From Our Caswell Relatives–Shirley Isabelle Mayse out of print.
John Flintoft used to take lumber from his land down to Quebec by raft and sell it there. On the way home from such a trip he disappeared and was never heard of again. Foul play was suspected as he had been carrying money back with him. The newspapers of the day, however, did not hint at this. The Herald, of August 15, 1851, dealt with his death in this way:
“It is with the deepest regret we understand that John Flintoft, of Drummond, was drowned by falling off one of the Quebec steamers on Friday night last, between Three Rivers and Montreal. It is said that he had been lying on a bench near the side of the steamer–that he was seen in that position by the Captain a short time before he was missed. on coming back to where the bench was the Captain discovered, it is said, His hat and coat, but on searching all over the steamer for Flintoft he could not be found.”
The eldest son of John Flintoft and Desdemona Willows was about eight years old when his father disappeared, leaving a widow and five children. On April 21, 1874, this son, James Flintoft, married Caroline Caswell.
Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft had five children. Their married life lasted twenty-four years almost to the day. James Flintoft died at the age of 55 on April 22, 1898. Here is his obituary from a Carleton Place newspaper dated April 28, 1898:
“Mr. James Flintoft, after whose father Flintoft’s Bay on the Mississippi was named, died on Friday last in the Protestant Hospital at Ottawa aged 55 years. In February last while driving to Mr. Shaw’s with his brother, and just at the end of his journey, his horse took fright and in passing swiftly through a gate, a piece of the cutter pierced Mr. Flintoft to the depth of three inches at the collar bone. In spite of the greatest skill, the wound would not heal. A week ago Saturday he was taken to the Hospital. On Wednesday the physicians sent a card to his wife of the withdrawal of their hope. That card did not reach the home till Saturday, three days later. All the week Principal Caswell, whose sister is Mrs. Flintoft, became impressed that all was not well in Ottawa, and so on Saturday he went down to see how it fared with his friend, and was thunderstruck to be informed that he had died on Friday and was then lying in the mortuary. Death was due to septic pneumonia. The body was brought here Sunday evening and taken to the home in Drummond. The funeral was on Monday and was magnificent in proportions. Service was conducted in the Methodist Church at Boyd’s by the Rev. Mr. Hanna, who delivered a very able sermon. Interment was made in the near-by cemetery. Six brothers-in-law were pallbearers. The deceased was born on the farm he inherited from his father, who was a noted lumberman in those parts and lost his life by falling unseen from a vessel between Montreal and Quebec, the body never being recovered. Deceased’s brother John occupies the next farm. While Mr. Flintoff was never aggressive in promoting his views on matters of Church or state, he was still a highly influential’factor in his township, and was keen of spirit likewise in the diversions of forest and lake. He leaves a widow and four sons.”
Caroline Caswell survived her husband by about eight and a half years, dying of cancer on September 2, 1907. Both Caroline (Caswell) Flintoft and her husband, James Flintoft, are buried in Boyd’s Methodist Cemetery. This is the inscription on their tombstone:
James Flintoft
d. April 22, 1898
aged 55 years
and
Caroline Caswell
d. Sept. 2, 1907
aged 63
and
Ephraim Flintoft
d. Sept. 11, 1878
aged 11 mos. 17 days
These are the five children of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft:
1. John Albert Flintoft (1875-1945)
2. Ephraim Flintoft (1877-1878)
3. Andrew Herbert Flintoft (1879-1967)
4. Melzo Lorne Flintoft (1881-1918)
5. William Charles Flintoft (1882-1971)
1. John Albert Flintoft (1875-1945)
He was born on February 3, 1875, and died on May 26, 1945. On December 19, 1900, he married Elizabeth Ethel Tysick. She was born March 2, 1877, and died on March 16, 1951. She and her husband are buried in the 8th Line Cemetery, Drummond Township, Lanark County. John Albert Flintoft and Lizzie Tysick had five children:
a. Effie Pearl Flintoft (Mrs. Melville Caswell)
Effie Flintoft trained as a nurse in Victoria Hospital, Renfrew, Ontario. She graduated in June, 1932. That being one of the Depression years,she had a hard time finding employment. About 1935 she went to northern Ontario, and eventually found work in the Lady Minto Hospital at Cochrane.
On November 19, 1936, she married Melville Caswell, her second cousin. Pages 361 to 363 are about Effie (Flintoft) Caswell and her husband and children.
b. Harold James Flintoft
He is the second child of John Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick. He lives at McCullough’s Landing, on the next farm to his sister Effie Caswell and her husband’s trailer camp. His farm on Flintoft’s Bay, is the original family farm mentioned earlier in this chapter. Jim Flintoft is the owner of the Flintoft family Bible.
c. Inez May Flintoft (Mrs. Alf Moore)
Inez May Flintoft married Alf Moore on October 23, 1937. She and her husband sold their farm in the summer of 1974 and moved to Port Elmsley, midway between Perth and Smiths Falls. Inez and Alf Moore had five children:
i. Marion Moore (1938-1951)
She was born in 1938. On July 17, 1951, she met her death by drowning.
ii. John Moore
iii. Ivy Elizabeth Moore
iv. Gertrude Elva Moore
v. Charles Moore
d. Elva Eliza Flintoft (Mrs. Bob Rutherford) (Mrs, Dick
The fourth child of John Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick was married on July 15, 1931, to Bob Rutherford. On December 17, 1968, she married Dick McVeety.
Elva Flintoft and Bob Rutherford had one child:
Eva Rutherford (Mrs. Frank South) (1934
She was born on July 29, 1934. On October 25, 1958, she married Frank South.
e. Minnie Ivern (Ivy) Flintoft (Mrs. Wally Armstrong)
The youngest child of John Albert Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick married Wally Armstrong on May 6. 1942.
Ivy and Wally Armstrong have one son.
2. Ephraim Flintoft (1877-1878)
This second child of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft died on September 11, 1878, at the age of 11 months, 7 days.
3. Andrew Herbert Flintoft (1879-1967)
Herb Flintoft was born August 9, 1879. He died on June 7, 1967.
In the Perth Courier for November 11, 1898, I read the following item involving Herbert Flintoft:
“Messrs. Bob Shaw and Herb Flintoff (sic) have been ploughing for the past week on the vacant lot belonging to Mr. Jas. Shaw. They attended the weekly Temperance meeting in the town hall on Friday evening and when they returned to their camp they found it had all been reduced to ashes, also their hunting outfit.”
On December 24, 1909, in Ontario, Herb Flintoft married Minnie McCreary, of Perth. The McCreary family lived on the farm east of the Caswell farm in Drummond Township, Lanark County, Ontario.
Herb and Minnie Flintoft homesteaded near Cabri, Saskatchewan. They left Ontario in 1910. Withthemwent Herb’s brother William (Billy) Flintoft and Minnie’s brother Joe McCreary, who had married Barbara McDonald from near Carleton Place, and had one child, Jean. Herb Flintoft and his brother-in-law Joe McCreary lived side by side, “only a dog’s trot apart.” Billy Flintoft lived a little over a mile away.
Neither Herbert nor William Flintoft ever revisited Ontario, although their wives did so several times. Joe McCreary and his wife went back to Ontario quite a few times. Eventually they retired in Comox, on Vancouver Island. From there they moved to California, where their married daughter was living.. Both Joe McCreary and his wife died in California and are buried there. In 1925 Herb and Minnie Flintoft left Cabri for the Glenmore district near Kelowna, B.C. There they farmed until retirement. Writing of their former home, Cabri, Saskatchewan, Adelbert Caswell, who had visited them there in 1921 and revisited it in 1936, said, “I hardly recognized the places where they had their homes and raised their families. The houses were deserted, run down, and almost in ruins. I suppose this was the result of the Great Depression of the early thirties.” Minnie Flintoft predeceased her husband. I do not know the date of her death. Minnie and Herb Flintoft had six children:
a. Evelyn Flintoft (Mrs. John Lindahl) ( ? -1969)
Evelyn was a teacher. She married John Lindahl, a widower. She died October 19, 1969.
She and John LIndahl had two children:
i. Vera Lindahl (Mrs. Bradford)
She lives in Victoria B.C.
ii. Stanley L.indahl
He lives in Kelowna, B.C.
b. W. James Flintoft
He and his wife live in West Vancouver, B.C. He has been twice married. He has two sons:
i. Donald Flintoft
He is an attorney in Houston, Texas. He has one son.
ii. Robert J. Flintoft
He is a surveyor and lives in Vancouver, B.C.
c. George Flintoft
He and his wife Bertha live in Kelowna, B.C. They have one son:
Douglas Flintoft
He lives in Kitimat, B.C.
d. Margaret Flintoft (Mrs. Lawrence Walrod) (1914-
Margaret Flintoft was born on December 16, 1914. She and her husband, Lawrence Walrod, spent fifteen years in the service of the Wycliffe Bible Translators Mission. When first I heard of them in 1972 they were working in the Philippines. In 1976 they were home on a year’s leave of absence. Margaret and Lawrence Walrod have two children:
i. Nancy Gay Walrod (Mrs. Steve Cooley) (1942-
Nancy was born on June 17, 1942. Her husband is Steve Cooley, from Campbell River, B.C. Nancy and Steve also worked in the Philippines. In 1977 they visited in Canada. They have one child.
ii. Michael Ross Walrod (1946-
He was born on June 15, 1946. He too is with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. In 1977 he was on furlough, studying Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. Michael’s wife Verna comes from Calgary. Michael and Verna have two children.
e. Lloyd Flintoft
He lives in Edmonton. He has two children:
i. Donna Flintoft (Mrs. Moore)
She lives in Vernon, B.C.
ii. William Flintoft
He lives in Port Coquitlam, B.C.
f. Isobelle Flintoft (Mrs. Prescott Lindahl)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C. She has three children:
i. Lorna Lindahl (Mrs. A. Swan)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
ii. Doreen Lindahl (Mrs. Dawe)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
iii. Larry Lindahl He lives in Merritt, B.C.
4. Melzo Lorne Flintoft (1881-1946)
Melzo Lorne was the fourth child of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft. He was born on April 10, 1881, and died on December 7, 1946, in Milton, Ontario. His first wife, Ida White, whom he married on May 24, 1909, died in 1918. His second wife’s maiden name was Eva Craig.
Melzo Flintoft and Ida White had two children:
a. Ruby Flintoft
She died in March, 1974.
b. Grace Flintoft (married name not known)
She had three children.
Melzo Flintoft and Eva Craig had two children:
c. Eunice Flintoft (married name not known)
She had two children:
i. Glenna
ii. Frank
d. Elda Flintoft (married name not known)
She had two children:
i. Ann
ii. an adopted daughter whose name I do not know
5. William Charles Flintoft (1882-1971)
William Charles Flintoft was the youngest of the five children of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft. He was born on September 17, 1882. On September 28, 1909, he married Elizabeth Hamilton, whose family lived on the west side of the Caswell farm.
In 1910 he and his family moved West along with Herb Flintoft and Joe McCreary and their families. They homesteaded near Cabri, Saskatchewan. When he retired from farming, William Flintoft moved to Kelowna, B.C. He died there on March 14, 1971.
William Flintoft and Elizabeth Hamilton had three children:
a. Ethel Flintoft ( I do not know her married name)
I have heard that Ethel Flintoft had five children:
i. Doreen
ii. Betty
iii. Billy
iv.
v.
b. Dorothy Flintoft (Mrs. Mobes) (Mrs. J. Gerard)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
c. John Flintoft
He has six children. I do not know the order:
i. Annelta Flintoft
ii. Deborah Flintoft
iii. Dick Flintoft iv. Jim Flintoft
v. Mike Flintoft
vi. John Flintoft
^
THE CHILDREN OF ANDREW CASWELL (1804-1895) G. HARRIET (MRS. H. ROBERTS) (1847-1936 or 1940)
G. HARRIET (MRS. H. ROBERTS) (1847-1936 or 1940)
Harriet Caswell was the third daughter of Andrew Caswell and Martha Burrows, of Drummond Township, Lanark County, Ontario. She was born on December 4, 1847.
on June 21, 1872, at Carleton Place, she married Henry (Hank) Roberts, whose sister Annie two years later married Harriet’s brother John Goodson Caswell.
I am not sure whether Harriet (Caswell) Roberts died in 1936 or 1940. I have been told variously that she died in her 89th and her 93rd year. Her death was the result of, but occurred quite a time after, a slight automobile accident. The following obituary was printed in a Strathclair, Manitoba, newspaper:
^
“In the death of Mrs. Harriet Roberts, Strathclair lost one of its earliest pioneers. Mrs. Roberts died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in Winnipeg. She was the wife of the late Henry Rob erts, pioneer farmer and businessman of Strathclair, who died in 1934. Mrs. Roberts was born in Carleton Place, Ontario, and came West with her husband in 1879 to homestead in the Strathclair district. Later they operated a lumber mill for three years at the Bend, north of the town of Strathclair, later moving to town to open the first hotel there and also a gen- eral store. They retired in 1915, and during recent years Mrs. Roberts has made her home with her daugh ter in Winnipeg. Mrs. Roberts was buried in the family plot in the Strathclair cemetery.”
Harriet Caswell’s husband, Henry Roberts, was the fifth child of John Roberts and Elizabeth Earle. For information about them see pages 286-295. The 1861 Beckwith Township Census lists Henry Roberts as born in Canada and sixteen years old. That would make his birth date about 1845. After a strenuous and successful life he retired from business in 1915. In 1934, in his ninetieth year, he quite literally lay down and died, without having suffered from any preliminary illness.
Harriet (Caswell) and Henry Roberts left Ontario for the West in 1879. For a time Henry lumbered in Minnesota. Then he decided to homestead on the Canadian prairies. With his wife and two children he went from Minneapolis to Winnipeg by train. Covering the bottom of a carpet bag which they carried with them was their hoard of gold coins. From Winnipeg they went by barge on the Assinaboine River to Brandon. The final lap of the journey they made with a waggon train, riding in a squeaking Red River cart drawn by oxen.
Henry Roberts settled at a bend of the Saskatchewan River near Elphinstone. He built a sawmill there. At first the only neighbours were a family named Sinclair. The site of the Roberts mill was called the Bend. It was some nine miles north of what was to be the village of Strathclair.
Here I shall digress to say something about Strathclair because at different times it has been the home of quite a few of our relatives. Strathclair is in Manitoba, about forty miles northwest of Brandon. The village came into existence with the arrival of the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway in 1885. In 1886 a station was opened in the village. The early settlers were nearly all Anglo-Saxon, but as time went on immigrants of various nationalities enriched the life of the community. In 1886 when the Strathclair Presbyterian Church was being built bricks and lumber were brought by oxen from Minnedosa about thirty miles to the southeast. The round trip took three days. The telephone did not come to Strathclair until 1910. Electric power reached Strathclair village in 1938. For sometime before this, however, the village was served by the Henderson Power Plant. The rural areas in the Strathclair region were not supplied with electric power until 1949.
Before the site of Strathclair village was surveyed Henry Roberts and his family moved in. They were said to be the first settlers. Henry Roberts opened the first hotel there in 1885 and was himself the architect of the building. As the temperature was about 40 ” F. below zero when the building was under construction all the nails had to be warmed to prevent their breaking. Henry Roberts also opened a general store in Strathclair. He had a store in Elphinstone as well. In both Elphinstone and Strathclair he had a cheese factory. The Elphinstone factory was burned down about 1896. In both his factories Henry Roberts made very good cheese, winning gold medals at exhibitions in Toronto and Regina.
Here is how the Canadian Weekly’s, Carleton Place column described an 1898 visit to their old home region by Harriet and Henry Roberts:
“July 7, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Roberts, of Strathclare (sic) N.W. Territories, are here to spend a few weeks after an absence of many years. They formerly resided at Black’s Corners. Mrs. Roberts is a sister of Principal Caswell. They are greatly enjoying their visit, especially the process of removing the fungus growth that has developed on the old port-wine memories, and drinking afresh the sweets of their early friendships.”
“August 11, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts left for their home in Strathclaire (sic) on Monday, having spent one of the choicest months of their lives here and hereabouts.”
Much of my information about Henry Roberts has come from a history of Strathclair published by the municipality and entitled “Our History to 1970.” The next four paragraphs are all quoted from that book:
“Hank Roberts was an enterprising businessman. At one time he owned the land from Minnedosa Street west along Saskatchewan Avenue to the Market Square, including the Dew Drop Inn Hotel. When his daughter was married he moved half of the building west to its present site, the Delmer Jack home, and lived in it while leaving the other half on the corner of Minnedosa and Saskatchewan as a home for his daughter Lily and son-in-law Billy Reed. Among Hank’s other ventures were a store where the Drug Store is now (this burned in 1913) and a store where the Coop Grocery Store is situated. When Hank opened this store the upstairs was used as a hall. M.S. Chapman bought this store in the early 1900’s and later added to it. it was a landmark on Main Street and is still known as the Chapman store, in spite of having had several different business occupants in the meantime, until it was torn down in the early 60’s.
Hank also built a Pool Room and Barber Shop on the site of the McCloy Hotel, where the barber shop is now, and sold it to George Haxby. It was owned and operated by various barbers until finally bought by John Dymtar, who in 1957 tore down the old building and rebuilt on the same site.
The second building in Strathclair was Henry Roberts’s hotel, built in 1885. The village was not surveyed or planned at this time. The Manitoba and Northwestern Railway went only as far as Solsgirth. The Hank Roberts hotel was bought by James Grassie in 1893, and named the Manitoba and Northwestern Hotel. Later he moved this building in two pieces from Main; one part to the N.E. corner of Arnit and Saskatchewan, where it served as the Malcolm McLean boarding-house for many years and was torn down after World War II. The other part was moved a bit further west and is now the home of Mrs. Henry Choy.
On September 3, 1913, a fire destroyed the cornerstore owned by Hank Roberts, and a number of other buildings. A new brick building was built on the corner of Main and Minnedosa to replace the Hank Roberts corner-store. This in turn has been torn down. In 1966 a large modern drug store was built on the same site.”
Before going on to the children of Henry and Harriet (Caswell) Roberts I shall set down a few reminiscences about Henry and Harriet from people who knew them personally. My own recollections are very faint. Some time between 1916 and 1918 when we were visiting Aunt Ruby and Uncle Frank Williamson on their Strathclair farm, Mother took my brother and me to call on our Great-Aunt Harriet and Great-Uncle Henry. I remember, as does my cousin Orm Williamson, that our aunt gave us cookies. Orm, who saw the couple often because his family farmed near by, says that they were a grand old couple. He refers to Uncle Henry’s sense of humour, though the instance he gives does not seem to have been either clever or kindly. He relates that Uncle Henry said to Aunt Harriet,who was quite sharp-featured, “There’s going to be a terrible collision one of these days.” on her asking him when, he replied, “When your nose and chin meet.” The only details that I remember about Uncle Henry–entirely unrelated to each other–are that he had had a cancer caused by pipe-smoking removed from his lip, and that he was a great horseman.
Henry Roberts’s grandson Charlie Roberts, of Winnipeg, as a boy lived for some years with his Roberts grandparents. He wrote:
“One thing that I do know is that Grandpa Roberts was a hard task-master but one of the kindest men I have ever known. No one ever went hungry from his door. Grandma Roberts, while quite sedate, was also a lovable person. I spent many of my younger years with them and although I tried–as well as did several of my other cousins–we could never get much information of their past–romantic or otherwise.”
About his grandmother, Harriet (Caswell) Roberts, Charlie sent me this amusing little item:
“Grandma declared that she was Welsh. This was during World War One when the Irish were allowing German submarines to refuel at some of their ports. Grandma, being a great Patriot, decided that the Robertses did not come from Ireland but rather Wales instead. This was a standing joke in our family for years. I wonder what she would think of Ireland today.”
Harriet was, of course, a Roberts only by marriage. I don’t know whether she also claimed Welsh origin for the Irish Caswells. If she did so, there is a chance that she may–if we could go back far enough–have been right after all.
Henry Roberts’s grandchildren Cliff Reed and ‘Violet (Reed) Mizen, of Vancouver, when describing his appearance to me mentioned his full head of white hair. He had no need of spectacles they said. About five o’clock he dearly loved to have a nip of rye. In his later years he suffered somewhat from lumbago. He was very fond of playing euchre and bridge. The writer of an article about him in the Strathclair paper had written:
“Challenge him to a game of euchre or even bridge, and he will forget his lumbago and give you an up-todate battle rivalling Lenz or Culbertson.”
Another writeup, this time about a poultry exhibit of over eighty entries, sponsored by the Strathclair Agricultural Society, had this to say about Henry Roberts:
“I well remember that day as Hank Roberts had several coops of fowl, and in one coop he had a Plymouth Rock cockerel and two hens, and some good poultry men told Hank that those two feathers should not be sticking out of the rooster’s tail. ‘Cripes!’ said Hank [I have been told that this was his invariable expletive.] ‘We can soon fix that,’ so he stuck his hand in the coop and yanked out of the rooster’s tail the two offending feathers, and when judging was over Hank had the prize.”
Henry and Harriet (Caswell) Roberts had two children:
1. Lillian Martha Roberts (Mrs. W.H. Reed)
One of the early suitors of Lillian Roberts was Glen Campbell, later a well-known Manitoba personality and a hero of World War I. He was a remittance man of a good Scottish family who married an Indian girl. My mother, probably when she was teaching at Elphinstone, visited their home and gave an admiring account of Mrs. Glen Campbell and of her care for her home,which was sparsely and simply furnished but spotlessly clean, and her children. There was a story that Glen Campbell’s mother, who had been told by letter that her son had married an Indian princess was much perturbed when she visited the family in their pioneer setting.
When Lillian Roberts did marry, her choice was William Henry Reed, who had first come to Strathclair as manager of Henry Roberts’s general store. William Reed had lodged at the Roberts hotel, where the Roberts family themselves lived too.
After Lillian Roberts and William Reed were married, and while their children were still quite young, they left Strathclair for Winnipeg. It was there that their children grew up and married.
In Winnipeg, William Reed was employed by the wholesale grocery firm of Foley, Locke, and Larson. This was about the time that Henry Roberts sold his Strathclair store to Chapman and Company.
Lillian Roberts and William Reed had four children:
a. Violet Reed (Mrs. J.Ben Dickey) (Mrs. Frank W. Mizen) -(1896-
The first child of Lillian Roberts and William Reed was born in Winnipeg in 1896. She is now a widow and lives in Vancouver, B.C.
Violet Reed and Ben Dickey had one daughter:
Lael Dickey (Mrs. F.E. Glover)
Mrs. Glover lives in North Vancouver, B.C. She has two children.
b. Nora Reed (Mrs. Cecil B. Philp) (1898-
Nora Reed was born in Winnipeg in 1898. In 1948 she died there. Her husband, a county court judge, remarried.
Nora Reed and Cecil Philp had two children:
i. Alan Philp
At forty he became the youngest county court judge in Canada. He and his wife Maureen live in Winnipeg. They have three children.
ii. Audrey Philp (Mrs. Joseph Ainsworth)
She livesin Calgary. She has three children.
c. Clifford H. Reed (1900-
Clifford H. Reed was the third child of Lillian Roberts and William H. Reed. He was born in 1900 in the house in Strathclair on the northwest corner of Minnedosa and Saskatchewan Streets referred to a little earlier in this chapter.
I learned from Clifford Reed that he and his sister Violet as children sometimes played in the storeroom of their Roberts grandparents’ home. There they found beautiful old dresses and a side saddle. I wonder whether that was the saddle brought to Canada by their County Carlow grandmother and mentioned earlier here on page 287.
Clifford Reed is the owner of the C.H Reed & Co. Ltd., Insurance Adjusters, in Vancouver, B.C. He in Vancouver for many years. Clifford and Carrie Reed have one son:
Clifford William Reed He lives in Port Moody, B.C.
d.,Hazel Reed (Mrs. Stephen L. Myers) (1902-
She was born in 1902. Her husband, now retired, was traffic manager for Seagrim’s in New York city. Before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, Hazel and Stephen Myers lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
2. John Melzo Roberts (1875-1952)
He was born in Beckwith Township, Lanark County, Ontario, on December 15, 1875. He married Clara Abigail Devlin, of Durham, Ontario.
Clara Devlin’s father was a Protestant Irishman from near Cork. Her mother, whose maiden name was McLeod, was a Scottish Presbyterian. She had come to Canada with her parents at the age of three in a sailing vessel which took sixty days to cross the Atlantic.
John Melzo Roberts lived in Vancouver, where he died on September 16, 1952. He was survived by his wife and five sons and three daughters, several children having predeceased him.
The eleven children of John Roberts and Abigail Devlin are:
a. Charles Roberts (1899-
Charlie Roberts was born in 1899 in Strathclair, Manitoba.
He served in the Canadian army in World War I. He spent a harvest leave working on the farm of his cousin Ruby Williamson and her husband Frank at Strathclair. Writing of this experience he said, ” It was just after the fire which destroyed the house. Inez Reilly [Ruby’s niece] had come to help Ruby. We had a lot of fun.”
Charles Roberts and his wife Leslie live in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
b. Homer Roberts (1902- ?)
He was born in Strathclair in 1902. He lived in Red Deer, Alberta.
c. John Roberts
He died in infancy from what in those days was called “summer complaint.”
d. Dorothy Roberts (Mrs. D. Rushton) (Mrs. Field) (1905-
She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1905. She lives in Victoria, B.C.
e. Lorne Roberts (1907- ?
He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1907. He lived in Bella Bella, B.C. He is now dead.
f. Orville Roberts (1909- ?)
He was born in 1909 in Strathclair. He lived in Strathclair and Edmonton. He, too, is now dead.
g. Clifford Roberts (1911- ?)
He was born in Strathclair, Manitoba, in 1911. He lived in Edmonton, Alberta. He is now dead.
h. Lillian Abigail (Mrs. F. Oakie)(1914)
She was born in 1914 in Camrose,Alberta. She lives in Edmonton.
i. Margaret Roberts (Mrs. H.C. Foreman) (1916-
She was born in Camrose, Alberta, in 1916. Her family operates the Fraserview Golf Course in Vancouver, B.C.
j. William Allenby Roberts (1918-
He was born in Edmonton in 1918. He is an accountant with a Vancouver shipping company.
k. Mary Roberts(1920- c. 1922)
She was born in Edmonton in 1920. She died when she was two years old.’
^
THE CHILDREN OF ANDREW CASWELL (1804-1895)
H. OLIVIA (1850-1850)
I. REBECCA (MRS. B. RATHWELL) (1851-1931)
J. MARTHA (1853-1867)
K. ANDREW (1858-1938)
H. OLIVIA CASWELL (1850-1850)
Olivia Caswell was born on April 10, 1850, and died on May 1 of that same year.
^
Rebecca Caswell was the ninth child of Andrew Caswell and Martha Burrows. She was born on July 12, 1851.
On May 5, 1885, Rebecca Caswell married Benjamin, Rathwell, of Drummond. The ceremony took place at the home of Rebecca’s parents. The clergyman was the Rev. T.O. Brown.
The Rathwell family was a long established one in the Carlton Place-Perth area. Emigrant Settler No. 133 in the Perth Settlement Register was Benjamin Rathwell from Ireland on the John, landed Quebec city, September 19, 1816, located November 20, 1816, to Drummond Township, Concession 4, Lot 15 SW, settlement duties completed November 13, 1819. In the 1820 Drummond Township census Benjamin Rathwell was listed with one woman and one male child. A Samuel Rathwell from Ireland landed from the Maria at Quebec city on June 26, 1819, and was located February 21, 1821, as emigrant No. 856 to Drummond Township, Concession 12, Lot 23 NE without wife or children.
John Flintoft used to take lumber from his land down to Quebec by raft and sell it there. On the way home from such a trip he disappeared and was never heard of again. Foul play was suspected as he had been carrying money back with him. The newspapers of the day, however, did not hint at this. The Herald, of August 15, 1851, dealt with his death in this way:
“It is with the deepest regret we understand that John Flintoft, of Drummond, was drowned by falling off one of the Quebec steamers on Friday night last, between Three Rivers and Montreal. It is said that he had been lying on a bench near the side of the steamer–that he was seen in that position by the Captain a short time before he was missed. on coming back to where the bench was the Captain discovered, it is said, His hat and coat, but on searching all over the steamer for Flintoft he could not be found.”
The eldest son of John Flintoft and Desdemona Willows was about eight years old when his father disappeared, leaving a widow and five children. On April 21, 1874, this son, James Flintoft, married Caroline Caswell.
Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft had five children. Their married life lasted twenty-four years almost to the day. James Flintoft died at the age of 55 on April 22, 1898. Here is his obituary from a Carleton Place newspaper dated April 28, 1898:
“Mr. James Flintoft, after whose father Flintoft’s Bay on the Mississippi was named, died on Friday last in the Protestant Hospital at Ottawa aged 55 years. In February last while driving to Mr. Shaw’s with his brother, and just at the end of his journey, his horse took fright and in passing swiftly through a gate, a piece of the cutter pierced Mr. Flintoft to the depth of three inches at the collar bone. In spite of the greatest skill, the wound would not heal. A week ago Saturday he was taken to the Hospital. On Wednesday the physicians sent a card to his wife of the withdrawal of their hope. That card did not reach the home till Saturday, three days later. All the week Principal Caswell, whose sister is Mrs. Flintoft, became impressed that all was not well in Ottawa, and so on Saturday he went down to see how it fared with his friend, and was thunderstruck to be informed that he had died on Friday and was then lying in the mortuary. Death was due to septic pneumonia. The body was brought here Sunday evening and taken to the home in Drummond. The funeral was on Monday and was magnificent in proportions. Service was conducted in the Methodist Church at Boyd’s by the Rev. Mr. Hanna, who delivered a very able sermon. Interment was made in the near-by cemetery. Six brothers-in-law were pallbearers. The deceased was born on the farm he inherited from his father, who was a noted lumberman in those parts and lost his life by falling unseen from a vessel between Montreal and Quebec, the body never being recovered. Deceased’s brother John occupies the next farm. While Mr. Flintoff was never aggressive in promoting his views on matters of Church or state, he was still a highly influential’factor in his township, and was keen of spirit likewise in the diversions of forest and lake. He leaves a widow and four sons.”
Caroline Caswell survived her husband by about eight and a half years, dying of cancer on September 2, 1907. Both Caroline (Caswell) Flintoft and her husband, James Flintoft, are buried in Boyd’s Methodist Cemetery. This is the inscription on their tombstone:
James Flintoft
d. April 22, 1898
aged 55 years
and
Caroline Caswell
d. Sept. 2, 1907
aged 63
and
Ephraim Flintoft
d. Sept. 11, 1878
aged 11 mos. 17 days
These are the five children of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft:
1. John Albert Flintoft (1875-1945)
2. Ephraim Flintoft (1877-1878)
3. Andrew Herbert Flintoft (1879-1967)
4. Melzo Lorne Flintoft (1881-1918)
5. William Charles Flintoft (1882-1971)
1. John Albert Flintoft (1875-1945)
He was born on February 3, 1875, and died on May 26, 1945. On December 19, 1900, he married Elizabeth Ethel Tysick. She was born March 2, 1877, and died on March 16, 1951. She and her husband are buried in the 8th Line Cemetery, Drummond Township, Lanark County. John Albert Flintoft and Lizzie Tysick had five children:
a. Effie Pearl Flintoft (Mrs. Melville Caswell)
Effie Flintoft trained as a nurse in Victoria Hospital, Renfrew, Ontario. She graduated in June, 1932. That being one of the Depression years,she had a hard time finding employment. About 1935 she went to northern Ontario, and eventually found work in the Lady Minto Hospital at Cochrane.
On November 19, 1936, she married Melville Caswell, her second cousin. Pages 361 to 363 are about Effie (Flintoft) Caswell and her husband and children.
b. Harold James Flintoft
He is the second child of John Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick. He lives at McCullough’s Landing, on the next farm to his sister Effie Caswell and her husband’s trailer camp. His farm on Flintoft’s Bay, is the original family farm mentioned earlier in this chapter. Jim Flintoft is the owner of the Flintoft family Bible.
c. Inez May Flintoft (Mrs. Alf Moore)
Inez May Flintoft married Alf Moore on October 23, 1937. She and her husband sold their farm in the summer of 1974 and moved to Port Elmsley, midway between Perth and Smiths Falls. Inez and Alf Moore had five children:
i. Marion Moore (1938-1951)
She was born in 1938. On July 17, 1951, she met her death by drowning.
ii. John Moore
iii. Ivy Elizabeth Moore
iv. Gertrude Elva Moore
v. Charles Moore
d. Elva Eliza Flintoft (Mrs. Bob Rutherford) (Mrs, Dick
The fourth child of John Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick was married on July 15, 1931, to Bob Rutherford. On December 17, 1968, she married Dick McVeety.
Elva Flintoft and Bob Rutherford had one child:
Eva Rutherford (Mrs. Frank South) (1934
She was born on July 29, 1934. On October 25, 1958, she married Frank South.
e. Minnie Ivern (Ivy) Flintoft (Mrs. Wally Armstrong)
The youngest child of John Albert Flintoft and Elizabeth Tysick married Wally Armstrong on May 6. 1942.
Ivy and Wally Armstrong have one son.
2. Ephraim Flintoft (1877-1878)
This second child of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft died on September 11, 1878, at the age of 11 months, 7 days.
3. Andrew Herbert Flintoft (1879-1967)
Herb Flintoft was born August 9, 1879. He died on June 7, 1967.
In the Perth Courier for November 11, 1898, I read the following item involving Herbert Flintoft:
“Messrs. Bob Shaw and Herb Flintoff (sic) have been ploughing for the past week on the vacant lot belonging to Mr. Jas. Shaw. They attended the weekly Temperance meeting in the town hall on Friday evening and when they returned to their camp they found it had all been reduced to ashes, also their hunting outfit.”
On December 24, 1909, in Ontario, Herb Flintoft married Minnie McCreary, of Perth. The McCreary family lived on the farm east of the Caswell farm in Drummond Township, Lanark County, Ontario.
Herb and Minnie Flintoft homesteaded near Cabri, Saskatchewan. They left Ontario in 1910. Withthemwent Herb’s brother William (Billy) Flintoft and Minnie’s brother Joe McCreary, who had married Barbara McDonald from near Carleton Place, and had one child, Jean. Herb Flintoft and his brother-in-law Joe McCreary lived side by side, “only a dog’s trot apart.” Billy Flintoft lived a little over a mile away.
Neither Herbert nor William Flintoft ever revisited Ontario, although their wives did so several times. Joe McCreary and his wife went back to Ontario quite a few times. Eventually they retired in Comox, on Vancouver Island. From there they moved to California, where their married daughter was living.. Both Joe McCreary and his wife died in California and are buried there. In 1925 Herb and Minnie Flintoft left Cabri for the Glenmore district near Kelowna, B.C. There they farmed until retirement. Writing of their former home, Cabri, Saskatchewan, Adelbert Caswell, who had visited them there in 1921 and revisited it in 1936, said, “I hardly recognized the places where they had their homes and raised their families. The houses were deserted, run down, and almost in ruins. I suppose this was the result of the Great Depression of the early thirties.” Minnie Flintoft predeceased her husband. I do not know the date of her death. Minnie and Herb Flintoft had six children:
a. Evelyn Flintoft (Mrs. John Lindahl) ( ? -1969)
Evelyn was a teacher. She married John Lindahl, a widower. She died October 19, 1969.
She and John LIndahl had two children:
i. Vera Lindahl (Mrs. Bradford)
She lives in Victoria B.C.
ii. Stanley L.indahl
He lives in Kelowna, B.C.
b. W. James Flintoft
He and his wife live in West Vancouver, B.C. He has been twice married. He has two sons:
i. Donald Flintoft
He is an attorney in Houston, Texas. He has one son.
ii. Robert J. Flintoft
He is a surveyor and lives in Vancouver, B.C.
c. George Flintoft
He and his wife Bertha live in Kelowna, B.C. They have one son:
Douglas Flintoft
He lives in Kitimat, B.C.
d. Margaret Flintoft (Mrs. Lawrence Walrod) (1914-
Margaret Flintoft was born on December 16, 1914. She and her husband, Lawrence Walrod, spent fifteen years in the service of the Wycliffe Bible Translators Mission. When first I heard of them in 1972 they were working in the Philippines. In 1976 they were home on a year’s leave of absence. Margaret and Lawrence Walrod have two children:
i. Nancy Gay Walrod (Mrs. Steve Cooley) (1942-
Nancy was born on June 17, 1942. Her husband is Steve Cooley, from Campbell River, B.C. Nancy and Steve also worked in the Philippines. In 1977 they visited in Canada. They have one child.
ii. Michael Ross Walrod (1946-
He was born on June 15, 1946. He too is with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. In 1977 he was on furlough, studying Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. Michael’s wife Verna comes from Calgary. Michael and Verna have two children.
e. Lloyd Flintoft
He lives in Edmonton. He has two children:
i. Donna Flintoft (Mrs. Moore)
She lives in Vernon, B.C.
ii. William Flintoft
He lives in Port Coquitlam, B.C.
f. Isobelle Flintoft (Mrs. Prescott Lindahl)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C. She has three children:
i. Lorna Lindahl (Mrs. A. Swan)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
ii. Doreen Lindahl (Mrs. Dawe)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
iii. Larry Lindahl He lives in Merritt, B.C.
4. Melzo Lorne Flintoft (1881-1946)
Melzo Lorne was the fourth child of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft. He was born on April 10, 1881, and died on December 7, 1946, in Milton, Ontario. His first wife, Ida White, whom he married on May 24, 1909, died in 1918. His second wife’s maiden name was Eva Craig.
Melzo Flintoft and Ida White had two children:
a. Ruby Flintoft
She died in March, 1974.
b. Grace Flintoft (married name not known)
She had three children.
Melzo Flintoft and Eva Craig had two children:
c. Eunice Flintoft (married name not known)
She had two children:
i. Glenna
ii. Frank
d. Elda Flintoft (married name not known)
She had two children:
i. Ann
ii. an adopted daughter whose name I do not know
5. William Charles Flintoft (1882-1971)
William Charles Flintoft was the youngest of the five children of Caroline Caswell and James Flintoft. He was born on September 17, 1882. On September 28, 1909, he married Elizabeth Hamilton, whose family lived on the west side of the Caswell farm.
In 1910 he and his family moved West along with Herb Flintoft and Joe McCreary and their families. They homesteaded near Cabri, Saskatchewan. When he retired from farming, William Flintoft moved to Kelowna, B.C. He died there on March 14, 1971.
William Flintoft and Elizabeth Hamilton had three children:
a. Ethel Flintoft ( I do not know her married name)
I have heard that Ethel Flintoft had five children:
i. Doreen
ii. Betty
iii. Billy
iv.
v.
b. Dorothy Flintoft (Mrs. Mobes) (Mrs. J. Gerard)
She lives in Kelowna, B.C.
c. John Flintoft
He has six children. I do not know the order:
i. Annelta Flintoft
ii. Deborah Flintoft
iii. Dick Flintoft iv. Jim Flintoft
v. Mike Flintoft
vi. John Flintoft
^
THE CHILDREN OF ANDREW CASWELL (1804-1895) G. HARRIET (MRS. H. ROBERTS) (1847-1936 or 1940)
G. HARRIET (MRS. H. ROBERTS) (1847-1936 or 1940)
Harriet Caswell was the third daughter of Andrew Caswell and Martha Burrows, of Drummond Township, Lanark County, Ontario. She was born on December 4, 1847.
on June 21, 1872, at Carleton Place, she married Henry (Hank) Roberts, whose sister Annie two years later married Harriet’s brother John Goodson Caswell.
I am not sure whether Harriet (Caswell) Roberts died in 1936 or 1940. I have been told variously that she died in her 89th and her 93rd year. Her death was the result of, but occurred quite a time after, a slight automobile accident. The following obituary was printed in a Strathclair, Manitoba, newspaper:
^
“In the death of Mrs. Harriet Roberts, Strathclair lost one of its earliest pioneers. Mrs. Roberts died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in Winnipeg. She was the wife of the late Henry Rob erts, pioneer farmer and businessman of Strathclair, who died in 1934. Mrs. Roberts was born in Carleton Place, Ontario, and came West with her husband in 1879 to homestead in the Strathclair district. Later they operated a lumber mill for three years at the Bend, north of the town of Strathclair, later moving to town to open the first hotel there and also a gen- eral store. They retired in 1915, and during recent years Mrs. Roberts has made her home with her daugh ter in Winnipeg. Mrs. Roberts was buried in the family plot in the Strathclair cemetery.”
Harriet Caswell’s husband, Henry Roberts, was the fifth child of John Roberts and Elizabeth Earle. For information about them see pages 286-295. The 1861 Beckwith Township Census lists Henry Roberts as born in Canada and sixteen years old. That would make his birth date about 1845. After a strenuous and successful life he retired from business in 1915. In 1934, in his ninetieth year, he quite literally lay down and died, without having suffered from any preliminary illness.
Harriet (Caswell) and Henry Roberts left Ontario for the West in 1879. For a time Henry lumbered in Minnesota. Then he decided to homestead on the Canadian prairies. With his wife and two children he went from Minneapolis to Winnipeg by train. Covering the bottom of a carpet bag which they carried with them was their hoard of gold coins. From Winnipeg they went by barge on the Assinaboine River to Brandon. The final lap of the journey they made with a waggon train, riding in a squeaking Red River cart drawn by oxen.
Henry Roberts settled at a bend of the Saskatchewan River near Elphinstone. He built a sawmill there. At first the only neighbours were a family named Sinclair. The site of the Roberts mill was called the Bend. It was some nine miles north of what was to be the village of Strathclair.
Here I shall digress to say something about Strathclair because at different times it has been the home of quite a few of our relatives. Strathclair is in Manitoba, about forty miles northwest of Brandon. The village came into existence with the arrival of the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway in 1885. In 1886 a station was opened in the village. The early settlers were nearly all Anglo-Saxon, but as time went on immigrants of various nationalities enriched the life of the community. In 1886 when the Strathclair Presbyterian Church was being built bricks and lumber were brought by oxen from Minnedosa about thirty miles to the southeast. The round trip took three days. The telephone did not come to Strathclair until 1910. Electric power reached Strathclair village in 1938. For sometime before this, however, the village was served by the Henderson Power Plant. The rural areas in the Strathclair region were not supplied with electric power until 1949.
Before the site of Strathclair village was surveyed Henry Roberts and his family moved in. They were said to be the first settlers. Henry Roberts opened the first hotel there in 1885 and was himself the architect of the building. As the temperature was about 40 ” F. below zero when the building was under construction all the nails had to be warmed to prevent their breaking. Henry Roberts also opened a general store in Strathclair. He had a store in Elphinstone as well. In both Elphinstone and Strathclair he had a cheese factory. The Elphinstone factory was burned down about 1896. In both his factories Henry Roberts made very good cheese, winning gold medals at exhibitions in Toronto and Regina.
Here is how the Canadian Weekly’s, Carleton Place column described an 1898 visit to their old home region by Harriet and Henry Roberts:
“July 7, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Roberts, of Strathclare (sic) N.W. Territories, are here to spend a few weeks after an absence of many years. They formerly resided at Black’s Corners. Mrs. Roberts is a sister of Principal Caswell. They are greatly enjoying their visit, especially the process of removing the fungus growth that has developed on the old port-wine memories, and drinking afresh the sweets of their early friendships.”
“August 11, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts left for their home in Strathclaire (sic) on Monday, having spent one of the choicest months of their lives here and hereabouts.”
Much of my information about Henry Roberts has come from a history of Strathclair published by the municipality and entitled “Our History to 1970.” The next four paragraphs are all quoted from that book:
“Hank Roberts was an enterprising businessman. At one time he owned the land from Minnedosa Street west along Saskatchewan Avenue to the Market Square, including the Dew Drop Inn Hotel. When his daughter was married he moved half of the building west to its present site, the Delmer Jack home, and lived in it while leaving the other half on the corner of Minnedosa and Saskatchewan as a home for his daughter Lily and son-in-law Billy Reed. Among Hank’s other ventures were a store where the Drug Store is now (this burned in 1913) and a store where the Coop Grocery Store is situated. When Hank opened this store the upstairs was used as a hall. M.S. Chapman bought this store in the early 1900’s and later added to it. it was a landmark on Main Street and is still known as the Chapman store, in spite of having had several different business occupants in the meantime, until it was torn down in the early 60’s.
Hank also built a Pool Room and Barber Shop on the site of the McCloy Hotel, where the barber shop is now, and sold it to George Haxby. It was owned and operated by various barbers until finally bought by John Dymtar, who in 1957 tore down the old building and rebuilt on the same site.
The second building in Strathclair was Henry Roberts’s hotel, built in 1885. The village was not surveyed or planned at this time. The Manitoba and Northwestern Railway went only as far as Solsgirth. The Hank Roberts hotel was bought by James Grassie in 1893, and named the Manitoba and Northwestern Hotel. Later he moved this building in two pieces from Main; one part to the N.E. corner of Arnit and Saskatchewan, where it served as the Malcolm McLean boarding-house for many years and was torn down after World War II. The other part was moved a bit further west and is now the home of Mrs. Henry Choy.
On September 3, 1913, a fire destroyed the cornerstore owned by Hank Roberts, and a number of other buildings. A new brick building was built on the corner of Main and Minnedosa to replace the Hank Roberts corner-store. This in turn has been torn down. In 1966 a large modern drug store was built on the same site.”
Before going on to the children of Henry and Harriet (Caswell) Roberts I shall set down a few reminiscences about Henry and Harriet from people who knew them personally. My own recollections are very faint. Some time between 1916 and 1918 when we were visiting Aunt Ruby and Uncle Frank Williamson on their Strathclair farm, Mother took my brother and me to call on our Great-Aunt Harriet and Great-Uncle Henry. I remember, as does my cousin Orm Williamson, that our aunt gave us cookies. Orm, who saw the couple often because his family farmed near by, says that they were a grand old couple. He refers to Uncle Henry’s sense of humour, though the instance he gives does not seem to have been either clever or kindly. He relates that Uncle Henry said to Aunt Harriet,who was quite sharp-featured, “There’s going to be a terrible collision one of these days.” on her asking him when, he replied, “When your nose and chin meet.” The only details that I remember about Uncle Henry–entirely unrelated to each other–are that he had had a cancer caused by pipe-smoking removed from his lip, and that he was a great horseman.
Henry Roberts’s grandson Charlie Roberts, of Winnipeg, as a boy lived for some years with his Roberts grandparents. He wrote:
“One thing that I do know is that Grandpa Roberts was a hard task-master but one of the kindest men I have ever known. No one ever went hungry from his door. Grandma Roberts, while quite sedate, was also a lovable person. I spent many of my younger years with them and although I tried–as well as did several of my other cousins–we could never get much information of their past–romantic or otherwise.”
About his grandmother, Harriet (Caswell) Roberts, Charlie sent me this amusing little item:
“Grandma declared that she was Welsh. This was during World War One when the Irish were allowing German submarines to refuel at some of their ports. Grandma, being a great Patriot, decided that the Robertses did not come from Ireland but rather Wales instead. This was a standing joke in our family for years. I wonder what she would think of Ireland today.”
Harriet was, of course, a Roberts only by marriage. I don’t know whether she also claimed Welsh origin for the Irish Caswells. If she did so, there is a chance that she may–if we could go back far enough–have been right after all.
Henry Roberts’s grandchildren Cliff Reed and ‘Violet (Reed) Mizen, of Vancouver, when describing his appearance to me mentioned his full head of white hair. He had no need of spectacles they said. About five o’clock he dearly loved to have a nip of rye. In his later years he suffered somewhat from lumbago. He was very fond of playing euchre and bridge. The writer of an article about him in the Strathclair paper had written:
“Challenge him to a game of euchre or even bridge, and he will forget his lumbago and give you an up-todate battle rivalling Lenz or Culbertson.”
Another writeup, this time about a poultry exhibit of over eighty entries, sponsored by the Strathclair Agricultural Society, had this to say about Henry Roberts:
“I well remember that day as Hank Roberts had several coops of fowl, and in one coop he had a Plymouth Rock cockerel and two hens, and some good poultry men told Hank that those two feathers should not be sticking out of the rooster’s tail. ‘Cripes!’ said Hank [I have been told that this was his invariable expletive.] ‘We can soon fix that,’ so he stuck his hand in the coop and yanked out of the rooster’s tail the two offending feathers, and when judging was over Hank had the prize.”
Henry and Harriet (Caswell) Roberts had two children:
1. Lillian Martha Roberts (Mrs. W.H. Reed)
One of the early suitors of Lillian Roberts was Glen Campbell, later a well-known Manitoba personality and a hero of World War I. He was a remittance man of a good Scottish family who married an Indian girl. My mother, probably when she was teaching at Elphinstone, visited their home and gave an admiring account of Mrs. Glen Campbell and of her care for her home,which was sparsely and simply furnished but spotlessly clean, and her children. There was a story that Glen Campbell’s mother, who had been told by letter that her son had married an Indian princess was much perturbed when she visited the family in their pioneer setting.
When Lillian Roberts did marry, her choice was William Henry Reed, who had first come to Strathclair as manager of Henry Roberts’s general store. William Reed had lodged at the Roberts hotel, where the Roberts family themselves lived too.
After Lillian Roberts and William Reed were married, and while their children were still quite young, they left Strathclair for Winnipeg. It was there that their children grew up and married.
In Winnipeg, William Reed was employed by the wholesale grocery firm of Foley, Locke, and Larson. This was about the time that Henry Roberts sold his Strathclair store to Chapman and Company.
Lillian Roberts and William Reed had four children:
a. Violet Reed (Mrs. J.Ben Dickey) (Mrs. Frank W. Mizen) -(1896-
The first child of Lillian Roberts and William Reed was born in Winnipeg in 1896. She is now a widow and lives in Vancouver, B.C.
Violet Reed and Ben Dickey had one daughter:
Lael Dickey (Mrs. F.E. Glover)
Mrs. Glover lives in North Vancouver, B.C. She has two children.
b. Nora Reed (Mrs. Cecil B. Philp) (1898-
Nora Reed was born in Winnipeg in 1898. In 1948 she died there. Her husband, a county court judge, remarried.
Nora Reed and Cecil Philp had two children:
i. Alan Philp
At forty he became the youngest county court judge in Canada. He and his wife Maureen live in Winnipeg. They have three children.
ii. Audrey Philp (Mrs. Joseph Ainsworth)
She livesin Calgary. She has three children.
c. Clifford H. Reed (1900-
Clifford H. Reed was the third child of Lillian Roberts and William H. Reed. He was born in 1900 in the house in Strathclair on the northwest corner of Minnedosa and Saskatchewan Streets referred to a little earlier in this chapter.
I learned from Clifford Reed that he and his sister Violet as children sometimes played in the storeroom of their Roberts grandparents’ home. There they found beautiful old dresses and a side saddle. I wonder whether that was the saddle brought to Canada by their County Carlow grandmother and mentioned earlier here on page 287.
Clifford Reed is the owner of the C.H Reed & Co. Ltd., Insurance Adjusters, in Vancouver, B.C. He in Vancouver for many years. Clifford and Carrie Reed have one son:
Clifford William Reed He lives in Port Moody, B.C.
d.,Hazel Reed (Mrs. Stephen L. Myers) (1902-
She was born in 1902. Her husband, now retired, was traffic manager for Seagrim’s in New York city. Before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, Hazel and Stephen Myers lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
2. John Melzo Roberts (1875-1952)
He was born in Beckwith Township, Lanark County, Ontario, on December 15, 1875. He married Clara Abigail Devlin, of Durham, Ontario.
Clara Devlin’s father was a Protestant Irishman from near Cork. Her mother, whose maiden name was McLeod, was a Scottish Presbyterian. She had come to Canada with her parents at the age of three in a sailing vessel which took sixty days to cross the Atlantic.
John Melzo Roberts lived in Vancouver, where he died on September 16, 1952. He was survived by his wife and five sons and three daughters, several children having predeceased him.
The eleven children of John Roberts and Abigail Devlin are:
a. Charles Roberts (1899-
Charlie Roberts was born in 1899 in Strathclair, Manitoba.
He served in the Canadian army in World War I. He spent a harvest leave working on the farm of his cousin Ruby Williamson and her husband Frank at Strathclair. Writing of this experience he said, ” It was just after the fire which destroyed the house. Inez Reilly [Ruby’s niece] had come to help Ruby. We had a lot of fun.”
Charles Roberts and his wife Leslie live in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
b. Homer Roberts (1902- ?)
He was born in Strathclair in 1902. He lived in Red Deer, Alberta.
c. John Roberts
He died in infancy from what in those days was called “summer complaint.”
d. Dorothy Roberts (Mrs. D. Rushton) (Mrs. Field) (1905-
She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1905. She lives in Victoria, B.C.
e. Lorne Roberts (1907- ?
He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1907. He lived in Bella Bella, B.C. He is now dead.
f. Orville Roberts (1909- ?)
He was born in 1909 in Strathclair. He lived in Strathclair and Edmonton. He, too, is now dead.
g. Clifford Roberts (1911- ?)
He was born in Strathclair, Manitoba, in 1911. He lived in Edmonton, Alberta. He is now dead.
h. Lillian Abigail (Mrs. F. Oakie)(1914)
She was born in 1914 in Camrose,Alberta. She lives in Edmonton.
i. Margaret Roberts (Mrs. H.C. Foreman) (1916-
She was born in Camrose, Alberta, in 1916. Her family operates the Fraserview Golf Course in Vancouver, B.C.
j. William Allenby Roberts (1918-
He was born in Edmonton in 1918. He is an accountant with a Vancouver shipping company.
k. Mary Roberts(1920- c. 1922)
She was born in Edmonton in 1920. She died when she was two years old.’
^
THE CHILDREN OF ANDREW CASWELL (1804-1895)
H. OLIVIA (1850-1850)
I. REBECCA (MRS. B. RATHWELL) (1851-1931)
J. MARTHA (1853-1867)
K. ANDREW (1858-1938)
H. OLIVIA CASWELL (1850-1850)
Olivia Caswell was born on April 10, 1850, and died on May 1 of that same year.
^
Rebecca Caswell was the ninth child of Andrew Caswell and Martha Burrows. She was born on July 12, 1851.
On May 5, 1885, Rebecca Caswell married Benjamin, Rathwell, of Drummond. The ceremony took place at the home of Rebecca’s parents. The clergyman was the Rev. T.O. Brown.
The Rathwell family was a long established one in the Carlton Place-Perth area. Emigrant Settler No. 133 in the Perth Settlement Register was Benjamin Rathwell from Ireland on the John, landed Quebec city, September 19, 1816, located November 20, 1816, to Drummond Township, Concession 4, Lot 15 SW, settlement duties completed November 13, 1819. In the 1820 Drummond Township census Benjamin Rathwell was listed with one woman and one male child. A Samuel Rathwell from Ireland landed from the Maria at Quebec city on June 26, 1819, and was located February 21, 1821, as emigrant No. 856 to Drummond Township, Concession 12, Lot 23 NE without wife or children.
Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.
Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (US
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