Eleanore Jeanne Simson was one of my third great grandmothers on my mothers side. I really like her. I especially like her name because she’s French (Canadian). When you pronounce it as the French do, it comes out more in English as “Eleanora.” I also feel really sorry for her. She got so ripped off.
Her dad died in March 1835, a few months before she was born, he was a merchant in Montreal. I really want to go visit Montreal, they all got christened and married in the cathedral there. Her mother was the daughter of a public notarary. Her mother remarried when she was about 8 and had a little baby boy who died shortly after. Not long after that her mother died, and her grandmother was appointed her guardian. But her grandmother died only 18 months later and she was left to the mercies of her step father Charles Michel Delisle and her uncle Robert Simson.
Its interesting what you can find out when you google peoples names. I found out most of her biography while she lived in Canada from the book “Decisions des tribunes du Bas-Canada” by Simon Lelievre. The next two paragraphs are taken from the book.
Part of the property of the infant, derived from her father, consisted of thirty shares in the Bank of Montreal. Robert Simson, on the 29th September, 1846, in his character of sub-tutor, gave a notice in writing to the Bank, through its cashier, informing them that C. Michel Delisle had no power or authority to sell these shares. Notwithstanding this notification, C. Michel Delisle sold six of the shares in December, 1848, two more in January 1849, ten more in June following, and the remaining twelve in the following month of September 1849. In all these cases the Bank of Montreal made the transfer of these shares int he books of the Bank, as required by Delisle, out of the name of the father of the respondent, in whose name they were standing, into the name of the various purchasers to whom Delisle had sold them. The question in this appeal is the validity of these transfers.
The respondent, in 1855, married her present husband, Mr Turner, who is also a respondent. In September 1857, about a year after she attained her majority, and being by her marriage contract solely entitled to the property derived from her father, she instituted original proceedings against the bank of Montreal in the Superior Court of Lower Canada, claiming the dividends which had accrued due on the thirty shares from the time of their sale in December 1848, and in January, June and September 1849. The sole question in the cause was whether the transfer of the shares was valid and effectual.
In 1862 she and her husband with their oldest two children emigrated to New Zealand to begin a new life here. Her husband was a founding member of Tauranga’s Masonic lodge, and I suspect that’s how his oldest son Charles met his wife Mary Ella (her father was also a founding member in the same society). Their oldest son eventually became the father of my grandma.
By chance I came across a copy of her will at the NZ archives in Wellington. Her husband refused to be the executor of her will, saying that she had been due to have a large inheritance which was all gone, so theres still a question in my mind about what happened with their court case – did they lose it? Or was it dismissed when they left the country? Maybe I’ll meet her one day and get to talk to her about it.
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