Life on Quaker Road

About the Book

The book features Niagara peninsula history of Canada’s First Nations, early African-American refugees, pioneer life and Goodwillie genealogy. It outlines events and activities connected to the 1870s Goodwillie farmhouse on Quaker Road, Welland Ontario Canada and the operation of one of Niagara peninsula’s first fruit factories and vineyards. Day-to-day incidents around the turn of the 20th century from the farm (now a Welland suburb) and a fruit preservation factory are written with simplicity and appeal. Many original photographs accompany the text. The Goodwillie line is traced to pre 1600 stone ruins in Fife, Scotland and reference is made to Loyalist land allotments in New Carlisle, Gaspé Québec, the Goodwillie Museum in Barnet Vermont with its Underground Railroad connection, and Ontario family contacts and settlement around Wainfleet, Norwich, Ridgeville, Port Colborne, Long Beach, Niagara Falls, Welland, Thorold, Cambridge and Georgetown.

About the Author

Diane Goodwillie was born in Toronto and spent summers at the family cottage at Long Beach, near Welland, Ontario. She holds a B.A. from Queens University and a M.Ed. from Springfield College, Massachusetts. Following community development work in Newfoundland and Guelph Ontario she moved to Fiji and worked for 24 years for the YWCA, the Canadian High Commission and WWF on women’s leadership, community development and environment education in fifteen Pacific Island countries. In retirement Diane was able to edit her aunt, Ruth Cornett unpublished children’s stories and her father John Ross Goodwillie’s extensive family genealogy to create the book of stories and history titled Life on Quaker Road. Diane remarks: “Since Dad and Auntie Ruth are no longer with us, I felt it important to reproduce the information in a way that school children, historians and genealogists could use. The Goodwillie clan extends internationally but my father’s research is not even mentioned on the world wide web. It became an obsession to re-organise, reproduce and make available previously written information. Working long distance has been frustrating but the internet helped me verify facts and discover new information. Before writing, I was lucky enough to visit various stopping off points of the Goodwillie family: Fife Scotland, New Carlisle Quebec, Barnet Vermont and various sites in southern Ontario. I don’t know how my father produced his wonderful 270 page genealogy without computers. I guess that’s why Auntie Ruth only made ten copies of hers!"