Lois' first set of dishes

Lois' first set of dishes was collected piece by piece from a gasoline promotional offered by Earl Tyler's Garage in St. Marys. Every time Bobby Hearn filled up his car at Tyler's garage, he was given one piece of china. In turn, that piece was given to Lois, and over many months, her collection grew to the point where there were enough dishes to serve as her first dinner set. The art deco pattern on the china evokes the sounds of the far east which may explain why this pattern is called Orient. These English dishes were produced in the Staffordshire factories of Alfred Meakins whose family began making china in the mid 1800's. Vast numbers of these dishes were exported to North America. While this pattern has been discontinued, it is still possible to see them in antique shops. Currently dinner plates of the Orient pattern are being offered for about 15$ on ebay. In England the same dish can be had for something closer to 5$. Lois' set was used for many years and gradually -- through breakage -- disappeared. All that remains is the dish pictured here and a small sugar bowl.

Our Hearn Cousins

My uncle Kelly who was Lois' younger brother married Eileen Dunsmore in the Fall of 1937 and he left the homeplace "without so much as a banty rooster" as he sometimes rather ruefully remarked. In December of the same year Lois Hearn married Gordon McEwan. Children followed quickly: Shirley Hearn and Betty Lou McEwan in 1938, Barry Hearn in 1939, Lois Ann McEwan and Donna Hearn in 1940. Bob McEwan in December of 1942 and Sheila Hearn in January of 1943. Linda Hearn and Terry McEwan, the babies in each family, followed later. In 1944 when the picture below was taken Lois' brother Kelly had joined the army. His wife Eileen was left alone with four young children. On occasion, she would come to Dicksons Corners to visit for several days. That meant 7 children and 3 adults in a tiny cottage, without running water or indoor plumbing. (Proof of that fact can be seen in the infamous two-holer outhouse in the background of the picture.) Of course, cooking was on a wood-fired kitchen range. Lois remembers that eating was in relays and that children slept crossways on the beds. Bathing those seven children was a challenge. My cousin Shirley recently remarked that she tried hard to be among the first group in the tub so that she could be there when the water was the cleanest! For over 60 years now these two families have been deeply interrelated. After Gordon and Lois left Dicksons to return to St. Marys, they bought Kelly's house, while Kelly and Eileen moved to a bigger house closer to the dairy but only a block away. Even then, the relationship was deeply intermeshed. Kelly stabled his milkwagon horse in the barn on the property which the McEwan's now owned. Because the barn had no water, Bob McEwan remembers that it was his chore to carry water out to the barn for his Uncle Kelly's horse. A boy who weighed less than 65 pounds, and large and sloppy bucket were not friends, as you may imagine! Later, Kelly and Eileen bought the huge Dan Wilson house next to the McEwans. That meant that the two families now shared a property line. So the relationshiop continued, but it is fair to say that the Hearns and the McEwans have different personalities and styles. This means that the relationship between the cousins has been somewhat elastic over the years. At times, during our adulthood we cousins pulled apart, but then, more recently as age and events have crept up on us, we have drawn back together, perhaps an unconscious salute to the commonality which we share.

The Farm Set in Eaton's Catalogue

For many children of the late 1940's the Eaton's catalogue was a vehicle to dreams, especially the Christmas catalogue which arrived at our house midway through the fall. While we four children fully recognized that for Christmas we would get primarily practical gifts -- books from our parents, flannelette pyjamas from Grandma McEwan, and heavy woollen socks, hand-knit by Aunt Allie -- the Eaton's catalogue offered pages of toys just waiting to be purchased. I didn't spend much time looking at the hockey game that was endorsed by Foster Hewitt, or the Gene Autry cap guns, or the wooden wagon with the label Western Flyer written in white letters on a red background. Instead I spent my time poring over the miniature farm set illustrated in bright colours on the top of one page half way through the toy section. As I remember it, there was a bright red barn overlooking a white farm fence Inside the fence were pigs, both black and cream, heavy round sows and lots of baby pigs. There were also white sheep with short legs and heavy coats, some looking straight ahead but others bending over eating imaginary grass. There were several black and white Holstein cows, and one brown Jersey cow. And, of course, there were several long-legged prancing horses with flying manes and tails. They looked more like the wild horses that roamed the prairies than the heavy farm horses I knew. There was a farmer wearing clothes that made me think he came from somewhere else, maybe England, and a milkmaid in long skirts carrying pails. I know that I didn't recognize it at the time, but I now realize that the Eaton's catalogue -- like Santa Claus who flew through the night in his sleigh pulled by reindeer excited the imagination and allowed us to explore a world that existed only in our minds.

The Christmas when Santa came too early

It was Christmas Eve in about 1947 or 1948 when Gordon and Lois with the four children who ranged in age from 1 to 10 were living in Dickson's Corners. We children were all young enough to share in the excitement of the imminent arrival of Santa Claus. We had finished supper. Gordon had walked over to sweep the school and Lois had already put the baby into his crib, bathed me and put me into my pyjamas. The girls were in the bathtub ( I suspect in the big tin tub which which was placed on the floor and filled with water from the cistern in the heavy cast-iron wood stove.) Suddenly there was the sound of bells and a heavy pounding on our front door. This was terrifying and exciting and very unusual, all at the same time. No one ever came to our front door. In fact it couldn't be opened. To get to it you had to go into the living room, past the potbellied coal stove and down a narrow, cold, and dark corridor past the bags of sugar, and the piles of school supplies that were stored in the passage. We children listened as Lois hurried to the door and called: "who there?" The response was indistinguishable but the sound of bells definitely became louder. Then we could her our mother calling: "Santa, the children aren't in bed yet. You had better go down to the Dicksons and then come back here." (The Dicksons were our closest neighbours. We could see their house down the hill, past the stream and near the highway.) Lois continued: "The children will be in bed by the time you get back." And she was so right! I remember racing across the living room to my bedroom, pulling the covers over my head, and willing myself to sleep because only with sleep could I get myself into the wonderful excitement of the next day.

Women's Institute Circulating Library 1935

The Women's Institute -- like the Orange Lodge before it -- is disappearing as a fixture of rural life in South Western Ontario. For many years, however, the WI played an important educational and social role in the lives of farm women. In 1935 the Downie Township W. I. to which Gordon's mother Beanie belonged, established a circulating library for the use of its members. Likely individual members contributed books from their own collection to be part of the library. Sunset Pass, a Zane Grey novel published by Musson Book Company in 1931 and owned by Mrs. Jack McEwan was one book in the circulating library. Glued to the inside cover of the book is a pinwheel circulation list. Anyone who knows the farmhomes on the Centre Gravel leading to Avonton can visualize the path taken by the book as it moved in a biweekly path through the neighbourhood. From Mrs. Jack McEwan it went to Mrs. J. Boyes, Mrs. W. Robertson, Florence Aitcheson and so on until it reached Mrs. Robt. Thompson, Charlotte Simpson, Mrs. E. Erb where it was then returned to Beanie McEwan. (You remember that if you double click on the image you can enlarge it.) It is somewhat ironic that only the single women retain their individual identity on the list; the married women are all listed as somebody's wife. I wonder how good these women were at keeping the book moving in the rotation and how many of the books ended their lives in someone else's house. Evidently, this particular book found its way back to its original owner. From the one page that appeared when I opened the book, it is obvious that Sunset Pass was not complex reading. Nonetheless, I am sure that it provided an important source of relaxation and imaginative escape for many women.

The Silver Dollar Gift

In the spring of 1952, almost exactly 10 years after he first sighted the fieldstone school at Dicksons Corners, Gordon decided to return his family to Perth County. Teaching in the era before unions, was not lucrative, and Gordon, who had brothers-in-law who were aspiring businessmen, decided to leave teaching and to enter business in partnership with Walter Clarke the owner of a thrivings hardware store in St. Marys. Lois, who had grown to love her life and independence as the schoolteacher's wife at SS#3 North Oxford was particularly sad to leave. However, she recognized -- and agreed with Gordon that -- at least financially -- they would be better off in St. Marys. At a presentation in the township hall, the departing family was given a series of gifts. A linen tablecloth decorated with large red bunches of roses was presented to Gordon and Lois. The girls were given a reading lamp for their bed and the two boys were each given a silver dollar. The lamp as shown still hangs on what we call the girls' bed, and the silver dollars were put away in an envelope and only recently resurfaced, somewhat tarnished but never used. Along with the silver dollar was a note from Gordon explaining its importance.

House Flies

The fly strip was a standard feature of kitchens in the 1940's and 50's. I remember a fly strip in our kitchen at both Dicksons Corners and St. Marys. The fly trap consisted of a strip of yellow paper about 3 inches wide and possibly 24 inches long that spiralled out of a thin cardboard canister. Heavily coated with a heavy, sticky substance the paper was attached typically by a string to the light fixture that hung from the ceiling and hovered over the kitchen table. Of course, the purpose of the fly strip was to entrap unawary house flies searching for a respite from their ceaseless buzzing through the kitchen . Once alighted on the surface of the paper, their feet became stuck and no matter how much they buzzed and pulled they were unable to free themselves. Inevitably they died stuck to the paper. In the hot summer these fly papers quickly became covered with the dead bodies of hundreds of flies and when there was no more room on the trap we threw out the paper and hung up a new one. I have no idea how much these fly traps cost or when we quit using them. While, in retrospect, the fly strip with its dozens of dead and dying house flies, was visually unappetising, it was simple device that served a very useful purpose. In previous decades the role which house flies played in the spread of disease was not well understood. Furthermore, the annoyance caused by the dozens of house flies that bred, buzzed, and landed on food, should not be forgotten. Here are two stories that illustrate this point. Lois tells of a technique they used on hot summer days to rid the Riley kitchen of the hundreds of house flies which, attracted by the cooking, had invaded the room. Everyone would gather in the far corner of the kitchen armed with a coat, a sweater, or a piece of cloth. One person would open the kitchen door and the rest, waving their coats vigorously in front of them would proceed in unison to the kitchen door hoping to sweep the flies outside. In the second story Curly Wilson is reminiscing about St. Marys in the 1890"s: "Manure, smells and flies go together and one cannot imagine the difference between downtown then and downtown to-day. Privies were also a problem but health officers were not as aware of the connection of wastes to diphtheria and typhoid as they should have been. A gradual tightening of regulations forced butcher shops to put on screen doors much to the disgust of the owners who felt such regulations were unnecessary and bureaucratic"

The number of flies in our homes has decreased dramatically in the past several decades. Whether this is the result of better storage and protection of food, improved methods of screening in homes, or new insecticides, I am not sure. Whatever the cause, one result has been the disappearance of the fly strip as a feature in family kitchens.

Our Orange Heritage

In an article entitled ‘Order and Respectibility’ The Glorious Twelfth in St.Marys, Richard Holt reviews the history of the Orange Order in Perth County and speculates on the social and political role which the Orange Lodge played in the community. The Orange Order is important in our family. Lois’ father Bob Hearn was a lifelong, ardent Orangeman. He never missed a twelfth of July parade. By the very fact of his membership in the organization Bob Hearn must have acknowledged and supported the strong pro-Protestant and anti-Catholic philosophy of the Orange Order. And yet, he and his family regularly socialized with their Catholic neighbours. Lois’ best friend was Mary Riley. There are pictures of the two families exchanging Sunday afternoon visits. In his article, Richard Holt suggests that this disconnect between the biased philosophy of the order, and the realty of the social and commercial world of Perth County was not atypical. The first Orange Lodge, LOL 518, was established in St. Marys in 1853, just 10 years after the first settlement. These first settlers were largely Protestant, with large groups of Ulster and Palatine Irish living on the west of the Thames River, and Scots and English settling on the east of the river. Interspersed among these Protestant groups were a few Catholic families, with larger concentrations of Catholics in Hibbert Township and in the Gore of Downie. As could be expected, some of the biases and historical feuds from the old country were transplanted into Perth County. The result was a strong sentiment in favour of the Orange Lodge in the St. Marys area. At the height of its power, there were seven LOL lodges in St. Marys, Downie, Blanshard and East Nissouri. On the 12th of July lodges throughout the county came together to parade in celebration of the Battle of the Boyne - "The Glorious Twelfth" - a small battle in which the forces of King William of England in 1690 defeated the Catholic Jacobites. These 12th of July marches were often followed by intemperate harangues provided by local clergy who railed against the evils of Jesuitism and exhorted the marchers to stand firm against the power of Catholicism. Over time, however, and faced with the broader realities of life in Ontario, Holt suggests that these sentiments gradually lost their meaning and, inevitably, they became empty rhetoric, a part of the tradition, but one which in itself, had little power or meaning. Like formalistic bedtime prayers, the rhetoric was repeated mindlessly and then forgotten. Gradually, the LOL lodges evolved into fraternal clubs for working class protestant men and women who came together for social outings and to be part of an organization with its rituals and ceremonies. Holt offers a couple of anecdotes to support his hypothesis. In the County parade of 1906, for example, John Walsh a wealthy Catholic store owner opened up his eleven acre property in Ardmore Park, to serve as the destination point for the Orange Parade. In a similar vein, Erma Keine a member of a Catholic family living in Perth County reminisced that all of the Catholic children in her area would go to watch the parade because they knew that Mr. Dunbar a neighbour and friend would be riding the white horse and carrying the open Bible in his role as King Billy. If it is true that the rhetoric did lose its meaning and it faded into irrelevancy, then that process may explain why John Walsh, a Catholic shopkeeper, could welcome the 12th of July marchers on to his property, why the parents of Erma Keine saw no problem in allowing her to watch the parade, and why Bob Hearn could attend a Orange Lodge meeting on one day and invite the Riley family to his home for a meal on the following day.

more on Ante Ante Over

My sister Lou spent her entire elementary school years as a student at Dicksons Corners. I asked for her recollections of the rules and traditions of "Ante Ante Over" as we played it in the 1940's.

Here is what she said: "I am putting down the details I recall - accurate or not.

• At Dickson's Corners - played over the entrance way. (as you remarked, only the bigger students would be strong enough to throw a ball over the height.)
• I remember this game as an early morning game only - as kids arrived at school each would join a side in orderly fashion.
• I do not recall a ball being provided by the school for this game; I think we waited for "the person with the ball" to arrive. I think it was expected that they would arrive early.
• As soon as there were a few on each side the game began. the person with the ball called "ante, ante over" and then threw
• If the other team caught the ball they went into attack mode, running as a team to tag with the ball as many on the opposite team as possible
• at the first sign of attack the opposite team was headed to the other side of the entrance (safe territory)
• because the ball had to be used as the tag, it could be carried by any team member not just the person catching it. I remember players being very generous about this - as well as who threw the ball
• if you were tagged you became a member of the other team
• so the game continued until one team had all the players
• I also remember the players being very honest about "catching" the ball - only your own team would know but individual reputations were built on those moments.
• there was always that build-in timing, The other team did not know if the ball had been caught ... and the opponents were going to charge at any moment or if they were adding to the thrill by waiting until "ante ante over!"

Lois' traditional potato/rice/hamburg casserole

Here is the recipe for a casserole which Lois has been cooking for over 70 years. It was a favourite of Gordon's. Once when Gordon's good friend and distant cousin Gog Murray was stopping in for supper on his way home from selling chickens                                   in Stratford, Gordon asked Lois specifically for this casserole. Of course, Lois had never written down the recipe but this is how she cooked it for a recent Saturday get together.

Ante Ante Over The Shanty

As with most rural schools in the 1940's, there was no pavement surrounding SS#3 North Oxford. The lack of flat, hard surfaces determined the types of games which children played at recess or during the lunch hour. I don't remember, for example, seeing skipping ropes, or any games which involved bouncing balls. I don't remember seeing anyone play hop-scotch. Of course, organized formal team games such as hockey or softball were played in the community, but in this blog I am talking about less formal games which children played at school. Here are four that I remember.
1. Prisoner's Base. This is a running game involving no special equipment. It allows for the participation of a variety of people of different ages and skills. It was, therefore, ideally suited to an 8-grade rural school. "Tagging" is the only physical contact and it can be played on any open area such as that offered by rural school yards. The players are divided into two teams of roughly equal numbers and abilities. A mid line divides the field into two zones. I have drawn a picture of how I remember the design. Two bases, made from pieces of wood formed the prison of each team. The object of the game is to capture (by tagging) opposing players who have ventured into the enemy zone. A player thus tagged is placed in the prison and has to stand there, foot on the prison stick, and arm outstretched until released by a teammate. The fun of the game is to venture through the enemy zone, to evade capture by an opposing player and to release a teammate from prison (again by tagging them). If there are no prisoners to release and if you successfully cross the enemy territory without being captured then you could get into the enemy prison by touching both prison walls (i.e., the two bases). You then can stand behind the enemy line where you are allowed to capture enemy players in their own territory. For a little kid this represents a wonderful opportunity because it allows you to wait quietly behind the enemy line, to sneak out and to tag triumphantly a lead player on the opposing team who had neglected to cover his or her back. More often, as I remember it, we younger kids were given the less exciting task of guarding the prison or acting as decoys. As I remember the game, it could last easily through through the lunch hour and very seldom was there a clear winner when the school bell rang to signal that we had to return to school.

2. Fox and Geese - This is a winter game, often played after a fresh snowfall. No equipment is needed and if one location is spoiled because it is overtrampled, it is a simple matter to move over 20 yards and to recreate the game on a new spot. First, you stomp out a large circle in the snow and, within the circle, you make several pathways crossing the diameter of the circle. (As I remember, this first step was often the best fun because it required lots of running and kicking of snow.) In the centre of the circle you lay out a circle large enough to hold a couple of people. Then the game begins. One person is chosen as the fox; the rest are geese. The fox who is "it" chases the geese, and when one of the geese is tagged, the players change roles with the tagged goose now becoming the fox, and the game continues. There are two simple rules. First, all the players have to stay on the existing paths, and second, the circle in the centre is a safe spot where the fox can not tag you. However, only one person can occupy the safe spot at a time and someone who is being chased can bump out whoever is already in the safe spot. As I remember it, the game often starts well but quickly deteriorates because players have such difficulty staying on the paths that very soon the pathways are all jumbled up. Furthermore, the game is exciting for the fox but less so, for the geese, especially if the fox prefers to always be the chaser and not to share the role.

3. Ante ante over the shanty. Like prisoner's base, this is one of those classic games played in rural schools all over North America. As can be seen in the picture on the right, the school at SS#3 North Oxford was faced with a wooden vestibule. In the game of ante ante over the shanty the players divide into two groups with one group standing on one side of the vestibule and the second group standing hidden from view on the other side of the vestibule. The game involves a ball being tossed over the top of the vestibule, being caught by someone on the opposing side and then the groups running and exchanging places. That is how I remember the game. In a variation of the game which I have read about, all the players start on one side of the school, one player throws the ball over the school and whoever finds the ball is the winner has the honour of throwing the ball over the roof to continue the game.

4. Chain links. This is a simple game in which two lines of children all holding hands stand facing each other. One line calls out a chant, the last of which is "we call (name of child on the opposite team) over." The person who is called runs and attempts to break through the opposing line. If the person successfully breaks through the opposing line then he/she can return to his team; however, if the line holds and the person does not break through the line, then he must join the opposing team. Of course, the object of the game is to force all the opposing players to join your team. In my memory no team ever won the game because there was always a weak link in the opposing team that would break easily and so the numbers in each line remained relatively balanced.

School Trustee Minutes Book S.S.#3 North Oxford

In a previous blog I recounted the story of how Gordon and Lois came to move to Oxford County. They and their two girls were living in three rooms at the back of Houck's store in St. Pauls. In the spring of 1942 Gordon read that the trustees of SS#3 North Oxford were looking for a new teacher for their one room country school. In the previous blog, I told of how Gordon and Lois drove from Woodstock to Ingersoll searching for the school, how Gordon had to rouse Erwood Kerr from his lunch time sleep in the barn, how Bernice Hutchison, still with her hair in curlers, went out to meet the prospective new teacher's wife, and how Erwood Kerr, Walter Hutchison and Jack Butterworth, the three school trustees, met at the school house and decided to hire Gordon as the new teacher. Unfortunately, the Trustee Minutes book upon which this blog is based, does not record the events of that day. Possibly, the trustee responsible for the Minutes Book forgot to take it with him when they met at the school house and hired the new teacher. The Minutes Book which records the annual trustee meetings, reflects an era in which local farmers, in an informal and "hands off" way acted as overseers of the local school. The School Trustee Minutes Book for SS#3 North Oxford spans a 13 year period running from 1938 until 1951. Traditionally, the annual meetings of the school trustees were held in the school house between Christmas and New Years. While the meeting was open to all rate payers, typically only the three trustees would be present. Meetings all followed a similar pattern. A chairman and a secretary were appointed. The minutes from the last meeting were read. Two auditors, one for the ratepayers and the second for the trustees were appointed. One of the trustees would move that the teacher purchase books for the library. Aside from that, the trustees did not become involved in pedagogical issues. In some years a second meeting might be needed. In March 1943, for example, the furnace quit and the trustees met to purchase a new one "at a cost of $220 less $2 for the old furnace." The trustees met twice in April 1947 to consider a proposal to buy the field to the west of the school. The owner of the land, Bruce Dickson asked for $350. The trustees countered with an offer of $250. In the meeting of April 28th 1947 a compromise of $300 was agreed upon. The trustees did not make decisions quickly, and they were cautious with the taxpayers' money. The question of whether a music teacher should be hired is an example of this conservative caution. At the school trustee meeting in 1943 the 'need of a music teacher was brought up but no action taken". Again, in 1944 the issue was raised but "no action was taken concerning a music teacher." It wasn't until 1947 that Mrs. Ralph Folden was hired to provide one lesson per week at the salary of $ 9.00 per month. While the recorded minutes of the Trustee meetings suggest that they were low key affairs with little disagreement or heated discussion, there was one hint of controversy in the June 1950 meeting. The secretary notes that the teacher asked for a $250 raise and that the raise was granted but only "after much discussion." The year 1950 also appears to be the last year in which the school trustees at SS#3 acted as an independent group. While the minutes of the December 27th 1950 meeting begin as usual with the statement: "The annual meeting of the rate payers of Dickson's corner school SS No. 3 was held in the school house at 8 p. m.", the situation changes in the following year. In 1951 the annual meeting is recorded as being a meeting of the trustees from the "North Oxford School Area". The meeting is held in the Council Chambers, and for the first time, many of the participants in the meeting are individuals who do not farm within five miles of SS# 3, and who do not have a direct connection to the school. The entry of January 17 1951 is the last in the book. Quite possibly, with the establishment of a larger school district, a new Minutes Book was purchased and the old one was put in storage.

Ada's Autograph Book

In the spring of 1892, several weeks before her eleventh birthday, Ada Hern, Lois' aunt, acquired an autograph book. Carefully, she wrote her name and address inside the front cover and then proceeded to number the 62 pages in the book. One can only imagine her excitement at owning such a book and then her anxiety to get some autographs in the book. Not surprisingly, the earliest entries are those of her mother and father and her younger brother Robert. The book has poems and autographs from friends and neighbours and relatives. The last entry is in 1900 when Ada would have been 18 or 19. While there are no entries after that point, the autograph book must have remained important to her. Through the many moves and upheavels in her life, Ada's autograph book remained with her, and after her death as an old lady in the 1960's the autograph book was moved to me.

Gordon as a eleven year old

Here is a picture of Gordon taken in 1926 when he was 11 years old. While he loved sports and likely dreamed of being the boxing champion of the world, he was also a quiet studious person who loved books. A good assortment of his books have survived, a testament, very likely, of their importance in his life. Books appear to have been a standard gift at Christmas. The year that he turned 12 his cousins Bill, June and Charlotte Simpson who lived on a farm almost immediately behind the McEwan farm, gave him Ralph Conner's The Sky Pilot In NoMan's Land. He also owned Conner's The Prospector. Robinson Crusoe had been a gift when he was seven. Horatio Alger appears to have been a favourite author with several of Alger's books being part of his collection.

Lionel Walne: Pauper/Apprentice

In the last blog I introduced Joseph Fulcher, the mole catcher, whose passage to Canada in 1831 was paid for by the Parish of Kettleburgh in Suffolk, England. A second family who were also part of that pauper emigration was that of Lionel Walne. Lionel was 11 years old when his mother died on December 19, 1811 and shortly thereafter. because his father could no longer care for him, Lionel was placed in the workhouse. Above is the entry notation for the day in January 1812 when 11 year old Lionel was committed to the House of Industry. Six months later, on the 19th of July 1812, Lionel left the workhouse to be apprenticed for five years to Mr. Charles Jackson a local farmer who likely was not much better off than his apprentices. Lionel spent several years working for Mr. Jackson, but when he was 17, Lionel was put in jail briefly for beating his master's horse. It is unclear whether this event was the trigger, or whether Lionel's apprenticeship was already complete, but shortly after the incident with the horse, Lionel left the employment of Mr. Jackson. Lionel married Elisabeth Webb in the parish church at Kettleburgh in 1821. It is not surprising, given their background, that neither of them could read or write and had to sign the church register with an X. It was their second child Eliza Ann who married Joseph Fulcher, who raised a large family in Downie Township, and who is Lois' great Grandmother. (Lois' paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fulcher was the second daughter of Joseph and Eliza.) In 1831 the parish of Kettleburgh, in an act that was both charitable and self-serving, paid for 44 poor people to leave the parish and emigrate to Upper Canada. The Walnes and the Fulchers were part of that group. They settled near one another in Etobicoke Township. Thirteen years later, in 1844, Joseph Fulcher, along with his brother William bought Canada Company land in Downie Township. Joseph Fulcher and Eliza Ann Waun, who had known each other from childhood in Kettleburgh, and who had very likely crossed the Atlantic in the same chartered boat were married in London, Ontario. The picture of Joseph and Eliza, on the right, is unlikely to have been a wedding picture. It was taken by James Wilson, a photographer in St. Marys who does not appear to have been in business in the 1840's when Joseph and Eliza were first married and living in Downie Township. Whatever the occasion, however, the picture-taking was an important event, and this copy has survived for over 150 years as a testament to the tenacity of two pauper families who were part of a massive movement of immigrants to Upper Canada in the 1830's.

Joseph Fulcher : Mole Catcher

Lois' paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Fulcher, the daughter of Joseph Fulcher and Eliza Ann Waun. Joseph Fulcher had arrived in Canada as a teenager from Kettleburgh, a small impoverished parish in Suffolk on the east coast of southern England. The Fulchers would likely have left little trace on the records of that parish if it had not been for the English Poor Laws. The Poor Laws, which dated back to the reign of Elizabeth I established the principle that each parish was responsible for looking after its own poor. Because the money for this came from the landowners and from the parish church, it is easy to understand why residency examination committees were established to rule on which of the poor were legitimate members of the parish and thus deserving support. Joseph Fulcher, the mole catcher, a poor man with a wife and four children appeared before this committee in 1824. Evidently, Joseph had lived outside the parish for several years and needed to establish his rights as a legitimate resident. As can be seen in the document Joseph based his argument on the fact that both he and his parents had been members of Kettleburgh parish. We can presume that Joseph did get some poor relief and remained in the parish because eight years later, the parish paid the costs for Joseph and his family, along with Lionel Waun and family to emigrate to Canada. A total of 44 people came and, as a group settled in Etobicoke outside of Toronto. Years later, in 1845 Joseph married Eliza Ann Waun and together they moved to Downie Township.