John and Margaret were born in Lanarch, Scotland in 1887. John’s birthday was March 28th and Margaret’s was August 24th . They were married in Scotland and came to the East Coast of Canada together in 1913. They came because Canada had more economic opportunities and because they were wary of the political unrest in Europe. They traveled overland to the West Coast and by boat to Vancouver Island so John could work in a coal mine there. They moved to Maple Ridge in approximately 1917 where they had six children: Raymond, Douglas, Glen, Walter, Mary, and Robert. There John, who was a trained classical pianist, became a piano teacher and the organist for the Presbyterian Church. Margaret was an excellent cook and rumor has it that she made a mean strawberry shortcake . At age fifty-eight, while building a ship during World War Two at a North Vancouver dry-dock, John fell to his death through a loose floorboard. Margaret died many years later in about 1960.