Joan Miller remembering her father. The crosses are near the Bow River on Memorial Drive, Calgary, Alberta. Photo credit - Reg Miller

Remembering – Edward John Kerr (1919 – 1983), soldier, father, good person.

“Eddie” was born October 12, 1919 in Saskatchewan, the son of Elizabeth (Wilson) and Homer Kerr.  He served in World War II in the Lanark and Scottish Renfew Regiment.  According to copies of military records obtained from Library and Archives Canada,  at enrollment Ed was 5’10″ tall, weighed 142 pounds, had blue eyes and brown hair. 

Ed was attached to Basic T.C No 120 at Regina, Sask on May 19, 1941.  He completed 56 days of basic training.  His second training center was No. A20 at Red Deer, Alberta where he completed 48 days of advanced training.  He transferred to 5(BC) Cst. Bde. in October of 1941.  

Edward Kerr served from 1 April 1943 to 19 January 1946, a total of 55 months (29 months in UK, Sicily, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany).  His rank was L/Sgt. in Light Anti Aircraft and as Sgt in Infantry Lanark and Renfrew Regiment.

Upon discharge he successfully applied for a Veteran Land Settlement. He farmed for a number of years in Saskatchewan, south of Nokomis,  then became the Wreford Community Pasture Manager near Hatfield. (between Govan and Nokomis), from 1950 to his retirement in 1976.

Remembering Edward John Kerr (1919 - 1983), Soldier World War II and Joan's father.

Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press recently wrote about my experience obtaining my father’s military records from LAC in her article at the Toronto Post entitled Searching Military Records A Link To Our Veterans.  Various versions of the article are appearing in the national press. Photojournalist was Jeff McIntosh.

Article in Winnipeg Press (shows a picture of me holding Dad’s military records amongst 3000 crosses)

Article on AM640 News

Maclean’s Magazine

iNews880am

1.  Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents
2.  Can name over 50 direct ancestors (getting close)
3.  Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents (not quite – working on this!)
4.  Have an ancestor who was married more than three times
5.  Have an ancestor who was a bigamist
6.  Met all four of my grandparents
7.  Met one or more of my great-grandparents  (Great Grandpa Frank Woodland)
8.  Named a child after an ancestor
9.  Bear an ancestor’s given name/s
10.  Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland
11.  Have an ancestor from Asia
12.  Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
13.  Have an ancestor from Africa
14.  Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer
15.  Have an ancestor who had large land holdings – maybe not large but land holdings for sure.
16.  Have an ancestor who was a holy man – minister, priest, rabbi
17.  Have an ancestor who was a midwife (my Grandmother Isabel Irvine – nurse and midwife who delivered 30 babies!)
18.  Have an ancestor who was an author (my Grandmother Isabel Irvine recorded her family history)
19.  Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones (nope, but finding my Irish Kerrs is like searching for a needle in the haystack)
20.  Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng (my daughter in law might)
21.  Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
22.  Have an ancestor with a forename beginning with Z
23.  Have an ancestor born on 25th December
24. Have an ancestor born on New Year’s Day
25.  Have blue blood in your family lines – nope, but does a being a descendant of une fille du roi count?
26.  Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth – no
27.  Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth – yes two, Ireland and Scotland
28.  Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century
29.  Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier
30.  Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
31.  Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X
32.  Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university
33.  Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence
34.  Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime
35.  Have shared an ancestor’s story online or in a magazine (Tell us where) – blog posts! Also published my Grandmother Irvine’s story in local gen society newsletter the Chinook.
    
36.  Have published a family history online or in print (Details please) – again blog posts.  In print – Isabel (Woodland) Irvine:  Women Pioneers of Saskatchewan by B. Joan Miller and Robert F. Irvine.
37.  Have visited an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries (on the wish list!)
38.  Still have an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
39.  Have a  family bible from the 19th Century – my mother in law has one which belonged to my father in law’s family
40.  Have a pre-19th century family bible

Our challenge is to

1) List our matrilineal line – our mother’s mother’s mother’s line

My matrilineal line goes like this starting with my grandmother (and not my mother – for privacy reasons.)

1. me

2. Mom

3. Eliza Isabella WOODLAND (1898 – 1989) (Ontario – Saskatchewan) – married to William John IRVINE

4. Isabella Mary NESBITT (1863 – 1910) (Ontario – BC) – married to Samuel Franklin WOODLAND

5. Mary Jane LEMOINE ( 1841 – 1904) Ontario – Ontario) – married to Sam Bankhead NESBITT

6. Agnes LANG (1813 – 1898)  ( ? – Ontario) – married to Antoine LEMOINE

2) State whether we have had our mitochondrial DNA tested and what our haplogroup is.

Our maternal haplogroup is H1. (see Deep Ancestry – Maternal Haplogroup)

Horace Greeley Hillman ( 1872 - 1955). New Brunswick. Note the hole in the tintype. From the private collection of my mother in law.

Horace’s parents were Edmond Hillman married to Jerusha Dow (my husband’s great grandparents).  His siblings included.

• Mary Ann “Annie” Hillman
• Isabella Belle Hillman
• George Nelson Hillman
• Moses Hillman
• Horace Greeley Hillman
• Cora J Hillman married to Ward Beecher Miller of Royalton, New Brunswick (my husband’s grandparents)
• Elsie Hillman
• Jasper Hillman
• Judson Hillman
• Sylvia B Hillman

The tintype is in held by my mother in law in an old trunk (details private).

Box 6 Nokomis Saskatchewan - our old box number. Photo credits: Ellen McClughan

My dad, Ed Kerr was a PFRA community pasture manager.  Mom was an ex-school teacher.  She was from the era when once the teacher married she had to quit work.

My parents met when Dad would ride his horse over to the far side of the community pasture to check fences.

What he was really checking on was the pretty school teacher at Saline school.

Sparsely populated with a school district for every school, the Saskatchewan of my parents’ era and especially early into my youth holds memories near and dear to my heart.

I started my education in a one room school in Hatfield Saskatchewan, now a ghost-town, about 3/4 mile from home.

We kids grew up riding horses, baling hay and hoeing potatoes.  Mom put in a massive garden every year.  That garden and beef kept us fed all winter…and the hay we baled fed the cattle that provided the beef.

Hoeing rows and rows of potatoes wasn’t exactly one of the good memories.

The haying actually was kind of fun because I got to drive the tractor and baler.    My brother Bill and Dad would stack the hay on the rack behind the baler.   My sister was a bit younger so didn’t do as much haying as the two older kids.  She got to hoe more potatoes.

I remember the homemade water jugs -  My mom would create them from plastic jugs with material from old denim jeans wrapped around them for insulation.  We would put the water jugs in the freezer overnight and the icy water would sustain us through a hot afternoon of haying.  (My mom still puts a sock on a water bottle to keep it cold.  No one will take her water bottle by accident!)

We used to get our mail by general delivery at Hatfield but sometime around when we kids were bussed into “town” for school (that happened in Grade 4 for me) we started receiving our mail at Box 6, Nokomis Saskatchewan, SOG 3RO.

My sister Ellen was back in Nokomis recently and sent the photo above.  Box 6.  “Anyone recognize this?” she asked.

Those were the best of times.

Smith Farmer Aumack 1853 - 1931. My husband's great grandfather as a young boy. The Aumack family lived in Eau Claire, Michigan.

Back of Photo

Smith (Smythe) Farmer Aumack

Smith Farmer Aumack was my husband’s great grandfather.  I have also seen the first name spelled “Smythe”.  I don’t know which one is the preferred spelling although my mother in law thought it was with the “y”.

The original photo resides at my mother in law’s house (details private) and was scanned as part of a 3 day long scan fest I did with my Flip-Pal picture scanner.  This scan turned out well despite the thickness of the frame and metal.  Smith is a young boy in the photo, age unknown.

Smith (Smythe) Farmer AUMACK

Birth: 23 May 1853 Pipestone Twp., Berrien County, Michigan

Parents: Jacob AUMACK (1821 – 1917) and Harriet LEWIS (1823 – 1894)

Marriage to Jane A. CLAWSON 04 November 1877 Van Buren County, Michigan (Michigan Marriage Index)

Residence 1860, 1870, 1880, 1910, 1920 (US census, Ancestry.com) – Pipestone Twp., Berrien, Michigan

Occupation – carpenter (1880 US census), farmer (1892 Berrien County directory*, 1910 US census)

Children: John Aumack (who came to Saskatchewan, Canada), Edna (Aumack) Michaels

Residence 1892 – Section 22, 3 acres, Value $560 Eau Claire, Pipestone Twp., Berrien County, Michigan*

Death: 26 March 1931 Pipestone Twp., Berrien County, Michigan

Burial: Caldwell Cemetery, Eau Claire, Pipestone, Berrien County, Michigan (FindaGrave)

Obituary – Herald Press, March 27, 1931. (courtesy of Thomas Aumack).  He is listed as Smith and was born on what was formerly known as the Tabor Farm.

References:

>>Ancestry.com Census Records

*Graden, Debra, ed. Berrien County, Michigan 1892 Directory. [database online] Orem, UT:
Ancestry, Inc., 1999. Taken from: Berrien County (Michigan) Directory, 1892. Berrien, MI: R.L.
Polk and Company, 1892. page 422.

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Connections?  Contact me here or leave a comment below.

@2011 B Joan Miller.  PLEASE acknowledge the source of the research if you use any of the above information.

I found the following news item in the News-Palladium of Benton Harbour Michigan, dated December 31, 1959 which mentions Jacob Aumack.

Click and Zoom for larger version

From Aumack in the Michigan newspapers

Conductor on Underground Railroad

It appears Jacob had a very courageous and dangerous role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

According to Wikipedia:

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists, both black and white, free and enslaved, who aided the fugitives. Other various routes led to Mexico or overseas. Created in the early 19th century, the Underground Railroad was at its height between 1850 and 1860. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the “Railroad”. British North America, where slavery was prohibited, was a popular destination, as its long border gave many points of access. More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the network at its peak, although US Census figures account for only 6,000. The Underground Railroad fugitives’ stories are documented in the Underground Railroad Records.

The caption on the photo of the house reads:

“WAS THIS A SLAVE STATION?:  Amos Green, president of the Southwestern Michigan Archeological society stands before farm that is believed to have been an underground railroad station for runaway slaves before the Civil War.  The farm, located on M-140 just south of Eau Claire is now the Walter Sommers farm.  Papers show that the farm was bought in 1855 by Jacob Aumack.  It is believed that he was a conductor in the underground system.”

The Headline of the article reads: “Slave Iron Curtain’ Broken Here In 1860 Negro Fugitives From South Helped Toward Freedom By Farmer”

Excerpted from the article:
“A station was any home that would hide slaves for a short time. Persons helping the slaves were called conductors. Jacob Aumack was a conductor and operated a station on the underground railroad north of Eau Claire near M-140, according to information unearthed by Green.”

Continued on page 15 mid-page, mention of Jacob Aumack:

“That Jacob Aumack operated a station and was a conductor on the underground railroad is well established by his grandchildren and a son-in-law.”

“Miss Reva Runnels, daughter of Mrs. Emma Aumack Runnels, recalls her mother telling her the following:  Emma and her mother were at home alone one night when a knock came at the door.  When Mrs. Aumack opened the door, a very large runaway slave stood outside.  The size and appearance of the slave frightened Emma so much she remembered it clearly through all her life”.

“The slaves always came at night.  Sometimes a white man would be with them.  They would rap on the door and when the door was opened, there would be no one outside. 

“Aumack would say, “You are among friends,” and the slaves would come from where they were hiding.

“They were then given food and clothing and be hidden until it was safe to take them to the next station.

“The late Henry Tibbs said that Aumack worked for William Smythe Farmer with whom he had come to Michigan in 1848.  Occasionally Aumack would stop work and say, “I have to go to Dowagiac, and would not be at work the next day.  It was always all right with Farmer, no matter how busy they were.

“Two other grandchildren of Jacob Auamck, Jolly Tibbs, son of Mrs. Elizabeth Aumack Tibbs and Ferris Aumack, son of Jake Aumack, recall their father Jacob Auamck, hiding run away slaves and conducting them to the next station.

“On several occasions an effort was made to secure information from the the late Henry Tibbs, knowing that his first wife was Elizabeth Aumack.  One day while an incident was being related to him about runaway slaves, Tibbs interrupted with, “They used to help them through here.”

“Who helped them?” he was asked.

“Jacob Aumack helped a lot of them,” he replied.

Nothing further could be learned.

“This underground railroad station, located by Miss Runnels, was on what now is the Walter Tabor farm at Eau Claire, Green reports.  It is believed that he also operated the station after he moved to what is now the Walter Sommers place on M-140 north of Eau Claire which he bought in 1855.”

The article goes on to discuss the location of another station in  a cabin near Mud Lake and gives further details about how the slaves were hidden.  The article concludes with this statement.

“these things were whispered about, but never discussed, for hiding slaves was illegal.”

This is an incredible story of Jacob Aumack, our children’s ggg-grandfather and the courage he displayed to help the slaves escape to freedom.

Stories like this are why I do genealogy!

Other items to note in this article:

• photo of Jacob Aumack home purchased in 1855
• Jacob Aumack came to Michigan in 1848 with William Smythe Farmer (As an aside – Jacob named one of his children Smythe.  We also have a copy of the platte map showing the William Smythe Farmer farm was situated next door to Jacob Aumack’s farm.)
• Names of some of his descendants

SOURCE:

Newpaper: News-Palladium, The
Publication Date: Thursday, December 31, 1959, pages 1, 15.
Newspaper Location: Benton Harbor, Michigan, United States Of America
Advanced search for Jacob Aumack, USA, Michigan
Accessed on Ancestry.com April 10, 2011

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Updated: Found a good story and maps of the the Underground Railroad on the Shelby History webpage.

Dad would milk the cows and give the barn cats each a squirt.  When he was finished he’d bring the big pails of warm milk into the house to have the cream separated off.

If you were to leave the milk to set, the cream would rise to the top of the pail in a thick rich layer ideal for making butter or serving on freshly picked strawberries.  I still remember the taste of freshly clotted thick cream and warm milk straight from the cow. There is nothing like it.

Nowadays I chuckle when our son exclaims “Fresh Milk!” as he opens a 4 litre milk jug.

He delights in the fresh taste but he has no idea how fresh milk truly tastes.  I’d love to take him back to that time and place in rural Saskatchewan of my childhood.

Of course these days, milk and cream in the stores isn’t the same. Safer perhaps with its pasteurized goodness and added Vitamin D, but definitely not the same.

But I digress…back to cream separator…

At one time we would have had to turn the crank to separate the cream by centrifugal force, but by the time the separator was on my radar we had gone upscale and bought the electric model.

I had a love-hate relationship with that cream separator.

I enjoyed watching over the basement stairs rail as my Dad poured the big pail of milk into the top. I eagerly awaited the first flow of separated milk which we collected into bottles to store in the fridge.

On the other hand, I hated the cream separator.  It was my job to wash the darn thing and its many innards.

The stack of disks used to separate the milk had to be pulled apart and every disk washed in hot sudsy water with a brush which had to touch every inch in order to clean the surface.

I used to know how many disks there were.  I don’t recall now.  In my youthful eyes with a chore at hand, there seemed to be hundreds but there were likely less than 20.   Does anyone recall?  I counted 17 in the picture but I don’t know if that model is the same as our old cream separator.  Perhaps Mom remembers.

How many of you have memories of an old cream separator? Or perhaps you are still using one now, if you are fortunate enough to be living on the farm.

Please share your comments below.

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• Clip Art Source: Florida Center for Instructional Technology (used under agreements of license):   Cream separator.

• Photo of the Disks

Sharing Memories is a regular blog prompt from Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy

Alexander Wilson, Shoemaker and Elizabeth Dockar were married 20th June 1840 before witness, William Dockar and Alexander Innes.

Source - ScotslandPeople – 20/06/1840 WILSON, ALEXANDER (O.P.R. Marriages 155/00 0030 0728 Gamrie and MacDuff)

This couple were my great, great grandparents on my father’s maternal side.

Genealogists and family historians  looking for Canadian Service Records can do so through Library and Archives Canada (LAC) using the Application for Military Service Information.  This application is applicable for records from 1919 to 1997.

My father, Edward J KERR (1919 – 1983)  served in WWII and was discharged the 19 of January 1946.   Memorabilia from Dad’s army days are pictured above.   Mom and I recently applied for Dad’s military records including complete follow sheets.  Follow sheets will give us the geographic locations of where he served and with which regiments. We checked off the boxes indicating it was a genealogy/family history request.  (Note – Proof of relationship is required.)

We know Dad spent a lot of time in Italy (based on his stories and also from information contained in a book by army buddy Fred Cederberg entitled “The Long Road Home”). “Eddie”, as Dad was called, is mentioned several times and the book also features a photo of Dad.

===> The Long Road Home: The Autobiography of a Canadian Soldier in Italy in WWII

Library and Archives sent a note that It would be up to 7 months before they could respond to our request for military records due to the large number of inquiries received.  Priority is given to people who require documentation to prove they qualify for pensions, allowances, claims and other benefits.   That’s reasonable as one would expect they people requiring this information would need it in a timely fashion.

===> Visit Library and Archives Canada Military Records