 Records show Sproule lived with his Uncle John Head and his wife Mary Elizabeth Sproule in Milton as young as age 8 in 1891.Sproule's uncle, John Head, had been a Milton town councillor, and a business merchant in Milton since at least 1881, selling men's and women's clothing, before getting a customs job in Toronto and moving there with the family in the mid-1890s.In 1901, Sproule and his sister were still living with their Uncle John Head and his wife Mary in west Toronto.