How my grandparents met

My grandparents on my mother's side were married in Cuba, in 1919.  They met in Cuba, but neither were Cuban and neither had any Spanish blood in them.  Here's how they came to meet.

My grandfather, William Boomer, worked as an auto mechanic in the early days of the automobile, and was an inventor in his spare time. In 1917, he invented a product to fix leaks in car tires, called Noleex.   It was a goopy liquid that you'd squirt into the flat tire and voila, no leaks.  His product had one flaw: it didn't work in cold temperatures. Since he was living in Saskatchewan, Canada at the time this was a significant problem. So, he packed up and moved to the warmer climes of Cuba. It's not clear why he chose Cuba, but it is clear he didn't do much market research, because he discovered soon after arriving that there were very few cars in Cuba! We have only a few pictures of him from those days, always on horseback!

The trip was worthwhile because he met his future wife there, Eva Johnson, a young woman who had recently emigrated with a number of Swedish families from the USA to Cuba. They fell in love, married, then moved back to Canada to raise a family. I never knew my grandfather -- he died at age 53, but knew my grandmother well.   She was a free spirit who loved to visit her children and grandchildren, spread out across the country from the east coast to the west.  She always travelled by bus and would stay a few weeks or months, then move on to the next place.  She loved to play cards, especially whist, canasta and double or triple solitaire.   She continued her travelling ways well into her 80s, and she eventually settled in her beloved Vancouver where she spent her last years. Her ashes are scattered on the Ganges, in India, but that's another story.