Can you help Walter Pidgeon, the New Brunswick Project and Collaborative Profile of the Week?

Question

The New Brunswick Project and Collaborative Profile of the Week Present

Walter Pidgeon (1897-1984)

In my teen years, I watched the “Dialing for Dollars” movie on TV every afternoon, then joined my mother in the kitchen, where she cooked and I talked about life and the movie I just saw, which she usually remembered from its first go round in the movie theater. One of her favorites was Walter Pidgeon. IMDB  has him listed with 138 credits stretching from 1926 until 1978. I never knew until recently that he was from New Brunswick, Canada.

1. Walter has a brief bio about his career that could be lengthened.
2. What about the rest of his life? He was born and grew up in New Brunswick, Canada.
3. Parents? Siblings?
4. Wife/Wives? Children?
5. Did he live in Beverly Hills?
6. Are there other public domain photos we can add?

As you start to work on some aspect of Walter's life, please post an answer here first. This is to prevent duplication of effort and to keep the question "alive" in the G2G.

The New Brunswick Project

The New Brunswick project is a sub-project of The Canadian History Project.  Our primary goals are to initiate and improve profiles of notable people that were born in New Brunswick.  To date, this includes politicians, performing artists and authors.  We also maintain Free Space and Category lists of these people as they are added.

Thank you

 

Comments

Thanks, Anne! I like the personal touch.

Now featured on the home page.

Answer 1

I think I'm done now :) I've found him on the 1911 Canada census, along with the 1920, 1930 and 1940 US census, so I've added all of those (I included text, but this may want to be edited for flow). I think I now have all of his siblings as well - his father had 5 children from his first marriage, but the last one died as an infant. Her mother died a week after childbirth. Burpee (Walter's father) later married his first wife's sister, but she died less than a year after they married. With his third wife (Walter's mother), there were three sons. He died when Walter was a child.

Unfortunately, they're still not connected to global tree. I'm not sure of the best way to find the link. Perhaps someone could get him connected?

Comments

Nicely done Leanne. Thank you. I'll run a "smoother-outer" over him before next monday.

---

Ditto on the thanks, Leanne!!  A 'smoother outer' ??  I just have this vision of you on your hands and knees working on a newly poured sidewalk with your trowel!!

---

Leanne, you did a most excellent job on this profile. Thank you very much for your contributions. Took me almost no time to smooth it out (with my trusty trowell).

---

Glad I could help! I hope he gets connected to the global tree at some point. Meanwhile, his profile looks great!

Answer 2

I just found his immigration application on Ancestry and will add information from that.

Comments

I was able to add some information to his wife Ruth also.

And yes he lived in Beverly Hills, in 1939.

---

Sure the application said Ashgrove for her birth place ... Wikipedia lists it as Ash Grove and in Greene county so I 'fixed' that up.

---

Yes the application says Ashgrove, one word, but it seems someone misspelled it.

Answer 3

I've added some sources (birth, 1901 census, marriage), siblings (3 half brothers, 1 full brother), added info to parents' profiles

Comments

Thank you Leanne, nicely done.

Answer 4

I've added some more information. Besides his three half-brothers, he also had a half-sister. As well, he has a file in Library and Archives Canada's "Soldiers of the First World War", so I added the info from that. He signed up, but it doesn't look like he served. These files are in the process of being digitized, Walter's hasn't yet been done, so all that is available is his Officer Declaration Paper (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/image.aspx?Image=580759a&URLjpg=http%3a%2f%2fdata2.archives.ca%2fcef%2fgpc014%2f580759a.gif&)

Comments

Thank you.  It's too bad it's not dated. 1914 he would only have been 17, which might explain the discrepancy in his date of birth.