| Note | He Georgina was the second wife of Robert Knowles. Robert was born at Maxwell in Osprey Township, Grey County, according to information provided online in the Cambridge Hall of Fame. He studied for the ministry and came to Knox Church in Galt in 1898. His early ministry was quite successful, however the story in the Hall of Fame tells that he was injured in a train wreck in February of 1907 near Guelph from which he never fully recovered. He left the ministry around 1915, wrote novels, and became a columnist for the Toronto Star. Evidence shows that he was married to a Emma Katherine Jones of New Bern, North Carolina, though the marriage had broken up by 1913. A border crossing of son Robert Jr. in 1922 indicates his visit of a month's duration to visit with his mother in 1913. A North Carolina death index indicates that she died in North Carolina under her second married name of Firstbrook on Feb. 10, 1962. A history of First Church, Banners Unfurled, written by Andy Taylor in 1949, shows that in later years Robert Knowles Sr. was a member of First Church, although evidence also exists to show that he spent at least some of his later years living in Toronto. Robert's daughter Elizabeth may have gone with her mother to North Carolina at the time of her mother's return home. Certainly, Elizabeth married a Rodman Guion, a lawyer, and is to be found in the 1930 U.S. census in New Bern. Robert Edward Knowles Jr. was killed in a cycling accident in England on December 11, 1941, and is buried there. In 1939 Robert Jr. crossed to border to visit with friend Phyllis Whitely in Rochester, New York, and his death registration in 1941 shows him married to a 'Sonfield Phyllis Knowles'. The obituary for Bob Knowles in the December 12 December 1941 edition of the Toronto Star identifies her as Phyllis Whitely Knowles. Also present in his home, 55 Foxbar Road, was his mother, identified in the same article as Mrs. John Firstbrook. Robert Jr. and Phyllis were married no earlier than 1939 and possibly in the U.S. The obituary for Robert Edward Knowles Sr. in the November 15, 1946, edition of the Toronto Star tells that he died 'today' at his home in Galt. This may actually have been the 14th. |