George was the son of a minister, born on a Tennessee plantation in 1842.  He served in the Civil WAr and when it ended he resumed his education for three years at the University of Kentucky, at Lexington.  His first Pastorate was the Christian Church at Mulkeytown, Illinois, where he met and married Alyce on Christmas Eve, 1872.  Their first two children were born there, then they moved to Kansas, birth place of the rest.  They were living in Oklahoma when they decided to move to Alberta, where at the beginning ot the 20th Century, the Canadian Goverment was anxious to have the wetern provices populated and land was available at a very low price.  Being a church minister for thirty years, George had not been able to save money to ensure independence in their older ages.  In 1930 the parents, Maude and a sister, and two young grandchildren whose mother had died, came to Edmonton by train.  Then they travelled 120 miles east by sleigh with horses and mules to the site which became Innisfree village.  Other sisters and brother of Maude came shortly, so there were six familes homsteaded there.