Charlie Ballantyne's new Chevrolet Touring car

In the previous blog I posted a photograph taken in 1918 of Charlie and Allie Ballantyne standing proudly in front of their new Dodge Chevrolet Touring car. While I use both names in reference to the car I am sure that the reality was that the car "belonged" to Charlie. Alice never learned to drive and Charlie took complete responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the vehicle.   Here is a story as told by Gordon McEwan, that speaks to Charlie's relationship with his car.  When the story begins Charlie and Alice had a hired man named Eddie Dietrich who lived in the community. " One day Charlie and Eddie were washing the family car, a very early Dodge.  Cars were objects that were few and far between and therefore, objects of great pride.  Just when they were finished, the car began to back down the grade that led to the garage.  Shouting for Eddie to help, Charlie threw himself behind the car and held while red
spots danced before his eyes.  Before Alice could get out to put on the emergency brake, the car's speed backwards began to increase and the wary Eddie leaped for safety, leaving Charlie the car to himself. Now the car got out of control, Charlie barely got out of its road and he saw the fender of his new purchase buckle against a post. Eddie who had been watching the proceedings at a safe distance now poked his head around the car to ascertain Charlies's position.  Seeing the face of the object whom he considered to be the cause of the happening, Charlie rid himself of some frustration by landing a round house right which sent poor Eddie head over heels down the slope.  "No sooner had I done it," Charlie admitted later, "but I was sorry that I had taken it out on poor Eddie!"
Attached is a copy of Charlie's 1920 motor vehicle permit for the Dodge Chevrolet. In the second photo a group of relatives is standing in front of another car in about the year 1912 (Tom the boy standing in front of his mother was born in 1901). The owner of the car shown in the photograph is uncertain but my guess is that it may have belonged to Charlie's nephew Frank Ballantyne (the fellow on the left holding the camera).

Charlie Ballantyne's 1918 Chevrolet Touring Car

Charlie Ballantyne was married to Gordon's Aunt Alice.  Charlie and Alice who farmed on Lot 21 Concession 3 in Downie Township close to the McEwan farm had no children and they were reputed to be wealthy.  In April 1918 Charlie purchased his first motor vehicle, a Dodge Chevrolet Touring car which he ordered through Kalfleisch Brothers dealership in Stratford.   Built at the Dodge Brothers factory in Detroit, Charlie's new car was to be delivered a month after being ordered. The company offered a 90 day warranty on defective parts.  However, the warranty would only be honoured if the owner prepaid the transportation charges and if the vehicle had not be driven at a "speed exceeding the factory rated speed, or loaded beyond the factory rated load capacity." Furthermore the company offered "no warranty whatever in respect to tires, rims, ignition apparatus, horns or other signaling devices, starting devices, generators, batteries, speedometers, or other trade accessories".  It is not clear how much Charlie paid for his new Chevrolet.  There are two order forms: on the first form the price is listed as $1290.00 plus $20.00 freight charges, whereas on the second order form  (which I have attached) the price appears to be $840.00. There is also a receipt dated May 21, 1918 for the amount of $1267.28 which may have been the final negotiated price. Regardless, I am sure that Charlie was proud of his new purchase and, equally important, the Ballantyne car was much admired in the community. Here is a photograph taken at the Peter Smith farm of Alice and Charlie with their new car.  Underneath the photo Alice has written "Alice and Charlie Ballantyne. Our first car."

The M(a)cEwan's and cheese in Perth County (pt.3)

By the 1860's the initial land-clearing/setting-up-home phase of pioneer settlement was largely complete in Downie Township in Upper Canada.  The Agriculture and Personal Census of 1861 creates a portrait of an establishing community with solid farms, a range of denominational churches, tuition-free public schools and a growing urban society able to pay for farm produce.  John McEwan who had married into the Ballantyne clan in 1847 as a 28 year old Scottish moulder, now owned 150  acres of land, at least a third of which was cleared and on which he grew a variety of crops. He was the father of growing family ranging in age from Robert who was 12, Alex (age 9 ), Janet (age 7), Mary (age 4), and Johnnie who was a baby. It is very likely that John owned several Ayshire cows, a breed which originated in Scotland and had been steadily developed in Canada West.  The milk from the cows would be churned by Agnes into butter for home consumption. On some farms the milk was also used to produce cheese. Of course, there was a ready market for any excess butter or cheese in the growing urban centre of Stratford. There are family stories of Fordyce Murray (Agnes McEwan's younger sister) regularly walking from Avonton to Stratford, a distance of about 12 kl. to sell her butter at the Stratford market.  Already, in Oxford county to the south there were examples of two farm women with herds of cows who were producing cheese on a relatively large scale for sell in the surrounding urban centres of London or Woodstock.  The huge British market was also a potential export market for cheese.

 In 1861 Thomas Ballantyne (Agnes McEwan's brother-in-law) had recently resigned his position as a school teacher and had bought a 50 acre farm in the eastern part of Downie Township. He was 31 years old and the father of two children.  He was active in municipal politics being first the auditor and later the clerk of the township. In July, 1867 he travelled south to Ingersoll in Oxford County to attend a gathering at which he was elected as a vice-president of the newly-formed Dairymen's Association. Among other things the association was dedicated to the improvement of the science of cheese making in Canada West.  The same year - 1867- Thomas established the Black Creek Cheese Factory on McEwan property in Downie Township.  During this period several members of the Ballantyne clan played significant role in the breeding and improvement of Ayrshire cows which, of course, was central to the development of the dairy industry in Canada West. I have attached a picture from a later era of several prize Ayrshire cows owned by Robert Ballantyne and sold at the Guelph market.

M(a)cEwans and cheese (pt.2)

Without doubt, any discussion of the McEwan connection to the cheese industry must lead directly to Thomas Ballantyne.  Thomas Ballantyne and Agnes Ballantyne McEwan were doubly related.  First, Agnes' father Robert was the younger brother of Thomas' father James, and second, Thomas married Agnes' younger sister Mary.  This means that Thomas was both first cousin and brother-in-law to Agnes McEwan. This double relationship may explain why John McEwan was willing to transfer to Thomas Ballantyne five acres of land on the north-west corner of  Lot 25 Concession 4 in Downie Township at the point where the Black Creek takes a lazy bend to the east as it skirts the high rise of land on which John McEwan built his stone house.
Here is what I know about Thomas Ballantyne. Several years after his Uncle Robert left Scotland in 1839 to settle in Canada, Thomas' two older brothers emigrated and took up land near Robert.  Then in 1852, Thomas, his parents and his sister

Agnes left Scotland to live in Canada. Shortly after he arrived in Canada Thomas was hired as a teacher in one of the newly established schools in the community. He was 24 years old. The year was 1853.  Almost immediately. Thomas became involved in municipal politics.  In 1855 Thomas became the township auditor and in the next year he was the township clerk.  In the same year he married his first cousin Mary Ballantyne, the daughter of his Uncle Robert, and Thomas and Mary went to live in a log house near the school where he taught.  Six years later, in 1861 Thomas quit teaching (there may have been a dispute about salary) and he returned to farming. However, it appears that farming was not totally satisfying to Thomas.  During this period, new business opportunities were opening up in the dairy industry for settlers in this fertile land of Upper Canada which I will write about next time. (In the meantime, I have attached a photo of Thomas and the only one I have of Mary.  Neither picture portrays them as they would have appeared in their younger years during the heady - but doubtlessly frightening -  years when Thomas developed the Black Creek Cheese Factory.)

Evening Prayers and the Picture at the Top of the Stairs

In our home - as in many other homes in rural Canada in the 1940's - saying our prayers was an essential part of getting ready for bed.  Like most children I rushed through our prayer without any thought to what it said or meant.  In my head the first line was " nowilayme (all one meaningless word),  I pray the lord my soul to keep ... and so on. The prayer ended with a "God bless" where we listed a series of names beginning with grandparents and relatives - God bless Grandma, God bless Aunt Allie - and ending with God bless Mommy and Daddy and the rest of our immediate family including Skippy the dog.  If someone in the community was ill  my mother would encourage us to add a line that go something like: "Please make Wayne better."  And then we would hop into bed. If the weather was cold the persons mentioned in the "God Bless" line got shorter.  However, if you wanted to irritate your sister who was waiting her turn to say her prayers you could always string out the "God Bless" line to include everyone you could think of.  Typically the prayers were said while kneeling beside the bed but in the midst of January in a cottage where there was no direct heat in any of the bedrooms we were allowed to say the prayers from under the covers.

I now realize that there were several versions of the prayer we were taught.  Other versions were more gentle and did not talk of dying children or souls heading to heaven.  The version we recited came from an 18th century American book called the New-England Primer.  The first stanza went like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray to Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take

  On reflection I am glad that I never made any attempt to comprehend what I was saying.  It certainly had the potential to cause nightmares in a young child who awakened in the middle of a dark night.

Now for a word about the picture that accompanies this blog.  When we were children my father's elderly aunt and uncle lived in a large brick house on Elizabeth Street in Stratford. Because my Grandmother lived with them our family were frequent visitors in their home.  Unlike us, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Allie had indoor plumbing.  The toilet was located on the second floor in a room separate from the bathroom.  To get to the toilet you needed to climb the heavy oak staircase to the first landing, turn right and begin the climb to the second floor where at the top of the stairs hung the picture (shown above) of the angels floating over the little girl.  I never understood what those angels were doing but I figured that it must have something to do with death.  I also knew that even if I kept my head down and tried to look the other way I would "see" the picture as I passed under it.   And for an eight year old the choice was very clear: scurry past the picture or face even worst humiliations!

Avonton Softball Team 1932

Here is a picture of the Avonton Softball Team in 1932. Unlike the other men, Gordon is wearing braces and so his team shirt is neatly tucked into his trousers. Of the 15 people in the picture, Gordon is a blood relative of all but one of the others. Only Helen Struthers, the woman second from the right in the second row, appears to be an outsider in this close knit group. Although Will Smith, the man in the tie, is related to Gordon through the Hemsley's, Will is also an outsider to the group in that his ancestors came from the south of England. The other 13 people can all trace their ancestry directly back to Robert Ballantyne, a shepherd who lived near Peebles Scotland and whose grandson, also called Robert, first emigrated to Perth County and settled land in Downie Township.

Perth County Fashions 1860's (pt. 1)

While women living in Perth county in the 1860's may have felt themselves to be isolated from the fashion influences of the bigger world, the evidence suggests that the style in which our ancestors dressed was a reflection of what was happening elsewhere: a somewhat muted and conservative reflection of high fashion, but a reflection nonetheless. The differences which existed in the dresses were more likely to be a result of wealth and social class rather than a lack of awareness. The coloured engraving at the top of this blog first appeared in Godfey's Lady's Book in 1861. This periodical, which was published in Philadelphia acted as a fashion guide for its many subscribers. The early 1860s, was a period in which the crinoline-supported dome-like skirt was at its widest, and in fashion plates during 1860 and 1861 the skirt seems to project as much in front as in back. The photo of an unknown young woman in a striped dress above, was taken in London Ontario in the years before Confederation when this area was still known as Canada West. The next photo is Lois' great grandmother Eliza Fulcher taken after 1867. While Eliza's dress may be made of less expensive materials, and the workmanship and the detail of the sewing may be less complex, the full skirt, the wide tightly cinched belt, the puffed sleeves and the high neckline show that the two women are following similar fashion lines. The next picture is of Robert Ballantyne the brother of Gordon's great grandmother Agnes McEwan, and his wife Helen Smith. This is likely their wedding picture taken in 1860 when he was 39 and she was 23. The dress of the new Mrs. Ballantyne has many of the features of the dresses above but with an added feature in the formal jacket. A hoop (or possibly many petticoats) create the dome shape of the skirt, and the white collar is used to create a dramatic contrast to the black satin dress.
Finally, in case we think that hooped skirts were worn only for formal occasions. here is a detail from a well know picture of the old frame town hall in St. Marys. The woman on the right appears to be a passerby who has stopped to watch the excitement of the ongoing photo session. Not only is a large hoop creating the desired silhouette, but the skirt is short enough to allow her to walk through the mucky streets without the danger of dirtying the hem of her dress. A very wise precaution in St. Marys in 1865!