Mary Mabel Ouderkirk
Mary Mabel Ouderkirk was born to Henry Ouderkirk and Sarah Eliza Casselman on May 7, 1855. Census records do not agree on her place of birth, but it has most consistently been recorded as Ontario - or Canada West as it would have been when she was born. As most of her siblings were born in Morrisburg, it is quite likely, though not proven, that she was born in Morrisburg as well. Mary used Mary, Mabel and Minnie as her Christian name throughout her lifetime.
Mary married Richard Benson on September 20, 1880, in Toronto under the name Minnie Mabel Ouderkirk. The couple moved to Chicago in 1893 and were recorded on the 1900 Census as Richard and Mary Benson. The census recorded that they had had one child, but that child was no longer living.
It is presumed that Richard died between 1900 and 1903 as Mary married John Breaton on August 5, 1903, in St. Joseph, Michigan. She was recorded as Minnie M. Benson. John had been married multiple times before.
John died February 16, 1910, at 6148 Wabash Avenue. Two days later, Mabel was recorded as living at 2217 Wabash Avenue when she filed to be the executrix of John's estate as she believed he had died intestate. She was granted the right on February 18, 1910. However, on March 2, 1910, John B. Breaton, John's son from a previous marriage, made an application for and was granted the right to be the executor of his late father's estate. He presented that day, a verification of a will dated July 18, 1908, leaving everything John Breaton owned to his son, John. It appears that after five years of marriage to Mabel, John wrote a will leaving everything he owned to his son, John, nothing to Mabel and nothing to John's other children from his first marriage.
On the 1910 Census, Mabel Breaton was recorded as a nurse and head of a boarding house at 2119 Indiana Avenue in Chicago. According to research done by Shirley Forth, Minnie ran multiple boarding houses in Chicago. Lucy's Detroit Border Crossing card of January 5, 1911, stated that she was visiting her sister, Mabel Bretaon (sic), at 3041 Groveland Avenue, Chicago. Lemuel Scott's Detroit Border Crossing card of January 12, 1911, just one week after Lucy's crossing, stated he was joining his wife at 2119 Indiana Avenue. All of these various residences would suggest that Minnie was indeed running multiple boarding houses.
After the visit from her family in 1911, it appears that Minnie returned to Canada and moved to Toronto. Lois Catalano's mother remembered going with her mother, Lucy Willson Gaskell, to visit her Aunt Min in the east end of Toronto on multiple occasions. Minnie's address when she died on November 23, 1938, was 212 Coxwell Avenue, which is indeed in the east end of Toronto.
Minnie was buried in St. John's Norway Cemetery in the same plot as her sister, Lucy Ouderkirk Scott. There is no headstone for Minnie, just a notation on the receipt for the sale of the plot that she was interred November 25, 1938.