Uncle Anthony (1880 - 1950)

Anthony Samuel Boulton

Anthony standing and Frank, the little head over the radiator in 1930.

Anthony Samuel Boulton was born October 8, 1880 in Brockville, Leeds County, Ontario.  He was the son of Benjamin and Ann Boulton.  Anthony is a family name on Ann's mother Ann Higginson Boulton's side, going back generations in County Antrim in Ireland.  He was 12 years old when the family left Ontario for the west and began farming near Reston, MB.  Farms there were small and there wasn't land readily available for the young sons to be able to farm there.  Anthony originally had the farm at 6-6-27 but when his brother Herbert married in the teens, they switched farms.

Uncle Frank told me he was a quiet, tall thin man who did not say much.  Besides farming he "worked out" for others.  Frank recalled him helping pasture and round up cattle and horses north of Reston, along the Pipestone Creek one year.  He remembered that Anthony  (Uncle Frank said it without the h- "Ant-tony") came home so thin that you could see right through the skin on his earlobes!  Ann was distraught to see her son so thin and gaunt that she said he would never work there again!

Cousin Lee (Boulton) Beck recalled that Anthony was a very strong man and a hard worker.  Another family member told me in the late forties it was Anthony that handled the financial matters of the farm and prevented his brother Tom from "giving it all away" after he became very religious and would have given away their last dime.  

Anthony never married but Frank said with a twinkle in his eye, "He almost did!".  He was sweet on Elsie Boulton's sister "Gertie" as Frank calls her.  Her name was Gertrude Bushby and she had come to Canada with Elsie and their father James in 1913.  British Columbia marriage records have Gertrude marrying Charles McIntyre in Vancouver on September 21, 1926.  A Gertrude McIntyre's death record is in the San Diego, California records for February 8, 1929, making her only 32 years old at the time.  Uncle Frank did remember that she died young.

The photo above is believed to have been taken about 1912.  The men in coveralls left to right are Thomas, Herbert and Anthony.  The man in the white shirt is unknown.  The two boys are nephews, sons of Abigail "Louisa", Russell and Tom Roe.  The tractor is a Hart Parr bought in 1912.  It is pulling an eight furrow plow. 

The above photo is Uncle Frank on the left, Edwin at the reins, and Anthony on the right with a pitchfork.  The Albert History book from 1984 says he enjoyed sports and listened to the hockey games on the radio.  He also enjoyed keeping up with the affairs and politics of the country.

Uncle Frank remembered the two of them going to Brandon Fair together - for a whole week! They stayed with a cousin in Brandon, Long Tom Boulton. (So called to disquish him from Frank's dad Tom who was short!)

Anthony died May 14, 1950 at the age of 69 and is buried in Reston Cemetery in a family plot.

Further memories and stories about Uncle Anthony are welcome in the Comments below!