Week 28 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Travel

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 28

Prompt – Travel

Do you remember the Canada Centennial Train? I was just 13 years old when we visited it. It may have been a school trip. For those too young to remember, it was a special train that was set up with exhibits and displays of Canada's history. It traveled from Victoria to Montreal in the year of our Centennial – 1967. In one specific car the exhibit was set up to show how our immigrants came to Canada from Europe aboard a steamship. They set up a display of what steerage class looked like for our immigrants coming to Canada by steamship. It was dark and the soundtrack was eerie. The people looked sickly. All in all it was a haunting scene that stuck with me over the years. At the time I never connected it to my ancestors.
 

As I looked into my immigrant family who came from Russia to the Prairies of Canada, I have connected that scene as one that my Mennonite family would have lived through.

My paternal great grandparents immigrated to Canada aboard steamships. David Peters born April 18, 1835 and Katharina Peters (nee Mueller) born February 13, 1836 were born in Southern Russia. They married on January 5, 1859 in the same place. David was 40 and Katharina was 39 and they had 7 children when they decided to leave Russia for Canada. I have discussed some of the reasons, in part in previous blogs. I am not sure how they traveled to their port of departure which was Hamburg, Germany, but by some accounts it could have been railway. What I do know is that they left Hamburg July 2, 1875.

According to Ancestry the Hamburg Passenger list were as follows, “From 1854-1910, separate lists were maintained for direct passengers and indirect passengers. "Direct passengers" were those who arrived at their final destination upon the same ship that they were registered on when they departed Hamburg. These passengers may have had stopovers in other ports on their way to their final destination, but they remained on the same ship. "Indirect passengers" were those who were registered on one ship in Hamburg, but transferred to another ship before reaching their final destination. Transfers to other ships occurred mostly in English, French, Belgian, and Dutch ports, and usually had to do with reducing travel costs. “

David Peters and family were indirect passengers. They boarded the German Steamship called Hansa and their captain's name was Brandt. Their final destination according to this list was Quebec City via Hull, England and departing Liverpool. It was a 3 to 4 day journey across the Baltic Sea from Hamburg, Germany to England. By all accounts it was cramped and a miserable way to travel. Once they landed at Hull they would remain aboard their ship until the train to Liverpool was ready to leave from Hull. This in part was done for health reasons and preventing the spread of diseases such as smallpox or cholera. The height of the cholera epidemic was just years before their departure. The train ride from Hull to Liverpool was 3 to 4 hours. Once they arrived in Liverpool they would wait in a depot as they could not board their ship until the day of travel. This is a transcription of the Hamburg Passenger List for David's family.

Name:	David Peters
Gender:	männlich (Male)
Departure Age:	40
Occupation:	Ökonom
Birth Date:	abt 1835
Departure Date:	2 Jul 1875
Port of Departure:	Hamburg
Destination:	Quebec (Quebec City)
Port of Arrival:	Hull (America via Liverpool)
Ship Name:	Hansa
Captain:	Brandt
Shipping Clerk:	Spiro & Co.
Shipping line:	H. J. Perlbach & Co.
Ship Type:	Dampfschiff
Ship Flag:	Deutschland
Accommodation:	ohne Angabe
Volume:	373-7 I, VIII B 1 Band 029
Household Members:	Name Age David Peters 40 Catharina Peters 39 David Peters 10 Catharina Peters 16 Sussane Peters 8 Helena Peters 6 Maria Peters 4 Eva Peters 2 Judith Peters 6 Monate

Steamships arrived in the 1860's and shortened the trip across the Atlantic from 35 days to somewhere between 7 and 10 days. And soon steamship companies were in competition for their patronage and conditions in steerage class continually improved from stacked wooden beds and bringing your own utensils, bed and blankets to eventual rough cabins with supplies provided. According to first accounts of emigrants crossing in steerage, it was dismal, appalling, cramped, dark, dank, and malodorous and very unsanitary. They weren't allowed on deck for refreshing air. David Peters and family endured a very arduous time crossing the Atlantic on their steamship called the S. S. Canadian. They landed in Quebec City on July 19^th, 1875 with 561 Mennonite immigrants aboard.

This was not the end of their travels to Manitoba. According to the diary of Reverend Johann Wiebe he describes the last leg of the trip as follows.

“After we thanked and praised God, we had breakfast. Hence, we had floated on the ocean from 5.00 pm. June 19 to the early morning of July 1, or a total of twelve days. We entrained at 7 p.m., July 1, and arrived in Montreal at 6 a.m. the next morning.Here we had a breakfast of cold tea, fried potatoes, and beef. At 11.00 a.m. we departed for Toronto where we arrived at 6.00 a.m. the following morning, and remained until 10.00 a.m. Friday, July 4. Then we departed for Berlin (Kitchener, Ontario) and Aexanis (Sarnia?), where we em-barked at 9 p.m. From here we were told it was a distance of 818 miles by boat to Duluth. Now the weather was very nice. At 7 p.m. Tuesday night, July 8, we disembarked at Duluth and after spending the night were entrained and continued our journey at 2 p.m., Wednesday, July 9.We were advised that 253 miles to the west lay Moorhead, Minnesota, where we arrived at 4 a.m., Thursday morning, and 10 p.m. we boarded a steamer which was to take us another 150 miles north on the Red River to Manitoba.However, praise God, early Monday morning (July 14) we reached the immigration sheds at Dufferin a few miles north of the International Boundary. Here we already met many of our brethren and sisters in Christ who came to greet us and who had departed from Russia one week and two weeks before we left. ...”

Although this was not David Peters trip from Quebec City to Manitoba, it can be assumed that since he arrived a few weeks later his last leg of travel was similar. It took 2 weeks from Quebec City to Dufferin, Manitoba. And once there the real work began - setting up the colonies and more importantly building an abode before the long cold winter set in.   

Wendy

Week 27 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Independence

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 27

Prompt – Independence

As a natural way of things, I believe we all strive to be independent. It occurs to me that our ancestors wanted their independence. They went to great lengths to achieve it. I surmise that often it was at great cost and risk. It occurs to me that both sides of my tree followed similar paths to achieve their independence and live the life they deeply believed was possible.

The Krikau's on my mother's side often looked outside of the life they lived seeking a better way of life. It began with my 5^th Great Grandfather, Johan Georg Krickau who was born in Germany in an area that is now 65 kilometers northwest of Frankfurt. He was born about 1723 in a city called Wolfenhausen. At this time this particular area was heavily recruited by Catherine The Great to come to Russia on the promise of some travel expenses, freedom of religion, freedom to build schools, no taxes for a period of time, capital to start up costs on their free parcel of land in Russia. Germany, was under some 2000 principalities creating very poor conditions and heavy taxes with less owned land. The 30 year war was ending, but internal strife broke out with protestants fighting the Catholics. Johan Georg Krickau must have thought that it was an obvious choice. Thus Johan immigrated to Russia and was one of the original colonists to Warenburg in the late 1700s.

On the Peters side of the tree, the Mennonites were constantly moving away from persecution to a new land that promised religious freedom among other things. They sought a home that would allow their colony style living that allowed them to follow their deep religious belief. They lived a Godly life following the teachings of the Bible. They wanted to self govern according to His word. They wanted to teach their own children in their language and the teachings of the Bible not the worldly ways. And one of the most recognized ways of life was pacification. As the Russian revolution was ramping up the Russian government was looking for healthy young men including the Mennonite men and boys. Ultimately The Peters left the Russian situation for the promise of new independence in Canada and in my case my family landed in Manitoba. Canada promised them all of their independence to rule as they needed. However before long Canada was insisting that the children be schooled in more than their religious beliefs in their own German language. The more deeply religious colonists could not tolerate such a thing and again the Peters family moved from the West Reserve in Manitoba to the area of Hague – Osler in Saskatchewan which was set aside by the government for their privilege and independence.

Unfortunately it was just the beginning of the assimilation to a Canadian way of life. Some Peters did go on to move yet again to Mexico, Paraguay, Costa Rico ever hoping for a place to be Mennonite. My grandfather Franz Peters and his wife Elisabeth decided not to join in on another move and eventually they moved from Hague to Saskatoon where they lived out their life as non practicing Mennonites.

Wendy

Week 26 or 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Black Sheep

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Prompt – Black Sheep 

 Week 26

I have spoke often of my black sheep - Robert Sullivan. My mother's father. He remains my brick wall. In genealogy a brick wall is that place where genealogy can't go back any farther. It is a person who exists but information about them and their ancestors is almost non existence. It is a source of frustration to any genealogist.

Pat Sullivan

Robert Sullivan is an unknown. What is known is sparse and somewhat contradictory. His name might be Bob, Robert, Pat, Patty, Patrick. His middle name is either Windsworth or Wentworth or neither. We can only get an estimate for his birth year. One document says he was born in Pittsburgh and his parents are born in Dublin, Ireland. The next document says he was born in Los Angeles, California and in that document he states his parents are born in the U.S.A. With so much misinformation it is hard to get down to the real facts and find out more about my maternal grandfather, the black sheep of the family.

When I first started family genealogy in 2006 I sat down with my sisters to see who knew what. We pretty much agreed to the same family story. Mary was only 18 years old when she married Patrick Sullivan. He worked as a chef on the railway between Winnipeg and Saskatoon. Pat apparently married a second wife in Winnipeg after he married Mary (a women on each end of the line).  Mary found out and together the wives charged him with bigamy and he was sent to Stony Mountain Penitentiary. Mary took him back after prison and forgave him and had 1 more child before the marriage finally fell apart and divorced him.

I have discussed Robert & Mary to many a relative in the family. I started genealogy when I made contact with my first cousin once removed. His name is John Krikau and he is Mary's nephew. John was one of three cousins who hired the Krikau genealogy researched back to Germany before they moved to Russia. I wrote and asked him if he knew anything about Mary and her first husband, Pat. This is what he wrote re the first marriage.

In 2009 I met Charles Krikau. I had written to Charles father, Fred Krikau and asked to meet him re Krikau family history. However Fred died before that happened. Fred's father was Phillip Krikau who sponsored Andreas Krikau and family, including Mary , my grandmother. Charles did take us to meet Esther, a sibling of Fred. We chatted for a bit. She had some memories of Mary visiting the farm in Rosthern. She said she never saw Pat Sullivan come to the farm. In fact she said; “I knew of him and his rather bad history.” But she did not know any details. Well none that she shared.

A few months later we returned to visit Charles and his step mother who was second wife of Fred. She apparently had some family stories to share. She did not know about Pat Sullivan or that Mary had married anyone other than her second husband, “Benny McLaughlin”. However at 90 memories were fuzzy at best.

During this visit, Charles said something very profound. “Given the time frame of 1920's to 1932, one could lose their identity very easily, especially if he had two angry women after him after they found out about each other. Pat could just pick up and leave changing his name or not and likely have very little fear of being found.”

It seemed like a possibility because in the 1970's my sister, Bonnie tells a story that there was a bus driver in Saskatoon who knew Pat Sullivan and whenever he saw Vivian (Mary and Pat's daughter)  on the bus he would share all the stories he knew about him. He knew he was remarried, moved to Kamloops and had 8 or more children.

I know that bigamy is a prosecutable offense and thus should find records. At this time in 2009 I had looked into some court records on microfiche but never found the right Manitoba index.

I also knew that divorce pre-1968 had to be a statue of Law by the federal government and thus recorded. It had to be publicized in their local newspaper for 6 months prior to the divorce and or the Canadian Gazette. On line in The Library Archives have listed all divorces in Canada pre-1968. There are 12,000 plus names recorded and indexed. I searched for Krikau, Krikow, Krikan, Sullivan, Sollivan, and O'Sullivan. I had no luck finding Mary Sullivan. No divorce? I did ask Lutheran Pastor Dressler if Lutherans annulled marriages. He said no.

In 2009 I contacted my Aunt Phyllis McLaughlin, Mary's daughter-in-law. In this conversation Phyllis and I discussed Mary and Pat. This is what she said and I am paraphrasing. " Mary gave her parents a very hard time  They did not approve of Pat. He was a non practicing Irish Catholic. They were Lutherans. He had no job and pretended to be some kind of cook. They disliked him for Mary because of what he wasn't. Mary worked at a candy factory to make money. She stayed behind and married Pat Sullivan when her family immigrated to the States. Apparently her parents and family disowned her. Although her brothers did witness at her wedding so they must have been speaking. Shortly after the wedding Pat disappeared off and on for years." I told Aunt Phyllis that I had not found any court documents regarding the divorce and his trial. I was at this time feeling it was just family folk lore and nothing more. Aunt Phyllis disagreed with me and urged me to look once more for the court proceedings. Aunt Phyllis went on to say that Mary did a very meticulous job of erasing Pat from her life. I guess that is what you do to black sheep.

Last year I ordered my mother's live birth registration. You never know what information one might find from these documents. On her form it lists her father as Patrick Sullivan who is living at Stony Mountain Penitentiary and his occupation is “prisoner”. He was a 31 year old Irish American and this is where it is listed that his place of birth was Los Angeles, California and his parents born in the United States. Just when I thought his imprisonment was a family story, this appears. I will have to look harder for the court records.

Finally following up on the story that he relocated to British Columbia, I was in contact with British Columbia Archives. There was a person listed as Robert Wentworth Sullivan who had died in Chilliwack, B.C. On November 25^th, 1952. He was married at the time of his death. I proceeded to order the death registration for him and his wife. I hoped that I could prove that this was my grandfather by looking at all the details put on the death registration. Here is what I found. His place of death was the “unemployment insurance office” in Chilliwack. This gentleman had resided in the province and in particular Chilliwack for ten years. His address was 519 Nowel Street South. The registration said his citizenship was Canadian and his race was Irish. His birth place was Truro, Nova Scotia on May 29, 1887. His profession was a cook at a local cafe and he had been a cook “for life” last working July 1952. The names of his parents and particulars was not known by the informant which was Sullivan's wife's brother in law. His wife's name was Jean Alice Walker. The cause of his death was atherosclerotic heart disease which he had for ten years. His doctor had known him from November 1951 to November 1952 and last seen October 1952. He was buried at The Canadian Legion Cemetery and handled by Henderson's Funeral Home – 102 College Street Chilliwack.

The onus is now on me to prove that this is my grandfather. I have to connect this to what I have at the time of his marriage to Mary.

So many coincidences. He was a chef like in Saskatoon and Winnipeg, His middle name was Wentworth. It is so unusual of a name that it is hard to ignore. Dying in an unemployment line fits the description of an unemployed person Mary's parents thought he was. He apparently lived in B.C for ten years. Heart disease does run in the family. His race was Irish.  On the other side Pat was not born in Nova Scotia, but then I already have two possible birth places for him. His birth date of May 29^th, 1887 makes him older than we estimated according to the marriage and his daughter's birth registration. I could never find a Canadian citizenship for Pat Sullivan, but then if he was born in Canada he would not have one. 

That is what I know about him our black sheep of the family. Can't wait to spend more time running down other clues to break down this brick wall of mine.

Wendy