Frederick Puzey - Forgotten no more

The headstone with the addition of Frederick Puzey's information. 

In my previous post, I shared some of the history of my grandfather's father. Frederick Puzey Sr. who left his family in Utah to settle in Southern Alberta. He had family join him for a time here in Canada and visits back and forth but on his farm in Champion, he lost his wife, Emily early and was left alone with my 12 year old grandfather Fred. 

Emily, young Fred and Frederick Puzey

And then, when my grandfather was 27, Fred Puzey Sr. passed on. It wasn't a year later that Fred Jr. married my grandmother Hannah Toone and Canada joined in the war.  And with that, a gravestone was never placed on the plot in the Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge Alberta.

And then it was forgotten. Over the years, my mother has no recollection of ever knowing where her grandparents were buried or visiting the cemetery.  And I knew that I had a picture of Emily's  headstone but never realized that I had never seen one for Fred.  

When I started to do some investigating, it was still during the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic but living in Calgary, emails and phone calls work just as well. I started with the cemetery office itself.  They double checked that there was not a memorial that just hadn't been photographed, but confirmed that there was no marker indicating Fred's burial next to his wife.  Then I asked about the process of getting a new headstone placed and was told my next steps were to check with a company directly who would do the work and recommended to go with a Lethbridge company that would be familiar with the regulations and processes for the local cemetery.  

When I asked for advice, a friend recommended Lethbridge Monumental and I was on the phone asking questions. They were great to work with and sent someone out to the site to check it out and came back with the recommendation to add the inscription to the existing stone as it appeared to have had room left on it for this purpose.  When Emily passed in 1924, they were the only company in town and would have been the ones responsible for the original headstone!  Seemed even more fitting that they complete the job that they had started then.  They removed the stone to take back to their shop for the engraving and matched the type with the original.  When they re-installed the stone, they cleaned the base. 

Thanks go to all the four families of Frederick Puzey Sr.'s four grandchildren - my mom and aunt and the families of my uncle and aunt who have already joined Great Grandpa Fred and other family gone before us.  Everyone was so willing to help out with the cost and support getting this done. I am so very pleased that this is no longer missing.  

I hope everyone will have a chance to visit the Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge - at 1210 Scenic Drive South.  Check out this map if you visit - you will find Fred and Emily's graves in Block C, Lot 27 graves 1E and 2E.   

Frederick Puzey - In Memoriam

Frederick Puzey with wife Emily Neilson and son Freddie (likely taken in 1918). 

Frederick Puzey, my great-grandfather, was the eldest son of Henry William Puzey and Lydia Ann Pollard. He was born on October 4, 1875 in Spring City, San Pete, Utah. His father was a wagon maker, following in his father, Joseph Henry's profession after following his father across the plains to join with the Latter-Day Saints in Utah. His mother was also an early pioneer in the church - walking much of the way at the age of 5. In 1887, when Frederick was 13 and had 5 younger siblings, his father died. 

Fred (on left) with his younger siblings and mother after his father's death. (1887?)

In 1902, he emigrated to Canada and tried to settle in Raymond, but in 1905 he moved to the family homestead in Champion Alberta with his friend Parley Peterson on a homestead nearby. He became a naturalized citizen of Canada in 1906. 

Fred Puzey returned to Utah and married Emily Neilson from Sweden in Spring City on March 10, 1910. She returned to Canada with him where they lived in a two room home on the farm. You can see a picture of this original homestead in the banner on this website with Emily standing at the door of their home. 

On August 25, 1911, their only child, Frederick Elmer Puzey, was born. In 1918, the family was sealed together in the Salt Lake Temple on a trip to the United States after a good crop. They visited with relatives in Utah and appear to have even made it as far south as California where they visited the Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena.  

 

Fred's 2 time brother-in-law (Charles Neilson (his wife's brother and married to Fred's sister) moved up to Canada and sent for his family to join him in 1919.  They lived and worked Fred's ranch in Mountain View with sheep, cows and a few horses for a while- staying in the area until the late 1930s.  

Emily passed away from pneumonia just before their son's birthday 1924, leaving her husband to raise their 12 turning 13 year old son. 

Frederick returned to Utah andin 1925, he married a widow, Mary Ohlin, also from Sweden and brought her back up to the farm in Champion. 

Frederick passed away at the age of 63 after a lingering illness. His son Fred, my grandfather, was 27 years old at the time and before a year had past, he was married to my grandmother Hannah. 

Just two days before the first anniversary of Frederick Puzey's death, Canada entered World War II.  Newly married and with our country now at war, I can understand how getting a grave marker for his father's place of rest may not have been a priority for my grandfather. 

However, as I have been using checklists to gather documents and images in my research (using the Family Tree Notebook system shared by Carly Morgan) I realized that this oversight has never been corrected.  

Frederick's first wife, Emily Neilson, has a large impressive tombstone in the Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge, Alberta.  Fred is buried next to her but with no marker to indicate this.  The location, if you are close and want to visit is Block C Lot 27 Grave 1E and 2E. 

There is room under Emily's information to add Fred's name and birth and death year. I've been in touch with both the cemetery and Lethbridge Monumental to sort out the process and get a quote on the work. 

 

If you are part of the Puzey clan and would like to contribute to this, I would appreciate any help you could give.  

I know that with cremations and with our families growing, looking back at the life of a great grandparent and marking his grave may not seem like a priority for our funds these days. But when I talked to mom, she said she never even realized that her grandmother and grandfather were buried there in Lethbridge and I wonder why this was.  It is possible that the lack of marking his father's grave would have made Grandpa not want to bring attention to this.   

I know often when I drive south, I stop in Champion to visit the cemetery where my grandparents were laid to rest. And after spending some time in the states during the Memorial Day weekend in 2019 and seeing how much the families there acknowledge their ancestors on this weekend(it used to be called "Decoration Day" and that is still what many do at the cemeteries), it is something I have a greater appreciation for.  

It is possible my interpretation of events is inaccurate and if anyone has any more relevant background on any of these events, I would love to learn more about them! All I can know for certain are the facts and dates when some of these events happened. 

To learn more about Fred Puzey and your own ancestral trees, you can find these new Discovery Pages hosted by FamilySearch or sign up for free and research your own family.  

Family Connections Experiment - Day One

 

With all that the world is dealing with during this pandemic, the opportunity to hold the RootsTech conference virtually has opened up this amazing experience to over a million participants during the actual event and countless more as the presentations and resources continue to be available for the next 11 months. 

I binge watched most of the keynotes and visited many of the exhibit hall virtual booths during the three days of the conference.  I made sure to watch both the leadership presentation for Temple and Family History consultants and the Discovery Day presentation with Elder Holland and his family. I also joined in with the viral trend of posting the animated images of ancestors that I created using the My Heritage Deep Nostalgia tool. Here is an example with a picture of Mary Ann Wateridge (1825 - 1886) 1st wife of Joseph Henry Puzey. 

I was also able to catch a few sessions, knowing I will have time to continue to view these videos over the next few weeks and months. 

The Family Connections Experiment is something I have been following on social media for some time but I have never properly joined the 21 day challenge.  After learning more about them at the conference, I joined this month's challenge - the Genealogy Bootcamp.  I like that you can customize the daily plans if something isn't a fit for you. So I might do a mix of the Tech plans as well.  

Today is Day One and the task is to identify a family story to investigate. 

“Every family has a story that it tells itself, that it passes on to the children and grandchildren. The story grows over the years, mutates, some parts dropped, and there is often debate about what really happened.” – A. M. Homes

The easiest time period for finding records or evidence to confirm family stories would be within the range of 1880s to 1940s.  I have already done some digging on our early family stories. I have found records that correct the birthdate recorded on the gravestone for my Great Great Grandfather Herbert Rhodes.  I have investigated timelines for when the different lines of the family ended up in Alberta. I've even gone back earlier to identify the different ancestors on my maternal line who made the trek across the United States to settle in Utah during the time of migration in the mid 19th century.  So choosing a family story to research isn't an easy choice. 

Joseph Henry Puzey (1828-1896)

I have been working on the Puzey line -  filling in the story of Joseph Henry Puzey and learning about his time in England, his parents and his siblings, how he left his childhood home and then his married home to make that journey out to the Utah Valley. I have some of the pieces but I have never put them together in one place to see what is missing and then shared it with the rest of the family.  I've been fascinated to share more after coming across a newspaper article that outlined his death which I wrote about in an earlier blog post.  

So for 21 days, this will be part of what I take on with the goal of having a fuller story to tell at the end. Many of the pieces are already known and just need to be gathered and the goal is  to confirm these with original sources. 

If you know of a family story on the Rhodes, Roots, Puzey or Toone line that might be worth researching and confirming, please let me know!