Allison

The text included in the following series of pages is taken in large part from the work of Clarence Cross of Ontario and from the newspapers of the Chesterville area, The Citizen, and Record. Sources include Blair Beed's book TITANIC VICTIMS IN HALIFAX GRAVEYARDS and the research of historian Alan Hustak. Thanks also to the Chesterville Museum and the community there who keep the memory of the Allisons evergreen.

Hudson Joshua Allison was born December 9, 1881, the third child and second son of Jesse Alison and Phoebe Johnson, on their farm on the Finch Road just east of Chesterville, Ontario. Their brick house, built by Tom Forward is still standing. After his schooling in Chester Casselman's general store (now the site of the Bank of Nova Scotia). He was a slender and saturnine figue with a good head for numbers and was embued with the Christian work ethic. His Uncle Frank Johnson hired him to head the junior divison of a brokerage business in Montreal when Hudson was only 19, which he had started up with John Wilson McConnell who was general manager of Standard Chemical Company. The three men became known as "The Methodist Mafia"- upstarts in Canadian financial circles. Hudson was sent to learn shorthand in Buffalo, then worked as an insurance agent at Sun and New York Life where in 1905 he was inducted into the elite $200,000 club. In 1907 he moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba where he opened up a real estate office and resided at the corner of Westminster and Sherbrook streets. There he came to know two other men who would sail on Titanic, Thomson Beattie and Mark Fortune.

By this time Hudson had holdings worth several million dollars in the British Canadian Lumber Co., the Montreal Street Railway, Canadian Tub Works, and was President of British Securities Trust. During his frequent train trips East he met Bess Waldo Daniels, the daughter of an Irish- American factory clerk from Milwaukee where they married on Hud's 26th birthday in 1907. Bess had just turned 21. Helen Loraine was born June 5, 1909 and her baby brother, Hudson Trevor, on May 7, 1911.

In 1911 Hudson started building a new house at 1085 Belmont Avenue in Westmount, and acquired a summer home on Lake St. Louis. Together with his brothers Percy and George, he acquired 100 acres of farmland near Chesterville, his old home, and began the Allison Stock Farm- 50 kilometers southeast of Ottawa. The land was purchased from John Hummel for $15,000 and was adjacent to his family farm. Horses were his greatest pleasure. He built an imposing red brick house and a fine set of barns which he stocked with imported livestock including Hackney ponies and Clydesdales as well as Friesian cows at a cost of over $100,000.

In 1911 Hud was also on the Board of Cardiff Colleries and his name appeared that year in the papers when he purchased the finest Holstein-Friesian cow in Canada, named May Echo for the unheard of sum of $1500.

Bess and Hudson were a very pious couple who were taken up with the Temperance Movement. Militant evangelism was a constant in their lives which were filled with teaching Sunday School, Bible classes, and lay preaching. In March of 1912 they sailed to Britain so Hud could attend a director's meeting of the British Canadian Lumber Corporation. They stayed at 152 Abbey Road in London. Baby Trevor was baptized at Epworth on March 29th in a church where John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had preached. They took a side excursion to Scotland and bought two dozen Clydesdale and Hackney stallions and mares for the farm. They also recruited a maid, a chauffeur, and a cook. Alice Cleaver, aged 22 became nursemaid to Baby Tevor- she had five years' experience to recommend her
The Allsions hired Mildred Brown as cook and 19 year old George Swane as chauffeur. Little Loraine's governess, Sarah Daniels was also part of the traveling group. It is thought she may have been related to Bess Allison. They paid 151 Pounds Sterling for their three lavish staterooms on C deck, numbers C22-26.

On the last night of their lives, the Allisons sat with Toronto millionaire Major Arthur Peuchen and with Harry Molson whom they knew from Montreal. Bess brought Loraine to the table so the little girl could see for herself how pretty everything was. After the collision Bess was put in a lifeboat with Loraine but refused to leave without her baby Trevor, unaware that one deck below on the opposite side of the ship Alice Cleaver and Trevor were being loaded into Lifeboat 11. By the time they realized the baby was safe- all the lifeboats had gone.

The music heard is a copyright-free composition
Weep Ye No More Sad Fountains by John Dowland, heard most recently in the film score of Sense & Sensibility.