Category: Memorabilia

1913: Spring Letter from Sadie Nelson

8/4/2014

Veda Josie Perrault, ca 1910-1915. Courtesy of Doreen Proctor Burnett.

Finally, a photograph of Veda Josie Perrault, the niece Noah is always teasing. We've posted a couple letters from her so far but I only had the one photo of her as an older woman from the 1960's. So when I was drafting this week's letter where Sadie talks about Veda's upcoming wedding, I was especially blessed when cousin Doreen stepped forward with pictures of Veda and some other Perraults. If you want to read more about Doreen's fantastic timing, check the Genealogy Notes at the bottom of this post.

This week's letter is missing page 1 & 2 which means I've had to do some research to decipher the date, but I think I'm pretty close due to Sadie discussing several people and their events including Veda's wedding in June 1913.

Author of Letter: Sadie Nelson
Dated: Spring of 1913
Addressed to: Dear Ethel and Noah (presumably)
Mailed from: Belhaven, Ontario
Relationship: Sister
Profession: Farmer's Daughter
Writing instrument: Pen with Black Ink
Writing Paper: Thin weight, textured, linen-like paper, each written page 5" x 6". Paper is folded in half and written in booklet form but with the inside page written across the short width so it looks like foolscap. Only the first page is numbered with a 3, but we are missing pages 1 and 2.

People/places mentioned in this letter:

**Veda - Noah's niece, daughter of his sister Eva Amelia & Joe Perrault
*Leslie Peter Thomson - Veda's intended
*Uncle Will - could be Ethel's mom's brother, or their uncle - both *Glover's
Pa - Ethel's dad, *James Nelson
Uncle *Emmanuel Nelson - uncle of *James H Nelson
Grandma Nelson - Eliza *Croutch - mother of *James H Nelson
*Leslie Nelson - Ethel's maternal cousin who is somewhere out West
Harry *Barker - husband of the sister of Ethel's mother, *Ida Glover

Edna *Crowder, *Ella, and Mary - friends and neighbors
Gordon *Crowder & Rosie Andrews - Gordon is a neighbor and friend
Carl *Morton & Clara Pringle - friends and neighbors
Dr. Pringle - Sutton physician
*Miss Hunt - check post on her and her Bible. This is 1st mention of her intended. Perhaps died from sickness?

Places/things mentioned in this letter:

- **quincy or quinsy (Sadie spells it quinzy)
- *Sutton - a nearby town

Legend:
* Look under the Categories/Labels in the right side column for more posts on this
person/place/thing, or use the search box in the header at the top of this page
** see Genealogy Notes below

and as to Sadie Nelson, well,
I guess, she is out of it
altogether. Edna still has
a long list of suitors and
Gordon is to be married to
Rosie Andrews so I have
heard several times. He makes
frequent calls down there
anyway. He and I are, as
usual, a little on the outs, also
Edna and I. Ella and Mary
have been my chief standbys.
Carl Morton is soon to be
married to Clara Pringle,
Dr. Pringle's daughter at
Sutton. Next time you
write to Leslie tell him I

want him to write to me right
away soon. I sent him a couple
of cards soon after he went away
and he never answered them.
Well Ethel I was weighed yesterday
and the scales went 151 easy. You
can't beat that. Uncle Harry
Barker has been sick with
quinzy but he is getting better
now. Miss Hunt is over to see
her intended this afternoon. He has
a severe cold. Uncle is getting a
little better, he slept fairly well
last night. Pa has sold dan to
some man out near Mt. Albert.
The man bot him & took him
yesterday. I was just real angry
when they told me but he was
getting awful ugly. He Pa has bought
one colt that he is going to break
in soon and he is going to buy
another horse. We are having
quite nice weather now but it
is very cold. Suppose Veda will
be having a swell wedding.

you had better be getting
your gown ready, and
after you get that one
finished you can start
another for my wedding
I am to be married the 31st
of June to a flourishing
old bachelor so be ready.
Well I will, speaking in
telephony phraseology, ring
off.
Au Revoir.
Love sis Sadelia
Answer immediately and
excuse writing. I have just
used 3 diff. pens & none are any good.

Genealogy Notes

Genealogy Note 1: Perrault Photographs

I was pleasantly surprised (interpret that as thrilled to pieces) when Doreen Joan Proctor Burnett left a comment on the post, 1909: To Noah, A Letter From Home. Here's her initial comment:

Sarah Sophia Deverall Draper was my great grandmother
Eva Amelia Draper Perrauault my grandmother
Dora Evelyn Perrault Proctor my mother..I was amazed when I found your web..So very interesting..I just loved Aunt Veda .the letter she wrote to Noah sounded so much like her..Thanks so much

What caught my eye first on her comment was the name of Sarah Sophia Deverell - Noah's mother - because the maiden name of Sarah's mother is still a mystery so I grasp any mention of the Deverell name. And then my gaze latched onto the Aunt Veda part and my day brightened considerably.

A quick check on Ancestry confirmed that Doreen is Nelson's 2nd cousin and although I knew her name on the family tree, I didn't know anything about her branch, other than the fact that her mother was one of Eva Amelia's kids. To put this into perspective, Joe and Eva had 8 children. Born in 1895, Veda was the oldest, and the youngest wouldn't be born until 1914. Doreen's mom, Dora, was born in 1907. So she would have been 4 yrs old during Noah and Ethel's Courtship year, but most of the time, Noah only spoke of Veda - probably because she was teenager and so easy to tease.

Last night Doreen shared 4 photos with us, including the striking pose of Veda at the top of this post. My, oh, my. Being born in 1895, Veda was 18 in 1913 when this week's letter was written - the year she married 25 yr old Leslie Peter Thomson, a Canadian Pacific Railway station agent.

Veda mentioned Les once before and that's the post of 1912: Jan 12 Letter fm Veda Perrault when she wrote, "Leslie did not get down. I was sorry although I expect him down here some time before long. He is working up at Tugaske, Sask, on the Outlook branch from Moose Jaw."

So I'm sending out a bouquet to Doreen Joan Proctor Burnett for leaving a comment on my post and then sharing her photo treasures with us.

This reminds me of something I read on the Ancestry blog recently where a member said he hesitated switching his family tree from private to public for years in case he and his mom had wrong facts. But finally, they reached a dead end and thus, took the plunge to see if they could rouse out some family members with their cousin bait. The post went on to show a photo of the man and a relative who saw their public ancestry tree and contacted them.

Cousin bait. That's the affectionate term in the genealogy world.

And although we didn't intend on using this blog as cousin bait, or making our Ancestry tree public for the same reason, we've been blessed with cousins finding us. In all, 5 more cousins contacted us in the past 2 weeks by either leaving comments on this blog, emailing us through my contact page, or connecting through our Ancestry inbox.

Cousin bait. It sounds crass, but the results are ... wonderful.

Genealogy Note 2: Quinsy and Quincy

This is an old disease which is still around. A fellow in our area had it a couple years ago, and thousands of cases are seen every year around the globe. Check the links below for more information.

Old Diseases & Their Modern Definitions:
QUINSY or QUINCY: Severe attack of Tonsillitis resulting in abscess near the tonsils.

NHS Choices:
Quinsy, also known as a peritonsillar abscess, is a complication of tonsillitis that is left untreated.

Remedy's Health Communities in conjunction with Johns Hopkins and Cornell University:
Quinsy is usually a complication of tonsillitis, a bacterial infection of the tonsils.

1911 Courtship: The 1912 Wedding

3/16/2014

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.

1911 Courtship: Oct 30, Dear Noah

2/4/2014

c1932 - Miss Hunt at 82 yrs and Cousin Alice

This week we learn the identity of Miss Hunt, a retired teacher according to Ethel's granddaughters, who lived her remaining years with Ethel's parents. The girls showed me Miss Hunt's 1849 Bible which they'd received from their mother, Norma, a daughter of Ethel.

Although Noah & Ethel included Miss Hunt several times in their letters, they never referred to her by a Christian name, so this week's research was discovering the identity and life of Miss Hunt.

A puzzle for another time however, is the woman in this photo with Miss Hunt. The woman is also in the Nelson Family photo below and is simply identified as Cousin Alice in Ethel's handwriting, although after that someone has added Great, Great Cousin. The latter writing looks like Nelson's and probably is because he sat down with his father, Wayne Draper, and looked over the contents of Ethel's Treasure Box when he first inherited it upon his sister Norma's death.

Author of Letter: Ethel Isabell Nelson, age 21 (b 1890)
Dated:  Oct 30th. 1911
Addressed to: Mr. N.C.Draper, Great Coulee, Sask. (should be GRAND Coulee)
Mailed from: Belhaven, P.O.
Relationship:  Courting
Profession:  Farmer's Daughter
Writing instrument: Fine point pen, blue ink - Ethel starts this letter with a light colored ink, but then changes to blue. This is better quality ink than she's been using as it is dry and doesn't smear.
Written on: Off-white, textured, plain, linen-like paper, 9.5 inches x 6.5 inches, folded in half in booklet form and written as 1, 3, 2, 4 although I've set them in order here for legibility.

People/places mentioned in this letter:

- *Sadie - Ethel's 16 yr old sister
- *Christie - Ethel's 11 yr old sister
- the kids - includes Ethel's other siblings: JA (Jay) 3, Emanuel (Manuel) 6
- **Veda - 16 yr old daughter of Noah's sister, Eva and her husband, Joe Perrault
- Pa and Ma - *James H Nelson and *Ida Amelia Glover
- Margaret *Barker - Ethel's maternal aunt
- Uncle Emanuel (newspaper shows Manuel) - Ethel's paternal grand uncle

- **Miss Hunt
- Herb *Winch - neighbor whose little girl received burns from hot ashes/coals
- Orville *King - friend and neighbor who went West for harvest
- Edna *Crowder - friend and neighbor
- Jorden *Crowder (Gordon?) & Miss Little John
- Helen Munro - friend
- Desten *Sheppard - 19 yr old neighbor
- Mr. Stiles

  Places/things mentioned in this letter:
- Sutton - a few miles northeast of Belhaven
- *Toronto - within an hours drive of Belhaven
- *Brandon- where Veda is attending school

Cliche/Phrase
- 'kids' in reference to Ethel's siblings

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

Belhaven, P.O.
Oct 30th. 1911

Mr N.C. Draper.
Great Coulee,
Sask.
My Dear Noah, -
Received your letter
Friday evening and as I always
am. was much pleased to get it.
We are not going up to Sunday School
to-day. it is so awfully windy and I guess
perhaps a little on the lazy side 'eh'
I think maybe we will be able to
get ready in time for church.
Sadie & myself were in to
Mr Herb Winches for a few minutes
last night before going to choir practice
There little girl is getting along
nicely. Well Orville has reached
home at last. but hav'nt had a
talk with him yet. to know how
he likes it out West.

We had the threshermen yesterday
threshing buckwheat and cutting corn.
Sadie & Edna Crowder were to Sutton
yesterday. said they heard that I was
married and living in the West.
Helen Munro was telling them, so of
course when I heard the news. I
congratuled my self imensely.
You ask who I had tea with at the
Social. Desten Sheppard and say what
a time. Suppose you know what a
sport he is.
Good ness me! I thought fruit season
was over long ago. you people out
there must be behind times. fruit
is all gone here unless it is some
grapes and say I had some grapes the
other day that came from a friend
of Miss Hunts in California.

Pa and Ma got ready and went
to Church this morning and it
happened their was'nt any.
Edna Crowder was telling Sadie
yesterday that she thot Jorden was
engaged to a Miss Little John in toronto
She told Sadie she was'nt to tell so you
see she only told me. and so on I am
only telling you. "ha ha" I don't care
how many get married, I've got the
best of them all. Well Noah I
started this letter when the kids where
going to Sunday School and Christie
has just come in now. I have simply
just been sitting here dreaming
writing part of it down and the
rest I am dreaming over it yet I am
a great day dreamer as well as a
night dreamer. I often see you in my
dreams.

I only wish some of them were real,
Herb Winch is here, trying to bother
the kids.
Is Veda's special subject at school
Music. I like you do think that music
is some thing worth while. I often wish
that I had taken more time and so
understood music better, I guess.
I can talk enough Mr Stiles says I
use to be able to talk a wheel of a
wagon. I've never tried it yet. ha ha
Well time seems to be passing
but very slow it seems sometimes
In two more months at the least
I hope to see you, do you think I
will? Well this certainly is a funny
letter. but you can guess my mind
to-day. I am lonesome, just simple
love sick as you may call it.
Must close for this time with lots
of love and xxxx Ethel

Genealogy Notes

Genealogy Note #1 - Veda Josie Perrault Thomson

Veda Thomson

On the right is the only photograph I have of Noah's young niece, Veda Josie Perrault born 1895, who has been mentioned so many times in these Courtship Letters. First, Noah and Ethel were talking about Veda's hands and how she was being treated by x-ray for them, and now about Veda going to school in Brandon, Manitoba. Veda married Leslie Peter Thomson in 1913. This cropped photo is from the Norma Draper Personal Photo Collection and was taken in the late 1960's.

Genealogy Note #1 - Miss HuntMiss Hunt has been mentioned several times in these Courtship Letters:

1911 Courtship: May 21 Dear Ethel - Info and photo
1911 Courtship: May 14 Dear Noah - Uncle Emanuel is very sick. We are afraid he'll not recover. Miss Hunt speaks of you each time I see her.
1911 Courtship: Oct 15 Dear Noah - Uncle Emanuel & Miss Hunt were here last tuesday.
Courtship Letter Special: July 15 From Elva Mitchell - is Uncle better now. is Miss Hunt married yet.

Prior to this week's research, this was all I knew of Miss Hunt:
- the 1911 Canada Census shows Miss Hunt working as a domestic for Emanuel Nelson. Uncle Emanuel is the brother of Henry Nelson, Ethel's paternal grandfather who died in 1900 down in Iowa.
- that Miss Hunt was included in a family photo because she lived with Ethel's parents.

Back in August when I visited Norma's girls, they'd lent me Ethel and Norma's photo albums to scan. Upon my return to Grand Coulee after digitizing all the images and information, Norma's girls bestowed Miss Hunt's Bible in my care to be kept with Ethel's Treasure Box.

Miss Hunt's 1849 Bible included a marriage record and birth information for the Joseph Joshua Hunt and Emily Lundy and Family. And that's where my search for Miss Hunt began.

Hunt Family as recorded in their 1849 Bible

Joseph J. Hunt and Emily Lundy were married by
Rev'd Edmund Sheperd, August 27th 1839

Joseph Joshua Hunt Born Carlton Nottinghamshire, England
April 19th 1815
Emily Hunt Born the township of Windham, London District,
Canada West, December 31st 1818

George Lundy Hunt
Maria Jane Hunt
Margaret Ann Hunt
Ann Eliza Hunt

Whitchurch, CW. April 26th. 1841 Whitchurch, Dec'r 12th. 1842
East Gwillimbury, Jan'y 5th. 1847
East Gwillimbury, Feb'y 4th. 1849

Starting at the bottom, I added Ann Eliza Hunt's information to the ancestry.com search box and received hints for dozens of females named Ann Hunt, Annie Hunt, Eliza Hunt, Elizabeth Hunt, etc as both maiden and married names. For the location, most said York County but when I checked them, they were for the city of York - the old name for Toronto - instead of the rural areas of York County.
I tried searching for Lundy but there were dozens of hits and none were names I recognized.

My next step was to see if there were any newspaper items such as birth, wedding, and death announcements, so I pulled up the Newmarket Era and typed Lundy with the same results as above. Finally, I put Hunt into the search box although I didn't have much hope. Sure enough, hundreds of hits popped up for Hunt, Huntley, Hunter, and all other names with those letters. Included in the hits was everything I wanted to know about hunting like who was hunting, what was hunted, and when were they doing it. And back then, many if not most people hunted for their food.

Finally, I pulled up the free www.familysearch.org site. I've used this a few times before when I was stymied, but not often because it only gives a name or two and not all the records that you find on www.ancestry.com (which is where your membership fees go). However, in this case, all I needed was a name confirmation and hopefully a death date.

On the Family Search site, it's easy to get overwhelmed with lists of names, so I only typed in Ann Eliza Hunt with North Gwillimbury for the location since that's where the Nelsons lived. And then I clicked Death as my search filter.

I couldn't believe it when Eliza Anna Hunt showed up on the first page with the parents as Joshua Hunt and Emily Lundy thereby confirming I had the right person! I clicked the link to pull up the record and there it was - Ann Eliza died in North Gwillimbury on 23 Feb 1934. That date is consistent with the Nelson Family photo which was taken in 1932.

I now had a name, location, and enough vital statistics to kick the ancestry system into gear and start giving me some hints to relevant records.

I started searching the parents' census records and discovered that Miss Hunt was known as E. Annie and or just Annie and that she lived with her parents in Aurora until 1881 at which time she was 32 yrs old without an occupation listed. Here's what follows:

1881 - No further information found on mother, Emily Lundy after this census
1884 - Death of father, Joseph Joshua Hunt
1891 - No census record found for Miss Hunt
1901 - No occupation listed; Living with Uncle Horace & Aunt Kate Lundy, Aurora
1911 - Working as a Domestic for widower, Emanuel Nelson, North Gwillimbury
1913 - Emanuel dies in April and in June, Miss Hunt goes to stay with Maggie Barker

The Newmarket Era. April 4, 1913

The Newmarket Era. April 18, 1913

The Newmarket Era. June 13, 1913

1921 - Miss Hunt, 72, is living with her widowed sister, Margaret, 74, in Toronto
1932 - Miss Hunt is living with Ethel's parents, James and Ida Nelson

The Nelson Family c1932, (L to R back) Leona Thompson, Christie Nelson, James A Nelson, Emanuel Nelson and wife Vera May Horner, Cousin Alice ?, Miss Hunt, Ida Amelia Glover and James Henry Nelson; (L to R front row) Frank Thompson, Leeland Nelson, Glenna Nelson, Clifford Thompson, Benny Thompson

The above photo of the Nelson family looks like it was taken at the house Ethel grew up in just south of Belhaven on Concession 5, but around that time her father was building a new house on the Baseline, Sutton West. Since I have over a dozen photos taken on that day, I'm wondering if this was a celebration for the 'big move'. Only James and Ida moved to the new house along with Miss Hunt, and also Ethel when she visited during the winters. The house was left to JA (James A) who married Leona in Feb 1933 and raised their family there.

Feb 23, 1934 - Miss Hunt dies and the newspapers report:

Newmarket Era, 2 Mar 1934, Page 4

Newmarket Era, 2 Mar 1934, page 8

And there you have the story of Miss Hunt which will be typed up and placed in her Bible near the Family Record page for when her Bible is passed on to the next generation.

1911 Courtship Letter: Aug 6 Dear Noah

9/3/2013

Regatta Scene at the Town dock, Huntsville, Ontario, c1908. Courtesy of Muskoka Images - a project of the Huntsville Public Library and the Muskoka Parry Sound Genealogy Group

I found the address where Ethel is visiting her Uncle John and Aunt Sarah while in Huntsville and my, oh my, the above photo is what Ethel can see from the back yard, although about twice the distance away. Check the Genealogy Notes for more info.

Author of Letter: Ethel Isabell Nelson, age 21 (b 1890)
Dated: Aug 6 . 11
Addressed to: Mr. N.C.Draper, Grand Coulee, Sask - My Dearest Noah
Mailed from: Huntsville, Ont.
Relationship: Courting
Profession: Farmer's Daughter
Writing instrument: Fine point pen, black ink
Written on: Off-white, beautifully textured, linen-like paper, 9 inches x 7 inches, folded in half with a red carnation motif. This is standard early 20th century notepaper, pre-folded in booklet form. Ethel has written on the pages in booklet form numbering 1-4.

People/places mentioned in this letter:

- Aunt Sarah - *Sarah Elizabeth Glover, sister of Ethel's mother
- *Uncle John - John Thomas Winter, Sarah's husband
- Uncle *Emanuel Nelson - Ethel's Pa's paternal uncle
- *Sadie - Ethel's 16 yr old sister
- *Veda Perrault - Noah's 16 yr old niece in Grand Coulee
- Glover cousins

**Mr Bradley - Huntsville next door neighbor
**drunken men

Places/things mentioned in this letter:
Huntsville Fire Tournament
*Burk's Falls Fire Brigade (another post shows location on map)
H. Landing - Holland Landing, southwest of Belhaven

Cliches/Phrases:
- Try. & Try again, you'll succeed at last.
- put in lockup (jail)

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

To get you started, here's a photo I found in Aunt Norma's Treasure Box (see last post) of Uncle John and Aunt Sarah. Since the photo is taken at the wedding of their son Ernest, they look about 20 years older than they would in 1911. Read the names, too, because most of the front row have been mentioned in these courtship letters.

Wedding of Ernest R Winter and Lillian Dodd. Possibly early 1930's, location unknown. Courtesy of the Norma Draper Family Collection.

Huntsville, Aug 6. 11

Mr N. C. Draper.
Grand Coulee, Sask.
My Dearest Noah, -
Rec'd your letter
last week and was glad to hear
from you once again. It still found me
here at Uncle Johns having a very good
time. but am going home on Tuesday.
Aug 15th. I guess we will be busy
this next week running around &
working too. We are going on a boat
excursion on Wednesday. Had a big time

on Thursday last at the Fire Tournament.
Burk's Falls Brigade won the banner, but
Huntsville was the quickest. but they couldn't
take the banner on account of thier running
on thier own grounds. Now I wonder if I too
would'nt like for you to be here and
give me a little advice. Never mind
when we get the chance, I wonder if we
will have forgotten how to give advice. Eh
Well we have been rather lazy to-day
hav'nt been to church to-day. it has
been so dredfully hot. I wish your
busy time was over now, and that
you were on your way down here
Remember you are to come as
soon as you finish up nicely and
can get away. I don't want you

to stay away any longer than possible
It certainly is long enough as it is.
Sorry to hear you were defeated in
your base ball game. Try. & Try
again, you'll succeed at last. Aunt
Sarah is reading some comic jokes
Uncle John is coming home next Sat
to spend over Sunday. Well here I am
again, we have been out on the lawn
talking with Mr Bradley, the next door
neighbor. Mr Bradley was telling of
seeing so many young girls, (school girls
he called them) running around with
boys. It certainly is true here in town.
And say! the drunken men you see.
Some nights after we have gone to
bed you will here them going by. swearing

and yelling to the top of thier voice, and
the day of the Tournament, it was simply
awfull to see so many young men drunk.
& put in the lockup. Have saw more
drunkenmen since I came up, than I ever
seen before I believe. I hav'nt had a letter
from home this last week. but I guess they
must be all alive or I would have heard
Uncle Emmanuel was very low the last I
heard from them. I don't know whether
Sadie has passed her exams or not.
How is Veda? is she as lively as ever.
Say I have never answered her card. but
will some of thse days. Am going to stop
a couple of days on my way home at
H. Landing to see my cousins Glovers I am
to getting rather lonesome to see home once
again. I now must close for this time with
love from Ethel (xxxxxxxxxx lots of them & love)

Genealogy Notes

The Genealogy Notes this week involve the search for Uncle John and Aunt Sarah's house in Huntsville. Ethel has left clues in different letters without giving the address:

1911 Courtship: July 16 Dear Noah - Uncle John was. at the station to meet me. he had a row boat there. and so I had a good boat ride first of all...The river is just about 20 rods from their door. The boats are running all the time Sundays too.

1911 Courtship: July 23 Dear Noah - The big boats are running here everyday. The Ramona went out this afternoon. I have been down to the Wa Wa, and have been up on the Mountain.

This week Ethel mentions seeing and hearing all the drunken men walking by, which indicates she was living near the downtown core since that's usually where the dregs of society congregate due to it's normally central location.

But the clincher came when she mentioned Mr. Bradley as their next door neighbor. She's mentioned him before, but not who he was. Armed with that knowledge, I went back to the 1911 census record and searched for Mr. Bradley near John Winter's entry. And there it was - boxed in blue - right above the red box of John, Sarah, Ernest, and baby Mabel.

1911 Canada Census record for John Winter and family. Courtesy of Ancestry.ca

So now what? The profile of this page showed John Winter living on 11 Elne Street which I hadn't been able to find on a Huntsville map. But the page index also showed a Mr. Beadley vs Bradley. And then I noticed something I hadn't before... farther up the page - circled in red - is the word Elm. Not Elne, but Elm. And a few lines above that, the number 11. But that would mean all those families were living at 11 Elm St. Could that be right? Especially if they were visiting their neighbor on the lawn instead of a hallway like an apartment?

I opened Google Earth and searched for 11 Elm St, Huntsville, Ontario. The program zeroed in to a spot near downtown and near the river - across the river in fact, where I guessed Ethel was staying.

Huntsville, Ontario, Canada courtesy of Google Earth

As you can see in the above pic, it was a short boat ride from the train station on the left of the screen to the Winter house indicated with a yellow pin. Using Google Earth's red pin marker, you can see there is room for several houses in the trees at 11 Elm St. There was back then, and when I zoomed closer, there still are although the trees obscure them at ground level.

Ethel said they lived 20 rods from the river and could see all the boat traffic going by. The photo at the top of this post shows that she could see the town dock where the big boats berthed, as well as the swing bridge. It must have been exciting for her!

Huntsville Street View, courtesy of Google Earth.

Using Google Earth's Street View, we can stand on the street where the Swing Bridge begins and look toward the black arrow pointing to the location of Uncle John and Aunt Sarah. Puts it all in perspective, doesn't it.

Now about those drunken men mentioned in this letter... Huntsville had only been settled in the last quarter of the 19th century. Due to the rocky terrain however, farms were few and far between. Most people made their money by with the fledgling tourist trade or the logging industry. Huntsville was a gateway to the northern places like North Bay where the logging industry was the main industry. During the forest fire season, crews of fire fighters would be brought in to combat the blazes.

That put a lot of young, strong men in an area where they outnumbered the young single women by about 10 to 1 or more. And without a home life, the single men were spending their leisure time looking for a girl or trying to keep the one they had. Along with drinking away their loneliness - and maybe even homesickness, I'm sure a lot of fisti-cuffs erupted.

I think it's ironic that in a recent letter Ethel was worried about Noah hiring a girl to help feed his men in case he found the new girl was 'the one', when he's back on the prairies and probably spending too much time thinking about her and all those available men.

1911 Courtship: July 30 Dear Ethel

8/25/2013

Barn built by Noah Draper, 1911, Adams, Sask. From the Collection of the Norma Draper Family.

Take a look at the above photo because you are all in for a treat! Have you seen the TV commercial where the woman checks her receipt as she's leaving IKEA and shouts to her husband, "Start the car! Start the car!"

Well, that's how I felt last weekend in Grand Coulee... and if you check the Genealogy Notes after this week's letter, you'll find out why.

And the treat... a photograph of Noah with a small portion of the house he's building for Ethel behind him. (Note - Like most pioneers, Noah had to hunt for their food, so if you're squeamish, or an animal activist, you may not want to look.)

Author of Letter: Noah Clement Draper (24 yrs old)
Dated: July 30/11
Addressed to: Miss E. Nelson, My Dearest Ethel (21 yrs old)
Mailed to: Huntsville, Ont
Mailed from: Grand Coulee. Sask.
Relationship: Courting
Profession: Farmer
Writing instrument: Black ink pen which lightens as he writes, until he dips it in the ink pot.
Writing Paper: Thick, textured, linen-like 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 wide width of both pages.

People/Places mentioned in this letter:

- *Percy Draper - Noah's 28 yr old brother
- my man - *hired man
- carpenters
- well diggers
- plasters
- furnace men
- plumbers

*baseball
*Belle Plaine

Phrases/Cliches in use at the time:
- O.K.
- eh
- loading a car of oats: filling a railroad grain car
- lathing: nailing thin lath strips to the inner walls prior to plastering
- drawing sand: ?
- greenhorns
- plod along

* Look under the Categories/Labels in the right column for more on posts on the above people.
**More info under Genealogical Notes

Grand Coulee. Sask.
July 30/11.

Miss. E. Nelson,
Huntsville. Ont.
My Dearest Ethel; -
Received your letter all
O.K. and was glad you were
having a good time hope
it may last as long as time
and then some. Eh.
Well Ethel I guess you will
be wondering what I am
doing, but I wish you
were here to see and give
me a little advice once
in a while but I wish you
were here to see and give
me a little advice once
in a while but it could
not be that way. buthope
it will be soon eh.
Well. the carpenters are

here yet. they have the frame up. and two ply of board's
on also shingled and they will be here about a week yet
before it is ready for the plasters. expect to have the men
out to put in the furnace and also the plumbers
this week.
Have been loading a car of oats for Percy and
we will finish it tomorrow. I guess. then I will be
lathing and my man drawing sand. I can tell
you I will be glad when the house is finished.
The well diggers are still here. they have went
down 75' in two holes and struck stones in both
so they could not go any farther. they are down about 30'
in another. but the other holes will not cost me any
thing.
Say Ethel after our good start in base ball we
did not get the cup. Bell Plain beat us the last
game. 5 to 3. boo hoo. but out of 11 games we played we
won 8 and lost 3. not bad for greenhorns. Eh.

Well Kid in less than 5 months
you will I hope change your
name. Gee I wish it were
days. but I have a lot to
do before that time or rather
in the next 16 weeks for by
that time the rush will be
over thank goodness. say I
dont think I am much good
in a rush. or any other
time but still I manage to
plod along and intend to
keep on aploding as long
as possible. Ha. Ha. Well I
guess I will have to close
for this time so Bye Bye.
wish Icould deliver these
xxxxxx personally. write long letters
to your lover. N.C.D.

Genealogy Notes

I had to go to Moose Jaw last week, so I had phoned Sharon, grand daughter of Noah, several days ahead and asked if I could stop in Grand Coulee for a visit on my way. I told her I'd be bringing my portable scanner and asked if I could scan some photos. She said sure, and that she'd phone her sister, Patty, and see if she could join us since Patty was the family historian.

When I arrived, I was greeted by both Sharon and Patty - and a wide assortment of memorabilia and photo albums. Oh my Goodness there was lots. As Patty showed me image after image of a young Noah and Ethel and their growing family, tears sprang to my eyes. A photo of the first building Noah built on his land at Adams, near Grand Coulee was the barn pictured above. After turning the page, my gaze set on an image of the finished house. Oh, what a blessing to see the house he built for Ethel during those long months of separation filled only by the Courtship letters.

Here's a sneak preview of Noah and their house:

Noah Clement Draper after a hunting trip, standing in front of the house he built in 1911, Adams, Sask.

But as I pulled out my scanner, Patty said that I could take everything with me and scan/photocopy it all at home. Oh my Goodness!

And that's why I felt like the woman in the IKEA commercial as I drove away from Grand Coulee - I couldn't believe they'd let me borrow the hundreds of photos the albums contained. Oh my Goodness!

I think I've said 'Oh my Goodness' more times this past week than I have during my entire lifetime. And I'm not the only one who's amazed at what we're calling Norma's Treasure Box because I've seen Nelson pour over the albums with an expression of wonder on his face - sometimes because he recognizes a person or place, and others because it's the first time he's seen an image of someone - like Ethel's grandma.

It's an amazing time of discovery here at the Draper house, and I sure hope you join us on this adventure as we post photos of people mentioned in the Courtship letters.

<<Previous

1913: Spring Letter from Sadie Nelson

Genealogy Notes

1911 Courtship: The 1912 Wedding

Noah's and Ethel's 1912 Wedding Day!

1911 Courtship: Oct 30, Dear Noah

Genealogy Notes

1911 Courtship Letter: Aug 6 Dear Noah

Genealogy Notes

1911 Courtship: July 30 Dear Ethel

Genealogy Notes

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