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Andrew
Cossar
Andrew
Cossar was one of the earliest pioneers of the Turtle Mountain
area. Of Scottish ancestry, his parents came from Edinburgh on
their honeymoon, in 1850, in a small sailing vessel which took six
weeks to cross the Atlantic. They settled in Haldeman County,
Ontario, which was the birthplace of Andrew in 1855.
Andy
(my Dad) came to Manitoba in 1880, worked for two years in Winnipeg
helping to build the first two bridges over the Red River. In
1882, he filed for a homestead and settled twelve miles southwest of
Boissevain, now Desford district, on Section 10, Township 2, Range
19. In 1885, he married Betsy Deacon, the daughter of another
pioneer.
Always
concerned with the welfare and progress of his community, he held many
public offices through the years. He served on the first Turtle
Mountain Council when its meetings were held in Killarney. Later
he was on the first Council of Morton Municipality and for many years
acted as Trustee on the Wood Lake School Board.
Many
stories are recalled of the joys and hardships of the early 80’s when
Dad hauled his grain 60 miles by oxen and sleigh to Brandon and sold
wheat for 25 cents per bushel. Mother, with their first horse,
hitched to a hayrake, visited a neighbour or drove to Wakopa, six miles
away to get the mail which was brought in by coach. Then the
C.P.R. (Deloraine Branch) came through and Boissevain, twelve miles
distant, became our town.
One
vivid memory from my childhood was the Saturday scrubbing with homemade
soap of the bare board floors, the kitchen chairs and benches, lamp and
lantern chimneys, bedroom vessels, etc. Lastly, we youngsters had
to have our ducking in the washtub by the kitchen stove. Even our
shoes must be shined ready for Sunday morning’s five mile drive to
church and Sunday school, held in Burnside country Presbyterian Church
The
trail from the Turtle Mountain bush ran close to our house and I
remember sitting at the kitchen window at dusk on winter evenings
counting dozens of passing loads of wood. With the temperature
perhaps 30degrees below zero, the men would be walking beside the
sleigh. As sympathy was always for the poor horses, white with
foam and frost hauling for miles and miles those heavy loads which
meant the families’ year around fuel.
“Granny
Cossar,” Dad’s mother, who made her home with us, was the district’s
family nurse. I’m sure a book could be written of her experience,
who, with or often without a Doctor, attended many of the childbirths
in the area from Deloraine to Killarney. She lived to be over 90.
There
were seven children in our family, two died in infancy. Our
brother Jim, born in 1886, died in 1916. The four sisters living
are Flo, Mrs. E. P. Davidson, KIllarney, Kemp, , Mrs. Geo.
Glenister, Rose Valley, Sask.., Mill Mrs. Harold
Ready Boissevain and Alice, Mrs. Guy Norwood.
Dad
retired from the farm in 1921, was remarried to mother’s sister Maude
Deacon, moved to Vancouver where he lived to see his 90th birthday.
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