ANNIE BELLE MURRAY

(Angus1, John2)

and

Samuel Ford WALSH

 Annie Belle Murray was born 12 Jul 1885 at Mount Thom, Pictou County, Nova Scotia where she grew up with her five brothers and one older sister. 

She received her schooling at Lower Mount Thom.  She would always say her schooling was the equivalent of our Grade Eight.  There were no exercise books in that school at that time.  They used slates and chalk.  They had to memorize the work.

After leaving school young folk in the area seemed to go to Boston or Fall River to work.  Annie joined her sister, Jean, in Boston when she was seventeen and another winter she went to Fall River.

The Sabbath was strictly observed in the Murray household.  Annie sometimes had problems keeping the Sabbath.  She laughed with her children when telling about being caught polishing her shoes before church.  She was not allowed to finish the second, but quickly doused the shoe in water to make it look almost the same as the polished shoe.

After her brothers left home, Annie and her mother lived alone on the farm.  She told her children how she carried water by bucket up the hill to the cows in the barn.  She prided herself on carrying two buckets at a time to keep a good posture.  How many buckets did she carry and how many cows were there?  Too bad more questions weren’t asked.

The winters were far from pleasant.  There seemed to be many snowstorms, ice storms and such hazardous conditions. 

By 1912 Annie’s brothers, Bob and Jack, were homesteading at Sceptre, Saskatchewan.  Annie received an inheritance of $1200 from a relative who had died and she decided there and then that she and her mother would go west to keep house and help her brothers.  Besides doing the inside work Annie also worked outside.  There are pictures of her driving four oxen pulling a rod-weeder.

At age 31, Annie married Samuel Ford Walsh on the 21^st Feb. 1917 at The Manse on 3^rd Ave. East in Swift Current.  The officiating clergyman was John L. Nicol, Ma, PhD, from the Presbyterian Church.

Samuel Ford Walsh was born 30 May 1885 at Cumberland Twp., Russell County, Ontario.  Although his birth was registered with only the name Samuel, his homestead papers and marriage registration recorded Ford as his second name.  To further complicate matters, Ford was listed on the 1891 and 1901 census as Samuel B.  A homestead map gives his name as Samuel Bedford Walsh.

Ford’s parents were Samuel James Walsh and Margaret Matilda Anderson.  By the 1901 census, the Samuel J. Walsh family had nine children.

Ford and his brother Tom applied for “Entry for a Homestead, a Pre-emption or a Purchased Homestead”.  Form applied for NW ¼ Section 31, Township 21, Range 23, West of the 3^rd Meridian.  Tom applied for the NE ¼, Section 31, Township 21, Range 23, West of the 3^rd Meridian.  Another brother, Albert Anderson Walsh applied for SW ¼, Section 9, Township 21, Range 23, West of the 3^rd Meridian.

Ford also applied for a Pre-emption (the right of purchasing before others; esp. one given by the government to the actual settler upon a tract of public land) on the SW ¼ next to his homestead.

Albert Walsh met with an accident on May 29^th 1919 (or 1918) and he returned to Ontario where he died 18 Nov. 1919.  Ford Walsh completed the homestead papers as Attorney for Albert Anderson Walsh.

Annie and Ford had a family of six children – three boys and three girls:  John Samuel Walsh (1 Jan. 1918 – 3 May 1990), Edna Margaret Walsh (living), Robert Murray Anderson Walsh (living), Bertha “Jessie” Walsh (living), Jean Marion Walsh (23 Jun. 1923 – 13 Apr. 1992) and Herbert Angus Walsh (22 Dec. 1925 – 11 Nov. 1963).

 The Walsh homestead was eight miles south of the Murray property.  Until her brother, Jack, married  Annie would drive a horse and buggy back to help her mother with the laundry, baking and other household chores.

 Jessie Murray, Annie’s mother, came to live with the Walshe’s from 1926 to 1929.  Jessie McPherson never remembers her grandmother being  able to walk while she lived with them.

The depression of the thirties caused many hardships.  Except for 1937 there was always a big garden.  Oh, the weeding that was required!  Peas were picked and then shelled on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Beans were picked on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and then they had to be snipped.  Much work went into canning the produce.  Although the depression seemed endless and no-one had money; the garden, cows for milk and meat and chickens for eggs and meat meant there was always something to eat.  The family also went to the Great Sand Hills to pick a variety of berries for fruit.

Nineteen thirty seven was a disaster.  Not even a Russian thistle grew on the whole half section.  The wind blew continually and many times it was so dusty one couldn’t see any distance.  By fall many carloads of vegetables were shipped from Manitoba where there had been a better harvest.  Apples and feed for cattle came from Ontario.  Jessie McPherson describes the relief from the maritimes:

 “We can’t forget the fish (COD) from the Maritimes.  Who could forget the COD – YUK!! The parents were ever so grateful.  We have to admire the mothers who worked so hard to make so many dishes of fish palatable (almost).  One can eat most anything if one is hungry.”

 The following also is in the words of Jessie McPherson:

 "Like all pioneer ladies, Annie, was no different re: knitting, sewing, remaking clothes.  There were hand-me-downs that were well renovated to fit the smaller one.  She hooked rugs for the floor with material left over from sewing – dying material for fancy patterns so the homes look cosy.

We admired our mother.  She knit socks, long stockings for the girls, mitts,and  toques to keep us warm.  Many winter night she would sit at the table by lamp light knitting and reading a book!!

 There were gatherings on Sunday afternoon.  The ladies stirred up the makings of ice cream and the men turned the hand ice cream freezers.  So cake and ice cream was the treat of the day.  In the corn season the contest would be on for who could eat the most cobs of corn!”

It was difficult to survive these years; the young folk left home to find work.

In time Annie went to Winnipeg to housekeep for her brother Angus who eventually died of cancer.

The girls were in Winnipeg working so Annie stayed.  Being very independent she got a job.  She was a companion to an elderly handicapped lady.  Eventually she came to Brandon in 1961 and made her home at Fairview Home near her family.  She died suddenly on the 16^th March 1966 and was taken home to Sceptre, Saskatchewan to be buried in the family plot.

The Leader News of Thursday, March 24, 1966 carried an obituary for Annie:

 Mrs. Samuel Ford Walsh passed away suddenly in the Brandon General Hospital on Wednesday morning, March 16^th at the age of 80 years.

Funeral services were held on March 19^th at 2 p.m. from the Sceptre United Church with interment in the family plot in the Sceptre Memorial Gardens Cemetery.  Rev. Bailey Snow of Leader conducted the service.  Pallbearers were  Robert Morrison of Brandon, and Wilfred Powers, Gordon  Fyke.  Elmer Armstrong, Harvey Staple and Kenneth Farrer, all of Sceptre.  

The deceased was born  Annie Belle Murray in Mount  Thom, Nova Scotia, and came  west in 1912 to homestead  with her two brothers, the  late Robert and Jack Murray  of the Wyncate District.  She married Mr. Walsh in 1917 and farmed in the Sceptre district until 1944 when she moved to Winnipeg and made her home until 1961.  The last five years she had resided at the Fairview Home in Brandon. Manitoba.     She was predeceased by her husband in August, 1965 and one son, Herbert in November, 1963.  Mrs. Walsh is  survived by three daughters  and two sons, Mrs. Charles  Clark (Edna) of Esterhazy,  Mrs. Howard MePherson (Jessie) of Brandon, Mrs. Joseph  Malenchak (Jean) of Fisher  Branch, Man., John of Brooks,  Alta., and Robert of Montreal;  one brother, Alex Murray of  Brooks; and 14 grandchildren.

Mrs Walsh was a member  of the United Church in  Sceptre and an active member of the UCW at Fairview  Home where she resided.

Sceptre social & personal

The deepest sympathy is extended to the Walsh family on the death of their mother, Mrs. Ford Walsh, who passed away on Wednesday, March 16th in Brandon, Man.  Mrs. Walsh was an early pioneer of the Sceptre district and farmed here for many years with her husband and family.

Out of town relatives and  friends who attended the funeral of the late Mrs. F. Walsh included her three daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Clark (Edna) of Esterhazy; Mr.  and Mrs. Howard McPherson  (Jessie) of Brandon, Man.: Mr.  and Mrs. Joseph Malenchuk  (Jean) of Fisher Branch, Manitoba; her two sons, John of  Brooks, Alta., and Mr. and Mrs.  Robert Walsh of Montreal,  Quebec; her brother, Mr. Alex  Murray and his son and  daughter, Don and Elsie of Brooks; Mrs. Thomas Walsh  of Lemsford and her son  Maynard of Regina; Mr. and  Mrs. Gordon Armstrong and  son of Regina; Mr. RobertMorrison of Brandon: Mr. and Mrs. S. Eylofson of Kindersley.  Mr. and Mrs. E. Armstrong  entertained the mourners and pallbearers to tea after the funeral.