Sunday’s Obituary: Florence Cazakoff

Florence was the first wife of Lawrence (Larry) Cazakoff, my husband’s maternal uncle.

A younger daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth (Strelaeff) Perepelkin (var. Perepolkin), Florence was born on 25 July 1914 in Veregin [sic], Saskatchewan. She married John Remesoff by whom she had four children. He passed away in 1945.

Florence married Larry in 1968, but they did not have children. It was a brief union, because Florence died on 11 April 1970 in Kamsack, Saskatchewan after “a short illness”. She was interred three days later in Riverview Cemetery in Kamsack.

My late father-in-law Bill, who collected obituaries of family, friends, and acquaintances, added the year 1970 in pen at the top of the (yellowed) obituary clipping.

Source:

“Florence Cazakoff”, obituary, undated (1970) clipping, from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, Hope, British Columbia, 2018. Yvonne received an assortment of family memorabilia (including Florence’s obituary) from her father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff in 2012.

Copyright © 2018, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Lucy Demosky’s Death Registration

Earlier this year, Caroline Pointer at BloggingGenealogy.com asked her readers “What's your 2016 Blogging Genealogy goal?”. Was it to “to blog more in general? More consistently? Concentrate more on just a handful ancestors?”

Since I just discovered Caroline’s article, I picked a prompt at random – the January 3 one titled “Memento Mori "Remember You Die" Day”.

Once we get past the ‘morbid’ aspect, Caroline encourages us to write about an ancestor’s death certificate or record. The goal is to take the details apart and see what we can learn (or not) from the person’s life from the document. Alternatively, we can transcribe the details as a blog post.

Lucy Demosky's registration of death

I chose to write about my husband’s paternal grandmother Lucy (aka Luchenia, Lukeria) (Tomelin) Demosky’s death registration (above). [1] I’ve abstracted the following details:

1. Place of death
- rural: Edmonton […] Rge: 021-11
- city: Edmonton Alberta
- hospital: General Hospital

2. Date of death: May 1 1960

3. Length deceased resided
- where death occurred: 2 yrs
- in Alberta: 2 years
- in Canada, if immigrant: 61 yrs

4. Name of deceased: Lucy Demosky

5. Permanent residence of deceased
- rural: Rge 032-11
- city: Jasper Place
- street address: 8902 – 15 st.
- province: Alberta
- country: Canada

6. Sex: F / 7. Citizenship: Canadian / 8. Racial origin: Russian / 9. Province, state or country of birth: Russia

10. Date of birth: October 18 1885 / 11. Age: 74 years 6 months 13 days

12. Kind of work: House – wife / 13. Last worked at his occupation: April 7 1960 / total number of years engaged in this occupation: life

14. Single, married, widowed or divorced: widowed / Name of Husband: William Demosky

15. Name of father: Nick Tomelin / 16. Maiden name of mother: [unknown] Terichow / 17. Birthplace of father: Russia / 18. Birthplace of mother: Russia

19. Proposed date of burial: May 4 1960 / proposed place of burial: Kamsack Sask. / Tolstoi Cementery [sic]

Informant: Fred Demosky / relationship: Son / date: May 1st 1960

Now that I’ve taken apart the details about Lucy’s death, one item stands out – her date of death. Lucy’s son, my late father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff, believed that his mother died on 28 April 1960. [2] Yet, I see that her death was registered as “May 1 1960”. Could her son Fred, the informant, have made a mistake and put an incorrect date of death?

As I pondered this dilemma, it occurred to me that neither my husband nor his father possessed a newspaper obituary for Lucy. After a quick search on the internet, I saw that the Edmonton (Alberta) Public Library has an online searchable birth, marriage, death index. I looked for Lucy’s obituary in “Edmonton Obituaries” and found it in the 3 May 1960 edition of the Edmonton Journal. [3] The newspaper wasn’t online, so my husband Michael sent an email to EPL’s “Ask Us” service. A librarian replied the very next day with a scan of the obituary. (Thank you, EPL!) Lucy’s obit stated that “On May 1st Mrs Lucy Demosky […] passed away […]”. [4] It looks like Bill's memory wasn't accurate on this point, after all.

My husband then called his cousin Harvey to see if he knew when their grandmother died, but he didn’t remember. He explained that she was living with him and his parents when she suffered a stroke at home. Lucy was taken to the hospital and died there a few days later. Harvey added that he didn’t have any paperwork (like her obituary) or photos of his grandmother that he could share with us.

What else did I learn about Lucy? She was born in Russia on 18 October 1885 to Nick Tomelin and his wife (first name unknown) Terichow. In my opinion, her date of birth might only be a guess, though, because at this time in their history, Doukhobors did not believe in state interference in their lives and did not register vital events. Later, after immigrating to Canada, some, but not all, Doukhobors followed the government requirements and registered their children’s births.

According to the document, Lucy arrived in Canada “61 yrs” ago, that is, in 1899. That year is consistent with family tradition, according to my father-in-law, Bill (Lucy’s youngest child). [5]

The “proposed place” of burial – Tolstoi Cemetery in Kamsack, Saskatchewan – is not quite correct. Lucy was indeed interred at Tolstoy Cemetery, but it’s located a little to the north of Veregin, which is about 10 km west of Kamsack. [6]

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn Lucy’s mother’s given name. (Bill believed that his grandmother’s name was Maria or Anna.) I also didn’t learn precisely where Lucy and her parents were born in Russia.

Writing about Lucy’s death registration has been a worthwhile activity. I noticed details that I didn't the first time I looked at it and that led me to question certain points, which in turn led me to search out (and get) Lucy's obituary. 

Sources:

1. Province of Alberta Department of Public Health, registration of death, no. 08-009495, Lucy Demosky (1960); Division of Vital Statistics, Edmonton.

2. William (Bill) Demoskoff, “Descendents of Mikhail (Konkin) Demofski) Demoskoff” [sic]; supplied by Bill Demoskoff, Grand Forks, BC. This unpublished and undated typescript consisting of six pages was researched by Bill Demoskoff probably in the 1980s or 1990s. The original typescript containing no supporting documentation for its data was given by the compiler to his daughter-in-law Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff in the 1980s or 1990s.

3. “Edmonton Obituaries”, epl.ca (https://www2.epl.ca/Obituaries/Obituaries.cfm : accessed 12 April 2016), entry for Lucy Demosky, 3 May 1960. The Edmonton Public Library has a searchable index for the Edmonton Journal, with index coverage from January 1950 to December 1982.

4. Mona Bacon, Librarian, EPL (Stanley Al. Milner Library), Edmonton, Alberta to Michael Demoskoff, email, 13 April 2016, “Demosky Obituary”; privately held by Michael Demoskoff, Hope, British Columbia, 2016. Mona attached a scan of Lucy Demosky’s obituary from the Edmonton Journal of May 3, 1960 in her email to Michael. The scanned image does not show the newspaper’s edition date or the page number on which the obituary appears.

5. William (Bill) Demoskoff, “Descendents of Mikhail (Konkin) Demofski) Demoskoff” [sic]; supplied by Bill Demoskoff, Grand Forks, BC.

6. “Tolstoy Cemetery - Veregin District, Saskatchewan”, Doukhobor Genealogy Website (http://www.doukhobor.org/Cemetery-Tolstoy.html : accessed 12 April 2016), entry for Lukeria N. Demoskoff [sic].

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Those Places Thursday: Evadale School in Saskatchewan

I’ve long wanted to write an article about my husband’s elementary school days, especially because he had such a different experience than I did. For instance, he went to a one-room rural school on the Prairies, while I went to an urban school in northeastern Ontario. He received a public education, while I was taught by nuns and secular teachers.

Michael attended Evadale School, located about seven miles northwest of Arran, Saskatchewan. He was there for Grades 1 through 5, from September 1959 until June 1964. Later, when his sister was old enough, she too went to Evadale, but only for Grades 1 through 3, because the family moved into the nearby town of Kamsack. Michael took these photos on a trip to his home province in the summer of 1973.

I've gathered his reminiscences in point form.

• My Dad told me that we lived exactly the same distance from three schools, but he chose to send us to Evadale.

• The school was three miles east from our farm. For the first couple of grades, my Dad drove me until I was old enough to walk by myself or with friends.

• My Mom used to tell me the story about my very first day at school (Grade 1) and how I couldn’t wait to get there, but when I arrived, I started to cry and refused to go inside. It took a lot of coaxing and I finally went inside.

• The school was on two acres. There were swings and teeter-totters, a teacher’s residence, and off in the distance, a barn and an outhouse.

• It was one large building: 2/3 of it was one room for the classroom with a wood-burning stove, then the other 1/3 was divided into the entrance (we’d hang our coats and leave our boots here; firewood was also kept here) and a storage room for supplies.

• Just about every year we had a different teacher. There were about 28-32 kids in all per year. Sometimes there’d be only one student in a grade. Our teacher taught one grade at a time.

• I think I started walking to school in Grade 3. I remember meeting up with my friends Dmitro, Doris, and Lawrence on the way.

• I’d leave about 45 minutes before class started. Some days I’d take my time and explore the bushes on the side of the road. One day I was late and was scared to go inside, so I stayed outside and sat by myself. A student going to the outhouse saw me near the school door and he told the teacher. She came out and asked me why I didn’t go inside. After talking to me for a bit, she told me to not worry and just go to my seat and that no one would notice.

• In good weather, my sister and I would walk or take a two-seat horse buggy that we’d park at the school’s large barn. There was room for about a dozen horses.

• I don’t remember which horse it was, maybe Fly or Prince, but after it was trained, it knew the route to take, enter the school grounds and pull up to the barn. I’d unhitch him, take him inside to his stall and then give him some hay.

• In winter, we’d get into an old car that my Dad had removed the roof and dashboard, and added runners. Our horse would pull the car to school. When it was very cold, my sister and I wrapped ourselves in blankets and duck under where the dashboard used to be to keep warm.

• I remember we had sports days before the end of the school year. I usually would enter track-and-field events like broad jump, high jump and 100-yard dash. Sometimes, I’d get ribbons for broad jump.

• I did well at school and almost always got straight As. It was hard to leave all the friends I made there when we moved into town in July 1964.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors 2015: #25 Little House on the (Canadian) Prairie

I’m participating in “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition” by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small.

For the 25th week of this challenge, I used the optional weekly theme (The Old Homestead) and chose to write about the prairie home of my parents-in-law Bill and Ann Demoskoff.

Demoskoff family home in late 1952

Bill and Ann lived in the central Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Their house wasn’t an ‘old homestead’, but it was their first home as a married couple. Since the house was purpose-built, I decided to record my husband’s childhood memories and conversations we had with his late father about their Prairie family home.

Before he married, my father-in-law Bill owned some property (two quarter sections, each 160 acres) about ten miles north of Pelly, located in Saskatchewan’s Aspen Parkland region. Since neither land had a house, Bill lived about half a mile away to the north of his quarter sections in a house he shared with a friend.

In the spring of 1952, Ann’s brother Larry asked Bill where he and his sister were going to live after their June wedding. My husband doesn’t know what his father replied, but whatever he said, it seems that Larry had other plans. He and his brothers Fred and Pete decided to build Ann a house as their gift to her. (She was their only sister and the youngest of the family.)

The brothers needed lumber, so they asked around to see if any farmers were allowed to harvest timber. Fred eventually found two loads of green timber and borrowed a neighbor’s portable planer to convert the timber to usable lumber. Larry, Fred, and Pete began by digging out a basement (on one of Bill’s quarter sections) using horses to drag out the dirt. They made forms and poured cement to make a foundation. After they back-filled the dirt to the foundation, they started framing the house. Later on, Larry got more sizes of lumber for finishing work, like cupboards.

My husband thinks the house was about 30’ x 40’. It had five rooms on the main floor: a living room, kitchen, pantry, and two bedrooms. A staircase in the living room led to the upstairs, which was divided in two large rooms that were used for storage. While they were young, my husband and his sister shared a bedroom on the main floor, but when he was about six years old, he moved upstairs where the south-facing room was converted into a bedroom for him. The bathroom (outhouse) was fifty feet down the hill at the back of the property.

The front door faced south towards the highway about fifty feet away. The kitchen, which faced north and east, had a wood-burning stove and a cast iron hand pump for water from the basement well. The house was wired for electricity, but Bill couldn’t afford the cost of residential power in the early years. Instead, a wind generator provided energy for indoor lighting.

My husband and his sister (seen above, ca 1963) and their parents lived here until the summer of 1964. That year, Bill sold his farm and moved with his family to the nearby town of Kamsack.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

In Memoriam: George Cazakoff

George and Polly Cazakoff, 1950s

Today (March 12) marks the fifty-sixth anniversary of the death of my husband’s maternal grandfather George Wasilievitch Cazakoff. (For a brief explanation of this surname, see Surname Saturday: Cazakoff.)

George was born on 21 January 1884 in Orlovka, a village in Tiflis province in the Caucasus region of the Russian empire, now in present-day Georgia. [1] His Russian name was Gregorii.

George was one of at least four children of Wasyl Wasilievitch Cazakoff and Fedosia N. Savinkoff, Doukhobor pacifists. (I’ve previously written about this Russian religious group in Family History Through the Alphabet – S is for …) He had an older brother Mikhail (Michael), and a younger brother Nikolai (Nicholas) and sister Pologea (Polly).

In the late 1890s, George, his parents and siblings were part of a group of over 2,000 Doukhobors who left Russia for Canada. According to family tradition, they sailed on the chartered Canadian freighter S.S. Lake Huron from the Black Sea port of Batum on 22 December 1898, and arrived nearly one month later in January 1899 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. [2]

S.S. Lake Huron [3]

The Cazakoffs settled in what was known as the South Colony in the District of Assiniboia (now the province of Saskatchewan). [4] This land, or reserve, had been specially set aside for the new Doukhobor immigrants. (Other Doukhobor immigrants settled in the Saskatchewan Colony, the Good Spirit Lake Annex and the North Colony.)

About 1905, the family moved to Simeonovka (aka Semenova), a village in the North Colony, where George married Polya Iwanovitch Poznekoff. [5] Polya, known as Polly in English, was also a Doukhobor immigrant.

The couple had nine children between 1907 and 1926: Wasyl, John, Philip, Peter, Alex, Nicholas, Lawrence, Fred and Ann. Sons Wasyl and Alex died as infants. [6]

George, Polly and their sons (left to right) Philip, Pete, John and baby Nick, 1919
in front of George's first car, a 1918 Chevrolet

In 1910, George, his father and younger brother withdrew from communal living and became independent Doukhobors. [7] About six years later, George acquired a homestead in St. Phillips Rural Municipality, about ten miles northwest of Kamsack, in eastern Saskatchewan. [8]

After 39 years of agricultural work, George retired from farming in the mid-1950s. [9] He and Polly built themselves a house in the town of Kamsack, where they lived until George was taken ill.

George died on 12 March 1958 in Kamsack Union Hospital. [10] His six surviving sons were pallbearers at his funeral service two days later in the Kamsack Doukhobor Prayer Home. [11] George is interred in Riverview Cemetery, Kamsack. [12]

George Cazakoff's funeral, with his sons as pallbearers, 1958

My husband Michael, who was only 5 years old when his grandfather died, has few memories of him. He remembers that he paid one or two visits to his grandparents’ large house with its wide veranda, and that George smoked cigars.

Sources:

1. History Coming Alive, R.M. of St. Philips, Pelly and District, 2 vols. (Pelly, Saskatchewan: St. Philips/Pelly History Book Committee, 1988), I: 382.

2. “Doukhobors at Halifax”, The Globe, 21 January 1899, p. 13, cols. 6-7; digital images, The Globe and Mail (http://heritage.theglobeandmail.com : accessed 10 April 2009).

3. Photo of S.S. Lake Huron (built 1881), digital image, Norway – Heritage (http://www.norwayheritage.com : accessed 18 January 2014).

4. History Coming Alive, I: 383.

5. History Coming Alive, I: 384.

6. History Coming Alive, I: 384.

7. History Coming Alive, I: 383.

8. History Coming Alive, I: 384.

9. History Coming Alive, I: 384.

10. Province of Saskatchewan, death registration, no. 07-002372 (1958), George Wasyl Cazakoff; Department of Public Health – Division of Vital Statistics, Regina.

11. George W. Cazakoff’s In Memoriam: A Memorial Book, Kamsack, Saskatchewan, citing funeral service on 14 March 1958; privately held by Edna (Arishenkoff) Cazakoff, White Rock, British Columbia, 2011. Edna, George’s daughter-in-law, allowed her nephew Michael Demoskoff to scan the memorial booklet during a visit to her home in January 2011. The “Pall Bearers” section lists the names of George’s sons as the pallbearers.

12. “Doukhobors in Riverview Cemetery – Kamsack, Saskatchewan”, database, Doukhobor Genealogy Website (http://www.doukhobor.org/Cemetery-Kamsack.htm : accessed ), entry for George W. Cazakoff (1884-1958).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: Paul Stooshinoff

Paul Stooshinoff obituary, 1972

Forty-one years ago today (6 October 1972) a single-car accident claimed the life of Paul Stooshinoff. He was only 20 years old. He was one of my husband Michael’s school friends.

Paul and Michael met as teenagers in junior high school in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, where they lived. They hung out together with other boys from school, like Kerry Horkoff and Danny Derhousoff. After Michael graduated from Kamsack Collegiate and moved to Grand Forks, British Columbia, Paul and Kerry followed him there to find work.

One autumn afternoon, Paul lost control of his Dodge Charger and struck a tree on a quiet residential street in Grand Forks. He died at the scene.

The funeral, which took place in Kamsack, was co-officiated by Michael's maternal uncle, Larry Cazakoff.

Paul's tragic and untimely death deeply affected his family, his girlfriend, his friends and co-workers. Michael has never forgotten his friend who died so young and so long ago.

Source:

Paul Stooshinoff, obituary, undated clipping (1972), from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, British Columbia. Yvonne acquired assorted memorabilia (including Paul’s obituary) in January 2012 from her father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday's Obituary: Polly Cazakoff

Mrs. Polly (née Poznekoff) Cazakoff was my husband's maternal grandmother. Her Russian name was Polya, a diminutive of Pelageya.

Polly Cazakoff obituary, 1971.

Source: "Mrs. Polly Cazakoff", undated clipping, 1971, from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, British Columbia, 2012. Yvonne acquired an assortment of family memorabilia in January 2012 from her father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff, including this obituary of his mother-in-law Polly, who died on 4 June 1971.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.