100 years ago: A H Fitzsimmons

One of Ottawa's longest established businesses, A. H. Fitzsimmons claims to be the city's oldest realtor, serving the community since 1878.

The Ottawa Citizen for 17 January 1911 contains a sad notice of a stillborn son to Mr and Mrs A H Fitzsimmons at 64 First Ave in the Glebe, and of the death of Mrs Harriet Fitzsimmons, nee Nunn, age 33 of the same address, wife of A H Fitzsimmons. The death was also covered in a short obit.

The family entry in the 1911 census is rather mashed. but shows Mrs Prodrick, sister-in-law in the home.

According to an Ontario marriage certificate on 24 June 1919 Alexander Henry Fitzsimmons (42), widower, marries Annie Nunn (47) born in Suffolk. England. However, the announcement in the Ottawa Citizen has the wife's last name as Prodrick, daughter of the late Charles Nunn.

The marriage seems to have worked out, to the extent that in the Citizen's 10 June 1935 report of the marriage of Winnifred Harriet Fitzsimmons, Mrs Fitzsimmons is named as the mother.

The moral of the story: don't always believe what you read in official certificates or newspaper reports.