Nellie Spalding

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-361077
• Residence: 1891, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-59880
• Occupation: 1881, Guelph City, Wellington Co., Ontario, Canada; knitter
• Occupation: 1891, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Knitting Factory
• Residence: 1891, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian
• Occupation: 1901, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Knitter

John married Catherine Michie 3 Jul 1863, Hawick, , Roxburgh, Scotland. Catherine was born 1840, Hawick, , Roxburgh, Scotland; died 30 Jan 1901, Guelph City, Wellington Co., Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Catherine Spalding
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-59882
• Residence: 1891, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian

Notes:

MRS. JOHN SPALDING. If we wanted to test the reality of a Christian profession how would we do that ? By looking at the life. Our Lord said: " Ye shall know them by their fruits." If we were desirous to know the real character of a mother, where would we search for proofs of that? In the lives of her children. In their temper, in their disposition, in their life, in their character. In the whole conduct of their conversation among men. That would give us demonstrative proof. That would show what the mother had been. For while we have in the children s faces the features of the parents, we have at the same time the moral and spiritual impressions made upon their hearts, especially by the mother. She seems to stand nearer to the children than the father. She is more with them, and her character affects them more deeply. They drink into her spirit and reflect her very nature in their own, and are to us a living exhibition of what she was.

Mrs. Spalding was above all else a mother, a keeper at home, delighting in all the sanctities of the home. She so trained her children that they rise up and bless her and treasure her memory as a sacred possession. In the home she found her sphere of service and her kingdom, where she reigned over loving and obedient hearts. Her light shone there in a disposition bright and cheerful, in a heart overflowing with great kindness, in a countenance that ever wore a sweet and winning smile, and in a life that always was humbly loyal to the Lord. Her religious spirit poured itself into her daily activities, and made her existence a wholesome and beneficent experience. She shed an inspiring and uplifting sunshine wherever she went. Her place in the House of God and in the prayer-meeting was never vacant if she was well. She honored God's ordinances by a worshipful waiting on them. She gave them the first place. She did not talk her religion, she lived it. It was to her the breath of her life, and like her breathing, unconsciously enjoyed to the full.

She was a native of Hawick, Scotland, and she carried in her heart a great love to the famous town and its people. She was ever ready to tell some interesting story or some amusing incident in the history of the place. Much of the spirit that animated Mr. Robert Murray, an old and intimate friend of hers, who has written the History of Hawick down to 1835, lived in her. She prided herself in the old town and its ways, and nothing pleased her better than to welcome visitors from its familiar scenes and learn of its present progress and welfare.

It was her lot to pass through a long and severe illness ere she reached her end. Sometimes improvement would come and hopes of health would revive, then reverse of this condition would ensue, and thus until the last. But through it all she never lost her fine, sweet spirit, her patient, noble endurance, her leaning upon the Lord, who has said: " I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Heb. 13. 5.)

1a\bEbenezer: A History of the Central Presbyterian Church, Galt, Ontario, with brief sketches of some of its members who have passed on the the other side, The Rev. James A. R. Dickson