Where amateur genealogists can solve their personal history mysteries.
Words of Wisdom - by Dave Obee
Settlers’ testimonials offer glimpse of early prairie life, says Dave Obee.
This article was originally published in the October-November 2009 issue of The Beaver magazine. Dave Obee has been researching his family history on the Prairies for thirty years and has written several books about genealogy.
My grandfather’s uncle, Fred Obee, had some simple advice for anyone thinking of settling on the Canadian prairies in the 1880s.
“Get into the country during the month of April if possible,” he said, and bring plenty of “good warm clothing.”
When it came to furnishing, Uncle Fred wasted no words.
“Do not load yourself down with a lot of useless goods such as house furnishings,” he added. “Cash is easier carried over bad roads.”
Fred’s thoughts on the prairies are found in a questionnaire he filled out for the Canadian Pacific Railway’s land department.
The survey was part of a promotional effort led by Alexander Begg, the CPR’s immigration agent in London. Begg was a former journalist and Manitoba government employee. After moving to London for his new job in 1884, one of his first ideas was to send forms with forty-five questions to farmers throughout Manitoba. Around two hundred and fifty farmers sent them back, and Begg placed the best responses into publications extolling the virtues of life in the Canadian West.
Fred Obee’s words appear in at least three of Begg’s guides — Manitoba, the Canadian North-West: Testimony of actual settlers, from 1884, as well as Practical hints from farmers in the Canadian North-West and Plain facts from farmers in the Canadian North West the following year.
These publications have been digitized and are available on the Peel’s Prairie Provinces website. Begg’s raw material — the completed forms — ended up in the B.C. Archives in Victoria. They are available at the archives on microfilm.
The words of these early settlers provide a sense of the conditions faced by farmers at that time. They’re of value to everyone doing family history research in Manitoba’s rural areas in the late 1800s.
Fred Obee was from England, born near Maidstone, Kent, in 1854. He came to Canada with other family members in 1871, and arrived in Manitoba in May 1878 with $4.50.
In 1884, he reported that his farm on the south edge of Glenboro, Manitoba, was worth two thousand dollars, a remarkable achievement in just six years. Mixed farming — combining grain growing and raising livestock — was best, according to Fred.
Why? “You cannot farm without stock, as you must have manure.”
In 1885, Begg sent another batch of forms to Manitoba settlers. Another of my relatives, John McKennit of Pendennis, in southwestern Manitoba, returned one of these forms.
McKennit — a first cousin, three times removed, to Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt — was included in What settlers say of the Canadian North-West, published in 1886. McKennit said he was “most assuredly” satisfied by the country, the climate, and the prospects ahead.
Begg, who died in Victoria in 1897, also sent questionnaires to women on farms and received about three hundred replies.
Sarah Jane Wheatland, who farmed with her husband Cornelius and their family in the Donore district of Manitoba, had her comments published in another CPR publication, What women say of the Canadian North-West, published in 1886.
She said her family had experienced hardships in the first year, but did not elaborate. She also cautioned young women against heading to the Prairies expecting to find work on a farm. It would be better, she said, to “get married to some good young fellow,” and then settle down to life on a farm with him.
Wheatland warned that settlers needed to ask themselves if they could forego the comforts where they were, and if they could stand the isolation they would face. And she noted that things would be better for those who could buy an established farm in a settled area.
Fred Obee, John McKennit, and Sarah Jane Wheatland all lived on their Manitoba farms for many years after helping Begg with his promotional efforts. And, more than a century later, their words are helping us develop a better understanding of what life was like for the first farmers to break the land.
This article was originally published in the October-November 2009 issue of The Beaver magazine. Dave Obee has been researching his family history on the Prairies for thirty years and has written several books about genealogy.
My grandfather’s uncle, Fred Obee, had some simple advice for anyone thinking of settling on the Canadian prairies in the 1880s.
“Get into the country during the month of April if possible,” he said, and bring plenty of “good warm clothing.”
When it came to furnishing, Uncle Fred wasted no words.
“Do not load yourself down with a lot of useless goods such as house furnishings,” he added. “Cash is easier carried over bad roads.”
Fred’s thoughts on the prairies are found in a questionnaire he filled out for the Canadian Pacific Railway’s land department.
The survey was part of a promotional effort led by Alexander Begg, the CPR’s immigration agent in London. Begg was a former journalist and Manitoba government employee. After moving to London for his new job in 1884, one of his first ideas was to send forms with forty-five questions to farmers throughout Manitoba. Around two hundred and fifty farmers sent them back, and Begg placed the best responses into publications extolling the virtues of life in the Canadian West.
Fred Obee’s words appear in at least three of Begg’s guides — Manitoba, the Canadian North-West: Testimony of actual settlers, from 1884, as well as Practical hints from farmers in the Canadian North-West and Plain facts from farmers in the Canadian North West the following year.
These publications have been digitized and are available on the Peel’s Prairie Provinces website. Begg’s raw material — the completed forms — ended up in the B.C. Archives in Victoria. They are available at the archives on microfilm.
The words of these early settlers provide a sense of the conditions faced by farmers at that time. They’re of value to everyone doing family history research in Manitoba’s rural areas in the late 1800s.
Fred Obee was from England, born near Maidstone, Kent, in 1854. He came to Canada with other family members in 1871, and arrived in Manitoba in May 1878 with $4.50.
In 1884, he reported that his farm on the south edge of Glenboro, Manitoba, was worth two thousand dollars, a remarkable achievement in just six years. Mixed farming — combining grain growing and raising livestock — was best, according to Fred.
Why? “You cannot farm without stock, as you must have manure.”
In 1885, Begg sent another batch of forms to Manitoba settlers. Another of my relatives, John McKennit of Pendennis, in southwestern Manitoba, returned one of these forms.
McKennit — a first cousin, three times removed, to Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt — was included in What settlers say of the Canadian North-West, published in 1886. McKennit said he was “most assuredly” satisfied by the country, the climate, and the prospects ahead.
Begg, who died in Victoria in 1897, also sent questionnaires to women on farms and received about three hundred replies.
Sarah Jane Wheatland, who farmed with her husband Cornelius and their family in the Donore district of Manitoba, had her comments published in another CPR publication, What women say of the Canadian North-West, published in 1886.
She said her family had experienced hardships in the first year, but did not elaborate. She also cautioned young women against heading to the Prairies expecting to find work on a farm. It would be better, she said, to “get married to some good young fellow,” and then settle down to life on a farm with him.
Wheatland warned that settlers needed to ask themselves if they could forego the comforts where they were, and if they could stand the isolation they would face. And she noted that things would be better for those who could buy an established farm in a settled area.
Fred Obee, John McKennit, and Sarah Jane Wheatland all lived on their Manitoba farms for many years after helping Begg with his promotional efforts. And, more than a century later, their words are helping us develop a better understanding of what life was like for the first farmers to break the land.
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