Lester Hooper

Island story

Lester Hooper is commemorated at R2-001 with his wife Annabell MacLean Hooper and their son John Ralph. Other records identify the same family. Veterans Affairs identifies John Ralph as the son of Lester and Annabell, while Sidney Willard Hooper’s obituary likewise names Lester and Annabell (MacLean) Hooper as his parents and connects Sidney with brothers John Ralph and Theodore. Lester and Annabell’s family was a separate branch from the James–Dolina Hooper household. John Ralph is commemorated on the Island but actually buried at Groesbeek in the Netherlands. His death registration records his death on Pictou Island on 5 May 1953, describes him as a married crane driver in steelworks, reports a 20 June 1887 birth at Abney, PEI, and names his wife as Belle, maiden surname MacLean. It names his parents as Obidah Hooper and Louise Roberts. The father’s name differs from the uncertain Ulidah/Uldiah reading in the 1916 marriage entry and is not silently normalized to Ulrich. Abney, Murray Harbour and Albany are preserved as differing source place forms. Island burial is recorded on 7 May 1953, without an exact plot; the nurse informant is explicitly recorded as having no relationship to him. Their marriage registration records the wedding in Pictou on 23 April 1916. Lester was twenty-eight, an electrician born in Murray Harbour, PEI, and resident in New Glasgow; Annabell was twenty and born and resident on the Island. Isabel Louise’s 1944 marriage and Theodore Lester’s delayed birth application independently connect those children with Lester and Annabell. The marriage’s uncertain reading of Lester’s father remains qualified against the later death registration. The obituary of their son Theodore Lester (Ted) Hooper identifies Lester and Annabelle (MacLean) as his parents. Ted was born on Pictou Island and worked as a welding foreman at Ferguson Industries. The accompanying memorial notice gives his death as 18 February 1982, aged sixty-one in the obituary. His wife was Margaret Julia Patterson. The obituary also identifies his sisters Isabel, wife of Vernon Rankin, and Hazel, wife of Logan MacDonald; brothers Sydney and Howard; and predeceased brother Ralph.