A bit of a digression from the 52 Ancestors Challenge today.
Today we’ll be driving through Fort Macleod, Alberta. Every time we do that trip, I always remind our kids that’s where the father of one of my dearest friends was born, followed by saying that’s where Joni Mitchell was born.
This time, I said it while at my mother’s house. She then started to wrack her mind for the name of another celebrity that she thought was born there. After a few minutes of her describing who she was trying to remember, I realized that she was thinking of Fay Wray.
(1907-2004)
Once I identified who my mother was thinking of, she realized that it was someone born in Cardston, not Fort Macleod.
Years ago Fay Wray was trending on social media because it was her birthday. My mother’s father, Leo Burgess, was born in Cardston and his grandparents were amongst the original settlers there. So I decided to look her up.
Born Vina Fay Wray, she was born near Cardston, Alberta in 1907. My great grandmother lived near Cardston with her family at that time. I wondered if the families might have known each other. They were all Mormons in the same stake (like a parish), so they could have known each other through church. Fay was born after the 1906 census, but I found her parents there. Using the census data, I mapped out where both families lived. It turns out the Wrays lived almost exactly midway between Cardston and Waterton, while my great great grandparents and their children lived east of Cardston, less than 10 km from town.
A Deck of Ancestors 