Early Years
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to John Sparrow Thompson and Charlotte Pottinger, he was of Irish descent. Some sources say he was born on November 10, 1845, others say 1844. Thompson married Annie Affleck (1842–1913) in 1870. Annie Thompson was strong-willed and had the same kind of spirit that had driven Agnes Macdonald (another prime minister's wife) to ride the cowcatcher of a CPR train through the British Columbia mountains. During their courtship, Thompson was forced to write love letters in shorthand because of his soon-to-be wife's disapproving parents. Thompson's family life was marred by tragedy. A daughter, Annie, died at age one, while youngest son David lived to be two. Two other children died at birth (the Thompsons had five children survive childhood).
Read more about this topic: John Sparrow David Thompson
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“When any man expresses doubt to me as to the use that I or any other woman might make of the ballot if we had it, my answer is, What is that to you? If you have for years defrauded me of my rightful inheritance, and then, as a stroke of policy, of from late conviction, concluded to restore to me my own domain, must I ask you whether I may make of it a garden of flowers, or a field of wheat, or a pasture for kine?”
—Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898)