Sedgewick, AB - A Place of Beginnings and Endings

One additional stop on the Canadian Roots tour was to Sedgewick.  Sedgewick is the Flagstaff County seat and about 15 miles south of Kinsella.  All of the documents filed from 1910 through 1915 by Grandpa Candy to obtain the homestead originated in Sedgewick. It was in Sedgewick that Henry and Lylie were married when she arrived from Cornwall in 1914,  It was at the Sedgewick train station that Lylie pregnant with Gladys, and toting young Doris, Eileen and Edwin boarded the train to begin the journey to join Henry in Los Angeles thus bringing to a close the homestead era for the Henry Candy family.

Cousin Janet, armed with photos from 1955, led the charge to locate the church where Henry and Lylie were wed and the train station.  What we discovered was that much of what had been in Sedgewick during the 1955 visit was no longer there.  Train tracks passed by Sedgewick but the station had been removed and many of the locals that we asked were unaware that there had ever been a station building.

We found the location where the church once stood, but we were told by a local that it was moved from the site years before.  At least there is hope that it still exists somewhere, perhaps in one of the many local homestead era museums. Attempting to locate this building and continuing the search for the original homestead house would be a worthy assignment for someone in the family.

The main street buildings, with a few exceptions, seemed to have been inspired by early strip mall architecture leading us to suspect that there was a fire or some other event that led to many of the buildings being replaced since 1955.

Read on to see several photographs taken by Jon and several from 1955 for comparison:

Final Resting Places of Uncle Tom, Uncle Dick and Aunt Florence

As we headed south out of Kinsella we stopped at the Kinsella cemetery to find Uncle Tom's grave.  The cemetery was well kept thanks to the volunteer work of Ross Skori and perhaps others.

After some searching we located Uncle Tom's marker.

Thomas Candy RIP

We had learned from the Kinsella local history accounts that Uncle Dick and Florrie moved from the property we had visited with Ross Skori to Killam, a town located several miles southwest.  In subsequent email exchanges with Cousin Lorene, who was part of the 1955 return to Kinsella tour, she stated that she did not visit the property we had seen with Ross but instead visited Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie in a nearby town.  It would be a good guess that this was their home in Killam where they, according to the Kinsella history account, had some sort of egg farming operation after leaving the homestead.  We can conclude that their move to Killam occurred before 1955.

Ken was able to access county cemetery records on his iPhone and confirmed that both Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie had been buried in Killam.  After a stop in Sedgewick (the subject of another post) we drove to Killam and wandered around until we found the Killam cemetery outside of town. Once we arrived we quickly located Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie's markers.

It is interesting that the writing on Aunt Florrie's marker is bright with little tarnish. Is this due to some original process to the marker, or has someone from Florrie's family recently polished it?

It is apparent that someone in 1980 took care to order a bronze marker for Aunt Florrie that closely matched Uncle Dick's .

Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie RIP

I knew at some point I had come across a photograph of Uncle Dick's gravesite with flowers and two youths in the picture.  I was able to locate it and it is shown below.  According to notes on the back of the photo it was taken on September 15, 1958 and the names are Bobby and Crystal.  They would be 70-ish today.  Perhaps they are Aunt Florrie's grandchildren and therefore second step-cousins to the Lindsay/Stoneham/MacDonald boomers (and yes,Vern too, since I think he is pleased to technically not be in the boomer cadre).

Uncle Dicks gravesite with 'Bobby' and 'Crystal' September 15, 1958

Goodbye Kinsella

It was now well into the afternoon and we had been discovering our roots nonstop since the morning and we were hungry. As we parted Ross mentioned that the cafe in Kinsella had good hamburgers, so we headed there.








As we drove back to town we remembered we wanted to stop by the the location of the school that both Doris and Eileen attended in the Lake Vernon School District.  The building is long gone but there is a sign marking the location. Checking off another heritage tour landmark we continued on to Kinsella.

Doris and Eileen walked a mile or two to attend school at this location

We arrived back at the crossroad that defines Kinsella for a late lunch and to try and process everything we had seen and heard. 

Ross was right, the hamburgers were really good here!

The view of bustling Kinsella from the Cafe

House Built by Grandpa Candy for Laura and Harry Tonkin

From Uncle Dick and Florrie's old place we followed Ross further south down the same road for a mile or two before turning off onto property that was once owned by the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR).  According to a written account by Aunt Dorrie Aunt Laura and her husband Harry Tonkin were the first to arrive in Canada from Cornwall and held the entire Section 32. The three brothers then arrived individually to homesteaded the other quarters over time.  The Tonkins farmed the SE quarter of Section 32.  At some point the Nicholson's occupied the SW quarter. There are reports that after Uncle Dick married Florrie in 1928 that Uncle Tom moved on to the SW quarter and lived in the sod house there, which was probably the home of the Nicholson's in previous years.

One day, according to Aunt Dorrie's account, while Harry was away, a fire swept on to the Tonkin's farm.  Laura was there alone with their baby Muriel.  Laura wrapped Muriel in blankets and placed Muriel in the snow while she ran back to the house to pull as many of their possessions out of the buildings as she could.  The brothers on the surrounding homesteads, seeing the smoke grabbed shovels and gunny sacks and ran to fight the fire.  Some farm equipment and other things were pulled from the barn and some other things were salvaged but the damage was extensive.  This may have been what prompted Harry and Laura to make the decision to move to Sedgewick and eventually Camrose. This event may have also had something to do with the place Ross had led us to. According to the Kinsella local history book Henry Candy built a house for Harry and Laura on property purchased from the CPR perhaps in the aftermath of the fire.  We were now standing outside that house.

House built for Laura and Harry Tonkin by Henry Candy

1955 Photo of First Henry Candy Built House

Read more to see more photos of the Tonkin house:

Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie

We followed Ross Skori and his son a short distance south of their residence and across the road to what was the home of Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie. We are not certain if this was located in the northeast quarter of Section 32 or the southeast quarter.  It seems that at some point Aunt Florence did own the southeast quarter (the Kinsella history indicates the southeast quarter was also at one time owned by the Tonkins) but we did not travel very far down the road from the Skori house which is in the northwest quarter of Section 33 and Ross indicated the Candy's were in the northeast quarter. So until we find information to the contrary we will say Dick and Florrie lived on NE Section 32.  If that is the case, though we did not realize it during our visit, the Morken's are the current owners of the property once occupied by Dick and Florrie Candy in addition to the Henry and Lylie Candy homestead.  They could have shed some light on the current use of the buildings.

Uncle Dick was a blacksmith, who apprenticed under Great-Grandpa James, Lylie's father, before leaving St. Just, Cornwall for Canada. Below is a photo of Dick and Florrie from 1934.  If this was taken in the house shown above the best guess is they were in the corner of the house shown in the back right. Around the corner there is a window which corresponds to the window behind and to the left of Florrie.

Uncle Dick and Aunt Florrie (1934)

In addition to the house Uncle Dick's shop, the barn and other outbuildings, and an outhouse still stand. The vantage point of the barn photo below was taken standing between the house on the left and the shop on the right.

Barn and other outbuildings - Pink dog house is probably not original!

Below is a photo of Uncle Dick from 1929, not too long after Dick and Florrie were married.  The barn in the background seems to be the same building seen in the recent photo above, perhaps taken from inside a corral on the far side.  It would make sense that the corral would be behind the barn to provide a little separation from the house.   How I now wish I had walked to the other side of the barn and taken a picture of the back side!  The knoll seen in the right background of the recent photo above looks to be behind Uncle Dick on the left.  The stupid pink dog house blocks the view of the barn but it does not look like there is a large sliding door on the front side.  A photo of the far side showing the barn door would have clinched it that the buildings in the two photos are one and the same. Rats!

Uncle Dick Candy (1929)

Read more to see more photos.

Skori-ing Big in the Search for Canadian Roots

Reviewing Accounts of the Candy's in the Kinsella History Book with the Skori's

When at the Flagstaff County office Ken, eager to locate the homestead on the county property map displayed on the wall of the lobby, didn't take into account that there are many Section 32's in Flagstaff County. The Section numbers are only unique within a Township. Anyway, the wrong Section 32 (one in the township just east of the actual homestead) led to the mistaken conclusion that members of the Skori family, who have been in the Kinsella area for many years, were the current owners.  Brent suggested we contact Ross Skori since he actively worked land in the area.

Ken called Ross and left a message with Ross' wife, but the conversation left Ken wondering if he had not made a mistake. Comparison of the county section map with a road map revealed the mistake and led to making contact with Ian Morken (see previous posts).  The mistake turned out to be a blessing however.  The next evening Ross returned Ken's call.  Ross owns Sections 31 and 33, the Sections on either side of Section 32 (the correct one) containing the Candy homesteads and his house is on the NW quarter of Section 33.  Ross also volunteers as caretaker of the Kinsella cemetery and the Candy name was familiar to him.  Ross said he would give his Uncle, who is a long time resident of the area, a call and get back.

Shortly Ross called back and said; "I think I have some information you will be happy to hear."  His Uncle did indeed remember the Candy's.  Dick and Florence Candy's house was still standing and was across the road from the Skori's and there was also a house built by Henry Candy in the area.  He invited us to drop by after our planned visit with the Morken's.

Is everyone in Alberta this nice?  The Skori's were as wonderful as the Morken's.  They had spent the evening before our visit looking through the Kinsella local history book and putting Post-Its wherever they found a reference relating to the Candy family.  The information was almost overwhelming as we attempted to rapidly piece things together.  There seemed to be some minor inconsistencies to the various personal accounts regarding the specific properties involved (southeast vs northeast quarters etc.).  Ken was only partially successful at scanning some of the pages of the local history book using his cell phone.  The book contained some material written by either Aunt Dorie or Aunt Gladys and a shorter account clearly written by Eileen (with mention that both she and her sister Doris were born on the homestead) that was appended to the other account.

It became clear that there are connections to the Smith/Eckhert family (Aunt Florence) that could be explored some day. Both Ken and Janet agreed that the lives of Uncle Dick, Aunt Florence and Uncle Tom were pretty much unknown to both.  Cousin Lorene, who was along during the 1955 return to Kinsella trip, may know more.

We later attempted to locate a copy of the Kinsella local history book at libraries and elsewhere in the area as it is now a 'must have' in some form.  There are copies in Calgary and Edmonton libraries that someday will make a good reason to return to the area to get better and more complete scans. Many of the local homestead histories are available online from the University of Calgary, but unfortunately the Kinsella area history does not seem to be among them.  Perhaps a request for the Kinsella history to be digitized would result in it becoming available on the internet.

Read more to see some of the Candy account.

Exploring the Remains of the Homestead

Cousins at the corner of the house foundation at the homestead site

Ian and the kids took us to the area on the property that was suspected to be the site of the Candy homestead.  Ian reported that there was a foundation remaining from a small house and indeed there was.  Based on comparisons with photos from the 1955 visit it is thought to be the foundation of the first house built by Grandpa Candy.  It is not known why he built the first house and then did not occupy it. He built a nearly identical one that was the actual family home. Perhaps something about the location of the first house was not ideal.  Presumably the first house served as a storage building.

Below is a photo of this first house taken during the 1955 visit.  Ian thought the background in the photo matched the terrain behind the old foundation.  Sometime after 1955 the house was either moved or torn down. As will be seen in a future post this house configuration seems to be Grandpa Candy's default design.

Standing on the foundation laid by Grandpa Candy sometime between 1910 and 1914.

Ian helps locate the homestead garden area with a photo from 1955

 Read more to see more photos of the homestead site.