John Pacy Brinsmead was born in 1864, in St Marys. Like his brother Tom, he too worked for a while at the Argus Newspaper. He may have lived briefly in London, Ontario some time around 1881. He then moved to Toronto and worked as a painter.
On July 30th, 1884, in Toronto, he married Mary Elizabeth Fletcher, the daughter of Robert Fletcher and Elizabeth Anderson. She was born on Feburary 27th, 1863, in Brampton, Ontario.
He moved to Toronto that year where he worked in the printing trade, firstly for George C. Paterson and Co. and later, after 1902 for Henderson and Co. the directory publishers. The couple lived at several addresses, boarding first at 88 John Street, and then living at:
In the 1900's John worked as a traveling salesman, at one point for H. H.
Snydom. At the time of the 1911 census, at age 37, he is lodging in
Montreal at the home of a Thedore Benard. His income is listed at the
time at $700 per year. By 1916 he had become a manager in the
advertising department of the publishers, Copp, Clarke and Co.
John and Mary initially had three children:
Later they adopted Nathanial Dack Brinsmead who was born in Toronto on August 10, 1913.
John's letters disclose that summer vacations would be spent on Georgian Bay; in Ravenna, about 12 miles west of Collingwood. Before that he would go to the Beaver River around Feversham for the trout fishing.
John finally left Copp Clark in January, 1936 and went to work for the Gibson Printing Company at 5 Brooklyn Ave., in Toronto. They had apparently taken over Copp Clark's specialty advertising business in which John worked.
John and Mary's first born was Olive, born in Toronto on May 29th, 1885. Olive had artistic abilities. She moved to New York where she worked for the Hallmark Greeting Card Company. At the time of the 1920 U.S. Census she was living in Manhatten and recorded as being employed as an artist. In 1929, at age 44, Olive took a trip to England and Paris, returning home on the SS Olympic from Southampton on September 11th, 1929. She used the occassion, in Paris, to obtain a visa for permanant US residence.
In 1936 John notes in a letter that Olive is still in New York. Several times after that she returned to Canada for visits. Boarder crossing cards show her address in New York as 252 West 20th Street.
As she grew older, she became less able to look after herself and so her family drove down to New York and brought her back to live in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She lived there until she passed away in 1964. She is buried in St. David's United Church Cemetry in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
George Aubrey Brinsmead was born on June 7th, 1887. On June 5th, 1912, in York, Ontario, he married Marie Sophia Wilson, the daughter of James Stewart Wilson and Julia Jarvis. George and his descendents are dealt with on a seperate page.
In 1936 John notes in a letter that George is still in Orellia building toboggans and skis in the wintertime and canoes and boats in the summer.
The couple's third child, Verona, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1891. Verona's life is also dealt with on a seperate page.
In 1936 John notes that Verona is in Madoc (Hastings County, Ontario, North of Bellville), where her husband Edwin Howell, had an insurance territory of something like 30 or 40 miles square.
Verona died in Maxwell, Grey County, Ontario in 1967.
Nathaial Dack Brinsmead was not born a Brinsmead, but was adopted, probably informally, by Mary Brinsmead. He was born in St. Michael's Hospital, in Toronto, of French Canadian Jewish origin. He had grown up with a learning disability and could not read or write. Olive Brinsmead had a soft spot for Nat and he used to travel to see her in New York. The earliest New York visit was with Mary when Nat was seven, so the relationship was a long lasting one. He would list Olive (adopted sister) or John P. (adopted father) or other Brinsmead family members as his contacts when he crossed the border. After Mary Brinsmead died, Dugald Henderson and Miss Carmichael, Mary's friend from church, continued to look after Nat. He kept employed doing odd jobs for a furrier. When he died, he was buried next t Mary in the cemetry in Orillia.
Mary Elizabeth Brinsmead died on July 16th, 1931, from cancer at age 68. At the time, she was staying at 17 Albert Street, Orillia, Ontario. She was buried in Orillia on July 18th, 1931 in St. Andrews and St. James Cemetary (Block 136, Lot 124).
John Pacy Brinsmead died in Toronto about 10 years later,in the fall of 1941, and was buried, as was his father, in the Mount Pleasant Cemetry on Younge Street.