My mother Margaret Stuart Cook was born August 10th 1895 to Margaret Black Cassels Cook and Archibald Hay Cook of Quebec City and married Charles William Wiggs on March 29th 1924 in Quebec City. They had 3 children Rosalind Stuart, Owen Ross and Margaret Gillian. Described by her brother-in-law in the Wiggs Family Record “as a quiet, demure and gracious person who had the happy faculty of always being pleasant to everyone she met and was a devoted wife and mother.”
Born and brought up in Quebec City she attended a private girls school where she made life long friends with Irish, French and Jewish girls. At a young age she began violin lessons and studied violin at The Bussels Academy of Music and later in New York City under a private tutor at The Julliard Shool of Music. She played with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra for many years. On several occasions she crossed the Atlantic Ocean on steamer to attend school and later to help her sister Evelyn who lived in London .
My mother and father both spent the summer at Lake St. Joseph and we thought it very strange that they did not meet then! However my father did invite my mother and Aunt for a drive in his new model T Ford. Unfortunately he drove over some railway tracks at high speed and my mother bounced up and hit the roof of the car resulting in a broken nose! It was a standing family joke that he had to marry her after that as it “cemented” their friendship! My mother would recall that she fainted 3 times walking down the aisle of the church on her wedding day! Another incident my mother recalled (who was always a nervous driver) had the misfortune as a novice driver of failing to stop at the bottom of a steep hill and hit an oncoming car – the driver- the Mayor of New York City !
Ours was a happy childhood with summers at Lake St Joeseph where our friends were allowed to stay for weeks at a time and we enjoyed boating and swimming and sailing in my fathers sailboat. My mother would not go sailing but enjoyed our annual canoe trip! We enjoyed winter sports and sliding on The Chateau Frontenac Ice slide was a special treat! During the last years of her life she developed cancer and died August 6th 1958 never to see her grandchildren grow up-