Nellie Armstrong (October 11 1891, Bury, Lancashire - 6 March 1984, Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada) m Clifford Walter Hales (Nov 3 1890, Henley on the Thames, Oxfordshire - Jan 29 1973, Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada )
Nana (Nellie) said that she initially slept in her parents room. When she was old enough, her father had her moved. Nana hated her father. She was brought up by servants. She went into nursing to escape her stepmother's company. Nana told stories about a German prisoner, from world war I, who she had a crush on. There was also a mentally deranged patient who used to throw excrement at the doctors.
Her husband, Clifford Walter Hales, was a patient. She was 25 and living at 259 Oxford road, Reading, at the time.
They married on July 1 1916. Witnessed by H Rudman and S Cartwright.
Clifford boarded the Canadian destroyer Buxton on May 13,1919. He was in Quebec for at least two weeks, prior to being discharged on July 8th 1919. Nellie Hales left Liverpool on board the Canadian Pacific Railway Atlantic Steamship 'Grampion' on June 23, 1919. She disembarked at the port of Quebec. They would have travelled to Vancouver on the railway.
Nellie’s cooking is unsurpassed. I still drool at the memory of her roast beef, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding served alongside peas and carrots fresh from her garden. She also made a pineapple/ coconut cake, Nanaimo bars, and mint jelly cubes with icing sugar sprinkled on top. My mother, who learned much of her cooking from Nellie, had to be satisfied when I told her she was the “second best cook in the world”.
Dell says that for years Nelle tried to gain Cliff's approval for her culinary arts, but never heard more than a droll "It's alright" or "very nice."
Betty knows of other times: “Dad would tell mom she was a good cook, he would say my Nellie is the best cook anywhere.”
Dell Cross remembers visiting the Hales' Nanaimo home & being sent out to pick mushrooms. Nana used to cook em all up - no one was poisened.
Nana went senile in her later years. I was never sure if she knew who I was. Though one time she definately did recognize me, and said that she should have given me the wooden spoon when I was little. One time I was visiting her in the Maple Ridge Hospital she complained that she hadn't seen aunty Betty in months. A few minutes later a nurse came by to ask how the trip she had taken to town with aunty Betty had gone. Nana looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and ( in reference to how things were going in her life) said, "I don't know, ask her." Betty says that Nana had good days when she could remember things, and bad days when she could not.