She's An Angel Now: The Accidental Death of A Little Sister

The Funeral

All I remember of the funeral is the small, doll-sized casket, with white lace or ribbons on it—something suitably frilly and dainty that signified that it contained a tiny girl’s dead body.

Small towns where I grew up had a custom where the family of the deceased is treated to a lunch right after the funeral. All the mourners attend. The church ladies look after everything. I have no recollection of attending anything like that. There was likely a lunch, but my mother had decided that we would not attend.

I also remember going into the rectory next door to the church where the priest, Father Desmond, lived. He was gentle and kind, but also quite cheerful. After he spent a few minutes with my parents, he said to me, “Your little sister is an angel now. You don’t need to feel sad. She is with God in Heaven!”

And, for a few minutes, I did feel lighter.

The Family That Was

Our family in May 1961 consisted of four children and two parents. My parents were about the same age— Dad was a week older—and had been married when they were 22; actually, my mother turned 22 the day after they married. I was born when they were 23, a year and a month after their wedding, a sure indicator that there had been no improper pre-marital goings on, the kind that resulted in “premature babies” back in those proper days of the early 1950s. Mom—called Cathy by everyone but her father, who always called her Catherine—was dramatic, made herself up to look like a movie star, and my Dad, Fraser, was smitten by her for all of his life, he told me once in his old age when she had been gone for a couple of years.

My parents: Fraser and Cathy Rempel in the 1960s

Dad was a very quiet man, but was recognized as very smart from his infancy. My grandmother, his mom, told me once that before he started school, he was able to add and subtract numbers and just loved a math game they played. She would give him a problem, and he would laugh and run over to the couch where he buried his head for a couple of minutes between the cushions, and then popped up and yelled out the answer; always correct. In 1960, he was the General Manager of a local agricultural company that bought and sold crop seeds and farm chemicals. We never seemed to have more than enough money to get by, but by the time my father retired, he had been the President of the Canadian Seed Trade Association three times, had friends in high places all over the world, and had traveled to China about three times. He was not ambitious, but he did enjoy the farming business, and he was well respected, or as the farming joke goes, “out standing in his field.”

That Spring, there were three other children: Rex, age 6, Amy, 2 1/2, and Jimmy, the baby, was about 17 months old. We lived on my mother’s father’s farm, and my father commuted to work in the town of Nipawin, about 10 miles away. 

My mother was a stay-at-home mom, pretty common in that era. She loved her family, but she was not really interested in housework or parenting. She was a smart person, also, and had the “Secret” been available in book form forty years before it actually hit the New York Bestsellers’ List, I am quite sure she would have read it and perhaps would have ferried Dad and her into the realm of success they never quite achieved. Instead of doing any consistent parenting, she preferred to read and to sometimes paint. Rex and I had the run of the farm. Years later, she told me that she was always quite apprehensive when we ran off together at the start of a summer day, but we always returned home safely from our adventures by suppertime, so everything worked out. The two small children played happily enough within her scope of supervision, so she was often able to read a self-help book or a slim novel in a day.

The Big Sister

Both of my parents had grown up in large sibling groups, as eldest children, and had been expected to help care for the younger kids and perform other responsible eldest-child functions. The same was expected of me.

One day in May 1961, a school day, they announced that I would stay home from school to look after the younger children while they went to town to buy groceries. It was a hot day. The great sheet of ice that covered the White Fox River over the winter had heaved, cracked and broken in slabs and shards just a few weeks before. The current was strong, the water swirled and pulsed its way to the bigger rivers, and eventually to the sea.

Source: http://www.griefdiaries.com/

A Day That Changed Our Family Forever

I decided that it was a good day to go into the water. The little ones could wade in the warm, shallow water. Rex and I each had bikes with baskets on the front, into which we put the babies. Rex was six. He was capable of ferrying a baby in a basket on his bike down a long hill onto the highway, and to the public beach on the other side of the river. The public beach was a modest cobble margin on the river. In the 1930s when my great-grandfather and his son, my Grandpa Bert Sanders, bought the farm, the beach we headed to was the preferred destination for socialization and recreation among regional farm families in the hot summers. By the 1950s, the beach was infrequently used as a swimming location by all but those who lived very close by. Staying at small cabins at nearby fishing lakes had become the leisure norm for many farm families.

So, on this very warm, blue-skied day in late May, my three younger siblings and I were the only people on the beach. Within a few minutes, we were all sinking our feet into the soft, muddy bottom of the river. In my memory, within that same few minutes my little sister, Amy, had moved slightly out of my range and when I asked her to come back closer to shore, she said “No!” in that firm way 2-year old's use, and was immediately swept up on to her back by a fast-moving current. I tried to reach her as she skimmed by. She said nothing else. I called and tried to get to her. Whatever the other details are, I only remember seeing her glide by, far from my grasp, faster than I could move through the water.

Somehow, I remember getting to a nearby farmer’s house and pounding on their door, calling out in the most polite, but urgent voice I could manage. No one came to the door. They were not home.

I remember being back in our farmhouse, reading to Rex and Jimmy from the book “Tom Sawyer,” in a desperately animated way, unable to grasp the reality of what had happened, crying, praying out loud that this was just a bad dream. I wanted my parents to come up the drive in the truck.

When some time had passed, I left Rex to look after Jimmy and rode my bike as fast as I could to the telephone office in White Fox. That was where we went to make our telephone calls. It was a small front room in a house with a phone that was operated by the woman at a cord board behind the wall when you paid your dime through a small window. Somehow, I ended up at Ida Rusk’s home across the street. Perhaps she came to get me when the phone operator found out what was happening? In any case, Ida was like an auntie to me, and I must have told her my story because I remember driving up to our house with her and the neighbour that we went to, who was not home. I recall her saying from the back seat of the car that they had been milking the cows, and why had I not checked the barn? I recall Ida shushing her.

Life, the Truth and Being Free is a book of words of inspiration
 from the writings and speeches of Dr. Steve Maraboli.

My mother was on the lawn, hugging my baby brother to her. The farm neighbour in the car's back seat asked Ida, “Is that the baby that got swept away?” Ida shook her head with a look that I caught and was thankful for. She was kind.

Other memories: I overheard our neighbour telling my mother that her older sons, esteemed good swimmers, were in the river searching for Amy.

I met with an RCMP officer back at the beach and gave him my statement of what had happened.

I watched TV in my grandparents’ living room when the news announcer read out the report of the event. He said something about my little sister drowning. I sobbed for the first time, and my young auntie-- the one who was closest in age to me, more like a big sister—came over to my chair and embraced me in my sorrow.

The White Fox River

                     Our family farm is on this river, now really a 'creek,' but still a force of nature.

Source: Tourism Saskatchewan

After the Funeral

I have a small recollection of returning to school to finish Grade 4, of being treated gently by my classmates and teacher, even the boys.

The priest had suggested to my parents that it would be better for me if I went to a nearby boarding school—a convent—for the next school year. Perhaps my mother blamed me for what had happened, and the priest intuited that it would be safer and healthier for me to be where objective strangers could care for me? Maybe my mother and father felt that they were incapable of giving me the spiritual direction in my life after such a devastating event, and had discussed alternatives with the priest?

In any case, for the next year I lived during the week in an old convent, slept in a dorm, and enjoyed a level of peacefulness that I had not known before. The village where the convent was located was French-speaking, and our day involved going to Latin mass in the early morning, walking over to the village school for the day, and going to chapel for the evening office every night before bed. My father, or one of the parents of the other four or five girls who also attended from my area, drove us to the school and picked us up each weekend.

My little brothers and I the next summer, 1962, looking like 'normal happy kids'.
 SunnysideBeach, Emma Lake Saskatchewan

And So The Years Rolled Out

My younger brothers and I dealt with the grief as many children did in those days-- still do. I had dreams where my little sister appeared alive and happy enough. I also experienced paralyzing flashbacks to the day, which I was not able-- nor invited-- to share with anyone who might have helped ease the pain, guilt, regret, and loneliness for that little girl who sailed away from our life that day. I had no idea that there actually were people who could guide you through the pain of loss, and maybe there weren't in those days in Northeastern Saskatchewan, a hinterland in many ways.

My parents had a troubled life together, complicated by alcohol abuse and mental health issues. Certainly my younger brothers will also have had life experiences connected with the trauma of our little Amy's drowning. Until this time, our family--stoic, introverted, and disengaged emotionally and by geography--have not come together to discuss the impact of this tragedy on us as individuals or as a family.

Help For Children Who Have Lost A Sibling

Loss is a fact of life. While we live in a world that can be brutal for all of us, the impact of trauma and loss for children is always a magnification of what it is for adults. Fortunately there are many helpful resources to be found in your community and/or on the Internet. I became a social worker-counselor, likely as an unconscious desire to deal with my losses. One of the best and most inclusive services that I found through testimonials from bereaved families is the Compassionate Friends organization. Here you will find information about caring for your child(ren) when they have experienced sibling death. There is also a Facebook support group for people who have lost siblings. Compassionate Friends is a non-profit agency with local chapters meeting in communities in Canada and the United States.

Cholera is in my Family Tree

 Cholera is a bacterial disease traced back to outbreaks in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe in ancient times. The "classic" bacteria-- Vibrio cholerae-- contaminate drinking water that has been polluted with sewage containing the bacteria.

Cholera shows up as a very rapid onset purge with vomiting and watery diarrhea. The victim can be reduced to a dishrag state very quickly, with a powerful thirst for water, the body's way to make up for the dehydration that is actually what causes death.

With cholera today, death can normally be prevented by "aggressive hydration" and good hygiene, and with antibiotics in extreme cases.

The North American outbreaks in the 1800s were generally blamed on contagion by sick and dying immigrants from Ireland and other parts of Europe. The shipping companies and letters from afar sold the hopeless with dreams of being rescued from dire conditions at home-- famine, poverty, unemployment, monetary inflation, heavy taxes, merciless wealthy landlords -- to jobs, or even homesteads, in a New World. The "coffin ships"-- so called because they carried the dead and dying-- generally crammed the poor and sick travelers into the craft's underbelly, known as "steerage." They were "imprisoned" there for the length of the voyage. The dead were often 'buried at sea'-- sometimes the very sick were also disposed of in this way.

Cholera made its way from The St. Lawrence in Quebec where the passengers were quarantined, and through the land trek into Ontario where people went to seek work in the cities or to claim homesteads.

The sick and dying were blamed for spreading cholera all on their own. Thanks to an English doctor in London, John Snow, who suspected that contaminated water had something to do with the cholera epidemics, advances in cleaning up drinking water sources and preventing them from being re-polluted cut back on the spread of cholera. It was also observed that wealthy, "clean" people got cholera when drinking sewage-polluted water.

While advancements in microscopes developed the ability to see the micro-organisms that caused cholera, and better techniques for keeping statistical records of the disease's spread meant that action could be taken to stop the pestilence, rural populations were often left without the social awareness to make necessary changes.

A recent book of historical fiction by an Irish writer-- Cold is the Dawn: A Novel of Irish Exile and the Great Irish Famine *-- explores in steely cold detail the almost unbelievable hardships of economic refugees from Ireland back in the days of the 'Potato Famine'. The storyteller, Charles Egan, makes certain that the reader sees that the devastation to so many thousands of lives was a complex web that grew out of a corrupt political state with aristocratic power-holders attempting to transfer all the perks of a feudal system into their burgeoning industrial empires. Little compassion is shown to the displaced persons who made up their teams of desperate "navvies". Cholera is described as just one of many premature ways to die in this fascinating account. (*Amazon affiliate link- I will receive a small referral fee if you purchase using this link. You will not be charged extra. Thank you for your support.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaki_University

The Marriage

Maggie Fraser and C.E. Flatt, likely on their wedding day, April 29th, 1891

On April 29th,1891, a newly-minted doctor, Charles Edmond Flatt, M.D., tied the knot with Margaret Fraser, R.N., at St. David's Presbyterian Church in Campbellville, Ontario, Canada. They were both established as adults, on the cusp of thirty, with university credentials and experience in their respective fields of endeavour. Their photographs taken around that time show a mustachioed and mutton-chopped young man with intelligent eyes, and a sweet-faced Margaret (or "Maggie," as she was known) in what looks like a dark georgette silk dress, the formal attire of many women marrying in that time.

Starting A Family

"Maggie" (Margaret) Fraser had started her adult life as a teacher in Ontario, a common job for single young women with an academic bent but not the funds to study more than a year or so at the "Normal School." Her father, Alexander Fraser, was also a teacher and a beekeeper.

After a short time as a teacher, she trained as a nurse at the Toronto General Hospital.

It is quite possible that Maggie met Charles ("C.E.") Flatt while he was studying medicine, also in Toronto. They both came from a Scottish background. Maggie's parents, Alexander and Mary, had immigrated to Ontario (then called "Upper Canada") from Scotland as children with their parents. C.E.'s father was a farmer at Millgrove, Flamborough County. His grandfather, Robert Flatt, had come to Canada from Scotland's Orkney Isles as a young agent for the Hudson's Bay Company in the early 1800s. He left the HBC after finding his "job" consisted of repetitive deliveries of prisoners from the Hudson Bay base to Toronto.  He married in 1819 to Mary Baker, whose family-- Pennsylvania "Dutch"-- had left Pennsylvania to arrive in Ontario around 1800.

C.E. Flatt was the first person in his large extended farm family to get a "higher education".

In March 1891, their first child was born. They called her Marjorie, a variant of Maggie's name, Margaret. From the Latin "margarita," the name means "pearl." Marjorie was an uncommon name after the Middle Ages, but seems to have made a comeback in the late 19th Century, particularly among those with Scottish roots.

The young couple were living near both of their families around Hamilton, Ontario, when little Marjorie made her entrance into the world.

And, probably just as little Marjorie was learning to scamper, along comes Baby #2, sweet Jean Fraser Flatt. No doubt the house was pretty lively with a new little one and an 18-month-old who had learned to climb up onto counters and open the flour drawer to run her hands through the silky white sand.

Cholera Strikes

When I was a girl of ten, my little sister, Amy Catherine, drowned. Our family was devastated by the grief, and the sadness was an unspoken theme in our lives, perhaps still is. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents after my sister's death. I recall that one time my Grandma Rempel, my father's mother, shared with me very briefly that she, too, had lost a little sister. When I asked how, she said that the little girl had eaten some bad berries. I didn't know anything about death related to bad food, and didn't ask questions, but I did wonder. I later learned that my grandmother didn't actually know her little sister, since she herself was not born into her family until about 4 years and two babies after her little sister's demise.

My Grandma Rempel's "little sister" was, of course, Marjorie Flatt. My genealogical research tells me that Marjorie was a victim of cholera, the cause of death listed next to the online picture of her small tombstone.

Everything I have to say about this small child's death is speculative, of course, but I imagine that it was a great blow to Maggie and C.E. She was their first child. And the elephant in the room: my great-grandparents were seasoned medical professionals. How could this have happened?

Perhaps their drinking water source was contaminated, and the little girl drank some unboiled water, from thirst, that was sitting, waiting to be boiled. Maybe C.E. had seen a patient with cholera and had accidentally wiped his hand on his shirt or pant leg before washing up after an examination. The literature states that children who grab onto fabric soiled with the cholera bacteria are vulnerable because they, as little children, frequently put their unwashed fingers in their mouths. Maybe the child had spent the day with a babysitter, or who knows?

C.E. died in 1931 after returning from World War I. My father, Ewert Fraser Rempel, born October 15, 1927, never met him, or not in his recollection, but he did have several visits from Maggie, his beloved Granny, who was very close to her daughter, my Grandma Rempel. My father described how Granny was so much fun to have around, and how she chose to sleep in a small log playhouse below the farmhouse when she visited them. From his loving descriptions, I am quite certain that this death must have been a terrible blow to my great-grandparents, who sound like they were both mindful of their commissions as healers. My great-grandfather stayed behind after other medics of World War 1 were discharged from France, to wait for passage with young soldiers that he taught Progressive Agriculture methods to, part of the curriculum of the Khaki University that he helped found. Maggie, back in Canada, visited the homes of men returning with the flu, nursing them and their families.

I imagine that my great-grandparents were overwhelmed with guilt and grief after their wee daughter's death. They went on to add three more babies to the family, and in 1903, the family of six reunited after a year's absence with C.E., who had traveled to the Northwest Territories town of Tantallon to become their first and only doctor. The Qu'Appelle Valley is a beautiful setting and perhaps the new start the young couple needed after the death of their first child, Marjorie.

The Time in Hillsboro, Kansas (When Dad's Granny Was Dying)

In the Fall of 1934, Bill and Mary and family were summoned to come to Hilsboro, Kansas, to be with his dying mother. The picture above was taken of Fraser's parents, Bill and Mary, with their children in Winter 1934-35 in Hillsboro, Kansas,. Joy and Fraser went to school in Hillsboro while they were ther there. My Dad Fraser, 7 in this picture) told me of some of his memories, the scariest one for him was of going to the Mennonite Church. perhaps for a healing service for his grandmother and seeing her prostrate herself in prayer. I think he thought she had collapsed and died. It sounds like no explanations were offered to the grandchildren.

Bill's mother, Auguste Ewert Rempel, passed away on January 26, 1935. The family probably stayed there until after she passed away and the Will was read. They returned home so Bill could seed his crops on their farm at Cherry Ridge, Saskatchewan (near Nipawin), and the children could resume their schooling at the small one-room rural schoolhouse in Cherry Ridge, where Fraser had attended with his siblings until he began attending the new high school in Nipawin, starting in Grade 10. He boarded with the Patterson family while attending high school.

My Dad seemed quite scarred by his religious experiences. Later on, apparently, there was a fire and brimstone preacher who made the rounds of the small communities around where they lived. He would have community families gather in a host home and then preach for a long time (whatever that meant to my Dad as a little boy). Finally, my Dad and his buddies learned they could slip out, purportedly to use the biffy or ?, and then just go off and play on their own somewhere away from the sermonizer. 

My grandmothers on that side of the family ranged from conventionally church-involved to quite dogmatic. My Great-Granny Flatt was a suffragist and one of the founding mothers of the United Church in Canada (if I can say that) in that she heavily supported the Methodist-Presbyterian Churches ' union and was likely part of bringing them into her community in Saskatchewan back in the day. According to my Dad, she knew the Bible like the back of her hand and could take on anybody of other denominations that made their way into her daughter's yard to proselyze.

 And my Dad's other grandmother was the Great-Grandmother I mention here-- a more liberral Mennonite (Mennonite Conference) but tied into the conventional Anabaptist beliefs and practices. 

Great-Grandma Flatt was Scottish and Great-Grandma Rempel was of German-from-Russia stock. I think they were both fairly well educated and I am thinking, Matriarchs closely involved with their adult children. My grandfather played ''farm league" baseball in the summer in Saskatchewan when he came up from Kansas to homestead (when he was around 20/21) and his widowed mom came along as his housekeeper, returning to her home in Kansas when he married my Grandmother. She also took him to California with her in the winter so he could play baseball there. (She had a daughter, I think, in California, or maybe a son-- she had 10 adult children. I think my Grandfather was the youngest. 

My Grandmother Fraser-Flatt came to visit her daughter on the farm and would sleep (sometimes?) in the little log playhouse Grandpa had built for Joy as a little girl.

The High School my Father attended

Up until Grade 10 my father continued to attend the small country school in Cherry Ridge with his younger siblings. In Grade 10 he transferred to Nipawin and in Grade 12 he was the President of the SRC (Student Rep. Council) in Nipawin's new high school (in picture). He liked the poetry of Lord Byron and was an all-round good student, graduating at age 16 or 17 with an average in the 90s. 1943 or 1944.

Short Historical Walking Tour in Millgrove, Flamborough, ON to Samuel and Lavina Flatt's home

  The Milgrove Walk  

The following information is taken from the Millgrove ON historical page at http://flamboroughhistory.com/the-milgrove-walk-short-walk-50-minutes-walking-tours/

The Village of Millgrove lies just west of Highway #6 North, along the Fifth Concession Road at the junction with the Millgrove Side Road. It was founded by David Cummings (1806-1887), one of the three sons of an early Upper Canada pioneer, Daniel Cummings. He and his wife Margaret Rymal arrived in 1826 and began to clear the land, and with other early pioneers such as Albert Palmer, Adam Begg, and the Carey and Ryckman families established a small settlement. It was not until 1835 that David Cummings legally owned the property, Lot 18, Concession 5 which cost him ,66 5s. Rich soil, fish-filled streams and woodlands filled with oaks and pines provided an ideal home for these settlers. Several mills were established along the Grindstone Creek which meanders its way through the village – hence the name “Mill Grove.”

Many of the old buildings dating back to pioneer days still remain in Millgrove. Careful restoration and additions to several old buildings may be seen, along with several excellent gardens filled with varieties of old Canadian perennials.

To view the entire page of the Walk information, please go to http://flamboroughhistory.com/the-milgrove-walk-short-walk-50-minutes-walking-tours/

5. The Flatt Home, 335 5th Concession Road West

This well-preserved frame house was built by Samuel Flatt (1839-1912) the local tax collector in the district. His grandson, Stanley C. Burnes, a sports enthusiast, who participated in many Millgrove activities, also spent his childhood growing up in this home. Behind stands a unique frame barn and stable built c. 1864. The peak slope and small doorway at the top that was used for hay is unusual, and is probably taken from the New England style of saltbox construction, and adapted in Millgrove.

Samuel Flatt and his wife Lavina Bradt Flatt were my father E. Fraser Rempel's maternal Great-Grandparents, the parents of his grandfather Charles Edmond Flatt.  Samuel was deeded the land that he farmed (and probably the land where he lived in Millgrove?) by a single uncle when he passed.  This is likely the home that my Great-grandfather, Dr. C.E. Flatt, grew up in before he left for Toronto to attend Medical School.  

I didn't know before that Samuel Flatt was the "local tax collector" for Millgrove.  In a Biblical sense that would probably mean that like Zachias, he was not much loved by the people from whom he collected taxes.

Samuel's mother, Mary Baker Flatt, was a United Empire Loyalist who came to the area from Pennsylvania as a baby, in the early 1800s.  His father, Robert Flatt was a Hudson Bay trader from the Orkneys.  Samuel was one of many children (13).

Lavina Bradt was from a United Empire Loyalist family as well. 

10. The Old Parsonage, 353 5th Concession Road West

This historic frame house was constructed during the early 1850s as a parsonage for the Tabor Chapel of the New Connexion Methodist Church. The property to the left of this home was purchased in 1850 by the church from Albert Palmer for ,10, and used as the site for the Tabor Chapel. The first settlers travelled to Rock Chapel for Sunday services. Tradition has it that the children walked barefoot through the 4th, 3rd and 2nd Concessions with their Sunday boots slung over their shoulders until the Chapel came into view.

A Meeting House was erected in 1848 and by the 1860s boasted over 50 members. Among the Class Leaders was Shipman Cummins, the local J.P. He is remembered as a “stern, puritannical and fiery pillar of the Methodist Church.” With his long, flowing beard, he appeared to the young of the time to have stepped from the pages of the Old Testament. The building was moved to another location and shortly after all services were held at the new brick Methodist Church built in 1882 (the present day United Church.) The parsonage was extensively improved in the 1940s, with added dormers to make a second storey, and a stucco coat applied over the original clapboard.

11. The Old General Store, 358 5th Concession Road West

This corner lot was not only the site of the Old General Store but also the location of several businesses and mills. Before it was used as a corner store it was purchased by David Cummins from Solomon Washburn in 1842 and operated as a small woodworking shop. It was later replaced by a blacksmith shop which operated until the lot was sold in the 1870s and a frame building erected to be used as the general store. On the neighbouring lot James E. Foster ran a small grocery store and post office c. 1880. The bustling corner store was also a social centre and meeting place for the men of the village. Memories of many evenings spent sitting around the large stove exchanging anecdotes and discussing community gossip filled the walls of the old general store for hours.

Map of the walking tour:  #5 is the Flatt home

Produced by:

The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society
Research and design by Lori Dodman
Photographs by Maurice Green
Layout by Robert Wray

The Saskathewan Women Grain Growers 1918

The above photo shows my Great-Grandmother, Margaret "Maggie" Fraser Flatt (Mrs. C. E. Flatt) in the Front Row, Centre of a studio photo of a 1918 Convention of the Saskatchewan Women Grain Growers.  I believe that she was probably the President of the SWGG at this time. 

The Charles Edmond and Margaret Fraser Flatt Family of Tantallon, SK

TANTALLON, Saskatchewan

(taken from "What's in a Name?: The Story Behind Saskatchewan Place Names" by E. T. Russell)

"Tantallon was named for Tantallon Castle in Scotland, the homeland of the famous Douglas family of the district.  At the age of 12 James Moffat Douglas came to Canada with his family and settled near Cranbray, Upper Canada.  He was educated at the University of Toronto, Knox College, and Princeton Theology Seminary.  Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1867 he served in Ontario, India, Manitoba and finally at Moosomin, Saskatchewan.

Tantallon Castle in Scotland

Farm Home of Senator James Moffat Douglas (c.1900)

On his retirement from the active ministry in 1893 he devoted himself to farming at Tantallon.  He entered politics and became a leading spokesman for the Patrons of Industry, the first important agrarian protest movement on the Prairies and in 1896 he was elected to the House of Commons for Assiniboia East.  He played an important part in presenting the case of the farmers against the CPR and the elevator companies.  Their protest led to the establishment of the first federal Royal Commission on the grain trade in 1899 and the passage of the Manitoba Grain Act in 1900.  Douglas was elected in 1900 and appointed to the Senate in 1906.  He was buried in Tantallon on August 19, 1920." (p. 306)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR. C. E. FLATT and family (some of the information below is taken from TALES OF TANTALLON 1906-1973) published by the Tantallon History Committee in 1973 and re-printed in 1983)

"Dr. C. E. Flatt came to Tantallon in 1903 from Campbellville, Ontario where he was the local doctor for several years after graduating from Queen's College, (which became Queen's University in 1912).  Mrs. Margaret Fraser Flatt was a graduate nurse from Toronto University. (p. 34 "The Nursing Profession": )While raising her family she would often go with her husband to assist him, then stay with the patient as long as necessary during recovery.  In 1911, tragedy hit a Tantallon family -- a terrible outbreak of Scarlet Fever struck the home with many taking sick right away.  The parents and newborn baby were removed to a tent west of Tantallon.  Margaret, a courageous and dedicated nurse, went in to care for the family.  Six children passed away within a few days, ranging from one month to 19 years.  "This is a nurse that the nursing profession can be very proud of".  During the flu epidemic of 1918, Margaret made the circuit of every patient in Spy Hill, taking temperatures and giving nursing advice, at no charge.

 Dr. Flatt practiced in the District, first with the construction gangs building the Grand Trunk Railway, before settling in Tantallon, where the family's first home was an apartment in the Paynter Block. (p. 57: a memory about Dr. Flatt from Jim Cozens:) "One day in the summer of 1911, Charlie Coburn came to town to get Dr. Flatt, he never gave the doctor a chance to change his clothes (he had been working in the yard.  Charlie said, "Come on," and he drove through town in good old western style, on the dead gallop.  The baby was a boy."

The children in the Flatt family were:

Marjory Flatt-  March 29, 1892 - August 8, 1895 Marjorie's death certificate states her cause of death as cholera.  There was an outbreak of that in Ontario at the time.  I write about this HERE.

Jean Fraser Flatt, M.A.- October 12, 1893- February 19, 1976; a teacher with the Saskatoon Technical Institute, poet, and a longtime librarian with the Victoria BC Public Library, until retirement.

Charles Donald Flatt- January 26, 1898- August 1980; served in World War I, worked after the War in Saskatchewan, and moved to Kamloops to retire.

Mary Lavina Flatt-  September 26, 1899- 1987; attended Normal School in Saskatoon; teacher in Drake, SK where she met and married in 1924 to William Ewert Rempel; lived in Campbellville, ON, Tantallon SK; Drake SK; Newton, KS;Cherry Ridge SK; Nipawin SK; birthed 5 children: Joy 1925-; Fraser 1927-2013; Herman 1929-199?; Will; Don; gardened; belonged to the Cherry Ridge Homemaker Club; was a member of the Nipawin United Church and the CCF/NDP parties; crocheted, knit, quilted, baked the best brown bread around, rode horses and swam as a young woman in the Qu'Appelle Valley.  To understand her philosophy, and that of her mother, and sister Jean,  please read Ground for Common Action: Violet McNaughton's Agrarian Feminism and the Origins of the Farm Women's Movement in Canada (PhD thesis of Dr. Georgina M. Taylor,  Carleton University, Ottawa) Bill died in 1978.  They enjoyed 54 years of marriage.  Mary died in Saskatoon City Hospital, 1987, following surgery to remove a bowel tumor.

Samuel Flatt- October 21, 1901 -May 9, 1973; Sam was two years old when we arrived in Tantallon.   He married Mary Margaret Brown of  the "Big Jack" Brown family of Tantallon (19- ) He lived there until 1919, and lived in British Columbia.  During this time he became a military cadet and instructor, as indicated by the certificate below:

 In 1923 when he returned to the farm in the Qu'Appelle Valley.  In 1928 he and his wife and family moved to New Westminster, BC, and later to Burnaby, where he lived at the time of his death.

He served in the Armed Forces in Europe in World War II and was decorated for his service in 1954.  Their eldest son, Benny, 1922-1942, training to go overseas, was killed when the plane he was in had a mid-air collision over Calgary.

Sam worked for "the Dominion Government, Department of Public Works" for 18 years, until his retirement.  He and Margaret had a family of 4 boys and a girl, celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary in August 1968 with 3 living children, 20 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren at that time.

Sam was a gregarious, jolly fellow in my (Cynthia's) recollection.  He grew dahlias in his later years and had a garden party in the summer in their back yard in Burnaby that we attended twice.  He had fond recollections of his wartime comrades and wrote a book about the experience.
               

**See Dr. C. E. Flatt mentioned in "The Canadian Practitioner" 1992 re a deodenum ulcer discourse.
***See Dr. C.E. Flatt mentioned in "Canada Lancet, Volume 36" published by Lancet Publishing Company, 1903, page 672, states "Dr. C.E. Flatt, after practicing his profession at Campbellville for twelve years, has left for Assiniboia.  His friends and neighbours of Nassagahweya joined in a hearty send-off.  The village hall was crowded to the door.  Mr. James Menzies read the farewell address, after which the doctor was presented with a purse of $185.  The Chosen Friends of which the doctor was a member handed him an umbrella..."

Thomas Moran 2x Matted 24x20 Black Ornate Framed Art Print 'Tantallon Castle, North Berwick, Scotland'
by ArtDirect $99.99

Here is a story about my Great-Grandparents Flatt at a formative time in their young marriage:   Cholera in North America: How It Showed Up in My Family Tree <= January 15, 2026