William Currie was born on February 28, 1834 in Lanark County, ON. In 1860, he moved to St. Mary's, where he worked in mercantile and grain businesses until 1879, when he emigrated to Manitoba. The following year, he took up homesteading along the Assiniboine River, at a site known as Currie's Landing. He received and forwarded frieght from steamboats travelling the river. From 1893-1902, he served as baliff for the Brandon District, before resigning and moving to Brandon where he engaged in the real estate and fire insurance business.
Currie married Ellen Creighton of Blanchard, ON in 1861. Together they had six chrildren: Robert Wilson Currie, Margaret Anne Currie, Harriet Ellen Currie, William James Currie, James Weldon Currie, and Lottie Louise Currie.
William Currie died on March 30, 1931 in Brandon, MB.
Scope and Content
Item is a studio portrait of William Currie.
Notes
History/Bio information taken from the Manitoba Historical Society website (http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/currie_w.shtml)
Very poor. Item has been broken in half on a diagonal from top to botton. Upper right corner is missing. Various tape stains and some tape residue on the bottom left.
History / Biographical
Lottie Louisa Currie was born on September 9, 1876 in St. Mary's, Perth, ON, to William and Eleanor Currie. She came to the Brandon area with her family in the 1880s. Currie worked as a bookkeeper and stenographer for Smith & Burton, from at least 1906 until the business ceased operations in 1917.
Currie continued working in bookkeeping and accounts, first for Brandon Gas & Power Co., then for the Manitoba Power Commission. She appears to have retired around 1942. She is not listed as living in Brandon between 1943-1945, but was once again a resident by 1947. Currie was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, a charter member of the Brandon Business and Professional Women's Club and in 1916, she passed her examinations for the St. John's Ambulance Association.
Lottie Louisa Currie died on November 25, 1972 in Brandon, MB.
Smith & Burton, a grocery store that also had mail order and china departments, was founded by E.B. Smith and John Burton in the 1886. It was housed at a few locations in downtown Brandon; their location at 829 Rosser Avenue is the one that mostly likely appears in the photograph.
Scope and Content
Item is a portrait of office employees at Smith & Burton, grocers. Lottie Currie, daughter of William Currie, is shown standing on the left.
