MARY'S GENEALOGY TREASURES
In 1910, my father, James Daniel McInnis was working
Alford McInnis also worked at the Coalhurst mine to
My mother, Lucy Hatch McInnis, came to Coalhurst to be
In 1930 the principal of the Coalhurst school was Mr.
The two boys and one girl all enlisted in the armed forces
in the copper mine at Butte, Montana. He came to
Coalhurst from there, in 1910, to join the group who
were sinking the mine shaft. Sinclair and Willliam McInnis,
his brothers, were also there. As their father, Angus McInnis
had died in 1906 in Nova Scotia, they sent for their mother,
Jemima, and their brother, Alford and sisters, Elizabeth and
Jean, to make a new home in Coalhurst. So in 1911,
my grandmother and her family travelled by train to
Coalhurst. The train travelled to Kipp and they had to
walk to Coalhurst where there was no train station.
I have been told my grandmother was the first woman
in Coalhurst and that they lived in tents. They moved
into the first company house in the fall of 1911 where
Jemima McInnis, my grandmother, died on February 15, 1936.
earn enough to attend the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
From there he enlisted in the Princess Patricia Canadian
Light Infantry and was killed in France on September 15, 1916.
the registered nurse at the Coalhurst Hospital. Dr. Inkrote
was the mine doctor. In 1922 she married James Daniel
McInnis who was then surface foreman at the Coalhurst
mine. They had four children born at Coalhurst, two sons
and two daughters. Diane died there in September,
1930 at the age of four. We lived in a company house
next to our grandmother's and we all attended Coalhurst
school until 1937 when we moved to Lethbridge.
Merkley. The teachers were, Miss Cleota Crowe,
grade one, Miss Nora Tennant, grade two, Miss Frances
Morrissey, grade three, Miss Rosewame, grade four,
Miss Kay Morrissey, grade five, Mr. Sid Oliver, grade
six and Mr. W. White.
during World War 11.
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