| Notes |
- Sarah was a practising Quaker.She gave birth to 2 sons - Claude and Bill. She died when her son Bill was 8. Her husband remarried but his new wife was not loving towards her stepson Bill.
Someone showed Meliisa rather than Matilda as her middle name.
Her son William writes: " Yes the Gorslines were Quakers and well I remember going to church shared with the Methodists. We might sit for in church an hour and then (Isse Wilson) would get up and reach her sermon.
- (Research):Sarah was born on 12 November of 1857. Her parents Jacob and Roxanna were third generation Canadian farmers. Their grandparents had cleared the forests and homesteaded in Prince Edward County, an island on Lake Ontario south of Belleville.
Jacob and Roxanna named their firstborn child after Jacob's mother Sally Adams who had died three years before.
Jacob was a farmer who inherited his farm from his father. It was the original homestead of his grandfather. It consisted of 200 acres, lot no. 26, 2nd concession, Sophiasburg, Prince Edward County (near Picton, Ontario).
Sarah's parents were Quakers with a strong belief in listening to the still small voice of God within every person. They believed in acts of goodness and generosity and in pacifism. Sarah embraced this faith and went to Quaker services all her life.
When she was nine, her adored brother Will was born. When Sarah was thirteen, her sister Edna was born. It was hard on all of them when Edna died five years later.
When she was 22, Sarah married John Kotchapaw.
Sarah gave birth to her first child Claude six years later. When she was 34, she gave birth to her second and last child Bill. She named him after her beloved brother Will.
Sarah and her sons attended Quaker services held in the Methodist Church in the village of Demorestville. They shared the church with the Methodists. Her son Bill wrote in a letter "well I remember going to church with my Mother. We might sit in silence for an hour and then Isse Wilson would get up and preach her sermon."
John did not embrace Quakerism. In the census, he reported that he was an Episcopal Methodist and indeed took visiting grandchildren to services at the Methodist Church using their horse and buggy to get there.
She and her husband were a hard working and energetic team tackling the challenges of farming, parenthood and good citizenship with confidence and a positive attitude. These were the days before electricity and indoor plumbing. They grew their own food, milked the cows by hand and churned their own butter and cream.
In the year of 1899, three days before her son Bill's eighth birthday, Sarah died. She was 44. The death certificate indicates hemorrhage of the brain and cancer [5]
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1856 - 1899 (43 years)
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