Henry Gerald WADE (1875-1953)

Gerald was born 19 August 1857 at Port Hope, Ontario. He was the son of Henry Wade (1837-1906) and Mary Helen Christie (1841-1913).

In 01 June 1901, he married Mary Millicent Willson (1875-1963) and they had one child: Margaret Millicent (1907-1986, wife of Gerald Malaher).

Editor, Community Activist

He was educated at Ridley College, St. Catherines and came to Winnipeg in 1907. He edited the municipal magazine, Western Municipal Review, published by Willson’s Stationery Ltd. From 1910 until 1947.

Gerald was a man of culture. He counted among his friends most of the Canadian authors of his day. He was an author of several books on and about Dickens. He gave literary lectures for more than 30 years. For many years, he gave an annual reading of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol to the Dickens Fellowship, a Winnipeg organization of which he was a life president. He was a charter member of the Pickwick Club.

Gerald was active in municipal organizations and he was a familiar figure at cultural gatherings and took a most active part in church work as a prominent layman of St. Aidan’s. He was a member of the Winnipeg Rugby Football Club, a Mason for fifty years, and a charter member of the Winnipeg Press Club. He was a long-time member of the Manitoba Good Roads Association. In 1943 he organized the Beautify Manitoba Association and lectured on beautification to an annual district meeting of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities.

He died at Winnipeg on 17 October 1953 and was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery.

Sources:

• Ontario, Canada Births, Marriages & Deaths, Ancestry.ca.
• MGS Cemetery Transcriptions.
• “Ex-Editor, H.G. Wade Dies at 78”, Winnipeg Free Press, 19 October 1953, page 10.
• “Mr. H.G. Wade, Winnipeg Free Press, 20 October 1953, page 17.
• Obituary [Mary Millicent Wade], Winnipeg Free Press, 12 February 1963, page 24.