Homesteading

In the spring of 1911 my grandfather decided it was his destiny to go to Canada and homestead.

Now Grandpa had been married and had a couple of sons named Clarence and Clinton in 1893 and 1894 respectively.  Shortly after the second birth his wife, Mary, died.  Grandfather placed the two children in an orphanage where they remained until 1901 at which time Grandpa Will married a widow with three children.  Cora Baker Lester had birthed Ada in 1884, Raymond in 1886, and Charles in 1887.  After their marriage Grandpa and Cora had three children named Lloyd in 1905, Floyd in 1907, and Clara in 1911, as well as collecting his first two from the orphanage.

Before Grandpa Will made the decision to go west, and north, Ada Lester had died in 1896, Ray had married in 1908 and was on his own, while Charles, yet single, had left the nest and was working on a farm where he elected to stay.  Clarence Lawton, like Charles Lester his half-brother, was working away from home and remained there.

Thus Grandpa and his remaining son from his first marriage, Clinton, along with a team of horses, caught the Canadian Pacific train and ultimately departed it at Ernfold, Saskatchewan, Canada which had only become a province in 1905.  Grandma, along with the three younger children, remained in northern New York.  The plan was that Grandpa and Clint would plant as much of a crop as they could, and then build a shelter for the rest of the family to come in the fall.

Grandpa and Clinton each obtained adjoining quarter sections (160 acres) of prairie land.  They were required to improve the land, work it as farm land, pay taxes, and in several years it would be given to them by the government.  There was a slight rise in the sod near a corner of Grandpa’s land where it adjoined Clint’s.  There they dug a sort of cave into the side of the hill as a place to live.  On Clint’s land, but near to the dugout, they dug a well thus improving both places.

In that fall of 1911 Cora and their three children Lloyd 6, Floyd 4, and Clara a babe in arms also caught a Canadian Pacific to Ernfold to find only the dugout to live in.  All that winter of 1911-1912 the team of horses and a cow lived in the outer part of the dugout, while the five family members lived deeper inside.

It was in the spring of 1912, 100 years ago, that Grandpa and Clint built a small unpretentious home for the family’s use for the next several years.

This is a photo of that home a few miles north of Ernfold, Saskatchewan, Canada taken in 1917 when Lloyd was 12, Will was 51, Clara was 6, Cora was 49, and Floyd was 10.  Although I do not know it to be fact I assume Clint took the photo.