VAN HORN - LEVI 1879

My Family Memories

Levi Van Horn & Christina LeBar

Levi & Teeny on their Wedding Day

January 18, 1905

Levi Van Horn & Christina LeBar

Their Family

In the Beginning: Levi & Christina were farmers.

FAMILY NOTES General1:

HUSBAND NOTES: Benjamin Levi VAN HORN* General2:

Levi's ancestry was that his family were Pennsylvania Dutch Extraction and they were Quakers. He worked at farming on the Manitoulin Island and would take his animals to Gore Bay for shipment. In the winter he would go to logging camps and Teeny and their children would take care of the farm. Times were tough on the island so in 1922 he packed up his family and went to Saskatawan to homestead. Levi took the train and rode in the cattle car along with his stock that he brought with him. After settling around Snowden, Saskatchewan, he told of the time he went to Moosejaw in the horse and buggy and on his way home and snowstorm blew up and how hard it was to get back home. Apparently, his team got on the wrong track, one horse having it easier, while the other was off the trail. When he did get home he had a pair of pretty tired horses and Levi wasn't in too great of spirits either. Other times, during a snowstorm, farmers would tie a rope around them, just to go to the barn. If they didn't it was quite possible to get lost in a blizzard, and freeze to death, only ten feet from the buildings. Times seemed to get harder out west when the depression hit. Uncle Gordon told me he would never eat another carrot as long as he lived, because carrots and potatoes were all they had one winter. At one time Levi went to the food office for a bag of flour and sugar and they told him that he had nothing to give to them, his reply was that he wasn't going home empty handed and sat there all day. At the end of the day, when they wanted to close up, Levi was still there, they gave him his bag of flour and sugar. Levi had a blood disorder, from what I'm told it was leukemia and he died there in 1940.

Marie Clarke has obit in photo album.

Levi Van Horne m Christina Le Bar - died Nov 14, 1940 Snowden, Sask. B. Oct 16, 1879. Moved from Manitoulin to Saskatchen. 1924, Second youngest of 11. B. at Osprey Twp. Parents Mr. & Mrs. Luke Van Horn Left to mourn - Widow & six children & six brothers.

WIFE NOTES: Christina (Teeny) LEBAR*

General3: Levi and Teeny left the Manitoulin Island in 1922 and they homesteaded 30 miles north of Moosejaw. Times on the praries were very tough. Mae was married and had moved to the United States with Milton. After Levi died Teeny went to Toronto with Jean, Laura, Ardeth and Gordon. She sewed articles for the Eaton Company and had a boarding house. Jonas stayed in Sackatawan and married there.

CHILD NOTES: Anna May (Mae) VAN HORN* Birth4:

Cit5: General6: Mae grew up on the Manitoulin Island. She often told stories of how things were back then. At that time life was enjoyable and also difficult. Mae was a wonderer at a very young age and her mother tying a white kerchief on her head so that she could be easily spoted, another time her mother couldn't find her and she had fallen asleep and how the horse had stood over her, protecting her so no harm would come to her, and one time when her mother found her standing at the side of a river on the bridge with her toes tipping over, these things going on before she had gone to school. Mae being the first born and living on a farm, and her brother Jonas not very strong or healthy, took over most of the chores of a boy. She would tell me about holding animals for her father at slaughtering time, searching for the cows in the brush at milking time, doing farm chores daily before going off to school and going again after, the only time work was not done was on Sunday, except for what had to be taken care of. Mae played the organ at church, loved to run races at picnics, as no-one could catch her, going ice skating in winter, until she froze her feet, walking to school across the fields, four miles away and being able to almost touch the electric wires because the snow being so deep. Mae also raised a pig and lamb, the pig thinking it was a dog trying to get into the house and how her mother would get upset about that pig and when it was time for her father to take the animals to Gore Bay for shipping how she had to walk with the lamb, now big, because it didn't know it was really a farm animal. She told me of the hard times and the good times, all being equal. When Mae was 16 her parents, Jonas, Pearl, and Laura homesteaded 30 miles north of Moosejaw Saskatchwan, to a place called Baildon, Saskatchewan. There she met Milton, and they were married. In 1927 Mae and Harold went to Duluth, Minnisota, USA to join Milton. Mae became an American Citizen April 15, 1930. They had Floyd and Earl there and on Sept. 8, 1936 were divorced. Mae and her boys lived on the Cloquet River Island during the depression. She told me how they raised a fawn that had lost its mother and how the Warden would always try to catch them. He would tell her the day before that he had to come out to their place because of a report that they were caring for a wild animal, which was against the law. She said that one visitor that loved her soup and asked what is was and was promptly sick when she found out it was turtle soup. How Earl lost his 22 in the bottom of the river when his brother was close to being a target and the reason Earl was mechanical was because he tore apart his new wagon and was promptly told to put it back together. Things at that time were very tough for a woman alone with children, but they managed by hunting and fishing, living in what would be considered a shack, but enough to keep the wind and snow out, but barely. Mae worked in a Bachelors Club at one time with her boys, she mentioned that it was lite by batteries, but war was breaking out all around them. At age 15 Harold joined the US Army and before he could get home for leave Pearl Harbor was hit and he was off to war before Christmas 1941. Mae found work at the North Shore Manufacturing Co. in Duluth Minesota in 1942 making winter clothing for the soldiers and worked there for two years. In 1943 Floyd joined the US Navy Cee Bee Division and he was off too. Both of her sons were in the South Pacific and Harold caught Malaria and Floyd, well Mae nor the navy knew where he was for over 3 months. He was a POW of the Japanese. In 1942 Mae move to Ypsilati Michigan, and worked in the Ford Bomber Plant riviting B24 planes. She often talked about how some people there wanted to go on strike and Mae, among others, told them that she had two sons depending and defending their country with the planes that went out of that plant. She also said that they put out a plane an hour. When the war was over Mae would go to Toronto, Ontario to visit with her mother and sisters and it was there that she met Timothy and they were married. Mae and Tim built houses on Galloway Road side by side and when Linda was born they lived there. Tim built a house on McCowan Rd. and when Tim's parents became ill Mae looked after them until they died in 1955. In August 1955 Tim went to Minden to build cottages, so Mae stayed in Scarborough and raised Linda. In 1969 Linda was married and in 1970 Mae moved to Manitowaning, on the Manitoulin Island. James and Linda bought a house in 1972 and Mae moved in with them in Scarborough until she found an apartment. In 1980 she moved to Golden, British Columbia to be near to Linda and James and when they moved to Revelstoke, she moved there also. Mae died in Revelstoke, and James Linda Jason and Renee flew back to Scarborough to have her buried there with Earl.

CHILD NOTES: Jonas VAN HORN

Birth: Jonas and Margarie did not have any children General: Jonas stayed in Saskatchwan on the homestead. CHILD NOTES: Jennie Pearl VAN HORN

General: Jean worked as a seamstress for the Eaton Company in Toronto making draperies.

CHILD NOTES: Laura VAN HORN

General: Laura was a book binder by trade.

CHILD NOTES: Ardeth VAN HORN

General: Ardeth worked as a seamstress for the Eaton Company making draperies. She and Gordon adopted a boy and a girl.

CHILD NOTES: Gordon VAN HORN

General: Gordon learned a trade as an upholstery and moved to Alberta. The last I heard of him he lived in Nanton Alberta. I have since tried to find him but with no luck. I have learned that Goldon died of lung cancer.

SOURCES

1. Harold Martineau.

2. Linda Taylor (Huntington). as told to her by her mother, Mae.

3. Ibid. as told to her by her mother, Mae.

4. Document of Proof. Registrar - General of Ontario No. G5130 -Date of Issue Nov 21, 1927 year 1906 Book B Page 84.

5. Ibid. Certificate No. 2061 - City of Duluth.

6. Linda Taylor (Huntington). as told to her by her mother, Mae.

NOTE: If anyone can add to this Story of Levi (Benjamin) Van Horn or Christina LeBar please email me.

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