Viola Frederica Forth
Viola Frederica Forth
Viola Frederica Forth was born October 8, 1910, in Utterson, Stephenson Township, Muskoka District. Her birth registration recorded the location as Lot 16 Con 6, the same as her sisters Mabel and Edna. Her birth registration also shows her middle name was Fredericka (her grandmother’s name) but she used the spelling Frederica. The spelling of Frederica was used in Shirley Forth's book, "A Dutch Cooper's Legacy: An Ouderkirk Story From 1660” and Shirley received her information directly from Vi herself when she was researching her book. The spelling of Frederica is also recorded in the family bible.
Aunt Vi was not only my great aunt, but she was also my Godmother and to this day I have the tiny gold ring she bought for me as an infant and the October birthstone pendant she bought for me as a child. We shared an October birthday and I have a Libra pendant that I still wear that had belonged to her.
At age 17, after her mother died in 1927, Vi left school and took over the care of the home and her two younger siblings, Grace and Roy. She eventually worked as a clerk in Forth's bakery but left there to take a position at the local Eaton Order Office where she became manager and where she remained until her retirement 39 years later. I used to visit her almost every Saturday afternoon on my way home from The Strand Movie Theatre, where I watched movies weekly.
I found an article in the local Bracebridge newspaper, the Bracebridge Gazette, September 14, 1944 noting that Vi had been staying with her cousin, Chris Forth, in Bracebridge while filling in at the local Eaton Order Office.
Vi was an avid crossword puzzle enthusiast, as were my grandmother and my Aunt Mabel. I found this newspaper article from the front page of the Sudbury Star. The date is missing, but I believe it was December of 1957. Vi had won $1,050 in a crossword puzzle contest. Accounting for inflation, that would be equal to about $9,557 in 2019! No wonder she was over the moon and thought what a wonderful Christmas present it would make. I am sure I was the recipient of something outstanding THAT Christmas. In all honesty, my sister and I were spoiled at every Christmas by Aunt Vi so I would be hard pressed to remember if that year brought anything particularly special - and I WAS only five.
I don’t think there was ever a more stalwart member of the Ladies Orange Benevolent Association (LOBA) for over 50 years than Viola Forth. She held positions both locally and provincially. The lodge was her life and she put her heart and soul into it. Among other benevolent activities, the lodge ran bingos every week and donated their proceeds to charity. Here is Vi on one such occasion. Often, she travelled to places like Huntsville and Bracebridge and spoke about her work with the junior members of the Orange Lodge.
Vi is in the back left and Lillian Blair is in the middle front but I have no idea who anyone else is in this photo.
I found an old photo of Vi with my great grandfather, Frank Prosser, at his home in Keswick. What I find fascinating is that Vi was wearing her lodge collar! I have no idea why she would have been wearing the collar unless Gran and Poppa were driving her to a special lodge meeting somewhere nearby. Vi never did learn to drive!
Vi ran the Junior Orange Lodge, aka the Parry Sound Orange Juveniles, which my sister, Kim, and I and various other cousins HAD to join. This photo from 1928 shows that Vi was involved in the Orange Lodge Juveniles at a very early age. I believe she is in the third row, second from the right.
Vi was very dedicated to the Juvenile Lodge, likely because she never had children of her own. She opened up her cottage on Otter Lake every summer to the lodge children to attend as a camp. It was known as Camp Niatta (Niatta being Attain spelled backwards and Vi was very big on doing your best to attain your goals!) My sister and I visited the cottage lots on our own as we were family, of course.
The cottage didn’t really belong to Aunt Vi, but was a space she shared with her longtime boyfriend, Jack Wilson, known to all of us kids simply as Uncle Jack. I have wonderful memories of the time spent at the cottage with Uncle Jack and Aunt Vi. The very stinky, old outhouse is a vivid memory in my mind, but not a positive one! Playing croquet in the huge field near the cottage is a very fond memory. Uncle Jack delighted in hitting our croquet balls into the woods where we would have to battle the horse flies, deer flies, black flies and mosquitoes to retrieve them. He never showed mercy and when you beat him, you knew you had done it fair and square!
Playing on the gigantic inner tubes in Otter Lake was an especially fun activity. I was never allowed to ski on the board behind the boat around the lake as I was too young but it sure looked like fun too! At the cottage, we could eat Kraft Dinner (something we NEVER got at home) and drink chocolate milk. My sister and I were in heaven. We swam, we had campfires, we played cards – we truly enjoyed endless fun at the Otter Lake cottage.
Uncle Jack was a world traveler and he often brought back interesting treasures for me. When he returned from India he brought me material that I could drape as a sari. How extraordinary was that?
One of the not-so-fun activities of the Junior Orange Lodge was to take part in the yearly 12th of July Orange Day Parade. Busloads of Orangemen, Orange Ladies and Juveniles would travel to Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Huntsville or just stay in Parry Sound to march in a parade through the downtown. Dressed in white blouses, white pleated skirts, knee socks and an orange sash, we Juveniles would suffer the summer heat and hike for what seemed like hours through the small towns of Central Ontario. I particularly hated when the parade was held in Bracebridge due to the VERY steep hill downtown. To this day, every time I see a white pleated skirt my feet start to ache.
I was sent a box of photos and other memorabilia from my cousin, Melody Prosser, some time ago. Uncle John, Aunt Sharon, Melody and her sister, Wendy, lived with Aunt Vi and Gran for a number of years. Melody had inherited a huge box of family mementos which she kindly sent along to me. Inside the box, among many other treasures, was an autograph book from 1928 that had belonged to Aunt Vi. How exciting it was for me to go through it and see things written by my cousins, great aunts and uncles and my grandparents when they were all young! Frank Willson and Stewart (S. M.) Little were cousins from Toronto, sons of Mary Louise Scott (Willson, Mills, Little) who was Lucy Scott Forth’s younger sister. I have had the great pleasure of sharing genealogical pursuits with my cousin, Lois Catalano, great granddaughter of Mary Louise and great niece of Frank and Stewart.
As Vi aged, she dyed her hair, which became redder and redder over the years. She continued to dye her hair (as did my gran) until she was well into her 80’s. When I showed up for a visit one day, I almost didn’t recognize her. She suddenly had white hair!
Aunt Vi, Edna (Gran), Margaret (Mom) and ME!
Circa 1953
Art (Dad) and Aunt Vi
Aunt Vi never married. She lived with my grandmother at 60 Waubeek Street until she died on February 21, 1992. She is buried beside her parents in Hillcrest Cemetery in Parry Sound.
This amazing woman will always hold a very special place in my heart. And I KNOW there are many cousins out there (and my sister too!) who all share my love for a woman who was strong, intelligent, and who clearly marched to her own drummer.
