#7 Mary Beaton Cox (my maternal grandmother)

When Mary Beaton Cox was born at home on April 28, 1921, in Montreal, Quebec, her father, Rowland Cox, was 29, and her mother, Mary Beaton, was 27. 

She was dedicated to the Lord by her parents on May 29, 1921 at the Pentecostal Assembly in Montreal. 

A baby dedication is an act of consecration of children to God practiced in evangelical churches. The child's presentation has its origin in the Book of Exodus 13:2; "Every firstborn will be consecrated to the Lord". The Bible relates some presentations of children. That of Samuel, in the Old Testament by Hannah. And especially the presentation of Jesus in the Temple in the New Testament by Joseph and Mary. Likewise, Jesus used to bless children.

The family lived in the St Denis area of Montreal, Quebec, Canada [Census, 1 Jun 1921]

This is the only photo we have of Mary and her father.

Death of Father

When she was only 3 years old Mary's father Rowland Herbert (1892–1924) passed away on August 21, 1924. He died at St Agathe des Monts, Quebec and the cause was listed as "pulmonary" and related to his service duty in WWI. He was only 32.

Early Years
Mary's mother never remarried and she was an only child. They lived with her widowed maternal grandmother in a small house on Casgrain Street when Mary was "a little person." Then they moved up farther north on Casgrain and Mary went to school at Centennial School, within walking distance. Her grandmother looked after her and when Mary did something wrong her mother would hear about it as soon as she walked in the door.

Mary recalled: "I remember one time when we were visiting relatives in North Bay for a holiday, I pretended I could speak French when I really couldn't speak French. I thought people coming from Quebec were always able to speak French. So what happened there was, they were all sitting on the bed and they wanted to say something in French so I pretended, started talking silly sounds and what have you, and they never knew the difference. They thought I was really very good with the French but they didn't know what I had said and I sort of made up a story as to what I had said in French. Anyway, I guess they finally found out about that, but it was just a joke at that point in time."

Growing up...
People said that Mary looked like her father, appearance wise. 

She remembered having her tonsils out when she was 7 in the doctor's office. She was certain she had been 7 because she had been told that if she had her tonsils out when she was 7 they wouldn't grow back in again. During the procedure the doctor nicked a vein in her throat and she started to bleed all over the place. Mary had to have special treatment at home so she wouldn't bleed to death. 

Mary enjoyed playing with paper dolls, cutouts and paper dolls and pasting. In her 70s she remarked that she still liked to cut out things like recipes. As far as games, Mary would join the young people from the church at her friend Eva's house and they would play "rings". It was throwing rubber rings onto a board from a certain spot on the floor and she found it fun. They played Parcheesi a lot, and other games Mary described as "very innocent." They played monopoly and things like that, which was a good evening's entertainment. They also played darts, and then when they had a young people's party they had games like "coffeepot." This was a game where someone went out of the room and the participants were given a secret word, "laughing " for example. The person would return to the group and would try to guess the word by asking each individual "do you like to coffeepot?", substituting the word "coffeepot" for "laughing." They might reply "yes" and then the next person would be questioned: "how many times do you coffeepot in a day," and it goes around the whole room and finally they have to try and guess what this particular word is actually. They played spin the bottle, and postman, which were sort of risqué games at the time. While this added excitement to the evening, the group was very well supervised with lots of parents around.

Mary described herself as an average student, no particular specialties. She was a quiet person and had nobody to fight with, being an only child. Mary was around adults most of the time and appreciated being included in gatherings with her friend Eva, in spite of being a bit younger than the group.

Spelling was Mary's favourite subject. She liked to spell and joined a spelling bee tournament, reaching almost the end of it. The word she stumbled on was "illegible," she had one "L" too many in it. Math, arithmetic as it was called in those days, was not her strong suit. She didn't fail at it but didn't enjoy it and preferred to do grammar.

She started to learn the piano and sang in a church choir for a while. Mary found this to be fun and enjoyable. Before they were married she accompanied Malcolm on the piano while he played cornet.

At age 17 Mary went to West End business college in Montreal and took commercial, shorthand, and typing. She also learned the countometer, which was a sort of adding machine.

Her first job
Mary's first job was working for Pastor Gummer at their church for free so she could get some experience. He had a church group called "Quebec for Christ" and Mary did his typing and his mailing and things like that. 

In the meantime, she applied to the civil service for a job. When they called her she took and passed their test and got a job with the air force at 1 Commerce Street, in Montreal. Mary was the only civilian in that office, with about 15 service men. She found it a nice place to work and when she had to work late her coworkers drove her home in their rickety old jeep that had no sides on it and only little bars on it across the top. 

The department moved to a building on Victoria Square in Montreal, and from there they moved up to Westmount. It was called Number 11 Aeronautical Inspection Detachment. At this point in time they had some civilian people starting to work there, however Mary was the only secretary at the time and had to go down to Amhurst, Nova Scotia to take notes on an inquiry for an airman who got into trouble. Mary spent 2 or 3 days there while the court case was on and had her first lobster, which came as a shock.

Marriage
Mary Beaton Cox married Malcolm Grant S. in Montréal, Quebec, on September 7, 1946, when she was 25 years old.

For more, see the entry on Malcolm's page.

Mary and Malcolm lived with Mary's mother (Mary nee Beaton) on Casgrain when Malcolm was still in school.

Mary and Malcolm used to come into church from St John's by what they called the "Bully" Bus service. It was a terrible bus, no springs in it at all however they managed to get in. The facility used for the church in Montreal was a drinking parlour the night before. When they got there for church on the Sunday morning the chairs had to be set up and it needed a good airing out. Once they got caught in a snowstorm and the bus couldn't get all the way out there so everyone had to get out and climb through a waist high snowbank and over the fence. One of the girls was pregnant and she crawled over the fence with a little help from everybody else. Mary recalled that it was a little scary at the time but funny to look back on. She enjoyed the newlywed years, finding it a fun time with no big responsibilities.

Building the Trans-Canada Highway
The family probably experienced the economic impact of the construction of the Trans-Canada Highway while living in Montreal in 1963.

Family Life
Mary and Malcolm had five children in 11 years. When the first and second daughters were born the family was living with Mary's mother (Mary nee Beaton) on Casgrain. They moved while the second daughter was quite young to to a little house in Plage Laval. This was later followed by a move to Westmount around 1952.

All of Mary and Malcolm's five daughters were born at the Catherine Booth Salvation Army Hospital, and Mary joked they felt as though they had part ownership in that hospital. 

Mary with all 5 of her girls, 1960

When their last daughter was born, being number five, Malcolm was checking in at the check in desk while Mary was already on her way upstairs to the delivery room. By the time he got up there the baby had already arrived. The same doctor had delivered each of the girls and after number five was born the doctor went to the waiting room where Malcolm was and said "you have five girls now." For a moment Malcolm thought the five had come all at once, making a family of nine children at that point instead of five. Dr. Patrick had six girls of his own so Mary quipped "I guess we chose the wrong doctor to deliver our children." 

Oldest daughter is probably taking the photo.

Mary affirmed that everybody's different and everybody's personality is different, as people that have five children know all about.

In Mary's words: "Having five children certainly changes one's life. I mean, you find that you're not too often in any restaurants with five children, you find you really can't afford really to go restaurants when you've got five children, not surprisingly. We didn't do too much of that kind of thing. There's a limited number of places you can visit even with your friends because five children is a lot of people to come down on somebody all at once."

Mary's mother (Mary nee Beaton), who the children called "Nan," lived with the family from Westmount (1952) onward.

Mary continues: "My mother, Nan, she was always there and so if Malcolm and I wanted to go anywhere special she would be there as babysitter, which didn't please the kids too much because they always looked forward to having a babysitter so they could cause problems I think, but anyway Nan was there. One time we had been out someplace, we had a living room that had a slanted ceiling in Beaconsfield and when we came home all was quiet, everyone was in bed, there was no problem at all, however when we looked up at the ceiling all these peas were stuck on the ceiling and so in the morning, when we got everybody around, we inquired as to how these peas got up on the ceiling. It so happened that Nan had given them TV dinners that night for supper and the children who didn't like peas decided to get rid of them and threw them up on the ceiling. Some stuck and some didn't stick but it was marks there anyway.

We didn't go to too many places and leave the kids with Nan. The other problem was that when we would go out anyplace and come home and if anyone, any of them had misbehaved or that my mother would say "now I wasn't going to tell you this... but so and so did this and somebody else did that" so of course then the riot act had to be given out the next day as well. However, they were good kids on the whole and I had no problems with them.

We had to have certain rules and regulations and we were morally bound to have church values. Nan had gone to church all her life and it was an automatic thing for me to go. And so when our children came along they too had to go to church. It wasn't a matter of did you want to go, it's that this was what we did. 

 At that point we had a nine passenger station wagon so there was room for all. Anyway, they rather enjoyed I think church life. The three older girls sang in a trio at the church and they went to young people's (a group at the church for teens and young adults), they also went to young people's in the Lakeshore Pentecostal Church in Dorval and they joined what they called the "Missionettes" as a group. So Malcolm was more or less a taxi driver back and forth because when one would be finished this particular thing in "Missionettes" it was time for the older group to do their thing so it was a matter of taking children of different ages back and forth to their various activities. Morally, well, morals are always high in our estimation and I think you try to do your best in that line and I think the kids accepted that and I don't think they regretted any of that. They're all good living kids."

Mary and the family enjoyed camping in Algonquin Provincial Park, and she and Malcolm took many trips to Myrtle Beach.

Around 1979 Malcolm and Mary relocated from Quebec to Willowdale, Ontario. In 2006 Malcolm and Mary moved to an independent living facility in Mississauga, Ontario so they would be closer to the four daughters living in general area - another daughter remained in Quebec.

Death of Mother
Her mother Mary Campbell passed away on February 7, 1983, in Willowdale, Ontario, at the age of 88.

Death of Husband
Her husband Malcolm Grant passed away on April 26, 2015, in Oakville, Ontario, at the age of 91. They had been married 68 years.

2017 with most of her grand-children and great-grandchildren

Mary was a unifying force for her family. Her birthdays were always a very special occasion, on which her 2nd daughter and her family would travel to Ontario from Quebec to celebrate with the extended family.

Death
The week leading up to her death Mary had expressed to her daughters and grandchildren that she was feeling tired. She passed away peacefully, sitting on her couch in her home, during the early hours of Sunday, March 11, 2018. She was 96 years old.

Heart I placed on Nanny's casket.

I was so blessed that my Nanny had her health and humour right up to the end. I could never have been ready for her time to go, but I'm thankful that it was a peaceful cross-over for her.

-----

Sources:
Mary was interviewed by her granddaughter Kristina M. on June 5, 1995