Ralph Benjamin Whittier

Born 1899 to the great-great grandson of Benjamin Whittier, a United Empire Loyalist from Fairfield, Connecticut. He was the son of Benjamin Lionel Whittier of Upper Rawdon and Annie Melita Miller of Newport. He saw the beginning of the new age of automobiles and airplanes, served in World War I as a cadet in the Royal Air Force, and in World War II as a Captain, Staff Officer Coast Artillery, Eastern Command. He had an adventurous life as a young man, going to sea as a Wireless Operator, travelling in Australia, Germany, Holland, England, the United States, the Caribbean and the west coast of Canada. Several times he was called back to Nova Scotia to care for his sick uncle and father. His sisters, Catherine and Jean, were studying Medicine at Toronto and Dalhousie Universities. They later became medical missionaries to India. Eventually he joined London Life Insurance Company where, except the World War II years, he worked until his retirement.

He married Winnie Rebecca Wood in 1927.  She was the daughter of John Cornelius Wood and Laura MacPhee Wood of Centre Rawdon, was his perfect partner in tracing family connections. She was a teacher of the deaf, had trained at Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts and had a vast knowledge of many of the Hants County families. She stimulated and encouraged his research.

Ralph Whittier died in 1983