He had formerly been a "hard nosed" sea captain before being commissioned as an agent by the newly formed National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, to help lead its incipient Canadian division.

Sise served as a blockade runner and intelligence agent for the Confederated States, and was also Davis' personal secretary, leading to a several years long estrangement with his family in Portsmouth .

Biographer Robert E. Babe wrote of his character:"An integrated, albeit incomplete and possibly lonely personality, Sise was an energetic, meticulous, and autocratic business leader who, standing aloof from employees, generally commanded their utmost loyalty and respect.

A member of the St James and Mount Royal clubs of Montreal, this austere and quiet man none the less found his primary source of relaxation and rest in his home.

Some 40 to 45 years older than the sons of his second marriage, Sise invoked in his domicile an aura of order and discipline rather than of intimacy with his progeny.

[3] His sons were also involved in Bell Canada and its equipment manufacturing division, Northern Electric (later to be renamed Nortel): Citations Bibliography