Below is a map sketched by Hilda Howard, Mom’s half-sister, when I visited her in Toronto the in late 1990’s maybe.
So while she was trying to remember the layout of the Mattawa farm, she also was remembering things about Grampa.
He went missing for about 2 years and Mary reported him missing to the Mattawa OPP and the RCMP. Hilda believed this happened when she was between 11 – 12 years old, [this is correct, as Mom and Grampa wrote each other in 1948 while he was in hiding. Letters can be read on Johannes page.] and thought he had been hiding in Sault Ste. Marie at the time [letters came from Goulois River, Algoma]. She thought Grampa worked for the TransCanada (?). When Grampa was at the farm, he stayed in “Gilligan’s Shack” rather than stay in the house with Mary. Hilda believed that Grampa visited Gramma in the hospital in St. Thomas.
Hilda said that Betty (her sister) had a picture of Grampa at a military base in Louisville, Indiana, and Hilda also believed he was in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Below is a picture of Mom standing in front of the farm house with Hilda, Babs (Barbara) and Maisie.
Below is a picture of Mom and her 2nd husband, Albin, visiting her childhood home in Mattawa.
On June 17, 1975, Mary filed her own birth registration as a “Delayed Statement of Birth” and signed it Mrs. Mary Gallson and on October 28, 1975 the birth was officially registered. Since Mary was born in September 1910, she was likely needing to prove she was 65 to receive her Old Age Pension.
I believe they were officially married around this same time, even though Grampa wasn’t living with her at the time. He was in a rooming house in Mattawa. I’ve often thought that she convinced him to marry her so that she would get the farm if he passed, but now I also think she needed to prove they were married to get the GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement).
Aunt Jean went to visit Grampa in his room and was appalled by his living conditions. She packed him up and bought him to her house, where he lived his last years until his death in 1979.
