A Jolly Crowd is a collection of 30 stories that I wrote about
my grandmother's friends in downtown Hamilton who came of age during
World War One. They are in-depth stories of their lives growing up in
Hamilton, going to war, then building Hamilton businesses and having
families. The stories feature my grandmother's photographs from the war.
My grandmother was Alma McMahon. She came to Hamilton in 1905 when her father James A. McMahon founded Union Drawn Steel here, a company which still exists today. She married my grandfather Dr. Jaffrey, known for his scientific achievements during the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 in Hamilton.
Her friends were the "WHO'S WHO" of the downtown Hamilton scene from 1910.
They are names you will recognize and ones that you don't know, yet, but
they all made their mark in Hamilton, and some, around the world.
