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Reprinted from The Commercial and The World,
Chatham, N.B., Nov. 10,1931
Rev. E. J. Rattee passed away at Joliette, P.Q.
Received early education in Chatham,
nephew of late Rev. E. Wallace Waits Many old friends in
Chatham and vicinity will learn with sincere regret
of the death of the Rev. E. J. Rattee, pastor of the
United Church at Joliette, P.Q., who passed away at his home
there on Nov. 2nd. The late Mr. Rattee was born in
Cambridgeshire, England, in 1869 and came to Chatham
in the Summer of 1882 to live with his uncle,
the Rev. E. Wallace Waits, then pastor of St. Andrew's Church.
He attended Miss Williston's school(upstairs above the
old Grammar School) during the Fall and Winter of 1882-83,
passed from there to the Grammar School in the Spring of 1883
where he prepared for college under that prince of teachers
Mr. (later Dr.) J. M. Palmer. He entered Dalhousie University,
Halifax, in the Fall of 1886 and graduated B.A. in 1890.
He there came more particularly under the influence of
Professor James Seth, professor of Philosophy, later
appointed to Edinburgh University, who had a high opinion
of his abilities in that subject and in whose classes
he took a high standing. During his student days in
Dalhousie he acted as catechist in the Summer vacations at
Escuminac, P.Q., New Mills and New Bandon, N.B.
He studied theology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ont.,
where Principal Grant exercised a deep influence upon him.
He was ordained to the ministry in 1892. In the summer of 1892
he was stationed at Fort Francis, Maine,
where he met his wife, Miss Mary McLean, daughter of a
prominent lumber merchant of that district. They were married
in the Fall of 1892. Mrs. Rattee proved to be an ideal
minister's wife and contributed greatly to his success
in his different fields of labour.
His first settled ministry was at Noel, N .S. From there
he went to ,a larger field at Blue Mountain, N.S.,
and in 1902 he was called to the large Presbyterian
congregation at Malpeque, P.E.I., where he laboured
unti1 1915, when he removed to Montreal, filling for
a time a church agency. Later he took charge of the
Presbyterian Church at New Richmond, Que.,
where he remained unti1 1919, when he removed to Longueuil,
near Montreal. From there he went to Windsor Mills, Que.
and in 1924 to Joliette.
Mr. Rattee was a man of fine mind and fine scholarship.
He was cheerful in his disposition and broad in his
sympathies and entered into the lives of the people of
his congregations and of the community generally in an
intimate, human way, cheering them in their everyday life
as well as pointing to the deeper things beyond.
He was highly respected by and very popular among the French
people of Joliette, many of whom attested their regard by
attending the funeral which took place at the
Joliette United Church on November 4that 11 a.m.
Among those present at his funeral were two boyhood
and lifelong friends, J. A.Brown of Vancouver,
presently in Montreal, and E. N. Brown, K.C., of Montreal,
both formerly of Lower Newcastle. Dr. F. P. YorstoQ of Montreal,
formerly of Douglastown, (Lord Beaverbrook's teacher
in the Harkins Academy, Newcastle), was unable to attend,
but sent his regrets and sympathy to Mrs. Rat tee and the family.
