Violet's God's Lake Adventure

Today's blog post tells the story of Randy's Aunt Vi Sowtis and her summer adventure over 77 years ago.  The story was inspired by a letter home to her parents and the generosity of her daughter to share it and many special photos with me and my blog readers. Thank you.

Violet Lillian Boulton was born almost exactly 100 years ago on  April 1,1918.  To her mother Elsie and father Thomas, Vi's birth would have marked a happy occasion after the death of baby Emily Patience 3 months earlier and with ongoing news of WWI. She grew up on the farm south of Reston and attended Kinloss School and then higher grades in Reston.  Vi is remembered by one niece for her fashion sense.  When she was very young, she put coal in her shoes so she would have high heels. That would have been a long mile to school in those shoes!

 In the late 30's Vi moved to Winnipeg with her sisters Edna and Annie and cousin Ida where she took a job as a domestic in the home of Archbishop Samuel Matheson  at 91 Kingsway Avenue. Writing on the photo below from the Boulton album of her in her uniform helped fill in that detail. Edna's daughter remembers her mother talking about the girls meeting downtown on their half day off each week to catch up and perhaps shop and have lunch out. 

  

The second picture of Vi on the rocks was labelled " At God's Lake" and it was taken the same time as her with the float plane at the top of this post. These bushplanes were known as "flying boxcars" and I can only imagine her first trip that summer in the single engine plane! 

Her cousin Ida and her husband Max White lived and worked there and she apparently joined them for a summer of work and fun. A little research helped me find out that God's Lake in 1941 was the site of a gold mine and supported a community of 400 people. Today it is home to Elk Island Fishing Lodge and a First Nations Reserve nearby.  A wonderful newsy letter home from "Villy" in the summer of 1941 reads as follows: 

Just got home & have read your always looked for & welcome letter.  I missed hearing from you on Tuesday.  This is another cold, windy, rainy day.  Apparently this is the kind of weather they have up here in August.  It seemed such a short summer.  However - we’ll probably get a lot of nice days yet - I hope.  You certainly have done a lot of preserving and pickling.  Mrs. Baker & I have made a great many jars of jams & jellies & also some pickles.  We’ve had a lot of fun picking the berries. We put on the awfullest looking old slacks & sweaters etc & maybe we don’t look like a couple of tramps when we go berry picking.Ida & I are sitting here crunching candies.  If there’s anything in that line around we just can’t seem to leave them alone until they’re finished - we call it our energy food.I was glad to hear the crop is turning out so good.  Threshing is early this year isn’t it?  The girls must be a big help too.  They must take after their sister Vi for riding horseback.

I had a letter from Edna.  She is working for two weeks and then has found a place to board while she is going to school.  I hope she & Annie are getting along fine.Gee little Faye must be cute, Aunt Susie.  Ida, Max & I thought what you told us about her taking a bite out of the tomato and putting the eggs on the table awfully cute.  We sure miss wee Dinty here so much.  He was getting to be such a nice dog & learning so many tricks.Well I can’t seem to think of much more to write now so will stop until this evening & maybe the plane will get in & I’ll be able to answer any letters I get so until then Bye.Hello once more.  It is now 9:30 & I have just finished the front of a ladies sleeveless sweater (R. Cross knitting) so here goes for a few more lines.  Ida is busy making her white skirt over into a jumper & Max is sound asleep.The plane came in but the mail wasn’t given out so I don’t know whether we got any mail or not. Last night was our knitting group meeting.  Bev Chute has it this week.  We do have a lot of fun at them & do a lot of R. Cross knitting as well.  I had it the week before and next week Mrs. Whitiker is taking it.I haven’t been playing tennis for quite a while. It won’t be long now until the badminton season starts.
You did not say how you like the pictures I sent or if you sent them on.  I hope you got them ok.  Did you see in the paper where Thelma Barber was married to a MacLelland man.  He also was a teacher in Birtle.
I was reading a list of young Manitobans who received their wings & saw Jack Forman’s name among them.  Where is Cliff Pierce now?  Did he not join the airforce?Well I guess this is all the news I can think of for this week so I’ll close now with my best love to all.

On Valentine's Day of 1942, Violet married Joseph Sowtis, an officer in the Navy during WII.  They lived in Victoria where their daughter took her first steps.  After the war, they moved back to Brandon where they raised a daughter and a son.  
Joe worked in the Post Office in Brandon for 38 years.  Vi and Joe moved back to Victoria in their retirement years.  



Joe passed away in 2006 and his sweetheart followed him almost exactly three years later on November 22, 2009.  
Additions and corrections to Vi's story are most welcome at ssimms@escape.ca
The story continues here... 

Chikaramachi China

Spring Break from school gives me a chance to spend time looking in second hand stores for treasures.  This week, I spotted this pretty  cup and was excited to buy it for $1 to complete a set I knew I had at home. 

Okay, my memory seemed to be lacking because below is the set that I have that belonged to the Boulton household, either Merle or her mother-in-law Elsie.  Also, the set is missing a saucer, not a cup!

 

It did get me researching this style of china and found the iridescent peach and blue is a hallmark of Chikaramachi from Japan.
 
The high gloss glaze used is also called lustreware and the stamp on the bottom dates it somewhere between 1928 and 1946.  These cups were made in the same factory as the famous Noritake, perhaps as an apprenticeship program. 

While I was looking in the china cupboard, I took note that this pretty set is missing a saucer as well. 

The maker's mark on this set shows it was made at Royal Leighton Ware between 1946 and 1954.  It is defined as an earthenware rather than a china and it shows it age with the crazing inside the cups.  The wrinkles of vintage pottery!

P.S. - Does anybody want that chikaramachi cup??

Uncle Anthony's Watch

Things left behind by the previous generations continue to tell their stories including this pocket watch that belonged to Anthony Samuel Boulton (1880-1950).  His story as a homesteading bachelor was told in a previous blog post  and I imagine this watch as one of his prized possessions.  In cleaning it up, the serial number 13527039 was uncovered and several websites helped me to learn more about it.  It was made in about 1904 by the American Waltham Watch Company.   

 The Eaton's Spring and Summer Catalog from 1905 pictures the following watches for sale and the 15 jewel Waltham with the nickel case was one of the modest models on the list.  Just a guess, but  25 year old Anthony may have ordered his watch from here or perhaps it was a gift.  

The threshing picture below indicates Anthony is the man standing on the back and in the other picture of a beautiful of Edna Boulton Pearn in the 1930's, her Uncle Anthony is working on the tractor behind her. 

 Anthony died in May of 1950, after living with 3 generations of family in the Reston district.  Many of those years he would have glanced at this watch to see what time the sun set, how soon to expect a visit from a family member and how long before lunch break would arrive at the field. 

*Family History is good too* 😏😉

Heaps of Love - Eleanor Frances "Lena" Bushby Carpenter (1881-1950)

Today's blog post is about Lena, the last of the Bushby sisters that I've got to know from her letters to Elsie Bushby Boulton. 

On February 10,1881, Eleanor Frances Bushby was born the second child to James and Patience but she seems to have been always called "Lena".  In 1906 at age 25, she married Jabez Arthur "Jim" Carpenter who was the same age. 

By the 1911 census, they had their family of 2 girls, Barbara Eileen and Patience Katherine who they nicknamed "Kitty".  Jim was listed as a brewery worker and two of Lena’s sisters, Myra (known as "Queenie") and Dorothy Bushby boarded with them and worked as draper's assistants.

Five years after Arthur and Walter Bushby emmigrated, Elsie, her sister Gertrude and their father James left England for Canada in the fall of 1913.  Keeping their special sisterly relationship alive with letter writing began. 

1916 from Lena. The war is awful and things are so dear, one dare not think of luxuries. It is a good job I have and the two children or I do not know how we should live but as I have always been used to struggles, it does not come as hard to me as others.

In 1918, Elsie received a letter of sympathy on loss of her baby Emily Patience and Lena advises her not to let her husband go into the war as Jim has been gone many months with no word from him. The sentiment below from about 1920 is touching:

I was so glad to hear from you fancy only the week before you wrote me.  I dreamed you tapped at the window and we both said hello.  We had not seen each other for such a long time.  I am sorry that you have had such a lot of trouble and hope this year will be brighter.  What a little family you have already. 

 Lena and Jim lived in Harrow, a part of northwest London although they moved a few times over the years.  She wasn’t one to always date her letters but the return addresses are there to help order them. The Carpenters were right in the middle of the bombing  in World War Two and it must have been a terrible time, although she doesn't write much about it to Elsie.  The end of the conflict brought celebration with it for the Carpenter family.

1924 -  We have been very busy this year , all of us being in the Pagent of the Empire. It was held at the Exhibition Wembley a tram ride from us. I wondered if you would have come over this year as I believe there were cheap fares. I wish you could try to come next year. We went down into Somerset for our holiday, it was miserable. We could not get put up at Milton. Dorothy and Ewart came to stay  for a few days to see the Exhibition he plays the piano nice.

Googling the Pageant of the Empire did indeed find information about this event which involved an incredible 15 000 performers whose aim was to celebrate the British Empire in the summer of 1924.  The letter included below would have been written around 1930 addressed to Elsie's brother and sister-in-law Lou and Arthur Bushby as well.  

I was glad to get a letter from you & I hope dear your foot is better, & take care of yourself, as you are needed with all your little family.  I expect dear you do get tired and weary & a young baby is rather trying.  Well Dear I went away with Kitty this last year as I knew we truly needed it, after what we have been through.  Lou would not like Milton now & you would scarcely know it.  All the old faces gone bar Mrs. Witt & Mrs. Hamp are all getting old.

The letter below from 1944 helps learn about Lena's children and grandchildren at that time.  Three children were born to Barbara and her husband James Andrew Baldwin - Jean, Diane and Jimmy. Another son Robert was born after the war. Middle daughter Diane Claire became locally famous in the 50's as an Aero girl  to advertise for the chocolate bar and there is an extensive online resource about it here.  Diane was an artist who drew comics as detailed online.  

Kitty and Henry Brown had 2 daughters - Gay and Barbara. Kitty tragically died in 1947.  Although Lena's letters mention photos she enclosed for Elsie over the years, they were not with the letters. I would gladly add a picture of Lena and her family to this post if anyone has one to share. 

Thank you so much to Aunt Mary's family who passed the letters on to me this summer.  I have spent many happy hours reading them and would love to share them with anyone interested!