John Gerald Short

Oxford County marriage registrations, Woodstock division, page 2: the middle column is John G. Short, 31, merchant, born at Newcastle, Ontario, son of John Short and Mary Jeffrey, and Mary Pattullo, 27, born in Ontario, daughter of Halket Pattullo and Jane Robson; married at Woodstock on 5 November 1879 by Rev. W. T. McMullen, Andrew Pattullo a witness.

Hyde Park Township, ward 34 of Chicago, enumeration district 1086, sheet 18, taken 8 June 1900. Lines 27-32: John G. Short, 52, born in Canada in December 1847, who came over in 1896; his wife Mary P., 47; and their children “Geoffrey” R. (Jeffrey), 19, Mary I., 18, Jennie B. (Jeannie Beatrice), 16, and Ruth E., 7, who came in 1897.

John G. Short died at his home, E 715 25th Avenue, Spokane, on 20 October 1916, retired, born in Ontario on 22 December 1845, son of John Short, born in England, and Mary Jeffrey, born in Scotland. His daughter Beatrice gave the particulars. He was buried at Greenwood on the 22nd.

Pages of a “Ward’s Album for Unmounted Photographs” (no. 912/39), its printed label altered in ink to “Mary Short’s Album,” with “Mary I. Short” written in white on the endpaper (page 1). Mary Isabella Short, sister of Ruth (Short) Ellingwood, kept it; family knowledge has the pictures taken at the Short family’s summer place on a lake, perhaps in Michigan or Ontario. They show dunes and pines, a long plank dock with lake steamers, a boathouse and a canoe, porches crowded with young men and women in white and straw boaters, and a party on a hilltop above the water.

Page 15 is labelled in blue ink, with arrows that cross: Beatrice Short at the left, Mary Short in the middle, and Ruth Short Ellingwood at the right, her arms raised over her head, standing on a plank in the shallows by a dock. Ruth looks fifteen to eighteen, which puts the picture about 1908-1911. Page 18 is captioned “Betty Ashcraft [?] at 13 [or 15] months, Lakeside”; Lakeside may name the place. Pages 19 and 20 are two real photo postcards of a spotted horse, “Kitty Bellairs,” addressed to “Miss Edith,” with ink on the page around them beginning “In memory of a famous …” Page 21 is a brick apartment building lettered “6636-38 Kimbark Ave.,” a street on Chicago’s South Side, captioned “May 1st - 1909 - April 24th - 1912”; whose home it was is not known.

Pages 2 to 12 were photographed in the same sitting, on the same grey pages, and are taken to be from the same album. The pages are in the order they were photographed in (Sept 2026), with the inside cover first, which may not be the album’s own order.

Seven people, most of them elderly, in dark clothes before a pale wall, numbered 1 to 7 in ink along the foot of the print (page 1). The back (page 2) names five of them: “1 Mary Jeffrey Short b 1807 / 2 / 3 / 4 William Jeffrey / 5 Aunt Mary (John’s sister?) / 6 Mrs Short (John’s mother) / 7 John Short.” In pencil down the side, “Copy of old picture taken shortly before Wm Jeffrey’s [?] death,” and at the foot, “Please I have another copy Keep this!”

The names do not all fit. The clothes look of about 1890-1910, after the deaths of Mary (Jeffrey) Short (1883), her husband John Short (1858) and both William Jeffreys in the archive (1852 and 1879), and nos. 1 and 6 would both be John’s mother if John were John Gerald Short. If the picture is as late as it looks, no. 7 might be John Gerald Short (born 1845) and no. 5 his sister Mary (1844-1928) of Woodstock. In the family’s reading (October 2026) the names are mistaken, and one of the women the back calls John’s aunt or mother is his wife, Mary (Pattullo) Short. Who is who is not settled; the back’s names are placed on the faces by the numbers along the foot.

A mounted photograph of a two-storey brick house behind a curving garden path (page 1), and the back of the mount (page 2), written in ink: “Dick / Old J. G. Short Home on Light St [?] / Woodstock, Ont, / House where my mother’s children were all born.” A strip of black tape covers the lower part of the back. J. G. Short is John Gerald Short, organ manufacturer at Woodstock, whose children, Ruth (Short) Ellingwood among them, were born there between 1880 and 1893, before the family moved to Chicago in 1896-97. The note is addressed to Dick, Ruth’s son. When the photograph was taken is not known.

Oxford County birth registrations, Woodstock division, 1880, pages 56-57. The first entry, no. 19, is Jeffrey Robson, born 18 August 1880 to John G. Short, hardware merchant, and Mary Pattullo.

Oxford County birth registrations, Woodstock division, 1884, pages 12-13. The first entry, no. 67, is Jeannie Beatrice, born 22 May 1884 to John G. Short, hardware merchant, and Mary Pattullo.

Oxford County birth registrations, Woodstock division, 1886, pages 282-283. On the right-hand page, lower row, middle column: no. 52, Arthur Wendell, born 1 April 1886 to John G. Short, hardware merchant, and Mary Pattullo. He died the next year.

Oxford County birth registrations, Woodstock division, 1893, pages 572-573. On the left-hand page, lower row, first column: no. 22, Ruth Ethelwyn, born 13 January 1893 to John G. Short, manufacturer, and Mary Pattullo, registered 10 February 1893.

Certificate of marriage, license no. A 30209, filed 19 Aug 1921: Richard Everett Ellingwood (“Cudge”) of Evanston, 26, auditor, son of Finley Ellingwood and Jennie S. Elliott, and Ruth Ethelwyn Short of 901 W. 13th Avenue, Spokane, 28, stenographer, born Ontario, daughter of John Gerald Short (deceased) and Mary Pattullo. Her mother, Mrs. J. G. Short, was a witness. The date of the ceremony is left blank; the family dates it 26 July 1921.