September Ancestors

For the sake of brief entries, I am not footnoting the facts in this ongoing memorial. Sources have been noted either in other blog posts or in my family history books.

1 September 1993 Peter McAdam Dougall died in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the second child and only son of Peter Robinson Dougall (1872-1962) and Elizabeth M. McAdam. One of many Peters in the Dougall family branches, he lived to the age of 92. He and his bride, Gertrude Kienzle, had celebrated sixty-nine years of marriage. For over fifty years he headed a construction firm in the twin cities of Minnesota, erecting some landmark buildings. Peter was a devoted family man with an impish sense of humour. Every year as children we excitedly anticipated the cross-border trip to visit “Uncle” Peter and marvel at his unfamiliar mid-western drawl; he was a special person in our lives. He in turn would come to us for an annual fishing or hunting trip. In later life he conceded the winters and found Arizona comfortable. Peter was the first cousin of my father. 

 

15 September 1927 Jessie Isabelle “Belle” McFadyen Dougall died in Vancouver at the age of 56. Her life spanned the width of the continent: born in Provincetown, Massachusetts to Cape Breton parents, she came with them as a small child to the fertile farming fields of Oakbank, Manitoba. Married in 1894 at the McFadyen family farm, she and her husband William C. Dougall spent most of their years in Winnipeg, at 251 Bell Avenue, as he built up a business. Upon his retirement, they moved west where their daughter was living and took a small farm in Whonnock, British Columbia. She predeceased William by seven years. The couple are buried in Ocean View Burial Park, Burnaby. Belle was the grandmother I never knew.

19 September 1834 (A different) Peter Dougall was born in the village or farm of Netherlongford, Edinburghshire [aka Midlothian], Scotland, the fifth and youngest son of John Dougall and Marion Hastie. Peter was just under ten years old when his parents made the decision to emigrate to Canada, where they settled as farmers at Beech Ridge, a community close to St. Andrews East, Quebec. Farming was not for Peter; he apparently apprenticed as a blacksmith—possibly with, or by the influence of his father-in-law to-be, John Fraser. He found his true livelihood as a wagon- and carriage-maker. Peter and his wife Catherine Fraser settled in Renfrew, Ontario, raising nine children, finally retiring to Winnipeg where he died in 1914. Peter was my great-grandfather.