Family Stuff
The little guy on the left is me, James
McRae, and my friend is my cousin Russell
MacArthur. Taken in the summer of 1918 when we were just a few months old.
Russell and I went through Acadia School together and when we graduated
from Grade VIII, his sister Frances was our teacher.We had both skipped
a couple of grades and had caught up with my brother George.
This picture was probably taken on the same day as the one above. We
were on our way to Pine Lake for a family picnic. The Model T Ford was
a 1917 model. It served us for many years, and when George and I started
High School in Huxley.we used the car for transportation until an early
blizzard closed the roads for the winter, after which we rode horseback
the 7 miles to school. It was on this car that I learned to drive. It was
finally retired in 1937 when we bought a second hand 1929 Chev.
George
Marshall
Earl
Born 10 June 1914
Born 28 November 1917
Born 27 May 1920
The McRae family of three boys. My Mother was hoping for a girl but
one never came.These pictures were taken in 1923. George was wearing one
of the hated middy blouses which were handed down to me and Earl when George
grew out of them.
This my Father and Mother before they were married. Dad was born in
Lachute on 13 May 1885 and Mum in Ottawa on 15 November of the same year.Dad
was learning a trade in the McOuat and McRae machine shop and foundry in
Lachute until the family moved West to homestead in Alberta in 1903. My
Mothers family moved to Lachute where her Father, James Marshall died when
she was just eleven years old. Her Mother, Grace (Todd) Marshall operated
a boarding house for a while until she re-married and later moved to Montreal.
Gordon and Mamie McRae, shortly after they were married in 1912, sitting
on their winter's supply of firewood. This was their house on the homestead,
the house in which their family of three boys were born and raised. Not
a tree was in sight when the picture on the right was taken around 1920,
although there was a small grove of trees between the house and the barn
to the east. Pictures to follow will show how things were to change over
the years.Now unoccupied, by 1996 the scene becomes much different.
The pictures upper right and lower left were taken from approximately
the same spot, looking north-east. The trees were planted in the 1930's
to form a wind break and a caragana hedge around a flower garden at the
west end of the house has grown and spread by seed to practically surround
the house.
This is how Gordon and Mamie looked many years later. This picture
was probably taken in the late forties after their family had grown up.
Some time after World War II they moved from the farm to a small house
in the village of Huxley. Dad continued to curl in the winter as long as
his health allowed.
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