| Note |
- See studio photo of John and his sisters taken in Kokomo.
m. Esther when he was a senior.
John Curtis lived with Wm. Worley's family for a time which brings doubt to his version of the story that after his parents had both died, he took care of his sisters. A distortion, I expect. He said he took enough of his inheritance (which wouldn't have been very substantial) bought a ticket west, and divided the rest of his inheritance among his three sisters. But it doesn't appear he took any other heavy responsibility for them. No mention of what happens to his stepmother Nannie Mulholland after Matthias' death, as in the fire story.
The story is that J. C. (Jack) came to Alberta for a time and then returned to marry Nellie and emigrate with her to Alberta. He'd been a jack of all trades, a miner, a guide to homestead land (selling land just as the McArthur's had been sold poor land during the winter) and a gambler. He was not the sort to settle in one place long, according to Blanche.
[Burial info. located by Marg. Eaton from Alberta Cem. Records
". . . Incidentally, John Curtis Drinkwater, Nellie's husband(?), was buried in the Edmonton Centre Cemetery on 17 April 1958. Perhaps the Provincial Archives would have a copy of his Obit and/or Will that you could read on site."--Marg.]
The Bulletin, Brooks, November 2, 1912
J. C. Drinkwater is building a new home just east of the C.P.R. park land. This is probably the last of many new homes that have been or are being built in town this past summer. (The Brooks researcher, Ms. Eaton, adds: This might be the area in Brooks now known as Evergreen Park, immediately adjacent to the Public Library)
[Blanche remembers this house. See her bio. ]
from Settlers Along the Bow: A History of Rainier and Bow City pub. 1975
"Townsite and Mining:
Bow City Almost Became "Pittsburg of the West"--by Gordon Westgate (reprinted from the Brooks Bulletin, 1960)
The oldest settled community in this area is that centered around Bow City in the southwestern portion of the Eastern Irrigation District. In the years between 1890 and 1906, there were many early settlers along both sides of the Bow River operating cattle and horse ranches.
Included among these ranchers were Billy Moore, Jack Eyres, Roy Stone, Ernie and Hugh Robinson, Charlie and Billy Lee, Lavell, Ed Parks, Silcott, Salsbury and Brown. The well-known George Lane had prairie ranch headquarters west of the Bow City Bridge ( the Millie Place) and a dipping vat on the Brown place, later the Stuhlsatz farm.
The big region south of the Bow River was opened forhomesteading in 1907 and settlers trekked in from lethbridge, Stavely, Nanton and Taber. In the period from 1907 to 1912, these included Lee Bros., Whittaker Bros. O.A. Cragg, Genges; Frank, Ray and Ed Herrick, LaRosee, Falardeau, Green, Drinkwater, Scroggie, Thompson, Barr, LeBlanc, Albertson, LeRoi, Erickson ( later the ferryman), Pete Miller, DeForest, Mac Armstrong, Joe Bell, Shaws and so on.
In the year 1909, a post office was established called Eyremore, named after Eyres and Moore, and it was located in Jack Eyres' ranch house. It later moved with him to the town of Bow City. . . .
from History of Lomond District
John Curtis Drinkwater --by Mrs. Fern Graham
Mr. and Mrs. John Curtis Drinkwater came from Indiana in 1908 and homesteaded in the Kinnondale district. Mrs. Nellie Drinkwater passed away in Brooks in 1913 and John in Edmonton in 1958.
I have a letter written by my mother to her parents in Indiana. It was at the time I was expected, and my mother was left to decide whether to use the money on hand to travel to Brooks for the confinement, or stay on the homestead and use the money for a new kitchen stove. The stove won out; hence I was born on the homestead in 1909. After our mother passed away, my sister Blanche, now Mrs. Ivan Mallitt of Edmonton, and I, Mrs. Alvin Graham of Stettler, were raised by Mr. and Mrs. Jack McArthur. My sister, Helen, Mrs. Horace Hallett of Virginia, was raised by my father's people in the States. There are six grandchildren.
The Bulletin, Brooks, Oct. 11, 1913:
Miss Lavelle placed 4th place in a piano competition for a gold watch, results by some sort of voting. Miss Lavelle [either Pearl or Iris] won a total of 246,670 votes.
Jack McArthur and R. Smith, Kinnondale contractors, have taken over a six mile ditch near Brooks. [From other items in the paper, these are jobs given by tenders to excavate drainage ditches.]
from Settlers Along the Bow: A History of Rainier and Bow City
Lavell Ranch-- Submitted by Mrs. Pearl Albertson (Daughter)
My father, John Lavell, was a gold miner in Virginia City, Montana, before we came to Alberta. His family, including his wife and two daughters, Isabell [sic]and Pearl, arrived in Nanton the spring of 1905.
Father soon started to build on a homestead on the Bow River just across from Antelope Coulee. When the house was ready, the family moved there. Father passed away in the spring of 1907, leaving mother to carry on. She was the only woman for miles around.
Cattle ranching was the only means of livelihood. Many head were lost in the hard winter and spring of 1908. Other settlers began to move in.
There were no schools and Mrs. O. A. Cragg, a former teacher from Ontario, kindly opened her home to all who wanted to go to school. Their home was our church on Sunday. Soon farming took over, so many changes were made.
In 1912 [error, should be 1914 or later], Mother and John Drinkwater were married. In 1915, Isabell was married to George Paisley and went to live near Badger Lake.
In 1920, Mother had a sale and left the farm. She and I went to Edmonton where I attended school. Later she went back to Montana and Wyoming where she had come from, and then returned to Alberta. In 1948, she passed away in Montana.
E. L. (Ted) Albertson and I were married in 1920. We lived on an irrigated farm at the east side of Antelope Coulee in the O. A. Cragg homestead house that was moved there. In 1926, we moved to Langdon, Alberta.
C. J. White
Mr. and Mrs. White came from Wyoming about 1909 to be with their daughter, Mrs. Lavell and family. After two or three years, Mrs. White returned to Big Horn, Wyoming. Mr. White took a pre-emption and stayed to prove up. Then he returned to Wyoming. During this time their three sons, Charley, Regan and Dave came to Alberta and stayed several years. They were bronc riders. Charley rode in the first Calgary Stampede in 1912. Dave won the Bucking Championship in 1918.
First Homesteaders, 1906.
Albertson, A.T. --by Orson (son)
The Albertsons left Kansas in 1905 and moved to Washington where Dad's uncle and cousin farmed. In June 1907, Dad, Frank, and Roy Herrick, and Ron and Esther Whittaker shipped by rail to Nanton, Alberta.
There they loaded wagons, put the crate of chickens on top, tied the cows behind, and started east. The last settlement was only a few miles east of Nanton, after that it was unbroken prairie. We drove until we came to the Bow River where we discovered coal along the bank. A. T. Albertson and the Herricks took homesteads over the coal bank, one mile west of the present bridge. The only settlers between Nanton and Medicine Hat were a few ranchers along the river. Hugh Robinson was about six miles up the river. Lavell, Silcott and Charlie and Bill Lee lived along the river flat some five miles east and a mile or so apart. Down river about eight miles, Jack Eyres and Bill Moore had their ranches.
[The newsclippings from the Brooks Bulletin of 1912 / 3 indicate prairie grass fires were a serious concern, and fines were given for burning a straw pile ( $1) and forletting a fire get away from a place ($25). Train fares to Toronto was &61, to Montreal , $66 and to Halifax $80.45. Marquis wheat was advertized at $1.10 per bushel.]
John Curtis "Jack" Drinkwater was 18 when his father died in 1898. In the 1900 Census he is living with William Worley. He came to Alberta in the early 1900s and settled at one point in the hamlet of Whiskey Gap, Alberta (50 miles south of Lethbridge, now a ghost town where Days of Heaven was filmed). It was a place where illegal whiskey was smuggled at various times. Jack returned to the States in 1907 to marry Nellie, and Helen was expected when they immigrated in 1908. Jack worked at several things, had a homestead for a while, and helped other settlers find homesteads, and gambled. When Nellie died, he tried remarriage (which quickly failed) and housekeepers and finally gave his children to others to raise. Fern and Blanche were to have been legally adopted legally by Nellie's friends, the McArthurs, but John didn't keep the appointment to sign the final papers-- apparently that would have been too final. This worried the McArthurs who moved to Botha hoping he wouldn't find then and come and take the children away. Because the McArthurs could not afford to raise all three girls, Helen was sent to the U.S. to be raised by their Aunt Muriel and Will Smelker in Dayton, Ohio. The three girls were not reunited until 30 years later, in 1948. John did not get in touch with his daughters until they were all near 30 and married. They somewhat resented him for this, but they also understood.
Fern and Blanche were raised by the McArhur family Jack McArthur and Frances Danskin), and considered themselves adopted.
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1880 - 1958 (~ 77 years)
