| Notes |
- Lila was born in Pittsburgh PA, baptised in St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast Northern Ireland and raised in Toronto Canada. In Toronto she lived on Tecumseh street and 55 Jones Avenue. She was very proud of the fact that she had perfect attendance in school for which she received a couple of coin tokens.
She worked at Dixmont State Hospital for the Insane from about 1930 to 1935. I never realized that most of her and my dad's friends came from working there. Dave Kirk and his brother, Albert, worked there. As did George and Maida Brown from West Virginia. I thought that her close friend Belle Simpson, who married Tom Davie and lived in Towners NY, knew her from growing up in Canada but it turns out she also worked at Dixmont. Funny how working there made for a close knit group that continued on to later life.
Her interests were playing cards and she belonged to several card clubs. These were clubs that met in each others homes weekly. They rotated which homes they met at. She enjoyed reading as this was something passed on to her father, William, by his father Alexander who taught himself how to read and write. She was a member of the Friendly class at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church on Perrysville Avenue. She worked at Dixmont State Hospital for the Insane as she was of large statue. She and a friend, Belle Simpson, from Toronto worked there as did several of her friends. At that time the nurses were not allowed to be married so when it was discovered she had secretly married she was discharged. Some thing that would not be tolerated today but I believe was common in those times. My mother was more of an adventurous spirit as opposed to my father who was a home body. She enjoyed outings with the AARP to different places locally. My father had no interest what so ever in these expeditions.
My mother used to talk about my grandfather and at times revealed a dark side. He was a strict disciplanarian and believed in children should be seen and not heard. He kept a cut down razor strop behind the kitchen door for infractions of his rule. It had fringes cut into it. My mother said it was called the "Tawes" for what ever reason. In an attempt to escape the "Tawes" they would hide under the bed. She also revealed he would come home with a full cargo of booze on board. Since he was a big man it took the whole family to get him upstairs. When I knew him he didn't drink for what ever reason.
My mother was the boss in the family and we played by her rules. She ate bakery bread while my dad and I ate white bread. She ate butter while my dad and I ate margerine. In those times it was white so if you wanted yellow you bought the kind in the bag with a colored dot. You squeezed the dot till it broke then massaged the bag until the contents was all yellow. Mom didn't care for pets so for a while I had fish. I had a bantam chicken that my dad made a coop for on the back porch. My mom used to say nothing that breathes or sheds would be in her house.
1921 Census of Canada <http://www.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=8991&enc=1>
about Lela Skelly
Name: Lela Skelly
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Single
Age: 14
Birth Year: abt 1907
Birth Place: USA
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Father's Name: William Skelly
Father Birth Place: Ireland
Mother's Name: Jennie Skelly
Mother Birth Place: Ireland
Year of Immigration: 1910
Racial or Tribal Origin: Irish
Province or Territory: Ontario
District: York East
District Number: 142
Sub-District: Toronto (City, part)
Sub-District Number: 45
City, Town or Village: Toronto
Street or Township: 55 Jones Av
Municipality: Ward 1
Occupation: Student
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1907 - 1988 (80 years)
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