John Gennings Curtis Adams (1839 - 1922)

Ancestors

Biography

ADAMS, JOHN GENNINGS CURTIS, farmer, dentist, and reformer; b. 16 March 1839 in Adamsville (Acton), Upper Canada, son of the Reverend Ezra Adams and Amy Edmonds (Edmunds), widow of John Gennings Curtis; m. 18 Dec. 1861 Sarah Ann Fawcett (d. 1896) in Drayton, Upper Canada, and they had four sons and five daughters; d. 21 May 1922 in Burlington, Ont., and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

As a youth, John G. C. Adams farmed on the family homestead near Drayton. He drifted away in 1869 and the following year, at age 31, he moved to Toronto with his wife and children to study dentistry under his half-brother William Case Adams.

Adams’s Methodist and charitable convictions infused his dentistry to an extent that many deemed fanatical. He saw the dental care of children as a divine mission, and began acting aggressively on this belief in the 1890s. He was appalled by the wretched condition of children’s teeth, the prevalence of related disease and deformity, and the degree of parental misunderstanding of dental development and oral hygiene. Adams styled himself a “dental missionary” – as well as running free clinics, he lobbied municipal health and school officials for province-wide dental inspection and treatment. A visionary philanthropist, he had sparked an important movement. By the end of the 1920s most large municipalities across Canada had some form of dental inspection for children. Few dentists leave such a legacy.

His children included:

• Amy Lavina (Jan.16,1863-Nov.9,1916) married Rev. David Anderson Moir (1853-July 15,1947) on Jan.16,1883. Both buried in the Adams plot.
• John Franklin (Sept.23,1864-July 20,1933), was first married to Edith Bishop Young (Oct.22,1870-May 18,1891). On Mar.22,1894 he married Ada Elizabeth Robertson Hoggan. Occupation: dentist in Toronto
• Ezra Herbert (Sept.19,1866-June 23,1953) Occupation: dentist/doctor; also buried in the Adams plot.
• Eleanor Jane (July 1,1868-Oct.10,1918) a teacher, was unmarried. Also buriedin the Adams plot.
• Matilda Maria (Sept.1,1870- ) married George S. Martin, dentist, on May 23,1894. They lived in Port Colborne, ON.
• Sarah Electa (Sept.10,1872- ) married Arthur Murdoc Matthews (1870-1907).
• William Fawcett (Nov.27,1874-July 24,1963) married Ethel Anna Paxton on June 17,1902 in Toronto. Occupation: dentist
• Louise Adeline (Feb.12,1882-July 28,1967) married Walter Smith (d. Feb.1,1917). Her second husband was a Mr. Harvey. Louise and Walter buried in the Adams plot.
• George Arthur M. (Feb.24,1884- ) married Mary M. Lean on Sept.24,1908. Occupation: dentist

Sources

• Anne Carlyle Dale, “ADAMS, JOHN GENNINGS CURTIS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 27, 2018, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/adams_john_gennings_curtis_15E.html.
• "Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JKWC-LVV : 9 March 2018), John Gennings Center Adams, 21 May 1922; citing Nelson, Halton, Ontario, yr 1922 cn 14961, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,907,005.
• Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of York, J. H. Beers & Co., Toronto, 1907, pp. 515-516
• Dr John Gennings Curtis Adams on Find A Grave: Memorial #120502334 - McEvoy-527 00:26, 28 March 2018 (EDT)