Vernon “Vernie” Rankin

Island story

Vernon ‘Vernie’ Rankin grew up in the John ‘Jack’ Rankin and Mary MacDonald Rankin household on Pictou Island. The 1931 census records Vernie, age ten, as a son of household head John/Jack Rankin. Family photographs preserve Vernie with his brother Duncan and playing hockey on the Island. Later PIHS photographs identify him as an East End fisherman, and three federal fishing-vessel directories record VERNON LESLIE RANKIN at Pictou with LINDA LOUISE I for activity years 1983, 1984 and 1985. Their edition years are 1984, 1985 and 1986; the last edition does not establish activity in 1986. Ruth Munro’s music history remembers Vernon Rankin and his family playing at Island social functions and dances. PIHS’s folklore material places Vernie and Isabel’s wedding in 1944, and Isabel Louise Rankin’s 2011 obituary identifies Vernie Rankin as her predeceased husband of 55 years and says they raised their family on Pictou Island before moving to Pictou. Together these records connect Vernon with Island fishing, family life, recreation and music. The original marriage registration now establishes the wedding on 6 July 1944 at the First Presbyterian Church manse in Pictou. Vernon Leslie, twenty-two, was an Island-born and resident farmer; Isabel Louise Hooper, nineteen, was likewise born and resident on the Island. It names his parents John A. Rankin and Mary M. MacDonald and her parents Lester Hooper and Annabelle MacLean. The literal maternal middle initial does not itself spell out Munn. This original resolves the marriage-year uncertainty in the earlier family account, while preserving the wording of that account and the later obituary. His obituary records his death on 11 November 1999, aged seventy-seven, at the Victoria General site of the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax. It describes sixty years of fishing, fiddle playing at old-time dances, gardening and wood craftsmanship, and names his parents as John and Mary (MacDonald) Rankin. The age at death implies a birth about 1921–1922; it differs slightly from the age ten recorded in 1931, so an exact birth date is not established here. Burial was announced for Seaview Cemetery in Pictou.