99 Sophia St. W.
It’s gone. Before it disappeared, I began documenting its inevitable demise and the birth of another house on the site. I began one day in the spring of last year after seeing a telltale sign by the front door. The days of 99 Sophia St. W. were numbered.
It was a tiny home, taking up less than half of the lot, neatly covered in grey siding and entered by way of a small covered porch. Under the modern looking siding, a rather old dwelling was likely hiding, possibly dating back to the 1890s.
This whole section of Barrie was once what might be called the Thomson Block after its early owner, lumberman Archibald Thomson, after whom the street across the way is named.
Over the years, different names were associated with the property including Sanderson, Dunlop, Irwin, Williams and Whitebread. In 1905, the property was purchased by John Robinson.
From the time Robinson bought the property, until the early 1930s, numerous real estate and financial changes took place, all of them in connection to a woman named Judith, who seemed to have had an unusual assortment of surnames.
As it turns out, Judith was married three times, each marriage brief and lasting less than two years. I am trying really hard not to seek a true crime within this, but that is where my mind naturally goes. Pure bad luck is likely all it was.
Judith Oliver was born in 1866 on the family farm near Whitchurch in York County. She was the eldest of three daughters born to Thomas Oliver and his wife, Harriet Monette.
By 1906, Judith was 40 years old, single, and living with her parents. In April of that year, she married John Robinson, a gentleman and horse fancier from West Gwillimbury Township. John was 55 years old and had recently lost his wife of 25 years.
Although John owned the Sophia Street house, the couple lived together in a house on Elizabeth Street during the first months of their married life. The marriage nearly ended 18 months later on Nov. 9, 1907, when coal oil gas seeped from their stove as Judith and John slept.
Judith recovered fairly quickly, but John lingered for six months and died in May 1908. Afterward, Judith cared for her parents until their passings in 1915 and 1919.
Eight months after her father died, Judith married again. Her new husband was Robert Malcolm, a 61-year-old widowed stonemason. The couple resided in Orillia but retained the Sophia Street home.
Just shy of their second wedding anniversary, Robert died from an infection. Three years passed and Judith took a third husband.
Thomas Teasdale was born in Yorkshire, England, and arrived in Canada in 1878. He married in 1881, had a family of nine children and worked for 41 years with the Canadian National Railway.
Upon his retirement in 1924, Teasdale moved from his longtime home in Minesing to Barrie. He had been widowed for five years by that time.
December 1924 was a big month for Teasdale. He married Judith on the third, celebrated his 66th birthday on the fifth, and, on the 19th, he was feted by his fellow members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of the Way for his long railway service.
Thomas and Judith moved into the little house on Sophia Street and it was there that Thomas died on July 12, 1925. For six of their eight months of marriage, Thomas was reportedly unwell. He was finally carried away by a stroke before ever celebrating a wedding anniversary with Judith.
Judith sold the house and moved into an apartment at 115 Dunlop St. E. Afterward, she resided in the Ardagh Memorial Home, a shelter for elderly women, on Louisa Street, which is now part of Dunlop Street East. She died there in 1946 at the age of 80.
The next occupants of 99 Sophia St. W. were three unmarried sisters: Margaret, Elizabeth and Mabel Reid. The trio — a dressmaker, a nurse and a stenographer — lived happily together in the little house for some 30 years.
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
