c. 1910 Although a terrible photo it is the only know surviving photo of Hugh Donnan
Front Row: Arthena, Uncle James Donnan, Hugh, Ruth
Sepulveda
Back Row: Sadie Sepulveda (our cousin) Sam
Radcliffe (our cousin from Moose Jaw) Ernest & Lucy
This photo was in my grandmother’s box of
pictures. It is the only known photo of
Hugh and his brother James. I assume it
is a Donnan family reunion of sorts – the two Donnan brothers – James &
Hugh, two of Hugh’s daughters – Lucy & Arthena as well as two children of
their Donnan sister – Mary Ann Radcliffe.
Sam travelled from Moose Jaw and Sadie travelled from California. Although Grand Forks is a small place this
would have been a mid-point for brother and sister to meet up. Sam, Sadie, Lucy
and Arthena would all be first cousins.
Daughter Stella describes a bit of what life was
like growing up in Grand Forks. “We
couldn’t go to the swing on a Sunday, what did we have for fun. Read our Sunday
School paper after coming from Sunday School which at that time was held in the
afternoon. However there were enough of us to have lots of fun and lots of
fights, but we did have a good time. Roamed over the fields, through the woods
where we knew every path and special tree, and where the first flowers were in
the spring. We went out in the summer
holidays and picked raspberries, strawberries and other small fruit. I guess
Dell and I ate about as many as we picked. This made the older sisters mad.
When the Saskatoon berries, the gooseberries, and the black currants we ready -
we were all packed in the wagon and the whole family went to pick them. That
was the only way we could get berries to preserve, although the squaws did come
around with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries in the season. It was a
real picnic when we went in the wagon.”
Art Bickerton said of his grandmother, Mary Jane
“there were three tasks which occupied a lot of Grandma’s time. First, as
though it were yesterday, I can see her herding Dolly, the horse, into the
barn. A bit of food for Dolly, a slap on the rump (again for Dolly), and it was
time for chore number two. Many times, I accompanied Grandma about three
hundred yards across the fields to a clump of pine trees (now a multi-unit
motel) where she had to milk Bossy, the cow. I should mention here that
everybody who owned a cow called her “Bossy’’.
Never knew just why but I guess being of the female
species, she followed tradition and was a bit “bossy’’. Grandma was a wonderful
cow milker and soon the bucket was full. Then Bossy was tethered on a long
chain. The milk was strained through a cheese cloth and put away for table use
and for the third task. Grandma then put some of the milk into a roly-poly
machine, twisted the handle as the machine rotated and “lo and behold’’ when
she opened the lid there was a ten-pound chunk of butter. This always amazed me
and I considered it a bona fide “miracle’’.”
Taken at Christina Lake
September 15th c. 1915
Delle – “I have the coat
on that you picked out on our trip to Spokane.
I guess you recognize mother, Stella, Bert, Vera and Earle.”
Stella continues with her letter: “last night Clare
was in for supper and here is one that I thought our mother had to do, clean or
scrape new potatoes with a knife for eleven people and it was a job for me to
clean them for two. I went to the corner store and bought a pie instead of
having 6 hot pies waiting when we came from school besides a cake, doughnuts
and maybe cookies. A pie was probably eaten before dinner. Of course Mother
didn’t go out to bridge parties but she did get ready for them for her 7
daughters.” When Mary Jane had any spare
money she would walk to the store to purchase Limoges dishes for her daughters’
hope chests. Many descendants still have
and treasure these pieces.
The letter continues; “Mother went to church twice
on Sunday, prayer meeting on Wednesday, Ladies Aide once a month, milked 1 to 4
cows, got the milk ready for us to deliver, and went calling on people’s
calling days, which was the fashionable thing to do. Two or three times a week
Mother tramped over the countryside looking for the cows. Arthena went on a good many of these expeditions
and later on Vera went with her when just a small youngster.
I wonder myself how she did it but those are only a
few things. We did help with the dishes and other chores but it was a big job.
Besides as we were a little older, still going to school she went out doing
maternity work, doing the work and once or twice a week to do some necessary
work. Of course by this time the family had gradually got smaller. She also
went out dressmaking, besides making all our clothes. She did almost anything else
you can think of. Put in the garden with not too much help.
Now I suppose you wonder what mother did for
pleasure - enjoyed her family. For why I sometimes wonder! Many a time I have been sent to the “bush’’
what was practically at the edge of our place to get a switch to be whipped.
Many a time we’d come back with a tiny one and were immediately sent back to
get another. The switch was used on our legs.
In Grand Forks we walked out three miles to pick
strawberries and raspberries but they were on a ranch, and was it hot - 90 and
up in the shade. Do you wonder that Mother died at 69, it’s a wonder she lived
that long. She hemorrhaged and was very sick when Arthena was born and the
doctor said no more! Three other babies had died from 3 months to 3 weeks when
born.”
In a letter from Audrey Pope, she mentions her mother’s
story about how Mary Jane “missed the open lands of the prairies, often saying
that if she could just move the mountains aside for a moment, then she’d be
able to ‘see’. This dream, recounted to
a small mountain-raised granddaughter was most puzzling as I did not understand
until I saw the prairies what there was to see if you moved the mountains
aside.”
c. 1917 Vera, Ida, Delle, Mary
Jane & Stanley
Mary Jane & Stanley
Caswell Todhunter c 1918
Audrey continues "The children gathered in her
room each night before going to bed and that occasionally Bert or Wallace went
straight up to their room without coming in to say “good night” and that Mary
Jane would comment ‘Poor Wallace (or Bert), he must be tired tonight’. We know she maintained the temperance home
like that in which she was raised, for her daughters at least!"
“I know Mary Jane built a porch onto the house with Delle and Arthena, a carpentry feat which Arthena remembered with pride."
The New Porch?
Brother John Caswell &
wife Patience from California with Arthena & Bert
Stella (back turned) &
Mary Jane, Delle with Stanley c 1919
Mary Jane had family dinners with her grandchildren
and she loved having them over (even if Earl would not eat the dinner that
until just earlier had been a favorite chicken). She acted as a midwife and nurse to people in
the Grand Forks area.
Sam, John & Tom
Caswell with sister
Mary Jane Donnan
c. 1921 probably Tom’s
house in Ceres, California
Mary Jane was ill for
the last several years of her life, suffering from Bright’s disease, a disease
of the kidneys marked by chronic nephritis (a chronic inflammation
of the tissues of the kidney. The disease is frequently associated with a slow,
progressive loss of kidney function. Its course is long and the prognosis is poor.) and high
blood pressure. Not treatable at that
time, Mary Jane was nursed by her daughters – Stella, Delle and Arthena as well
as a stay with daughter Lucy in California.
Mary Jane died in Grand Forks, September 15th, 1922 and is
buried in the Grand Forks Cemetery in an unmarked grave
“…the death took place at four o’clock
this morning, after an illness extending over about two years. In the hope of improving her health she went
to California with one of her daughters last fall and spent some five months
there; but little improvement resulted and it had been recognized for some
months that the inevitable was approaching.
She was in her 70th year and was an old timer of Grand
Forks…”
The first appearance of Hugh’s name in Henderson’s
Vancouver City directory was in 1914 – as janitor at the Mountain View
Methodist Church
(4354 Sophie Street) which was also his residence and sometimes the residence of his brother James. By
that time Hugh would be 72 and too old to continue working for the railway. The last mention of Hugh in Vancouver is in
the 1923 city directory, still living on Sophie Street at the Church. In the 1924 directory - A. Arthena Donnan is
listed as a clerk with the Royal Bank and living at 1816 McSpadden. In the 1926 directory Stella I. Donnan is
listed at 6476 Balaclava Street which was the home of SDH Pope (and wife
Arthena).
In 1922/23 Hugh and James travelled to California
to visit daughter Lucy. Perhaps Hugh’s
health was failing and Lucy felt she would be able to help her father and uncle
better if they were living with her.
Lucy
had already helped nurse her mother in the warmer climate. Did the family make a decision for Hugh to
return to Vancouver as his health was deteriorating and Stella take over the
nursing once he was placed in the hospital?
Brother James probably brought Hugh back to
Vancouver in 1925 and stayed until Hugh died, returning to California sometime
after that.
At the time of Hugh’s death in August of 1926 Hugh
had been a year in the Provincial Home for Incurables at Hudson & Marine, part
of the Vancouver General Hospital facility.
From the description on the internet, the hospital resources were very
few and the facility less than acceptable. "...it functioned as a workhouse infirmary rather than a workhouse itself. As the sorry name for the institution makes clear the Home was to serve no grand social service, but was regarded as a dumping ground for the most hopeless poor of the province. Most of the residents were elderly indigents with chronic health problems."
Hugh
Donnan was buried 25 Aug 1926 Sec 1919, Block DP48, Grave 11, Mountain View
Cemetery, in an unmarked
grave. Death notice in the Province
newspaper:
27 Aug 1926
in his 85th year, left to mourn,
1 brother Mr. JW Donnan of 1132-7th Ave.
W, Vancouver, BC
Did
James place this notice? and is this why
there is no mention of Hugh’s sons and daughters.
In
the 1930 census, James is again living with Lucy in California and stated in that
census that he had been living there since 1922. Lucy died in 1934 and I wonder if that is
when James returned to Vancouver. By 1935 Wallace was living in Vancouver, did
he take James in until his uncles’ hospitalization and death? James
died in the General Hospital February 5th, 1936 at 86 years old and
was buried the same day, in the same cemetery as his brother, in an unmarked
grave in the Jones IU Block 22, plot 19, Grave 4. It was a city burial.
The legacy the Donnan’s gave their children and
grandchildren was a pioneer spirit, strength, independence, humour, family
ties, attitude towards alcohol and love of an argument.
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