My parents, Arthur Ord Lacy and Hilda (Bedwell) Lacy came from Yorkshire. Father, a son of ------Lacy, a clerk in York Railway Station, who died ?, and his wife Mary Isabel Jolly, daughter of -----Jolly, brother to Elery (sic) Jolly. She died at Dad’s birth, September 17, 1892

Father went to St. Peter’s York and met Mother by going with a master from the school, Jack Gray, to visit his sister, Anne Gray, married to Edward Charles Bedwell. (Anne was) Mother’s stepmother.

Mother was the seventh child of the Bedwell family. Her mother, Mary Louise Wilson, died shortly after she was born, January 22, 1888. She soon had a stepmother, Anne Gray, and later a half sister, Isobel. Her father, ----- Bedwell, worked at the stock exchange in London. He then trained to be a minister and was a curate in St Mary’s York, before having a country parish at Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire, near Malton. The vicarage was part of a farm.

Father completed his schooling at St Peter’s York and went out to Canada near Winnipeg, to learn farming. He told stories of stoking, thrashing machines and bundles of straw. The 1914 war came along and he went back to England to join the Royal Flying Core, later the Royal Air Force. He trained as a pilot in Yorkshire and then (flew) from France over Germany, surviving some hairy experiences. He was a bit of a nervous wreck leaving the war behind.

Father courted Mother on a motorcycle with a sidecar. Later, dropping letters from a plane and eventually, with an engagement ring in a box of chocolates (dropped) into a field. Finally marrying, and staying (they stayed) in a local hotel until grandfather could marry them at 8:00 A.M. the following Sunday. Children were heard to say outside the hotel, “The Bridegroom ain’t up yet!” After the wedding, they went by horse and buggy to Malton railway to London. Mother stayed in rooms while Father was still in the war. She did a wonderful tablecloth of needlework while in rooms and had interesting little stories of the landlords.

After leaving the RAF. Dad went to Canada, to Falkland, B.C., where his cousin, Dr. Ord, a veterinarian, lived and bought acreage upon the bench land. Mother followed by boat and train, on her own later, landing in Halifax, I believe. Father had told her to keep her trunks in the cabin or she would not catch the train that day of landing.

Here at Falkland, Dad did farming. Mother said his nerves where bad after the war and she used a crosscut saw to cut rounds of wood for the stove. Mother was a good splitter of wood with hammer and wedges well into her 80s. Our two elder sisters were born at home in Falkland. Years later, sister Mary (McDonald), had to trace her nurse and doctor as she had not been registered, so was unable to get a birth certificate.