1857

Sometimes it all just comes together and goes BING! in your head.

I was reading an article in the July ’11 issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine (which I, for some reason begrudgingly, find extremely informative every time I buy it).  It was an article on the year 1857 from the British point of view.  In it was an 1857 painting by Henry Nelson O’Neil called “Eastward Ho!” depicting British soldiers boarding a ship en route to fight is known as the Indian Mutiny.  Looking at it I saw it bore a strong resemblence to a painting I studied (back in 1988) by a woman artist, Emily Mary Osborne, called “Nameless and Friendless” (1857).  So I brought these two works up on my computer screen, and I realized I had a family ambrotype photograph that looked like it fit in nicely with these two works.  I lined them up on my computer screen and here is the result:

Hannah, the centre photo, fits in nicely with the paintings, don’t you think?  We have her ambrotype dated to 1859.  Talk about consistencies in fashion and hair-dos.  I think this is the late 1850s in a nutshell.  A very satisfying connection all-in-all.

Saskatchewan Painter family

Well, “soon” (per my previous post) is a very relative word.  In any case, here are scans of a couple of newspaper printouts I took while in Prince Albert public library.  The first is a wedding announcement of Nettie Painter’s wedding to Guy Ellis in 1916.  I was actually surprised to find this as the Painters seem to prefer flying under the radar, as it were, living quietly and not announcing things to the world.  Back to Nettie–she was born in the Missouri in 1898, so she was 18 when she was married.  She died at the rather young age of 46.  I have yet to order her death certificate to see what was the cause of death (they are $50 each in Saskatchwan!).

The second scan is the listing in the local newspaper of P.H. Painter’s death in WWI, under “Canadian Casualties”.  As I scrolled through the microfilm to find this I was amazed at the columns and columns, sometimes even pages, of names listed under “Canadian Casualties”.  And some of the biggest lists came AFTER peace was declared.  Even Perl Hervey’s was published December 1, 1918.  He had been listed Missing assumed killed in the beginning of October according to his military file.  It makes me wonder when the families received news of their sons’ deaths…did they celebrate the end of war, thinking their children were safe, only to receive a dreaded telegram some months later?  It really defies comprehension.

PH Painter

Back to Perl (or Pearl) Hervey.  I don’t know the story behind his first name, as it does not appear to be a family name.  But as many in the family did, he was known to everyone by his second or middle name (this may be a Germanic tradition)–Hervey or Herv.  He was an older brother of Nettie, and was also born in Missouri, in 1896.  Family lore has it he was the prankster of the family and was known for pranks such as putting sneezing power in the church organ and itching power in folks pants.  I believe his loss was particularly hard on his elder brother Corley, who was also fought in WWI.

Unrelated to my genealogy, but an interesting tidbit I came across is the article below (sorry for the illegibility…gotta love old microfilm).  Much has been written about how Canada came into it’s own during WWI.  I think this August 2, 1918 article headline rather indicates that is indeed the case.  It’s also interesting to note that O Canada did not become our national anthem until 1980, some 72 years after this article.

New stuff soon

I have recently returned from a visit to the family Homestead and area to do some research.  Although I’m too tired right now to process it all, I am sure there will be some new postings here soon as I go through everything I discovered.