Correspondence from Percy Edward Millard - Manitoba Historical Society

Imagine...

You are in England. The year is 1897. You are a young man of 18 living with your mother and father in a modest end-of-terrace house in a busy built-up suburb of South East London.

The house is comfortable, but not really large enough, and you have to share with two brothers and three sisters. Still, you have a happy life and your family is a loving, caring one. You enjoy choral singing, playing your flute, dancing and swimming or diving at the local baths. You have been working as a clerk, perhaps in the local bank like your father. You write clearly, and even know shorthand like your younger brother Syd and older sister Beat. You also seem to be getting on well with your girlfriend Millie, but who knows?

Then, for no reason you can explain, you decide that this life is not for you and tell your parents that you intend to leave England, go to Canada, and become a farmer. Your parents are dismayed, they may never see you again, letters take two weeks each way and you know nothing about farming. What are you thinking?

It takes time, but eventually they realise that you are not to be dissuaded and give their blessing and a farewell party, and on 9th April 1898 you depart Liverpool on the SS Gallia bound for St John NB and Halifax NS. You sail in ‘Steerage’.

Now fast forward 120 years. Your great nephew (Edmund Dwyer) is trying to clear some of the ‘stuff’ that is stored in the loft of his garage. He comes upon some rolled-up typewritten copies of letters as well as bundles of original letters, sent from Canada by Percy Edward Millard to his folks back home in England. Probably no-one has looked at them for a hundred years...

 

Read more: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/memoirs/millard.pdf

 

From the Manitoba Historical Society