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| Grandpa Austin and Grandma Jennie (nee Timney) |
In the year of our Lord Eighteen Sixty-One: Dickens’ “Great Expectations” was published; the American Civil War broke out; my maternal grandfather, Austin McKitrick was born; and his mother’s uncle Orange Lawrence committed suicide.
Austin’s life began in Orangeville, Ontario, the town founded by this great uncle. We begin with Orange Lawrence because he was a larger than life character, and because it was he who introduced Austin’s parents to each other.
He owned two mills, a tavern and a general store; was the first postmaster, and founded the first school in the village. Today his statue in the middle of Orangeville honours his pioneering role. What is not so well known or celebrated is that he likely chose to depart this world because he could not reconcile his dipsomania with his strict religious upbringing. (The name "Orange" though in use at that time was not common, and was probably adopted to reflect the family's Protestant background.)
The rest of Orange’s family lived in New England. When Orange had visited there with tales of adventure in his new land, Amanda Fowler, his niece, was intrigued enough that she came from her home in Pennsylvania to visit him in this frontier village. Amanda liked Orangeville, and although a teacher back home, she stayed on, finding work as a dressmaker. Giving up her American citizenship and teaching job was not so difficult after she met a handsome young businessman, my great grandfather, Sam McKitrick. Sam had come from Ulster with his parents in 1850 to escape the Irish potato famine, and had taken over his father’s foundry business. He and Amanda were married in 1860. My grandfather was their first child.
I was only ten when Grandpa Austin died in 1943 so most of what I learned about him came from my mother and her siblings, or his diaries and letters. I remember him as a gentle and kindly figure with white hair and goatee and not very talkative, at least not to me.
When piecing together Austin’s life story I was moved by the example he set. He was intrepid in his dedication to his chosen cause – offering the Christian message to First Nations people. This mission lasted for two decades and he was tireless in its pursuit. During that time, the considerable skills he had acquired in the physical world would provide the means of meeting the many challenges of pioneering. Records reveal that Austin was also an able administrator with strong inter-personal skills. He was of the highest moral character and was trusted by those with whom he dealt. This is a summary narrative of the part of his life that I find most inspiring, and which shaped the lives of his children, and even me, a grandchild.
Austin grew up in a very religious family. His mother Amanda was a product of old style New England Christianity and his father Sam was raised a Presbyterian. Sunday was a day when games or any other frivolous activities were forbidden. Even shining your shoes or throwing rocks on the Sabbath was not okay. The only two books in their house that were allowed to be read on Sunday were the Bible and “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Thankfully, since then, each succeeding generation has eroded these proscriptions almost to the point of non-existence.
After high school, Austin apprenticed as a machinist in his father’s foundry and machine shop, eventually becoming a partner. A pretty village lass from the church choir was his first love, and though now a most eligible bachelor, his marriage proposal was spurned and he was crushed. But he recovered and found a local farm girl who would accept him. This turned out a good match because her physical and moral sinew would prove vital to their upcoming adventures. He and Jennie Timney were married in 1883. Jennie’s grandparents, like Austin’s, had come to Canada in 1850 on a sailing ship to escape the Irish potato famine.
Less than a year after Austin and Jennie had settled into life in Orangeville, a disaster struck that changed the course of their lives. The foundry and all the machine tools were destroyed by fire. As there was no insurance, the S. H. McKitrick & Son Foundry was out of business and Austin was out of a job. He and Jennie survived the first test of their resilience by moving to neighboring towns, and he finding work at machine shops, and eventually at McCormick Binder Works in Brantford, Ontario. However, jobs in this field soon became scarce because many farm machinery orders from Western Canada were cancelled due to the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.
The farm machinery business in the United States was not affected, so Austin and Jennie moved to Chicago where work was plentiful. Machine shop work paid well, but their Chicago experience turned out to be yet another test of their mettle. They bought a house which they lost in a depression foreclosure; Austin developed a modification to train air brakes but his idea was stolen and patented by his boss; and they had few friends and no relatives in the city. To find solace Austin’s religious upbringing attracted him to Y.M.C.A. evangelical work organized by the charismatic team of D. L. Moody and I. D. Sankey. This led him to take a course at Moody’s Training School for Evangelical Workers. A brother, Herbert, who was attending Knox Theological College in Toronto, heard of Austin’s evangelical interests and referred him to the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. They offered him a lay preaching job in the town of Whitewood, Saskatchewan.
Austin took the job and upon arriving in a fierce blizzard on Dec. 1st 1887 noted that, “the cutting cold winds and blizzards are a real hardship”. The Mission’s tough little Indian pony, ‘Presbyterian John’, took him on his rounds among the farmers. But riding in the saddle exposed him to the harsh winter winds. Being very handy with tools, he assembled a sled out of some boards, put steel runners on it, and rode behind the pony, bundled up to escape the cold. Jennie arrived six weeks later in another blizzard at 56 degrees below zero. Their residence was above the usually unheated chapel, and when spilled water froze on the floor, Jennie was not impressed. They stuck it out for two years before moving back to Ontario in the fall of 1889 where Austin spent some time as a supply preacher and also working in a machine shop to keep the wolf from the door.
A visit to a First Nations Mission school while at Whitewood became another turning point in the young couple’s lives. Austin was so moved by this visit that teaching these children became his calling. The opportunity arose when he learned that the Methodist Church was looking for a teacher at their Stoney Indian mission at Morley west of Calgary. In 1890 Austin, Jennie, and eighteen-month-old daughter Mabel made the arduous train journey to Morley. The young teacher/preacher spent two years there, teaching in the day school and learning the Stoney language, before being transferred to the Alexander Indian Reserve thirty miles north of Edmonton.
In those days there was a lot of competition between denominations for the chance to set up schools on Indian Reserves and thus have the opportunity to promote their brand of religion. When Austin and Jennie arrived at this latest location they faced a problem. Accommodation was not available to them on the reserve because of the influence of the existing Catholic mission. Not to be thwarted, they found a solution – they took out a homestead on a quarter-section adjacent to the reserve. Their second child Elmer was born in 1892 in an old log house during a visit to Edmonton.
Pioneering on the prairie was a hard life. Austin and Jennie’s first major sorrow came during a mid-winter trip from Edmonton back to the homestead with their two small children. Both children had come down with diphtheria and scarlet fever. Elmer survived but Mabel died in a farmhouse where they had stopped to rest their horses. She was five years old and deeply cherished by her parents. This event severely tested their faith in God, especially Jennie’s, for years to come.
In 1894 after two years at the Alexander Reserve the itinerant teacher/preacher and his family were transferred once again. This time it was to the Saddle Lake Reserve 130 miles north-east of Edmonton and 15 miles from the North Saskatchewan River. If the previous moves had been adventures they were mild compared to this one. With Jennie four months pregnant and a two-year-old boy in tow they decided to travel on the river instead of taking the rough three-day wagon trip. But steamboat service on the North Saskatchewan River had recently been discontinued. Undaunted, Austin set to work building a scow in Edmonton that would carry the family and all of their possessions down the river. There was no room on the scow for their ponies and two cows so they were herded overland by Jennie’s brother.
The trip wasn’t easy. The scow rammed into boulders, got hung up on sand-bars, and brushed against overhanging trees along the bank. After two days of drifting, much of it with little Elmer tethered on the deck, they reached the landing. The scow was knocked apart for lumber and hauled, along with their belongings, the fifteen miles to the reserve. During their five years at Saddle Lake the little McKitrick family grew by three girls, one of whom was my mother.
The river was the primary means of keeping the mission supplied. Every summer Austin would take the three-day horse and buggy trip along the Victoria Trail to Edmonton. A new scow was built every year, loaded with a year’s worth of flour and other supplies, along with the horse and buggy, and launched down the river. And after each trip, the scow was dismantled for lumber on arrival. I am still in possession of the pencil-drawn three-foot long map of the river that my grandfather drew during his first trip to help him navigate the river. It includes prominent landmarks, tributaries, islands, and the location of sandbars.
While at Saddle Lake, Austin became fluent in the Cree language and often served as an interpreter when needed. Young Elmer also learned the language from his Cree playmates.
A big disadvantage of working for a centralized church-based mission was that people were transferred to where it was assumed they were most needed. A reservation west of Edmonton wanted a Stoney-speaking teacher so Austin was transferred there for a year.
Moving a family with four small children and all one’s possessions was a taxing ordeal in those days. Jennie’s patience and resilience was tested once again, but there was still at least one more move ahead. In 1900 about one thousand Ojibway lived on ten reserves around The Lake of the Woods in northwestern Ontario. Two of these reserves had no school and their leaders petitioned the Presbyterian Church to build them one. It would be in an isolated location with lake access only. Austin was selected for the job, not only because of his high regard for First Nations people, but also for his mechanical and carpentry skills. He was to oversee the building of the school and maintain it, and also run the steamboat across the lake with the materials needed to build and supply it. Duties also included managing the teaching and maintenance staff once the school was in operation.
Still young, Austin and Jennie accepted the challenge, moving their family once again all the way across the Prairies. They settled in Kenora, the town nearest the school site. The school to accommodate fifty children was built during the first year, and the whole family moved out from town during the second year. His diaries reveal that Austin was a bit surprised by the enthusiasm with which the Ojibway parents enrolled their children. They seemed to think that a white man’s education would be necessary for the next generation to survive in a changing world. Apparently they were either not fully aware of the potential for the diminution of their culture, or they were willing to accept the risk.
The records and diaries I have read have convinced me that the first five years of that school’s history do not fit the negative stereotype that many people today have of residential schools. Young Elmer lived at the school from ages ten to fifteen and his memoirs present a very positive view of his father’s work. Most of the problems at the school arose from ignorant, ambitious, or unscrupulous white people. One of the biggest issues was an ongoing battle with the church bureaucrats who had no appreciation of the Ojibway culture or the challenges of the wilderness. They were in the business of “saving souls” and because they had to justify the money spent, they wanted high numbers of baptisms and church memberships to be recorded. But Austin was much more practical and deliberate in his approach. He sought to influence people by example as well as by teaching. His mastery of the Ojibway language assisted in his advocating for the people in many ways; obtaining medical help, chasing out those trading liquor for furs, and ensuring that they got the best deal when trading those furs. The people living on these reserves had great confidence in Austin and came to him with all manner of problems. They also trusted him enough to share the details of their religious beliefs; an almost unheard of occurrence for white people. Some of these he passed on to his family, but others, he said, were too sacred and confidential. He in turn would share with the Ojibway families, the Christian approach to religion. Austin would not ask them to join the church unless he believed that they fully understood that it would provide a better way than their own religion.
Jennie was also fully occupied during this time. Their fifth and final child was born shortly after their arrival at Kenora. As well as raising a family of five children, she nursed many sick people, and at times their home at the remote school was more like a hospital.
By 1907 the children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8, and 7, had hardly ever been to a school; being home-taught. Austin and Jennie decided that for the sake of their education it was time to depart the Lake of the Woods. They were now in their mid-forties and also felt it was time to leave the pioneering life and settle down. Their next move was to Brandon, Manitoba. Like their other moves it was a bit of an ordeal. The move included their horses and a cow which travelled with Elmer in a freight car. Even though it was only 260 miles the trip took two days.
Young Elmer experienced the greatest culture shock from the move. At first he was bullied at school because he didn’t know what grade he was in; he didn’t even know what “grades” were. Getting along with white boys was difficult because he found them cruder and less friendly than his Cree and Ojibway pals from previous years. However his physical prowess gained from years in the woods soon gained him respect.
Now that the mission work was over, life in the McKitrick family became more normal. Austin worked in a machine shop in Brandon, and a year later the family moved to Edmonton where he and two other foundry men established the Imperial Foundry. Five years later he sold his interest in the foundry and started an employment office where he would secure help for businesses in small Alberta towns. When this venture closed he secured employment as a maintenance supervisor at an Edmonton dairy where he remained until he retired in 1938. While in Edmonton Austin and Jennie were active in their church and in various social causes such as improving conditions in prisons.
The legacy of Austin McKitrick lives on. His example of service and tolerance was reflected in my mother’s life as well. Both of my parents were very active in their local church. And they walked their talk. They might be unhappy about someone’s behaviour but it did not extend to the condemnation of that person. So from them I learned tolerance. From my grandfather’s story I learned that dedication to one’s calling can overcome almost any obstacle to achieving it. I am somewhat inspired by his teaching and preaching, but much more so by how he chose to live his life. For me it is a reminder that acting from high moral principles can make a positive difference no matter what occupation is pursued. How one lives their life is usually more important than what one does to make a living.
Austin’s life began in Orangeville, Ontario, the town founded by this great uncle. We begin with Orange Lawrence because he was a larger than life character, and because it was he who introduced Austin’s parents to each other.
He owned two mills, a tavern and a general store; was the first postmaster, and founded the first school in the village. Today his statue in the middle of Orangeville honours his pioneering role. What is not so well known or celebrated is that he likely chose to depart this world because he could not reconcile his dipsomania with his strict religious upbringing. (The name "Orange" though in use at that time was not common, and was probably adopted to reflect the family's Protestant background.)
The rest of Orange’s family lived in New England. When Orange had visited there with tales of adventure in his new land, Amanda Fowler, his niece, was intrigued enough that she came from her home in Pennsylvania to visit him in this frontier village. Amanda liked Orangeville, and although a teacher back home, she stayed on, finding work as a dressmaker. Giving up her American citizenship and teaching job was not so difficult after she met a handsome young businessman, my great grandfather, Sam McKitrick. Sam had come from Ulster with his parents in 1850 to escape the Irish potato famine, and had taken over his father’s foundry business. He and Amanda were married in 1860. My grandfather was their first child.
I was only ten when Grandpa Austin died in 1943 so most of what I learned about him came from my mother and her siblings, or his diaries and letters. I remember him as a gentle and kindly figure with white hair and goatee and not very talkative, at least not to me.
When piecing together Austin’s life story I was moved by the example he set. He was intrepid in his dedication to his chosen cause – offering the Christian message to First Nations people. This mission lasted for two decades and he was tireless in its pursuit. During that time, the considerable skills he had acquired in the physical world would provide the means of meeting the many challenges of pioneering. Records reveal that Austin was also an able administrator with strong inter-personal skills. He was of the highest moral character and was trusted by those with whom he dealt. This is a summary narrative of the part of his life that I find most inspiring, and which shaped the lives of his children, and even me, a grandchild.
Austin grew up in a very religious family. His mother Amanda was a product of old style New England Christianity and his father Sam was raised a Presbyterian. Sunday was a day when games or any other frivolous activities were forbidden. Even shining your shoes or throwing rocks on the Sabbath was not okay. The only two books in their house that were allowed to be read on Sunday were the Bible and “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Thankfully, since then, each succeeding generation has eroded these proscriptions almost to the point of non-existence.
After high school, Austin apprenticed as a machinist in his father’s foundry and machine shop, eventually becoming a partner. A pretty village lass from the church choir was his first love, and though now a most eligible bachelor, his marriage proposal was spurned and he was crushed. But he recovered and found a local farm girl who would accept him. This turned out a good match because her physical and moral sinew would prove vital to their upcoming adventures. He and Jennie Timney were married in 1883. Jennie’s grandparents, like Austin’s, had come to Canada in 1850 on a sailing ship to escape the Irish potato famine.
Less than a year after Austin and Jennie had settled into life in Orangeville, a disaster struck that changed the course of their lives. The foundry and all the machine tools were destroyed by fire. As there was no insurance, the S. H. McKitrick & Son Foundry was out of business and Austin was out of a job. He and Jennie survived the first test of their resilience by moving to neighboring towns, and he finding work at machine shops, and eventually at McCormick Binder Works in Brantford, Ontario. However, jobs in this field soon became scarce because many farm machinery orders from Western Canada were cancelled due to the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.
The farm machinery business in the United States was not affected, so Austin and Jennie moved to Chicago where work was plentiful. Machine shop work paid well, but their Chicago experience turned out to be yet another test of their mettle. They bought a house which they lost in a depression foreclosure; Austin developed a modification to train air brakes but his idea was stolen and patented by his boss; and they had few friends and no relatives in the city. To find solace Austin’s religious upbringing attracted him to Y.M.C.A. evangelical work organized by the charismatic team of D. L. Moody and I. D. Sankey. This led him to take a course at Moody’s Training School for Evangelical Workers. A brother, Herbert, who was attending Knox Theological College in Toronto, heard of Austin’s evangelical interests and referred him to the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. They offered him a lay preaching job in the town of Whitewood, Saskatchewan.
Austin took the job and upon arriving in a fierce blizzard on Dec. 1st 1887 noted that, “the cutting cold winds and blizzards are a real hardship”. The Mission’s tough little Indian pony, ‘Presbyterian John’, took him on his rounds among the farmers. But riding in the saddle exposed him to the harsh winter winds. Being very handy with tools, he assembled a sled out of some boards, put steel runners on it, and rode behind the pony, bundled up to escape the cold. Jennie arrived six weeks later in another blizzard at 56 degrees below zero. Their residence was above the usually unheated chapel, and when spilled water froze on the floor, Jennie was not impressed. They stuck it out for two years before moving back to Ontario in the fall of 1889 where Austin spent some time as a supply preacher and also working in a machine shop to keep the wolf from the door.
A visit to a First Nations Mission school while at Whitewood became another turning point in the young couple’s lives. Austin was so moved by this visit that teaching these children became his calling. The opportunity arose when he learned that the Methodist Church was looking for a teacher at their Stoney Indian mission at Morley west of Calgary. In 1890 Austin, Jennie, and eighteen-month-old daughter Mabel made the arduous train journey to Morley. The young teacher/preacher spent two years there, teaching in the day school and learning the Stoney language, before being transferred to the Alexander Indian Reserve thirty miles north of Edmonton.
In those days there was a lot of competition between denominations for the chance to set up schools on Indian Reserves and thus have the opportunity to promote their brand of religion. When Austin and Jennie arrived at this latest location they faced a problem. Accommodation was not available to them on the reserve because of the influence of the existing Catholic mission. Not to be thwarted, they found a solution – they took out a homestead on a quarter-section adjacent to the reserve. Their second child Elmer was born in 1892 in an old log house during a visit to Edmonton.
Pioneering on the prairie was a hard life. Austin and Jennie’s first major sorrow came during a mid-winter trip from Edmonton back to the homestead with their two small children. Both children had come down with diphtheria and scarlet fever. Elmer survived but Mabel died in a farmhouse where they had stopped to rest their horses. She was five years old and deeply cherished by her parents. This event severely tested their faith in God, especially Jennie’s, for years to come.
In 1894 after two years at the Alexander Reserve the itinerant teacher/preacher and his family were transferred once again. This time it was to the Saddle Lake Reserve 130 miles north-east of Edmonton and 15 miles from the North Saskatchewan River. If the previous moves had been adventures they were mild compared to this one. With Jennie four months pregnant and a two-year-old boy in tow they decided to travel on the river instead of taking the rough three-day wagon trip. But steamboat service on the North Saskatchewan River had recently been discontinued. Undaunted, Austin set to work building a scow in Edmonton that would carry the family and all of their possessions down the river. There was no room on the scow for their ponies and two cows so they were herded overland by Jennie’s brother.
The trip wasn’t easy. The scow rammed into boulders, got hung up on sand-bars, and brushed against overhanging trees along the bank. After two days of drifting, much of it with little Elmer tethered on the deck, they reached the landing. The scow was knocked apart for lumber and hauled, along with their belongings, the fifteen miles to the reserve. During their five years at Saddle Lake the little McKitrick family grew by three girls, one of whom was my mother.
The river was the primary means of keeping the mission supplied. Every summer Austin would take the three-day horse and buggy trip along the Victoria Trail to Edmonton. A new scow was built every year, loaded with a year’s worth of flour and other supplies, along with the horse and buggy, and launched down the river. And after each trip, the scow was dismantled for lumber on arrival. I am still in possession of the pencil-drawn three-foot long map of the river that my grandfather drew during his first trip to help him navigate the river. It includes prominent landmarks, tributaries, islands, and the location of sandbars.
While at Saddle Lake, Austin became fluent in the Cree language and often served as an interpreter when needed. Young Elmer also learned the language from his Cree playmates.
A big disadvantage of working for a centralized church-based mission was that people were transferred to where it was assumed they were most needed. A reservation west of Edmonton wanted a Stoney-speaking teacher so Austin was transferred there for a year.
Moving a family with four small children and all one’s possessions was a taxing ordeal in those days. Jennie’s patience and resilience was tested once again, but there was still at least one more move ahead. In 1900 about one thousand Ojibway lived on ten reserves around The Lake of the Woods in northwestern Ontario. Two of these reserves had no school and their leaders petitioned the Presbyterian Church to build them one. It would be in an isolated location with lake access only. Austin was selected for the job, not only because of his high regard for First Nations people, but also for his mechanical and carpentry skills. He was to oversee the building of the school and maintain it, and also run the steamboat across the lake with the materials needed to build and supply it. Duties also included managing the teaching and maintenance staff once the school was in operation.
Still young, Austin and Jennie accepted the challenge, moving their family once again all the way across the Prairies. They settled in Kenora, the town nearest the school site. The school to accommodate fifty children was built during the first year, and the whole family moved out from town during the second year. His diaries reveal that Austin was a bit surprised by the enthusiasm with which the Ojibway parents enrolled their children. They seemed to think that a white man’s education would be necessary for the next generation to survive in a changing world. Apparently they were either not fully aware of the potential for the diminution of their culture, or they were willing to accept the risk.
The records and diaries I have read have convinced me that the first five years of that school’s history do not fit the negative stereotype that many people today have of residential schools. Young Elmer lived at the school from ages ten to fifteen and his memoirs present a very positive view of his father’s work. Most of the problems at the school arose from ignorant, ambitious, or unscrupulous white people. One of the biggest issues was an ongoing battle with the church bureaucrats who had no appreciation of the Ojibway culture or the challenges of the wilderness. They were in the business of “saving souls” and because they had to justify the money spent, they wanted high numbers of baptisms and church memberships to be recorded. But Austin was much more practical and deliberate in his approach. He sought to influence people by example as well as by teaching. His mastery of the Ojibway language assisted in his advocating for the people in many ways; obtaining medical help, chasing out those trading liquor for furs, and ensuring that they got the best deal when trading those furs. The people living on these reserves had great confidence in Austin and came to him with all manner of problems. They also trusted him enough to share the details of their religious beliefs; an almost unheard of occurrence for white people. Some of these he passed on to his family, but others, he said, were too sacred and confidential. He in turn would share with the Ojibway families, the Christian approach to religion. Austin would not ask them to join the church unless he believed that they fully understood that it would provide a better way than their own religion.
Jennie was also fully occupied during this time. Their fifth and final child was born shortly after their arrival at Kenora. As well as raising a family of five children, she nursed many sick people, and at times their home at the remote school was more like a hospital.
By 1907 the children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8, and 7, had hardly ever been to a school; being home-taught. Austin and Jennie decided that for the sake of their education it was time to depart the Lake of the Woods. They were now in their mid-forties and also felt it was time to leave the pioneering life and settle down. Their next move was to Brandon, Manitoba. Like their other moves it was a bit of an ordeal. The move included their horses and a cow which travelled with Elmer in a freight car. Even though it was only 260 miles the trip took two days.
Young Elmer experienced the greatest culture shock from the move. At first he was bullied at school because he didn’t know what grade he was in; he didn’t even know what “grades” were. Getting along with white boys was difficult because he found them cruder and less friendly than his Cree and Ojibway pals from previous years. However his physical prowess gained from years in the woods soon gained him respect.
Now that the mission work was over, life in the McKitrick family became more normal. Austin worked in a machine shop in Brandon, and a year later the family moved to Edmonton where he and two other foundry men established the Imperial Foundry. Five years later he sold his interest in the foundry and started an employment office where he would secure help for businesses in small Alberta towns. When this venture closed he secured employment as a maintenance supervisor at an Edmonton dairy where he remained until he retired in 1938. While in Edmonton Austin and Jennie were active in their church and in various social causes such as improving conditions in prisons.
The legacy of Austin McKitrick lives on. His example of service and tolerance was reflected in my mother’s life as well. Both of my parents were very active in their local church. And they walked their talk. They might be unhappy about someone’s behaviour but it did not extend to the condemnation of that person. So from them I learned tolerance. From my grandfather’s story I learned that dedication to one’s calling can overcome almost any obstacle to achieving it. I am somewhat inspired by his teaching and preaching, but much more so by how he chose to live his life. For me it is a reminder that acting from high moral principles can make a positive difference no matter what occupation is pursued. How one lives their life is usually more important than what one does to make a living.
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