Category: Postcard

1913: Postcard with RPO stamp

11/16/2014

Nov 1913, C.N.R. Bridge, Prince Albert, Sask, post card

The RPPC above is the front of a postcard Noah sent back to Ethel in November 1913. See the Genealogy Notes below for information on Noah's embossing imprint, as well as the special RPO marked stamp.

Author of Postcard: Noah Clement Draper (26 yrs old)
Dated: Nov 14, 1913
Addressed to: Mrs. N. C. Draper, Grand Coulee, Sask.
Mailed from: Prince Albert (Sask)
Relationship: spouse
Profession: Farmer
Writing instrument: Black ink
Stamp: 1 cent Canada postmarked Regina & Prince Albert RPO

People/places/things mentioned in this letter:

- Mrs. N. C. Draper - Ethel Nelson Draper
- baby - Mildred Audrey (Midge) Draper born Sep 17, 1913
- Jack - unknown at this time

- Prince Albert, Sask - 405 km/252 miles north of Grand Coulee

*Cliche/Phrasing:
O.K.

* 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
** see Genealogy Notes below

Prince Albert
Nov. 14

Well we have got this
far all O.K. Met Jack
on the street this
morning he said
there is lots of game
up there so guess we
wont have to go home
with out any. there
is not much snow
here yet. Well Bye Bye.
Love to baby & you. N.C.D.

Mrs. N. C. Draper,
Grand Coulee,
Sask.

Genealogy Notes

Railway Post Office

We don't know how long Noah was gone on this particular hunting trip, but since it's November in Saskatchewan and he's talking about game, he would probably be after moose or White-tailed deer. The following map shows the most-travelled route a person of today would drive the 405 km/252 miles to get from Grand Coulee to Prince Albert.

This is an interactive map when clicked on the bottom to enlarge.

Noah's postcard has a 1 cent King George postage stamp and a cancellation stamp from the Regina & Prince Albert RPO, except I can't make out all the markings.

RPO stands for Railway Post Office - mobile post offices based on trains which enabled speedy delivery of mail until the 1960's. The trains didn't stop at each community on the line to pick up mail as it would have slowed them down. Instead, they left the mail bag hanging on a special post. As the train approached the hanging mail bag, the postal clerk would kick the sorted mail bag out the open door, while a long pole with a crook at the end snagged the new mail bag as the train zoomed past. This is shown in the video below...

Click to set custom HTML

Inside the mail car, the railway postal office looked like the sorting room in any urban centre. The following photograph shows three clerks in a Canadian Pacific Railway post office.

ca 1885-1900, Interior view of three railway of clerks aboard a Canadian railway post office. Courtesy of Collections Canada.

The following photo shows the restored railway post office of a Great Northern Railway mail car. The top boxes are open and the railway clerk would toss letters into them and then when they got to the location, they'd slide the door up like the ones on the left side and slide the letters into a mail bag.

An interior view of Great Northern Railway #42, a restored RPO on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Following is an article from the July 1919 issue of Popular Science.

Popular Science, July 1919

If you have any information about the Regina & Prince Albert RPO or the markings on this cancellation stamp, please leave a comment below or contact me.

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June 1912: Regina's F4 Cyclone

5/18/2014

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Front page of the pamphlet which contains information and pictures of the cyclone-tornado that hit Regina at 5 pm on June 30th, 1912.

1912 RPPC by Noah Draper showing Ethel Nelson Draper and their horses, Adams, Saskatchewan. Courtesy of the Norma Draper Family Photograph Collection.

Remember this Real Photo Post Card (RPPC) from last week? Ethel must have written it on June 30, 1912 because of what she wrote on the back...

Ethel wrote to her 11 yr old sister, Christie, on the back of the above RPPC except I don't believe she actually mailed it due to the lack of a stamp and the fact that it was still in Ethel's possession. I've found other notes and letters in her Treasure Box written in draft form which implies that she wrote a practice one first, and then mailed a second one. Or, she could have kept it as a souvenir because of the date and information.

I've posted the same backing in two directions so you can read it for yourself, but here's what Ethel wrote to Christie:

Christie why don't you
write anymore. Will
you see what Annie
Owens & Olive Lee's addresses
are. I think they are on one
of those post cards hanging
on the wall, Noah and I are going to

Miss Christie Nelson

Belhaven,

Ontario

Regina to-morrow. also Eva
& Joe. Louie & Fred & Mrs Draper,
going to see the ruins. I guess
it is something fierce. the main
part of the town is all wiped out
Carried a loaded street car 40 rods.
Bye-Bye. Love from sister Ethel.

The Cyclone

On June 30, 1912 Canada was making final preparations the next day's Dominion Day celebrations and Regina was no exception. At 5 pm after a day of extreme heat, a combination of a cyclone and tornado due to two storm clouds colliding, hit the ground 18 km (12 mls) south of the city and cut a swath 400 yds (2-3 blocks) wide heading north through grain elevators, business and warehouse districts, and manufacturing plants, with the worst of the damage downtown and in the affluent residential area between Wascana and Victoria Parks.

The Morning Leader - Jul 1, 1912, Page 2

It was over in 20 mins leaving 28 people dead or dying, hundreds seriously injured, 2500 homeless, and over 400 of the finest buildings in the city - some the finest in the province - destroyed or missing. Total cost in 1912 - over 5 million dollars.

For sure Noah and Ethel and the family went to Regina to see the aftermath of the cyclone because Noah took this RPPC of the YWCA:

YWCA ruins on 1900 block of Lorne St. 1912 Regina Cyclone. Photo by Noah Draper

The thought occurs to me as I look at these photos is that Noah, Ethel, Louie, Fred, Joe, Eva, and Sarah Draper could be some of the people walking around looking at the ruins, but from the distance, I can't tell.

Some of the photograph captions mention that being taken atop a building and I can only assume that's what the man on the roof of the YWCA above is doing.

Here's another view - a lighter one - of the YWCA and surrounding buildings at the corner of Victoria and Lorne.

1912 Regina Cyclone - Corner of Victoria Ave and Lorne St., Ruins of the Metropolitan Methodist Church on the left, and then the YWCA , Courtesy of Glenbow Archives.

The Metropolitan Methodist Church was constructed in 1910 at a cost of $100,000 only 1 1/2 yrs before the 1912 cyclone. Here's what it look like before June 30th.

ca 1910 Methodist church, Regina, Sask., The Valentine & Son's Publishing Co., Ltd.

These were brick and stone buildings!

Here's a different view of Lorne St as we look north toward the railway tracks and beyond to the warehouse district. Note the Knox Presbyterian Church down the street on the right.

1911 - Corner of Lorne Street and Victoria Avenue - Victoria Park on the right, Metropolitan Methodist Church on the left, and Knox Presbyterian Church down the street. Courtesy of City of Regina Archives Photograph Collection.

Before the 1912 Regina Cyclone: Knox Presbyterian Church at the corner of Lorne and 12th, and the YMCA at the Cornwall and 12th. Taken from Victoria Park. Courtesy of the Prairie History Room at the Regina Public Library.

Here's the Knox Presbyterian Church after the cyclone left it in ruins.

1912 Cyclone Ruins - Knox Presbyterian Church, Lorne Street and 12th Avenue. Courtesy of City of Regina Archives.

After 1912 Regina Cyclone - YMCA at the corner of Cornwall and 12th. Courtesy of City of Regina Archives.

Downtown Regina after the 1912 cyclone. Far left: Scarth Street looking north from 11 th Avenue. Courtesy City of Regina Archives.

After the 1912 Regina cyclone on warehouse district. Dewdney Avenue between Cornwall and Scarth Streets with Regina Cartage in foreground to right. Looking north.

Damage caused by 1912 Regina cyclone in warehouse district - looking south toward tracks and across to downtown Regina. Courtesy of City of Regina Archives.

According to REGINA: The Early Years...

Regina 's residents were left to pick up the pieces of their broken city. The dead were buried, the injured were treated, and the rubble was hauled away. An apocryphal story says that Boris Karloff, best known as Frankenstein's Monster of movie fame, was acting in a play at one of Regina 's theatres that day. Karloff supposedly stayed in Regina and helped with the cleanup operation.

It took only a year for most of the city's buildings and houses to be rebuilt. Carpenters and other tradesmen came from as far away as Winnipeg to help with the massive rebuilding efforts. The debt stayed behind considerably longer – it took almost 40 years to pay off the loans that the city and its residents took out to aid in the rebuilding efforts.

Links to more information and photographs on the 1912 Regina cyclone:

Regina the Early Years: Cyclone of 1912
The Regina Cyclone of 1912 (Saskatchewan Archives Board)
MAP: Path of death left behind by Regina cyclone of 1912
Path of the tornado superimposed upon a map of Regina
A Window into the Regina Tornado of 1912 (Regina Plains Virtual Museum)
Regina remembers tornado on June 30, 2012

Downtown Regina Historic Map guide - City of Regina

The Morning Leader - Jul 1, 1912
The Morning Leader - Jul 2, 1912
The Morning Leader - Jul 3, 1912
The Morning Leader - Jul 4, 1912

Twitter Simulation: Tweeting the 1912 Regina Tornado

The Morning Leader - Jul 3, 1912, Page 1

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1912: Letter Fm Hester Soules Prosser

5/11/2014

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1912 RPPC Ethel Draper with horses, Adams, SK. Photo by Noah Draper from Noah & Ethel's 1912-1924 Photo Album. Courtesy of the Norma Draper Family Photograph Collection

Ethel is now in Adams, Saskatchewan and enjoying her life as a newlywed. How do I know? Because this week's post contains a letter from Hester Prosser - close neighbor and friend of Ethel back in Belhaven - and Hester mentions what Ethel wrote her.

In the above RPPC, it looks like the object on the near right is the CNR track laying machine from last week's post.

Author of Letter: Hester Prosser (nee Soules, wife of Walker Prosser)
Dated: Mar 21st, 1912
Addressed to: My Dear Friend Ethel
Mailed from: Belhaven (Ontario)
Relationship: Close friend and neighbor
Profession: Farmer's wife
Writing instrument: Black ink
Written on: Linen-like cream-colored folded notepaper. Hester hasn't numbered the pages but if she had they would read 1, 2, 3, 4 in booklet form

People/places mentioned in this letter:

- *Noah Draper, age 23 (Newlywed, moved west in 1905)
- *Ethel Nelson, age 21 (Newlywed, moved west Feb 1912)
- *Christie - Ethel's 11 yr old sister
- *Sadie/Sadye - Ethel's 16 yr old sister
- *Ethel & *Will Rigler - Noah's sister and her husband, living near Noah & Ethel

- **Mr. Brooks & Martha - we find them in Regina later on
- Annie *King & Mr. King - neighbor
- Mr S. *Winch - Stephen Winch? - neighbor
- Lulu ?
- Mr Dave *Sprague's - neighbor
- Mary *Sheppard, John *Sheppard - neighbor
- *Breuls boys, Whetford & Mr. Breuls - neighbors
- Herbert *Winch, Erwin *Winch, Adele *Winch - neighbors
- **Prof. Dales & Lowell - ministers (mystery solved)
- Mr. Frank *Morton's - neighbor
- Blanche B ?
- Alma & Johnnie - probably elementary school-aged children
- Alice - Hester Soules & Walker Prosser's only daughter, Alice Alma (1896-1901) died at 6 yrs old from diphtheria
- Isaac Prosser (1846-1912) died 24 hrs after apoplexy attack (stroke)

Places/things mentioned in this letter or in the Genealogy Notes:
- *Toronto
- Owen Sound - 170 km/106 ml fm Keswick on the southern shore of Georgian Bay
- Paisley - 55 km/34ml south of Owen Sound
- The West - Canadian prairie provinces of Man, Sask and Alberta
- Newmarket Era - local newspaper
- the car - the streetcar

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 Mar 21st 1912

My Dear Friend Ethel
Your very welcome
letter was duly received and read
with a great deal of interest. Am
so glad to hear you like your
new house, and that the climate
agrees with you. so far, I presume
it is pretty well settled, Where you
are. So nice to be near Ethel Rigler.
I would like that part of it myself.
She was my neighbor here for a short time
and I was sorry indeed to lose her. I
liked both her and Will, give them
my kindest regards. When you see
them next. Mr Brooks called in
for a while yesterday. Martha is at
home this week, but expects to start
for the West next week. She and a

sister-in-law, their husbands went
a couple of weeks ago. I think you are
wise to subscribe for the Newmarket Era
am sure it would be an interesting
letter to me, if I were to move away
there is so much home news in it.
Say, Ethel. We had the worst storm
last Friday that I ever witnessed, all
day long, and half the night. the roads
were in a terrible state, and the scholars
from High School, will not be apt to
forget it very soon, they had such
an experience getting home. & some did
not reach home. Annie King stayed at
Mr. S. Winch's all night, and Lulu stayed
at Mr Dave Sprague's. Mr King started
to go for Annie, but only got as far
as your place, the road was full.
We heard the sleigh pass here about

nine o'clock, with Mary Sheppard and
the Breuls boys. Whetford & Mr Breuls
had went after them, each put in a horse
the car was late getting in, and then the
horses tired out, or got discouraged, several
times, the men had to go ahead, and
tramp roads. Herbert Winch & his family
(they had been to the city.)
were all in the sleigh, and Erwin Winch
so it was heavily loaded, twelve altogether,
but Saturday morning the road breaking
commenced. Our Choir was invited to
Mr John Sheppard's that night, and
bad as the roads were, there was eleven
young people there for practise. We
had a very pleasant evening. Lowell
preached on Sunday, his last two
sermons have been the best he has
ever preached, he is a fine boy
just what he seems to be. We are
expecting Prof. Dales for the next two

Sundays. the Choir spent a pleasant
evening at Your Father's two weeks ago
(We are invited to Mr. Frank Morton's this week.)
and I got Sadie to come home with us
we spent the next day together, it was
a busy one too. We went to Isaac Prossers
funeral in the morning. S.S. in the afternoon
and Belhaven service in the evening.
hope to have her again if she will
come. Adele came home with us last Sunday
from S.S. She & her Father have gone away
to spend a couple of weeks, they started out
Monday. will visit in Toronto, Owen Sound, &
Paisley, his two brothers live in the two
places & his sister in Toronto. Adele deserving
the trip. She is a good worker. Christie sang
(she did fine)
a pretty solo in S.S. last Sunday. Blanche B.
is to sing one next Sunday. Alma & Johnnie
sang one two weeks ago. I love the pieces from
the little ones, it reminds me so much of Alice
Glad to hear you are attending Presbyterian Church.
How much we miss you here, but our loss is Noah's
gain. God bless you both in your far away home.
Your Sincere friend,
H. Prosser
Write again

Genealogy Notes

Genealogy Note 1 - Mr Brooks and Martha

At the bottom of page 1, Hester mentions Mr. Brooks and his daughter Martha:

Mr Brooks called in for a while yesterday. Martha is at
home this week, but expects to start for the West next week. She and a sister-in-law, their husbands went
a couple of weeks ago.

And here's what the local newspaper had to say about the wedding:

The Newmarket Era. March 8, 1912 - Page: 2

The Newmarket Era. March 8, 1912 - Page: 6

Genealogy Note 2 - The Great Storm

Hester relates about kids unable to get from school due to the snowstorm that descended upon them that March. Here's what the newspaper said about it:

The Newmarket Era. March 22, 1912 - Page: 7

The Newmarket Era. March 22, 1912 - Page: 1

The Newmarket Era. March 22, 1912 - Page: 6

Genealogy Notes 3 - Prof. Dales & Lowell

Prof Dales has been mentioned as a minister several times over the course of the 1911 Courtship letters, and the closest I've came to his identity was that he came from the Toronto area.

And now in this week's letter, Hester Prosser mentions:

Lowell preached on Sunday, his last two sermons have been the best he has ever preached, he is a fine boy just what he seems to be. We are
expecting Prof. Dales for the next two Sundays.

From Hester's words, I wondered if Lowell might be a son of Prof Dales and following in the old man's footsteps. A quick search on Ancestry.ca for Lowell Dales brought up this 1911 census listing:

In 1911 Professor John Nelson Dales, and his family, including 20 yr old Lowell, were living in Drayton, Ontario. A few columns to the right on this census shows Prof Dales as a minister and Lowell as a student. Although we don't know what or where Lowell was studying, I'm presuming it was theology like his dad.

Stay tuned for next week when we find out about the 1912 Regina cyclone which Ethel mentions on the back of the RPPC shown at the top of this post.

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Feb 1912: Noah's Cousin, Edith Draper

4/13/2014

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1911 Togo, Saskatchewan, Canada. Courtesty of UofA Prairie Postcards Collection

Noah and Ethel are about to head West, but there was one event they would have attended before they left, and that was the wedding of Noah's cousin, Edith Draper, to Frank Kavanagh.

While blogging about Noah and Ethel's Courtship letters I couldn't help but notice how concerned Noah was about Edith and her siblings, his 1st cousins, the children of Stephen Draper and Martha Barnhart. If you recall, Stephen was the brother of Noah's father, David, and their 2 farms pretty much backed up to each other when Noah's family lived in North Gwillimbury.

In other posts I've detailed the lives of Stewart and George. Edith meanwhile was mentioned in these 1911 Courtship Letters:

Mar 5, Dear Noah - explains the spelling of Edith/Edythe
May 7 Dear Ethel - 1906 image of combined Draper family incl'g Frank
Aug 28 Dear Ethel - George Draper and his history
Sep 10 Dear Noah - Edith asks if she can go west with Ethel
Oct 15 Dear Noah - mentions that Edith will be married

As for the events leading up to Edith Draper marrying Frank Kavanagh, I found this humorous newspaper snippet:

The Newmarket Era. December 13, 1907

Miss Edyth Draper returned from
the West a few weeks ago. She says
it is too cold there for her.

I laughed when I saw that, knowing she would eventually marry and move to the West. I figured she must love Frank very much and heartened at the thought of her deep love. But then I read the next snippet and realized Frank didn't head west until 1908.

The Newmarket Era. May 15, 1908

The image at the top of this post shows what Togo, Sask looked liked in 1911.

So if Frank wasn't out West in 1907, who did 22 yr old Edith go to visit? Noah has mentioned Edith's brother, Stewart Draper, many times in the Courtship letters, and Stewart and Bertha's daughter, Norma, submitted a very detailed write-up on her family in the local history book, From Basket to Bridge - White Bear, Kyle, Matador in which she wrote that her father, Stewart Truman Draper, rented land from Eli Williamson, east of Indian Head, in 1907 prior to homesteading in the White Bear area.

Since Noah's family was already in Grand Coulee by that time, I'm guessing Edith visited her brother, Stewart, and Noah's family - her Uncle David and Aunt Sarah.

So we know that Edith was a spinster, a farmer's daughter, and that she doesn't like the West because it's too cold. And although we don't know for sure that Frank and Edith are courting, there must have been a good reason for him to be included in this 1906 family photo.

While Edith stayed in her Keswick, North Gwillimbury Township home, we can read a series of news snippets showing Frank's trips back to his family in Queensville, East Gwillimbury Township. It seems he still calls Queensville home and from the looks of these snippets, he made more trips than I could find in the Newmarket Era:

The Newmarket Era. December 24, 1909

The Newmarket Era. June 17, 1910

The Newmarket Era. September 30, 1910

Mr. W. H. Kavanagh mentioned in the middle snippet is Frank's father, William Harvey Kavanagh, b 1857, living in Queensville with an occupation as a butcher and auctioneer.

That got me wondering what Frank's occupation was way out there in Togo, Sask, so I started researching the records.

1887 Birth Record for James Franklin Kavanagh, East Gwillimbury Twp
1912 Marriage Record doesn't state an occupation
1921 Canada census states Frank is a butcher

But where was he in the 1911 census? Not only that, but Noah and Ethel refer to Frank as living in Winnipeg. Even his marriage record states he's from Winnipeg. But Winnipeg was a big city even back then and I didn't have time to browse dozens? hundreds? of pages of census records. And where did Togo fit in all this?

I spent hours searching for anything I could find about Togo and located it on a map north of the Transcontinental Railway line, just kissing the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border:

Google Map showing approximate route from Keswick, Ontario, to Winnipeg, Manitoba on the Transcontinental Railroad. From there, a person would have to take a secondary train to get to Togo, Saskatchewan.

As you can see from the map, Togo is a very long way from Keswick. I stopped researching and started cropping the snippets. But as I cropped the snippet for Frank's first trip west in 1908, I had an idea. It says Frank and Walter Kaiser went to Togo together. Could I find Walter Kaiser in the 1911 census, and if I did, would Frank still be with him? After all, 3 years had passed. I pulled up the search box and typed in Frank Kaiser. The only other info I had for him was the locations of Ontario and Togo.

Bingo! The first name that came up was a Walter Kaiser living in Togo, Sask. I pulled up the census and guess what... he was single, a lodger, and a butcher. And yep, right above him was the messy scribbled name of Frank Kavanagh. Why hadn't Frank come up in all the searches? Look for yourself:

Part of the 1911 Canada census for Togo, Saskatchewan (click to enlarge)

The top blue arrow is pointing to the messy scribbled name of Frank Kavanagh, Male, lodger, single, born Apr 1887, 26 yrs old, born in Ontario. The blue arrow in the bottom Index points to Frenk Kewenigh which is what the transcriber saw when he/she looked at Frank's name, scribbled by the census taker.

We know the wedding is coming soon because of this following snippet:

The Newmarket Era. January 5, 1912

Lila is Frank's 17-yr-old sister and my belief is that the week she spent with Edith was a planning session for Edith's wedding. Although the post-wedding news article doesn't come right out and say that Lila is Edith's bridesmaid, it does state:

"...Miss Lila Kavanaugh sister of the groom, looked charming in shell pink satin with lace and gold fringe, and carried pink roses. The groom was assisted by Mr. J. C Purdy of Keswick..."

Here's the article about the Edith Draper & Frank Kavanagh wedding. Note that the article starts by misspelling Kavanagh with an 'u' and ends without it, as it should be spelled.

The Newmarket Era. February 2, 1912

Since the wedding took place at Edith's home in Keswick, the reception took place about 8.5 miles away at the home of Frank's family in Queensville, East Gwillimbury Township.

Listed under KESWICK in The Newmarket Era. February 2, 1912

So Edith has married Frank Kavanagh who was living in Togo until the census was taken a few months prior to their marriage. The snippet says they're heading back to Frank's home in Winnipeg, yet I couldn't find them in Henderson's Winnipeg City Directory for 1911, 1912, or 1915.

The Newmarket Era. November 27, 1914

However, I found this snippet which places them in Manitoba in 1914. Winnipeg is in Manitoba, but not Togo which is just a spit away inside the Saskatchewan border.
But where in Manitoba?

Again, we end a post with more questions. Feel free to jump in if you know the answers.

And now that Edith is married to Frank, there isn't anything to report on that would hold Noah and Ethel in Ontario. The next post then will be Noah guiding Ethel on her first trip to the West, and to her new home on the prairies at Adams, Saskatchewan.

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1912: Jan 14 Letter fm Eva Perrault

3/31/2014

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1913 - Winter in Pense, Sask. Courtesy of University of Saskatchewan Libraries Special Collections

The postcard above shows the grain elevators of Pense, Saskatchewan - the community to the immediate west of Grand Coulee. However, in 1905, it could have been taken of any town on the Canadian prairies depending on the amount of farmers in the area which would have influenced the number of grain elevators.

Author of Letter: Eva Amelia Draper Perrault b 1876, North Gwillimbury, Ont
Dated: Jan 14, 1912
Addressed to: Dear Brother
Mailed from: Grand Coulee (Saskatchewan)
Relationship: Oldest Sister of Noah Draper
Profession: Farmer's wife
Writing instrument: Black ink
Written on: Linen-like cream-colored folded notepaper. Eva hasn't numbered the pages, but if she had, they would read 1, 3, 2, 4 with the third page turned sideways much like her daughter Veda did last week.

*Last week's letter shows the history of Eva and Joe until these letters of Jan 1912.

People/places mentioned in this letter:

- *Noah Draper, age 23 (b 1887, North Gwillimbury, York, Ontario)
- *Ethel Nelson, age 21 (b 1890, North Gwillimbury, York, Ontario)
- **Louie & *Fred - Noah's sister Louie (Sarah Louisa) and her husband, Fred Coventry
- Mrs Coventry - Fred's mother, Eliza Grogan Stevenson, lives south of Grand Coulee
- **Veda - Eva's 16 yr old daughter who is studying at Brandon College
- Mother - *Sarah Sophia Deverell Draper
- *Joe Perrault - husband of Eva (author of this letter)
- **Uncle Frank's - Frank Matt married Joe's sister, "Nettie" Josephine Jeanette
- *Edyth Draper - Noah's 1st cousin (their fathers, Stephen and David, are brothers)

**Mr. Wright - A.D. Wright -store owner in Grand Coulee who is selling out
Sample - new store owner in Grand Coulee

Places/things mentioned in this letter or in the Genealogy Notes:
Pense - shown in top postcard

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

Grand Coulee Jan th
14
1912

Mr N. C. Draper
Belhaven. Ont.
Dear Brother ---
I dont know
weather you think you have
wrote me or not But I did
not count a postcard, a letter
However it may be as well
not to wait for a letter as
I might not write at all if
I did. Well Noah how are
you and Mother getting

along? and does mother keep
well. It is very cold here
since the 20 of Dec. What
is the weather like down
there? it is any place from
20 to 56 below zero since
Christmas. Louie and Fred
was here to day Louies eyes
are much better again.
Mr Wright has sold out
to a man by the name
of Sample and they are
selling out the old stock
now. You aught to be here

So you could get some thing cheap
in Grand Coulee Mrs Coventry got a pair
of boots for 25 cents and it might be
a good time to lay in a suply I told
Veda I thought I had better go over
and get her suplyed for the summer.
Veda was home for 12 days She likes
it fine down there now and is looking
forward to your return home. Well
Noah have you got that little business
setteled up yet. people are asking

and we just have to tell
them we dont know. However
Noah we wish you all happyness
and a prosperous married life
when the time comes. I have
not heard from Ethel just
lately but they were all well
the last we heard. How are
Uncle Franks and all
the rest down there? Is Edyth
Draper married yet? Write
me a good longletter and
tell me all the news.
From your Loving Sister Eva.

Genealogy Notes

Genealogy Notes # 1 - Veda's Opinion of College

I think it's quite hilarious that Eva would say about Veda, "She likes it fine down there now..."

Wasn't it just last week that Veda wrote a very different view of being back in Brandon College? Read Veda's letter here.

The amazing part is that both mother and daughter wrote the letters within days of each other and here it is - 102 yrs later - and we have both of them. :)

Genealogy Notes # 2 - Louie's Eyes

This is the first time Louie's eye problems have been mentioned in these letters. A search of the local Newmarket Era found these snippets with the dates of 1897-98. Louie was born in March 1879, so she would have been 18 yrs old when she had her operation, and since Eva's letter is dated 1912, Louie at 32 seems to still be having problems.

Genealogy Notes # 3 - Uncle Frank's

Uncle Frank's is the family of Frank Matt and Josephine Jeanette Perrault (Joe's sister). This family is special to me because of Melissa Matt, the Cultural Services Representative of the Georgina Pioneer Village and Archives.

I first heard of Melissa when she emailed me through my website's Contact page about a pleasant surprise...she enjoyed reading my Author Memories blog and thought it might be of interest to people who were interested in the local history of Georgina, and what used to be called North Gwillimbury.

As an aside, she mentioned that we might be related because Jeanette Josephine Perrault was her great-grandmother. And she's right. The connection is the marriage of Jeanette's brother, Joe, to Eva Amelia Draper.

Genealogy Notes # 4 - Grand Coulee store

I spent several hours researching Mr. Wright, Mr. Sample, and the Grand Coulee store, but the only written information I could find is a local history book published in 1955 for Saskatchewan's Golden Jubilee - its 50th anniversary as a province. This soft-covered book is held at the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society (SGS) but you must be a member to view it. And from extensive research, if anyone else has a copy, they're keeping it well hidden - as are anyone with other information and images of the village and surrounding area.

According to Grand Coulee A Social History, A.D. Wright was the owner of a general store in the early days of the village until his store burned down. But it doesn't say when it burned down or how Sample plays into it. Did the store burn down before any papers were signed, or right after but no one remembers the new owner, etc.

Book: Grand Coulee A Social History, 1955

If anyone knows
where there is a copy
of this book for sale,
please Contact me.

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