Item 0016 - Letter, 26 April 1870

Jane’s birth date is not certain, but she was probably a toddler when her mother, Jane McVie Redpath, died in 1834 giving birth to her brother John James. Jane bore the same name as another daughter who had died in 1928 at the age of 3. In 1935, her father, wealthy Montreal businessman and philanthropist, John Redpath, married 19-year-old Jane Drummond, who found herself mother of six children; she would give birth to 9 more of her own, five of whom survived to adulthood. Jane Margaret grew up in the estate on Montreal’s Mount Royal that her father purchased in 1836. The home with its 235 acres of fields and orchards was called Terrace Bank. She was closer in age to her stepmother’s children than to her own siblings except baby John James. Unmarried at 28, she chose to live with her older sister, Elizabeth, and her family, rather than her step-family. Later she lived for some time in Edinburgh and in the summer of 1880, her niece, Lily Dougall, daughter of her sister Elizabeth, came to stay with her until 1881. Lily stayed often with Jane in Edinburgh, and when the latter fell ill in the fall of 1896, Lily nursed her until she died in August 1897. Jane left her a substantial legacy when she died.