For he was Scotch, and so was she

Annie (Reid) and Pete Fraser with son Murray and his dog Spot, circa 1920

The poem below is transcribed from yet another newspaper clipping from the Fraser trunk, saved by Murray Fraser's dear mother. It might well have referred to his parents, Annie and Pete.

For he was Scotch, and so was she 

They were a couple well content

With what they earned and what they spent,

Cared not a whit for style’s decree –

For he was Scotch, and so was she.

And oh, they loved to talk of Burns –

Dear blithesome, tender Bobby Burns!

They never wearied of his song,

He never sang a note too strong.

One little fault could neither see –

For he was Scotch, and so was she.

They loved to read of men who stood

And gave for country life and blood,

Who held their faith so grand a thing

They scorned to yield it to a king.

Ah, proud of such they well might be –

For he was Scotch, and so was she.

From neighbors’ broils they kept away;

No liking for such things had they,

And oh, each had a canny mind,

And could be deaf, and dumb and blind.

With words or pence was neither free –

For he was Scotch, and so was she.

I would not have you think this pair

Went on in weather always fair,

For well you know, in married life

Will come, sometimes, the jar and strife;

They couldn’t always just agree –

For he was Scotch, and so was she.

But near of heart they ever kept,

Until at close of life they slept;

Just this to say when all was past,

They loved each other to the last.

They’re loving yet, in heaven, maybe –

For he was Scotch, and so was she. 

-- From “The Cornflower and Other Poems,” by Jean Blewett. (Wm. Briggs)

Annie Reid

Dad's cousin, Mary MacKay, prepared an exhaustive history of the descendants of Peter and Christena Reid, entitled Far Spread the Sparks from Cantire. It is a great resource and includes a chapter on Annie Reid. That profile is copied here:

Christena Reid was 42 and Peter was 52 when their youngest child arrived on January 5, 1881. Annie was born on Lot 13, Con. 5, Elderslie Township, Bruce County, Ontario, and spent her youngest years there. Her oldest sister, Mary (b. 1861), was twenty, and her youngest sister, Kate (b. 1878), was almost three when she was born. Sprinkled between at regular intervals were Margaret (b. 1863), Peter (b. 1866), Tena (b. 1868), Sandy (b. 1870), Neil (b. 1872), and Donald (b. 1875).

When Annie was only five years old, Mary and Margaret both married Muir brothers and set up their own homes – Mary and Bob near Glenannan, Ontario, and Margaret and George Muir in Hannah, North Dakota. Just a year later, when she was about to start school, her oldest brother, Peter, left on the harvest excursion for the west and stayed to homestead.

Reid house, Lot 3, Concession 5, Elderslie Township, Ontario (1942)
The pioneer homestead of Peter and Christena Reid since the 1850s, the home is still in the Reid family.

Reid farm (1942). A blacksmithing book dating back to the 1860s records that in 1892 the original 100 acres of land were valued at $2,550. The farming was mixed, including sheep, chickens, pigs and cows. Peter Reid ran his blacksmith shop out of the driving shed, which still stands on the property.

Annie attended S.S. No. 1, Elderslie, Cantire School, and took with her fond memories of her best teacher, Mr. Robert J. Lindsay. Among her mementoes she had this autograph:

Paisley, February 13, 1894 

To Annie; –– 

Among the many faces

Of the fourth's sisters and brothers

There's one that draws attention

More than any others.

Some were light and lively

And some were wildly gay

And some like little Daffy

Were inclined to sport and play

But one whose name will live

When others long have gone

And richly she deserves this praise

Which she has fairly won.

And when the name of other girls

From my memory shall recede

There's one that still will hold its place

'Tis that of Annie Reid.

-- R. J. Lindsay 

Annie Reid, 1890s

Being the youngest in the family meant life was much different for Annie than for her sisters. There were no little brothers or sisters to care for.

In 1893 twelve-year-old Annie Reid readily passed the High School entrance exam.

In February of her last year in public school, her father died. The family continued to live in the red brick family home and the farm work was done by Neil, Donald and Kate. Annie went to Paisley to work in a store. She went out west to visit her two brothers and two sisters who settled there, but returned to Ontario with Margaret and George and their children when they returned home for a visit 1907.

When brother Donald was married in 1908 and took over the family farm, Annie at twenty-seven years of age became the fifth member of the family to move to Dakota. Her second brother, Sandy, had left when she was eleven and her sister, Tena, married James Moffat when she was sixteen.

Annie made her home with Tena, two or three miles from Hannah, N.D. She worked at Valentine's store in Hannah and boarded in town until her marriage eight years later.

The wedding of Pete Fraser and Annie Reid, July 19, 1916, in Hannah, North Dakota. The toddler out front is Dad's cousin Myra, who claimed she remembered this day.

On July 19, 1916, at thirty-five years of age, Annie Reid was united in marriage to Peter Hay Fraser, son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fraser. Annie's mother, Christena, and oldest sister, Mary Muir, came from Ontario for the wedding.

"The bride is a lady of sterling character..."

Pete and Annie's Certificate of Marriage

Pete's early years were spent on the 6th line of Turnberry Township, Huron County, Ontario. He moved with his parents to Pilot Mound, Manitoba, in 1906. Pete, like his father, had taught school for a time before starting farming on his own. Pete, at forty years of age, would drive his horses from Pilot Mound over the border about twenty-five miles to Hannah to court Annie. 

The Fraser farm house, Pilot Mound. Annie was the photographer in the family, and caught Jessie and Collie on the rooftop. 

Peter and Annie's first home near Pilot Mound was a one-and-a-half story log boarded over, and a back kitchen built at the rear. It was heated by wood-fired cookstove, and in colder weather by a Québec heater and later a "tin" heater. They had no electricity or running water.

Pete and Annie had a driving horse "Gyp," that knew when it was Sunday. Without any direction Gyp would unerringly turn down to the church barn on a Sunday, and on any other day trot straight on to the livery barn in Pilot Mound. The clothes the passengers wore did not seem to be Gyp's clue. Perhaps just "horse sense."

Pete Fraser runs the mighty Gaar-Scott steam engine while four men pitch into the feeder of the Red River Special separator. His brothers John and Sandy are among the crew. Threshing for a number of neighbours meant the season lasted many weeks. 

Annie was a good farm wife. She was very capable in all household chores, cooking, sewing, knitting, mending, and nurturing. She would also milk cows at threshing time when the men spent long hours in the field, often at other farms when the "big outfit" was operating. She kept a big garden, made her own butter and cared for the hens. She would trade eggs and butter at the stores in town to keep the family in groceries.

Farm wife Annie Fraser juggles chores and baby Jessie.

Although Annie only had a Grade 8 education, that was considered a good education in the 1890s. She liked to write and kept correspondence with family and friends in Ontario and in the west. She liked to help her children, Jessie Isobel (b. 1917) and Murray Reid (b. 1919) with their composition assignments. Reading was also one of her pleasures. The whole family enjoyed the Family Herald and Weekly Star and the Free Press. They did not have a radio until 1937, when they bought a battery-powered radio from Sears or Montgomery Ward of Hannah. With a long aerial from the house to the garage, reception was remarkable.

Murray's arrival on May 31, 1919 completed the small Fraser family.

Annie loved music: "Humoresque" was her favourite. "Souvenir" and "Minuet" on 78 RPM records she considered "the good pieces." Anything Harry Lauder sang brought her joy, as did Brigadoon.

Annie believed a good wife baked her own bread. She did and it always turned out well and Pete remembered to renew her contract to "keep the cook for another week." Pete used to tease her about buttering every bite. Too much butter no doubt led to being hospitalized in 1949 for gallbladder surgery.

Annie and Pete Fraser during a trip to Ontario, 1946

Unlike the other members of her family that went west, Annie enjoyed several visits to Ontario. Her last trip east was in 1954, with son Murray driving.

Pete and Annie with their first grandson Murray Houlden.

In 1951 Annie and Pete retired to a small house in Pilot Mound without sewer and water but with electricity and oil heat. 

Annie and Pete welcome a grandson to their tiny retirement home in Pilot Mound. 

In 1955 Pete was hospitalized in Pilot Mound and lived his last few months in a nursing home in Winnipeg, dying on October 7, 1955.

Pete Fraser died at age 79.

Annie lived alone for a few years after Pete's death. A neighbour, Mr. Cockerline, also a retired farmer, was kind to her and carried in water, shovelled her walk, etc. In the early sixties she went to live with her daughter, Jessie, and her son-in-law Jack Houlden. While standing at the sink doing dishes, a hip collapsed. She was hospitalized  at Crystal City and spent a most painful period, lying immobilized, but not in a cast. They had her up trying to walk before the crack was healed, resulting in further damage. She was moved to Winnipeg Hospital were a bone specialist replaced the deteriorated hip bone with an artificial joint. She suffered a great deal, but the skirl of the bagpipes on a radio across the hall revived her from near death. She went to the home of her son, Murray, and his wife, Hazel, and with loving care walked again. Murray even persuaded her to attend the Scotch programme at the local racetrack.

Annie once said, "I'm not biased about being Scotch." (She never used the term Scottish) "Had I been born English or Irish I would have been just as proud."

"Och, aye," a friend replied, " but you're quite content to be Scotch!"

In 1967, Annie decided to leave her daughter's home and go to Mrs. Duncan's private nursing home in Manitou for constant care.

Her daughter Jessie was teaching and Annie needed more care than Jessie could give. She enjoyed visits and letters and reading from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake.

 On January 20, 1969 less than a month after her 88th birthday, Annie Reid Fraser "wore out." She had outlived her four brothers and four sisters and although they all lived into their seventies and eighties, she lived longer than any of them, except her oldest sister Mary, who lived to be 90.

Funeral services were held at the Pilot Mound United Church where she had been a faithful member for many years. She was buried beside her husband in the Pilot Mound cemetery.

Suggested Reading  (links to Amazon.ca)

• The Lady of the Lake, by Sir Walter Scott - a narrative poem first published in 1810. Set in the Trossachs region of Scotland, it is composed of six cantos, each of which concerns the action of a single day.
• The Scotch, by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1964. "The story of a community where love of money was the root of much virtue, and moderation in all matters a source of much esteem." Written by the well-known economist, but funnier than you'd think. Aunt Annie, however, found it rather insulting. She was not amused.
• How the Scots Invented the Modern World, by Arthur Herman, 2001. "The true story of how Western Europe's poorest nation created our world and everything in it." A New York Times Best Seller.
• Complete Works of Robert Burns, by the Scottish poet and lyricist known as the "Bard of Ayrshire."  Robbie Burns (1759-1796) is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide.
• Canadian Poets, by John William Garvin, 2008 reprint of orig. pub. 1916. Contains the poem "For He Was Scotch, and So Was She" by Jean Blewett (1872-1934).