Antique oil paintings of prairie fields, mountains, and garden flowers adorned the family homes our entire childhood. Even now large oils hang in my parents hallway and decorate their bedroom. Many of the oils and ceramics have been given to siblings and rest in their homes. Some carefully cleaned and reframed, proudly displayed, others, stacked one on top of the other in basements and attics. The artist of these paintings is A.E. Brown. She is my great great aunt on my moms side. Her birth name is Annie Everal Edmanson after her fathers sister named Annie Elizabeth. She was born on Dec 17 1886 in the small town of Melita in the southwestern corner of Manitoba. Her parents Robert William Edmanson and Mary Lavina Osborne both born in England arrived in Canada separately, Robert in 1856 and Mary in 1860. They met and married in Ontario. Their first child William was born in 1877. The family homesteaded and moved to Manitoba...
The race to populate Canada began in the 1600s. It reached its height in the late 1800s and early 1900s, then was abruptly stifled with the onset of WWII. These are the stories of those people. The story of the brave adventurous individuals that boarded ships looking for the promise of free land & untold wealth. These are Canada's stories....