I have written stories about twelve of Barnabé Bruneau and Marie Sophie Prudhomme’s thirteen children. That just leaves Helene (1849 -1929). Helene was child number nine or perhaps number ten. I just realized that she and Selene Joseph were the second set of twins in the family. They were born on December 20, 1849.
I haven’t found much information about Helene other than she appeared to be a devoted wife and mother. She married at twenty-six but before, had spent some time in New York City as photographs can attest. Was she also a French teacher or governess like her sisters?
Sophie, Helene and Matilde Bruneau, New York City
Helene married Célestin Pépin dit Lachance ( known as Lachance). He was born in Joliette (1847-1915) to Celestin Lachance and Elisabeth Payette. His parents converted to Protestantism in 1852 when he was a young child. He attended the l’Institute Evangelique Francais de Pointe-aux-Trembles. After he graduated, he became a Colporteur for two years for the French Canadian Missionary Society. He had aspirations of becoming a minister
Celestin & Helene Lachance
In 19th century America, the word colporteur (the borrowing of a French word meaning “peddler”) came to be used for door-to-door peddlers of religious books and tracts and is still used today. The Missionary Society trained the colporteurs and future pastors as there wasn’t a French Protestant seminary. Celestin abandoned his studies in 1867, possibly because he had tuberculosis and his doctor recommended he only work outside in the fresh air. If he did have TB, the fresh air did him good as he lived almost another 50 years. He worked all over Quebec in the logging and forestry industry. Helene accompanied him everywhere during their marriage.
Helene & Celestin Lachance and Helen’s sister Anais
Although he gave up missionary work he remained a religious Presbyterian the rest of his life. He read the Bible every morning and night. During his last illness, he read the whole Bible twice in nine months.
Helene was originally a Baptist as her parents also converted to Protestantism when she was a child. She is later recorded as being a Presbyterian.
Celestin and Helene had only one daughter, Helene Marie Antoinette (1876 – 1916). This curly-haired child grew up but never married. She attended Royal Arthur School in Montreal. Antoinette attended English schools because the family was Protestant, so she couldn’t attend French Catholic schools. In 1892, she won the prize in French for second intermediate girls, besting Nellie Wilson, who won the awards for most of the other subjects. She didn’t have Antoinette’s advantage of a French background. At the closing of the ceremony, the commissioner said, “It was well to be clever but still better to be good.” Antoinette died at only forty years of age. She lived with her parents her whole life and never seemed to have an occupation.
Antoinette Lachance
After Celestin and Antoinette died, Helene lived in Verdun, Quebec until her death, on June 4, 1929. The family is buried in Mont-Royal cemetery in Montreal along with Helene’s brother Napoleon.
Mount Royal Cemetery Montreal
Notes:
In the back of the little photo album in a list of the children, it actually said twins, which had never registered with me.
Back page of photo album
1871 Census: Celestin was 22 and living with his parents and sibling in St Charles Borromée, Joliette, Quebec. Year: 1871; Census Place: St Charles Borromée, Joliette, Quebec; Roll: C-10036; Page: 15
Helene and Celestin were married in 1875 and recorded as French Evangelicals.
Antoinette was born in October 2, 1876 and baptized at 9 years old in 1885.
According to Find a Grave: her full name was Helene Marie Antoinette Lachance born in St Constant Quebec.Ancestry.com. Canada, Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data: Find a Grave. Find a Grave®. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi accessed August 28, 2024.
1891 Census: The Lachances were living in Ste. Conegonde Hochelaga, Quebec. Celestin was a Commis au Bois, a wood clerk, Helene was a wife and both members of the Free Church.
Year: 1891: Census Place: Ste Cunégonde Town, Hochelaga, Quebec, Canada; Roll: T-6396; Family No: 227Ancestry.com. 1891 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Aug 28, 2024.
1901 Census: Celestine, Helene and Antoinettte (Marie-A ) were living in Ottawa, where Celestin was listed as a foreman and Antoinette, had no occupation. Year: 1901; Census Place: Ottawa (City/Cité) Dalhousie (Ward/Quartier), Ottawa (City/Cité), Ontario; Page: 19; Family No:189 Source InformationAncestry.com. 1901 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Aug 28, 2024.
Montreal Star: Royal Arthur Closing Exercises, June 22, 1892 Wednesday, pg. 3. Newspapers.com accessed Sept 9, 2024.
Le Devoir: Celestin Lachance obituary, March 26, 1915 pg 2. Newspapers.com accessed September 9, 2024
Montreal Star Obituary: Helene Lachance, June 6, 1929 page 11. Accessed Oct 22, 2024.
Jean-Louis Lalonde: Lachance, Celestin (1849-1915) SHPFQ Societe d’Histoire du Protestantisme Franco-Quebecois. Octobre 12, 2020.
On September 26, 1912, a tall, slim, beautiful and well-dressed young woman stepped off the train at Viger Station in Montreal to be met, well, by no one.
There was a group of local reporters on the platform but they were waiting for someone else to arrive, someone far less fetching, as it were.
The journalists were expecting Barbara Wylie, a British suffragette. Wylie was one of Mrs. Pankhurst’s radical troops and British suffragettes were mostly manly, weren’t they?
Barbara Wylie 1912.
When the reporters realized that this stylish beauty was, indeed, Miss Wylie it caused quite a commotion according to a newspaper article in the Montreal Witness clipped by my husband’s great aunt Edith Nicholson.
The reporters immediately raced over and encircled the lovely lady.
Barbara Wylie did not disappoint on the radical front. The Scottish firebrand brashly answered questions about her reason for coming to Canada and glibly defended a British suffragette who recently had thrown a hatchet at British Prime Minister Asquith. “Had it hit the mark, it might have knocked some sense into him.”
Whoa!
Remnant of the Montreal Witness clipping.
When I first found the Witness newspaper report among Edith’s massive stash of yellowed newspaper clippings on the suffrage movement, it did not make an impression on me. I had heard of the British suffragettes, for sure. Who hadn’t? But, the name of Barbara Wylie meant nothing.
And I knew zilch about how, around 1910, some of Emmeline Pankhurst’s troops visited Montreal to try and convince “inert”1 Canadian suffragists that not-so-peaceful protest was actually the way to go.
Lets’ face it: there was nothing about Canadian women suffrage in my 1968 high school history book.
Haunt. Hmmm. Interesting choice of verb. Suffragettes were technically banned from coming to Canada. So the two suffragettes who did come,Caroline Kenney and Barbara Wylie, had Canadian relations and came on family visits.
Miss Barbara Wylie was head of the Edinburgh Chapter of Mrs. Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union. She came to Canada in 1912 on a year-long country-wide tour, but her loose-cannon ways did not get her far.
In Montreal, on November 4, 1912, Wylie climbed the speaker’s platform at the YMCA as a guest of the Montreal Local Council of Women. News reports say she was wearing a pretty powder blue silk dress, but her rhetoric was of the red-hot variety.2 “Why speak of men as brave and women as pure? Would it not be better to bring the idea into society that men can be pure and women brave?”
The meeting had to be adjourned early when a fist fight nearly broke out – between two men.
Edith Nicholson, 27, didn’t attend Wylie’s rowdy Montreal speech. A family letter reveals Edie returned home from Montreal to Richmond, Quebec on November 2. But the Montreal Witness clipping isn’t the only document I have that suggests Edie, an over-worked, under-paid teacher at Ecole Methodiste Westmount, was all for the “hysterical” window-smashing suffragettes.
“So sorry” Mrs. Snowden was NOT a militant. May 1913 letter to Mom
On May 2, 1913, Edie is in Montreal with her two sisters, Marion and Flo, and she writes this in a letter home to her mom, Margaret: “We are going to hear Mrs. Snowden speak. But she is not a militant for which I am very sorry.”
This sentence, too, I might well have over-looked had it not been for that Wylie newsclipping because that fragile disintegrating memento prompted me to conduct more in-depth research on the messy, all-but-forgotten Montreal suffrage movement.
The first British suffragist brought in by the Montreal Council of Women was Mrs. Ethel Snowden, in 1909. Snowden was the young wife of a British Labour M.P. She spoke at Stevenson Hall.
Described in one report as “a daughter of the gods, divinely fair,” Snowden’s oratorical skills also impressed that day. She condemned the British militants, who were just beginning their ‘deeds, not words” path, saying “Mrs. Pankhurst has unleashed a Frankenstein monster.”
The Council soon passed an ambiguous resolution somewhat in favour of women suffrage.
Montreal Gazette places suffragette news beside opera news. You can make what you want of that.
Emmeline Pankhurst, herself, visited Montreal in December, 1911. She was brought in by Council President, Miss Carrie Derick (a closeted suffragette sympathizer) “so that women could hear the other side of the suffrage story.”
In her speech at Windsor Hall, the famed feminist, looking tired and frail, stated her case with eloquence but she made sure to avoid provocative language.
So afraid were Montrealers of Mrs. Pankhurst (whose troops back home were angry at Asquith over a broken promise) that the Council had to give away 200 tickets at the last minute and only broke even on the night. Mrs. Pankhurst’s fee was considerable too. After all, she was on the tour to raise money for lawyers.
Minutes of MLCW launching Montreal Suffrage Associationat at the time of Mrs. Snowden’s second visit. Someone has crossed out the line where it says the organization is non-militant.(“Not relevant” Professor Derick said in the press.) They also intend to subscribe to WSPU Votes for Women Magazine and make money selling brochures. BANQ archives.
May, 1913 saw Mrs. Snowden’s second visit to Montreal. This time she spoke at St. James Methodist Church.
In the spring of 1913, Mrs. Pankhurst’s militants in England were in full battle mode, setting fire to post boxes, hunger-striking in prison and playing ‘cat and mouse’ with the police.
Mrs. Snowden calmed the fears of Montrealers in the audience, telling them not to worry, women wouldn’t suddenly want to run for Parliament with the vote (sic). “All men care about is money, but women care about the home, children and humanity,” she proclaimed. The vote for women, it seems, was all about saving babies.
This is exactly what the majority of women in the Montreal suffrage movement wanted to hear. These ladies were mostly well-off middle-aged matrons or unmarried teachers of a certain age. They were maternal suffragists, not equal-rights suffragettes, and they had worked very hard to keep any young, excitable unmarried women (even of their own class) out of the local movement.
These matrons did not like what they saw coming out of the UK or the U.S: the spontaneous marches in sundry small towns; the highly-publicized cross-country tramps; the gigantic uber-organized parades in major cities, including one with10,000 people that swept down 5th Avenue in New York led by a young suffragette goddess on horseback. They were especially afraid for/of their own daughters: A lengthy editorial in the Montreal Gazette described women’s colleges like McGill’s Royal Victoria College as”suffragette factories” churning out de-sexed females.
So, in March, 1913, they started up the Montreal Suffrage Association, an elite organization with a mandate to provide a ‘quiet and peaceful education of the people’ led reluctantly by, who else, Miss Carrie Derick – with a membership by invitation only.4
Ethel Snowden ended her 1913 speech by calling Mrs. Pankhurst’s troops “cavemen” giving the reporters their headline for the next day.
If Great Aunt Edie was in attendance that night in the large landmark Gothic Revival church on Ste. Catherine Street in Montreal, and I have no proof one way or another, she must have been mightily dismayed.
Great Aunt Edie 1971 toasting her niece’s marriage. In the 1920’s, she stepped out with Miss Carrie Derick according to a letter. They were both at McGill. Edith’s name on membership list for Therese Casgrain’s provincial suffrage association, The League of Women’s Rights in 1940-41. Edie was by then respectable, working at Royal Victoria College, McGill as Assistant to the Warden. Of course, back in 1913, Edie wasn’t listed as a member of the Montreal Suffrage Association, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t join the more inclusive and militant-minded Montreal Suffrage League started up by Caroline Kenney, another British suffragette. But, soon War broke out and everything kind of fell apart, but that’s a whole other story.
Originally published in Beads in A Necklace, Genealogy Ensemble’s compilation of family stories.
Furies Cross the Mersey is my story about the British Suffragette Invasion of 1912 from 3 different points of view. This era was a study in Media Literacy, that’s for sure. Journalists broke every rule of their trade covering the ladies of the suffrage movement. (For example: Were young suffragette sympathizers ‘manly and desexed’ or ‘excitable and hormonal?) Suffragists and Suffragettes wanted to take away men’s alcohol (overt)and their right to have sex before marriage with prostitutes (tacit). “Why can’t men be pure.” Mrs. Pankhurst, a doctor’s wife, was upset at the fact so many virginal women contracted veneral disease as a wedding present.(Hence the law requiring blood tests before marriage.). Also, many of her husband’s patients in the north of England arrived at his surgery pregnant by incest.
Margaret Votes published on this website. (How did Margaret Nicholson feel about voting for the first time in 1920? Very happy! Her neighbours not so much:) ) Most Canadian women won the right to vote in 1918. (Some with men in the military, earlier, in 1917) Quebec women in their province only in 1940.
“Inert” was the word used by Carrie Derick to describe the Canadian Suffrage Movement in 1912.
The British suffragettes, many of them young, were careful to dress well, knowing that it is easy to diss a woman on her appearance. This lead to news reports on the various marches in the UK and US sounding like fashion news.
The Montreal Local Council of Women launched the MSA in 1913, despite the fact this was not their mandate. They were supposed to be an umbrella for the various women’s organizations that had sprung up from the grass roots. I believe they launched the MSA because some other British Suffragettes, namely Caroline Kenney, sister of Annie Kenney, Emmeline Pankhurst’s working class lieutenant, were trying to start up a militant group (open to all) and even planning a march to Ottawa in the style of Rosalie Jones’s tramp. I know this because the Ottawa press covered their story, not the Montreal press. Another Kenney sister, Nell, had moved to Montreal (Verdun) with her journalist husband, Frank Randall Scott, in 1910, after he had swept her away to safety during a police action at a UK rally with Sir Winston Churchill, then the Home Secretary! His fonds are in the McCord Museum and include photographs of all the Kenney women – as well as the Royal Princes who came to visit in 1924. If you want to read more of their story read Furies Cross the Mersey, my book.
4. Carrie Derick is, famously, Canada’s first female university professor. A few other McGill professors were brought onto the Board of the Montreal Suffrage Association as well as some clergymen. The clergymen in particular hated – and feared – Mrs. Pankhurst. Many women on the Board secretly supported her, especially a Mrs. Weller, wife of a prosperous Westmount business man (electrical systems) who had made it a point to study the question in detail. She had invited Barbara Wylie into her home and she had visited the Suffragettes in England and had even given a speech about her visit.
The Canadian Contingent at the 1913 Suffrage Parade in New York City. Older matrons all with ‘token’ child, the niece of Flora Macdonald Denison. From the Toronto Sun.
In the1600s my ancestors left France and embarked on an adventure to New France. In 1651 Julien Fortin de Bellefontaine settled in Chateau Richer, near Quebec City, and built a home, while Claude Jodouin landed in Ville Marie (Montreal) in 1666 and remained in the area.
The Jodouin descendants moved east of Ville Marie (Montreal) to Varennes and Verchères on the south side of the St Lawrence River. Fortin descendants settled east of Quebec City in the Charlevoix, Baie St. Paul, Cap St. Ignace region on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River.
My third great-grandfather Francois Xavier Fortin (1755-1853) was born and baptized in Saint Pierre and Saint Paul church in Baie St. Paul and married Marie Rose Lemieux (1773-1853) at Saint Ignatius of Loyola Church in Cap St Ignace in 1793.
Marriage of Francois Xavier Fortin and Marie Rose Lemieux
Francois was a blacksmith and a farmer. While living in Cap St Ignace, they had two children. The births of their other nine children reveal that they moved four times over the years. I don’t know why they moved so often. Perhaps, the community required a blacksmith.
Their third child, Francois Xavier died in 1800 in St. Hyacinthe. Three more children were born in that community. Research does not enlighten us about the events that led to their next move. In 1808 they were living in Rigaud where their son Moyse Hypolite was born. The family settled in 1810 in the Seigniory de la Petite Nation in Montebello.
Joseph Papineau (1752-1841) became the first Seigneur de la Petite Nation in Montebello. He was a notary, surveyor, and landowner, who had bought land from the seminary in Quebec between 1801 and 1803.
Joseph Papineau -first Seigneur de la Petite Nation
In 1810 Papineau sold land to Francois Xavier Fortin who built a home where the family finally settled in Montebello, Seigneury de la Petite Nation on the shores of the Ottawa River. For over fifty years the Fortin family farmed the land. Today this home is known as The Fortin House. It played a significant role in the history of the area.
Louis Joseph Papineau
Joseph Papineau’s son Louis Joseph (1786-1871) purchased land from his father and began to build on the property. During the construction (1848-1850) of the Manoir Papineau, Louis Joseph and his family “borrowed” Francois Xavier Fortin’s home and they lived in his house while the manoir was being built. Changes were made to the Fortin house to accommodate the large Papineau family.
The Fortin House “borrowed by Louis Joseph Papineau
Louis Joseph had an interesting career as a politician, a leader of the Patriot movement, a speaker of the House at the National Assembly, and for a time, was exiled due to his involvement in the Rebellion of 1837.
An aerial view of Manoir Papineau
The Manoir is situated on Cap de Bonsecours
Parks Canada manages Manoir Papineau.
It is a National Historic site.
Research does not tell us where Francois Xavier and Rose were living while the manoir was being built and the Papineau family were in the Fortin home, however, one might surmise that the Fortin children were married and living in the area. Perhaps, as was the custom at the time they cared for their elderly parents.
Route from Montebello to Ottawa
In November 1853 Rose passed away, and within two short weeks, Francois Xavier followed in December. Both are buried in the Notre Dame de Bonsecours cemetery in Montebello.
The Burial of Francois Xavier Fortin
In 1900 The Fortin House and surrounding farm were purchased by the Huneault family who continue to farm the land.
Arthur Symons, Private,56th Battalion, Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Forces.
I once had a great-granduncle, Arthur. Until I started doing Genealogy, I had no idea there was such a title, but there it is, and I had one.
Of course, I never met him, but, as it is Remembrance Day I wanted him to be remembered.
My Granny’s mother, Lilian, had a family of five siblings, and Arthur was her younger brother. He was four years younger than her. Granny told me that Arthur immigrated to Canada in the early 1900s.
Despite many searches. I could find no information on his immigration. However, months after I started my research, I came across a border crossing Manifest from Canada to Sweetgrass, Montana.
It had all the information I had been searching for!
At this point, I was not sure he was even married, but the info on the border crossing gave me missing details and Arthur was beginning to become a real person.
The Manifest stated Arthur was 50 years old, accompanied by his wife, Catherine, son Alexander, and daughter Dorothy. It was dated the 18th of July, 1936. The family were visiting Yellowstone Park and Glacier Park. it gave Arthur’s address in Calgary, Alberta and his occupation as a Postal Porter. (1) It stated that he arrived in Canada at Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 19th of March, 1901 on the SS. Soman.
I haven’t yet found the passenger list for the SS Soman, but I keep looking.
When WWI broke out, he enlisted in the 56th Battalion Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Forces on May 3, 1915, in Calgary, Alberta. He was shipped back to the UK for training. While ‘back home’, he visited his sister Lilian – my great-grandmother – and had these photos taken with his sister and my Granny, Edith Bevan O’Bray.
Arthur Symons with his sister Lilian Symons Bevan. C. 1914-18
Arthur Symons with my Granny, Edith Bevan C. 1914-18.
Arthur Symons was born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England, in 1886. His siblings were Lilian Mary Symons—my great-grandmother; Thomas, who died in infancy; Arthur, Olive, and Ada, who was my Gran’s favourite Aunt, and only two years older than her.
Aunt Ada was also my Godmother. Together, they joined the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) in 1918 (2)
Great-grand-uncle Arthur fought at the Battle of Passchendaele and was severely wounded in the right leg, right hand and left foot. He was transferred to the Granville Special Hospital, located in Ramsgate, Kent, England. An orthopaedic facility to treat soldiers with damaged limbs. Later because of air raids on the Kent coast, the hospital was moved to Buxton. He was medically discharged on 28th August 1919.
In part Two, I will explore his stay in the Granville Special Hospital for Canadian troops. The first line of his medical records, dated November 29, 1917, stated he was “Dangerously ill.”
(1) Canadian Postal Porter – Porter – Worker having manual handling duties, typically at a large sorting office or railway station in London. Tasks included the loading, unloading, segregation and transfer of mailbags or other containers. Porters were also employed at some other locations, such as the PO Savings Bank.
After my great grandfather retired from a successful 40-year career in the wholesale food business, he took an active interest in the stock market and managed his own investments during the time of the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929. Would he lose his life savings like so many unfortunate others at the time?
In a letter to his eldest daughter Josephine, my grandmother, dated June 2, 1932, he wrote:
“…if we could get rid of a lot of these Rotten Banks and Stock Market thieves the world would come around all right in no time. A person has no show with that New York Stock Exchange. Just a lot of crooks and I don’t think these common stocks have any value at all, not worth the paper they are written on, most of them, but all this will come (out) all right but people have got to lose a lot of money and that’s that.”
William Thomson Sherron (1863-1932) was born in Salem, New Jersey, the son of Albert Wood Sherron and Eveline Stokes Gaunt Githens. His wife, Gertrude Gill, (1869-1940), born in Philadelphia, was the daughter of Thomas Reeves Gill and Josephine Love.
In November 1891, William and his bride settled in their new family home at 100 W. Broadway, Salem, New Jersey, where they stayed for the next twenty years. This beautifully refurbished Queen Anne style Victorian house still proudly stands today.
(Their first home -100 W. Broadway, Salem, New Jersey)
The couple had three children – Josephine (1893-1964) Social Media – Then and Now, Roger (1895-1963) Sherron and his Texas Betty and Alberta (1906-1992) Elopement … or not?. Josephine, my grandmother, her stockbroker husband and their two sons eventually settled in Montreal, Quebec. Their son Roger had mental health issues and lived with them until their deaths. Alberta married very young, had a son nine months later and remarried happily a while after that and had three more children.
(Roger, Alberta and Josephine Sherron – 1906)
William first worked for Thomas Roberts & Co. in the wholesale grocery business for 25 years in Philadelphia before going into the same business for himself in 1905 at the age of 42. He opened his own office at no. 37 South Front Street, Philadelphia, about a half mile from their new home at 261 W. Harvey where they lived for the another twenty years.
ScreenshotScreenshot
(Invoice – front and back from the grocery wholesale business)
His wife and daughters took an active role the local Germantown social scene. Their endless teas, luncheons, bridge parties and charity fundraisers were regularly featured in the social pages of the local newspaper.
(Gertrude Sherron and her daughters in the Society Pages)
Along with the usual collection of family posed photographs in my dusty old boxes, I found a delightful photo of 55-year old William. He is holding up a string of sizable fish, possibly bass, outside “the Windsor Avenue cottage” (which looks more like an old country inn). He is wearing a light coloured baggy jacket and matching pants with a proper shirt and tie, white shoes and a floppy “fishing” hat. The smile on his face reflects pure joy for the day’s “catch”.
(William and his catch of the day!)
In 1930, just a couple of years before William’s death, the couple enjoyed an extended trip to Europe. They stayed at the famous luxurious Carlton Hotel in Lucerne while visiting Switzerland and I have the note sent to their daughter Josephine. William began the correspondence writing at a slant that became a little more difficult to maintain as he ran out of room on the notepaper. Then Gertrude took over filling every remaining inch of the note – to the bottom, up the sides and finishing up at the top of the page! Nevertheless, I could just barely make out from their undecipherable scrawls that they “adored Switzerland”, the hotel was “a dream” and “Interlaken was perfect”. As for Paris, Gertrude didn’t mince words when she exclaimed “Paris is a horribly dirty city.” However, she “loved London” and thought the people dressed “heaps better than in Paris.” At one point in the note, William generously invited their daughter to join them and wrote “I will pay the fare.”
(Excerpt of their note to their daughter Josephine)
So, it seems that William didn’t lose his money in the stock market after all, and had plenty to splurge on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe with his wife.
For many of my ancestors, I have a name, a date of birth and sometimes a death date. That doesn’t tell you much about their lives, who they were or what they looked like. Who resembles them? Having a picture that you can document of them is a treasure. I still have many images of unidentified people. Some you can guess at but still you aren’t sure.
I have no pictures of Annie Sutherland (1878-1953) or much information about her except for one entry in my grandfather William Harkness Sutherland’s diary, “ Annie visiting from New York”. Annie was his first cousin, the daughter of his uncle William Sutherland and Jessie Johnston.
I thought I would try again to find Annie after researching her brother William. Annie is not a unique name so I didn’t have many expectations when I entered her name, birth year, and parent’s names in Ancestry. Up popped her visa for entry into Brazil in 1948! This document had her date of birth, her nationality, her parent’s names, her occupation and her picture! There she was for all to see at 69 years of age.
Annie Sutherland disappeared from Canadian records after the 1901 census when she was living with her parents at 21 Rose Ave along with her sisters Agnes, Isabel and Jessie and her brother Davison.
Single women at the turn of the century had few career choices open to them, one being a teacher. Annie and two of her sisters taught school. I imagine Annie wanted a little excitement in her life, so she immigrated to New York City in 1902 and moved in with her brother William. She continued to teach school.
She originally taught at regular public schools. Religion was important in the family, like many Scottish Presbyterians at the time. They attended services regularly and were involved in the church life. The males, like my grandfather, were encouraged to become ministers but none had the calling. So, it is not surprising that at some point Annie began teaching at the Biblical Seminary of New York (which became the New York Theological Seminary).
Wilbert White founded the Prostatant nondenominational school to train Bible teachers, missionaries and YMCA (Young Mens Christian Association) workers. This was a ministry for the “real world” with the Bible being the centre of the curriculum. Women formed a large part of the diverse cultural student body and the staff. In 1921 the school moved downtown to East 49th Street. There, in a nine-story building, students, staff and other borders lived together. Annie lived at the school and according to the 1940 census was a teacher making $4,764 a year, a large salary for anyone at the time.
Teachers have the advantage of summers off, and Annie Sutherland travelled the world. While she taught others to be missionaries, perhaps she did missionary work herself during her vacations. She can be found on many ship manifests as she sailed to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, England, France and the Mediterranean, being away for two months at a time.
She, like her brother, decided to become an American citizen. She filed her declaration of intention in 1920, which included her renouncing her allegiance to George the V, King of Great Britain and Ireland. She received her naturalizing certificate five years later.
I last found her alive in New York City in 1950, living at the Prince George Hotel, having returned from another trip.
There is an Annie Sutherland buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, who died in 1953 at 74 years of age. Is that Annie’s final resting place? Did she eventually return home from her travels?
Notes:
“Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965”. Family Search, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2013. Index entries derived from digital copies of original and compiled records. Accessed on Ancestry March 10, 2020.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: Annie Sutherland age 74 died 1953. Land, Section 33 lot 2650. accessed October 18, 2024.
New York Theological Seminary Records 1895-2005-https://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/libraryweb/locations/burke/fa/misc/ldpd_11693150.pdf
Year: 1901; Census Place: Toronto (Centre) (City/Cité) Ward/Quartier No 3, Toronto (Centre) (City/Cité), Ontario; Page: 2; Family No: 17 Ancestry.com. 1901 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1901. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada:
Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02648; Page: 61A; Enumeration District: 31-1008 Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21 Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
It constantly amazes me how technology can influence where people live.
When I was examining the lives of my great great grandparents and their predecessors on my fathers’ side for instance, I noticed that their moves usually followed easier travelling circumstances.
In 1815, for example, a small settlement known as Bear Brook arose along the border of a small creek by the same name. The area is now in Russell County. Initially, settlers from Montreal used the waterway to get there. By 1820, a new road from Montreal replaced it to link then-Bytown (Ottawa) through Cumberland, Clarence Point, Plantagenet Mills, L’Orignal and Hawkesbury.
My great great great grandparents were among many French-Canadian families from Lower Canada who travelled along the new road to settle in the area in 1854 to farm.
There must have been some Irish among them too, because part of the community was renamed Sarsfield twenty years later to honour Irish hero Patrick Sarsfield.
By then, loggers used the old creek and to float timber to mills in Carlsbad Springs. They were still doing so when Gustave Hurtubise was born in Sarsfield in 1884. Gustave, the elder brother of my great great grandfather was the first child from our family born in the town. Two years later, our cousin Sévère D’Aoust built the Roman Catholic Church in the village where my great grandfather Jean-Baptist would be christened. That same year, the community lobbied for a local stop along J.R. Booth’s Railway line in 1886. They built a small building to entice Booth.
Jean-Baptist Hurtubise arrived in Sarsfield on February 16, 1889. His future wife, Marie-Berthe (known as Martha) Gourdine, was born in a neighbouring town, Clarence Creek, October 3 the same year.
The year the youngsters turned eight, the Old Montreal Road got paved and engineers constructed the Canadian Northern Railroad through Cumberland to Hawkesbury.
They were only 16 years old when the two got married in Clarence Creek on January 7, 1915
My grandmother, Anne Marguerite Hurtubise was born in the same town the following November. Her sister Donna came a year and a half later.
The family left Sarsfield and moved to Cluny, Bow River, Alberta, sometime between Donna’s birth in 1917 and the 1921 Canadian Census. By this time, the train was established across the country, so they and others took it to go west.
Somehow, the couple got land and a home. In 1921, the Census reported that 31-year-old Jean owned a farm with a three-bedroom wooden house on it.1 It was located in section 7, township 22, range 21, Meridian 4. His wife Martha and the two girls didn’t work.
Unfortunately, they arrived just in time for five successive droughts that we now know as the Prairie Dry Belt Disaster.
In 1931 and 1932 they suffered from the dustbowl, when top soil was so dry that it blew into homes.
Then the locusts came in 1933.
I grew up listening to stories about those times, but got a better understanding of what they faced when looking at the photos on a University of Saskatchewan website https://drc.usask.ca/projects/climate/.
My great great grandparents were among 750,000 farmers who had to abandon their farms between 1930 and 1935.
By 1938, the family had moved to Edmonton and my grandfather and his wife had to depend on the incomes from their daughters’ jobs, my grandmother as a nurse and her sister as a clerk, to survive.
1Data from the 1921 Census of Canada, Enumeration District 2, Bow River, Alberta, section 7, township 22, range 21, Meridian 4, page 6, line 28.
(I am very fortunate to have my 3x great grandmother’s needlework sampler hanging on my wall.)
I can hardly contain my excitement! Mother says it is time that I learn my stitches and embroider my very own sampler. And I am only ten years of age!
What a shame, though, that I must complete my daily chores before I am allowed to work on my sampler! I wish my little brother would help out a bit more. However, I must remember that Mother and Father work so very hard and we must do our part without complaint.
Creating the border around the outside edge has been excellent practice getting used to the needle and thread. I have quickly mastered this simple first stitch. Oh, how I love the stiffness of the cotton fabric! The silk threads feel heavenly but are annoying when they get tangle too easily. And it’s a shame that their colours aren’t somewhat brighter. Mother says the important thing is to learn the stitches and never mind complaining about the rest. She has many to teach me – the cross-stitch, the slipstitch, the whip stitch, the satin stitch and eventually the French knot!
Sometimes it’s difficult to pay attention during my classes at school. The headmaster tells us that James Madison is our President and that we have 15 stars and 15 stripes on our flag which represent all our states. The British are restricting our local trade and making our young American men join their Royal Navy which doesn’t seem fair. And what about the Indians…is America ours or theirs? It’s very hard to concentrate and be a good pupil when I’d rather work on my sampler!
I’ve started sewing my alphabet letters now. Capitals first and then the lower case ones. They are quite tricky and take a lot of patience. Oh, how I wish I had more patience! But Mother says that I am doing very well and that some girls are two or three years older than I am before they begin their samplers.
The other day, my brother put a huge beetle in my sewing basket! Ewww! Why do boys have to be so silly? Maybe if he did more chores, he wouldn’t have time for pranks!
Numbers are wonderful. Stitching twelve numbers is much simpler than all those upper case and lower case alphabet letters!
It’s hard to believe the number of stitches that I’ve already completed when there so are many more to go. Much patience is needed.
…and less chores! Just think how quickly I could finish my sampler if I didn’t have my daily chores!
Hurry! The daylight won’t last much longer and it’s too difficult to see my stitching by candle light.
I am focusing on stitching my name now. I like my name. Mary House. It looks and sounds very neat and tidy – like a row of my very best stitching.
Beside my name, I am now slipstitching the date. It takes quite a while to create a sampler so the only the year is sown in: “my eleventh year” and 1811 A.D. “My eleventh year” sounds so much grander than “ten years old”. I know A.D. stands for the number of years since the death of Jesus. Ah! Maybe I should pray for more patience.
My stitches are improving and I haven’t had to undo as many lately. Undoing stitches is almost worse than doing chores!
Now I am working on the short poem and it is as follows:
When I am dead and laid in grave
And all my bones are rotten
When this you see remember me
Lest I should be forgotten
I wonder who wrote this poem. It makes me sad. And can you imagine someone admiring my sampler after I die?
At last I am finished my sampler! Mother praised me saying that I did a very fine job indeed. I am thrilled with it and very proud of myself. I will store it safely under my bed until I grow up.
NOTES:
Mary was my 3x great grandmother. She died in 1830 at 29 years old. Her sampler hangs proudly in our home. She is not forgotten!
The excerpt is a verse from the famous poem “To His coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
There are many William Sutherlands in my family. My great-great-grandfather William Sutherland ( 1816-1887) son of William Sutherland (1749-1840) came to Canada in 1845 with his wife Elizabeth Mowat. They followed the Scottish naming pattern of calling the first son after the husband’s father so his eldest son was William and then his eldest son was also William.
My grandfather, son of Donald was also named William. He thought the family had way too many Williams, Willies, Wills and even a Bill so he took the second name, Harkness, after his mother. There was just one mention of his first cousins, William Sutherland and his sister Annie in my grandfather’s diary. “Went to Rose Ave, Annie was there from N.Y. but Willie away in Florida.” That’s all I knew.
Luckily, cousin William also seemed to have added a middle name maybe Everard or Ewart. So instead of the thousands of William Sutherlands, he can be found as William Everard or William E Sutherland.
William first crossed the border into the United States in 1889 when he was just 16. He probably went for a job or maybe an adventure. He was born in Mildmay, Bruce County, Ontario. His grandfather and then his father owned the family farm which his father sold and moved the family to Toronto when he was a child.
William is then found in New York City, where his sister Annie later joins him.
William married Ida Priscilla Sterne in New York in 1913. Priscilla was also a Canadian from Carrick, Bruce County. She and William must have known each other growing up. Priscilla immigrated to the US by herself in 1899. She was a milliner and had her own business making hats. After her father’s death in 1905, her mother came to the US, along with a sister and a brother.
The couple didn’t have any children, having married later in life. William was 39 and Priscilla 35.
William became a naturalized American in April 1918 through the Alien Soldier’s Naturalization Act. He joined the US Army in 1899 during the Spanish-American war. Any alien who enlists in the US armed forces and is honourably discharged could apply for citizenship without a previous declaration of intention and with only one year of residence. His proof of service and discharge is the strangest document I have ever seen. It had a name crossed out and William Everard Sutherland written above. Other information was also crossed out. This document was accepted as there is a copy of his Naturalization certificate. I don’t know why he never made a declaration of intention as he had been in the US for almost 40 years. Priscilla also became an American.
This was the proof that he was honorably discharged from the US Army which allowed him to become a Naturalized US citizen under the Alien Soldiers Naturalization Act; Section 2166.
Around 1917, he and Priscilla moved to Brookline Massachusetts, They lived at 58 Greenough Street. A three story apartment (now condo) building is at that address according to Google maps. It is a very nice red brick building with bay windows. The condos now sell for a million dollars. The couple had done well as Priscilla was no longer working and William was the boss working in construction as an electrician. They even had room for Priscilla’s mother to spend time with them.
They finally ended up in Florida, around Miami and Palm Beach. William was president of a building company so they were not early retirees. He later had health problems, stopped working and applied for an invalid’s pension from the US Army. When William died of heart disease in 1930 his body was sent back to Canada for burial. Priscilla applied for a widow’s pension and continued to live in Palm Beach until her death 29 years later. Her body was also returned to Canada and is buried with her husband in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Now I have to find his sister Annie.
Notes:
William’s parents William Sutherland and Jessie Johnson lived at 21 Rose Ave in Toronto. His siblings, Agnes, Isabel, Jessie and Davison were all living at home in the 1920s.
William H. Sutherland’s diary 1920-1924 in the hands of the author.
William registered for the draft during the First World War even though he was 45 years old. I don’t think he served again, as the war ended less than three months later.
My grandfather William Harkness Sutherland called his only son Donald after his father but added William as a second name!
Year: 1910; Census Place: Boston Ward 24, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: T624_625; Page: 13a; Enumeration District: 1634; FHL microfilm: 1374638Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Mar 20, 2020.
Year: 1920; Census Place: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts; Roll: T625_721; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 172 Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. New York City 1922. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Index to Naturalization Petitions and Records of the U.S. District Court, 1906-1966, and the U.S. Circuit Court, 1906-1911, for the District of Massachusetts; Microfilm Serial: M1545; Microfilm Roll: 24Ancestry.com. U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes, 1794-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. Accessed March 20, 2020.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NAI Number: M1368Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798-1950 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. accessed March 20, 2020.
New England Historic Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriage Record 1911–1915; Volume: 621 accessed on Ancestry March 20, 2020.
Genealogy Ensemble 