Dr. Helmcken and his wife Cecilia had seven children altogether:
Douglas Claude Helmcken
Catherine "Amy" Amelia Helmcken
Margret "Daisy" Helmcken
James "Jimi" Douglas Helmcken
Henry "Harry" Helmcken
Edith "Dolly" Louisa Helmcken
Cecil Roderick Helmcken
However, only four of the Helmcken children would live to see adulthood. Cecilia was only 31 when she died in 1865, leaving the children motherless at a young age. Amy, Dolly, Jimi and Harry were mostly raised by their housekeepers Mrs. Wilde, and later Mrs. Foreman.
The children were also quite close to their grand parents, James and Amelia Douglas, and letters between them show how their grandparents cared about them. They were also close to their Aunt Martha, Cecilia's youngest sister, who was born in 1854, so was around the same age as the Helmcken children.
The boys were sent abroad to boarding school when they were a little bit older. Their father John remembers:
"When James was 12 ½ years old (1870) he was sent to Scotland with Mrs. Forman (housekeeper) and Harry a year later . . . I always had the idea, that the proper education of a boy was to teach him to work for his living. . ."(BCARS: ADD.MSS.505.V.12.)
The girls also went abroad to study. Dolly studied at Toronto and England, then traveled around Europe.
John bought land in Esquimalt, Saanich, View Royal and Rose bank (districts in the greater Victoria area) so his children would have something to live on when they grew up. By 1861, John owned 616 35/100 acres in total. He gave his son James property in View Royal, as a wedding gift, and to his son.
Claude Helmcken
|
|
|
|
|
|
Visit
SchoolNet Digital Collections