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Daisy Adelaide McIlmoyleMy Mother (My Children's Grandma Bell)
My mother, Daisy Adelaide McIlmoyle, was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1911. Mom and her twin brother, Herbert, were the youngest of 10 children -- 6 girls and 4 boys. Her father was Herbert Leslie McIlmoyle (1872-1936), and her mother was Margaret Annie Adelaide Butler (1878-1951). The same year Mom was born, her family moved to Ontario and she was raised on the McIlmoyle family farm at Selwyn, near Lakefield. She often remarked how wonderful it was to grow up in a large family where there was seldom an idle moment, and always time for fun. As a young woman, she worked as a cook at a Stony Lake resort, and later as an assembler at the Western Clock Company (Westclox) in Peterborough until she married my father, William Robert Bell (1908-1990), in 1939. It always interested me that the McIlmoyle family and the Bell family lived just 20 miles apart while in Alberta, yet it wasn't until both families moved east to Ontario that Mom and Dad finally met. My father first met my mother when he and his father visited their farm to buy a cow. It was the end of The Great Depression and money and work was scarce. Dad scoured neighboring farms collecting hundreds of used seed bags which he mended and washed then redeemed for 6 cents apiece to earn enough for Mom's wedding ring. She and my father farmed Grandma Bell's farm which they eventually inherited in 1955. When they retired from farming in 1965, they sold part of the farm and built a new house on the remaining 65 acres of land, which I eventually inherited and my wife and I currently reside in. In her late teens, around the time the above photo was taken, Mom had created two remarkable scrapbooks in which she pasted clippings from the popular magazines and newspapers of her day. Most clippings feature dessert recipes, but some also contain party ideas, homemaking advice, and helpful kitchen tips, along with colorful vintage illustrations. And after her marriage, Mom kept several small notebooks in which she handwrote her mother's and grandmother's wholesomely delicious dessert recipes. Many of these were obtained either directly from her mother or indirectly through her sisters after her mother's death. This website owes a huge debt of gratitude to Mom. Many of the old-fashioned dessert recipes presented on this site are carefully transcribed from her handwritten recipe books and scrapbooks. TOP of Daisy Adelaide McIlmoyle RETURN to About Us HOME to Dessert Recipes
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