Early Life
Born into a military family at Purbrook, near Orillia in Canada West. He was the son of Captain The Hon. Elmes Yelverton Steele, R.N., a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, and one of six brothers to have served in the British Armed Forces. His mother (the second wife of his father), Anne Macdonald, was the youngest daughter of Neil Maclain MacDonald of Ardnamurchan, a native of Islay. Neil MacDonald was a grandson of Captain Godfrey MacNeil of Barra, and a nephew of Colonel Donald MacNeil. Sam Steele was named for his father's uncle, Colonel Samuel Steele, who served in Quebec under Lord Amherst. Sam Steele received his education at the family home, Purbrook, and then at the Royal Military College of Canada. By the age of thirteen he was orphaned, and went to live with his elder half-brother, John Steele.
Read more about this topic: Sam Steele
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)