In Memorium

Jessie Claire  Mitchell  nee Williams December 20, 1911 to December 21, 1966   Was born in Oglethorpe, Georgia on December 20, 1911 and died on December 21, 1966 Claire grew up in Oglethorpe until the age of 10 or 12.   Her mother had passed at her birth and her father passed when she was 12 years old. Claire had 4 sisters,   Susan, Lolly, Christine and Mary. At the age of 12 Claire and her sisters moved to Tallahassee Florida to be raised by their Uncle, a lawyer in Tallahassee.   Each of the sisters met their husbands when the husbands were vacationing in Florida.    Lolly met and married  a Mr. Lohman and moved to New York City;  Christine met and married a Mr. Hendricks and moved to Philadelphia;  Mary met and married Charles Carey and moved to Malverne, Long Island, NY;  Sue met and married Tom Lennard and moved to Toronto, Canada, bringing her sister Claire with her in 1928 when Claire was 17. Once in Toronto, Claire entered Sick Children's Hospital to study to be a nurse and became a  Registered Nurse, which at that time was the toplevel for nursing. During her time at Sick Children's Hospital, Claire met Dr. Robert Morrison Mitchell, M.D. and became his wife, with both of them living subsequently in Sudbury, Ontario. Prior to the marriage Claire contracted Tuberculosis and lost a lung.   Robert Morrison (Mo) Mitchell became leary of marriage during Claire's illness and considered cancelling the engagement but his Parents  Robert A. and  Jessie Mitchell shamed him into continuing on with the marriage.   In 1938 Robert and Claire were married.  Dr. Robert M. (Mo) Mitchell was working in Sudbury for International Nickel as their Doctor  and he moved Claire to Sudbury to live with him. Claire subsequently had 4 children,  Robert, Charles, Terrence and Susanne.     In 1952, Mo and Claire separated and Claire went to live in New York City, taking the two youngest children,   Terrence and Susanne with her as was decided in the divorce agreement. Claire continued to live and work in New York City, at various times in  Levittown, Long Island; New Rochelle, and  Upper West Side Manhattan.  She worked as a private duty nurse  for the Yale Nursing Agency, and frequently taking care of patients at Lennox Hill Hospital, plus at private residences in Manhattan and New Jersey.  Some of her patients include a British Ambassador to the US and the then President of Paramount Pictures, plus a New York City Supreme Court Justice.   At one point Claire was named the Nurse of the Year for the City of New York by the Yale Nursing Agency. Claire attempted to return to Canada to live in 1968 but died in a car accident in Ontario just outside of Watertown New York immediately after crossing the border into Ontario, Canada.

Robert Williams Alexander Mitchell   Robert, know to his family in childhood as Sandy, was always a bit of a ladies man..   Women seemed to just love him and flocked  to him almost anywhere in public.   I asked him about it once and he said it was because they instinctively knew that he loved them all. In addition to being quite the drinker, he was an educated, well bred, and engaging financial manager.    He was educated in Hawaii, returned to Canada and worked for a few financial management companies until he ended up working for RoyWest Trust in Nassau, Bahamas which is where he worked until he died. Over the course of his career with RoyWest Trust he became Vice President of Marketing for the Western Hemisphere. Throughout his childhood and adult life he was a sun lover... never wearing suntan lotion and spending as many hours in the sun as he could.. For recreation he was a pilot and a sailer...  During his years in the Bahamas he would frequently sail from the Bahamas to mainland Florida.. all alone in his 26ft sailboat. He was once asked if he wasn't concerned about making those trips alone and he quipped, "  I'm never worried.   I'm 6'.6" so I can be seen from anywhere when I am standing and if it is a foggy day people can just follow the trail of empty beer cans to find me." He was also once asked by he drank so much and he said it was because he was so fearful of life generally that he wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything unless he drank. It is probable that this was an inherited trait from his father, who although very successful, was a functioning alcoholic from the time he was 17 until the day he died.. Sadly at the age of 40 he was diagnosed with a melanoma on his back.   He was told by the Mayo Clinic at the time that if he was treated he could survive another 15 years, but not in particularly good comfort and he would end up bankrupt, but if he wasn't treated he would survive another 15 years  in reasonable comfort by just having the lesions, as they grew, removed.     He chose not to be treated and instead leave a fairly sizable estate.. He passed away at the age of 52, with his common law wife, Michelle at his side. During his University years he fathered a daughter who was put up for adoption..    I don't know the reasons why that was done, but she became known to our family over the past few years and she is Stacy Kowlsen, of Jacksonville, Florida. On Robert's passing he was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Ocean off of Paradise Island, Bahamas