Canadian historian Berton had his own secrets
Author, who didn't know until late in life that his father grew up in an orphanage, had a racy private life.
###
Pierre Berton seemed to know everything there was to know about Canadian history, but only three months before his death did the famous author learn a "shocking" secret about his own family's past.
He was 84 when he learned that in 1878 his father, Francis George Berton, then six years old, had been placed in an orphanage in Saint John, N.B., by his destitute widowed mother, Lucy.
Pierre's grandmother had two young sons at the time. She felt she couldn't afford to raise two boys, so she kept five-year-old Jack and left Frank, as the lad was known, at Wiggins Male Orphan Institution. Perhaps she felt Frank, being older, could fend for himself better.
Frank lived at the orphanage for 10 years, went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree at the University of New Brunswick and headed off to the Klondike gold rush to seek his fortune and start a family in Dawson City.
Maybe out of shame or embarrassment, Frank never revealed his secret to his wife or to his son, Pierre. And Pierre was too busy unearthing details about the pasts of everyone else in Canada to research his own family history.
The story of the abandoned Frank Berton was discovered almost by accident by Brian McKillop, a Carleton University history professor who has written a 681-page biography of Pierre Berton due to hit bookstores Tuesday. Titled Pierre Berton: A Biography, it is published by Douglas & McIntyre.
Read entire article at Vancouver Sun
###
Pierre Berton seemed to know everything there was to know about Canadian history, but only three months before his death did the famous author learn a "shocking" secret about his own family's past.
He was 84 when he learned that in 1878 his father, Francis George Berton, then six years old, had been placed in an orphanage in Saint John, N.B., by his destitute widowed mother, Lucy.
Pierre's grandmother had two young sons at the time. She felt she couldn't afford to raise two boys, so she kept five-year-old Jack and left Frank, as the lad was known, at Wiggins Male Orphan Institution. Perhaps she felt Frank, being older, could fend for himself better.
Frank lived at the orphanage for 10 years, went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree at the University of New Brunswick and headed off to the Klondike gold rush to seek his fortune and start a family in Dawson City.
Maybe out of shame or embarrassment, Frank never revealed his secret to his wife or to his son, Pierre. And Pierre was too busy unearthing details about the pasts of everyone else in Canada to research his own family history.
The story of the abandoned Frank Berton was discovered almost by accident by Brian McKillop, a Carleton University history professor who has written a 681-page biography of Pierre Berton due to hit bookstores Tuesday. Titled Pierre Berton: A Biography, it is published by Douglas & McIntyre.