2.3.2.4.2. Edith May Gertrude Aird (1919-2004)

Edith May Gertrude Aird was born on 29 April 1919 in Montreal, Canada, to Kenneth Edith (Thompson) Aird. She was their youngest child. Her parents had immigrated from Scotland in 1911. Though Edith's mother was born in England, she had met and married her husband in Scotland. Daughter Edith was baptized on 22 June at the Verdun Presbyterian Church by Sutherland Samuel Burn, the church minister.

In 1921 the Aird family lived at 828 Gertrude Street. Her father was a machinist in a factory and made $1,220. The neighborhood was in Verdun, a city on Montreal island until it merged with the city of Montreal in 2002. Between 1911 and 1924 the population tripled and Verdun became very urbanized with many, many typical Montreal "plexes" built to house new immigrants, primarily from the United Kingdom. The area even had a boardwalk along the St. Laurence river.

Verdun, Montreal, boardwalk; photograph courtesy of the Montreal
Gazette

Some time after World War II, Edith met John Riddell Findlay, who had immigrated to Canada from Scotland. I wonder if Edith and John Findlay went walking out on that boardwalk while they were dating. They lived in Montreal most of their married lives and had two children. They moved to British Columbia in 1990. Edith lost her husband in 1993. She died at the age of 85 in 2004.

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1921 Census of Canada, Reference Number: RG 31; Folder Number: 136; Census Place: Montreal (City), Montreal (Ste Anne), Quebec; Page Number: 9
Canada, Ancestry.com messages with the daughter of Edith May Gertrude (Aird) Riddell (1919-2004)
Canada, Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967, Aird, Edith May Gertrude, 1919
"On the Boardwalk -- More Cool Images of Old Verdun," Montreal Gazette, 24 Mary 2011