1910s

1910 Mossie Memoir

1912 Mossie Memoir

1913 Bessie and friend

1914 Mossie Memoir

c1916 Bullis; Boyle Ledingham; Robert Bruce

1917 Bessie album

1918 Bessie album

1919 Bessie; Stuart

1910

1910 in the Words of Mossie Boyle

Then sadness came to our family. My father became quite ill in middle of September, 1910. We had the Doctor out from Weyburn and he was quite sure he had typhoid fever and he must go to Hospital. After a week in hospital he passed away—at the age of 48. What a blow to us all and especially to our mother. Mother carried on with the farming with a hired hand and my brother who was now 15. Josh had typhoid also but recovered.

(click HERE to read Mossie’s Full Radio Memoir, including illuminating links)

1912

1912 in the Words of Mossie Boyle

Next was a happy event when Charlie Boyle and I were married June 26, 1912. We were married at home with our relatives and a few close friends as guests. The Methodist minister from Colgate Rev. W.M. Coulter, officiated. There had been quite a number of the students serve in this area in summer but now had an ordained minister. Funny things one remembers.

We did not have a honeymoon but went right to our home of 4 rooms which Charlie had built on his homestead. He now had acquired more land. He told me he started with oxen, to break up his land on the homestead. He said they would only work in the coolness of the early morning and in the cool of the evening—so he and the oxen rested in the middle of the day.

I always wished I had been there to see him prodding the oxen to work. Our home was 3 miles from Colgate so we now took part in church work and other activities there.

(click HERE to read Mossie’s Full Radio Memoir, including illuminating links)

1913

1914

1914 in the Words of Mossie Boyle

My mother was carrying on with the farm work very well and we used to go to see her and the family quite often. Then sadness struck our family again. My mother became ill in August 1914. She also had typhoid fever and was taken to hospital in Weyburn. She wasn’t very ill and seemed to be getting along fine and would be ready to leave the hospital on a certain day. We were just getting ready to go to Weyburn and planned to take her to Grandpa and Grandma’s home for a few days, when we got word she had suddenly passed away. What a blow to us all! She was only 48. So young to be taken from her family. This was August 29, 1914.

No one dies from typhoid fever in this day and age, but quite a number who had typhoid fever passed away that year in the vicinity of Weyburn. That must be one disease that has been conquered by medical science.

Now our family had to carry on without father or mother. My husband and I took the two youngest to live with us—Robert 13 and Madeleine 10. From then on they were more like our children than our brother and sister. Robert went to school at Weyburn, Madeleine to Colgate and later to Weyburn. We built two more rooms to our house to accommodate our family.

They both went from Weyburn (when the time came) to Normal School and both taught school for a time before deciding what they really wanted to do. My brother Josh stayed on the farm until he married Edith Mackay, a school teacher in the district, they bought land of their own and our farm was sold.

Next was a happy event when our first baby was born November 30, 1914—a son, and his name is Graham. My mother had so looked forward to this baby arrival but she didn’t live to see him and how I missed her now—but life must go on and we were busy like everyone else. We were still using horses and we had cows, chickens, and pigs to look after. We started our raising of chickens by setting eggs under the broody hens, then we got to using an incubator which was set up in the dining room every spring. We were glad when the time came that we went to Weyburn and bought baby chickens.

The railway was built through Colgate. Shortly before we were married this happened, so there was no more hauling of grain to Weyburn. An elevator was built too and we could take our grain right to the elevator.

(click HERE to read Mossie’s Full Radio Memoir, including illuminating links)

c1916

Robert Bruce in the Words of Mossie Boyle

We had 5 children, 4 boys and 1 girl, all born before the new house was built—Graham in 1914, Robert Bruce in 1916, Stuart in 1918, Keith in 1922, Margaret in 1930—all living but Robert Bruce who passed away when 3 months old. (click HERE to read Mossie’s Full Radio Memoir, including illuminating links)