Imagine - A Stirling Streetscape

Blink once and imagine away all the cars. 

Blink again - make the road into a cobblestone street and the streetlights into gas lamps. 

Blink a final time and see the Gilmour boys, James, George and William, strolling home from school through Stirling-town.  

The Wallace Monument

During Tom Henry's March 2008 visit to Scotland, he took some photos in Stirling.  One of them (see photo above) is a view across the valley to the Wallace monument - if you "click" on the photo to enlarge it, you will see the Wallace monument on the hill known as Abbey Craig. 

The photo at the end of this post clearly shows the details of the monument to William Wallace. 

Just this evening, Dad told me that his father, James (our grandfather) told him that our great-grandfather William worked as a mason on the monument - it may have been the reason William moved to the Stirling area (the monument was mostly finished by 1869 but perhaps there was still work to do around the site?  So, Tom Henry's hunch seems to be correct. (Some time ago, Tom sent a letter to the Masons Grand Lodge in Stirling to ask if they have records of the names of the masons who worked on the monument.  They don't, but they told Tom that if William was a mason, there is a very good chance he did work there as hundreds of masons were employed in building it.) 

The Wallace Monument is situated on the top of Abbey Craig, a volcanic crag, overlooking the river Forth and the Forth Valley. This Craig at one time was the site of a hill fort, and in 1297, William Wallace camped there to watch the gathering of the army of English king Edward 1, just before Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.  

The design of the monument is in the Scottish "Baronial" style and represented a Scottish medieval tower, rising from a courtyard, with a representation on the top of the Crown Royal of Scotland. 

The monument is 220 feet high, 54 square feet at its base, with the tower 36 square feet. The walls are 16-18 feet at their thickest; more than 30,000 tons of stones used in the construction. The monument is open to the public - visitors climb the spiral staircase (246 stairs, so be prepared) to the viewing gallery inside the monument's crown -  the prize? A spectacular view of the Ochil Hills and the Forth Valley. 

To see more pictures and learn a little bit about the history of the monument, you can visit this website: 

 

http://www.nationalwallacemonument.com/

Riversdale, Saskatoon

The Gilmour family home in Saskatoon (see posts under 428 Avenue E South) was located in the district of Riversdale - here is a brief history of the community:  

Saskatoon’s earliest Euro Canadian settlement, a pioneer temperance colony, developed on both the east and west side of the South Saskatchewan riverbank.

In 1890, the railway established a depot on the west side of the river; soon after the Saskatoon settlement split off into two separate villages. The west side was incorporated as the Village of Saskatoon in 1901 and the east side of the river changed its name to Nutana. The name Nutana, many say, is a result of reversing the spelling of Saskatoon.

A third settlement, Riversdale Village, located just west of the railway tracks, was incorporated on January 16, 1905 after people residing across the tracks from of the Village of Saskatoon petitioned the Commissioner of Public Works to have the area incorporated.

In 1906, with the promise of a Traffic Bridge, the Village of Saskatoon amalgamated with the Villages of Nutana and Riversdale to become what is now known to be the City of Saskatoon. Soon after Saskatoon became the fastest growing city in the west.

In Riversdale, many of the buildings built during the Saskatoon’s Boom period of 1900-1912 remain, adding unique character to today’s main business and shopping district.

The multi-cultural quality of Riversdale was established early; during the boom, immigrants of British, Ukrainian, German, and Chinese decent settled in the Village of Riversdale. Today, as in the past, Riversdale is host to a mosaic of cultures.

There are some wonderful old pictures of Riversdale posted on the website where I found this historical information - visit the site below to get some taste of what the community must have been like during the early years when the family had just arrived from Scotland.

http://www.riversdale.ca/walkingtours.php

Why Come to Saskatchewan?

Something I've been wondering about - why did the Gilmours come to Saskatchewan? Of all the Canadian cities, why Saskatoon? When I next see Tom and my Dad, I'll ask them what they know about this.

Postscript - well, I did ask Tom; he's not sure why.

 

One possibility is that the boys may already have arranged work before they came out to Saskatoon -Tom says that during the period 1900-1912, Saskatoon was booming and may have been the fastest growing city in North America - certainly the fastest growing in the West. Perhaps it was this promise of jobs and prosperity that initially attracted the boys. As well, they may have been enticed by the promise of land in the Dominion Land Grants. 

There is an article in the Canadian Encyclopedia by J. Bumsted (available online) which gives an overview of Scottish migration to Canada. 

I loved the photo with the little verse "We're sailing west, we're sailing west...(presumably an advertisement inducing Scots to emigrate to Canada?) so much I have included it below.  

I wonder if the Gilmour boys saw such an ad and were persuaded to leave for a new life in a new land?

Scottish Immigrants Immigrants ready to leave Scotland for Canada, circa 1920 (Canapress).

The "new" church at Logie where William and Margaret were married

Across the valley from Stirling, and just behind the crag of the Wallace monument (our great-grandfather William was a stone mason and likely worked on this monument) is the parish church of Logie.  

The "new church" was built in 1800 after the Old Kirk of Logie became too decrepit to be used.  

William Gilmour and Margaret Robertson (our great-grandfather and great-grandmother) were married at Logie Church in 1878. The photos above were taken by Tom Henry and show the inside of the church and the churchyard.

Tom visited the Logie church in March, 2008; he also visited the Old Kirk and its graveyard. The Old Kirk lies a little ways up the road from the "new church". Read more about this in the post about his visit (Tom Henry's notes on his visit to Scotland) 

Shortly after they were married, William and Margaret's first child, Jean, was born (1878).  Nine children followed (including my grandfather James in 1882). Sadly, one child (Margaret, perhaps a twin to James?) died as an infant in 1882; another boy, David, died at six years of age in 1896.  

"During the late 1800s, thousands of children throughout Great Britain died of typhus, scarlet fever and cholera. In fact, it was only after 1914 that there was a great transition from the age-old pattern of very high mortality caused by infectious diseases, poor nutrition and heavy labour to our more contemporary experience of deaths associated with viral diseases, functional disorders or old age." (Benson, John, Working Class in England, 1875-1914).   

What must it have been like for Margaret and William to have 10 children? And then to have two die so young? It's hard to imagine a time when families were so large (ours was considered large, and we were only 5 kids!) and when it was just a commonplace that most families would lose at least one infant or child. 

Samuel "Esson" Bruce

Samuel "Esson" Bruce
BRUCE , Samuel "Esson" October 18, 1917 - February 27, 2009 The family is saddened to announce the passing of Samuel Esson Bruce of Calgary on Friday, February 27, 2009, at the age of 91 years. Esson was the third son of Samuel E. Bruce Sr. and Isabella Finlayson Gilmour Bruce, born on October 18, 1917, in Saskatoon. Early in 1942, he went to Washington, D.C. where he spent four years with the Australian War Supplies Commission and where he had the good fortune to meet Betty during that time. In 1946, they were married and went to live in Montreal where Esson had a career in Research and Product Development with Dominion Textile until his retirement in 1982. He was a member of a number of societies involved with Textile research in Canada and the United States. Betty and Esson moved to Oakville living there until 1995 when they came to Calgary to be near Susan and Joe. Esson was the beloved husband of Betty Annabel Gardner and the very proud father of Susan Elizabeth Hunter RN (Joe). He was predeceased by both parents; his infant son, David Esson Bruce (1947); his two brothers, William and James and his sister, Margaret. In living memory of Esson Bruce, a tree will be planted at Fish Creek Provincial Park.

James Robertson Gilmour

James Gilmour -
GILMOUR, James Robertson On August 12, 2008, James passed away peacefully, surrounded by family and friends, in Victoria, B.C. He was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on December 15th, 1926, and he resided in various communities throughout BC while working as a professional forester. He is survived by a daughter, Pauline of Edmonton and two sons, Glen of Needles, B.C. and James of Ottawa; his twin brother John; and his longtime friend and partner, Wanda. He is loved and will be missed. "Have we told you that we love you today? From the Victoria Times Colonist