ST-DENIS/PRIDDLE:  In 1874 John Priddle of Houghton Township, Norfolk County, Ontario, married Hannah Brinn of adjacent Bayham Township in Elgin County.  They lived a happy life together until February of 1919, when John suffered a paralytic stroke while out hunting one day.  In May of that same year, his daughter Hattie wrote a letter to her cousins expressing the hardship his death caused:  “I am trying to work the farm for mother.  I wanted her to let it on shares, but she would rather not so I am trying to take Father’s place, and oh I find it so hard and miss him so much.  Much more now than at first.  He was so upright and understood everything.  Sometimes when I am harrowing and working out in the fields, I just cry and cry; it is so lonesome and sad here without him.  And then every tree and flower makes me think of him, but sometimes he seems very near to me…”

Hannah Priddle lived on until 1926, when she too passed away.