The Sudbury Family (to 1967)
William Sudbury came to Canada in 1904, landing in Russell on
April 1st. He came from Yorkshire, England, the second son of John Sudbury.
He came to work at the home of L. J. Carr who had been a neighbor of his in England.
In the fall he was joined by Herbert Sudbury, who worked for Will
Pagan for a year. The following spring May 24th, the third brother Ernest
also came to Canada.
The three boys pooled their resources and bought a farm E 1/2 of
24-22-29 at the princely sum of seven dollars an acre. Their home for the summer was a
shanty they bought for fifty dollars. When winter came the shanty proved too cold, so they
batched with E. S. Brown on a neighboring farm. The following spring, they bought a
setting of logs for twenty-one dollars, and had a bee to construct their new home. Some of
the men who attended the Bee were Billy Fisher, Sandy Stewart, Alex Roberts, Ted and Will
Pagan and Harry Hooper. Lumber sold for seventeen dollars a thousand, so their new home
was not too expensive. The shanty was added as a back porch. This house is still standing
on the adjoining quarter section, and was in use as a hen house until very recent years.
In 1908 William Sudbury married Mabel Landon, a
daughter of a pioneer family from the Brightside district. They had two children, Norman
who died as a child in 1920, and Edith whose husband Bob Witty,
still farms this land. In 1916 the log house was replaced by a three-storey frame
building, at a total cost of twenty-five hundred.
At the time of Will's marriage Herbert and Ernest bought another farm a
mile away. Land prices were rising, and they now paid eleven dollars an acre. A frame
house was constructed in l910. In 1914 Herbert married Madeline Landon,
his brother's wife's sister. They had five children. Cyril, Gwen, Doris, Ernest
and Bernice. The two boys still farm in the Royston district, Ernest living on
the home farm.
Herbert Sudbury tells of hauling feed oats to the mule
teams (95 mules) which worked in constructing the railway over the muskeg and high grade,
south-east of Shellmouth 1907. At 11:45 the mules started getting very awkward, at the 12
o'clock whistle, they stopped dead in their tracks, even if half-way up a hill. the men
carried blocks to place under wheeled scrapers to prevent accidents. In the winter the
mules worked in the lumber camps, then were turned loose on the river flats in the spring
till railway construction started. Alberta cowboys were hired to catch some of the wilder
mules.
In 1912 Ernest bought himself a farm and in 1916 he married Eileen
Stevenson, a minister's daughter from Shellmouth. Ernest served overseas for
three years, returning badly wounded in 1919. In the meanwhile his wife had died of the
flu in 1918. Ernest died as a result of war wounds in l922.
William Sudbury resided on their farm at Royston till 1934, when they
moved to the Londonderry district. He took a keen interest in municipal and school
affairs. He was a councillor in the Shellmouth municipality. Cyril Sudbury also served in
this capacity. The Sudbury's, along with Stuart McLennan, worked hard on the organization
of Royston school, which opened in 1921. From this time till the school closed in 1965,
thert was either a Sudbury on the school board, or a child attending school there
generally one of both. The school was named after their home in England.
William Sudbury also served as trustee and secretary of Londonderry
school. He was president of the Agricultural Society of Shellmouth for nine years. In 1941
he retired to Russell where he lived until his death in 1963. Herbert retired to Russell
in 1950 and is still living there.
In 1953, Ann Jean and John (children of the eldest brother, J.P. Sudbury) came to Canada after the death of their father. In 1956 Ann married Gordon Chandler, and resides in the Brightside district.
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