Notes A birth registration was found for Winifred Fifield: Year of Registration: 1891; Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec; District: Westbury; County: Wiltshire; Volume: 5a; Page: 138.
Winifred (later known as Eve) Fifield was the illegitimate daughter of Clara Harriet Fifield and raised by her grandmother Laura, the widow of William Fifield, a gamekeeper for the Earl of Northbrook.
In 1903, Clara falsely declared that there was no one able to provide for her daughter. Dr. Barnardo's Home accepted the child and sent her to Canada.
In 1905, W. Fifield, 13, arrived in Quebec, Canada, along with a group of 104 girls accompanied by their matron Mrs. Lloyd en route to Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
She lived with two farm families near Kingston, Ontario under very harsh conditions. After Winifred's disappearance from her grandmother's home, the Fifield family tried to trace her. They finally located her in 1910, and then, Winifred was sent to live with a Hamilton family who treated her well and oversaw her education.
In 1919, Winifred went to China as secretary to a missionary writer. Two years later she married Arthur Joseph Heal, an employee at Thomas Cook & Son. The couple had two children.
When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Heal family was in England, where they remained except for a few years in Malaya after World War II. Winifred was active in charity and volunteer work throughout most of her life. But she had few inner resources because of her early abandonment. She suffered from depression and heart problems in later years and died in 1977, followed by her husband three years later.
(Information obtained from Adventures of Eve: A Mother's Castoff by Helen Coward.)
Contributors Created : 2008-05-01 14:26:27 / From original database Last Updated : 2009-01-23 20:07:58 /
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