It all
started in Ireland with one of the potato famines. Most of the peasants who worked the land in the mid eighteen hundreds "over there" were very poor. Huge families and burgeoning costs kept most people barely able to provide the necessities of life. When their single source of income, the potato harvests, failed, survival meant leaving the country.
My great, great-grandmother, Anne, was one of those survivors. She set sail
with her nine-year-old son and two young daughters, for Canada. Her husband, Tom, would stay in Ireland and work, in order to pay their passage. Fortunately, the foursome survived the
hardships of the journey and finally arrived in Mount Forest to start a new life. Anne and her family were given crown land and joined a community of similarly displaced people, who helped
each other clear the land, build homes and cement a community. It was ten years before her husband could join her.
I am still in awe of a woman who, with the help of a young boy, managed a farm and two younger children, in a strange country, with bitterly cold winters, often miles away from friends and neighbours.
But manage they did. The young
boy went on to marry and have children of his own. In total he and his wife raised fourteen children, five girls and nine
boys. One of those boys was Peter, my
grandfather. Time passed and Peter married Rose Smith, who gave birth to six
children, five boys and a girl. One of those boys was my father, Charles. His siblings also had children. In total Peter had 30 grandchildren.
No one seems
to have kept in touch with Peter’s brothers or sisters, but if any of them were
as prolific as he, the family could have populated a small town. Homesteaders
came from strong stock. They were
survivors. Last week my father turned ninety-nine. All of my cousins
are still alive and my father has an older brother, who is quite hale and
hardy. Many of my cousins went on to have three or four children. We may have to have
a reunion one day, just to have a head count.
That's my story for National Story day, albeit a little late.
The picture? My three kids - Thank you Anne.
Have a great day!!
...and what a good story it is...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Caro.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute- isn't a story fiction?
ReplyDelete