "already tired of working." He occupied himself with fighting roosters while his sons worked with the carabao animals and farmed crops on the family land. (IPA 28 March 2007)

Candido's daughter FPA of Antequera has a picture of Candido. (MVAT 29 March 2007)

The Island of Bohol in the Philippines ... ...where these families are from

13. Efigenia Nalla PALACA [image] "Pina" was born ¹ about 1905 in Valencia, Bohol, Philippines. She died ^{2, 3, 4} on 16 Dec 1991 in Valencia, Bohol, Philippines. [Parents]

Did not know how to swear. No one raised their voice in her home. (MTAH)

[Child]

14. Pedro Manuta REFAMONTE [image] was born ^{1, 2, 3} on 22 Feb 1915 in Antequera, Bohol, Philippines. He died ^{4, 5, 6} on 31 May 1995 in Philippines. He married Eugenia Indino FLOR in Samar. [Parents]

He lived in Calbayog, Samar, in the Philippines until after World War II. (F M A, July 17, 2005)

He was a runner for the “US Scouts” or Guerrillas. He reported where the Japanese were during the World War II occupation of the Philippines. His service was approximately 1942 to 1944. (VRA to MTAH Jan 2004).

We wrote the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri for a copy of his military records, and they replied: "His name is not shown in the official records and archives on file at this Center which list the members of the Philippine Commonwealth Army, including recognized guerrillas, in the service of the United States Armed Forces during World War II. ...." We know the "dogtags" which Pedro Refamonte had were once in the possession of one of his sons, and if we are able to learn the SSN/SN number printed on the dogtags, we can enquire again with likely more success. (March 2004)

He owned a shoe store in Tagbilaran City.

In his old age he lived with his oldest daughter and family in Metro Manila. Suffered from diabetes in later years.

Pedro was the number five of nine children. Most of his brothers were soldiers. Most of them are already deceased. (VRA by telephone to MTAH Jan 2004).

~A brother moved to the U.S., and was living there until his decease. This brother had children
in California, New Jersey, and Florida.

For more on World War II in the Philippines see Philippine Scouts

15. Eugenia Indino FLOR [image] ¹ was born ^{2, 3} on 5 Sep 1918 in Antequera, Bohol, Philippines. She died ^{4, 5} on 16 Sep 1965 in Tagbilaran, Bohol, Philippines. The cause of death was brain cancer. [Parents]

Pedro and Eugenia may have eloped. She and her new husband had to leave the Island of Samar for the Island of Bohol, to escape a possibly jealous rival.

This move saved Pedro from any retribution he might have suffered if he remained in Samar. At that time, travel between the two islands was slow and difficult. (F M A interview, 17 July 2005).

In later life she was in a traffic accident in the mountains while riding as one of several passengers in a truck. Afterwards suffered headaches and some think she suffered brain cancer as a result of the traffic accident. (MTAH)

Her family acquired property in Bohol, including part of the second largest Chocolate Hill and a coconut island, which are now joint property of her children. The Chocolate Hills, as an "eighth wonder of the world" are now of interest to government and to the New People's Army. (See Wikipedia article "Chocolate Hills" Chocolate Hills retrieved 13 April 2007)

[Child]

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