John Bambrick

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: 26 Aug 1929, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Ottawa Citizen - page 2
• Residence: 1938, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Address:
  22 Cumberland Street

Notes:

The John Bambrick family of Lowertown By Mary E. Hughes

John Bambrick, born in Ottawa in 1855, was a prominent businessman in Lowertown, owner of a large grocery store at 50 George Street. Established in 1878 as a partnership, John Bambrick had sole ownership from 1890. A brochure from 1907 described his grocery business:
“His policy has been to keep nothing shoddy, show no partiality, give good measure and fill orders promptly. A well-ordered stock of grocers and provisions, managed and dispensed
to customers, by trained and genial clerks, and delivered on time, are winning features of his business policy. He has a large double store at 50 George Street and employs eleven
clerks.”
John’s home was at 22 CumberlandStreet, adjacent to homes of several other family members, including his parents, Edward and Anna, who had emigrated from Ireland. John’s first wife, Mary Ann Begley, died shortly after the birth of their one son, Edward Begley born in 1885. In 1890, John married Catherine Corbett and had two more children, John Basil
born in 1891 and Winifred Estella in 1892.
All three children were musical and participated regularly in concerts at St Brigid’s Church. But Winnie was exceptional. She began harp lessons at the Rideau Street Convent and by
1904 was mentioned as part of the St. Patrick’s Day concert given by the school. She performed with the newly established Ottawa Symphony in 1910 and 1911, but soon left, accompanied by her mother, to study harp in New York City. There she made her debut
in 1913.
Winnie Bambrick was unusually short, reaching perhaps 4 feet 8 inches, and mother and daughter deter-mined early on to make her stature an asset. She deliberately dressed as
a young girl at her debut and was described as “around 16 years of age”.
She continued to dissemble about her age throughout her life to the point that in 1951, on a trip to Malaysia, she claimed to be 35.

Until she retired in 1960, Winnie never married and devoted her life to music. During the 1920s she toured all over North America as a soloist with the John Philip Sousa band. In
the 1930s she and her mother were in England and Europe, where Winnie performed with a spectacular continental revue. Returning to Canada in 1940 she turned to writing, penning a novel about her adventures that won the Governor General’s Award for Fic-tion in 1947.
Her two brothers led more modest lives. Edward Bambrick was frequently in demand at church and club events for his musical and dancing ability. In 1927, he was listed as a
dancing professor at Ottawa’s Hollywood Studios. By 1928, he had moved to Chelsea--where the family had a summer home--and married Jeanne Simard. There he became the post-master, a position he held for 18 years.

Basil Bambrick followed his father into the grocery business. In 1915, he married Claudia Brading. Sometime in the late 1920s, he moved with his family to Montreal, where he worked for a large food distribution firm.

John Bambrick Grocer closed its doors in 1927. During his times as a merchant, John was known for his generosity. During the 1918 flu epidemic, he is credited with getting wood delivered to suffering families in need of fuel to heat their homes. According to the Ottawa Citizen, “Doctors say that if sufferers are to recover, their homes must be warmed up and the damp air driven out. Yesterday the waterworks truck ... which had been taking out
these loads of wood, broke down, but the loss was soon made up by Mr. John Bambrick, grocer. He rushed his delivery truck into the breach and all afternoon and late at night had it delivering wood under the direction of city hall officials.”

Soon after his retirement John was interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen, where he showed himself to be a wonderful raconteur, reminiscing happily about the Ottawa of his childhood.
John died unexpectedly two years later in 1929. Catherine Bambrick, who had chaperoned her daughter throughout her years with Sousa, continued to travel and live with Winnie until
her death in 1943. Winnie returned to the UK in 1949, where she spent the next ten years but returned for good to Montreal in 1960. Suffering from emphysema, she lived for a time with a nephew but at her death in 1969 was in a nursing home.

Mary E. Hughes, author of five
books, lives on Salt Spring Island
and is currently researching the
life of Winnie Bambrick.