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Handwritten transcription found within this fonds


Title: Jessie Shaw fonds
Dates: 1750-1891; [199-]
Location: Bank 19, shelf 7; PF-360
Provenance: Information was transcribed from Anglican Church records for St. John's and Conception Bay, 1750-1891 and
Physical_Description: 50 cm textual records + 1 photograph
Source of Supplied Title: Title based on the creator of the collection.
Restrictions on Access: No restrictions
Adm. Hist/Bio. Sketch: Jessie Hilda Shaw was born 9 August 1922 at St. John's, Newfoundland, the only daughter of Dora Ellen (Kennell) of Western Bay and Thomas Edward Dwyer of Ochre Pit Cove, Conception Bay. She had five brothers: Angus, William, John, Douglas, and Harry.

Jessie divided her childhood summers with her paternal grandparents in Ochre Pit Cove and her maternal grandparents in Western Bay.

In St. John's Jessie was educated at Centenary Hall (1930-36) and Prince of Wales College (1936-1939) and after graduation attended commercial school at Prince of Wales in 1939-40. Her first job was with Great Eastern Oil as a bookkeeper, and she continued there until 1947/48 when she moved to Neyle-Soper Ltd. on Water St. where she remained as bookkeeper until 1951.

Later that year Jessie moved her family to Toronto and from 1953 to 1955 she worked as a bookkeeper/secretary for Mutual Life Insurance, first in Toronto and then in Montreal. While she was working in Montreal she entered a contest where the person who performed their duties with the greatest efficiency rate measured over a month would be promoted to be secretary for the president of the company at the Montreal branch, and would be given a significant raise in pay. Jessie won the competition over more than 200 other employees of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. The family returned to St. John's in 1955.

From 1962 to 1972 Jessie worked for Colburne & Noseworthy Architectural Co. Ltd in St. John's and then moved on to work for the law firm of Wells, O'Dea & Halley until she took an early retirement in 1977 to care for her elderly parents.

Jessie always had an interest in recording information, first as an amateur photographer, and after she retired from bookkeeping, genealogy became her work. She spent countless hours at the Provincial Archives and at the Maritime History Archive transcribing parish records and compiling other family history information.

Jessie married Frederick Bernard Shaw in 1951. They had two children - Marjorie Dorellen in 1952 and Douglas Bernard Wayne in 1957. In 1958 the couple separated and ten years later they divorced. When she died at St. John's on 23 June 2000 she was survived by her two children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Scope and Content: Handwritten and typed transcriptions and notes made from the Vital Statistics registers and parish registers in the collections of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The material is stored in binders and is arranged alphabetically by family name.
Terms Governing Use: Copyright of transcriptions transferred to MHA. Copyright restrictions exist for the photograph.
Subject: St. John's (N.L.)
Subject: Harbour Grace (N.L.)
Subject: Carbonear (N.L.)
Subject: Genealogies
Subject: Transcripts
Subject: Vital statistics
Subject: Church records and registers




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