Life History

Other facts

Notes

• [Good Robinson Ritchie Lee et al.FTW]
  
  John Keith McDonald Lee, or "Keith" as he was known, grew up in the Ottawa Valley village of Cobden. He was a shy, quiet individual with a pleasant demeanor.
  
  Some of his public school marks were published in the Renfrew Mercury in 1913 and 1916, along with those of his fellow students, including his siblings, as it was the practice of small town newspapers to do so at the time. He appears to have been an above average student, with his marks in those years averaging from the middle to near the top of his class. He was fourth in his class in 1916, which was the entrance class for high school.
  
  He attended High School in the town of Renfrew, about 15 miles south, as did other students in the village, since there was no High School in Cobden at the time. The daily commute was made by train, as the railway had come through some years before. The Renfrew Mercury of July 27, 1917 lists Keith and his sister Julia as being successful candidates in the North Renfrew Junior Graduation Diploma Examination.
  
  Keith completed a Commercial course at Gowling Business College in Ottawa in 1920, although we are not sure if this was by correspondence, or if he actually moved there. He and his brother Murray moved with their parents to Ottawa in late 1927 and we know that Keith was living in Ottawa in 1928 from references in the personal columns of the Renfrew Mercury
  
  After leaving school, family stories have it that  Keith worked on the railway  as a laborer & cook, but continued to take correspondence courses and we know he obtained an accountancy degree in 1924 from Lasalle College in Chicago and a degree in Commercial Spanish in 1929. We have examined all the Ottawa City Directories between 1928 and 1937 (except for 1930, which we could not locate), and Keith is employed in various positions (Bookkeeper, stock clerk, cash, and accountant) with the Canadian Oil Company from 1928 until 1935, and is shown as working as an accountant with E.M. Clark & Co. in Ottawa in 1936.
  
  During the 1928-1929 period, Keith lived with his family at 21 Empress Ave. in Ottawa, following which they lived at 48 Spruce St., Ottawa until 1935, when his father James Russell retired from the CPR and moved to Lindsay, Ontario. Keith is living alone in Ottawa at 216 Carlton Ave in 1936, but is gone by 1937, when  he moved to Noranda, Quebec. The Renfrew Mercury of Sept 2, 1937 reports "Mr. Keith Lee of Noranda spent the week-end in Cobden with friends on his way to join his parents Mr. & Mrs. Jas. Lee of Lindsay".
  
  Keith met his future wife, Marguerite Devenney on March 22, 1931 (according to a diary they kept for most of 1932). There are several references in the diary about a wedding planned for 1933, but the diary ends abruptly on September 11, 1932, for reasons unexplained. In any event, they did not marry until 1939, when Keith and his bride settled in Rouyn, Quebec, the "twin city" at the time of Noranda, Quebec
  
  Noranda Quebec was still a frontier town then, but was expanding rapidly and jobs were to be had in the mines and the new smelter that had opened in 1927 and expanded in 1930. Keith was able to get work in the smelter, and spent a number of years in the "converter aisle", one of the dirtiest & most physically demanding jobs there. We have no doubt that those years of breathing sulfur and other noxious fumes contributed to his poor health in his later years. Nevertheless, the work paid well, and Keith and Marguerite were finally able to start a family, with their first son David born in 1940, followed by Robert 2 years later in 1942. The last of three sons, John Keith, was born in 1950.
  
  Some years earlier Keith's brother James Murray Lee had also gone to the mining country in north-western Quebec and started up an Assay office in Noranda's sister city of Rouyn in partnership with Mel Shaw. Keith was no doubt influenced by his younger brother to make the move in 1937. Keith had continued with his correspondence courses in accounting and bookkeeping and finally went to work for Murray's assay office in that capacity sometime in the 1940's. Keith was certified as a member of the Institute of Public Accountants (CPA) in 1948.
  
  His employment with the assay office was terminated in 1956 and although he had set up his own bookkeeping business and continued as a bookkeeper & accountant for various small businesses in Rouyn-Noranda, money was very tight for the Lee family and Marguerite went back to teaching. Keith's health continued to deteriorate and by the mid 1960's he was, to all intents & purposes,"retired" and Marguerite's teaching was the family's major source of income.
  
  By 1972, both Keith & Marguerite had retired & moved to London, Ontario where at that time their son Robert was stationed with the Canadian Force