1911 Courtship: Aug 13 Dear Ethel

1911 Regina street scene on a postcard published by Valentine & Sons. The opening day of the Dominion Fair on July 28th, 1911 was the inaugural run of the Regina streetcar system. Courtesy of http://peel.library.ualberta.ca

Peel's Prairie Postcard Collection describes the above postcard as "Corner of 11th Avenue and Scarth Street with Post Office (later Old City Hall) on left, Imperial Bank of Canada on left foreground. A streetcar is visible in the road."

 

Author of Letter: Noah Clement Draper (24 yrs old)
Dated: Aug 11/11, but has been overwritten to show 13/11
Addressed to: Miss E. Nelson, My Dear Ethel (21 yrs old)
Mailed to: Huntsville, Ont
Mailed from:  Grand Coulee. Sask.
Relationship: Courting
Profession: Farmer 
Writing instrument: Black ink pen 
Writing Paper: Thick paper, 9 inches x 6.5 inches. Paper is folded in half, written on front and back like a book, but inside, paper is turned sideways and written across the short width and down both pages. 


People/Places mentioned in this letter:

- Mother - *Sarah Sophia Deverell
- Joe's - Noah's sister, *Eva Amelia, and her husband,  *Joe Perrault and family
- *Fanny - Niece of Joe Perrault

- my man *hired man
- well diggers - they are on the 3rd well site as the first 2 were dry

- the big Regina fair *Exhibition
- the coulee - *Grand Coulee
- 6 30 train - to *Regina
- **harvest 
- **hail - see a recent video of hail in our yard


* Look under the Categories/Labels in the right column for more on posts on the above people.
**More info under Genealogical Notes below this week's letter

Grand Coulee, Sask.
             Aug. 13/11.

Miss. E. Nelson,
     Huntsville, Ont.
My. Dear Ethel; - 
     Well this is the end of a
nother week also the end
of the big Regina fair. was
in 3 days. had Fanny in on
Wed. had a big time but she
was not feeling very well don't
know how she is now havent
seen her. but I guess she
is alive. ha.ha.
     Well I hope you feel as 
well as this leaves me at
present only I am so lazy
I hate to get up for meals. 
Ha. Ha.

Well I am all alone to day. Mother
went down to church and stayed
down and I am to go down tonight
after her but I am getting used to being
alone. for Thursday morning Mother
took my man down to the coulee
in time to catch the 6 30 am train
and came back Friday after noon
then I went down and met him
Friday night. Saturaday morning
when I got up he was out at the wagon
fooling with a blanket and & I went
in and built a fire & went out &
he had dissappeared and I havent
saw him since. but his clothes
are all here i guess he got dry and
went back to town. Ha. Ha.
     Well we are having nice weather
here now to make up for the summer
I guess. will be starting harvest
week after next I guess and every
thing looks fine now if it dont get 
frozen or hailed.
     Well it is now Monday after-noon
just as I finished the other line along
come 3 fellows so I did'nt finish my
letter. 
     Went down after mother last
night & while there it hailed & 
rained but the hail did not do 

much damage. Mother & I went
over to Joes to wait untill
the storm was over & about
9 oclock we struck for home
and just got about half
way when it started to
pour. say I felt just as if
I had sat down in a
tub. Ha Ha. Mother got
wet to but not as much
as I did.
     Well the well diggers
are still here but I hope
they will have water before 
long I am getting tired of them.
Well. I guess this is all for
this time so good Bye. With
Lots of Love & a great big hug. xxx
And half a million kisses.         xxxx
                                            N.C.D.

Genealogy Notes

In this week's letter, Noah writes that the weather is finally nice and the crop will be ready for harvesting in the week after next. Of course, weather plays a big part in the timing of the harvest and there's always the threat of hail. 

Hail can best be explained as chunks of ice, from tiny to golf-ball size or bigger, that fall in the summer when the weather is hot. You can have a perfectly wonderful day and suddenly, the sky will cloud over and you hear pinging as the hail bounces off of any exposed metal and plastic. It could be devastating to a gardener whose perfect tomatoes are bombarded, an orchardist whose fruit is pitted, and a farmer whose crop is flattened. One farmer might have a field of grain plastered to the ground, while in the next field, another farmer's crop is stil standing straight and waving as if in defiance of the weather. 

The following video was taken this past July when a pebble-sized hail fell in our farmyard.

Before an hour or so had passed, the farmer who rents our land zipped down our road on his quad as he checked all his fields for damage. He was blessed because he didn't find any damage to speak of. 


And if it wasn't hail, it was frost. But the harvest of 1911 had other problems because this new bread-basket of Canada had potentially the biggest crop ever. And now men were needed to get the grain off the land - hand labor for the most part. Because the western harvest was being been predicted as HUGE, the shortage of manpower had everyone scrambling, as can be attested by these newspaper snippets and ads...

The Newmarket Era. July 28, 1911, Pg 1

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Like I said, the Canadian government had this huge harvest and they plastered the eastern newspapers with their ads. These ads are from just one newspaper - the Newmarket Era in York County, Ontario - and at a glance you see the cry for harvesters are listed on 4 different pages. Similar ads were carried for both the Canadian Northern Railway (CNR) and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The CNR on the right, however reads: Where the best crops are, the best wages are paid.

And this:

IMPORTANT - To reach Canadian Northern points it will be necessary to travel by Canadian Pacific Railway to Winnipeg. 

Now that's interesting. So is the fact that the CPR is giving a discount for the ride home on a FARM LABORER TRAIN if the laborer can prove he worked 30 days  or more in the west.

How many papers carried these ads? Take a wild guess and you begin to feel the magnitude and urgency the Canadians felt at getting the harvest off the ground. 

 But what happens when 50,000 men reach the west and the crops aren't ready? Keep reading...

The Newmarket Era. July 28, 1911, Pg 3

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The Newmarket Era. July 28, 1911, Pg 7

The Newmarket Era. July 28, 1911, Pg 6

The Morning Leader (Regina), Aug 7, 1911, Page 8 of 18

The Morning Leader (Regina), Aug 9, 1911, Page 9 of 28

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It must have been mayhem in the west at that time. Thousands of strange men walking the streets just waiting for the crops to ripen. Where did they sleep and eat? They went west to work, not to sleep in hotel rooms while sitting idle. 

And yet, they weren't going to leave the populated areas and head out to the farms where they were needed until they were needed. 

All anyone could do was wait for the crops to ripen and pray the weather stayed nice. What a stressful time.