Category: Homestead

1912 Harvest Photos & Noah's Sisters

6/29/2014

ca1900-1910 - The 4 daughters of David Draper & Sarah Sophia Deverell. (L to R) Sarah Louisa "Louie" (Coventry), Eva Amelia (Perrault), Ethel Maud (Rigler), and Jennie F., sitting. Photo courtesy of Jim, grandson of Sarah Louisa.

If you're wondering if you missed any posts...no, you haven't. I've been busy writing and time slipped away on me, but I haven't been idle. Besides my writing, I've been working on the family tree and making contacts with new family members. One of these is a grandson of Noah's sister, Sarah Louisa Draper who is always referred to as Louie. The grandson is Jim - a 2nd cousin - and we are honored that he's made contact with us and is willing to share photos and information.

I've also been scanning old newspapers for info on Noah and Ethel and it seems our newlyweds have nested quietly. Since they both like a social life of visiting with family and friends, I'm sure they're doing it in the Adams-Grand Coulee area, but it's not making the Regina newspapers.

Interesting articles I found in the Newmarket Era included their articles on Regina's cyclone which was the subject of my post June 1912: Regina's F4 Cyclone. Here's what the Era said:

The Newmarket Era. July 5, 1912

ca 1912-1916 Noah Draper's Threshing Crew, Adams, Saskatchewan. Percy Draper far right standing on the wagon. Noah Draper 3rd from right standing on thresher behind horses. Noah really blends in with background so click to enlarge.

The Newmarket Era. September 27, 1912

I first posted the above threshing photo on 1911 Courtship: Dear Ethel Sep 3. As you can see, it took a large crew to run the threshing machine of the early 1900's.

However, I found the article on the right in the Sept 27, 1912 issue of the Newmarket Era where they talk about a new threshing machine which only requires a crew of 4 instead of the previous crew of 14 like Noah needed.

The photo below is another one from Noah & Ethel's 1910-1924 album. I believe Noah is the man on the right side of the top row. Either of the women could be Ethel, but from the photo at the top of this post, I'm thinking that Ethel is on the left. Or perhaps the women are Noah's sisters, Eva Perrault and Ethel Rigler, and our newlywed Ethel is taking the photograph with Noah's camera.

Regardless of who is in the photo, it's a 16 man threshing outfit.

ca1912-1916 Noah Draper's Threshing Outfit, Adams, Saskatchewan

This next photo looks like there are only a few men working while the thresher is in action which makes me suspect that not only is it a different year, but that Noah has bought one of the new thresher's mentioned in the above newspaper article.

ca1912-1919 Threshing on the farm of Noah & Ethel Draper, Adams, Saskatchewan.

The threshing photos on this page are courtesy of the Norma Draper Photograph Collection.

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Sep 1912: Letter from George Draper

5/25/2014

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The Adams, SK house that Noah Draper built for Ethel Nelson in 1911 prior to their 1912 marriage. Photos courtesy of the Norma Draper Family Photograph Collection.

The Draper's house at Adam's, SK after enclosing the veranda in screens. Noah and Ethel's album says the front windows were blown out in the 1912 Regina cyclone.

In this week's letter, Noah's cousin George Draper comments that Noah probably witnessed the Storm from his place at Adams, SK. Although Ethel didn't mention it in her post card in last week's post about the June 1912: Regina's F4 Cyclone, they may have spotted something because the distance along the track from the C.N.R. station in Regina to the siding in Adams is an official distance of 13 miles (20 km).

Author of Letter: George Draper
Dated: Sept 15th, 1912
Addressed to: Mr Noah Draper, Grand Coulee
Mailed from: Keswick (North Gwillimbury Twp, York County, Ontario)
Relationship: Paternal 1st cousin of Noah Draper
Profession: Farmer
Writing instrument: Blue-Black ink
Written on: Textured ivory-colored notepaper 5" x 8", 2 pages written on the front only.

People/places mentioned in this letter:

- *Noah Draper, age 23 (Newlywed, moved west in 1905)
- *Ethel Nelson, age 21 (Newlywed, moved west Feb 1912 upon her marriage)
- *Stewart Draper - George's brother near Indian Head, SK
- *Joe Perrault - married to Noah's sister, *Eva Amelia, and living near Grand Coulee
- *Will Rigler - married to Noah's sister, *Ethel Maud and living near Grand Coulee
- Aunty - Noah's mom, *Sarah Sophia Deverell Draper
- *Edith & *Frank - George's sister, Edith who married Frank *Kavanagh

Places/things mentioned in this letter or in the Genealogy Notes:
- the storm - the 1912 Regina F4 cyclone I blogged about last week
- a man engaged - the hired man

Cliches/Phrases
- cuz - George signs the letter "your Cuz, Geo Draper"

Legend:
* Look under the Categories/Labels in the right side column for more posts on this
person/place/thing. If you don't see a label, use the search box at the top of page.
** see Genealogy Notes below

Keswick Sept 15th 1912

Mr. Noah Draper
Grand Coulee
Dear Noah.
Pretty near time I answered
your Card July 12th. was glad to
hear from you My was'nt that
Cyclone desperate Suppose you could
see the Storm from your place. It
would certainly look fierce Stewart said
He went & saw the ruins and is
going to send me some pictures of it
I got a letter from him on the 9th Sept
has all his wheat cut & oats
without Frost or Hail pretty Lucky I hope
you escaped the same was your
crops pretty Good this year. It dont
seem long ago. since Iwas up
there with you. driveing around
through the wheat. How is Aunty

2
I hope She is well. is She liveing
with you or Ethel Rigler
we are not through Harvest yet Barley
to Draw yet & some Peas to cut. & Draw
Pretty slow In Ont, Eh. But In order to have
a crack shot He has to come from
North Gwillimbury and show Noah how to
tumble the Ducks. no doubt you have
said to your self many times | if I
could only shoot like | George Draper |
I would give a good deal | But you
may learn after a long time. of
course I showed you quite a Bit.
I am going up at the Head of the Baye
Tomorrow to shoot a few Doz Ducks
Come along Noah and I will give you
another Lesson It is raining to
Beat the Devil to Day we have had a
Desperate lot of Rain this Summer.
Come East this Winter and we will do
nothing but Fish I have a Man Engaged
for the Winter & I am going to Fish
everyDay Come along I know Ethel
would like to come Home guess Edith
& Frank are comeing for the Winter
write me Noah soon With kind Regards
to all In your Home your Cuz GeoDraper

Genealogy Notes

George Milburn Draper has been mentioned several times in Noah & Ethel's 1911 Courtship letters - most recently Feb 1912: Letter from Noah's Cousin, Edith Draper.

On Sep 23rd, 1908 George, 28 yrs old, bachelor farmer, married Eliza Alberta Hamilton, 23 yrs old, Spinster, daughter of David Hamilton & Priscilla Stevenson. George and Eliza both reside in North Gwillimbury, and both attend the Christian church.

The 1911 census finds George and Eliza living on the Draper Homestead near Keswick in the house where he'd been born, where his father Stephen Draper had been born, and where his grandfather Joel Draper Jr had worked the crown-deeded virgin uncleared land when York County was first being settled.

(Joel Draper Sr is my husband Nelson Clement Draper's 3rd great grandfather born 1789 in Boston, Mass)

1911 Canada census showing George and Eliza living on the Draper homestead along with his parents, Stephen Draper and Martha Barnhart, and his unmarried sister, Edith.

I'm not sure where George's oldest brother, Charles J, is in 1911, but he'll eventually take over the family farm while the rest of the siblings headed west, returning to Ontario to spend the winters with family and friends.

In this letter, George mentions driving through the wheat fields with Noah and although he doesn't give a date, we can surmise he's talking about the trip he took west during the summer of 1911, partly because of this clipping:

The Newmarket Era. August 18, 1911 - pg. 6

George also mentions the 1912 Regina cyclone in his letter, and how he's waiting for pictures from his brother Stewart, who's renting a farm at Indian Head, east of Regina. I don't have Stewart's photos, but if you haven't looked yet, check out last week's post for images of the ruins.

1913 finds George heading west on a business trip. Perhaps the trip was to buy land?

The Newmarket Era. October 3, 1913 - pg. 6

I only make that assumption because a mere 4 months later, George and Eliza are preparing to move to Wolfe, Saskatchewan.

The Newmarket Era. February 13, 1914

By the time the special 1916 Western Canada census rolled around, George's sister, Almeda and her husband, James Edward Baker and their 2 children, Milburn and Ruby, had joined George and Eliza on their quarter section of land at Wolfe, RM of Reford, Saskatchewan.

It isn't until 1919 where we find the first mention of a child born to George and Eliza and that's thanks again to the newspaper back in York County:

The Newmarket Era. December 12, 1919 - pg. 2

George and Eliza named their son, Ernest David and there is no record of any siblings for him. I spent hours searching for Ernest. Thanks to the Sask Genealogical Society, I found obits for an Ernest and Lillian Draper who retired from farming in the same area and moved to North Battleford. Every matched ... until I realized it couldn't be George's son because this Ernest was born in the late 1800's in Wisconsin and not 1919 in Saskatchewan. What a letdown.

George, Eliza, and Ernest show up on the 1921 Canada census and I have newspapaper clippings of them for a few years after that, but then they fall off the radar. A very brief - too brief and sketchy - description is given in the Landis Record history Book, where it shows them renting the land and moving back to Ontario until 1950, and then spending the summers at Wolfe, and the winters in York County.

There's hope though because I still have Noah's WW1 letters to post and although we know where George and Eliza are during the war, I still have several years of Ethel's diaries from the 1940-50's left to go as well as a batch of letters which I glanced at but not made notes for. Hopefully somewhere in there is a clue to their whereabouts.

Of course, if you have any information about this family - pictures would be lovely - please help us fill in the blanks:

George Milburn Draper
Eliza (Elizabeth) Alberta Hamilton
Ernest David Draper

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Westward the Newlyweds!

4/22/2014

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Ethel is finally going west instead of only writing about other people doing it. As I mentioned last week, we don't know exactly when Noah and Ethel leave Ontario for Saskatchewan, but we're sure they attended the wedding of his cousin, Edith Draper, to Frank Kavanagh at the end of January.

According to the newspaper, other things of interest were happening in North Gwillimbury Township while Noah was there with Ethel - such as how the cold temperatures of the Winter of 1911/12 affected the local ice harvest in a good news/bad news scenario...

The Newmarket Era. February 2, 1912 - Page: 6

The Newmarket Era. February 2, 1912 - Page: 7

The Newmarket Era. February 9, 1912 - Page: 8

The Newmarket Era. February 16, 1912 - Page: 6

Although these photographs aren't from 1912, they show how the lake ice was harvested.

1900, Jackson's Point, North Gwillimbury, Ontario. "Before the ice could be cut the snow was scraped off, exposing the clear ice below." Note the boxcars waiting to be loaded with blocks of ice. Courtesy of the Virtual Museum of the Georgina Pioneer Museum, Keswick, Ontario. (Click image for site.)

1930's by Mary Beley. Ice Harvesting off Beley (Ferncliffe) Point. " A black and white photograph of a horse pulling what looks to be some sort of sleigh that cuts ice, with a man on it. There are men behind the horse and sleigh that appear to be pulling the ice up out of the water." Courtesy of Courtesy of http://images.ourontario.ca/

1930's by Mary Beley. Ice Harvesting off Beley (Ferncliffe) Point. " Courtesy of Courtesy of http://images.ourontario.ca/

1930's by Mary Beley. Ice Harvesting off Beley (Ferncliffe) Point. "A black and white photograph of a group of men doing various tasks while harvesting ice. Some of the men are pulling blocks of ice out of the lake, some are loading the ice onto a sleigh, and some are cutting the ice." Courtesy of http://images.ourontario.ca/

"Ice workers and ladies pose on Lake Simcoe." 1895, Jackson's Point, North Gwillimbury. Courtesy of the Virtual Museum of the Georgina Pioneer Museum, Keswick, Ontario. (Click image for site.)

1900, Jackson's Point, North Gwillimbury. "Ice workers in front of elevator and warehouse on Lake Simcoe." Courtesy of the Virtual Museum of the Georgina Pioneer Museum, Keswick, Ontario. (Click image for site.)

Noah and Ethel will leave North Gwillimbury and the ice harvest behind and take the local Grand Trunk Railway Train from North Gwillimbury, down to Toronto where they'll switch to a westbound Canadian Pacific Railway train to Grand Coulee, Saskatchewan.

In the map below, the blue line shows the route both couples will travel until they reach Winnipeg. At that point, Edith Draper and Frank Kavanagh would have switched to a train heading up a branch line to get to Togo, Saskatchewan (blue line), while Noah and Ethel would have stayed on the main line until they reached Grand Coulee, a few miles west of Regina.

The red box in the map above shows the North Shore of Lake Superior, shown in detail in the map below.

The yellow pins in the map mark locations shown in the slideshow below. I found these souvenir photos in Ethel's Treasure Box and although I don't know when they were bought, I know Noah and Ethel would have experienced these scenes while on their westward journey, so enjoy the slideshow and check the map for the locations.

This next photograph shows where Noah and Ethel will get off the train at the Grand Coulee Station in Saskatchewan. From there, it's a 3.5 mile wagon or car ride up to Adams where they'll begin their married life together.

Grand Coulee Station, undated, from the album of Noah Draper and Ethel Nelson, 1912-1924. Courtesy of the Norma Draper Photograph Collection.

Join me as we continue the story of Noah Draper and Ethel Nelson with a letter from Ontario next week, followed by Ethel's first experience with a prairie cyclone.

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1911 Courtship: The 1912 Wedding

3/16/2014

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The image on the top page of Noah Draper's and Ethel Nelson's 1912 four-page Marriage Certificate

It's finally here...

Noah's and Ethel's 1912 Wedding Day!

If you read last week's post, you know that Noah Draper is now with Ethel Nelson in the Belhaven area of York County, Ontario, and their wedding day is finally here. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate a photo of the happy event, although I was able to scan their Marriage Certificate when we visited Nelson's cousins, granddaughters of Noah and Ethel, last summer. Norma's girls are the holders of the albums and photos which I refer to as the Norma Draper Personal Photograph Collection.

Scanning the marriage certificate was very tricky though as I didn't want to disturb its 100 yr old appearance by undoing the polished twisted cotton string because I knew I'd never get it back in the same position and it would then end up looking messy. Instead, I scanned each page as best I could which means you don't get to see the ribbon running through the holes at the top, and have to trust me that it's there. The dark areas are from the scanning process due to the knotted string.

The handwriting in Noah's and Ethel's Marriage Certificate is written in black ink and it's approx 5 inches x 6.5 inches. Made of 4 vellum sheets tied together, there is a copyright notification on the bottom left cover as such: COPYRIGHT 1898, J. S. KENNARD.

1912 Marriage Certificate for Noah Draper & Ethel Nelson - front cover/Page 1

1912 Marriage Certificate for Noah Draper & Ethel Nelson - Page 2

1912 Marriage Certificate for Noah Draper & Ethel Nelson - Page 3

1912 Marriage Certificate for Noah Draper & Ethel Nelson - Page 4

1912 Marriage Certificate for Noah Draper & Ethel Nelson - back of Page 4

As usual, I wanted more, and since newspaper snippets of the wedding weren't included in either Ethel's Treasure Box, nor Norma's Collection, I pulled up The Newmarket Era looking for any information about Noah and Ethel surrounding this date. As stated last week, there is no record of December 1911 issues on file, but I had hopes for January.

Nope. There were no mention of them - or anything Belhaven - in the first 2 wks of Jan 1912. And then when I pulled up the January 19, 1912 edition, I almost cried. Instead of telling you about it, I made this collage to show you what found...

Collage of remaining pages of The Newmarket Era, January 19, 1912 edition.

And when I checked the following week's January 26 edition, there was no mention of Noah or Ethel either. But that couldn't be, could it? After all those letters and news snippets? I needed closure!

For the lack of anything else to do, I pulled pulled up the Our Ontario News website which shows not only the Era but many more Ontario historical newspapers, and I searched for both Draper and Nelson. Two hits came up - both for the Jan 19 edition above. Ugh!

But a blink later, I realized Ethel's shower news made it through ... in the bottom right corner of Page 7:

Belhaven.
On Sat. Jan. 6, the young ladies
of this vicinity met at the home of
Miss Ethel Nelson and gave her a
shower. We are sorry to lose Ethel
from our midst.

The Newmarket Era. Jan 19, 1912, Pg 7

Well, that was something at least. With trepidation, I checked on the next hit and this time almost cried with relief because miracle upon miracles... it was the snippet I was looking for. Now, you have to ignore the dark parts, and I've adjusted the exposure a bit, but it's quite legible considering that we have it at all.

Wedding News:

The Newmarket Era. January 19, 1912 - Page: 8

BELHAVEN
Too Late for last week.
Belhaven has now been invaded by
the prevailing North Gwilimbury
fever and has taken away one of our
bright young women. Miss Ethel
Nelson who on Wednesday, Jan. 10th,
at the home of her parents, Mr. and
Mrs. James Nelson, was married to
Mr. Noah C. Draper. The wedding
was a very quiet one, the ceremony
being performed by Rev. W. P. Flet-
cher, Keswick. The bride was mar-
ried in her travelling dress, and the
young couple left after the wedding
dinner for Huntsville and other plac-
es. They expect to return to Bel-
haven to say good-bye to their friends
before leaving for their new Western
home at Grand Coulee, Sask. The
bride will be very much missed by
her many friends and the workers in
the Belhaven Sunday School.

Although we don't have a record of Noah and Ethel's gifts, I found some gift tags in Ethel's Treasure Box amongst a couple Congratulatory letters which I'll be posting in the coming weeks.

This 1st one is from Alice Winch, a Belhaven friend of the family.
Alice has written in black ink on a beige manilla card, blank on the back.

To Ethel
With Best Wishes for
a very Happy Life.
Alice Winch

Jan. 6th 1912.

This card is from close neighbor Cecil Daniel Prosser who has been spoken of often this past year and will marry Sadie in 1915. Cecil has used black ink on a card that is similar in thickness to the letters Noah has sent Ethel. From the 2 holes above the word, YOU, I suspect this card may have been pinned to a package or bouquet.

With All Good Wishes
for You a
Happy Future
Sincerely C.D.P.
Cecil Prosser.

Florence Sweet is the 15 yr old daughter of neighbors Willson Sweet and Susannah Thompson, the oldest of their 8 children. Florence has written in black ink on a cream colored piece of lined foolscap, newsprint weight. It is 5 inches wide and has a watermark with 'Vic' before it runs off the right edge.

To Ethel with Best Wishes
From Florence Sweet.

This last one is a bit over 3 in x 5 in unfolded and consists of some type of slippery paper reminiscent of parchment. It's blank on the back and without a name so we don't know who gave the gift, but it must have meant something for Ethel to have kept it. My guess is that it came from a box of candy or chocolates - from Noah perhaps?

As for the house Noah spent the summer building for them... here's one of the best views because it shows the depth of the house. It's also the only photo of the house before the porch was damaged and subsequently changed after the Summer of 1912 Cyclone hit the Regina area. More of the cyclone in a couple weeks.

The house Noah Draper built for Ethel Nelson in 1911 at Adams, SK. Courtesty of the Norma Draper Personal Photograph Collection.

The photo looks neglected because of the ripped corner and edges, but most of the ones I've found in this condition were once glued in those old photograph albums with the black pages. When the owner wanted to remove the photo to either put it in a frame or give it to someone, etc, it was physically pried from the page with dire results.

With this photo of Noah's house, I didn't want to cut the damaged portion off because a good part of the house - and porch detail - would have been lost in the process.

Doesn't this remind you of the problem we're having with those magnetic photo albums of the 70's and 80's? The glue at the back is ruining the photos, but ripping them out is sometimes doing more damage than leaving them in. I'm so glad I saved all my negatives, especially since Nelson bought a negative reader to turn all our photos into digital images.

Well, that's it for this special wedding post. Noah and Ethel are on their way to Huntsville for a honeymoon. January in cottage country? Well, they'll certainly have privacy and solitude. I daresay they'll have to cozy up to each other for warmth, too. Ha!

Next week we'll keep the celebration going with a letter from Veda Perrault asking Uncle Noah how it all came off.

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1911 Courtship: Aug 13 Dear Ethel

9/30/2013

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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

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

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

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.

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1912 Harvest Photos & Noah's Sisters

Sep 1912: Letter from George Draper

Genealogy Notes

Westward the Newlyweds!

1911 Courtship: The 1912 Wedding

Noah's and Ethel's 1912 Wedding Day!

1911 Courtship: Aug 13 Dear Ethel

Genealogy Notes

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