Edward Blake (II) was born June 29, 1870 in the town of Faversham, Kent, England. It would seem that he and his family stayed there only a very short time as the 1871 census shows them no longer in Faversham. Most likely they had moved to London as Robina, his sister, was born in the district of Shoreditch, East London, in January 1873. Edward's father was also an Edward (I) and was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England in 1833. Edward II's mother, Janet Hunter, however, was from Paisley, Scotland and seems to have been the second wife of Edward I. Edward I and Janet apparently met in Edinburgh where Edward was working as a bricklayer and was married to Robina Cuthbert.
Edward II grew up in East London and at the young age of 14 joined the British Army. He spent time in India during his first enlistment. This was followed by an additional twelve years that started in 1890 and that included about one year in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer war. His military records indicate that in 1895 he changed his church affiliation from Church of England to Baptist. This is important as it was while attending a Baptist church in Glasgow, Scotland sometime in 1900 that he met and later married Isabella Thomson. The marriage took place on April 5, 1901 in the Berlinnie prison chapel as this was where Isabella's father was employed as a prison warden.
Isabella always thought of herself as an Aberdonian and when asked to pin it down would say she was from New Deer, Aberdeen. In fact, she was born on a farm called Middle Hythie in a part of the Old Deer parish that was technically in Banffshire, not Aberdeen. At the age of eleven, her father took a job as a prison warden at the Berlinnie prison in Glasgow and moved his family. Ten years later, Edward and Isabella married and took up residence in Glasgow. Edward worked first as a tram operator then later as a foundry worker. They eventually had nine children of which eight were born in Glasgow and one, Marjorie, was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England. While in Gainsborough, the family investigated and joined the LDS (Mormon) church which resulted in, twenty years later, migration to the United States, specifically Salt Lake City, Utah and Sunol, California.
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