Updates & Thoughts

The highs and lows of genealogy.....

First, I have been working with a distant cousin Ellie for a while now on one of the Vincent lines - and it's been a huge amount of work putting this family together especially where we started off with a lot of wrong information.  What we have discovered has been amazing and today she shared some pictures she took of the gravestones - I teared up - yes!  Silly that may be but I felt like I met some family for the first time today - speechless, priceless.

Second, a while back I wrote about a 4x great uncle of mine - William H Vincent, born about 1856 and how he might have been bitten by the gold rush and headed to the Yukon. It was possible given that his uncle Benj Vincent was in Washington and he had cousins Reuben & Willoughby Mason trapping in the area.  I was excited to find the oversized yellow envelope in my mail - - unfortunately, the death entry didn't reveal anything I didn't know - he was born in NS and died in the Yukon! 

Lastly, my AW Mason mystery has been solved!!  I posted the obit I found for him in the Eastern Chronicle where his sister Mrs Kenneth Forbes received word of his passing in Arizona and it only referred to him by initials.  BUT...a few days ago I received a lovely set of emails from Pam Kirkland whose family includes the Arbuckles, Masons and connections to my mom's family, the Hubleys.  
 
Color me happy that someone found my blog but she had news on A W Mason - And, and, and - 

She had an obit for his mother Charlotte from 1918 where his name is mentioned and a beautiful 1916 article about Charlotte where she shared an old family recipe for making Sowens!  

A HUGE thank you to Pam!

Unknown Paper, Oct 1918
Mrs Charlotte Mason
At the home of her daughter, Mrs Kenneth Forbes, New Glasgow, on Friday, October 4th, 1918, there passed away Mrs charlotte Mason, aged 92 years, leaving three daughters, Mrs Kenneth Forbes, New Glasgow, Mrs Henry Flaiger, Pictou, and Mrs Adolph [Lippert of Jefferson, Ohio]; and three sons, Mr George A Mason, New Glasgow, James of Edmonton, and Angus in Texas. 

The death of this aged and beautiful old lady calls for more than a passing notice, for she was one of the grand old hand of the pioneer mothers who made the famous County of Pictou what it is - a County whose sons and daughters are known and revered in almost every country of the globe.  She was born at the Ponds, Merigomish, the daughter of William Arbuckles.  Her grandfather was Barnabas MacGee, the first settler at Merigomish.  Her grandmother was the first white child ever born in Pictou County.  The Enterprise had last year an account of her life and the wonderful pluck and work which all her life she went through, and with it all she always preserved a cheerful optimism, as a woman always ready to help and cheer others with sympathy and kindness; a devoted mother, a true friend, and altogether a true Christian woman of the broad type and of heroic mould, in always smilingly meeting the stern requirements and often the disappointments of the life that those old pioneer mothers had to meet in those strenuous days.

A loved and loving woman herself, in her declining years she was attended with the kindest and tenderest care by her devoted daughter, Mrs Kenneth Forbes, and everything that the love and skill and care of a kind and loving household could do was always done for her who did so much to help others, and especially the poor and distressed. 

Although she [received] the patriarchal age of fourscore and twelve years, she retained all her faculties to the last in a most remarkable manner, and she did also her looks, for she was as young looking, with as youthful an outlook as most women of fifty.

She was in her usual health the day she died, ate her supper as well as ever, and went to bed, when her daughter, Mrs Forbes tucked her in and coming back a few minutes later was shocked to find she had passed away.  Her death was most graceful and calm, without a struggle or sigh, just passed into the Great Beyond [faithfully] so that today the eternal springtime with the everlasting glories belongs to her who did her part in this life so [boldly- and unselfishly and well.  There is nothing to regret...