Cold Morning At The Century Shack

I call it the "century shack" but in fact it will be 115 years old this summer. My grandfather, T. Goff and his brother , Alf, cousin Jack all spent their first winter in Canada in this little log shack. No, not the red barn at the beginning of the vido. About 10x12 feet built of vertical poplar logs. It must have been "cool" but maybe if they kept the wood burning stove well fed it would be ok. Jack was reported to have stated that he would be "back in Dorset for next Christmas" although he never did go back. Saskatchewan winter must have been a shock for these Dorset lads who likely didn't see a lot of snow before.
It had warmed up to about -15F when I did this latest Roosty6 video tour this morning. Made me appreciate the modern gas heat even more.

Today's History

February 2, 1870 was the birth date of Uncle Alf (great uncle to me) Goff in Dorset, U.K.  Not much is  known  of  his early days but at some point in the 1890s he spent some time in Queensland, Australia working on a sheep ranch. For a fellow named Quick according to my memory.

No information as to how long he was there but he returned to England briefly and then traveled with his brother Tom to North America. Not sure of the route but they worked some on the Canadian railway in the mountains. Alf spoke of being very sick at one point with cold or flu and he claimed the only thing that saved him was "Jamaica rum". In later years he was known to make some very fine wine of his own from rhubarb.
Alf and Tom also put in some time working on threshing crews eventually making  their way back to England in 1902.
Attracted by the advertising campaign of free  homestead  land in the district of Assiniboia,  (later Saskatchewan),  Alf, Tom, and cousin Jack all headed to Canada in the spring of 1903 to claim their "free" land. Many years of hard work eventually turned the homesteads into productive farm land.
From that point on Alf mostly lived his  life  on his homestead in  his log cabin.  He died there on the homestead in 1942 at the age of 72.

Today In Family History

January 30, 1971, my grandmother, Mary Goff (Lane) died. Aged 85 (we think). I know there was some question as to her actual year of birth. Along with pretty well everything else about her prior to coming to Canada in 1911. We do know she worked at various locations along the south coast of England such as the Railway Hotel at Broadstairs, Kent.

This is the only existing photo of her before leaving England. 

Grandma in work uniform on the right

With her first two children, Doris and Tom.

Working hard on the farm through some hard times. 

Grandma and Grandpa about 1951.

With her first grandson in 1954. 

1941 Letter To Kate

                                                                                                     No. 2 Memorial Cottages
                                                                                                      Tolpuddle near Dorchester
                                                                                                      October 6, 1941
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                   
Dear Sister and all
Just a few lines while I am able to write. I am geting a bit stronger now but it is very slow work when you are old and weak. I was very sorry to read of your falling from the car. You were lucky not get any broken bones. I had only been out of bed two days when I fell down and broke my arm and hurt my wrist. The doctor said I must be tough.
I am so glad you have two girls that think so much of you and I hope they will stay with you as long as you are alive. Once they marry the man comes first.
Before coming here we went to Wynford Eagle twice and seen Harry Goff. He said that Hannah was a widow. Hubby left her with an iron monger's shop and has the daughter and husband to live with her and carry on the shop and they turned her out of it. Charles who was a cowboy or roughrider is dead. You will think my letter is all bad news this time. We have not seen your Leslie yet. I hope all will be well with him.
Allie's boy came to see me. He is tall. I hope Tom will be able to keep Sandy home. It was he who was going to look after Alf. I suppose he forgets that now. Lottie and F been to see Allie yesterday and said they well. Allie went to Wimborne last Thursday. All well. Linda is to be married it is planned on the 18th of October. If all is well will be living with his father. The mother is dead. They've been here once.
Will write again soon. Tell the boys to be sure and come to see me. Must close now as my hand is aching.
Your loving sister         S. Bishop
P.S. Jack, Annie, and Charlotte are gone.

Kate and Karl Hobetzeder

                                 Martyr's Memorial Cottages
                Tolpuddle near Dorchester
                                                  England
                                                 May 1938
Dear Sister and all:
Thank you so much for your welcome kind letter . I hope this will find you all better
I think this last winter has been very trying. It has been so hot and dry but we have
some rain lately and more to come they say.  I have not been outside but once since
February but I am a little stronger now. Frank planted the allotment and garden before
he away. Spuds just up so they tell me.
Lottie said she is coming for a night in about another fortnight's time.. She wants to be
home as they have some fruit coming  and she wants her black currants. They don't plant
many spuds, only green stuff. But there will be enough for Lottie.
Allie has got to change house again in August. They were to have some ground on the farmj
where the boy is working but it wasn't ploughed up last week. Allie and the two little ones
came here last Saturday. The children are looking well and Mrs. Mc------- that lives next door
thought Allie was looking better. Had put on flesh since she saw her last. She has a lot of worry but now Linda is out of hospital and had three weeks in Dorchester with her father's cousin, she and her husband.  He would go to see Linda sometimes in the hospital and she did the washing for Linda. She and Linda came out here one day. She is at Westham, Weymouth now for a few weeks and then coming here as she is not fit fow work yet. I shall be glad to have her here for company. It is very lonely here although the people are very kind to look in . One woman comes in to sleep with me until someone comes here.  But you don't want to worry about me, I can manage well as things are. Will you tell the others not to worry about me.  If I can I shall write to Tom and Mary in a day or two. I wish Alf had married to have had someone for company and he might have had children to help him now. One of Tom's boys, a white haired one, when he was a toddler said he was going to look after Uncle Alf and help him. I hope he do.
Has Alf had what he thought was oil tested yet? If it is any good he might sell it and have enough to live without any more work for the rest of his life.
Lottie posted his books before she went away. C/O Mrs. T. Goff. Hope he got them alright. And a bunch of newspapers. I will send you some but I have to depend on someone to post for me now. Will write again soon. Love to all . Hope you will all have better crops.
Your loving sister    S. Bishop

A Letter From Kate to Canada

Something different this time. A letter written by Kate Goff to her brother Alf in Saskatchewan in March of 1910. Alf had been in Canada since 1903. Kate was employed at Solent House at the time.
Things must have progressed quickly as family history indicates Kate came to Canada later that year with "the Austrian", Karl Hobetzeder who she married that same year.

                                                                      Solent House
                                                                      Southsea, Portsmouth
                                                                      March 30, 1910
My Dear Alf, Tom, Jack:
I now take the pleasure in answering your kind and welcome letter. So glad to hear that
you have had a good crop. I hope you will have another good one this year. Then we shall
soon see you back again. Will the others come as well? Perhaps I might come back. I shall
not promise to.
I am glad to say Alice is better but there will be no more family there now. Rather disappointing
for her husband as he is fond of children. Nell got a son last Sunday week. Both doing well.
And George's wife at Bournemouth has got a son.
How are all of you getting on? It must have been a blow for poor Jack. I feel sorry for him.
Levi, I think, is past work. He told me he had a hard job to get about. They still think a
lot of Nell. They, or he, often go down to see her.
No doubt it will come in handy to him if you can afford it. If it is to be made payable to a
bank then it would be Sherborne. But if to Post Office then Newton, Milborne Port, Somerset.
Alice is shifted, if it is to bank, Bournemouth. If to Post Office make it Pokesdown. Their
address is Erme Villa, Burleigh Road, West Southborne, Bournemouth.
I think they have had a rough time of it. I lent them 2:15 in November. They have not had a
chance to pull round yet. He ask me not to tell Sally. I think they at Clenston are staying on
there. Allie is home. She says Mother's time is all taken up with the pig and chicks. They
had a  hen set for 3 weeks on 13 eggs, then left them. Bet Lot was for stretching his neck
and putting him in the pot.
Lot was very rough before Xmas. Did not know what to make of him. Sally was not much better.
They went up to Bourne for five days. It rained nearly all the time. He saw his brother up
there. They stayed at Alice's house while she was looking after theirs at Clenston. But I am
glad to say they are all alright again now.
I am sending on one of my latest photos. I am not married yet. This is an Austrian. Other one
is gone to China for 2 years.
I am having letter registered in case you would not get photo. Do I begin to look old?
So now I think I have told you all the news at present so must now draw this to close with
fondest love to you and all I remain your loving sister, K. M. Goff. Write soon. XXX

                                                     The photo referred to in the letter.

Karl Hobetzeder and Kate Goff

Family History Mystery

One of my grandmothers has become what the genealogists refer to as a "brick wall". We know her name and where she came from but beyond that she is mostly a mystery in spite of many hours spent searching the net. 40 years previous, one of my aunts did the same search, without the benefit of the internet though. Snail mail between Sask. and England took a long time and money was spent on postage and genealogists to no avail.

Although we have the names of Mary's parents (George and Kathleen Mary Lane)  there are no supporting documents to show her origins. She always stated her place of birth as Margate, Kent. She had a sister, "Nellie", who died as a child. She was an orphan by the age of 15. She worked as a domestic, later in restaurants and resort towns along the south coast of England before coming to London. A postcard she sent to her friend Kate Goff in Canada shows the Railway Hotel in Broadstairs , Kent, where she was working at the time.

At some point in her early working years she met and became friends with Kate Goff. Kate came to Canada in 1910 with Karl Hobetzeder. She wrote and convinced Mary to come to Canada also. Kate thought that Mary might be a suitable wife for her cousin, Jack Goff who farmed just a mile away. But that did not happen and Mary married Kate's brother, Tom Goff in November of the same year she arrived. 

Mary came to Canada on the Virginian arriving July 1st, 1911 in Quebec. From there by train eventually to Saskatchewan. I don't know but am assuming that she lived with Kate and Karl (who had been married December 28, 1910) until she married Tom Goff on November 27, 1911 at the farm home of Arthur and Daisy Nevard (Winstanley Grove) on NE24-24-14.

One of the first creatures she noticed in Sask. was the prairie gophers which she thought to be rats.

The friendship between Mary and sister in law Kate (Goff) Hobetzeder dissolved sometime in the late 1920s. Unkind words and angry letters were exchanged and for the last 15 years of her life Kate never visited Mary and Tom's farm even though only less than a mile away. The actual cause of this rift is not known.

It was through Kate Goff that Mary Lane came to Canada. Kate and Mary were friends in England before Kate came to Canada with Karl Hobetzeder. They settled about 3/4 mile from where Kate's brothers, Tom and Alf homesteaded. In fact Kate and Karl lived with Tom in his log house their first while here in 1910. Kate persuaded Mary to come to Canada thinking she would be a wife for either brother Alf or cousin Jack Goff. As it happened, Mary married Tom Goff.

Mary Elizabeth Lane

The Virginian was a 12,00 ton steamship owned and operated by the Allan Line out of Liverpool, England.  Mary purchased ticket #60876 on the 23 June 1911 sailing of the Virginian from Liverpool, one of 789 adults and 174 children on that trip.  The ship arrived at Quebec at 9pm on the 30th of June and passengers cleared Customs on 1 July.  Mary was listed on page 8 of the ship's Second Class passenger list

May seems to have traveled alone.  She is listed as 25 years of age, able to read and write, English by birth and travelling to meet a cousin in Headlands Saskatchewan. Her occupation is listed as ‘domestic'.  Mary was booked to continue her trip West from Quebec on the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR).

(reference : National Archives of Canada microfilm #T4778

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.