Shirley Forth’s heart-rending account of the 1916 Matheson Fire focused mainly on the Elvin family.
Sarah Rosanna Scott was the eldest daughter of Lemuel Scott and Lucy Ellen Ouderkirk. She went by the name of Rose. She married Joseph Elvin, who was born in Yorkshire, England and emigrated to Canada in December of 1884.
Rose and her younger sister, Lucy Ellen, were married May 16, 1888 in Bracebridge, District of Muskoka, Ontario. The couples were witnesses for each other and were married in a double ceremony by an itinerant Baptist minister from Burk’s Falls, a Reverend Thomas Bingham.
The couples had their wedding portraits taken by R. W. Ryan of Bracebridge. I found these photos in a family album given to me by my grandmother, Edna (Forth) Prosser. Lucy was her mother. The men are wearing different suits, but the women identical outfits. How fitting for a double wedding.
I believe the photo below is of the girls' mother, Lucy Ellen (Ouderkirk) Scott. It appears to have been taken on the same day as the double wedding, May 16, 1888. The backdrop of the photo is the same as the girls' wedding photos and it is the same photographer, R. W. Ryan.
I have a painted tintype that I am certain was created from this photo. The tintype has been painted to show Lucy at a younger age. The tintype was peeling so I scanned and repaired it.
d. 8 Jan 1893
d. 29 Jul 1916
d. 15 Mar 1966
d. 13 Dec 1959
d. 11 Apr 1919
d. 29 Jul 1916
d. 29 Jul 1916
These are photos of Lemuel and Irvin Elvin shared by Nancy White, from the collection of Eletta Scott Dixon. Perhaps one day I will get around to restoring them!
Lemuel enlisted in the Army in November of 1916 but only served three months with the 208th Battalion. His service was listed on his Draft form of April 1918. Ollie was also drafted in January 1918. I don’t know if either man saw any overseas service.
Both Ollie and Lem returned to Matheson and were living on 7th Avenue on the 1921 census. Ollie worked for the railway and Lem was a handyman. Joseph Olimer Elvin and Harriet Elizabeth Neill were the witnesses for the wedding of Ollie’s cousin, George Lockhart Little, to Mary Elizabeth Robertson in June of 1922. The following summer, Ollie and Harriet were married in Thornloe. They lived in Iroquois Falls and raised a family of four daughters and one son. Ollie died in 1966.
Lemuel married his second cousin, Sarah Jane Coffey, in Iroquois Falls in 1926. I have found no records of any children. They moved to Arvida, Quebec where Lem worked until retirement. He and Sarah Jane then moved to Toronto where Lem died in 1959.