Rhoda deTonnancour Black

Rhoda Black's middle name was deTonnancour. Although obviously a name from French nobility, its link to Canada is far from clear. The name comes from her father's family - a captain deTonnancour is listed as a great uncle of WD's father, C.G. Jones. Captain deTonnancour fought the Americans alongside Colonel de Salaberry at the Battle of Chateaugay on October 26, 1813. Mother was a direct descendant of the Ogden family - there is lots of genealogical information about them. Rhoda Jones was born in Alliance Ohio on November 19, 1913. She took her early schooling there and when W.D. moved overseas to set up IBM's European operations for Thomas Watson, she and her sisters attended school in Paris, then Switzerland. She returned to Montreal and completed her B.A. from McGill in 1937. During the war she worked first in Toronto, then in Ottawa at the National Research Council. She met her future husband, HKB, in Ottawa at the Ottawa General Hospital. He had gone in to have his ulcers checked out, she was in with her sister Catherine who was having a baby. In 1946 they were married in Toronto at Breconridge, W.D.'s farm just north of Toronto. HKB and Rhoda returned to life in Regina, living first in the York Apartments by the General Hospital (a building owned by Henry Black) then, after Walter Henry (1948) and before Kenneth Ogden(1949) were born, they moved to 48 Angus Crescent. In 1950 Donald Ian was born and HKB acquired the cottage at B-Say-Tah Beach on Echo Lake in the Qu'Appelle Valley known as Twin Pines (#143). Rhoda always had been an excellent golfer and at one point in the 1930's had considered a career as a golf professional. Other interests included travelling and reading, bird watching - attending the Roughrider games - and beginning in 1956, making annual treks to Florida during the winter months.