"Daisy"

Today, February 25 being the anniversary of the funeral of my great Aunt , Margaret (Daisy) Nevard, seemed like a good time to add a photo and a few details on her.
Born Margaret Montagu Winstanley in December , 1873 in Milbrook, England. Always known as "Daisy" she had some training and worked as a nurse in England before coming to Canada in 1909 to marry Arthur Nevard and live in the newly constructed log house on his homestead in Saskatchewan which they named "Winstanley Grove". Her medical training was quite useful out on the prairies, miles from a doctor. She often perfomed the duties of a mid-wife, travelling with a horse and buggy and favourite dog "Pants" .
Daisy and Arthur ran a boarding house/hospital for a time in a Regina home at 2081 Ottawa Street from about 1914 to the end of WWI, then returning to the farm .
Daisy died relatively young at 59 years of age from an apparent stroke. Buried at Lipton cemetery, 76 years ago today.

Back In Dorset For Next Christmas

Those were the words that my Grandfather's cousin, Jack Goff said around the time of his first Christmas in Canada in 1903. Out here on the homestead in the district of Assiniboia that would later become the province of Saskatchewan it was a pretty harsh change from a winter in the south part of England. Jack along with his cousins, Tom and Alf Goff had just arrived on the homestead in May of 1903. Homesteads were cheap, 160 acres of land for $10 but a man had to work for it. They had to build a place to live, good enough to survive a Canadian winter, break a few acres of land. Plus buy some horses or oxen to pull the breaking plough. The closest settlement was Fort Qu'appelle some 20 miles south which was a long journey in the days before roads.After spending their first few months in a tent they managed to construct a 10x12 foot log cabin in which to live which was a big improvement over the tent. Still, it must have been a real eye-opener when the snow came and the temperature dropped to the -20s for long periods. It was likely during a spell of that weather that Jack made the statement that he would be back in Dorset for next Christmas. He never did make it back to Dorset though. As they made progress on the farm he may have come to accept the extreme weather conditions as normal. Or it may have just been lack of funds to make a return trip to England that kept him here. He farmed the land for another 40 years before retiring to town. Here's a picture of the little homestead shack as it stood in 2003, a hundred years old.