Charles Balish was born 15 January 1896 in Beirut, Lebanon. He emigrated to Nova Scotia, settling in Lockeport and married Eva May Knickerson (born 11 November 1900 and died 11 November 1980) of Cape Sable Island. The Balishes ran a general store which may be seen on the 1938 Lockeport Lockout film. Mr. Balish documented events which were important to the growth of his family, his community and his province. Charles Balish died in February 1986.
Douglas George Buckley was born on January 16, 1891, in Guysborough, Nova Scotia. His parents were George Edward Buckley and Eva Georgina Campbell. After completing high school, Douglas left Nova Scotia for Toronto where he worked as a cashier for the Sun Life Assurance Company. When war broke out, Douglas enlisted with the rest of his Argonaut Rowing Club. He was stationed in Flanders, Belgium, with the 19th Battalion in 1915 until he was badly injured early in 1916. In the trenches, part of a sandbag wall fell on him causing severe damage to his left wrist. The injury became badly infected, leaving his left wrist and hand mostly immobilised. This was later diagnosed as septic arthritis. He was medically discharged from the army because of the injury, although he did spend nearly the full year in France and England in various hospitals convalescing. Douglas returned to Canada in December 1916 and was officially medically discharged form the army on October 31, 1917. He was able to return to in employment at Sun Life Assurance in Toronto, but never regained full use of his wrist. In December 1917, he married Mabel Louise Hall, and the couple went onto have three children. Both their twins, Margaret and Elizabeth, and son, Douglas George Jr., served in the Second World War. Douglas passed away in 1967, ten years after his wife Mabel.
Ernesto Vinci was born 20 April 1898 in Germany and died 7 November 1983 in New Brunswick. He came to Canada in 1938. During the second world war, he resided in Halifax and was director of the Conservatory of Music. He later lived in Toronto, Ontario.
Sarah Ann Donaldson was born in July of 1885 to Captain John Henry and Elizabeth Ellen (Hirtle) Donaldson. Captain Donaldson was posted at Life Saving Station 3 on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, where the family lived in the late 1890s and early 1900s. John and Elizabeth Donaldson had several other children, including Robert, George, Mabel and Helen (Polly), at least some of whom were born on Sable.
It was on Sable Island that Sarah met her husband Reuben Alexander Naugle (sometimes Alexander Reuben Naugle, b. September 1878). After being a labourer there for several years, he was appointed Keeper of Sable Island’s #2 Station in June of 1904. They married in October 1904 and started their family, later moving on to Sable Island’s Life Saving Station #3.
The 1921 Census of Sable Island showed Sarah and Reuben still on the Island, now with a family of six children: Reuben (b. 1906), Ernest (b. 1908), Lawrence Robert (b. 1910), Dorothy Mabel May (b. May 4th 1913), Willard (b. ca. 1918), and Clyde (b. ca. 1920). When they left Sable Island (around 1924), the family settled in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia.
Reuben Alexander Naugle died in 1961, and Sarah Ann Naugle in 1963.
John Frederick Traugott Gschwind (ca.1748-1827), Hessian army and Nova Scotia militia officer, physician, and office holder, was born circa 1748 in Oberdaubnitz, near Meissen, Saxony (German Democratic Republic). In 1776 he arrived in New York City, United States as part of the Hessian army recruited by the British government to suppress the colonial rebellion. In October 1778, his regiment was transferred to Halifax, Nova Scotia and he became a military surgeon with a civilian medical practice on the side. He married Anna Fletcher (1750-1805) on August 3, 1782 and they had one daughter, also named Anna. When his regiment returned to Europe after the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Gschwind stayed in Halifax. As a reward for his military service, he was granted land in Halifax County in 1784 and 1788. In 1793 he was appointed surgeon of the 2nd Halifax Militia Regiment, promoted to surgeon and physician general of the provincial militia in 1796. He was appointed health officer for the Port of Halifax in 1799, responsible for inspection of incoming ships to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, a post he held until 1825. He died 2 September 1827 in Halifax.
Evern Earl Bailly (1903-1977), artist/painter, was born July 8, 1903 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to Harris Edwin Bailly and Willetta Maud Curll. He contracted polio at the age of 3, left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. As a child he learned to draw and paint with the brush in his mouth, later took art lessons at Eastport, Maine, USA, from George Pearce Ennis in 1931. He painted in water colour and oils, specialized in seascapes, fishing scenes and coastal landscapes of Nova Scotia. He was mobile in a wheelchair, with the help of his younger brother Donald (Don) Bailly (1913-2007), and together they traveled extensively, including a trip on the schooner BLUENOSE to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Earl Bailly’s work has been exhibited in the National Gallery of Canada; Warm Springs Foundation, Georgia, USA; Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, NS; Philadelphia Art Alliance; Four Arts Society of Palm Beach FL; many private collections and the former Earl Bailly Art Gallery in Bermuda. He was a member of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists and the Nova Scotia Society of Artists. He received an honourary degree from St. Francis Xavier University in 1972. He died July 1, 1977 at his home in Lunenburg at age 74.
Bridglal “Bridge” Pachai, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., D.C.L., is a respected educator, historian and author, born in Umbulwana, Natal, South Africa on November 30, 1927. He was educated in Ladysmith and graduated from the University of Natal with his Ph.D. in 1963. He taught at universities in Ghana and Malawi, then moved with his wife Leela and children to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1975 to teach history at Dalhousie University until 1977 when he became Director of Saint Mary’s University’s International Education Centre from 1977 to 1979. In September 1979 he took up the post of Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the newly established University of Sokoto, Nigeria. After six years he moved back to Halifax and served as Executive Director for the Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia, 1985 to 1989, then for Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, 1989 to 1994. He visited South Africa during its transition from apartheid to democracy, in 1991 and 1995. In 1998 he taught for a year in The Gambia. During his career he was general editor of the “Peoples of the Maritimes” book series for Four East Publications, lectured, wrote 17 books and published numerous articles on Blacks in Canada and in Nova Scotia, South Africa, multiculturalism and human rights education. His books include “Beneath the Clouds of the Promised Land Volume 1 1600-1800” (Black Educators Association of NS, 1987) and “Volume 2 1800-1989" (Lancelot Press, 1991), “Peoples of the Maritimes: Blacks" (Four East Publications 1987, 1993), “Historic Black Nova Scotia" (Nimbus 2006), and two autobiographies “My Africa, My Canada” (1989) and “Accidental Opportunities” (Roseway 2007). For his dedication, his leadership and his experience in improving race relations and working towards greater appreciation of the Canadian cultural mosaic he was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2000.
Donald Roy Wiles (1924-2022), amateur linguist and chemistry professor, was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada in August 1924 to Neil Douglas Wiles (1899-1983) and Hilda M. (Vaughan) Wiles (1896-1986). Educated in Amherst, then Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick he earned a Bachelor of Science degree 1946, and Bachelor of Education degree 1947. Before his career in chemistry took him to Norway, the United States, and Western Canada, he spent the summer of 1946 visiting his mother’s family in Martin’s Point, Lunenburg County. Both sides of the family could trace their roots back to the “Foreign Protestants” who first settled Lunenburg. While there he recorded the German language spoken by the elders of that community and wrote down some of the German customs persisting there. After earning his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States in 1953, he worked at the University of British Columbia 1955-1959, then joined the Chemistry Department faculty at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario from 1959 until his retirement in September 1990. He continued teaching occasional courses in chemistry until just before his death on July 13, 2022 in Almonte, Ontario.
Mike Parker was born 9 October 1952 and grew up in Bear River, Digby County. His father owned the local general store, the Bear River Trading Company. During the summer and fall, his father was a hunting and fishing guide; and during the winter, he occasionally worked in the lumber woods. Mike grew up hearing stories and tales associated with the guiding and lumbering occupations. When Parker's father died suddenly in his mid-sixties, Mike realized that changing technology and the aging population conspired against the endurance of this lifestyle. Parker therefore began recording the personal experience narratives of guides and lumbermen in the Digby and Annapolis County areas. Parker graduated from Acadia University in 1975 (B.A.) and 1977 with a recreation degree. He has been teaching at the School for the Blind in Halifax since 1977. he has published two books using his oral history research and is working on a third about the merchant navy during World War II. Parker currently lives in Dartmouth with his wife and two children.
Dr. Jerome Harvey Barkow was a professor of anthropology at Dalhousie University. From 1981 to 1983 he worked temporarily for the Nova Scotia Government as the principal investigator for the NS Department of Health’s Advisory Committee Province-Wide Study of Children’s Services. His task was to produce a report and recommendations to the Minister on improvements to the mental health services offered to children and youth in the province. He worked with the Advisory Committee, initiated by Dr. F.R. Townsend, Director of Mental Health Services for the Department, and chaired by Judge L.E. Moir. His contract ended with the publication of the report in 1983 entitled Once More for Children: The Report of Province-wide Study of Psychiatric Mental Health and Related Services for Children and Adolescents (NS Dept of Health, 1983). After the report’s publication, Dr. Barkow returned to his professorial duties at Dalhousie University.