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Frederich
Von Shoults
The early history of the family is fragmentary, there being no data in
existence now unless it is in Bavaria, the country from which Frederich
Von Schoults migrated about the middle of the eighteenth century.
He was sent to Washington as German ambassador. He liked the
United States and decided to remain there. After his term of four
years expired, he moved with his wife, Anne Rheum, teacher, to the
state of Pennsylvania. Two of her brothers were already there.
Fred was quite a linguist, speaking German, English, French, Swedish,
and Spanish fluently, so had no difficulty getting a job in a
university. Two sons were born to the couple. They took out
naturalization papers and had their name changed from Schoultz (German)
to English Shoults. He died suddenly from a heart attack.
The boys, Albert and George, migrated to Canada in the early eighteen
hundreds. They married English girls. From there some of
the history is unknown. Albert had four sons: William,
Richard, John and Milton. By that time, they had lived in several
Ontario places, first Berlin, then York (now Toronto). William
set up a flour mill at Parkhill where he married Mary Summers, daughter
of a Methodist minister. She was born at Lobo, Ontario, English.
The brothers scattered except William. Two sons were born to
William and Mary. They were Chester Willis (C.W.) and Fred.
Their mother died in childbirth when the boys were seven and
five. Their aunt cared for them for a while, and then their
father put them in a boarding school at Port Huron, Michigan, where
they received their education.
The boys were becoming young men, and their future gave their father
something to think about. The West was being opened for
settlement and a railway surveyed (C.P.R.). “Go west, young man,”
was the popular slogan, so William and his sons went to Winnipeg (Fort
Garry).
The father married Rose Curtis, many years his junior; very pretty but
extremely extravagant. He built a nice home and gave it to
her. There was no love lost between the boys and their
step-mother, so they left home. She sold the home and went to
Ontario to remain. The old man had accumulated considerable
wealth. The property was on Dagmar Street in Winnipeg, and today
the Carnegie Library is situated on it.
Fred took a notion to be a tailor, influenced by one of his father’s
tailor friends. He learned the business and never changed to any
other trade or occupation.
Chester wanted to give homesteading a try, so he got a job helping to
bring booms of logs down the Assiniboine River from Winnipeg to
Brandon. He met his bosom friend, Will Hysop, that year and
finally got land near Killarney. Chester never lived on a farm
before but gave it a try. The two friends built a log house and
with a team of oxen and a twelve-inch walking plough turned the virgin
sod, but no crop was put in that year.
The settlers soon arrived, among them John Ditchfield with two boys,
Will and Dick, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret Ellen (Nell).
Chester Shoults and Nell were married May 13th, 1889. On June
9th, 1890, a son (Willie) was born to them. On September 14th,
1891, a daughter, Nina, was born. In January 1893, Sibyl arrived;
in August 1894 Fred was added to the family; in 1896 Roy and in 1897….
To list any more would be boring. Twelve children made up the
family. Seven still survive.
The going was hard in those early days. Many losses were
borne. He sold his oxen and bought a team of horses. They
got distemper, and the last one died on the night Fred was born.
The older folks will remember C. W. Shouts as a councillor for seven
years in Ward Five, M. D. of Turtle Mountain, but that was subsequent
to the cut-off in 1900.
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