Parents:
John Durie
(1846–1891)
Jane Tear
(c. 1845–1929)
Siblings:
Isabella Durie
(1867–1867)
John Durie
(1868–?)
Gilbert Durie
(1870–1950)
Charles Durie
(1872–1874)
Jane Durie
(1874–1951)
Charles Durie
(1876–1877)
Janet Durie
(1878–1939)
Joseph Durie
(1880–1963)
Ralph Tear Durie
(1883–1973)
Agnes Durie
(1885–1971)
Married (November 7th, 1914):
William Rutter
(1887–1976)
Children:
William Norman Rutter
(1915–2010)
Doris Christine Rutter
(c. 1917–?)
Marjorie Constance Rutter
(c. 1922–?)
Noreen Adele Rutter
(c. 1931–?)

Biography

Christina Durie, born May 29th, 1888, was the youngest of 11 children born to John Durie and his wife Jane Tear. She was born in Shottstown, Penicuik, a coal mining community south of Edinburgh.

John Durie, according to census and other records, was a joiner, or carpenter. Tina was just three years old when he died on 14 June 1891, and she was raised by her mother and elder siblings. In the 1901 Census, at age 12, she is listed with her mother Jane (age 50) and four siblings (Jessie, Joseph, Ralph, and Agnes) in tenement housing at 20a Fieldsend, Penicuik. The census notes that she is in school; it is likely that Tina’s education ended around age 14, when she would have been expected to enter the workforce. In 1911 her 15-year-old sister Agnes was already employed as a cutter at a paper factory. Ralph (17) and Joseph (20) were apprenticed to a shoemaker and a butcher, respectively, and sister Jessie at 22 was a self-employed dressmaker. At the time, papermaking was the predominant industry in Penicuik, and Tina would eventually find work in one of several nearby paper mills.

The 1911 census provides our next record of Tina’s life. At age 22, although employed as a paper finisher at a paper mill in Penicuik, Tina and her mother Jane were staying at her brother Joseph’s house at 20 Dundas Street in the town of Bonnyrigg, about 11km to the northeast of Penicuik. Joseph had just lost his wife Margaret in November of 1910, four weeks after the birth of their second child.

Tina, although unmarried, was around seven months pregnant. On June 10th, at her brother’s house in Bonnyrigg, Tina gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Jane Tear after her mother, with the surname Grant. The father was a clerk named Lewis Grant, who accompanied Tina to register the birth. Baby Jane was taken in by her aunt Jane (Durie) Wilson in Loanhead, who was raising four boys of her own and a nephew. Tragically, Jane Tear Grant died of tubercular meningitis on August 3rd, 1911. She was seven weeks old.

Tina Durie, meanwhile, had emigrated to Canada aboard the Hesperian, which arrived in Montreal on July 15th, 1911. Tina reported that she intended to join her married sister Agnes (Durie) Harrison in Montreal, and to find work as a domestic servant, but it is not clear where her first months in Canada were spent. When Tina arrived in Montreal, Agnes had just given birth to her first child in Haileybury, Ontario. By 1913, both sisters had settled in Toronto: Agnes with a growing family, and Tina single and working.

In 1913 Tina travelled back to Scotland, and her mother Jane returned with her to visit her daughters in Toronto. The two arrived aboard the Grampian on October 17th.

The following year, Christina was married to William Rutter in Toronto, on November 7th 1914. William, an Englishman who had come to Canada around 1909, was occupied as a sheet metal worker. The couple moved into a house on Parliament Street, and their first child, William, was born in August 1915.

In January of the following year, William enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force. He was assigned to the 124th battalion and left Canada for England in August of 1916. He served in France and Belgium with the Canadian Engineers. In late 1918, on leave from France, he contracted influenza (likely the Spanish flu), and was demobilized and sent home in early 1919.

During the war, Christina moved from Parliament Street into a house on Jones Avenue that her sister Agnes and family had just vacated. Around this time the couple’s first daughter, Doris, was born. After William returned home from overseas, the family moved to Morley Street in East York, which is where the census taker found them in 1921.

The census lists William and Christina Rutter with their children William and Doris, and Tina’s mother Jane Durie visiting from Scotland. William’s occupation is given as simply, “Dept Store,” and City of Toronto directories confirm that he held several jobs at Eaton’s in the early 1920s (he is listed in various years as a blocker, a porter, and an electrotyper).

Christina and William had three more children after 1921: Noreen, Marjorie, and Douglas. The family settled down in a home on Woodfield Road in East York around 1924, where they remained for more than four decades.

The records do not offer much detail about the Rutter family’s life after the 1920s. Her mother Jane Durie died in Penicuik, Scotland in October of 1929, at age 84. William and Tina’s five children married and had families of their own, some remaining in Toronto and others moving farther afield. In their later years the Rutters enjoyed an annual winter trip to Clearwater, Florida.

Christina Durie Rutter died in Toronto on 16 June 1968 at age 80.

Source Documents

Details

  • Residence: 1891-04-05, 6 Manderson Place, Shottstown, Penicuik;

    1891 Census

  • Residence: 1901-03-31, 20 Fieldsend, Penicuik;

    1901 Census