Though they had known each other
in their native Jamaica, Byron and Violet Carter of Pickering, Ontario,
immigrated to Canada separately, he via the United States to study mechanical
engineering, and Violet to work as a nurse and further her education while
working at the Toronto Western Hospital. Violet was already a graduate
of the Public Health School in Kingston, Jamaica, with a Royal Society
of Health Certificate from the U.K., when she came to Toronto, 1961, and
later served with the Victorian Order of Nurses, Toronto, 1963-65, before
moving to the Scarborough General Hospital, 1965-1992, where she spent
her time in the gynaecology and later the nursery wards. Byron, who graduated
from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, moved to Toronto and married
Violet, 1961. For the next 19 years he worked at Canadian General Electric,
Toronto, then briefly managed Don Park Sheet metal Company before opening
his own home renovation business, B.C. Renovations in Pickering, Ontario.
He retired in 1992. Active in the Jamaican community, Violet was a founding
member of the Jamaican Canadian Association, 1962, and has served on a
number of committees, while Byron has served as Treasurer and Vice President
of the group that has some 2,000 members. He was also president of the
now defunct Credit Union of the Jamaican Canadian Association. They are
the proud parents of four children, two boys, one an architect and the
other an engineer, and two girls, a lawyer and a rehabilitation counsellor.
[Photo, courtesy Byron Carter]