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Ann Elizabeth Taylor, age 12 in England. |
Now, to go back a few years, in January 1900 Grandma Taylor and family, having sold their home, came to Canada to make a new life. I guess they thought they had come to "no man's land." When they docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia, after six weeks on the sea, the ship was like a big diamond with frozen ice. A week's ride in a train to Winnipeg, the windows of which were covered in frost, was enough to scare the toughest. But Gran was made of tough stuff, so they settled there for one year. Then they moved south to Carman, and finally to Manitou, where Gran nursed, my mother sewed and tailored, until 1906, when they moved west to Medicine Hat, Alberta. Here, besides nursing some for Dr. Oliver Boyd, Gran and my Mother ran a boarding house for CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) men.
At eighteen, my Father left the hated Orangeville, Ontario, farm where he had no childhood, and joined the CPR on the Bridge and Building gang, and headed West to Medicine Hat. Here he found the boarding house, run by Mrs. E.E. Taylor and her daughter, Ann Elizabeth. He worked out of here, to Saskatoon, (where he had the first wooden rim wheel bike,) Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, and Lake of the Woods. This is where he met my mother. My Dad played the violin which he had brought from the east, one man was a good piano player, and Mom could sing. So they had some lively times. By the way, Mom was 4'9" tall, a real shorty. Later we kids used to call her "sawed off and hammered down," she just laughed. She was a good dancer and loved dancing. Dad fell in love with her and they were married May 19th, 1909, in St. Barnabus Church, Medicine Hat.
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