Portrait of an Aviator · Back Lane Studios · video
For Roland John Groome (1897–1935)
When she was 4 years old, Ruth Groome was fascinated by the portrait of a man wearing a cap with goggles raised onto his forehead. She asked her parents and grandparents who it was. The answer came after a long silence: "That's Uncle Roland. He died in a plane crash." ... he told her that Roland had trained as a pilot at air bases across Ontario, including at U of T, where Royal Airforce trainees were enrolled in the The School of Military Aeronautics. ... her uncle R.J. Groome. Not only was h the first licensed commercial pilot in Canada, he was also the first registered private commercial aircraft and air harbour owner in this country.
YouTube video description, read in Chrome by the orchestrator 2026-09-17 (the ellipses and the stray 'h ' for 'he' are exactly as recorded from the page, not an omission or typo introduced here). Independently corroborates, from Ruth Groome's own account of her father Leslie's story, that this uncle is 'Uncle Roland' who 'died in a plane crash' — already established in the tree via Ruth's email (#2842) and Find a Grave/Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan/Wikipedia.