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Descendants of John Montcrief Turnbull

Generation No. 1

1. JOHN MONTCRIEF³ TURNBULL (ROBERT², JOHN¹) was born June 14, 1877 in Montreal, Quebec, and died Abt. 1978 in Vancouver. He married KATHLEEN GLADYS HERBERT JARVIS in Not in Montreal records. She was born in Ontario, and died April 07, 1968 in Vancouver.

Notes for JOHN MONTCRIEF TURNBULL:
            Notes On The Turnbull Family History. By J.M. Turnbull Feb. 1976

      Centuries ago, in Scotland in the reign of King Robert Bruce, there was a warrior named RUEL. One day, hunting with the king, a wild bull charged the King. RUEL, was a great warrior, charged the bull and killed it. Bruce turned to Ruel and said, "for this great deed you shall no longer be know as Ruel and henceforth your name shall be called TURNBULL. The Turnbulls thus became Turnbull clan. Some few emigrated to Canada. About 1850 two of these, Robert and John, lived in Montreal and became financial assistants of George Stephen, when He was one of the origonal contats who built the Canadian Pacific Railway across Canada around 1800-5. Stephen got the title Lord Mountstephen and finally retired to England. Robert and John Turnbull remained in Montreal and handled the Stephen affairs with C.P.Ry. etc. for many years. John Turnbull went top Scotland about 1805 proably andn, while he found a number of decendants and quite a lot of historical information the name Turnbull did not give him much sensational history, good or bad, and I have no definate details and have no copies of his notes. My father, Robert, died of Pneumonia, about 1917 I think, My mother was a member of the McGinn family. Her father was a well known citizen of Monteal, but I have no details of his history other than he was Irish. Mother lived with brother Vicars and daughter May in Monteal and visited my wife and me in VANCOUVER about 1930 but died not long after that. My younger brother Vicars remained in Montreal. My father and mother were members of the Philharmonic Society and the Olivet Baptist Church in Montreal. My sister was a noted musician and studied in England and Germany. Piano accompanied visiting musicians etc.
      Back in the "80s some Montreal mothers would take their childern down to the lower St. Lawerance River to escape the heat and get some salt water bathing. They were supposed to pick up some French from the French kids, but none of them ever came near us, strictly no mixing. Later we used to go to the summer cottage on Lake St. Louis, a few miles from Montreal where daddy could come and liveand go into town everry day to work, by train. Swimming, canoe races and regattas etc. were the attractions for two or threee months.
      I graduated from the "Little High" school in Montreal with two of the Molson sons, the Brewery family, and followed by going to the Mowats School, with the Ogilvy and other rich mens sons. I entered University in 1893 and graduated in 1897. I immediately after graduation went west to work in a mine where the first Electric mine plant was installed and run by a young engineer 1897 named Sperling. It was first Elec. mine plant and the same Elec. people went to make B.C. Elec. in Vancouver about 1898. The min closed down in September and I spent the winter of 1897 in a small mine cabin on a mountain about 25 mile from the nearest town, Fort Steele, 200 miles by stage from the nearest railway. After a lot of running around mine hunting etc., I arrived in real mining opperations with master managers and power opperations. Ii took a year off to opperate a small gold mine in California then returned to Rossland again, after a visit to Montreal. In 1902 I joined C.P.R. which was opperating the Trail smelter by Rossland. For the next four years I was engineering towards the building up of the great company known as Cominco, which was consolidated in 1906. Now 70 years later are still mining ore on the property I looked at near Fort Steele in 1897. In 1915 I was conscripted to start a mining department in the new University of B.C. which ran for 30 years. In 1918 I started a class for prospectors and public, which is now run by the Chamber of Mines as a night school. In 1920 I was on the committee which started the Association of Proffessional Engineers of B.C., I also helped to start the B.C. Institute of Technolgy. Now perhaps I had better do some quiting.

Children of JOHN TURNBULL and KATHLEEN JARVIS are:

2.	i.	JOHN MURRAY⁴ TURNBULL, b. February 16, 1909, Trail, British Columbia; d. April 25, 1992, Courtenay, British Columbia.
	ii.	BARBARA TURNBULL, d. British Virgin Islands.
	iii.	LEONARD TURNBULL, d. Toronto, Ontario.
	iv.	BOB TURNBULL, b. Maple Ridge, British Columbia; m. TEX.

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