I had a great-granduncle who went by the name of William Richard Case Palmer O’Bray. William Richard was a brother to my great-grandfather. William Richard and his wife Margaret Elizabeth Burnett had a family of 14 children eight girls and six boys.
Three of his girls died within a month of each other and William Richard died at quite a young age, 44.
A shipwright by trade he lived, worked and died in New Brompton and Gillingham Kent, England. It would appear he had a hard life at work and at home.
William Richard’s occupation, in St. Mary, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1871 when he was sixteen years old, was as an apprentice blacksmith. In 1881 he was a shipwright in Gillingham, Kent. By 1891, he lived in New Brompton, now part of the Medway District still working as a shipwright.
Shipwrights were responsible for constructing the structure of a ship and most of the internal fittings. Shipbuilding was a tough job, ships were built in open-air shipyards throughout the year, even in winter. The tools used, such as drills and riveters were loud and dangerous. (1)
However, upon researching his family I discovered to my sadness that in 1890 on the 6th of March his eldest daughter, Isabella Mary aged 13, died. The very next day, Margaret Elizabeth, aged 9 years and 8 months died.
On the 13th of March 1890, the family posted an obituary for Isabella and Margaret.
Unfortunately, on the 23rd of March 1890, Minnie Ann (twin to Florence Ann), aged 3 years and 3 months also died. Below is the death card, typical for that era, for the three sisters. (3)
The text reads:
Three lights are from our household gone, three voices we loved are stilled; three places are vacant in our home, which never can be filled.
Not gone from memory, not gone from love, but gone to our Father’s home above”
I am in the process of obtaining the death certificates of the three girls, and I hope to add an update later on the cause of their deaths.
The 19th century in England was marked by the widespread prevalence of diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, typhus fever and smallpox. These diseases posed significant medical challenges to society, with limited medical knowledge and resources available to combat them.(2)
My first thought was the profound shock my poor family must have suffered. William Richard Case Palmer suffered many tragedies in his short life.
Ten years later, on the 3rd of August 1899, William Richard Case Palmer O’Bray died by his own hand. His death certificate reads:
“Hanging himself during temporary insanity”
Losing a child is not what a parent should experience, but to lose three in the same month is unimaginable. Was he depressed? I would think so, even 10 years later. There was nothing to help with the heartfelt losses in the 1800s. His wife, Margaret Elizabeth died in June 1919 aged 62 in Medway, Kent.
James Cecil Hunt (1879-1937) worked a 30-year career as a Locomotive Engineer in Manitoba, Canada. He left his birthplace in Owen Sound, Ontario, at the age of 22, and headed west to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Ontario. There he met and married Cassie (Catherine Elizabeth Grummett 1884-1966), a glamorous Winnipeg girl, at the age of 28. They raised their five children in Brandon, Manitoba, and eventually moved back to Winnipeg where they bought a house and stayed the rest of his life.
Cecil and Cassie’s Wedding 1907Cassie on her wedding day 1907
His first job as a “labourer” according to the 1901 Census might have been with the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR). “The Canadian Northern Railway was incorporated (1899) as a result of the amalgamation of two small Manitoba branch lines. It was built up over the next 20 years by its principal promoters, William Mackenzie and Donald Mann, to become a 16,093 km transcontinental railway system.”
However, the competition with their transcontinental rivals proved to be insurmountable and Mackenzie and Mann were forced out of the company, which then became one of the first major components of the soon publicly owned Canadian National Railways (CNR).1
Cecil Hunt (second from the left) and other locomotive engineers posing in front of a First Class car.
After 18 years working up the CNoR ladder, Cecil’s career as a Locomotive Engineer began shortly after the June 1919 incorporation of the CNR, which then consisted of several other bankrupt railways belonging to the Canadian government.2 The CNR is the longest railway system in North America, controlling more than 31,000 km of track in Canada and the United States. It is the only transcontinental rail network in North America, connecting to three coasts: Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.3
As a Locomotive Engineer, Cecil would have operated and controlled a locomotive engine (No. 73083.5 to be exact) that powered the train on railways. His responsibilities would have included controlling the speed, acceleration, and braking to ensure smooth and timely journeys as well as a thorough knowledge of the entire railway system, signals, and track conditions, all while adhering to strict safety regulations and protocols.4
Cecil and children Allan, Lyndon, Holman and Beatrice circa 1916
Cecil’sCNR Steam Engine no. 7308(scrapped in November 1951)
According to the 1931 Census, Cecil at age 52 owned a three-story eight room stucco house at 588 Warsaw Avenue, in Winnipeg not far from the Red River, and made an annual salary of $3,200 ($65,000 in today’s dollars). Locomotive engineers easily make double that today.5
Cecil had obviously done well for himself since ten years before becoming a proud homeowner, he already owned a Model T Ford which, according to this photo, the whole family enjoyed!
Cecil, Sydney, Cassie, Beatrice, Holman, Lyndon and Allan (my husband’s father) circa 1920
Although, travel by car did not become common until the mid-1920’s, most people could take the “beach train” for their excursions to the famous nearby Winnipeg Beach. By 1912, ten trains took 40,000 vacationers to the beach each weekend.5.5
Winnipeg Beach had developed into an impressive amusement park – complete with a roller coaster, merry-go-round, and “moving picture house”. Over the years, more attractions were added, including bumper cars and an airplane ride. All this as well as the very popular dance pavilion and multiple arcades along the boardwalk. The “Moonlight Special” provided a round trip by train for 50 cents and a night of dancing could be purchased for another nickel. It is rumoured that “many generations of people owe their existence to the fact that their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents met on the ‘Moonlight’.”6
Winnipeg Beach: L to R – Beatrice, Sydney, Cecil, Cassie, Allan, Lyndon and Holman (notice the locker keys pinned to their bathing suits!)
In May 1937, Cecil and Cassie attended their son Allan’s wedding to Agnes Kirk (my husband’s parents). Allan worked his whole life in aviation with several airlines culminating in a 37-year career with Trans-Canada Airlines (which later became Air Canada) and my husband also had a 30-year career with Air Canada. Three generations of Hunts working in national transportation!
Shortly after that May wedding, Cecil suffered heart failure and Cassie nursed him at home until November when he died at age 58. The “weak heart” gene plagued all the Hunt men and continues to do so even to this day.
Tall stylish Cassie, however, lived almost another 30 years, and as a CNR widow, travelled with her train pass visiting her family from coast-to-coast every few years. After Cecil’s death, she lived for a while with her son Holman in the Slate River district near Thunder Bay, and then with her daughter Beatrice in Richmond, British Columbia until she died at the age of 82. Her obituary pays tribute to her lifelong commitment to the Order of the Eastern Star (part of the Masonic Family) both in Winnipeg and in Richmond.
Cassie and her two sons Allan and Sydney
The glimpse into the life of any ancestor makes writing about genealogy so gratifying … and the best part about this story is my husband getting to know a little about the grandfather he never met.
Please read my story about my husband and his father Allan Hunt:
In the summer of 1948 one sunny afternoon, our dad called my brother, Paul, seven years old, and me eight, to hop in our 1947 black Ford. This did not seem unusual. Often on a Sunday afternoon, he would take us for a long drive around the Eastern Townships. However, this was not a Sunday. We both gave each other a quizzical look and wondered, “What’s up?”
Dad soon explained. We were on our way to the Richmond train station, about fifteen miles from home to meet an important person. “Who could this person be?” Our curiosity was aroused. Before long Dad had us reciting a Finnish greeting: “Hei isoaiti.”
We were on our way to welcome our grandmother.
As life would have it, this was the only opportunity I had to spend time with my grand-mother, Ida Susanna Karhu. She lived in Ashtabula, Ohio, far from Asbestos, Quebec. Over the years she visited her son, Karl, my dad, only twice. The second time in 1954 she visited the family with her third husband, Gust and his son, Elmer..
Ida was born in Isokyro, Finland in 1886 and emigrated at nine. In 1903 at sixteen, she married, Johan Hjalmar Lindell, nine years her senior. During their forty-one years of marriage, they had eight healthy children and their ninth child lived only 4 days.
Johan and Ida
Grandfather Lindell was a blacksmith with four forges and shod the horses of large brewery wagons that were drawn by these very large strong horses. With the advent of trucks, automobiles, and the Temperance League, circumstances forced him to close shop.
Johan began working in a munition factory. In October of 1944, he was tragically struck by a forklift and ultimately died due to his injuries.
Johan Herman Lindell’s 1944 death certificate
Two years after Johan’s passing in 1946, Ida married Heman Haapala from Ashtabula. He had been employed as a car repair man for the railroad company. They were both in their sixties and in good health. This allowed them to travel to Florida during the winter months. Alas! this union lasted a few short years. Herman died of lung cancer in February 1951.
Ida and Herman’s Marriage Record
Herman’s Death Record
Ida found herself a widow once more. However, not long after Herman’s passing, only after a few brief months, she met a Swedish dairy farmer from Cook, Minnesot, Gust Gustafson. He had been widowed twice. How they met is a mystery. Perhaps they knew one another from their traveling days. Together they embarked on their third marriage, June 16th of 1951.
Ida and Gust (circa 1952)
The dairy farm in Minnesota
In 1954 Ida, Gust, and his son Elmer visited Mom and Dad at their recently acquired farm in Asbestos.
Ida and Gust were together for many years. Just how many is a bit of a conundrum. At this point, I can only speculate as to the outcome of their marriage. I surmise that perhaps my grandmother decided to visit California. Her children, my Uncle Milton and Aunt Helen Lindell Lev had settled there with their families. Ida always enjoyed travelling and visiting her children.
Had she moved to be closer to family or was she visiting? While in California she died on December 17, 1967, In Belleflower. She was eighty-one years old at the time of her death and had led a full and interesting life. She had been active in the Ashtabula community, Bethany Lutheran Church, and the Ladies of Kavela, while raising her family, and in later years enjoyed travelling.
She is buried in Edgewood Cemetery in Ashtabula, Ohio beside Johan Hjalmar, her first love and husband of forty-one years.
Gust Atiel Gustafson born in 1884 lived another 4 years after Ida’s passing. He died at the age of 86 in the spring of 1971 and is buried in Cook, Minnesota beside his first wife, Josefina
Below is a link to a previous story about Ida Susanna Karhu, my Finnish grandmother, written in 2017 for Genealogy Ensemble: “Sisu, Saunas and Ida Susanna”. More records about her life’s pursuits have become available since that first story was written.
“Selene J. Bruneau brother of A.B. Bruneau who has been visiting at his mother’s, in St. Constant, near Montreal, Canada, for the past six weeks returned home this morning. His many friends will be glad to hear his health is much improved.” as reported in the Fall River Evening Daily News 1880. Unfortunately, two years later Selene died at only 31 years of age.
Selene (1850-1882) was the first of Barnabé Bruneau and Sophie Marie Prudhomme’s 13 children to die. According to his obituary, he died of consumption, at his mother’s in St-Constatnt. What used to be called consumption is tuberculosis or TB. It became known as the wasting disease as those afflicted seemed consumed by their disease as bacteria grew in their lungs and digestive tract. They lost energy, coughed up blood and slowly died. “The slow progress of the disease allowed for a “good death” as those affected could arrange their affairs.”
Most typical 19th-century victims of TB lived in tenements and or worked in factories, places where the disease spread quickly because of close contact and poor hygiene. Even when TB was known to be a contagious disease, people ignored public health campaigns to quarantine the sick and continued to spit on the streets. Selene, not a typical victim, lived in Fall River Massachusetts in a house with his brother Amie’s family. Although some of his older brothers had come to the US earlier and worked in factories, Selene worked in Aime’s jewellery store as a watchmaker.
He seemed content living in the United States as he had the support of some family, friends and a good job although he never married. Selene petitioned for naturalization and took his oath allegiance in 1879 with Aime and his wife Mary as witnesses.
Selene Bruneau in Montreal QC
It appears Selene went home to his mother’s to try and recuperate from his illness. This was before there were any sanitoriums for TB patients. The first one in the US opened in Saranac Lake, New York in 1884 and the first one in Canada, Muskoka Cottage Sanitorium, Ontario in 1897. These sanitoriums isolated infected patients and provided nutritious food, plenty of rest and fresh air. Selene undoubtedly was given this treatment by his mother but at this time 80% of those who developed active TB died from it
The BCG vaccine against TB (Bacille Calmette-Guérin) was first used in humans in 1922. In Canada, only Quebec and Newfoundland had mass vaccinations of school children from the 1950s to the 1970s. In 1944 streptomysin was isolated, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis. Medical professional’s hopes that the disease could be eliminated were dashed in the 1980s with the rise of drug-resistant strains. Surgery was also used where infected portions of the lungs were cut out which produced some cures, relieved pain and various anatomic obstructions. Still today, worldwide, there are over ten million new cases of TB a year.
Selene’s burial place is in the St Blaise Sur Richelieu Cemetery, the Baptist Cemetery in Grande Ligne associated with the Feller Institute, alongside his parents and some of his siblings. His mother outlived him by ten years.
Selene wasn’t a lucky name. His brother Ismael called one of his sons, Selene Fernand and this child died early, in his first year of life. My grandmother told us it was his strange name that killed him although he was called Fernand and not Selene. This from a family with girls called Helvetia, Hermanie and Edmee. Little did she know it was the Selene that was the problem!
Fall River Daily Evening News 14 August, 1882 Monday Page 2. Selene J Bruneau Obituary.
United States, New England Petitions for Naturalization Index, 1791-1906″, , FamilySearch(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VXRD-LZ2 : Tue Nov 14 02:51:28 UTC 2023), Entry for Selene J Bruneau.Oath of Alliengence to the US Oct 11, 1879 Bristol County Superior Court, Taunton, Massacheuttes.
In Canada, vaccinations of all children 10-14 continued until 2005 when it was decided the TB rates in the general population had fallen to such a low level that universal BCG vaccination was nolonger needed.
M. tuberculosis infection is spread almost exclusively by the airborne route. The droplets may remain suspended in the air and are inhaled by a susceptible host. The duration of exposure required for infection to occur is generally prolonged (commonly weeks, months or even years). The risk of infection with M. tuberculosis varies with the duration and intensity of exposure, the infectiousness of the source case, the susceptibility of the exposed person, and environmental factors. Although treatment courses are prolonged, effective treatment of the individual with active TB disease can reduce the infectiousness after two weeks.
The path my 2 times great grandmother Anne Nesfield took to work and marry in 1860 era. People in Sleights tended to stay put until the opening of the railroad in 1840.
My father, Peter, born Kuala Lumpur, Malaya in 1922 of hardscrabble North of England stock, always signed his name Peter N.F. Nixon Esq., something I found a wee bit pretentious. He was just a chartered accountant, after all. The F stood for Forster, the N for Nesfield.
I knew Forster was his mother’s surname. I didn’t know until very recently upon doing his genealogy that Nesfield was his father’s paternal grandmother’s name.
Ann Nesfield, my 2x GG was born in 1838A in Sleights near the lovely coastal town of Whitby at the North East corner of the North Yorkshire Moors to Stephen Nesfield of that place and Mary Jeferson of nearby Sneaton.
Stephen was a labourer. He and Mary were both illiterate as they signed their 1830 marriage certificate with an X.
The August 30, 1861B marriage record for Thomas Richardson and Ann Nesfield has them wed in Husthwaite, 40 miles to the south west but still on the Moors. Thomas was from nearby Rievaulx, a small town of 229 people (10 farms and 26 cottages, one school house and no pub) famous then as now for its monastery ruins.
According to the 1861 UK Census, Ann had been working in Husthwaite as a cook at an estate/farm, Highthorne, belonging to one Nathaniel Thomas Lumley Hodgson, Esquire (sic) gentleman horse-breeder who had been a crony of Charles Darwin’s at Cambridge! 3Thomas according to the same Census is living in Rievaulx with an older sister.
Ann and Thomas Richardson go on to have ten children over twenty years with my father’s grandmother Mary-Ellen, 2nd born in 1862, destined to marry one Robert Nixon, a quarryman from the adjacent market town of Helmsley.1
Now, I imagine Ann Nesfield’s existence in rural England post-Industrial Revolution wasn’t that easy despite her initial skilled position as a cook for a small family at a Yorkshire Dales farm/estate. And who can know about her 1861 marriage to Thomas Richardson. Tailors and drapers, especially in small towns, were still solidly working class.
It is also possible Ann married right then out of necessity. It was announced in the 24th of August 1861 Yorkshire Gazette (just one week before Ann’s marriage) that Lumley-Hodgson Esq. was selling off some fine animals and leaving his farm for the winter ‘due to the health of his daughters.’
Abbot’s Well cottage on Google Earth with ruins behind. The oldest standing non-monastery building in Rievaulx, designated by the National Trust as Medieval, a period that ended in 1450.
The view from the garden. Roger Smith. Geograph Project Creative Commons
In the beginning, Thomas and Ann Richardson lived at the Richardson family abode, Abbot’s Well, a cozy-looking medieval cottage in Rievaulx, a town that started out as the inner court of one of the richest Cistercian Monasteries in England founded in 1132. The Monastery was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1532 at the very beginning of the infamous dissolution. New homes were then built with stone from the monastery, homes that were used to house various workers from the nearby Duncombe Park Estate of Lord Feversham.
The view from the little garden of Ann’s heritage house, by all accounts, was simply stupendous.
I discovered a 1830’s travelogue online that already describes the town of Rievaulx as ‘quaint’ and ‘picturesque’ and ‘historic,’ claiming the view from the ridge of the vale and ruins “offers a combination of beauties that must be seen to be enjoyed and once seen can never be forgotten.”2
A century later, in the 1930’s, a nephew of the 1st Lord Feversham of Duncombe Park in Helmsley was living at Abbot’s Well House (built 1906 and 30 meters away from the cottage) and Lady Beckett, the widow of the 2nd Lord Feversham, was offering tours of the cottage in benefit of local nurses “with the small garden providing an excellent prospect overlooking the monastery ruins.” Her tours continued well into the 1950’s.
And in May, 1984, the London Times remarked upon a recent sale of the modern Abbot’s Well House. “That a view is worth something is proved by the recent million pound plus sale of the modern Abbot’s Well with a two acre garden that has a view of the 12th century abbey and the Rye Valley beyond.”
I have to wonder, in the 1860’s, did Ann’s heart sing out every time she went out to hang the laundry with my great-grandmother, Mary-Ellen, at her feet? Or did she lament the leaky roof, drafty windows or the lack of bedrooms for her growing family? Was living beside these majestic monastery ruins a comfort to her or merely a haunting reminder of how things can fall apart?
As it happens, the Richardsons did move out of Abbot’s Well sometimes after 1881 and before 1891, but they did stay in town. The 1891 UK Census has the family living at New Cottage in Rievaulx, with Thomas still a tailor and draper but also, now, a grocer. The 1901 CensusC has Ann a widow with four grown children still at home, one son working as a general labourer but three girls in their twenties performing “home duties.” Ann is now the tailor/grocer in the family. In 1911, one year before her death at 74, Ann is still at New Cottage, working as a grocer and living with her youngest daughter who is 30 and married.
Recent Photo: Rievaulx Abbey and Rye Valley beyond from Rievaulx Terrace. Colin Grice. Geograph Project. Creative Commons.
Duncombe Hunting Party. 1728. John Wooten. Yale Collection of British Art. Creative Commons . My ancestors would be the labourers in the background or the scruffy attendants:)
My father’s working-class ancestors lived in picturesque towns all along the route from Whitby to Helmsley; pretty places with colourful names like Goathland, Kirbymoorside and Ugglebarnby. Whitby, where Ann Nesfield lived her early years, is also a North of England beauty spot from what I see on YouTube with surrounding coastal villages as lovely as anything in Italy’s Cinque Terre.
So, although little of consequence about Ann Nesfield’s life can be gleaned from the genealogical record, one thing about the woman cannot be denied. She spent her entire existence surrounded by the breath-taking beauty of the North Yorkshire Moors. That, I think, has to have taken the edge off her own hard-scrabble existence.
Notes:
Thank you to the Ryedale Family History Group for all their kind and expert help and especially to Valerie Slater for helping me sort out the many Ann Nesfields in the Whitby area born circa 1838.
(Apparently, there’s a lot of mix up over these Anns in online family trees. I have to redo part of my tree, now! And it doesn’t help birth dates on the UK Census are only guesstimates 🙂
Robert Nixon Sr, my great grandfather, 1863-1937, who married Nesfield’s daughter, Mary Ellen Richardson, was a delver in the quarry in 1911 according to the UK Census, but he had other occupations. I know because I found his short obit from 1937 from the Yorkshire Post on the British Newspaper Archive database:
“Mr. Nixon was for man years foreman timber leader with messrs William Frank and Sons and with Mr Bentham King. Later worked for the Duncombe Park Estate, and during the war was put in charge of the felling of timber at Waterloo. He was a Sunday school superintendent and a local preacher in the Methodist circuit for over half a century.”
The 1921 census says Robert is working as head quarryman at Duncombe for the Trustees of the Earl of Feversham who was under age. The former Earl had died in 1915 in the war.*I wonder if the Nixons had an IN with the Earl? A Nixon and a Richardson were pallbearers at the Dowager Feversham’s 1889 funeral.
2. Ross, Stephanie. The Picturesque, an eighteenth century debate. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 1967
Esquire: Modern British. Polite term as appendix to a surname of someone without any other title implying genteel birth. Earlier, for English gentry rank below a Knight.
3. Both Darwin and Lumley Hodgson were ‘admitted pensioners under Mr. Shaw 1827. at Christ’s College a Divinity School.” Apparently, nature studies and divinity studies were considered compatible back then, as in ‘all God’s creatures.” Both graduated in 1832, although Darwin completed his exams in 1831. The Darwin Archives of Cambridge contains a January 1831 letter where a friend is asking Darwin if Lumley Hodgson has passed. “I don’t see his name anywhere, I am almost afraid to ask.”
Nesfield Rugby genes. My father’s nephew 1973, Rugby for Cambridge and England. My father, co-captain, 1939 Rugby for St Bees School Cumberland. My grandfather, 1912 Rugby for Duncombe Park where he was a footman. Through DNA I discovered other Ann Nesfield descendants played rugby for Scotland.
CITATIONS
A: Ann Nesfield Baptism 1838 Family Search2. Ann’s marriage to Thomas Richardson 1861 Family SearchC: 1901 Census. Ann at Home running the family business with her girls.
This piece of music is called “Sailing By” composed by Ronald Binge in 1963, and performed by the Alan Perry/William Gardner Orchestra, and is the version used by the BBC for its late-night early-morning shipping forecasts,
It signals the beginning of the Shipping Forecast, an important part of living on an island and it dates back over 150 years. The Shipping Forecast was established by Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy the first professional weather forecaster, and captain of the HMS Beagle, on which Charles Darwin sailed to South America.(1)
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy.
Born 5 July 1805, Suffolk, England
Died 30 April 1865 Norwood, England.
In October 1859, the steam clipper Royal Charter was wrecked in a strong storm off Anglesey, Wales 450 people lost their lives. In response to this loss, FitzRoy introduced a warning service for shipping in February 1861, using telegraph communications.
Sadly, FitzRoy didn’t live to see his ideas become a permanent fixture of British life; he killed himself in 1865, in part because of his frustration at failing to set up a regular service. (2)
The shipping service was only discontinued during and following WW1 between 1914 and June 1921. During WW2, it was discontinued between 1939 and 1945.
The shipping forecast is heard by local fishermen all over the British Iles, Scotland Wales and further afield and Its tune is repetitive, assisting in its role of serving as a signal for sailors tuning in to be able to easily identify the radio station.
This delightful music above brings back happy memories for me, listening to the radio as a child in Plymouth Devon England, where I was born. “Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, North Utsire and South Utsire” – coastal regions near Norway – although I had no idea where these exotic names were, it was wonderful to imagine.
Just look at some of the unusual names on the map, it was always a thrill to hear ‘Plymouth’ mentioned.
The sea areas match the forecast areas used by other North Sea countries, though some names differ. The Dutch KNMI and Norwegian counterpart, names the Forties “Fladen Ground”, while Météo-France uses “Pas-de-Calais” for Dover, “Antifer” for Wight “Casquests” for Portland and “Ouessant” or ‘Ushant” for my home town, Plymouth.Because of the unusual name for Plymouth, I also learned a fascinating piece of French history.
The Ouessant (or Ushant) is a breed of domestic sheep (Could that be a French insult?) from the island of Ouessant off the coast of Brittany but also the name of a French Submarine). Ushant is a French island at the southwestern end of the English Channel which marks the westernmost point of metropolitan France.
It belongs to Brittany and in medieval times, Léon. In lower tiers of government, it is a commune in the Finistère department. It is the only place in Brittany, save for Brittany itself, with a separate name in English.
Even today, if I cannot sleep, I still listen to BBC Radio 4 in the early hours of the day and catch the Shipping Forecast as it lulls me to sleep.
Unfortunately, from this year, 2024, it is expected that the Shipping Forecast will no longer be broadcast on long wave (LW) due to the closure of the LW platform. This announcement was updated on the 4th of April 2023 due to the BBC amending their original announcement on the future of the LW Shipping Forecast. The LW broadcasts are expected to end in 2024, but a final decision has not yet been made. (4)
Listeners are reassured by the thought that, somewhere out at sea, British fishers are patiently waiting by their radios to find out whether there is a gale warning in Rockall or Cromarty. However, the slightly less romantic reality, according to Mike Cohen of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, is that his members have not needed Radio 4 for decades.
Modern fishers have far more accurate devices to warn them about the wind and rain: “Even the small 15-metre boats in Bridlington have satellite internet these days. I’ve had video calls from people in the middle of the sea.” (5)
Some interesting quotes below about the shipping forecast:
“The Shipping Forecast is immensely popular with the British public; it attracts listeners in the hundreds of thousands daily – far more than actually require it.[18]
In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by 12 minutes triggered angry newspaper editorials and debates in the UK Parliament and was ultimately scrapped.[19]
Similar outcry greeted the Met Office’s decision to rename Finisterre to FitzRoy, but in that case, the decision was carried through.[20]
Peter Jefferson, who read the Forecast for 40 years until 2009, says that he received letters from listeners across the UK saying that the 0048 broadcast helped them get to sleep after a long day.[4]
The Controller of BBC Radio 4, Mark Damazer, attempted to explain its popularity:
“It scans poetically. It’s got a rhythm of its own. It’s eccentric, it’s unique, it’s English. It’s slightly mysterious because nobody really knows where these places are. It takes you into a faraway place that you can’t really comprehend unless you’re one of these people bobbing up and down in the Channel.[18]“
Zeb Soanes, a regular Shipping Forecast reader, described it thus:
“To the non-nautical, it is a nightly litany of the sea. It reinforces a sense of being islanders with a proud seafaring past. Whilst the listener is safely tucked-up in their bed, they can imagine small fishing-boats bobbing about at Plymouth or 170ft waves crashing against Rockall.[21]“
I was too young to know my maternal Great-Grandfather, Thomas Bevan. However, I do have some memories of him – mainly in his casket – in the front room of his house at number nine, Pellow Place Stoke, Plymouth Devon. The coffin stayed in the house for 7 days before the burial. My gran said I had to kiss him goodbye so that I would have pleasant memories of him and no nightmares!
Thomas was born in the little ancient town of Okehampton in West Devon on the Northern edge of Dartmoor and had a population of less than 6,000 in 2011.
The name Okehampton means settlement or estate (tun) on the River Okement and was founded by the Saxons. The earliest written record of the settlement is from 980 AD. The early form of the name Okementone is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and later in 1167 and 1275 as Okemento(a).
Like many towns in the West Country, Okehampton grew on the medieval wool trade. Notable buildings in the town include Okehampton Castle, now a ruin, established by the Norman Sheriff of Devon, Baldwin FitzGilbert. following a revolt in Devon against Norman rule.
The 17th-century Okehampton Town Hall.
My Granny used to pronounce it as “Okenton”. Apparently, as late as the 1930’s the older people of the district pronounced it “Okington” or “Okenton” I asked Granny why she said it that way, and she said that was how her Father pronounced it. (1)
On the 18th of October, 1893, when Thomas was 18 years and 10 months old, he joined the Devonshire Regiment for ‘Short Service’.
The term “short service” refers to a type of enlistment in the British Army, introduced in 1870. It allowed soldiers to serve for a shorter time than the standard 12 years of service. Thomas served for eight years and then joined the Royal Navy at age 25.
According to his records, when he joined the Royal Navy for a 12-year engagement on the 20th of March 1900, two years were added to his birth year. He was born in 1875 but his Royal Navy service Records show 1877.
Thomas became a Cooper and Master Carpenter on HMS Vivid II. This was a shore establishment, in the Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, where I was born and lived. He may have learned of the rules regulations and history of the Royal Navy whilst there and probably picked up the basics of his trade too. According to his Service Record below, he served on many different ships and finished his service 12 years later, also on HMS Vivid III. (2)
Thomas Bevan’s Royal Navy Service Record
Granny told me that Thomas made and repaired wooden barrels, casks and other containers. The daily Rum ration for the Royal Navy, called the ‘tot’ for the crew was stored in a barrel such as Thomas would have made. The daily tot was abolished in 1970; I remember it made headlines in England. The reason was concerns that the intake of strong alcohol would lead to unsteady hands when working machinery.
A Scarce Royal Navy Rum Barrelmade of English oak painted overall in blue faded to green on the front. Bound with four iron bands, the front was painted with post-1901 Royal Arms and R.N. and retained trace imprints of earlier bands.
Thomas lived with his wife, Lilian, their daughter Edith O’Bray (my Granny) and her husband Percival Victor (my Grandfather) in the early 1950’s in Plymouth at number nine Pellow Place Stoke. I lived with my parents five doors down from them at number four.
Although my Granny, Edith was born in 1900, her mother Lillian was single. Lillian’s father, a gardener named Thomas Symons, went to the Royal Navy to find the child’s father. Thomas had no idea he was a father as he was at sea for three years. When Thomas did arrive home on HMS Cleopatra in 1904 he married Lillian and the family went on to have six more children. Granny was already four years old then. The following link explains those circumstances.
My Granny, his daughter, told me that her father tragically died in her house, whilst asleep in his chair. Everyone had gone shopping and when they arrived home, the house smelled of gas and Thomas was dead. Apparently, gas had leaked into the house, killing him. She told me he was a kind, quiet man.
The photo below of him at 71, was taken about one year before his unfortunate death on the 31st of May, 1947.
The Royal Navy in the year 1900 had several tradesmen who were responsible for the maintenance of the ships and their equipment. One such trade was that of acooper. A cooper is someone who makes wooden, staved vessels, held together with wooden or metal hoops and possessing flat ends or heads. Examples of a cooper’s work include casks, barrels, buckets, tubs, butter churns, vats, hogsheads, firkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes tuns butts, troughs pins and breakers.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many enthusiastic young men with entrepreneurial spirits set out to make their fortunes. L.J Jodouin, my maternal; grandfather was among them. It was said that where there was a need he found a way to fulfill it. L.J.’s business ventures were a great success.
Louis Joseph Jodouin was born in 1861 in Montebello, Quebec, the third of five children of Joseph Jodouin and Leocadie Fortin. When he was a young man his family moved to Hull, Quebec where he was schooled by the Christian Brothers and attended college in nearby Ottawa.
In 1891, at the age of twenty-seven, he went to Sudbury, Ontario where in nearby Copper Cliff prospectors found nickel and mines were being opened. It is there he started his first enterprise, L. J. Jodouin Bottling Works. With six employees he bottled and sold ginger ale, lemon soda, cream soda, and mineral water. Due to the influx of miners, the Sudbury area was a new and growing community, and L.J.’s business was profitable
Louis and Louisa
1893
With financial security assured the young man decided it was time to seek a bride and start a family. Although the couple had the same grandfather and different grandmothers, they received dispensation and were married in Saint Columbkille Cathedral in Pembroke, Ontario in January of 1893. The young couple settled in Sudbury where they built their home and raised nine children, three boys and six girls.
In 1903 the bottling works were sold to the Taylor and Pringle Company of Owen Sound. His next venture was an ice business. He built a huge icehouse in the rear of his home along with a stable for the horses. At the time people had wooden iceboxes where the top section was lined with metal and large blocks of ice were placed within. Foods that needed to be kept cold were placed on shelves below. Ice was delivered regularly in the same manner as milk and bread from house to house by horse-drawn wagons and later years by truck.
Over the years Louis Joseph had many enterprises. He built a boathouse on Lake Ramsey, a large lake nearby. He rented boats and canoes. He ran a water taxi service and a huge gasoline-powered barge to transport large quantities of building and personal supplies for the people building cottages along the lake. The boat house was also used for storing huge blocks of ice during the winter months.
The ice business was my grandfather’s lifelong enterprise and the most successful. A key to the success was the annual contracts with both railways. The Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National Railways. This arrangement continued until the mid-1940 when the trains acquired powered refrigeration.
My cousin Madelyn Percival described how Grandfather would spend his days.
“In the winter months, Grandfather would often go out on Lake Ramsey to oversee the ice operations wearing his long raccoon coat and fur hat and fur mitts, but for the most part, he ran the business from a rocking chair near the dining room window overlooking the backyard where the horses were kept so he could see all the action!”
He was a good employer, and an active citizen, a town councilor, a school trustee, a voluntary fireman, and a member of the Board of Health. He played in the town band, sang in the church choir, and was an avid lacrosse player until he was hit in the head and lost his hearing.
“L.J. bought one of the first motor cars in Sudbury, although he could not drive because of his deafness. His eldest daughter, Alice Percival was the first woman driver in Sudbury and for many years she was his chauffeur.”
In 1943 on the eve of his seventy-ninth birthday Grandpa Jodouin passed away. His son, Arthur, continued the ice business into the late 1950s and early 60s supplying the many cottagers in the area until electricity became available.
References:
Ancestry.com Quebec, Canada Viral and Church Records. Drouin Collection 1921-1968 database online.
Sudbury Star newspaper article., Author, Gary Peck. “The Not-so-distant Past, Jodouin Steam Soda Water Works.” October 2, 1981
Ancestry.com. Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records. Drouin Collection 1802-1967 database online.
Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Canada Registration of Marriage, 1869-1928 Series MS032:Reel 70 source ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library( Brampton, Ontario, Canada Ontario Canada Marriages Ancestry.com Operations In.,2010.
Excerpts from an interview with the author and her cousin Madelyn Percival Smith , Louis Joseph’s granddaughter, Toronto Canada, August 2010.
Below is a video: cutting ice on Lake Ramsey
This biographical sketch of my maternal grandfather was first published in our book “Beads in a Necklace” published in 2017 by our Genealogy Ensemble group. It seems appropriate to include it in our ongoing blog.
Napoleon Bruneau died tragically on a Sunday night in 1916. The La Presse newspaper reported the train accident at Delson Junction on the CPR line but no details were given. This was not far from his home in St-Constant, Quebec. Was he coming home or going to Montreal? What happened? Did he fall on the tracks? He was almost 72 years old so he should have known better than to get in front of a train!
He and his twin sister Mathilde were the 5th and 6th children of Barnabe Bruneau and Sophie Marie Prudhomme. He lived his whole life in St-Constant, south of Montreal. It seems he inherited the family farm after his parent’s deaths.
Napoleon and his sister Sophie Bruneau
Descriptions of Napoleon included being a farmer, a Free Will Baptist, a veterinarian and a justice of the peace. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1902 for the district of Montreal which included St-Constant. It is possible he studied to be a veterinarian and didn’t just learn as an apprentice. A school for veterinarians was established in Quebec in 1866 with one of his cousins, Orphyr Bruneau as one of the lecturers. In 1876 courses were also offered in French when the school was under the McGill University Department of Agriculture. The Veterinary school, later associated with The University of Montreal, moved to Oka in 1928 and to its present location in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1947.
One would think that a tall handsome man with many interests and a farm would easily find a wife, so I found it strange that he didn’t marry until he was 66. His brother, Reverand Ismael Bruneau performed the ceremony at his Protestant Church, L’Eglise St Jean Baptiste de Montreal. Napoleon’s wife Emilie Beauchamp was 42 at the time, so it isn’t surprising that they didn’t have children. Emilie was born in Grenville, Quebec, on the Ottawa River. She probably met Napoleon in Montreal where she lived with her parents and sister Lily. Emilie had an uncle who was a French Protestant minister so it is quite possible that they met through the church.
My great-grandfather, Ismael Bruneau was upset with Emilie after Napoleon died as he wrote in a letter to his son Sydney.
“You know your Uncle Napoleon made me the heir of all his estate except for $500, which I must give after the death of his widow as follows; $300 to my sister Helene, $100 to my sister Virginie and $100 to my sister Elmire. But his widow has everything during her lifetime. As she is a great deal younger than I, it is almost probable that I shall never enjoy this myself. They say she is already neglecting the house which is going to ruin and according to the law she must maintain it in good condition as it was at the time of the death of her late husband.”
Unfortunately, Ismael didn’t enjoy any of his inheritance as he died two years after Napoleon. Emilie only died in 1951. I don’t know what happened to the property as she married Emilien Frechette in 1929 and he had his own house and farm. Emilien had been married to two other Bruneau women, Emilina Bruneau, Ismael’s sister and and Ida Girod Bruneau Ismael’s wife.
Napoleon was buried in Mount Royal Cemetery with his sister Helene, her husband Celestin Lachance and their daughter Antoinette and not with his twin Mathilde in the Baptist cemetery in Grand Ligne. Emilie isn’t buried with Napoleon or even with Emilien Frechette and his first two wives, rather her final resting place is with her parents in the Beauchamp Cemetery in Marelan in the Laurentians near Grenville.
I haven’t yet found answers to questions about his tragic end.
Notes:
Napoleon Bruneau Obituary: LaPresse January 16, 1916.
Napoleon Bruneau’s death determined to be accidental. The Montreal Gazette, Tuesday, January 25, 1916. Page 7.
when searching for information on the train accident I found another Napoleon Bruneau who was also killed by a train. This accident happened in Huntington, Pennsylvania in 1908. He was decapitated and horribly mangled.
Appointed Justice of the Peace: Montreal Star Monday, June 23, 1902. page 10. Accessed Newspapers.com March 20, 2023.
Letter from Ismael Bruneau to his son Sydney Bruneau. Quebec, February 21, 1917. A copy in the hands of the author.
Orphyr Bruneau one of Napoleon’s first cousins the son of his father Barnabe’s brother Medard.
There are notarial documents, Quittances which are receipts where Napoleon gave most of his siblings 300 piastres each, beginning two years after his mother died. These dispersals occurred from 1894 to 1904. Some received less and I haven’t found the documents for his sisters Aglae and Sophie. His brother Selene had already died and had no heirs. I am unsure if these were money paid to his siblings because he received the farm.
Three hundred piastres were 300 dollars. This would be the equivalent of over $10,000 today. Quebec used the word piastres on official documents into the 20th century. Even later it was used as a slang equivalent to the English word buck.
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