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Clinton News-Record, 1985-07-10, Page 1290' iife as • fiVSandraorr anderiCh Tolnaliip Is celebrating its 150th birthday andfar p...104 history Project 1 'have .been reSearrhthg any faluilY tree for the seSqUireatenntalyear. It gave me a chance to look intOlnaterlal that has been sitting in forgotten drawers, to search through assessment rolls to find the number of acres already cleared, the, number of work horses, cattle and sheep „that were owned; the number of carriage ' horses which for my family at one. point in time was seven, in the 1880's when the new settlement was established and affluent. I gleaned information from early local papers such as the Clinton New Era, and I learned that my great -great-grandfather, "C.G.", Charles Middleton, the earliest member of our family to settle in this area, was fatally injured in a fall from his buggy when his horse reared and bolted. His horse was startled by the leather flaps on someone else's buggy snapping in the wind. He received a head injury in the fall. The local paper reported his progress, one day a little better, another day, a little worse, until finally he died. Until I learned this fact in my research, my great -great-grandfather, C.G., was just a well-worn engraved name on an aging 1 limestone tombstone, a faded name in gold lettering on the black funeral card used in the 1880s. No written record remains of my earliest , forebears in this country, no receipts, no letters, no names written in a family Bible. There are no pictures of the earliest settlers in their youth. Later, they had porcelain portraits done. The portraits are beautiful but so stylized that now you see the facial expressions of their descendents and now you don't. The expressions I see are mostly what I perceive, what I read into them. The porcelain portraits are displayed on the wall, with other photographs, old and new, reproductions of 100 -year-old pictures and glossy new prints of the latest family, wedding. But there was a time, 40 to -50 years ago, when old pictures were not as treasured' as they are today. Who wants to look at those old things? The out-of-date thinga, were kept in an at- tic in boxes or in a barn and all too' oft n these -keepsakes were Subject to the rave es of water, eaten by mice and rats, or an- nihilation by fire. Often family memorabilia were wiped out by fire. This was the case in my family when. objects 'stored 'in a barn were lost when the barnburned down. As times, old pictures survived, without names recorded on the back and not even a 93 -year-old can remember thefaces in a 1894 school picture. But oral tradition survives. The stories are repeated so often they are now cant, so that each generation uses the same expres- sions, so that they are recognizable as the childhood story repeated when we have ask- ed our grandparents for a story about the past, when • we have tried to- think more clearly about the past, to imagine what Wogs were like that we can't really ar- Ovulate. One story I remember is about the first cabin. "We think the first house was across the road on that knoll because of the bits of blue China we ploughed up last spring." Or the story of the first days of settlement, that my great -great-grandfather C.G.. "walked the Huron Tract end chose thissite." This lack of evidence makes one wish there was more. As if the little bit there is .could give a clue to their personality. Were people so different 100 years ago? Today, we socialize in a different wpy, wear dif- ferent clothes, travel in a different mode; but do we really feel different? Do we value UTftTW It's funny what is remembered about a person when they -are dead..What~a person rememhers about a relative when they were children is ',emoted, now to their grand,' children. What makes an Impression on a child becomes a story when that child is 80 years old but with -an aroma of a child's point of view. The old person does not put the story in perspective, but retells if from the child's metnory- What will your' descendents be telling about you? What will they be saying about me? Just to be sure, I will write out -Something for them to repeat. I have always liked old people and I wonder if they realize how they are missed by the younger generation. When I thirik about my late grandparents I wish I had heard more stories, but who had the time? To be more This 20 -year-old girl from a city in England spent 15 years alone in the bush in a shanty, giving birth every one to two years. different things? When I see that stern face on a painted portrait, I wonder what they were like. Ten years ago they were nameless faces, unidentified ancestors. The pictures of my ancestors were left in a drawer. I looked through them and telephoned Other members of the family to see if they had pictures of great- grandparents and great -great-grandparents for, you see, I am a fifth -generation Cana- dian. Fifth generation Canadian. I remember as a child trying to get this figured out, try- ing to keep straight the names of those who came before, remembering and getting the spelling correct of the earliest relative to settle in this area in 1834 and farm in this region of Southwestern Ontario. This is something I didn't really master until the history. project - there were so many names and it was all solong ago. I have found hand-written journals that were written between the years 1863 and 1872. These journals mentioned from time to time my ancestors by name, in particular, the Wedding of my great-grandfather, in a double ceremony with his sister's wedding on a beautiful day in September. There were also references to tea and family dinners in the last century and pic,nics on the beach when the men wore their suits and straw hats and the girls their frilly dresses, white stockings, and bows in their hair. And Uncle George, the fussy one, always complained about sand in the food and spoiled everyone else's fun. "He was always so particular about everything." Have a great time at our Sesquicentennial! Distributors of CROP FERTILIZERS and ANIMAL FEED SUPPLEMENTS made from Norwegian Seaweed IRVIN MARTIN R.R. 2 CLINTON truthful, who thought of it? I wish I had ask- ed more questions. Year after year, in the assessment rolls, the number of acres cleared changes, the lots acquired are noted, sons, when they ac- quired a property, are noted. I even came across deeds, one of which was a deed of land for a nearby Methodist church, which was signed by my great -great-grandmother Elizabeth with an 'X'. "Her mark" was neatly noted beneath the X and her name was written in full -in the same hand as her husband's name. I didn't realize until I came across this deed that Elizabeth could not read or write. Many people could not read or write in the early days of settlement but I did not realize until I was trying to piece together the patt what this meant. It meant no journal en- tries, no Bible entries, no letters back home. No records. No comfort in something simple like reading the Bible. This 20 -year-old girl from a city , in England spent 15 years alone in the bush in a shanty, giving birth every one to two years. Finallyher brother andfather came over and settled within five miles. What this city girl felt in the first decadehere is something we will never know. Whatever difficulties there were she survived and raised nine children to adulthood. One of the marvels of the early journals is the complete lack of personal complaint. I am not talking about people who passed through and -complained about the food and the accommodation at the ino, but about the people who came and stayed on their land and survived in the area. In' their journals, • tr. , they note the jobs done in a day;. ploughing the fields, sphtting rails, taking logs to the mill. The journals never mentionthe family or the effort they made but for the oeCar signal entry such as the wife went to town for a fortnightor the neighbor and his fami- ly came over to dinner and tea. Entries were made every day even if the entry was "very unwell" or "all sick." The journals were written by the very strongest of constitutions and only by the better educated. It was not unusual for the early settler to be unschooled and unable to read and write, so very few records remain of the day-to-day life of the early settlement. There were no conveniences of any kind. Such were the conditions under which my great -great-grandmother Elizabeth settled in a shanty in the middle of the woods, miles away from neighbors, nowhere near a doc- tor as baby after baby was born; it would be 15 years before family members came to settle in the area. Settlement in the area was pitifully slow until the 1850s. A few amenities were available to the farmers in the 1860s. Like other settlers, my ancestors were resourceful and became successful because they held mortgages on a local mill and deeded land for area churches, a Methodist , Church and later an Anglican Church. They ran a store and a post office and people came at all hours to get their -mail. My great -great-grandfather' was able to buy a farm for his sons, a measure of suc- cess in those days, and he retired to Bayfield and built a home there. The tools that were used to make the window sashes are still available and other property on the lake bark still used for family picnics. My great -great-grandfather C.G. pro- bably took an active interest in his retire- ment, overseeing the building of his house until the fateful day he was thrown from his buggy. After his death, and Elizabeth's, the retirement home was used as a residence and as a coach house as it was located on the main street of Bayfield. , After his death, the body lay in the bier in the parlor. Charles, or C.G. as he is known to his descendents, looked as stern as ever in the lamplight. The coal oil lamp glasses had been cleaned and polished for the funeral. Flowers, asters, daisies, lilies, and roses adorned the side tables and buffets of the ' parlor. The house had been readied for the funeral guests. Elizabeth had seen to the housecleaning; she had put the servant girls in motion to keep them from lamenting so loudly during C.G.'s long illness. The local paper reported his progress for ' weeks, one day a little better, another a lit- tle worse. One day when he was conscious, he sat up and ate dinner and there was hope in the.household for his recovery. But bead injury is a serious .thing and- just. when - Elizabeth thought C.G. was out of danger, on your 1-5-0 BIRTHDAY We're proud to have you as our neighbouring COMIT1 unity. 482-3536