The Prices

This site is about the family and descendants of Joe Price (1860-1934) and his wife Lizzie Leslie (1862-1917).

Its mission is to research, preserve, and share the Price family’s history, stories, documents and pictures, and to bring Joe and Lizzie’s living descendants together.

Joe and Lizzie were among the pioneers of what is known as the Beach district in Toronto’s east end, and they were each exceptional in their own way. He was a self-made business tycoon and philanthropist. She was a concert soloist who raised five children to Victorian standards.

Joe was a phenomenal business man, who parlayed his sign-painting skills into a Canada-wide advertising business and then went on, in his second career, to found one of the most important construction and real estate companies in Toronto. He was also a community leader, philanthropist, and one of the founders of Toronto East General Hospital.

Lizzie did all the things that a mother of five was expected to do in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. In her spare time, she managed to become a celebrated concert musician whose cornet solos were the talk of the city.

You can find stories about the family, most of them illustrated, some of them entertaining. What I hope to do is to build a narrative history of these fascinating people.

Here is where you can access the family tree, to learn about Joe and Lizzie’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren: who we are and a little of what we’ve done as a family.

To get started, you might want to go here, to understand the important role that Joe, with his sons Leslie and Earl, played in the early development of the Beach.

If you’re more interested in Lizzie, then definitely start here.

Or you could start by just scrolling down on this page, for photos of Joe, Lizzie, and their children, and links to succeeding generations.

Whatever you do, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know what you think here.