"Was the Life of These Worth Living?"

As we visit the Amesdale Cemetery, this question posed many years ago by Andy Clement, may cross our minds. The question, Andy asks, is beautifully answered as he writes:

“The little cemetery at Amesdale is one of many scattered about the North. It is typical of those to be found, if indeed they can be located, in small homestead settlements which began dying as soon as they started”

“And we ask ourselves, ‘Was the life of these worth living?’”

“When you see the hard-won earth going back to nature, the trees growing into the roads which had been made by a team and a scraper in the flies and heat, and the crumbling homes soon to be hidden behind a new forest, we must surely say, ‘No, ‘Twas all in vain!’ ”

“Such was not the case. The weak and disenchanted had come and soon left. The precious few who remained and who are interred in this little plot had their share of happiness. One should not mourn the lives of the pioneer as being in vain because they worked hard and died poor. Indeed at the hour of death we are all poor. The homesteader had an advantage in that everything he did from his prayers to his labour touched close upon his family and himself. Their expectations were few and humble and they learned to find joy in simple things.”

Andy’s words “Everything he did from his prayers to his labour touched close upon his family” still ring true.

Indeed, their labours and prayers, were on our behalf. May we always remember them. May we never forget that we were the very objects of their love, hope, and sacrifice. Our lives are the evidence that their lives of struggle and sacrifice 'Twas not in vain!'

Amesdale Cemetery - 2009

Philip Sidney
Amesdale Resident 1930 to 1939
By daughter Joan Sidney Curle

Philip was born in 1902 in Newcastle, England, the eldest of five brothers. He apprenticed as a ship’s engineer in his late teens. After WWI, when Dad was entering the workforce there was no work for him in England as the soldiers returning from the war had priority, so he went to Spain where he worked for a year on his uncle’s olive orchard on Majorca. He became fluent in Spanish. He returned to England but with still no work available he immigrated to Canada. Passenger records show him arriving in Halifax in 1926.

His first jobs in Canada included working at the Bob-Jo gold mine near Timmins, working on a threshing gang where he could see the hills of Minnedosa, and working claims near Goldpines. His first winter in Goldpines in lived in a canvas tent until he bought an old trapper’s cabin just out of town. Despite all the airplanes in the bay at Goldpines a canoe was still an important part of the north. Dad worked as a cook in a camp to help feed the travelers on Lac Seul on their way north to Red Lake. He also travelled with the company by canoe on prospecting expeditions into lakes further north—Bluffy Lake, Confederation Lake, Woman Lake.

After the crash of 29 he snowshoed from Goldpines to Amesdale to look at homesteads. Abby Lamb remembered the first time he saw Dad and a friend walking along the road in front of the farm in huge parkas. Abby said he had never seen a parka before. When Philip was relocating to Amesdale from Goldpines he paddled his two canoes down Lac Seul and then down Route Lake to the CN train line. He had just loaded his two canoes onto the train when it started to pull out. All he could do was yell “Richan”. When he got to Richan his two canoes were lying at the side of the track.

Philips’s first homestead was up Aspling’s road and then about a mile west by a trail. The homestead was on the eastern side of Amesdale, so it was closest to the Asplings, the Ruuds, and Lambs. Lawrence and Abby Lamb were like little brothers to Dad. There were trails criss crossing through the bush that they used to visit friends. To get title, homesteaders had to clear 16 acres and he had cleared about half. His sister in law from home was supposed to come to Canada and marry Dad but she never came over. He was interested in one of the Ames’ girls but she was too young. Like many bachelors in remote areas he advertised for a pen pal in the Country Guide. My mother Jean Johnston who had been teaching in rural schools in Manitoba replied and corresponded with him. His first marriage proposal was turned down but a few more months of teaching north of Carman made her change her mind. They were married in Dryden United Church in November of 1937. Their attendants were Frances Lamb Booi and Bill McKay. Evelyn Lamb held the wedding supper. Their first winter was spent in Amesdale as Dad was warned it wasn’t a good idea to take my mother who had grown up in the west end of Winnipeg to the homestead. Mother didn’t know much about subsistence living in the bush. Dad said if you wanted meat you shot a moose and if you wanted fruit you picked blueberries. Dad loved the area and the lifestyle. He probably felt fortunate he had what he had when he saw the train cars covered with the unemployed of the depression travelling through town. Mother remembered picking blueberries for 25 cents a basket. I still have the heavy quilts Mother made from carding wool which were needed on nights when water froze in the dishpan.

Dad used the money had saved from Goldpines to buy a cleared homestead three miles south from John Sumi for $100. He built a bridge over the creek to get access and was building a house. However, Mother found she couldn’t stay. She had mixed feelings as she liked the people and the surroundings but found life difficult—she said every event was a crisis. She took the train to Winnipeg not knowing what my father would do. He took a few things, left his horses with Lambs and followed her. Records show Carl Dahl took over the land in 1948.

In Winnipeg Philip worked during the war at MacDonald Aircraft and afterwards at the CNR in Transcona as a machinist for 18 years retiring in 1967. Mother taught school in Charleswood near home from 1954 to 1966. Two children, my older sister Anne and myself made up the family. He was a good chess player who represented Manitoba in a tournament in the forties. He played the odd game over the telephone and once had played by mail.

Dad was a builder. Besides building our family home from the same plans he had started to use in Amesdale, he built our cottage in the Whiteshell on Brereton Lake, a 15 foot sailboat, and then a 24 foot sailboat which he sailed on Lake of the Woods.

In retirement, he kept up with his reading, his boat navigation courses, his conversational Spanish groups, his sailing and his three granddaughters. His proudest moment was acting as a Spanish interpreter for the sailing at the 1967 Pan Am Games in Gimli. In later years heart problems slowed him down. He looked forward to daily scrabble games with my mother and his sailing biographies. He died in 1983. My mother who was nine years younger died in 1992.

I still have two important things from their life in Amesdale—his snowshoes and the battery operated radio.