From Kathleen Perrault’s Reminiscences, 1979

Second child George (2) worked as a finisher of hand made shoes. He was often chosen by his fellow workers to present problems to management. Seeing this as uniting workers, they fired him and had him blacklisted throughout England. He emigrated of necessity in 1906 to Montreal, leaving his wife Lizzie behind with their three preschoolers, Dorothy, Margaret and Mike. They followed him a year later. Betty was born in 1908. In 1910, four years after his arrival in Canada, George bought a duplex (4614-16 Bordeaux Street) where Lizzie lived until her death in 1960. George died of throat cancer in 1921.

George was a good looking, witty man with many friends. He had a fine baritone voice, singing in the church choir and around the piano with family and friends. He read avidly; the bookcases lining the living room were full. According to his sister Alice, in sharp contrast to her husband’s strict family “no dancing, no smoking, no cards, no nothing,” the Rochford’s were “fun-loving, they danced, sang, were musical, interested in theatre, and most of them took a drink when the occasion presented itself.” In George’s home there was always company. He was very lively and involved.

Whenever George, an outgoing affable man, met someone from England he would invite them to his home. One such was Bill Marshall, who then courted and married Alice in September 1910, not long after sister Kate married. Kate convinced the newlyweds to come to Pittsburgh, where Bill joined Harry working at Westinghouse. The two couples shared a large house. Everything went well until the early new year (1911) when both women found themselves pregnant. Apparently the sisters started to squabble, so Alice and Bill moved back to Montreal in May, much to the O’Grady’s disappointment. They soon reconciled, and visited back and forth. Alice and Bill had two children, Kathleen who wrote down these reminiscences, and Bill, who still lives with his wife Ila in Victoria, British Columbia.