A Trainer Family Tragedy

Huron County Court House, Goderich

On April 8, 1870, Bernard Trainer paid a visit to the Huron County Court House. This should have been a happy occasion: he was going to register the births of his new son and daughter, born on March 16. But Bernard was also there to report the death of his wife, Louisa, just a week after the twins’ birth. Louisa was only 41 years old, and in addition to infants Isabella and Arthur, she was leaving behind eight other children between the ages of nineteen and four.

Sadly, the twins did not long outlive their mother. Isabella died in May 1870 and Arthur in July. The 1871 Canadian census, which also recorded the deaths that occurred in the previous year, gave “consumption”—tuberculosis—as the cause of death for both children. The tragic events that the Trainer family faced in 1870 make clear to us today what everyone in the nineteenth century knew: that childbirth was a dangerous time for women, and that the first year of life for infants was perilous.

In fact, Albert and Isabella were not the first children that the Trainer family had lost. Two years earlier, Louisa had given birth to another set of twins. Evelyna Euphemia and Herbert Patton were born on January 24, 1868. They, along with Alice and her younger brother William, were baptized at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Goderich on March 22. The Huron Signal reported that Evelyna died on July 25, 1868, but we don’t know exactly how long Herbert lived. Municipalities in Canada were not required to record births and deaths until 1869, and the microfilmed issues of the Huron Signal that I examined at the Library and Archives Canada were missing pages and sometimes very hard to read.

Justus von Leibig patented the first
commercial infant formula in 1865. By 1883,
there were 27 brands on the market.

It seems likely that Herbert also died in the summer of 1868. Summer was a particularly dangerous time for infants. Hot and dry weather meant that clean drinking water was in short supply and it was difficult to maintain sanitary conditions, especially in cities. If Louisa was unable to breastfeed the children or had to supplement with formula—a likely scenario with twins—the babies would have been vulnerable to a collection of diseases that historians identify as “weanling diarrhea.” 

Tainted milk, contaminated water, and unclean bottles all contributed to diseases of the intestines, malnutrition, and dehydration. Moreover, even those infants who survived bouts of diarrhea were nutritionally compromised and thus at increased risk of contracting, and dying from, other infectious diseases. Isabella and Arthur, too, may have been affected by weanling diarrhea, since they did not have a mother to nurse them. If they also suffered from tuberculosis, the effect of malnutrition would have been significantly multiplied.

Before she was seven years old, Alice had experienced the death of her mother and four siblings. We have no record today of what her feelings were, but it seems safe to say that it was something that affected her for the rest of her life.  Her particular concern for women’s and children’s health (memorialized today by the Alice T. Miner Center for Women and Children at CVPH) undoubtedly has its roots in that childhood experience, as well as the loss of her own child. 

We have no pictures of Louisa
Saunders Trainer. This photo of
her sister Ann may give us an idea
of what she looked like.

These events also clearly had a long-term impact on the other Trainer siblings, particularly Matilda, Bertha, and Louisa. Matilda, of course, was suddenly responsible for the care of nine younger siblings. When Bernard Trainer died in 1880, she effectively became the only parent. Fourteen-year-old Bertha must also have had to take on a new role, since Matilda continued to work as a teacher. One wonders if this early experience of the burdens of raising a family played into the sisters’ decision to remain unmarried. 

In 1930, Louisa Trainer endowed the Alexandra and Marine General Hospital in Goderich with $10,000 “to be used in giving hospital care and attention to the poor and needy of the Town of Goderich and vicinity.” This fund was to be known as the Matilda Trainer Endowment Fund. The hospital had come too late to help Mrs. Trainer, but perhaps other families would be spared thanks to Louisa’s generosity. And in naming the fund for Matilda, she honored the sister who became both mother and father.

Information about this chapter in the Trainer family’s history is drawn from the 1871 Canadian census, Huron County death and birth records, the Wesleyan Methodist baptismal registers of Huron County, and issues of the Huron Signal published between 1868 and 1870. Data about the causes of infant mortality in 19th-century Canada came from Larry A. Sawchuk and Stacie D.A. Burke, “Mortality in an Early Ontario Community, 1876-1885," Urban History Review 29, no. 1 (2000), 33-47.

A Visit to the Archives: Census Records

Headquarters of Library and Archives Canada
photo by Padraic Ryan

I recently had the opportunity to visit Ottawa, and while I was there, I spent some time at Library and Archives Canada, looking for information about Alice’s early life in Goderich. As anyone who’s done genealogical research knows, censuses, birth and baptismal records, city directories, and newspapers are all good ways to find information about people, but they all have their downsides. Just finding the document you need can be tricky, though digitization is making things easier. And any data collected by human beings—especially on a large scale like a national census—is bound to contain some errors. 

Alice’s brother James Saunders Trainer

In doing my research, I began by examining the records of the 1861 census of Canada West (what’s now Ontario), the 1871 and 1881 Canadian national censuses, the United States censuses of 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 (unfortunately, almost all the records of the 1890 census were destroyed in a fire), and the 1925 New York State census. I found some curious discrepancies among these records which raise some questions. 

One of the things I wanted to find out is when the various members of the Trainer family emigrated from Canada to the United States. We can say with some certainty that the three oldest brothers (Ephraim, James, and Bernard) had left by 1881, because they don't appear in that year’s Canadian census. One of the questions on the U.S. census is the year that non-native-born residents arrived in the United States. In 1900, James Trainer’s year of arrival is listed as 1880; in 1910 it’s 1879; and in 1920, 1885! So what caused this discrepancy? Did James forget or misstate the year? Did the census enumerator write down the wrong number? Was there some miscommunication at work or just simple human error? It’s impossible to say at this distance.

Bernard “Barney” Trainer and his wife,
Grace Scoresby Trainer

Another curious thing came up regarding Alice’s brother Bernard. The Canadian censuses as well as the 1910 U.S. census indicate that he, like the rest of the siblings, was born in Ontario. However, on the 1925 New York State census form, “Canada” has been crossed out and corrected to read “U.S.” as his place of birth. Then in the 1930 census, he gives his place of birth as Michigan. Did Bernard deliberately mislead the census enumerator, and if so, why? Bernard was born in 1859 but Canada did not require municipalities to record births until 1869, so until we can find some other record (perhaps a baptismal register) to confirm his place of birth, that will remain a mystery.

Alice’s youngest brother,
 William Edwin Trainer

Census records are a snapshot of a specific moment in time. For example, when we look at the 1881 Canadian census, we see that only five Trainer siblings remain in Goderich. Matilda, Bertha, and Louisa are all working as teachers, William is attending school, and Alice is at home. We know that their parents, Bernard and Louisa Saunders Trainer, have both died, and the three oldest boys have gone off to Chicago, but of course that information isn’t recorded in the census. Other sources are needed to fill in the details, and it would also be helpful to know something about what was happening in Goderich more broadly during that time.

In my next post I’ll tell you what I found out about the Trainer family during a particularly important period in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It’s a very sad story, but one that I think gives us some valuable insight into the later lives of Alice and her siblings.


The Trainer family photos in this post were donated to the museum by Helen Highley Matel, James Trainer’s granddaughter.

The Constable's Daughter

This year The Alice celebrates a significant event in our museum's history, a sesquicentennial! Alice Trainer Miner was born in Goderich, Ontario on September 23, 1863. She was the youngest daughter of twelve (surviving) children born to Louisa Saunders Trainer and Bernard Trainer. Bernard was a carpenter, and also served as Chief Constable of Huron County, which included the town of Goderich.

Alice Trainer, ca. 1878

Early in 1870 Louisa Saunders Trainer died while giving birth to twins (who also did not survive), leaving Alice and her siblings to be raised by their father - with help from his oldest daughter, Matilda. Just nineteen when she took over raising the rest of the children, Matilda (also known as Tillie) had begun teaching school at the tender age of fourteen. At the time of their mother's death the children ranged in age from seventeen (Ephraim) to age four (William). Despite her new role as surrogate mother Tillie apparently kept her teaching job. She is listed in the Province of Ontario 1871 census as "teacher, common school".

Matilda Trainer, ca. 1878

Bernard Trainer was Chief Constable and often quoted in the local press. Trainer played a role in a notorious murder case in Canada and is mentioned in the book Double Trap: The Last Public Hanging in Canada written by John Melady (incidentally a relative of the accused in this case). The museum does not possess photographs of either of Alice's parents, although we have a handful of wonderful portraits of Alice, some of her siblings, and their maternal grandparents James and Jane Saunders.

James Saunders and Jane Woolocott Saunders, ca. 1852

In 1880 Bernard Trainer passed away at the age of 54. In 1887 Tillie moved the girls and their youngest brother William to Chicago, Illinois so they could live nearer to older brothers - James, (listed in the same 1871 census as a law student at the age of 16) and Louis. The brothers had immigrated to Chicago in 1881, and the sisters (Matilda, Bertha, Louise and Alice) with young William joined them later. 

James S. Trainer, ca. 1925

Some time around 1893 Alice Trainer met railroad entrepreneur and inventor William H. Miner. And this is where I leave the story of Alice's youth... I hope to write more about our founder in the next few months leading up to her birthday on September 23.

Alice Trainer, ca. 1893