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Story

Lottie (Robinson) Cole

Map Location

Latitude: 9° 49' 0.196" N
Longitude: 70° 56' 10.86" W

Date

1886-1963
  • A photo of two boys on horses with a man in the middle riding a horse. There is a building covered in metal siding and roofing behind them, as well as a tree with long, hanging branches. An International Driller sits on a horse outside the drilling camp in Venezuela, where Lottie (Robinson) Cole stayed when she and her daughter were visiting International Driller Bill Cole.

It wasn’t just men who travel abroad from Lambton County, a number of women also left for international adventure. Lottie Robinson was born in Oil Springs in 1886. In 1910 she married a local man named Bill Cole. Bill Cole was an International Driller.

For the first decade of their marriage, Robinson did not see very much of her husband. While the life of an International Driller may have been filled with exotic adventures and foreign travel, life for those left behind was filled with the challenges of raising a family mostly as a single parent.

Even though Robinson didn’t enjoy travelling, in 1924 she took her daughter Dorothy and joined Bill in Venezuela. Compared to Canada, Venezuela was an entirely different way of life. She had trouble adjusting to the warmth and humidity. And even though Canadians were well-liked in Venezuela, she and her husband always kept a full tank of gas just in case they had to make a hasty escape.

Before long Robinson returned to Oil Springs with her daughter and life returned to its strange state of normal. At times Bill would be away for several years at a time. When Dorothy was 5 she hid from her father when he returned home, not recognizing the man. Bill would return home just long enough to establish a new normal before signing another contract and leaving once again.

Life for the wife of an International Driller was filled with a unique set of challenges.

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