Aldous, Mary Jane (Morton)

Mary Jane Morton was born April 27, 1863 in Erin City, Ontario. She married George Washington Aldous (also born in Erin City) and her twin sister, Hannah Elizabeth Morton, married George’s older brother, Robert Benjamin Aldous. 

She was living in New Westminster in 1891 and her husband George was working as a logger. Perhaps an oversight but their son Howard is not recorded as living with them. 

In the late 1890s, the couple was living in or near Nelson, BC. George transferred 1/2 of the Young Bird Claim to his wife for the sum of $100.00 in early 1897. Shortly after, in July 1897, Mary Jane brought a charge of trespass, on behalf of the Berlin mineral claim, against Hall Mines of Nelson, BC. Hall Mines argued that she had no proper claim because the only affidavit filed was made by her husband, George Aldous. She was granted an appeal later that month (1897) and the case went to the supreme court in October 1897. The outcome of the case is unknown but in July 1898, she transferred the Berlin claim to Hall Mines, Ltd.

 The Aldous family then moved to Princeton. They arrived sometime between June 1900 (Howard was in school in Nelson) and November 1900 (when they hosted a dance in Princeton). 

The family is recorded as being in Princeton in the 1901 Census. At the time of the census, the Tulameen Hotel had been constructed and George Aldous is listed as a “hotel keeper.”She attended a St.Valentine’s Social Hop at the Tulameen Hotel in February 1901.

She was in and out of hospital in both Princeton and Vancouver beginning in November 1901 when the Similkameen Star reported her “critically ill” and again in December 1903. 

She attended a dance at Jack Thynne’s) in January 1903 and attended a Dominion Day ball at the Tulameen Hotel in July 1903.

But in January 1904, the Similkameen Star reported that she was “recovering slowly.” George travelled to Vancouver in April 1904 as she was again seriously ill and again in December 1905. In 1906, the Similkameen Star reported that she had been “a patient for the past two years at the coast” (1906).

The 1916 census records her patient status at the newly opened (1914) Saskatchewan Provincial Hospital in North Battleford. She was still a patient at the time of the 1921 Census.

Note: There appears to be an error on the 1935 List of Electors – Mrs. George Aldous is listed as a nurse in Princeton but it is likely Evelyn Aldous (who received her home nursing certificate in 1945 and was working at Tranquille Sanatorium I Kamloops in 1946.