James A. Innes House
56 Front Street
Built 1910
The red brick two storey house at 56 Front Street was built in 1910. James Alexander Innes and his family were the first people to live in the house. The Census of 1911 lists James as a stationary engineer at the Waterworks plant. He and his wife, Edith, twin stepdaughters, Marjorie Belle and Edith "Blanche" Ruston, as well as his father, James, and mother, Isabel, and brother, Richard, lived in the house.
James immigrated to Canada in 1906 from Scotland. He was born on September 26, 1881 in Rothes, Moray.
His parents joined him in 1911 along with his brother Richard. James, his father was born on January 13,
1846 in Bellie, Marayshoire and died in Stratford on November 24, 1929. His mother, Isabel Munro, born on February 27, 1851 and died on October 10, 1932 in Alloa Clackmannanshire, Scotland. James and Isabel married on May 30, 1873 in Backleys, Inchbroom, Urquhart, Moray, Scotland.
James married Edith Dunhill Ruston on October 9, 1909 in Stratford. Edith was born on January 1883 in Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield, west Yorkshire, England to Samuel George and Sarah Ann Bake. Edith was previously married to Edward Ephraim Ruston, he on died on May 25, 1906, when the twins were only 5 months old. They were born on January 14, 1906.
James raised Marjorie and Blanche as his own, and added to their family with daughter, Jean Alexandra, on December 6, 1912, followed by son, James Alexander, born in 1913, another daughter, Isabelle Munro, February 19 , 1917 and finally daughter, Frances Ruth, on November 23, 1920.
The Innes family is listed in the 1921 Census as living in a stone house in North Easthope, Ontario where James was a farmer. He died on June 20, 1953.
The house has been recognized by Heritage Stratford in 2019 as a residence of a historically significant person. Dr. Robert Salter, a world renowned pediatric orthopedic surgeon was born on December 15, 1924, and lived his first 17 years in the house. He graduated from University of Toronto in 1947 and joined the medical staff of Hospital for sick children in Toronto, where he was later appointed surgeon —in-chief. He developed a procedure that was dubbed the Salter technique. He was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1977, awarded the Order of Ontario in 1988, and inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of
Fame in 1988.