Fonds 2015.10 - Stalker-Magee fonds

George Roland Stalker (July 10 1910-Nov. 28 1994) was born in Waskada, Manitoba to parents James Benjamin Stalker (b. 1877) and Alma Lavinia Stalker nee Meggison. Jim, Alma, and their three children, George, Reginald, and Lois, left prairie homesteading during the Great Depression, moving to Burnaby, British Columbia for a brief time and later to Ontario, where Jim would work as head wood carver at Gibbard’s Furniture Factory in Napanee. Alma was a dressmaker and supplemented their income further by operating a tea room in Napanee. George Roland and his siblings attended Napanee District Collegiate Institute, Lois becoming editor of the school yearbook, The Torch. In 1928, Roland returned to his uncle George Meggison’s farm in Waskada for work. After his father’s death in 1932, Roland returned to Napanee, working as Assistant Foreman with Gibbard’s Furniture Factory in their finishing and shipping department. From 1935 through 1940 Roland and his brother Reginald rented farms in Selby and then Hay Bay. In 1940, they began renting The Grange, a 150 acre clergy reserve farm in Adolphustown, eventually purchasing the property in 1945.
George Roland Stalker married Muriel Grace Magee (Jan. 12 1918-May 7 1994) of Hay Bay on February 21st 1941, daughter of Robert James Magee and Cora Deborah Magee nee White. Together, Roland and Grace lived on the farm in Adolphustown, where they practiced mixed farming. Roland worked at the Alcan plant in Kingston for a time, to supplement the family’s income. Together they had six children, Moria Anne (b. June 4 1942), Muriel Aileen (b. Oct. 10 1944), Alma Joyce (b. Mar. 20, 1948), Deborah Grace (b. Nov. 22 1955), James Alec (b. Apr. 13 1957), and Kevin Andrew (b. Feb. 1 1959). Grace and Roland Stalker ran a broiler poultry business in the 1950’s, until selling their farm in 1958 and moving to Sandhurst to live with Grace’s parents, Bert and Cora Magee. Roland worked as Inspector of Sewer Installations with Public Utilities Commission in Kitimat from 1956-57, and then became an independent contractor, building three homes in South Fredericksburgh while also working as Sale Manager for Ideal Barn Cleaners, a Quebec based company, from 1959-1963. In 1963, Roland built a bungalow for him and his family in South Fredericksburgh and built and operated a 200,000 laying hen poultry business from their home, expanding the farm in the following years to include crops and Hereford cattle. Upon retirement in 1975, Grace and Roland sold their farm and built another home on a nearby lot purchased from their daughter Anne and husband Darryl MacDermaid. Grace and Roland were active community members throughout their lives, involved in Farm Radio Forum, the South Fredericksburgh Community Club, The Christian Neighbourhood newspaper (Grace was a regular contributor), Adolphustown United Chuch, United Church Women, Adolphustown Women’s Institute, 4-H, and the Lennox and Addington branch of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), of which Grace was president. Grace later became vice-president at the provincial level of the OFA. She also ran for political office in 1974, as the federal Liberal Party candidate for Frontenac-Lennox & Addington. The couple had an active retirement as well, volunteering in Sierra Leone as part of a hatchery farm program sponsored by the OFA and World University Service of Canada, and travelling across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Grace and Roland lived out their final years together on Galiano Island, B.C.