A family history of the Flemings who came from Perthshire in 1843 to settle in Derby Township, Grey County. We follow the family into the mid 1900s as they dispersed across North America..
James and John – “the twins” – died within a year of each other: John in Kilsyth in 1909 and James in Owen Sound in 1910. John had nine children, all living in 1931, of whom only Alfred (or T.A.) had his career in the United States. The others stayed in Ontario. In contrast, of James’ nine surviving children, only Mary Ella [Wyllie] was nearby in Kilsyth. Alexander, his eldest son, was in Regina, Saskatchewan. The others had headed mainly to California.
The data gathered in this posting are about James and John’s children and adult grandchildren. The 1931 Canada Census and the 1930 U.S. Census indicate the financial well-being of the families and single independents. Surprisingly, of the 41 families and singles in this tabulation, only one person was unemployed. A few worked independently (7); most were wage earners, especially in John’s line. For those who owned their houses – and most did – values ranged from $1,000 to 35,000. Values for the seven U.S. properties are at the higher end. In Canada, rural and small-town living lowered the average. Radio sets were in nearly every home in cities but missing on farms and some apartments.
In reviewing the lives of the descendants of Alexander Fleming and Jean Stewart, we begin with the families of their daughters: Isobel (1825-1917), married to Abraham Finch, and Janet (1828-1918), to James Agnew. They and several of their children had died before 1931, but we can see through the 1931 Census how the younger ones and their children were faring in the strained economic times of the early 1930s. Nearly all were far from Grey County in diverse occupations across the continent – only a couple were still farming. Several owned their houses, mostly made of wood, and some had radios.
The Finches
The effervescent Bella [Herald], who had moved to Ontario’s Parry Sound district, died in 1923. Her beloved adopted son William Herald, who had survived the battles in Europe, settled in Parry Sound to work as a salesman in a general store and begin a family with Annie Lang.
Isobel’s daughter Jessie[Trout] was 80 years old in 1931 and widowed. She and her daughter Ella (Isabella) resided at 78 Dawson Street in Wiarton, where they shared an eight-room wood house valued at $1000. Ella was 57 and living on “income,” perhaps from savings from her years in Toronto as a public school teacher. There was no radio in their house.
Alexander Heneage Finch, a Disciple minister and Manitoba farmer, died in 1920. Widowed Sophie (de la Ree) lived in Winnipeg with her daughter’s family: Thomas Babb, Beatrice, and the four-year-old Reginald. The Babbs rented their five-room wood house on Ashburn Street, and they did have a radio. Thomas taught, possibly at a high school.
Most of Sophie’s and Alexander’s children were alive in 1931, all but two residing in Alberta.
Horace, an insurance agent, had a house for his wife and two daughters in Wetaskiwin, AB., near Edmonton.
Bertram, a farmer in Minitonas in the Swan River region of Manitoba where he had grown up, worked for his father-in-law, John Smith.
Percival was a salesman for a lumber yard in Viking, AB. He, his wife and daughter, rented a wood house and were among the few with a radio.
Norman managed a lumber yard in Clyde AB, where he owned a four-room house for his wife and two daughters. They had a radio.
Alexander was a carpenter in house-building in Mirror, AB. His small family also lived in a wooden house they owned. Alexander was currently out of work.
Carlos “Carl” managed a retail lumber yard in Irma, AB. Single, he lodged with a family.
Cecil was not enumerated, but other records suggest Alberta or Manitoba.
Ruby Mae, married to Martin Danard, was probably living in Flin Flon, MB, where three children were born. The family was missed in the 1931 census.
James, at age 25, was in Winnipeg, married, and working as an electrician. He and Katherine rented a two-room apartment and had a radio.
Isobel’s next son William died from influenza in Winnipeg in 1918. Several of his and Martha’s children lived in Winnipeg – Earnest, Robert, and Olive [Rhodes] are three who were enumerated. Others, though alive, were missed.
Excerpt from 1931 Canada Census – Schedule for Population – North Grey, Derby, Ontario
The event all genealogists in Canada have been waiting for has arrived: Library and Archives Canada released its digitization of 234,678 images of the 1931 Canada Census on June 1, 2023. The collection is open for browsing by location – province, district and sub-district. (1) Eight days later, Ancestry, using its Handwriting Recognition software, delivered a searchable indexed database to subscribers. Family Search will soon follow with its index. Images may also be browsed by province and district at FindMyPast.
The enumerators recorded details on more than 10.3 million people. Canada’s population after the First World War had grown 18% from the 8.7 million of 1921. Many immigrants were from Europe, attracted to agriculture in the Prairie provinces. At the same time and especially in Ontario the urban population surpassed the rural as men and women left farms to work in factories and offices. Trouble appeared in the late 1920s with crop failures in the west and the stock market crash of 1929 in the east. By 1931 the Great Depression had taken hold with rising unemployment, homelessness and hunger. By 1933 unemployment was 33%. During this time, the Prairies were beset by drought and insects to bring on the Dirty Thirties. Not all were devastated: property owners and people with jobs fared much better. These outcomes are captured in the data on house values, income, and employment. (2)
The Census provides a snapshot of how families were managing across the nation. Questions concerned housing, income, employment, ethnicity, nationality, education – and, very interestingly, possession of a radio.
The Flemings of Derby Township 