Tag: Susan Gibson

Maggie Hamilton’s Letter from Saskatoon, 1885

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In 1885, 22-year-old Maggie Hamilton (1862-1886), was living on a farm in Saskatchewan with her parents and five brothers, including Robbie, her oldest brother. They had moved to Saskatoon three years earlier from Scarborough, Ontario. That winter, she wrote to her aunt, Mrs. James Gibson – her mother’s sister, Susan (Glendinning) Gibson — describing the sights they had seen and challenges they faced as prairie pioneers. Years later, someone typed a copy of that original letter and shared it with other family members. It is treasured. 

Here is most of that letter:

Saskatoon, Feb. 21st, 1885

Dear Aunt,

How are you? We often wonder how you are getting along but never hear from you. I intended to have written to you soon again but although I did not, still was not because we had forgotten you. When we hear of anything being wrong with any of our friends in Ontario, it is then we feel we are far away.

We are living about 17 miles from the telegraph crossing so we might hear from you in a few hours. It seems a short time considering the distance we are apart. We were just about half way here when we got to St. Paul. We are about 110 or 120 miles south of Prince Albert and Battleford is about the same distance west of us. People out here do not seem to think much of traveling 18 or 20 miles. I believe people in Ontario would talk as much traveling 4 or 5 miles.

You would be surprised to see the long trains of freight carts there are on the trail sometimes. When we were coming in we met over one hundred which were said to be loaded with skins owned by Hudson’s Bay Company. The carts are mostly drawn by ponies, some by oxen. A train of 30 carts can be managed by five men. One man rides around on horseback to keep the train in order. One man was telling us last fall when he was on the trail, he met one hundred and fifty carts coming in which were loaded with flour. The two grist mills in Prince Albertwere burnt down last summer.

Hamilton family bible (private collection)

We had very dry weather here all last spring. Had no rain worth speaking of until the first of July so the grain had not time to ripen before the frost came. Old settlers say it was quite an unusual thing to have such drought as we had last summer.

We have far more snow here this winter than we had last. We have had good sleighing since the first of Nov. The lowest I have known the thermometer to be this winter was 55 degrees below zero. It is reported to have been 65 below in Moose Jaw this winter.

We expect the snow will be all gone in five or six weeks from now. Robbie was ploughing on the 3rd of April last spring. The ground was frozen so that he could not plough all day until about the middle of April.

Five men have gone down to Moose Jaw from Saskatoon this winter and have been out in some of the coldest weather. It would not be so bad if there were stopping places on the way. What would you think of sleeping out of the snow night after night for about two weeks as they have to do? The road or trail between here and Moose Jaw is good all summer ….

Robbie is just leaving for the Post Office so I must close now, hoping to hear from you soon.                                                                        

Your affectionate niece
Maggie Hamilton

My First World War Ancestors: Stobo

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In this year that marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, I would like to pay tribute to some members of my extended family who served in that horrific conflict. There may be others, but these are the ones I know about. Here is the first in a series of four articles.

Robert Edgar Stobo was a private in the 16th Battalion, Manitoba Regiment of Canadian Infantry. He signed up with the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force on Nov. 9, 1914, and died at Ypres on June 13, 1916, age 36. 

Born in 1880 in Scarborough, Ontario, Robert was doubly related to me. His father, farmer Isaac Stobo, was the nephew of my two-times great-grandmother Elizabeth (Stobo) Hamilton; his mother, Jane (Glendenning) Stobo, was the sister of my great-grandmother Isabella (Glendenning) Hamilton.

The first members of the Stobo family immigrated to Scarborough from Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1824, and they prospered as timber merchants and farmers. By Robert’s generation, the young men were beginning to move west. Robert was listed as a boarder in Kamloops, B.C., in the 1911 Census of Canada, and when he enlisted, he gave his occupation as stationary engineer. 

Robert’s cousin Isaac Albert Stobo also died in the war. Born in 1883, he was the son of Margaret (Secor) Stobo and Robert Hamilton Stobo. Isaac was a farmer, unmarried, living in Edmonton, Alberta when he signed up in June, 1916. A private with the 49th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, he also died at Ypres, on Oct. 30, 1917, age 34. 

Robert’s younger brother Isaac Archibald Stobo was an electrician living in Toronto when he signed up in September, 1914. He served with the 9th Battery and survived the war, returning to Canada in May, 1919, but he may have continued to suffer from his experiences. Census and voting records show he never married, but lived with his sister Frances for many years and worked as a caretaker. He died in 1948, age 63.

In late summer or early autumn, 1915, Susan Glendenning Gibson wrote to John Stobo Hamilton, passing along snippets of news from the front:

“… Isaac Stobo…seems to be in good spirits. He says he gets plenty to eat and plenty of clothing. He came through the battle of Langemark without being injured. He is in Belgium now. He says very little about the war as his letters are all censored. He gives a good description of the country and there old fashioned ways of working. It seems the women do the most of the Agriculture work. Edgar was in France when he wrote last. Isaac had not seen since he left his home in Scarboro. When he had a few spare days he went to the trenches and found him.  He had seen some hard fighting, He was well. We expect word from him before long again.

Jane is well but feeling very anxious, there has been so many of our young Canadian men killed in action. She does not know what hour a message of bad news will come but we hope to see them home again. Isaac always speaks of when he comes home. …”

Robert Edgar Stobo and Isaac Albert Stobo were buried in Belgium. Robert’s name is also on the monument that marks his parents’ grave at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Scarborough.

Research notes:

I found the attestation papers, or enlistment records, of members of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/canadian-expeditionary-force.aspx. The first page indicates the name, date of birth, address, occupation and next of kin and the second page includes a brief physical description of the individual. LAC has begun to digitize all Canadian Expeditionary Force personnel files. The service files of some 650,000 Canadian soldiers of the First World War should be available for free download by the end of 2015. Until they are available digitally, you can order them by mail, but I did not do that.

If your ancestor died in either the First or Second World War, go to www.cwgc.org, the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This organization cares for cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 153 countries and looks after the graves and memorials of almost 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two world wars. These include the graves of more than 935,000 identified casualties and almost 212,000 unidentified individuals. The names of almost 760,000 people can be found on memorials to the missing. You can search for your ancestor’s record on this website.

There is additional information on the database of Canadian Commonwealth War Graves Registers, First World War, at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/mass-digitized-archives/commonwealth-war-graves-registers/Pages/commonwealth-war-graves-registers.aspx