This story doesn't have anything to do with gardens or vegan-ness.
When I got back home, I looked through some old paperwork my parents had left behind. The Nanaimo Daily Free Press of Friday, November 26, 1954 printed a large article on the passengers of the Princess Royal, which had landed 100 years before. The story and photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham John Richardson was highlighted pink. Some other papers showed the family tree from me, to my father, to his mother, to her father, to his parents as being those same Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. So I'm pretty sure that tea pot belonged to my great-great grandmother, Seadonah Pearson Richardson, wife of Abraham John Richardson.
Last month I visited Nanaimo again. This time I studied up on my ancestors beforehand. I read that Seadonah was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery so I thought I would visit her grave; maybe take some flowers. Well, it was snowing heavily and about 8 inches covered everything when I set off for the cemetery after breakfast. Following the map, just a few blocks from the hotel, I still had to ask someone before I could make out a tiny unmarked park with maybe a dozen old headstones mounted into a small grassy mound. Most could still be read, but none were Seadonah's.
Visiting the Museum again, the General Manager Debbie Trueman and Curator David Hill-Turner gave me more information about the pioneers. I learned that every year the Princess Royal Day celebration is held at the Bastion on the waterfront on November 27 at 11:00 a.m, come rain or shine. It's only been cancelled once since the 1856, I guess.
And around the corner at the Nanaimo Archives, I learned that Seadonah was very likely still in the Pioneer Cemetery, but there was no way of knowing exactly where anymore as most headstones were long gone. So, Seadonah Pearson was born August 22, 1833, in Netherton, Straffordshire, England, and died April 5, 1969, in Nanaimo, BC, at the age of 35.
I don't think she was a vegan.
One day last year I was fortunate to visit Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. It was my first time there and I liked it immediately. In the back of my mind, I remembered hearing that my relatives came from Nanaimo, so I was keeping my eyes and ears open.
In the most excellent Nanaimo Museum I came upon this tea pot: The sign reads: "Tea Pot - Brought to Nanaimo in 1854 on the Princess Royal by Mrs. John Richardson." I thought: "hmmmmmm, Richardson. That name sounds familiar."
At the Museum, I learned that a bunch of coal miners and their families sailed from England to work in the coal mines of the Hudson Bay Company in Nanaimo.
When I got back home, I looked through some old paperwork my parents had left behind. The Nanaimo Daily Free Press of Friday, November 26, 1954 printed a large article on the passengers of the Princess Royal, which had landed 100 years before. The story and photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham John Richardson was highlighted pink. Some other papers showed the family tree from me, to my father, to his mother, to her father, to his parents as being those same Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. So I'm pretty sure that tea pot belonged to my great-great grandmother, Seadonah Pearson Richardson, wife of Abraham John Richardson.
Last month I visited Nanaimo again. This time I studied up on my ancestors beforehand. I read that Seadonah was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery so I thought I would visit her grave; maybe take some flowers. Well, it was snowing heavily and about 8 inches covered everything when I set off for the cemetery after breakfast. Following the map, just a few blocks from the hotel, I still had to ask someone before I could make out a tiny unmarked park with maybe a dozen old headstones mounted into a small grassy mound. Most could still be read, but none were Seadonah's.
Visiting the Museum again, the General Manager Debbie Trueman and Curator David Hill-Turner gave me more information about the pioneers. I learned that every year the Princess Royal Day celebration is held at the Bastion on the waterfront on November 27 at 11:00 a.m, come rain or shine. It's only been cancelled once since the 1856, I guess.
And around the corner at the Nanaimo Archives, I learned that Seadonah was very likely still in the Pioneer Cemetery, but there was no way of knowing exactly where anymore as most headstones were long gone. So, Seadonah Pearson was born August 22, 1833, in Netherton, Straffordshire, England, and died April 5, 1969, in Nanaimo, BC, at the age of 35.
I don't think she was a vegan.
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