John Robert Kennedy Main
M, #1130, b. 30 November 1893, d. circa 1978
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| Father | John Main b. 21 Jul 1846, d. c 1926 | |
| Mother | Isabella Clouston b. c Sep 1854, d. c 1912 | |
John Robert Kennedy Main|b. 30 Nov 1893\nd. c 1978|p1130.htm|John Main|b. 21 Jul 1846\nd. c 1926|p1112.htm|Isabella Clouston|b. c Sep 1854\nd. c 1912|p1111.htm|John Main|b. b 24 Sep 1820\nd. 30 Dec 1896|p1115.htm|Elizabeth Turner|b. c Nov 1823\nd. 2 Mar 1883|p1116.htm|Thomas Clouston|b. c 1823\nd. 5 May 1903|p168.htm|Barbara R. Kennedy|b. 11 Jun 1829\nd. 31 Dec 1906|p171.htm| | ||
| Charts | Thomas Clouston (1823-1903) and the Russell, Kennedy and Main Connections |
| (Witness) History | 1 January 1893 | John Main left for Canada in 1892. Isabella and her four children, Barbara, Robert - who was an invalid due to a bad fall down their back stone steps at about four years old- , Russell and Thomas followed in May 1893. Uncle Kennedy Clouston accompanied them on the train from Newcastle to Liverpool where he put them on board the Cunard Liner bound for Quebec, City. Ten days later they docked and boarded a train that traveled via Montreal, Toronto, Fort William, Winnipeg, Regina, Medicine Hat to Calgary. They then transferred to another train heading to McLeod - the end of their rail journey. Thomas and Russell , being young, adventurous lads enjoyed the trip but Isabella, with Barbara's assistance, spent this difficult journey caring for young Robert who could not walk and the jerky motion of the train jarred his hip causing him great pain. He had to be carried to the washroom several times a day, food had to be purchased at points suggested by the trainmen and tea had to be made and meals served etc. Isabella's telegram to John did not reach him in time to meet the train in McLeod and of course Isabella was very disappointed and annoyed with this. The family slept in a one room shack, on a tarp on the floor with some blankets to keep them warm. The next morning at 10am father Main arrived driving a lumber wagon with a "fine" pair of Clydesdale horses. Isabella, Barbara, and Robert traveled by stage coach to Pincher Creek that afternoon while John, Russell, and Thomas rode the long, 33 mile, journey to Pincher Creek, with their luggage in the lumber wagon. They arrived in Pincher Creek just after midnight May 29th, 1893. The family spent the first couple of days in the village and on the third day drove the lumber wagon out to the Hodgkins ranch where they spent the night. The next morning the family moved in to the newly erected "slab" stable. Isabella must have been shocked with her circumstances. The stable was about 25'x40' with no floors or windows. There was no house yet on their 160 acres of Prairie land. They slept on a pile of hay on the bare floor, cooked on a wood stove and made a table to eat off of from old, rough board. There was a well about 125" from the barn along with a log henhouse and a one seater outside privy. These structures plus a sizeable rail corral entered by a fairly respectable gate were all the improvements that had been made. John Main had named their ranch, Flatworth after Isabella's mother's family estate in England. By the time Isabella and the children arrive in Alberta John Main had spent the sizable amount of money he had brought with him. Fortunately for the family Isabella was a wise business woman with a lot of Scottish common sense and she had refrained from giving John Main the entire family savings before he left so she arrived in Canada with funds and her furniture and began the task making a good life for her family. Apparently John Main was very loath to submit to this change of management and so the family was divided in to two camps for the next two years - Father versus the rest of the family. The family house was built and the family moved in to it in early October. Young Robert died a year after reaching Canada. Kennedy , the youngest member of the family, was born in Pincher Creek in 1894. By 1895 the entire family savings were gone and John Main left Canada for San Francisco intending to return to his profession of marine engineer and it was many years before the family saw him again. Isabella Clouston was left to raise her family in the "promised land". |
| Birth* | 30 November 1893 | Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada |
| (Witness) History | after 1906 | At some point JRK wrote his memories down of a trip made with his mother to North Shields in 1906. This is what he wrote;- “I must back-track a little in telling the story of my schooling--or the lack of it. I lost nearly five months of schooling in the winter of 1906-7, when I was 12 years old--again without any apparent set-back. 1906 had been a good year with us financially. We had a good number of steers for the market and prices were high. We had also gone in for wheat farming; had harvested a bumper crop and received a good price. It looked as though our fortunes were to be made at last. And, although mother's dream of leaving the "Balony" and returning to the Home Land could not be realized, she was at least able to return for a visit in fair style. She took me with her. This was my first experience of train travel and it made me sick. We travelled "second class" of course; no sleepers for us. We curled up on the plush double seats and caught what snatches of sleep we could get between whistles, stops and bumps. We also carried our own supply of food supplemented by the purchase of an occasional sandwich from the "newsie" who prowled up and down isles vending such items. Fortunately for my health and sanity, we stopped over for a couple of days at Portage la Prairie to visit my brother Tom, then employed in the engineering department of the Great Northern Railway. . But the remainder of the long tedious journey to Halifax, though lacking in detail from this distance, still leaves a vague feeling of revulsion. On the ship we also travelled second class which meant four small but clean and comfortable berths to a cabin and excellent dining-room facilities. I made use only of the former. I succumbed to sea-sickness the second day out and endured that agony until we made harbour in Liverpool. We reached North Shields in the middle of the night, caught a cab-- and I can still remember how it bumped and rattled over the cobble stones in those silent streets-- and finally pounded the knocker on the door of 56 Stanley Street where my Grandmother and aunts lived. They received us royally although a shadow was cast on the rejoicing by the death of grandmother Clouston, then well on in her eighties, a few days after our arrival. I believe that, only the hope of being reunited with her oldest daughter, had kept her alive for some months. The reunion consoled them both greatly and, I am sure, helped to sooth the pangs of loss felt by mother. I remember nothing of the funeral but I do vividly remember the parties and festivities that followed shortly thereafter: Christmas was upon us: the traditional Christmas of Dickens with parties, plum puddings and pantomimes. Harry Lauder was at the height of his popularity and we heard him in the theatre in Newcastle. Friends of the family gave many parties for youngsters of my age group at which I was the guest of honour-- the little colonial boy was a source of much interest and attraction to the pretty, bright-eyed, pink-cheeked girls who chose him as a partner in playing post office and a dozen other games where prize and penalty alike generally consisted in kissing or being kissed by some pretty miss. I revelled in it. And there was much visiting with cousins of whom there were scores. Indeed I stayed at my Uncle Kennedy’s where three cousins of about my age were my mentors, helping me fit into that new society without too many social blunders. But the cousin who ensnared me was a 14 year old beauty, the second daughter of a well to do broker, Uncle tom Williamson.. She was bright-eye, graceful and vivacious and obviously a little bit interested in me. Her older sister (of whom more later) drew my attention, with some asperity, to the fact that we were only second cousins with little claim on consanguinity. I was not impressed. Her name was Lylie, a name that stirred my pulse for a couple of years thereafter,. We corresponded in a desultory fashion for some time and then forgot. But I still remember with regret ou parting when we left Shields for return to Canada. She and her mother came to Stanley Street to see us off. While saying goodbyes, she suddenly touched my arm, shouted "tiggie" and darted into another room looking over her shoulder. It was a dismal flop. My dull wits failed to grasp the fact the triggie was the North Country equivalent for tag and that this was an invitation to chase her with what sweet delights of hurried kiss and caress at the end I can still guess at with pangs of regret. My mother belatedly pushed me and muttered "go ahead, chase her", but the moment was lost. This was my first love affair, pure, deep and dumb. I was hers, mind, memory and imagination and the experience left a mark on me, YQl!11g as I was. It was over a decade before I enjoyed thrill of anything as deep, disturbing and inducing. Of the journey home to Pincher Creek I remember little but that little is frightening. It was late March and the snow was disappearing on the prairies. But from the train windows we could see the frozen bodies of cattle strewn about the fields: some even froze standing upright in fence comers. 1906-7 was the worst winter ever experienced on the prairies. Blizzards followed on the heels of blizzards with intense cold spells in between: No benign Chinook to melt the snow and permit the cattle to feed. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died and thousands of ranchers were ruined. Our own little herd, cut down the previous autumn to permit more attention to wheat farming, sustained few losses so our home coming was after all, a cheerful event. Some minor consequences followed from the trip; I was accused of acquiring just a taint of an English accent; and my clothes, some of them cast-off from my well-to-do cousins, the Kennedy Cloustons, caused some taunts and jeering from my school fellows. I was not a particularly sensitive boy and paid little attention to either. And I passed my grade that year with no difficulty. This certainly added nothing to my academic standing but what a rich experience for one raised in my bucolic surroundings!: Tom Williamson has been identified as the husband of Agnes Russell Oats the cousin of his mother Isabella. Agnes's daughter Elizabeth is therefore Lylie. |
| Marriage* | circa July 1922 | Principal=Ethel Winnifred Godfrey |
| Death* | circa 1978 |
Family | Ethel Winnifred Godfrey b. c 1892, d. 14 Aug 1970 | |
| Children |
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| Last Edited | 22 Apr 2006 |