Week 7 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Valentine

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 

Week 7 Prompt – Valentine

Benjamin Franklin and Maria Katharina McLaughlin
April 1 1932

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the word Valentine is love. I started looking through my pictures that I have scanned for an appropriate wedding photo. I think that your wedding day is the ultimate day for a couple in love and hopefully their portraits show that.

I found a lovely wedding picture of my maternal grandmother and her second husband. Mary and Benjamin McLaughlin. They were married on April 1, 1932.  Mary was in an earlier blog of mine. The blog spoke about her first husband, Pat Sullivan and all the woe he caused her. Fast forward 10 years after her first marriage and Mary finds love again. Benjamin was 32 years her senior. According to my older sibling “Benjamin worshiped the ground that she walked on and Mary said it was the happiest time of her life.”

Benjamin McLaughlin is not a biological ancestor but he does come with some interesting background.

Benjamin was a “foundling”. A foundling is an infant abandoned by it's mother / father and taken care of by strangers.

In the box of Mary's important papers was a birth certificate and an attached letter for Benjamin McLaughlin. He was applying for his birth certificate in June of 1939, but had never been registered as a baby and thus had to get his sister to write a letter explaining the story of his being found by her parent's neighbors who did not want to care for the child and how her parents took him in. I have included the letter for interest. His new family named him Benjamin Franklin McLaughlin. Franklin was named for the man of the neighbor that found him. Birth date was established as May 23, 1871.

The 1881 census shows Benjamin as one of 9 children and their parents were Marie and Thomas McLaughlin. Marie McLaughlin died in 1882 and Thomas in 1891. All of this in Ontario.

Benjamin and his older brother appear in 1891 census as farmers in the Pine Creek area (south of Calgary).  In 1903 Benjamin acquired some land in De Winton and farmed on his own. He then sold his farm and moved to Vancouver for 5 years. I do not know about his life in Vancouver during this time  He came to Saskatoon in 1912 where he remained until his death. He started to work at Saskatoon Quaker Oats in 1916 and stayed with them until his retirement in 1937.Benjamin died January 29,1945.

In the Saskatoon Henderson's Directory, Mary was listed for several years before their marriage as his housekeeper. I am presuming that this is how the two met and fell in love.  As a single mother of two children, an immigrant with no real formal education, and a bad marriage, Mary had up to this time had a rough life. I'm am happy that she found love.

Wendy

 Letter Re Benjamin Franklin McLaughlin, A Foundling