When a local Lanark chap buried his wife in 1903 he found himself in dire straits for money. He was compelled to bury her in a crude pine box in the cemetery in Watson’s Corners due to lack of money. His wife was known as a frugal woman, and because of that the widower later found himself rolling in dough. How, you ask? Well his wife had saved unbeknownst to him for half a century.
For all these years he had turned over his savings every Saturday night from the mill he had worked at and never asked questions to where it was going. He knew he had a roof over his head, food to eat, and was always comfortably dressed and he asked for nothing more. He could neither read or write and had no interest in the state of the world, but he loved his wife and gave her his money.
The day after she died he gathered up her papers and brought them over to his friend. The receipts were mostly for money paid out, but one specifically held his attention for some time. It was a long list of dates opposite of many sums noted:
Monday $2 under Hen house
Friday 29 cents in chimney pot
Sunday $1.78 in cellar
Tuesday 58 cents in cistern
and so the list ran, on and on…
His friend studied the list for a long time and told his friend that thanks to the miserly ways of his late wife he was probably a rich man. They both went over to the man’s home and the first place they checked was the hen house under a stone slab where they found a box of coins of all sorts of denominations. There was over $1400 dollars in that box as well as $2800 hanging in a pot hanging on the roof of the cistern. More than $700 was found in the chimney and everything they had found so far totalled to $5500. As his friend told the widower,
“That was some saving for a rainy day your wife was doing!”
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 and The Tales of Almonte
Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun Screamin’ Mamas (USA) and The Sherbrooke Record
lindaseccaspina 
Great story.
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