We can now be together in eternity

I was born into chaos in the fall of 1963. To a teenage mother named Diane. Diane lived in a tiny house in Toronto on Old Weston Road. In this house lived My Grandma, Diane, and 4 other siblings. My grandfather had died leaving my Grandma pregnant with her 7th child and no way to look after her brood. The home was chaotic. The kids all ran wild after my Grandma became exhausted trying to cope with it all. My mother,... to add more to the chaos, got pregnant with me. And we all resided there in chaos.

I was born in September 1963 in Grace Hospital. But Diane was a confused and troubled young girl. Parenting was not her thing and in the end I was removed from the home when I was about a year old. She ended up in the Gult Reformatory for Girls after the courts deemed her 'incourigable'. She remained in there for a few years. Later it was discovered that all inside were abused horribly. My mother included. My mother ended up fleeing to British Columbia after "a fur coat robbery gone wrong" (??? noone ever elaborated on this) and I never saw her again. She lived a gypsy lifestyle and eventually died in 2013. My half brother buried her ashes in the woods of the BC mountains. There was no grave or memorial to mark her life. That was in 2013.

Her mother,... My Grandmother,.... Ida Maye Dyer, had an even worse life. She was born in the Brampton area (although back then it didn't have a name yet ~ just Peel County). When Ida was just 4 years old, her mother passed away from anemia. A complication from getting the spanish flu. Her little sister Lillian died the same week of the same thing. Now they were a farming family. With the passing of the mother, there was noone to look after Ida the reamining 4 year old child. So she was shipped off to live with her Aunt and Uncle in Brampton. She travelled around a bit like a gypsy (having a daughter at the age of 20 while unmarried) before marrying my grandfather Victor Holyoak. But within a few short years, life fell completely apart. Victor died and her life spirralled out of control. The kids all eventually left home and she ended up in a private nursing home in Parkdale Ontario. She lingered here for YEARS,... about 20!!! She had gone somewhat senile and noone knew who she was. She lingered in that nursing home alone for years and years and years,... She was basically thrown away and forgotten about and left to rot ~ just like me. When she finally passed away, the city buried her in a paupers grave that was unmarked. After years of research, I still can't find where her final resting place is. 

Her mother,.... Elizabeth Ann Ball,... was another gypsy. She wandered from place to place living in different residences as a domestic for years before marrying and then having 4 children. One, Lillian, that died as an infant with her during the spanish flu. She died at 39 years old. Very young. And her family was split up and scattered after that. Her husband (James Henry Dyer) and his first wife Gwendyline were buried in Gore Cemetery but there is no grave for his second wife Lizzie Ball there. To this day, I still can't find where she has been laid to rest. 

So if you were to look at all the women in my family for the past 4 generations, you will see that we have all been displaced,... lost,... all of us wandered looking for a place to belong. Our families giving us away leaving us orphans. All of us,... alone,... recluses,... and in the end dying alone.

Because all of us women are scattered all over Canada and none of us really has an official resting place, I felt it was time to bring us all back together. And that is why I am choosing to memorialize them on my own headstone when I pass on. It is time to remember and validate these women. 

So today the woman at Meadowvale cemetery and I have been designing a headstone. It will have my name as the one buried in the plot. But it will also have in memory my 3 ancestors. Three woman lost in life - estranged from their families. 

This was the final result so far. We still have to polish it up with the right font,etc,... but this is a general idea of what it will look like in the end.

So I may have not done a lot of good in my life. But maybe, I can take some comfort in knowing that I atleast did my dna and found all of these women and brought them all back together again. 

"Lizzy" Elizabeth Ann Ball

"Ida Maye Dyer"
"Diane Holyoak"

"Jacqueline Rose Holyoak"

At least we will be together in eternity