Personal Story – Page 12 – A Deck of Ancestors

52 Weeks – Week 39: Road Trip

If I do the 52 Ancestors Challenge again next year – which I’d like to do – it might serve me well at the start of the year to look ahead to see the full list of 52 themes. As I mentioned last week, many times this year something I’ve written about in the past fits into any number of subsequent weekly themes. For this week’s theme of “Road Trip”, the genealogy road trip that comes to mind is one I did with my mother to south-west Saskatchewan, to where my grandmother was born. Unfortunately, I’ve written about that here not once, but twice. The other road trip that comes to mind I wrote about two weeks ago.

Part of the problem is that I haven’t been on a lot of genealogy road trips. It’s not easy doing one from where I live. Western Canada, where much of my immediate and extended family lives, is a big place.

For my grandparents’ 40th wedding anniversary, we drove from Terrace in northern British Columbia to Lethbridge in southern Alberta. We thought nothing of it, it was only one province away, only a 17-hour drive. Our relatives from the Netherlands were gobsmacked. They pointed out that we had driven the distance from Amsterdam to the border of the then still-extant Soviet Union. Needless to say, it’s even further to travel to the homelands of my great grandparents, even those who lived in the United States. Utah is a two-day drive from here.

Despite the massive distances, the road trip I have decided to write about was only 600 meters long. I’ve done the trip twice, the first time by bicycle and the second by car. However, I had to fly from the west coast of North America to the west coast of Europe to do it.

My father was born in Waarland, North Holland. Today it is part of Gemeente Schagen (Municipality of Schagen), but when my father was born it was part of Gemeente Harenkarspel. The Dutch seem to like reorganizing their municipalities, so a village or town can end up in various different gemeenten over time.

The first time I visited the Netherlands, we stayed with one of my grandmother’s sisters and her husband, Tante Anny and Ome Nic, who lived in the adjacent gemeente of Langedijk (which, as of January 1 of this year, is now part of Dijk en Waard). On one of my last days with them, Ome Nic and I went for a bicycle ride from Langedijk to Waarland, to meet my grandfather’s (van der Fluit) side of the family.

We started at the home of my grandfather’s oldest brother and his wife, Ome Jan and Tante Marie. They lived in the house where Jan and my grandfather were both born. Almost immediately due north of their house was the house where my father was born.

Several of Jan and Marie’s children (my dad’s cousins) and grandchildren were there for our visit. What really struck me was how different the Dutch was that they spoke. I had no idea what anyone was saying. Even my Ome Nic seemed to find their Dutch hard to follow.

At the house where my grandfather and his brother were born. It was odd meeting so many people who vaguely looked familiar. The children are all my second cousins, two of whom looked almost exactly like two of my siblings.

One of those cousins, Pieter, took me on a short bike ride up the road to the house where my dad was born. Not only that, he knew the current owner, so we were able to go inside. That was incredibly special.

The house where my father was born, the first time I visited Waarland

Five years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the Netherlands at a time my parents were also visiting. I had always wanted to go to the Netherlands with my father. It was an incredible experience. Of course, one of the days of our visit had to include a trip into Waarland.

With my father outside the house here he was born. He’s more than happy to say, yes, he was born in a barn.

We started at the house where he was born. It looked as if the place had not been well maintained by its current owners, although I had to tease my father by asking him whether he remembered the skateboard halfpipe in the back yard.

We then made our way to Ome Jan’s and Tante Marie’s house. Ome Jan had passed away in 2011 and Tante Marie died in 2013, so the house had a new owner. In fact, it was an entirely new house. The old one had been demolished, but the new one that replaced it looked almost identical.

During the recent-most trip to Waarland, I also got to go by the church where my father was baptized. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to go inside. As well, we stopped by a 450-year-old windmill that has been a museum since 1920.

Poldermolen Waarland. Hangin’ out, more than a metre below sea level, as you do.

52 Weeks – Week 38: New To You

New to me? This blog!

As I noted in my very first post, I had signed up for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge three years in a row. The first two years I did absolutely nothing. This year, I rose to the challenge and, like I said at the start, third time’s the charm.

While the challenge doesn’t require a blog, I had been thinking about creating a genealogy blog for several years. The challenge’s goal of encouraging people to write about their family history fit into some of my other genealogical goals.

Like many genealogists, over the decades I’ve amassed quite a bit of family history. I had written bits and pieces about it in all sorts of forms and places. I kept thinking that if it was (largely) consolidated in one place, it would go far towards the process of consolidating it into something I might turn into a family history book or similar.

My first genealogy book, from when I was in elementary school.

Although I wanted to participate and share amongst others interested in genealogy, I really didn’t care if this blog got a lot of traffic. I have no need for prominence or search engine optimization. There are already a gazillion excellent genealogy blogs out there and I’m not looking to compete or create a niche amongst them. I don’t really go out of my way to promote this blog. I haven’t even really told many people in my family about it. I’ve told one of my sisters, who is an archivist and who kindly humors me when I share my family history interest with her. I’ve also told one of my brothers about it, because he genuinely seems to take an interest in this stuff. At most, every week I’ll post the latest entry on Generations Café, the Facebook group Amy Johnson Crow created for the 52 Ancestors Challenge and to the Twitter account, Deck of Ancestors, that I created as a companion to this blog. So while I am very happy when I see that people are visiting and commenting, in many ways this blog is primarily for me.

All in all, I’m happy that I finally found the wherewithal to undertake the 52 Ancestors Challenge and create this blog. It has helped me discover what I have researched in great detail and where I have significant gaps in my research – particularly for some things I had thought I had done years ago. I’ve found that one of the difficulties in the challenge is finding new things to write about. Sometimes, the topic just doesn’t speak to me. Other times, I find that something I’ve written about in the past fits into any number of subsequent weekly themes. In fact, I’ve discovered that sometimes I’ve unwittingly written about the same thing twice. However, what I am most pleased about is the fact that I’ve now kept with it for three-quarters of the year. Week 52 is no longer that far away!

Fluitpolderplein (“Fluit Polder Square”) in Leidschendam-Voorburg, Zuid Holland, just outside of The Hague. “Fluijtermoelen” is “Fluit mill”. Either this place was named after my ancestor, or my ancestor took his surname from this place.

Then there are the numbers. I have a cousin who is one of a trio who do a prominent Doctor Who podcast. Each week when new episodes are airing, one of the three loves to go over the numbers, parsing the ratings and other stats of the latest episode. So before concluding this week’s post, I thought that I might do something similar, and look at my numbers for once.

I see that in the 258 days since I started this blog, I’ve had over 1,800 views and almost 1,200 unique visitors. That’s pretty picayune for serious bloggers, but I am amazed that it is even that high. My most visited post is from Week Five, “Branching Out”. No surprise, most of my traffic comes from Facebook and Twitter, usually after I post there with the latest week’s post. I’ve also noticed significant upticks when Amy has chosen to highlight my post in her weekly email. I’m so honored to have been selected!

Another stat that should come as no surprise to me is that most visitors are from the United States, with almost 1,100 unique visits from that country. I have had over 400 visitors from my own country, Canada, with the United Kingdom coming in third with just over 150 visitors. However, I was surprised to see that I’ve had visitors from Pakistan, Ecuador, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark, Brazil, and Nepal. Amazing!

Where my visitors to date have been from. There are a few surprises there!

As the primary purpose of undertaking this blog was to get myself to write more about my family history after decades of researching and compiling information, I’d say that I have been succeeding in achieving that goal. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit!

52 Weeks – Week 36: Exploration

Looking back over past posts, I have come to realize that writing this blog as part of the 52 Ancestors Challenge has been an exercise in exploration. I also realized that I have written a lot about exploration, both my own and my ancestors’. In this post, I will be recounting my exploration of Cardston, Alberta in 2015, when I visited my great aunt Fon Hogg (née Burgess) and her husband Dave. Aunt Fon, who passed away in early 2021, was my maternal grandfather’s youngest sister and a dedicated genealogist.

My aunt Fon in her amazing home office, which was primarily dedicated to genealogy and crafting.

I don’t often get the opportunity to visit ancestral homelands, so I was excited to undertake my adventure. One of the goals of my visit was to learn more about my great great grandparents – Aunt Fon’s grandparents – John Alexander Nelson and Ella Elizabeth Thomas. They were amongst the earliest settlers of Cardston, which was founded in 1887 by members of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). John and Ella were both born in Utah a few short years after it became a territory of the United States.

Ella Elizabeth Thomas (1859 – 1941)
John Alexander Nelson (1854 – 1942)

John was born in 1854 to Irish immigrant parents. Ella was born in 1859. Her father was originally from North Carolina and her mother was from England. John had worked as a farm labourer in Utah before he married. John and Ella married in Salt Lake City in 1879. Shortly afterwards, John and Ella moved to Smithfield, Utah, where John continued to work in farming.

John and Ella came to Canada in September 1890. John and Ella had five children at the time. The family travelled to Canada by covered wagon. Their eldest daughter, Maria, said that she often drove the wagon team while her father managed the cattle. The family first settled in a sod dugout at “Lee’s Creek”, west of Cardston. They arrived with 13 horses, 7 cows, 7 “other horned cattle”, and a pig.

Aunt Fon told me that this was the land where John and Ella first settled in Canada, just west of Cardston, where the prairies meet the foothills of the Rockies.

The book, Alberta Past and Present, states that upon moving to Canada, John homesteaded on 160 acres of raw land. The homestead was located on Lee Creek, which ran through the property and into the centre of Cardston. The farmhouse was about four kilometers southwest of the town centre and is located on what is now Alberta highway 501.

There was a quarry on the land, which supplied the stone for many of the buildings in Cardston, which, according to Alberta Past and Present, included the courthouse. According to John’s obituary, one building in Cardston built not using stone from his quarry was the first saloon built there – John refused to supply stone for that purpose. Aunt Fon told me that stone from the quarry was also used to build the foundation of the Alberta Stake Tabernacle. The Tabernacle stood from 1912 to 1954. Uncle Dave said that when the Tabernacle was demolished, people in Cardston used the stone for other projects. In fact, Uncle Dave told me that their first house originally had a fence built with stone from the Tabernacle.

In addition to farming, John also worked in carpentry. As well, John and a partner, John Turner, constructed and operated the first lime kiln in this part of the country. In 1906, John and Ella moved to nearby Woolford, Alberta, where John continued farming. John and Ella briefly returned to Utah in the early 1920s, where John operated an orchard or fruit farm, but they returned to Woolford in 1924. John continued farming the rest of his working life.

*The Lethbridge Herald*, November 5, 1941, page 11.

Meanwhile, Ella did not simply bide her time in the background as a farm wife and mother. According to a Lethbridge Herald article published after her death, in 1892 Charles Ora Card, Cardston’s founder and stake president, called to on Ella to study nursing and obstetrics. She was sent to Salt Lake City to study under the tutelage of a Dr. Shipp. Ella left her five eldest children at home, taking with her “a six months old baby”. Based upon this timeline, the baby would have been Seth Henry Nelson, who was born in October 1891.

However, another source stated that Ella went to Utah in 1893 and that the baby she brought with her was her son Cleveland, who was born in March 1893. After six months’ training, Ella returned to Cardston and started her service. The Herald article says that Ella “answered every call from 1892 to the time when the district was supplied with medical men, and after that time when there was more work than one doctor could do”. Ella continued as a midwife until 1932, when she was 73.

John and Ella were nationalized as British subjects domiciled in Canada in 1896 (there was no “Canadian” citizenship until 1947).

Together, John and Ella had twelve children, two of whom died in infancy. This included my great grandmother, Hazel Nelson, and her twin sister, Irene, who died at one month old. Ella died in October 1941. John died almost a year later, in September 1942. After I left Fon and Dave’s house, I drove to the Cardston Cemetery, where John and Ella are buried, along with other close relatives.

Unfortunately, while I often emailed Aunt Fon, my trip to Cardston was the last time I saw Fon and Dave. Dave passed away in October 2020 and Fon passed away five months later, in March 2021.

52 Weeks – Week 35: Free Space

Beginner’s luck! The first time my wife joined me and my parents at bingo, she won several hundred dollars.

With the theme of “Free Space” for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I can’t help but think of bingo. Bingo was a big part of my mother’s side of the family. Moreover, bingo is one of the many games that are a huge part of both sides of my family.

Cards were, and remain, a huge part of our extended family’s gaming traditions. As you may recall if you have been with this blog since the beginning, part of the inspiration for its name was my family’s affinity for cards.

My maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, and her mother, Emelia Anton, were both bridge players. Into her 90s, my great grandmother took great pride in the fact she still had the mental acuity for the game, but complained that her peers were getting too slow for her. Bridge is the one card game that has eluded me. I just never developed an interest in it and, despite my familiarity with many other card games, it still strikes me as unnecessarily convoluted.

However, there were a myriad of other card games that always seemed to be at play. Canasta, Oh Hell, Smear, and Hearts were frequent games of choice on my mother’s side of the family, while huge group games of Crazy 8s were popular with my paternal grandparents and my father’s siblings. Most Christmases, my siblings and I usually converge at my parents. In addition to the extended family who drop in during the holidays, our spouses have also become part of the card-playing tradition. Almost every evening there is a card game that goes into the wee hours of the night.

After decades of playing crib, of course it’s the day I teach the game to my eldest that I got dealt a hand like this.

The king of games with my maternal grandfather, Leo Burgess, was cribbage. When I was little, I was mesmerized by the cadence of the game and the cryptic chanting involving the counting of fifteens. My grandfather and my father taught me how to play when I was seven or eight, and I still play to this day.

My grandfather was a real stickler for the way people played cards. There were all sorts of arcane rules, traditions, and habits that had to be followed. Heaven help you if you cut the deck the wrong way. I still wince whenever one of his customs are breached, despite the fact my grandfather died over 25 years ago. Even worse was if you dared take “his” trick or – god forbid – you beat him at a game. In my case, there was little risk of that happening. I happen to be a good crib player, but my grandfather often seemed unbeatable.

The last day I spent with my grandfather, about a month before he passed away, was spent playing crib and watching The Price is Right. It was clear my grandfather’s advancing age and deteriorating health was starting to affect him, because out of the score of games we played that day, I managed to beat him twice. My grandfather was such an avid card player that – don’t tell anyone – my mother and uncle slipped a fresh deck of cards in the pocket of the suit he was buried in.

It seems that the only time I play *Rummikub* is when I visit family in Holland.

Board games were – and remain – popular as well. One of my uncles had a collection of now-obscure games that we nibblings enjoyed playing, even though we didn’t know the rules or have all the pieces. Nothing made us feel more like a big kid when our parents invited us to play a board game, such as Stock Ticker, with them. Board games were a common birthday and Christmas gift. With five kids in my family, we had a lot of Board games! I still have some of them, although it seems one of my brothers absconded with a lot of them.

Our sons are also very keen on board games, and do well with games that one might think are well above their age level. Hardly a weekend goes by in our house without several games being played. It is also common for us to play on some weeknights as well.

We love board and card games in our family. These are but a few of the games we have.

Before ending this examination of our family’s tradition of game play, I return to the game of bingo. It was extremely popular on my mother’s side of the family. My mother’s parents, aunts, and grandmother were all devoted bingo players. I remember the first time I got to go to bingo with my mother, two of her aunts, and my grandmother. My great grandmother might have been there that same evening. As I was in my teens, I definitely threw off the demographic curve of the crowd in the bingo hall. While the majority of the crowd in attendance that night struck me as rather old, they were amazingly spritely and quick with their cards. The speed at which my great aunts and grandmother marked the many cards they each were playing at one time. I found it difficult enough to keep up with the few cards I was playing each time.

My maternal grandfather also loved playing bingo and often went with my grandmother. My grandmother passed away in her early 60s, so after she died my grandfather would often go with my great grandmother. The two of them seemed to squabble quite often and my grandfather once complained about being in his 70s but still having mother-in-law problems. Nevertheless, he and my great grandmother shared their love of bingo. In fact, my grandfather passed away while doing something he loved, while out one night playing bingo with his younger brother.

With a long weekend coming up, I expect that we will be playing a lot of board games over the next many days!

Addendum: Clearly I’ve generated a lot of content in 35 weeks that I’ve already forgotten about. A week after posting this, I discovered I had already written about this on Week 18 (Social), albeit in less detail. C’est la vie!

Further Addendum: Every week, Amy Crow Johnson sends an email summarizing two or three items that have caught her eye, along with a description of the next week’s 52 Ancestors theme. In her email looking back at Week 35, Amy highlighted this post, saying “Sean shared how much his family has enjoyed card games and board games over the years. (I have to admit that I was secretly hoping someone would write about bingo. My mom used to be an avid player, and my family has a Christmas bingo party every year!)”

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