Eliza Frances Dickenson

1830s–1850s

Born 13 July 1833 in King, York County, Upper Canada, the daughter of William Dickinson and Jane Woods. Earned a first-class Normal School certificate and taught school. Married the teacher Richard Moore in 1858.

1860s–1870s

Settled at Gowrie, Fullarton Township, Perth County, where daughter Lorena was born in 1866. A Bible Christian.

1880s–1910s

Widowed in 1881. Living in Mitchell in 1892, when she visited Lorena at Holmesville. Died at her daughter Ida's home in Munroe on 30 October 1916.

A Teacher's Life

Eliza Frances Dickenson (also spelled Dickinson) was born on July 13, 1833, in King, York County, in what was then Upper Canada, the daughter of William Dickinson and Jane Woods, both born in England; her brothers and sisters included Elizabeth, Henry, John, and Alfred. In 1851 the family, Wesleyan Methodists, lived in a one-and-a-half-story plank house next to the schoolhouse in King. She trained as a teacher and earned a first-class Normal School certificate, and in 1858 she married Richard Moore, an English-born schoolmaster. They lived at Exeter and Brantford before settling by 1868 at Gowrie, in Fullarton Township, Perth County, where Richard farmed, ran a singing school, and served as township clerk and, briefly, postmaster. Their daughters included Lorena (born in 1866, Meghan's 2x-great-grandmother), Adeline, and Ida.

Richard died in 1881, and Eliza lived on as a widow for thirty-five years. In 1884 Lorena married Thomas Lobb, and in November 1892, when Eliza was living in Mitchell, she was visiting Lorena at Holmesville. She died at two in the morning on October 30, 1916, at the home of her daughter Ida in Munroe, on Lot 25, Concession 8 of Fullarton Township, Perth County, after two years of arteriosclerosis; she was eighty-three. She was remembered as having "a kindly, quiet, and charitable way. Without show, with a cheerful and humorous spirit, she lived a consistent Christian life."