John Wilson McConnell - Early Life

Early Life

McConnell was born to a farming family in the Muskoka Region of Ontario. He left home as a boy of fourteen to find employment in the city of Toronto. His first job paid $3 a week but as an employee at Standard Chemical Co. he worked his way up to a management position that eventually led to a transfer to Montreal in 1901. The then 23-year-old for a time lived in a room at the Montreal YMCA, an institution that he would later thank through his volunteering to help lead a successful fund-raising campaign. In 1905, he married Lily May Griffith. They had four children.