Lorenzo Lafayette Cairns, born in 1884, was the third son of James Cairns and Christina Watson. Like my grandfather, he went to medical school and became a doctor in 1908. He studied in Edinburgh for a year, returned to Canada, and worked as a physician for the Canadian National Railroad in British Columbia. He served overseas as a Captain during the First World War.
Upon his return, he moved to Alberta where he married Rose Heric in 1924 at Bow Island Alberta. He is listed in the 1926 census along with his wife and an infant daughter Mary Glenn.
He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1938. His mother was also living in Calgary at the time. He is buried in Burnsland cemetery with a military headstone. This would mean that he also was injured in the War.
His daughter became a nurse, graduating in 1947. So like my mother, she was an only child whose father was a physician dying at a relatively young age and then went into nursing.
Another interesting aspect of Lorenzo’s life was that he was listed as the father of a daughter in Scotland. However, ship passenger lists show that he returned to Canada more than 9 months before the birth of the child and there is no record of the marriage that is cited on the birth register. It will remain one of life’s little mysteries.
