In August 2023, I wrote “Whatever Happened to Great-Granny Harriet?” here. I had found a little newspaper clipping about her death in Nova Scotia while she was visiting her only daughter, Eva Gauld and her family. However, that little clipping didn’t include much information about my great-grandfather, Edward – no “grieving husband” or “beloved wife” – the typical wording common in obituaries of the time. I wondered where he was while she was away travelling to Cape Breton, and how and when he had heard the tragic news. It wasn’t even clear if he was in the country at the time, or was able to attend the funeral, or even still alive! Somehow, I took this lack of detail to mean that there might have been a family “situation” of some sort — were they perhaps estranged? It was what wasn’t said that seemed significant. I have been sad about that for many years.

Recently, while searching on newspapers.com for something completely different, I got several hits on the name “Gauld” in a Halifax newspaper. I followed these up, and one of them was, surprisingly, about the death of Mrs. Burch in Cape Breton. I hadn’t expected to see that, as Halifax is at least 400 km away from little North Sydney where Eva and her family were living at the time. Why would this remote death be considered of interest to residents of Halifax? And of an Ontario woman at that?

But for me, it was very interesting indeed! This serendipitous little item shed a whole new light on the sad events of April 1898:

If that’s a bit too difficult to read, here’s the transcription:

“We record to-day the death of the wife of Edward Burch, of Toronto, at North Sydney. Mrs. Burch was in company with Mr. Burch, visiting their daughter, Mrs. Wm. Gauld. She was but a few days ill of pneumonia. Mr. Burch left on the sad home journey Friday morning, accompanying the remains of his wife. The interment will take place at Peterborough, Ont.

Edward was there! He was with Harriet, as they enjoyed a visit with their daughter and three little grandchildren.* Edward was not estranged, nor missing, nor out of the country– he was at Harriet’s side and accompanied her body back to Ontario, no doubt by train. Indeed, that would have been a sad journey, but I am glad to know they were together for her final days.

*(Eva, aged three, William, nearly two and Clarence, six months. Eva was expecting her fourth child at the time, John, due in November, and would eventually have a family of eleven, eight of whom survived the dangerous infant years.)

Tags: Burch, newspaper, Nova Scotia