Our Ancestors Speak
Rather than a recital of names and dates and begats,
we have set forth our ancestors’ stories for the most part in the first person
singular, as though they were present with us, giving glimpses of their lives. These are not the stories of royalty, nor of the rich or powerful –
simply the stories of plain folks – the “survivors” who in their own days upon
the Earth loved and struggled, suffered the afflictions of aging, and tried to
be loyal to – and support – their kin and in turn hoped to be likewise
supported in their own time of need. From some deep place within, the ancestors
speak into all our lives – our living flesh and blood is the bridge to their
former lives – the spirit endures through its “earthly” reproductions, and
strives through its new hosts to remember itself.
As Marnie’s grandparents George and Julia Denby had
inscribed on the stone marking their final resting place:
“THE
LIGHT OF LIFE GLOWS BEYOND ITS SPAN”
His Ancestors Speak through Keith:
Father – Everett John Elliott (1897-1990) – I was a life-long resident near
and in Seeleys Bay, Ont. I was raised as a sole child in a one-room log cabin
on my father Archie’s 60 acre farm which was adjacent to grandfather William
Pierce’s homestead. The original log cabin home was still in use 80 years
later, having been moved to a neighbour’s farm and used as a maple sugar shack.
I attended a one room schoolhouse 2 miles south in the village, completing all
8 grades – then at the age of 15 I was given a new axe and hoe by Dad and thus
became a farmer. While young, I frequently talked with the several Indians
still living locally, and from them picked up hunting and trapping skills which
came in handy in supplementing our family’s economy. I was so good at reading the minds and ways of the wild creatures
that others said that I must be part Indian myself. When I was about 10 years
old, my Dad Archie acquired the 100 acre farm of the neighbour to our west, and
we moved into the large frame house adjacent numerous barns on the
property. On June 25, 1919 Mabel
Theresa (Maxwell) and I were married, and the farm house was divided and fitted
out to accommodate the two families. Mabel and I raised 3 boys and a girl, and
just prior to onset of the Depression, we lost all our barns, stored crops, and
much of our livestock including many of Archie’s horses on Halloween, 1929.
Thanks to our good standing in the community, we were able to arrange credit
for construction supplies, and with the help of our neighbours were able to
complete a new steel hip-roofed bank barn and move in the remaining livestock
and replacement fodder by Christmas. With this set-back it was very difficult
to weather the Depression – at one point, to clear back-taxes which would have
otherwise meant loss of the farm, I had to sell 6 of our best milk cows – for a
total of $48. After all the kids moved on, Mabel and I retired to the village
in the early 60’s, and we were able to continue with our lodge, community and
political interests. Mabel predeceased me in 1978, and I was able to continue
on at home almost to the end.
[Everett
and Mabel rest in the non-denominational cemetery at Sweet’s Corners, approx 5
miles n-e of Seeleys Bay -their black marble marker clearly visible from Highway
15, with cherished Masonic and Eastern Star emblems inscribed thereon]
I
still fondly remember my trip to California in the late ’30s to visit my
sister. She and her husband were fairly well off, and they sent me train fare
and off I went for a whole month. Such marvellous sights – big cities, the
ocean, the orange groves and redwood cedars so huge that we drove the Model T
right through a hole in the trunk of one. Great place to visit, but…
Grandfather (Maternal) Robert T Maxwell (1862-1912).
With my good wife Mary Jane
(Murphy), we had been getting by – there was not much money, and there were 2
boys and 4 girls to nurture; we had what would be called a highly leveraged
situation – appraised farm (100 acres), home and barn + livestock + equipment all
worth a total of $2000 according to a 1910 appraisal at the time of my
hospitalization, against which there was $1800 debt – BUT we had each other and
our church and were respected in the community. The church was an evangelical
fellowship called The Hornerites – our meetings were charismatic, and
frequently under influence of the
Spirit we would speak in tongues and swoon to the meetinghouse floor and writhe
in ecstasy. Some non-believers called us “Holy Rollers” because of this.
Then I became ill, and was taken far away to London, where eventually I
was diagnosed as being afflicted with something called adult-onset epilepsy.
There was a lot of fear and stigma associated with my affliction, with many
people whispering that an evil spirit had possessed me. I still wonder if it
hadn’t had something to do with a nasty crack on the head in the barn a few
weeks before the initial seizure. Anyway, I was 250 miles from my family –
there was no way to contact them in those days. One day I became so desperate
to be with my family that I ran away from the hospital, and walked and hitched
buggy rides until I got home. Mary Jane heard me calling for her from half a
mile away, and met me on the side-road. In a few days the guardians caught up
with me on the farm, and took me away, but this time only as far as Rockwood
Hospital in Kingston, some 20 miles away. My family were thus able to see me
from time to time, but there wasn’t any known cure for my epilepsy. I was in
great despair, and died from a heart attack at the age of 50.
Grandmother (Maternal) Mary Jane Murphy (1867-1948) – Robert’s
illness struck us all very hard. We had tried so hard to live rightly – and it
was so difficult to understand why this tragedy should occur to Robert, to all
of us. Somehow it seemed that we had been cursed, and then the winter after my
husband died our farmhouse burned to the ground and the youngest girl (who must
have tipped a coal oil lamp onto herself) was caught in the fire and ran
screaming out of the house toward the barn where the rest of us were milking,
her dress ablaze. We rolled little Edith in the snow and put out the fire, but
she was very badly burned and carried the scars for the rest of her life. I
guess I became a bit strict with the children – for instance, our church
frowned on music for enjoyment, and one time I came upon all six in the barn
singing and dancing – it only happened the once. Eventually Thomas, the
eldest, became head of the household, and in the end he ended up with the farm,
and with a nudge from his wife he bought me a little insul-brick sided cabin in
Seeleys Bay. It was very lonely there, and my rather strict and Spartan ways
were not always appreciated by my children’s spouses, so visits to their homes
were infrequent. Mabel would often visit me after her Saturday night grocery
shopping, while Everett sat with the other men and conversed around the
hot-stove in Alf Kenny’s store. Their youngest boy, Keith Robert, spent a few
weeks with me during a couple winters when the snow plugged side-road back to
their concession became impassable for the horse-drawn plough, and when the boy
was yet too young to ski the 2 miles through the forest and fields to school.
At night he would draw and work on his spelling with the aid of my coal-oil
lamp, while I would read my Bible across the table. I should have told him
about his Grampa Maxwell (whose name he carries) – but even after all those
years I was still unable to talk about it. I know that after Keith and Marnie’s
retirement, they contacted the Public Trustee and obtained for the first time a
record of what happened to my Robert.
[Robert
and Mary Jane rest in an abandoned Baptist cemetery (the church itself burned
down decades ago) near Sandhill, which is a couple miles East off Hwy 15 at the
Brewers Mills side road, approx 5 miles north of Joyceville. No other data is
available concerning their forebears, although there is another Robert
Maxwell whose name is also inscribed on the side of Robert and Mary Jane’s
marker, and from the dating (1829-1920) it is probably Grandpa Maxwell’s
father.]
Distant Voices – Paternal One day, when I [Keith] was doing a project progress inspection of a
resort client north of Sharbot Lake, Dad (Everett) who was then in his mid-70s
accompanied me, and as we journeyed through various communities, he passed on
stories told to him by Archie. Stories about how Archie’s father (again named Archie
(1805 -1887) came out of Ireland, and is buried alongside his wife Annie in
the Ompah cemetery. The frontier was so primitive when he first came out, that
roving bands of Indians were regularly seen. One of the Indians’ annual
traditions, around New Year’s when the ice on Lake Mazinaw was thick enough,
entailed the “Deer Jump”. For many miles Indians would station themselves in a
loose “V” formation through the forest and swamps, so as to funnel deer herds
toward the great cliffs on the East side of Lake Mazinaw, across from what is
now Bon Echo Provincial Park. The herds were frightened from the rear and
pushed forward through the narrowing human “V” until they were forced to leap
from the sheer cliff and crash onto the frozen lake, where their bodies were
butchered and a winter’s supply of venison dragged back to the tribe’s winter
longhouses.
Dad
indicated that by the turn of the 20th Century, the white pine and
hardwoods that were the economic mainstay of the area were giving out. The land
itself was mostly too rough for farming and there were desperate times for the
families in the communities dependent on lumbering. By the time World War 1
rolled around, almost all able-bodied men in these communities jumped at the
chance of enlisting into the armed forces, there being nothing else for them to
do. A chance to see the world, and to be paid for it. Casualties amongst those
men enlisted from such communities were high and those not killed in battle
opted to settle elsewhere on their return. For decades (until the cottage
country concept gained popularity) many communities such as Ompah in Central
Ontario were likewise emptied.
Prior
to the Irish Potato Famine emigration, the Elliotts had lived in the Wexford
area in Ireland since 1650, when they had taken up land as part of the victors’
reward for serving with Cromwell’s Ironsides as England quelled another Irish
Rebellion. Prior to that, there is record in the Anglo-Scottish border area of
the Elliotts as one of many border clans that specialized in sheep and cattle
stealing – apparently an esteemed profession in those days. Known as the “Border Reivers”, these clans
moved back and forth across the border, depending on which side the heat was
coming from, and to where allegiance-of-the-moment was owed. Rivalry amongst
the clans was intense, and the border area was frequently torn
by vicious, almost continuous cycles of inter-clan raid, reprisal and blood
feud. The Border Reivers were adept cattle thieves, guerrilla soldiers skilled
at raiding, tracking and ambush; they were essentially well organized
‘gangsters’. The name “Archie Elliott” surfaces
repeatedly through the generations, and skills such as those developed by the
Reivers were valued when the country needed them.
On
the other branch of my paternal lineage is the Pierce family. Grampa Archie
Elliott’s wife – Ellen Pierce, noted above, was one of the daughters of William
Pierce (1822-1901) and his wife Sarah Willis (1816-1909) who farmed near
Seeley’s Bay and who are buried in Sweet’s Corners Cemetery. In turn, his
parents were William Thomas Pierce (1796-1861) who came to Canada from
Bunclody, Wexford County, Ireland with his wife Ellen Denby (1802-1863)
from nearby Ballyroebuck, Ireland; after emigrating to Canada in the 1840s,
this couple homesteaded in Oak Leaf, Ont. between Athens and Brockville.
[Note the coincidence of an ancestor in my lineage having as wife a
Denby, Marnie’s maiden surname.]
Further
back, and according to family records, the Pierces had also come to Ireland
with the 1650 Cromwell Expedition – having been recruited from Wales. They had
arrived there in 1066, coming with William the Conqueror from Normandy,
France.
and her
Ancestors Speak through Marnie:
Father – Lloyd George Denby (1917-1985) I was raised on my father George’s farm near Burford, Ont and at the age
of 9 my parents relocated to Rodney where they bought a hotel that we as a family
operated together. In 1936 the hotel was sold and so, at the age of 19, I took
employment with Bell Canada as a clerk in their Ingersoll business office. Two
years later I married my Rodney sweetheart,
Marion LeVerne Mistele and Marnie, the first of our three daughters, was born
in ’41. Enlisting in the Canadian Forces in 1942, I was posted to British
Columbia, and after discharge in ’45 resumed my career with Bell Canada. While
limited by only having a Grade 8 education, I was able to advance in my career
through hard work and loyalty, my motto being “You can slide further on oil
than you can on cinders.” I earned promotions and was appointed into the junior
management levels in Bell’s business offices in London and Toronto – finally
being appointed Manager of Bell’s Brampton business office, and then Manager of
the Guelph office where I took retirement in 1975. Along the way I learned the art of being entertaining as well as
the value of keeping my own counsel so that behind my smiles no one really knew
what was going on. I see now the downside of that strategy – that one can only
be understood by others if one opens up to them and presents the story of one’s
life in a coherent manner. Traits are learned early, and a key to my lack of
openness may have been that – as is the case in many families – there was
considerable acrimony between my father and myself. I distanced myself from
George and seldom went to visit with him in his retirement, and didn’t even
allow my wife and children to attend his funeral. And for all intents and
purposes, mention of George was verboten in our household. No specifics – no
discussion. When Keith married Marnie, the cycle started up again, and then it
fell to the lot of Keith, who seemed too damned nosy and asked too many
questions for my liking, to became the “other-excluded”. Strange. Always seemed to have to have an
“enemy”. The real enemy – cancer of the colon – struck hard in ’81.
Within a year of Marion’s death in ’82, I again married, this time to an
old personal friend – Dorothy – a fine spinster lady.
Mother – Marion Leverne Mistele (1912-1982) My story is a simple one, but my
love for my family ran deeply and was felt by all. After marrying Lloyd I gave
up my job as a Bell switchboard operator in Rodney (Bell frowned on working
wives) and devoted the rest of my life to supporting Lloyd and raising our
three daughters. Lloyd defined reality for all of us – and if Lloyd decided to
dislike someone, it was very difficult to change his mind. Fortunately he liked
most people (as long as they were not too close to him, or tried to be). With
his polished communication skills Lloyd should have been able to reconcile with
his Dad, and why he excluded Keith was also not clear to me, although there were
some pretty stiff discussions between them plus Keith could always beat
Lloyd at chess or checkers. It is recalled that when Keith and Marnie announced
their imminent wedding intentions to us in the Spring of 1960, Lloyd said to
me, in front of them “Well, I guess that a hundred years from now it won’t
matter all that much.” Not a very warm welcome to the familyOn the plus side,
though, Lloyd was a good provider, generous and absolutely the best
story-teller ever, and on the rather rare occasions when Marnie and her family
were present, Keith would ask Lloyd to retell one or another of his ‘oldies yet
goodies’.
For many years while our girls were growing up we rented various
cottages in the Muskoka area for a couple weeks each summer. Then, in the
mid-60s, Lloyd and I got our own cottage, and for many years that was our
retreat from the city. The lot comprised a couple of acres on a lake near the
village of Ardbeg, 30 miles n-e of Parry Sound. The lot was leased from the
railway, and on it was an old house that had been the home of a foreman on the
railway. The building had been abandoned for many years, but gradually we were
able to make it liveable and for years we spent many weekends and holidays
there.
On Christmas night in ’82 I suffered my fatal heart attack.
At
my funeral service, the minister – being aware that my three sons-in-law were
present – observed that there is a special relationship between a woman and her
son-in-law that he likened to being a very special love affair. The son-in-law
who truly loves and cherishes his own wife tends to love her source. It is
certainly the case that all three of my boys grieved deeply at my passing.
[Lloyd
and Marion’s cremation urns are buried in the Memorial Gardens, Woolwich St.,
Guelph. The cremation garden is located on the first road to the left after
going through the main gates.]
Grandfather (Paternal) – George William Denby
(1866-1951) – I farmed in Burford until I was 60, by which time I was so
badly crippled by polio that I had to manoeuvre myself around with two canes. No
longer able to farm, I decided it was time for a change, so in 1926 I bought
the Eustes Hotel in Rodney and moved there. I sold the hotel in 1930 but by
1932 the Eustes was back in my hands. I loved to play checkers and some
hard-fought games were closely watched by ardent locals. This was in the
post-prohibition era, and we were legally able to sell 4.4% beer. Our hotel had
a large dining room that served full-course meals for 75 cents to $1. The area
was quite prosperous and lots of commercial business was transacted, with
merchandise salesmen taking up most of the available rental rooms. Our eldest
son Winnie was the manager of the business and with the help of Velma, the
youngest daughter, and younger son Lloyd, we conducted a well-run
hostelry. By 1936, with my health failing, the hotel was again sold.
I moved back to Burford and with my wife Julia Mabel (Dawes)
(1877-1944) retired to a house on Maple St. After Julia died in 1944, I was
unable to live on my own and moved in with my daughter Noreen at her turkey
farm in Hagersville.
[Following is a photo of George and Julia’s marker in the Pioneer
Cemetery in Burford. When we tracked down the burial site in October 2005,
Keith and I were stunned at the beauty and elegance of the memorial. A definite
incongruity between assumptions based on parental conditioning, as opposed to
reality, if what is carved in stone is any indicator.]
Great-Grandfather (Paternal) – Joseph Denby (1834-1922) I emigrated from England to Canada in 1861 and
took up several good farm lots near Burford, later bringing out my 4 brothers
from England and helping them get established. All my life I farmed, and I and
my wife Lovena (Pugsley) (1846-1938) were influential in many ways in
the our community.
[Joseph and Lovena are buried in the Congregational Cemetery, Burford on
Maple Ave. To locate, heading east or west on County Road 53, go to stoplight
at Maple Ave. and then South. The cemetery is on left (east side). Their
headstone is at the back on the left-hand side.]
Grandfather (Maternal) – Henry (Hank) Mistele
(1885-1965). A life-long resident
of Rodney, I co-ran the village hardware store with my three brothers. This
store had been started in 1890 by our father, David Mistele (1858-1924)
who ran it until his death. Father had emigrated from Germany to this area, and
had been elected to the village’s first council and became its first fire
chief. During Rodney’s gas-light days, Father was also responsible for seeing
that the village had plenty of gas and that the streetlights were lit and
extinguished. For several years the Farmers Telephone exchange was operated
from a switchboard room at the back of our hardware store – later it was
absorbed into the Bell system. After my brothers and I took over the business,
each of us had a specialty trade: general construction, gasworks, electrical –
mine was tinsmithing. For many years we all made a good living from of the
business; the surrounding countryside was prosperous, yielding beans, corn and
tobacco; oil was discovered nearby in the ‘20s, followed by natural gas in the
‘40s. Around 1905 I married Mary Speirn (1885-1953), of a good
German family (at the time 10% of the county population was of German
extraction) and what with the raising of our two children (Walter and Marion)
and our business and community involvement, it was a very satisfying life. Our
social life centred on our church (The Zion Evangelical Brethren – later folded
into the United Church) and I sang in the choir. Rodney was a great place to
live in and raise a family, during a great time – why, we had everything – even
an Opera House. And our famous jail. Famous because it was the smallest jail in
North America, possibly smallest in the world. A lovely 270 square foot, 2
cell brick building, built in 1890 for $200.
Mary and I had a marvellous flower
garden, our favourite being dahlias, and we won many ribbons during the annual
London and Rodney Fall Fairs. Mary was a wonderful cook and, usually on Fridays
she would bring home-baked goods to the hardware store as a treat for everyone.
One Friday fell on April Fool’s day and she baked her famous lunch-cakes which
were something like a rich donut without the hole and with icing on top, only this
time there was a surprise inside. Imagine the shock when we bit into a mouthful
of cotton batting!
For many years our granddaughter Marnie spent part of her summer
vacations with us, and it was one of our rituals for her and me to walk
hand-in-hand through the village in the evening, down to the train station at
the south end, and watch the activity there while eating ice cream cones.
Rodney was a busy stopover on the Windsor>London>Fort Erie line, and
there was always passenger and freight action to watch.
In 1948 my Mary had a very serious stroke that left her with one side
paralysed. She’d always loved to play cards with the family and friends, and we
were able to make her a device whereby she could properly hold the cards in her
paralysed hand, and select and play the desired cards with her good hand. Five
years later she suffered her final stroke, and my Mary was gone. Afterwards, my
diabetes gradually became worse and because of related blood circulation
problems, infections became increasingly severe. In the early ’60s I lost first
one leg, then a couple years later, the second one also had to be amputated so
my mobility was then confined to use of a wheel chair and I had to have a
live-in nurse take care of me.
[Hank and Mary are buried in the Rodney Cemetery, their grave situated
amongst those of their numerous relatives and friends]
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken… Yes, I shall return with the tide, and though death may hide me and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding…Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return… A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and form for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. (Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet)
Posted
October 20th, 2005
Acknowledgement:
Our children – source of past fond memories and
current inspiration: And Our Children’s Children:
Everett Lloyd
Elliott (b.1960); and his wife Karen – m. 1984 Bradley
Clement Elliott
(b.1964); and his wife Katariina – m. 1991 Keith Ronald Elliott
(b. Jan 1966 - died Mar 1966) Robert Dwight Elliott
(b.1969); and his wife
Kim –
m. 2000 Melissa Dawn Elliott
(b.1971); and her husband Jeff
Whitaker – m. 2002 |
Meghan Elliott
(b.1987); Lauren Elliott (b.1991) Ryan Elliott
(b.1994); Kirsten Elliott (b.1997)
- - - - - - Olivia Elliott
(b.2002); Gavin Elliott (b.2004) Sawyer Whitaker (b.2003); Jackson Whitaker (b.2005) |
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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