Ella Mae Sanford Fife was born on April 9th, 1893 in the small village of Ste Croix Nova Scotia, the second of five children of Arthur Lawrence and Mae Borden Sanford. There were two brothers and two sisters. Arthur Sanford was a produce broker and overseas shipper and at the time of her birth a man of some means as indicated by his wedding gift of a fine farm to the daughter of his brother Charles. As a farm to provide a living, that farm was far superior to his own farm. Nevertheless, Ella was schooled in the village's two room school through grade twelve. She attended the Maritime Business College in Halifax Nova Scotia. Upon graduation she became a court stenographer and secretary to a local judge in Halifax. Ella was engaged to be married to a Spence lad from her home village of Ste Croix who as a Canadian Army Officer was killed during World War I. When a French ship carrying a highly volatile cargo collided with another ship, caught fire and blew up in Halifax harbor on December 6th, 1917 she was knocked down the stairs of her boarding house by the concussion although the boarding house was several miles from the site. She was a volunteer in the recovery services of the city of Halifax in the aftermath of the explosion which was equivalent to roughly 3 kilotons of TNT and still is the world's largest man-made accidental explosion, only exceeded in WWII by the atomic explosion in Hiroshima. Her earlier acquaintance with Harry M. Fife at the Maritime Business College was refreshed by his concern for her well-being as a result of the explosion in Halifax and blossomed into a romance that led to their marriage July 5, 1922. Her life thereafter was a homemaker and mother to three natural children, Nona, Harry Jr, Jim, and one adopted daughter, Doris. In 1933 she and her husband Harry arranged for Harry Jr and Jim to reside with her family in Ste Croix and daughter Nona to reside with good friends in their hometown of Middlebury, VT so that she could perform as a stenographer to Harry as he wrote his dissertation in Chicago for his PhD in economics. When the subject for which Harry's years of research was rejected by the University of Chicago, they used the money and time that had intended to devote to the PhD to make a trip around the world. That trip covered six months from January to August of a934 taking them by steam-ship to Cuba, Panama, California, Hawaii, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Manila, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Italy, and France. Particularly during the years of WWII Ella became a sort of big sister to a large number of Middlebury College coeds, where Harry was the head of the Economics Department from 1927 through 1950. The girls often walked as a group to her house for tea as well as visiting with her at other odd times alone or with others. She died after an extended illness on September 26, 1949.
Ella Mae Sanford Fife was born on April 9th, 1893 in the small village of Ste Croix Nova Scotia, the second of five children of Arthur Lawrence and Mae Borden Sanford. There were two brothers and two sisters. Arthur Sanford was a produce broker and overseas shipper and at the time of her birth a man of some means as indicated by his wedding gift of a fine farm to the daughter of his brother Charles. As a farm to provide a living, that farm was far superior to his own farm. Nevertheless, Ella was schooled in the village's two room school through grade twelve. She attended the Maritime Business College in Halifax Nova Scotia. Upon graduation she became a court stenographer and secretary to a local judge in Halifax. Ella was engaged to be married to a Spence lad from her home village of Ste Croix who as a Canadian Army Officer was killed during World War I. When a French ship carrying a highly volatile cargo collided with another ship, caught fire and blew up in Halifax harbor on December 6th, 1917 she was knocked down the stairs of her boarding house by the concussion although the boarding house was several miles from the site. She was a volunteer in the recovery services of the city of Halifax in the aftermath of the explosion which was equivalent to roughly 3 kilotons of TNT and still is the world's largest man-made accidental explosion, only exceeded in WWII by the atomic explosion in Hiroshima. Her earlier acquaintance with Harry M. Fife at the Maritime Business College was refreshed by his concern for her well-being as a result of the explosion in Halifax and blossomed into a romance that led to their marriage July 5, 1922. Her life thereafter was a homemaker and mother to three natural children, Nona, Harry Jr, Jim, and one adopted daughter, Doris. In 1933 she and her husband Harry arranged for Harry Jr and Jim to reside with her family in Ste Croix and daughter Nona to reside with good friends in their hometown of Middlebury, VT so that she could perform as a stenographer to Harry as he wrote his dissertation in Chicago for his PhD in economics. When the subject for which Harry's years of research was rejected by the University of Chicago, they used the money and time that had intended to devote to the PhD to make a trip around the world. That trip covered six months from January to August of a934 taking them by steam-ship to Cuba, Panama, California, Hawaii, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Manila, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Italy, and France. Particularly during the years of WWII Ella became a sort of big sister to a large number of Middlebury College coeds, where Harry was the head of the Economics Department from 1927 through 1950. The girls often walked as a group to her house for tea as well as visiting with her at other odd times alone or with others. She died after an extended illness on September 26, 1949.
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