A History in Photos 13 (FGK 170)
Tag Archives: settler
A History in Photos 7 (FGK 164)
Only two photos today but they’re a couple of my favorites and copies hang in our hallway. The first one is my grandpa with my great aunt (his sister) coming back from a successful fishing trip at the creek below the house. The second one is my uncle and my mom doing the exact same thing about 40 years later. For some reason we didn’t do a similar photo for the next two generations.
A History in Photos 4 (FGK 161
The Opening of the Jumping Pound Hall (FGK 157)
These notes were attached to the end of my “Grandma Remembers” booklet. Dad must have typed these out, and I assume the comments are his. Kind of cool to get some bonus history on the Hall, I love that old building and am currently a board member.
The Opening of the Jumping Pound Hall
Notes by Edna Copithorne
House parties started Hall.
Built in stages – didn’t have enough money to line it so collected $50.00 from near neighbours. Hauled lumber over the rough road from Cochrane. Mrs. Harris was stranded on Cochrane Hill with a broken wheel on her democrat so rode home on the lumber wagon with the boys.
Charlie Cook said “Pesky Hall. I’ll fix it when the grown was frozen” – he used dynamite.
Galley <I cannot read her writing> and Bar played for local dances even in the homes before the hall was built.
The opening of the Hall was a big deal – stuffed animal heads all around the walls and bear skins, buffalo skins, etc. It was lit by Coleman lamps and decorated with beautiful Chinese lanterns. What orchestra was it for the opening dance?
The lunch was a drawing card- ham sandwiches, 12 or 14 loaves and salmon. Then the local ladies out-did each other making cakes.
One masquerade ended up in a free for all. All the men ended up out in the yard fighting each other. There was bits of costumes all over the country for the rest of the winter.
The floor managers were Dave Lawson, Frank Sibbald, and Cy Hopkin used to bring his won (?). Lennie Blow ran a taxi from the dam to the dances.
The pot-bellied stove was popular on winter nights. Clyde Lynn supplied this stove and the cook stove came from <no name inserted, just a blank>.
Right from the start Archie McClean <that’s the way she spelled it> was the cook in the kitchen and was famous for his good coffee made in those old copper boilers.
Clover leaf big white cups and saucers. Big old fashioned granite coffee pots.
(The land was donated by John Copithorne for the Hall)
Archie always wore a chef’s cap and a big white apron and wouldn’t let anyone in the kitchen. Paid Archie $5.00 a night for cleaning the hall etc.
Bill Lee wired the hall for electricity.
March 12th 1828 – $199.00 taken in. Price of piano, chairs, card tables $654.75 – total cost to build was $2612.00. Bullas orchestra was first to play – CFCN
A Brief Story of the Copithorne Family 1 (FGK 151)
I found this interview with Sam Copithorne and thought it could be fun to share. At the end of the stories, I’ll post the information to source it, but this is written by Dora Dibney – I have no idea who she was. I always wondered (but not badly enough to ever ask lol) who Grandpa was named after – and it looks like it was after one of his uncles. Enjoy!
A Brief Story of the Copithorne Family
(Dora Dibney)
“Now look,” Sam Copithorne remarked, “there’s no use writing a story about me. I’m not a pioneer becuase I didn’t come out to this country until 1904. It’s my two brothers you ought to write about, if you HAVE to write about the family.”
“Where was I born? Oh, in Clonakilty, that’s in County Cork, Ireland. My father had a dairy farm, dual purpose Short horns and we milked about 25 cows. Guess we had about 120 acres.
“Besides John and Richard, I had four older brothers: James and William and Robert and Edward. We had one sister: she was the eldest. John came out here in 1883 and Richard came out four years later in 1887.
“James went to Central Africa as a missionary and before that he was in the civil service. but he was in Africa, oh less than a couple of years when he got fever and died.
“John was the first to make a move though. He just decided to come to Canada so my father got him a lot of letters of introduction to people in Montreal, but he never used a single letter.
“He didn’t like Montreal so he bought a ticket through to Winnipeg. Well he looked for work and somehow or other he met a man who wanted someone to drive eight mules. John had never had a thing to do with mules, but he waits sure he could drive them so he got a job and $10 a month. That was doing farm work.
“It wasn’t long after that that a man came to the farm and he bought the mules. He couldn’t drive them so John got the job of taking them to Brandon.
“That was the time of the rebellion I, so John volunteered for the army and he was sent to live with the Indians and watch their movements. Well, he lived with them for a long time; he took part in their powwows and he got so he could talk Cree with the best of them.
“He lived with them so long that they nearly forgot he wasn’t an Indian. They used to call him Wapoorshwian which means Rabbit-Skin-Robe. I remember him telling us about the way they used to eat. They’d put all their meat into one big pot and they’d sit around and fish it out when it was cooked. Sometimes they’d fish out a piece of dog meat and then they’d remember and say “white man no eat dog” so they’d find a piece of rabbit meat for him.
The Sattvic Life 
