52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 15 Prompt - Fire

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 15

Prompt – Fire

 

Hatton, Saskatchewan is a non existent town.  It doesn't even rate as a ghost town because there are no buildings left.  The last building was a school and it was torn down in 2011.  All that remains are a  few unkempt cemeteries.  It was nothing more than a whistle stop on the new westward bound CPR line and originally it was called "Forres", Saskatchewan.  The area was being settled by European immigrants who were lured by the free quarter section with no more requirements than they live on the land for a minimum of 6 months and clear at least 10 acres of land per year.  In 1913 the town decided to rename it "Hatton" because there were too many towns and cities called Forres.

Bill's great grandparents were immigrants from Bromberg, Prussia who arrived in America in 1891 through the port of Philadelphia.

1890 April 20 - Johann & Emilie Jahnke Wedding Photo

Johann Friedrich Jahnke and Ernestine Emilie (nee:Hein) first settled in Winthrop, Minnesota.  This is where Arthur, their second son was born. Arthur's older brother was born in Prussia.  Arthur is Bill's maternal grandfather.  When Arthur was 2 and Leonhard was 5 their parents moved 350 miles west to Ulen, Minnesota in a covered wagon and moved onto a farm.  However Johann was a man of wanderlust.  Or put more plainly by Arthur in an oral history in his later life, “his father had itchy feet.”  In the spring of 1903 they were lured by free land to Canada. They bought land and built a two story home in Killaly, Saskatchewan.

In 1911, Johann sold the Killaly farm to move to Entwistle, Alberta ( 60 miles west of Edmonton) to help his older son, Leonhard start a homestead.  The following spring (1912), Johann, Emilie and Arthur moved on to Hatton.  He built a home and a general store.

Circa 1913 - Hatton General Store of Johann Jahnke

Hatton House of Johann & Emilie Jahnke

In 1913, Arthur went off to Regina to take a 3 month business course and when he was done he returned to Hatton to help his father run the store.  It must have been a prosperous business as Johann bought his first car in 1913 which was a 1909 Model T.  In 1915 Arthur bought a brand new 1915 Model T. which apparently cost him $600.00.

In 1916, Johann decided to sell the store and home to move back to Winthrop, Minnesota however they ended up taking a train to Seattle for reasons more curious than known.   Johann bought a new 1916 Maxwell car there and they started a road trip which took them through northern California and then on to Gibbon, Minnesota where once again Johann bought another store.

On June 24, 1917 Arthur married Ida Bachmann in Killaly Saskatchewan.  The following spring they moved back to Hatton Saskatchewan and Arthur bought the general store that his father had once owned.   I believe that Johann's cousin Julius Jahnke had bought it off of Johann in 1916 and then sold it to Arthur.  There may have been a time when both Julius and Arthur Jahnke co-owned the store.  There is a photo of the store called A & J Jahnke.  Things seemed to be good.  Ida and Arthur had their first child, a daughter, on April 5, 1918.

Between Jahnke's store and an hardware store was an empty lot.  Both owners decided to make it a warehouse by enclosing it in with a roof and a front and back wall attached to their stores.

In January of 1920 a fire started in the hardware store spreading quickly to their warehouse and eventually into Arthur's General Store.   It took everything they owned.

Arthur decided not to start up again.   He returned to Killaly to buy farmland and become a farmer. He bought two half sections of land two miles apart.  Ida's father helped build their farm home while Ida and the baby lived with her parents in Killaly.   Arthur bought a tractor, broke soil and planted it by the end of spring.  The home was finished by October of that same year. Arthur, Ida and baby Elsie moved in to it and begin a new life as farmers.

14 X 24 Killaly Farm House For Art & Ida

As it turns out, it may have been a very good decision to leave Hatton.  Farmland in the area turned out to be less than ideal mainly because the south western part of Saskatchewan was more desert like than advertised to the new comers.  It had very little water and trees.  Drought was common. The 1914 drought was the first of many more droughts leading up to the “Dirty Thirties”.  The drought of 1914 brought crop failure which lead to starvation followed by destitution despite government assistance.  And finally they abandoned their homesteads to find a more agreeable place.  It is thought that ten thousand left this area in that time period.   I recall discussing the general store fire with Clara, Bill's mother and Arthur and Ida's youngest daughter.  She said the loss was compounded by the fact that many of the farmers bought goods on credit.  So besides the physical losses there was loss of moneys not paid for on goods bought before the fire.

Leaving when Arthur did may have saved him from the single most devastating event that the community of Hatton endured.  Some will tell you that it was the beginning of the end for Hatton, Saskatchewan.

Curtis R. McManus explains it quite eloquently in his book called Happyland: A History of the “Dirty Thirties” in Saskatchewan, 1914 – 1937.

It was so catastrophic that about a dozen other papers in Canada and America carried the story.

Such as the article written in The Calgary Herald on September 26, 1921 on page 1.

A few things come to me from this article.  It is believed that the fire started in the pool hall which is listed as one of the burned businesses; "J. Jahnke Pool Hall".  This was probably Julius Jahnke, a cousin of Arthur Jahnke who had at one point owned or co-owned the general store.  I am still working on connecting him as the owner of the pool hall.  

Another thing mentioned in this article is the fact that this is the third big fire in Hatton in the last eighteen months.  Likely Arthur Jahnke's general store was the first of three fires mentioned.

In the final estimate the loss amounted to $250,000.  Devastating considering this was in 1921.   

Arthur and Ida Jahnke were not lucky that they had a fire razing their general store which changed the direction in their life.  But maybe luck came in a different form sparing them from rebuilding just to have it taken out in the September 25, 1921 devastating Hatton Fire.  

Wendy