Teresa Fisher

Ireland

Teresa's is a sad story. Little was known about her life or family prior to being taken in by the Barnardo's Home. It was known that she had been sent from London, England to Canada in 1912, with her sister Minnie, not long after the Titanic sank. In recent years, thanks largely to the internet, more information has come to light.

A picture of the RMS Titanic leaving Belfast in April 1912.
At this time it was the largest ship in the world

Teresa's birth certificate shows that she was born Theresa McKinney (note the spelling), on April 27, 1897 (not April 18th as had long been believed) at 47 Connswater Street, Belfast, Ireland, within sight of the ship yard where the Titanic was built. It is unlikely that the original home still exists as this area was heavily bombed during World War ll, the nearby ship yard being a primary target, and has more recently undergone extensive urban renewal. Her family moved a number of times but remained in the Ballymacarrett area of Belfast, within walking distance of the ship yards.

Downtown Belfast c.1900, when Teresa would have been a very young child.

High Street, Belfast and the Albert Memorial in the 1890s, around the time when Teresa was born.	Castle Place, Belfast around 1900. Looking east towards High Street.	Castle Place, Belfast around 1900. Looking west towards Castle Junction.
Castle Junction, looking from Royal Avenue towards Donegal Place.	Royal Avenue in 1898, as seen from Castle Junction.	1902, Donegal Square North, which now passes in front of the City Hall. Teresa would have been five years old at this time.
Donegal Square North with the City Hall to the extreme left.	Belfast City Hall, built c.1902 when Teresa was five years old.	The Belfast City Hall.

Click on the pictures to get a larger image.

The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory shows Francis McKinney, Teresa's father, Living at 94 Bread Street in 1900. Again in the 1903, 1904, and 1905 directories as living at either 71 or 91 Bread Street No. 1. His employment is shown as firstly a Labourer, then a Turner, possibly employed in one of Belfast's ship yards. Later records show him as a Fitter. In 1906 Francis is shown to be living at 106 Bread Street. Teresa, her mother and two sisters would also have lived at these addresses.

The Ballymacarrett area of Belfast, where Teresa was born and raised.

The Harland and Wolff's ship yard c.1907, where Teresa's father, Frank, probably worked at this time.	Gelston's Corners, at the junction of the Holywood and Belmont Roads c. 1918. Teresa lived about a mile from here, near the Holywood Arches.	The Connswater area of Belfast, where Teresa was born. This is close to East Bread Street.
The lower end of the Upper Newtownards Road, near the Holywood Arches (behind the photographer), which were close to East Bread Street.	East Bread Street as it is today. The original homes still exist to the left of the picture. Teresa would have lived on the right. The Antrim hills can be seen in the background.	117 Lord Street, which was Teresa's last home before being placed in a Barnardo's Home. Her family has lived in both homes to the left of this picture.

Click on the pictures to get a larger image.

As her story goes, Teresa's mother, Mary Elizabeth Fisher, and father, Francis McKinney, living in Belfast, Ireland, had a dispute over the religion in which their three daughters should be raised. Her father was Roman Catholic and her mother Protestant. It was long believed that Teresa's mother took the children to England and stayed with her sister in Weymouth so that they could be raised in the Presbyterian religion. It is said that she then changed their names to her maiden name. We now know this to be incorrect. What happened to Mary remained a mystery until 2002.

The records are somewhat contradictory now, but somewhere between 1906 and 1908 Mary took the girls and moved to 117 Lord Street, Belfast, without Frank. It must have been at this time that she changed the girls surnames to Fisher, her maiden name. Mary Elizabeth Fisher, aged 41 years, died of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, on May 2nd, 1908, at this address. Mary's death certificate shows her as being widowed at death, yet other records suggest that Frank was still alive and that she had left him. Other references further suggest that this was a common-law relationship, although this is not proven. Regardless of the truth, the three girls were now abandoned and, as per Mary's request, were given shelter by a Protestant minister who placed the two younger girls, including Teresa, in the care of Barnardo's Homes. Sara, the oldest girl stayed with, and worked for, a former neighbour until she was able to emigrate to Canada.

Teresa Fisher 11 years old

Teresa and Minnie Fisher

Minnie Fisher 8 years old

Click on the pictures to get a larger image.

The Barnardo's Home, Belfast opened in 1899, at 110 Great Victoria Street, Belfast, now the site of Fanum House, the home of the Irish Times newspaper. In 1911 it moved to 15 & 17 Crumlin Road, Carlisle Circus, and in 1918 it moved to St George’s Villa, 2 Holywood Road, Strandtown.

It is interesting to note that the Belfast directories also show a number of Fisher and McKinney families living on Lord Street around this time. We do not know if they were related.

England

According to the National Archives of Canada, Teresa Fisher was then sent to stay at Hazelbrae House, a Barnardo Home in Peterborugh, Ontario, prior to placement with a family in Canada.

Hazelbrae House. The Barnardo's girls receiving home in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
This building no longer exists.

Teresa's daughter, Florence Wride, has since confirmed that her mother had lived in Peterborough before being placed with the Parks family in Shedden, Ontario, but had no idea that Teresa had been a "Home Child".

Kenneth and Teresa were happily married and their first child, Charlie (Charles) was born the next year, followed by a daughter Florence in 1918. Teresa was unable to avoid catching the "Spanish Flu", which had reached epidemic proportions in 1918, and in her weakened state she died eight hours after giving birth to Florence. Teresa was only 21 years old.

From the St. Thomas Daily Times newspaper Dec. 31, 1918: "NEWS FROM NEARBY TOWNS" MRS. ARCH. WRIDE DIES AT SHEDDEN Well Known Resident of Shedden Passes Away Very Suddenly Shedden, Dec. 31. - A very sudden death occurred here at 4 o'clock this morning, when Mrs. Archie Wride passed away after a week's illness with influenza and pneumonia. Besides her husband, she leaves one little boy, Charles, and an infant child, and the sympathy of the community goes out to them in their sad bereavement. Deceased, before her marriage, was Miss Theresa Fisher. Two sisters, Mrs. H.H. Mitchell and Mrs. C.B. Mussell, of Kamsack, Sask., are also left to mourn with a large circle of friends, by whom she was highly esteemed. The funeral will be held Tuesday afternoon at 2 o'clock and will be private.

Shedden, Jan. 2. - The funeral of the late Mrs. Archie Wride was held on Wednesday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Service was conducted at the house by Rev. I. W. Kilpatrick after which interment was made in the Shedden cemetery. The floral offerings were numerous and beautiful and included sprays from the Epworth League, the Oddfellows lodges and the section men of the M.C.R. Deceased was highly esteemed by all her friends who will mourn her untimely end and much sympathy is expressed for the sorrowing husband who is left with two little children. A sad feature of the case is the serious illness of the little boy who also has pneumonia. Only the near relatives were present at the funeral which was private.

Kenneth never remarried and, sadly, Charlie died of a ruptured appendix, also at age 21. Florence was raised by family, never knowing her mother and, until 2002, knowing nothing of her mother's family. Her aunts, Sadie and Minnie, could not recall anything of their past and never knew their father's last name. Some said it was Flanagan, others said Finnegan, but nobody knew.

These three sisters are now gone and, with them, possibly any hope of recalling the past and connecting with lost family.

Teresa's Barnardo experience was apparently very positive, making strong friendships (as is evidenced by letters, newspaper clippings and other documentation) and, later being held in high regard by the community of Shedden and the people with whom she was placed.

It is comforting to know that Teresa had a good life in Canada until her untimely death.

Today we received information from Barnardo's regarding Teresa's early life. It largely confirmed what we already knew but also revealed her father's real name and that her mother did not take her to England. (We have since confirmed this information through public records.)

We are very happy and grateful to have received this information. It may now open new doors and provide the missing link to family in Ireland.

Dear Mr K Ettie

Heatherbank Museum of Social Work is located on the campus of Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow Scotland. Full details of our mission and work can be found on our website - Heatherbank Museum of Social Work .

During National Museums Month in May 2001 we will be mounting a modest exhibition on Child Migration: Scotland to Canada. Our aims are:

To increase awareness of the scale and nature of child migration from Scotland to Canada c 1870 - c1930 To give a voice to the descendants of child migrants today To examine modern parallels to child migration To provide a balanced view of child migration

During our research on the internet we discovered your material on Teresa Fisher. We found this a very poignant story, greatly enhanced by the visual material. We are sure that Teresa's story and the illustrations would be of great interest to our visitors. I am writing to ask your permission to reproduce the material in the form of a 'fact file' which would be available for consultation at the exhibition. The fact that you are still actively researching, as evidenced by your latest addition to the site, would underline, I believe, how active many Canadians are in wishing to research the home children and what happened to them. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

Margery Burdon, volunteer researcher, Heatherbank Museum

Today we received information from the Northern Ireland Registry Office, following a July visit to Belfast, which includes Teresa's birth certificate and Mary's death certificate. Additional information therein is reflected above.

Dear Mr. Ettie:

I was thrilled to find your ancestress' story on Rootsweb.

I am the webmistress of British Home Children Descendants, and the great-granddaughter of Catherine Carroll Shaw (1876-1906), an early home child from Liverpool to Quebec. We are the sister site to the Rootsweb BHC mailing list and maintain on the site as much information as be found on the net regarding Home Children sent to New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United States.

We have a unique and growing database of all home children, as well as articles, photos, etc. of any and all of the brave children who endured the travel and resettlement schemes of Great Britain.

I wanted to know if I could ask your permission to use Teresa's story from your website to place as an article on our site. We are a free, non-commercial, voluntary site whose only goals are to provide information for those who are seeking answers for themselves and their ancestors in the 150,000 child migrants sent to those faraway countries.

If you will allow me the use of this story (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hero/teresa.html) I can promise you that I will give you all the credit and copyright and point a link to your website. I would also very much like to include Teresa and her sisters in our database of British Home Children, and place their photographs in our photo album...

I particularly hope that you would join our website as well! I look so forward to hearing from you and receiving your permission for your story. Thank you!!

Sincerely,
Norah E. Dennis
webmistress
http://bhc.kindredbond.com
(British Home Children Descendants)