Salt Spring Island Archives

Donate Now Through CanadaHelps.org!

Audio

Kathleen Rathwell

17 September 2002

Accession Number
Date 17 September 2002
Media digital recording Audio mp3 √
duration 24 min.

444_Kathleen-Rathwell_Life_2-sessions_17.09.2002.mp3

otter.ai

18.02.2024

no

Outline

    Family history and genealogy.
  • Unknown speaker recounts family history, including death of daughter Isabella at birth.
    Family history and genealogy.
  • Jack's mother, Mary Louise Wilson, died shortly after birth, and he had a stepmother and half-sister Isabel.
  • Grandfather trained as pilot in Yorkshire, survived scary experiences, and eventually married and had children.
    Family history and genealogy.
  • Speakers discuss family history and genealogy, mentioning names and relationships.
  • Speaker 1 shares memories of growing up in Yorkshire and Scotland, mentioning specific dates and events.
    Education, military service, and personal experiences.
  • Speaker 1 describes their experience with correspondence courses, mentioning they took algebra and geometry courses but didn't complete geometry due to lack of supervision.
  • Speaker 1 believes they know more about different subjects than counseling students due to their experience with correspondence courses, but didn't get as good grades as they could have due to lack of supervision.
  • Speaker 1 recounts their experiences in the army, including falling asleep during a speech and buying a new car after being discharged.
    Family history and personal experiences.
  • Speaker 1 recounts family history, including marriage and childbirth, while Speaker 3 interrupts with unrelated stories.
  • Edward worked as a drainage engineer in Victoria and later became a captain in the agricultural fire department in Ottawa.

Unknown Speaker 0:04
They the hay in there and let it dry some old keep turning it over the roof was made with shapes that we made ourselves we gathered together and I don't know what we did with whether we we went around Mr. Shank should know more about it

Unknown Speaker 0:33
and somebody drew all the pictures

Unknown Speaker 0:38
think they're photographed or something printed they're printed somehow or other maybe mr. chef? Mr. Scheck took the picture photographs or something that's what this is. This is all the same yes

Unknown Speaker 0:52
I wouldn't take this much I can tell you and truly and I that's all I can tell you so are marking genomes on Isabella

Unknown Speaker 1:13
we went away out in the woods, and it was after some winters time, and it was actually down six feet. You couldn't even get there. The edge of her property then gone dropped down six feet and she was so surprised she couldn't get where she was going.

Unknown Speaker 1:38
It was the shed

Unknown Speaker 1:39
that went No no it had nothing to do with the building was beyond that. We used to take the skins and everything and dump minute pits and and we were doing that couldn't get to it. Or get wood chip had wood blocks. But you're looking at it now from the beach. When you're on the ferry, you'll find that the trees are also opened downwards. And they've done some more falling since when it rains, rains and rains at the surface. And phase one on the water those people that know anything about it even have a job to keep track of this story is there. A clerk in New York railway station who died and his wife Mary Isabel jolly that's how the Johnny comes named daughter of Lizabeth jolly don't know what jolly it would be rather to Ellery

Unknown Speaker 2:50
that's how she spelled it. I don't know if that's right or not.

Unknown Speaker 2:52
It's hard to say jolly. I don't know who they are. Anyway. She died at birth that's all I know. I know that was born 89. Guys and 76 father went to St. Peter's York and met mother by going with a master from the school. Jack great to visit. Jack grace and grace, married to Edward Charles bidwill. That my mother, my grandfather's name, Edward, Carol's grandfather, and was Mother's stepmother. weeds. Her mother, my mother's mother was seventh child as a federal family.

Unknown Speaker 3:53
Louise was her mother's name. Bliss. What?

Unknown Speaker 3:59
Well, it'd be Bedwell. Yes, because he was married. Yeah, two years. I don't know what her first name was. Maybe something new and we'll click Wilson was her mother's name. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 4:12
Mary Louise. Oh, Cara.

Unknown Speaker 4:15
Mother was seventh child that will serve her mother Mary Louise Wilson died shortly after she was born 22nd to January first 1888 She shouldn't have a stepmother and gray and later a half sister Isabel. She was at her father. Her father. Where's that come in? Bed with work at the stock exchange. That's Edward Edward Charles Bedwell. Worked at the stock exchange in London. He then trained to be a minister and was cured St. Mary's short before having it country parish and we've been there too. And St. Mary's has fallen pieces anyway, that's that picture near and long with a vicar was part of a farm, big rich father completed his schooling at St. Peter's York and went out to Canada near Winnipeg to learn farming, thrashing machines and stuff. He told stories of stoking thrashing machines and bundles of straw fires on the 1940s or came along and he went back to England joined the Royal Flying for the wage bill. Later the Royal Air Force

Unknown Speaker 5:51
I spelled it the way she

Unknown Speaker 5:54
Yeah, well, I guess. He trained as pilot in Yorkshire, and then flew from France over Germany. Surviving some scary experiences. Yeah, that shot go right up through his boot of the lake and you never touched him. He was a bit of a nervous wreck leaving more behind. Father cord mother on a motorcycle with a sidecar. Later, dropping letters from a plane and eventually with an engagement ring and a box of chocolates dropped into a field finally marrying and staying. They stayed in the local hotels until grandfather could marry them. In the morning. The following Sunday. Children were heard to say outside the hotel right up yet. After the wedding, they went to horse and buggy to Walton railway. To London Mother's Day in in rooms while father was still in the war. She did a wonderful tablecloths of neat and work while in rooms had interesting little stories of landlords rail after leaving ra debt, went to Canada, BC, where his cousin doctor or a veterinarian lived and bought acreage upon the weather followed by boat and retrained on her own later, landing in Halifax, I believe my father had told her to keep her trunks from the cabin, or she would not catch the train that day of landing. Near at Auckland dad did farming mother did said his nerves were bad after the war, and she used a crosscut saw to cut rounds of wood for the store. While there was a good splitter of wood with hammer in which well into her 80s Our two elder sisters were born at home in Parkland. Years later, Sister Mary McDonald had to trace her nurse and doctor as she had not been registered, so was unable to get a birth certificate. But that's all. Oh, what I had to do is save. I got my birth certificate, March of

Unknown Speaker 8:29
1936. So Kathleen had to do the same. Well, I

Unknown Speaker 8:33
don't know. Both the same time I think we've already spoken about it. Doctor himself had forgotten. Well now came to the government or wherever he goes to.

Unknown Speaker 8:48
He was a cousin now this ordering. Yeah, this must be a family. Long way back. It was a cousin's death. Yeah, but or it must have been a family name was

Unknown Speaker 9:01
a family name. Alright. That was a doctor ordered. You came up a few times when he was here. When we were home with

Unknown Speaker 9:11
the godfather to your brothers. No,

Unknown Speaker 9:14
I don't think so. It's just in the family that now you My dad didn't have any family. Because he didn't have a father or mother by the time that he was around. You know, I mean, it was brought up by Elizabeth Jones jolly. Oh. And she came up to three times. She was God's mother, I think. And then I have Dorsey and there's two of mothers sisters, where God Mother, god brothers was mine. One of them was mine, the one that was married.

Unknown Speaker 9:53
Now there are there is a picture somewhere and I just don't know where it is right at the moment because it's called

Unknown Speaker 10:04
Yeah, yeah, that would be jolly. This

Unknown Speaker 10:07
was Dolly. Oh, that would be her. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 10:12
We got a I got a picture on my mantelpiece you can see when you get

Unknown Speaker 10:18
a little picture. Yeah, just

Unknown Speaker 10:22
about that big. Yeah. And she's quite a big woman she had like a tartan they used to wear around here and we'll test them in real long because it was used to fit the whole of my bed tuck in at the bottom to ward out premier

Unknown Speaker 10:45
bodies background there.

Unknown Speaker 10:50
That was bringing it out. So I don't know what buttons are tough. She couldn't be. Well, Yorkshire is not far from Scotland.

Unknown Speaker 11:02
Now, is there anything in this little history that you could add to or

Unknown Speaker 11:07
Conran, and not in that part of it, I couldn't tell you too much. Because Ruby has access to moments more much more often than I did. And if she was writing it, she could have copied some information. I have only vague ideas of time. But I know most of that, sorry.

Unknown Speaker 11:29
I thought it was quite interesting. It's quite, quite entertaining.

Unknown Speaker 11:35
I mean, she she wrote introducing

Unknown Speaker 11:40
those sorts of things. from mom and dad, when they were figuring out well,

Unknown Speaker 11:46
the baby is a family often has this kind of access to the parents.

Unknown Speaker 11:51
Well, she, she was, went to high school and she was there. You know, she was the last person that they got more things than anybody and she was a real whimper. She goes to get what she wants. I know when she cried she when she came home from the hospital. She was born at the hospital. One of the only ones I don't know where it is now but up the hill

Unknown Speaker 12:19
up on the hill

Unknown Speaker 12:25
and 28 March 31 Very very rough. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 12:37
really? 31.

Unknown Speaker 12:47
That's how I can remember it all.

Unknown Speaker 12:52
Oh, that's interesting.

Unknown Speaker 13:02
Now went to war

Unknown Speaker 13:03
before you joined up.

Unknown Speaker 13:06
There was a period of time from your correspondence courses

Unknown Speaker 13:10
where you had to go into correspondence courses to join the army. Oh, where are you? Yeah, I went up to school. And the teacher was able to give me a little boost here and

Unknown Speaker 13:22
there at Isabella point. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:25
sat there and day after day, just like the kids.

Unknown Speaker 13:29
Oh, good for you. And then you joined us. Right from from just

Unknown Speaker 13:35
working on it. Went on. In the in the army. I went to two night classes for English literature. And I took correspondence on algebra. And I said, it took me so long before they told me I could have the final exam. And I had to go all the way from Salt Springs over to Vancouver to take an exam. And it was six months after I kind of got finished. And I said well, I'm going to get married, not going to be using algebra very much. So I'm not going to bother going after. It was worth trouble. He

Unknown Speaker 14:17
couldn't have gone to Victoria.

Unknown Speaker 14:20
I didn't want to go anywhere. I could have had Miss took a course she would. She would have but she couldn't do because they wouldn't allow me admitted and Harold courses when they got finished. And she she gave them

Unknown Speaker 14:39
to supervise them. She she did whatever

Unknown Speaker 14:43
she had to do and they were able to pass it before they got to find out. She was given them she was high school teacher. She can give more or less that they needed. So they got my two slipped by quite easily. Very good at mathematics, I got good marks. Get any money to do it in algebra is complicated, crazy thing anyway. A's, B's and C's, this one equals that. so forth. And geometry I never did. I didn't get to take that. You know what I used for?

Unknown Speaker 15:28
Absolutely nothing. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 15:32
If I was doing a building, I had to make this angle, same as that angle up there. Well, I know what to do. I couldn't do

Unknown Speaker 15:39
that. So when you were in the army, you also took

Unknown Speaker 15:43
some more courses. So try to get a certificate is the end graduated. And that's when ever did. That's why I never got to be anything more than a regular private pilot, private. And when I got a job, I didn't get the full payer that it would have got if I'd had a few more educated words. That's about all it would be. But I, I did absolutely all the work that when you're in a class of five or six, you're you're part of the work. When you're in correspondence course, you do it all. And you get corrected if you didn't do it, right. So I know more about the different subjects than counseling students do. But I didn't get as good if you want to take back seats or

Unknown Speaker 16:40
it's too bad.

Unknown Speaker 16:42
But I know when I was, when we had a minute Minister's speech, I was sat right in the front row.

Unknown Speaker 16:53
I couldn't tell you the minister's name. When I was in the army, and I fell asleep. I could fall asleep just like class when that was talking. It was so quiet. It was speak so lonely, that I don't know how anybody heard. I didn't get anything out of it. Because I was so sleepy by that time.

Unknown Speaker 17:15
So as soon as you got out of the Army,

Unknown Speaker 17:21
Army and got married, so in the same time, March the fifth 9640 46 I guess it was I bought a new car. And I drove out here when we when we moved. We all

Unknown Speaker 17:39
did you enjoy being in the Army?

Unknown Speaker 17:44
Lot of work. In the army, I started out and we took a lot of work heavy, heavy lifting buckets. Cold.

Unknown Speaker 18:02
Cold as what we cooked up to did you ever go overseas? Or were you like as far

Unknown Speaker 18:09
as Ottawa, there are a lot better than some people further than most. Started, Victoria went over to Vancouver. didn't have proper shoes. No uniform heavy weight. So we got our uniforms. So all the badges on that. And when we went to went to Vermillion, Alberta. There were so many of us that were three in the upper bunk.

Unknown Speaker 18:41
I was established. And you can imagine what it was like trying to get up

Unknown Speaker 18:50
getting up dressing yourself, get out of it. And that was the time of training and lost the train.

Unknown Speaker 19:01
How many nights that must have just been one

Unknown Speaker 19:03
was one night out of Edmonton. Where we cut into the train never to where we were in the train before that. No, I guess first before we got to one night over the Rockies. I don't remember. I know I was the third person downstairs.

Unknown Speaker 19:22
So after you got married did you stay back?

Unknown Speaker 19:25
Oh yeah. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 19:29
and then you came out here and you came out here

Unknown Speaker 19:38
to live in.

Unknown Speaker 19:46
60 days. We all have a daughter and her husband and kids. We all went to Fairbridge that I went to

Unknown Speaker 20:04
I came home on the second week, June 26. And came the next day or the thing we had stay overnight.

Unknown Speaker 20:14
So with married the first one married in the family, no, I was at work. And Margaret was the first grandchild.

Unknown Speaker 20:24
And I came up, came up when she was 10 months old, before she stopped nursing because I wanted to

Unknown Speaker 20:33
be able to feed her in the mill wouldn't be changing on the train and so forth. Back then, she well, she was thinking that she used to like Pat and I got a picture of my dad seen a bottle of tablets, mixed with milk, water or something else.

Unknown Speaker 21:02
So Mary got married, and then

Unknown Speaker 21:06
she didn't get married before Edrick got married and 49 married, got married. And then Harold Harold on 50 700

Unknown Speaker 21:18
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 21:21
he was he went to university. Oh, did he? He was training and he built a boat in UBC Oh know in the basement of the lady he was rooming with my mom went over and found her Mrs. Precious nameless and and her basement had a pair of me fly with fiberglass or anything else and he made that sale with over outboard motor I think that's and of course we would have to be rescued it was so stormy and the coast was the same boat took him up

Unknown Speaker 22:12
so he went to university for what UBC

Unknown Speaker 22:21
Engineering think he was

Unknown Speaker 22:27
alright, just culturally.

Unknown Speaker 22:30
He made ditches and drains and all that. And he worked on the city works in Victoria. Drainage and sewer and water and stuff like that. He worked there for quite a while

Unknown Speaker 22:49
when he got the job, so that that was what he did. That was his lifetime work.

Unknown Speaker 22:54
When he went to to the agricultural fireman in Ottawa This is in there when I was King that's where Judy was born.

Unknown Speaker 23:08
And so Edward now he was a captain.

Unknown Speaker 23:11
He was for a long time. It didn't get to be captain in quite some time after work but smaller less capital first and then after that I have certain

Unknown Speaker 23:29
that he had to pass a lot of exams to get to the

Unknown Speaker 23:31
core expect so min on that stuff. Oh yeah. Well he was here. He and Molly lifted Townsend. We all have before they moved to this one. They lived in that old areas volley about that. They had a great time before they bought Mr. Sherman is to Sherman cottage. They lived in their house.

Unknown Speaker 24:07
So we're went back pumps with that near to were around

Unknown Speaker 24:12
to an item list

Unknown Speaker 24:13
across roads across road each other. You know where it was smaller. You

Unknown Speaker 24:19
know, I never really revised which helps. I knew what you saw on the

Unknown Speaker 24:24
left there. Yeah, that used to be a great post. He added on so nice to have random before I

Unknown Speaker 24:37
heard they're coming back. Well, they might. They haven't sold. They haven't done as far Oh