Ontario Vital Records - Births #004 057 - 1874
HILL, Alice Jane, female, 16 April 1874, Howland. Parents : Rowland Hill and Anne Jane Akitt.

Alice had very little schooling as had to stay hpme and hel p take care of her younger brothers and sisters. She lov ed to read, recite poetry, and play the piano. She woul d hide books in the pantry and read in her spare moments , or sit under a tree in the woods and read in quietness.
Sometime in her late teens or early twenties she went to T oronto and did housework for a few years. Later she wen t with her sister Louise to Winnipeg and ran a boarding ho use. Later still, Alice went -to Edmonton, Alberta. Whi le in Edmonton she answered an ad in the Farm Personal col umn of the Free Press Weekly, and ere long she married Har ry Braniff in 1914. They managed a mixed farm all thei r married life in Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta. They had n o children.
After her husband's death she moved back to the old Hill F arm in Carnarvon Township, Manitoulin, Ontario. By tills t ime the farm was operated by her nephew Robert 165
Though now in her nineties, she received a great deal of sa tisfaction in baking bread, and enjoyed playing the piano . Flowers gave her a great deal of delight. Each day sh e would walk out to the flower garden and pick her most pr ecious flower, the pansy. Her grand nephew, then age 10 , wrote the following poem about her pansies.

AUNT ALICE'S PANSIES
In Auntie's garden pansies grow,
Between the snap-dragons in an untidy row.
While Aunt Alice stoops to trim their heads,
They rustle in their green leaf beds.

When seeing such a flower as this,
Aunt Alice is in momentary bliss.
And while the sun is shining bright,
The pansies fill with glowing light.

She picks them almost every day.
If not, her heart would melt away.
No other flower, when in her room,
Can make for her such perfect bloom.

Their colors, purple, white, and blue,
Warm her heart the whole year through.
And even yet when she is old,
She treasures pansies more than gold.

May God in heaven multiply
Her pansies that seem to never die.
And may, long after she is gone
Her pansy garden linger on.
David C. Hill - 1964

1. Abbrev: MFT
   Title: MFT