Ellen (Nellie) Prentice & Nicoll

Ellen (she preferred calling herself Nellie until her children got big enough to learn her proper name and from then on she was called Ellen.) was born in Bathgate, Scotland on Feb. 4, 1906.

She had met George Prentice when she was about 16 yrs old - she always had a dream to go to the USA but a quota would have made it a long wait, so she emigrated to Canada in 1925 ( I think it was the month of June.) She ended up living in Lachine, Province of Quebec, with a Scottish family called the Purdie's. That family became our "adopted grandparents and uncles" while we were young.

George Prentice (born Nov. 28, 1901 in Broxburn, Scotland,) and his brother John emigrated in month of May 1925 and they too lived in Lachine with the Purdie's - brother John did leave, booked on a ship that sailed through the Panama Canal and up to Vancouver where he married and had a family and settled there for a few years, before returning to the UK.

Ellen and George married on May 29 (??) 1926- first child born March 20, 1927, named Helen Barbara (always called Babs) - brother George Alaister Ronald (known as Ron) was born March 19, 1931, and John Andrew (known as Jack) was born September 28, 1932. They lived in Lachine through our school years.

George Prentice died Nov. 5, 1952 at the young age of 50. Ellen then took some nursing courses and she was widowed for about 22 years - she had retired from working and while in Florida met David Nicoll (he was from Scotland originally) and they married in May 1974. David died in 1991 and we arranged to have Ellen "come home" to Canada and for a couple of years she lived in a retirement community in Toronto near her son Jack - she suffered from dementia and then the family brought her to a nursing home in Kingston. She died October 2, 1995. Her ashes are buried in Kingston, at the Cataraqui Cemetary, which is a very old lovely cemetary (Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A Macdonald is buried there - he, too, was originally from Glasgow, Scotland.)