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\nstarted in Ireland with one of the potato famines. Most of the peasants who worked the land in the mid eighteen hundreds “over there” were very poor. Huge families and burgeoning costs kept most people barely able to provide the necessities of life. When their single source of income, the potato harvests, failed, survival meant leaving the country.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nwith her nine-year-old son and two young daughters, for Canada. Her husband, Tom, would stay in Ireland and work, in order to pay their passage. Fortunately, the foursome survived the
\nhardships of the journey and finally arrived in Mount Forest to start a new life. Anne and her family were given crown land and joined a community of similarly displaced people, who helped
\neach other clear the land, build homes and cement a community. It was ten years before her husband could join her.
\nI am still in awe of a woman who, with the help of a young boy, managed a farm and two younger children, in a strange country, with bitterly cold winters, often miles away from friends and neighbours.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nboy went on to marry and have children of his own. In total he and his wife raised fourteen children, five girls and nine
\nboys. One of those boys was Peter, my
\ngrandfather. Time passed and Peter married Rose Smith, who gave birth to six
\nchildren, five boys and a girl. One of those boys was my father, Charles. His siblings also had children. In total Peter had 30 grandchildren. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\nto have kept in touch with Peter\u2019s brothers or sisters, but if any of them were
\nas prolific as he, the family could have populated a small town. Homesteaders
\ncame from strong stock. They were
\nsurvivors. Last week my father turned ninety-nine. All of my cousins
\nare still alive and my father has an older brother, who is quite hale and
\nhardy. Many of my cousins went on to have three or four children. We may have to have
\na reunion one day, just to have a head count.<\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some how I missed the fact that October 27 was National Tell A Story Day. It is celebrated more in England and Scotland than in North America, but it sounds like a wonderful day. I’m not very good at making up stories. That being said, I am always making up stories about people I see in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reality","category-unicorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4562,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/4562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}