My Great Grandad Jerry had a goal. He wanted to
be a farmer on his own land. His grandfather, William Jerry and his wife Hannah,
moved from Norfolk, England to Pickering, Ontario, Canada in the 1830s. They
moved to a country where they could afford to purchase land rather than working
as an agricultural labourer.
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| Herbert Jerry (holding gun) with parents and 3 brothers |
Grandad Jerry’s proper name was James Herbert
Jerry, but everyone called him Herb. He grew up in a family that was very poor.
They needed money so badly, that according to the story that my grandmother
told me, when he turned 11 he was hired out to work on the farm of Mr. James
Ballard. On his first day of work Mr. Ballard sent him home and told him not to
return until his ripped and torn pants were replaced. The sight of Grandad in
is ragged clothes had brought blushes to Mr. Ballard's daughters. The family
was so desperate for money that his mother and sisters stayed up all night hand
sewing him a new pair of pants so he could go back to work the next day.
Granddad was a big strong man. As he plowed the
field with an ox he would hold the handle with one hand and in the other hand
he had an ax. The ox would pull the plow
through the field to loosen the dirt but sometimes it would be stopped by a
tree root. When that happened, Granddad would
take use the ax in his muscular arm and hack at the root until the ox could
start moving again.
My big strong Grandad fell in love. He met a petite teacher in Crozier named
Margaret Electa Cranston and wanted to marry her. Following his dream of owning land, in 1910,
he homesteaded in Saskatchewan where the government enticed people with
affordable land. Another reason he set out for Saskatchewan was to create a
farm where he could support a wife and children. By working for other people to
earn money and making improvements on his own land, in 1914 he was granted the ownership
of his farm. He could afford to marry.
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| Margaret Cranston teaching in Crozier, Ontario (back row, white shirt) |
In 1915, he took the train from Saskatchewan to
Ontario and married his sweetheart. They left immediately after the wedding for
Saskatchewan. As is often the case with
newlyweds they didn't have lot of money, but they were very happy. They had
four children and occasionally Margaret and the kids would take the train back
to Ontario to visit her family.
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| 1915 marriage of Herbert and Margaret |
Then it happened. The event that would sear
Granddad Jerry’s heart and change his life. It started when the family was
waiting for the train to go back east. Everyone was excited but then Margaret
started mumbling to herself acting strangely. When Granddad tried to help carry
her bags she screamed that he was stealing them. People were staring. Trying to soothe his wife
and mind the children he managed to get them all in the horse cart and to take
them home. Margaret was sent to the Saskatchewan
insane asylum.
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| Herb and Margaret Jerry in Hawardan, Saskatchewan |
Arrangements had to be made for the care of the
children. Grandad had to work the farm
so he couldn’t do it. He telegraphed his mother in Crozier, Ontario asking for help,
but she wasn’t able to help. Instead, it
was arranged that Margaret's mother, Emma Taylor, would take the train from
Ontario to Saskatchewan and return to Ontario with the children.
Grandad did everything he could to get his wife
out of the insane asylum, a horrible, unclean place. The doctors said she
wasn’t ready. Working the farm without his family was lonely. He missed them. News came from Ontario that his youngest
daughter died of scarlet fever, and he wasn’t there for her.
It took at least 4 long years before Margaret
was deemed well enough to return home. When she returned, a letter came from
Margaret's family stating his children needed their father and mother. Grandad made
the difficult decision to give up the dream of farming in Saskatchewan. He and
Margaret moved back to her family in Comber, Ontario to be with their children.
To provide for his family he worked at a
much-hated job at the Leamington tomato factory. Eventually, the family saved
enough money to buy a car and put a down payment on a farm in Crozer, Ontario
where his parents and some of his brothers lived.
I want
to be able to say that they lived happily ever after, but Margaret’s mental
illness affected them all their life. Intermittently, she would be sent to the
psychiatric hospital in Thunder Bay, eventually spending all her time and dying
there in 1975, three years after her husband.
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| Herbert Jerry with some of his grand and great-children |
