Vintage photo takes readers back to Woodstock circa 1939

B3

By Jim Dumville

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A vintage photo, provided to the Bugle-Observer by Norma (nee Jones) Hubert of Toronto, reflects Woodstock during an era when war clouds were gathering over Europe.

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PHOTO BY MURRAY JONES

A milk wagon, with a sign showing support for Mother England, delivers milk in 1939.

PHOTO BY MURRAY JONES

Douglas and Gertrude Jones, the grandparents of Norma (Jones) Hubert, stand in front of their Upper Main Street home in Woodstock. Hubert believes the photo â�"" taken by her father Murray, who worked several years of Harvey Studios in Fredericton â�"" dates back to the 1940s.

PHOTO COURTESY NORMA HUBERT

Norma (Jones) Hubert poses with her Nana Gertrude Jones for a 1958 photo taken outside her grandmother's Upper Woodstock home.

"The photo shows a milk wagon with a horse, as well as the driver, and an unidentified young woman whom I do not know," wrote Hubert in her e-mail which accompanied the wonderful photo. "The signage on the wagon reads ‘There'll Always Be An England.' On the bottom of the picture is written ‘1939' by someone in my family which tells me that World War II had begun."

While there are aspects of the photo unknown to Hubert, her background and knowledge of Woodstock helps fill plenty of the gaps.

"My late father, Murray Jones, was the photographer who took this vintage picture in 1939," she explained. "His parents Douglas and Gertrude Jones lived in Woodstock for many years.

"I was born in Fredericton, moving to Woodstock in 1947 where we lived in Woodstock and Grafton until moving back to Fredericton in 1953. I moved away from New Brunswick in 1966 to Vancouver and lived in B.C. for 18 years. I now live in Toronto and have lived here for the past 23 years."

As for the history of the photo, Hubert said she knows it was taken in front of her grandparents home, which she believes was on Main Street.

"The house directly in the background with the glassed-in front porch was where Nana and Grampie Jones lived," she said. "I remember being in their home when I was a very small girl. They moved from this house and Grampie built another home on Upper Main Street, across from the Shadow Lawn overlooking the Saint John River sometime in the late 1940s or early ‘50s – very near to where the Old Woolen Mill used to be. That house is still there, I believe, as is the house next door where Marion and Guthrie Jones lived with their sons Mac and Brian."

Hubert said her brother Doug Jones and his wife Peggy live in Fredericton.

"My only other living relative who lives in the Woodstock area is my Aunt Marion who was married to Uncle Guthrie Jones, my father's only sibling," she said.

"Uncle Guthrie passed away several years ago. Aunt Marion re-married Robert Montgomery who only recently passed away in Woodstock at (Carleton) Manor. He was a veteran of the Second World War."

Hubert said her Aunt Marion, who will be 93 years old on Dec. 28, is now living in a nursing home in Grafton. She added Marion's maiden name is Monteith, noting her bother Oliver and his wife Heloise live in Newbridge.

Hubert said she e-mailed the photo to the Monteiths.

Heloise responded that she remembered when milk was delivered by horse and wagon.

Heloise added that Oliver thinks the driver in the photo was his Uncle Bob, who worked for Harry Connell about that time. He later worked for General Dairies.

The young woman in the photo still has not been identified. Hubert hopes a Bugle-Observer reader can help.