Canadian Family Cont.

I was notified that one of my relatives pad passed away. Her name is Anges "Ginger" Peters Hicks and her daughter Bonnie Hicks Veen emailed me after seeing this blog.

Bonie's Grandfather is my Great Grand Uncle. Her Grandfather is Jacob Henry Peters and one of is his brothers is John Henry Peters (My Great Grandfathers Brother).

After receiving this email I decided to pass this info along to the other Canadian family I have contacted through my blog and have since been able to add more to my family tree and fill in some blanks.

I also was given a great amount of family history from a lovey story of Alice (Warren) and Jack Peters by:

History of Alice (Warren) and Jack Peters
       Jack (Jacob John) Peters (first name later changed to James) was born on May 29, 1921, on the farm they were renting eight miles north of Rush Lake (near Herbert),Sask. The Peters family moved from Rush Lake to the Lucky Lake area in 1925, where they had purchased unbroken land from the Hudson Bay Company. Their farmsite was located about 4.5 miles west of the current Peters farm which is 8 miles northwest of Lucky Lake.

Jack’s mother was Elizabeth Petkau, born October 4, 1888 in Selo (Town of) Baburka, Ekaterinoslav Province, Russia, [died Edmonton, AB, November 18, 1973]. She immigrated to Canada with her son, David, and her father and step-mother (Jacob and Elizabeth Petkau) and siblings (Ike, Pete and Helen; one brother Jack stayed behind). After a long journey from her village in Russia to Rotterdam, Holland, they sailed to Halifax, Canada, landing in November, 1913, and traveling west by train. Her family settled in Herbert, SK. On January 23, 1917, she married Jacob Henry Peters, (born in Russia April 12, 1881; died in Edmonton, AB, on January 10, 1962), a widower who brought 5 children into the marriage. He had immigrated earlier to the USA from Russia (with his brothers Pete, Cornie and Dan), then moved up to Herbert, Saskatchewan. His previous wife was Helena Peters. Like many other immigrants, the Petkau and Peters families had left Russia in order to escape the terrible conditions there prior to the Russian revolution and to build a new life of freedom.
         Jack came from a very large family.  His brothers and sisters were:

1.      Irvin Peters (Helen) (b)June 12, 1906 USA (d) June 3, 1967, B.C.  

2.      Elizabeth (Beth) Pagan (Jim) (b)Sept.14, 1907 (d)April 17, 1985, Saskatoon, SK

3.      Dave Peters (May) (b)Feb. 26,1909  (d)October 11, 1996, Hamilton, ON

4.      Harry Peters (Joyce) (b)July 23, 1909 SK (d) 1970’s

5.      Annie Collins (Alex) (b)Rush Lake Feb.5,1911, (d) Feb. 16, 2003, Beechy, SK

6.      Peter Peters (b) March 8, 1913(d) died of diphtheria Feb 5,1926,  Hillpoint Graveyard.

7.      Helena Thurlow (Frank) (b) Dec. 12, 1917 Rush Lake, (d)Dec.2, 2002 Chilliwack, B

8.      Minnie Cone (Jim), Edmonton, AB (b) Nov. 30,1918 Rush Lake, SK.

9.      Olga Ippolito (Maurice) (b) Jan 1,1924-twin to Orlanda-Rush Lake,SK (d)Sept. 24,1983, Edmonton, AB

10.  Orlanda/Lindy Tokaryk(Stan)(b)Jan 1,1924-twin to Olga-Rush Lake, SK (d)Feb. 12,1983, Edmonton, AB.

11.  Ginger (Agnes) Hicks, Winnipeg, MN (b) May 9,1927

12.  Roy Peters (Cathy) Calgary, AB (b) April 26, 1929

13.  Margaret Carr, Ottawa, ON (b) Feb. 13/1931

14.  Luella Peters (b) April 1916 (d) Oct 1916

       Jack attended Sleepy Hollow School, (northwest of Lucky Lake) completing Grade 7 or 8 and then went to work to help support the family at the age of 13. Jack worked as a hired hand for the Grant family and there he met their neighbour, Alice “Babe” Warren.

       Alice Hazel Lavinia Warren (“Babe”) was born on July 10, 1917, on the Warren homestead (SE18-24-9-W3, 8 miles northwest of Lucky Lake).
       Her parents were John George Warren (born Feb 9, 1878, in Strabane, near Dundas, ON; died Fall, 1947) and Alice Lavinia (nee Gravett/ original surname Salter) Warren (born July 15, app.1885, Midland area, Ontario; died March, 1918, Regina SK.), and step-mother, Jessie (nee Dawson) (born Feb. 21, 1878, Hamilton, ON.; died 1970, Swift Current, SK). John Warren was one of the earliest homesteaders in the area, coming to the Crescent Valley area in 1905 from the Dundas, Ontario, area (where his family were), and from Welwyn (near Moosomin), SK, where he had been working earlier. He built his first 12’ x 14’ home out of sod, and the following year his brothers Reuben, Roy, Norman and Med (Metherill) followed (Med later returned to Ontario). By approx. 1910 to 1914 he had constructed a large two-storey house, barn and numerous other buildings. John Warren was a kind and industrious man with true Pioneer spirit. He was very involved in helping to establish the Crescent Valley community, from helping build the first school in the area and establishing the first church, to building sod homes for other settlers coming in, and serving on the R.M. of Coteau council as well as other boards and committees. He married Alice Gravette from Moosomin on August 16, 1910. After her death at an early age in 1918, his cousin, Jessie (Jenet) Dawson, came from Ontario to help with the children and he married her in 1920. It was she who nicknamed baby Alice, “Babe”, a name still used by family and friends.
       Alice’s siblings were:

1. Bertram George (Jean) (b) March 31, 1913 (d) August 24, 1943, Flight Sergeant for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
2. Marjorie Fenton (Jack), Calgary AB, (b) August 14, 1915.

       Alice attended Crescent Valley School and took high school by correspondence up to Grade 10, also working alongside her parents on the farm. She married Jack Peters in June, 1943.

       Jack volunteered for the Canadian Armed Forces during World War II, serving 3 ½ years in Sicily, Italy, Holland, France and England. He returned home from the war in April, 1946. John and Jessie Warren retired to Lucky Lake and Jack and Alice took over the Warren homestead in 1946, where they built their life with their six children (Hazel, Dennis, Diane, Donna, John and Dean). In 1948 they also started renting and eventually purchased the Peters’ homestead in October, 1948, when Jack’s parents retired to Edmonton, Alberta.

       Jack and Alice, like their pioneer parents before them, were both incredibly hard workers, and life centered around raising their six children and expanding and improving the farm. While they originally lived in the house built by John Warren, in 1956 they built a new home overlooking the large coulee that ran through their land and named the farm “Crescent Coulee Farm”. The family farm (now named “Peters Farms”) has received a “Heritage Farm Award” (at 75 years) and, in 2005, a “Century Family Farm Award”, having now been farmed by the family for 100 years.   

       Jack loved collecting and listening to music (some of his favourites were Billy Vaughn Orchestra, Glenn Miller and Nana Mouskouri), reading, horses, and fishing. He was very much a self-educated person, a good businessman and farmer, a good neighbour, and was talented in singing and drawing, as well. Jack’s two older sons, Dennis and John, began farming with him in the 1970’s, eventually taking over as his health declined.  In 1979, tragedy struck the family with the drowning death of their youngest child, Dean. Jack died in Saskatoon on June 30, 1987, and is buried in Saskatoon Memorial Gardens.

       Alice was a strong and resourceful farming wife who managed to do it all with good humour to boot. She milked cows, shipping cream and making butter, raised chickens and turkeys, grew a huge garden to feed her large family, and helped the men with the farm work. She often canned up to 500 jars of preserves in summer.  She was an excellent seamstress, making much of the family’s clothing, and some of her children recall her staying up all night after the other work was done, to sew Halloween costumes or dresses, which magically appeared in the morning. Her baking and cooking were beyond compare. She and the kids liked entering the Agricultural Fairs and she won many prizes for her sewing and baking—one year we won a chicken brooder as a prize. In later years, she has thoroughly enjoyed being “Grandma” to 13 grandchildren and 11 (so far) great grandchilden, quilting and reading. She has two “green thumbs” and enjoyed growing a huge garden up until her mid 80’s, always eager to share its bounty with her family and friends. She is 89 and still resides on the family farm.

       Grandma Jessie Warren (Alice’s step-mother), affectionately known by most as “Aunt Jessie”, also lived with the family for many years after John Warren died.  She was a wonderful story-teller, entertaining the children with stories from the depression and earlier days. She passed away in 1970 at the age of 92.  

CHILDREN OF ALICE (WARREN) AND JACK PETERS, LUCKY LAKE:

1. Hazel Mildred b. June 7, 1943 m. Myron Barton Sept, 1961
2. Dennis Bertram b. April 17, 1947 m. Connie Ayers Nov, 1969
3. Diane Barbara Peters b. August 23, 1948 m. John Wedley, 1990
4. Donna Lynn b. August 24, 1951 m. Clarence Procknow, Aug 1971
5. John Byron b. February 15, 1953 m. Linda Redstone May, 1973
6. Dean Ward b. February 28, 1963 and d. July 29, 1979 (Vera Cemetery)

Memories of Farm Life by the Peters Children:

-Walking the half mile to Edith and Clifford Grant’s house to play and have tea parties. Edith was a kid’s best friend.

-Having ball games in the pasture with the McIntosh kids after school.  With their family and ours, we had enough for a team.  We used cow patties as bases.  Sometimes the bus driver would stop on his way home and play with us for a while.

-Dad would hitch a stoneboat to the team of horses and give us a ride in winter. He would clean off the ice on the coulee that circled our farm, using a front-end loader, and we would skate after school every day until supper.  We would follow it along half a mile or so, as long as there was still ice, often walking over dirt and rocks with our skates, till we found the next patch of ice.

-Hazel started school at Crescent Valley country school up to Grade 3, but later all of us were bussed to Lucky Lake. When the roads were too snowy, we often traveled to school by bombardier (which made us all feel sick). Some of us went back to old Crescent Valley to “play school”. Sometimes there was the joy of  being snowed in so we couldn’t get to school, or being “storm stayed” and having to stay with someone in town overnight—such excitement. 

-Having Edith and Clifford Grant over for Christmas every year and playing cards. Sitting around the table doing a huge puzzle and eating all night, during the Christmas holidays.

-Clifford taking us to the hospital in winter, when the roads were snowed in, by way of a heated closed-in horse-drawn buggy (we called a“cutter”).

-Learning to dance at the Saturday dances at the Lucky Lake Legion and Rob Roy Halls. 

-Wonderful Sunday and holiday suppers, with three or four choices of pie/dessert, and having family ball games or races out in the yard afterward.

-Hired men, Matt Stadnyk, from Foxwarren, MB; Jimmy Boon; Mom’s cousin, Billy Jones; Sheldon Scholtz and others.

-Dad hanging a skunk on the Grant’s gatepost as a Halloween prank.

-Huge snowstorm on New Year’s Eve, 1959—snowbanks up to the clothesline and building caves in the snow all winter.

-Dad’s April Fool’s jokes.

-Swimming lessons at Spring Lake given by Bev Kimble and Joy Smith.

-Mom driving supper and lunches to the men in the field so they could work all night and get the harvest done. When old enough to drive ourselves, taking coffee and meals out and trying not to wreck the swath!

-Delivering cream cans to the train station in the early morning hours.

-Going with Mom to pick up baby chicks off the train and seeing and hearing thousands of them.

-Conversations with girlfriends and boyfriends had to take place on the party line (with the potential of people “rubbering”, or listening to you, not to mention everyone else on the line was waiting to use the phone). No private phones, cell phones, e-mail, chat-mail, or text messaging.

-Before our first flush toilet in about 1957, we had chemical toilets or a commode in winter, and the old outhouse in summer.  Many an old Eaton’s catalogue was recycled out there, as well as all the saved papers from Christmas oranges. Now that’s recycling!

(Sources: Grandma Elizabeth Peters’ diary, “Echoes of Coteau” publication, “A Tree Grows on the Prairie” publication, Alice Warren Peters and Marjory Warren Fenton, Maxine Thurlow Lepine, Elaine Fenton Cooper and all the Peters children.)