Early Life
Herbert W. Greenfield was born November 25, 1869, in Winchester, Hampshire, England, the son of John Greenfield (c. 1830–1909) and Mary Leake (c. 1835–1904). He attended Wesleyan School in Dalston, but dropped out as a result of his father's bankruptcy. He worked aboard a cattle boat in 1892 before emigrating to Canada in 1896.
In Canada, he worked in the oil fields near Sarnia, Ontario, and as a farmer in Weston. He married Elizabeth Harris on February 28, 1900. The couple had two sons, Franklin Harris Greenfield and Arnold Leake Greenfield. In 1904, the family went west for economic reasons and homesteaded near Edmonton. He found work in a lumber mill and later turned to farming. During his first year in Alberta, a fire destroyed his home, and he and his wife spent the winter in an abandoned sod hut. In 1906, they resettled to a large home four kilometers south of Westlock.
In 1922, while Greenfield was Premier, Elizabeth died suddenly as a result of routine surgery. He remarried in 1926, to Marjorie Greenwood Cormack, who brought two children of her own into the marriage.
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