 |
| (L-R) Alice Crandell, Chief Ermineskin, Amelia Crandell Chief Ermineskin with grandchildren |
Our Legacy - The Face Pullers: Ch.3 images - Chief Ermineskin and Grand-daughters
nihkawiyis (my father's brother's wife) showed me this picture she came across and nohtawiyis (my father's brother) explained that the description says this is Chief Ermineskin with his two grandchildren. Our family genealogical stories tell us that my great great grandmother was the step-daughter of Chief Ermineskin. He took on a Cree wife from the Onion Lake or Saskatchewan area and she already had two children. One of these children was given to European Quaker named John Crandell. John Crandell got off a boat in Maine, USA in the late 1800s and went across the United States and ended up in Hobbema, AB area for a number of years. There, he befriended Chief Ermineskin and was given one of his step-daughters as a wife. This step-daughter had two daughters from John Crandell and named them Alice and Amelia. Therefore, from the family stories, we can speculate these two grandchildren portrayed in this picture with Chief Ermineskin are John Crandell's children.
Years later John Crandell moved his family to the Whitefish Lake area in northern Alberta near the Whitefish Lake First Nations #128 reserve. Alice Crandell married a Metis from northern Alberta with the last name Sinclair and Amelia Crandell had a child from Zachius Stamp from Saddle Lake Cree Nation. This child was my grandfather, Joseph P (Stamp) Houle. Amelia was given to Tom Houle of Whitefish Lake First Nation #128 and had many more children.
nimosom (my grandfather) Joseph P Houle married Roseanna Cardinal (Eldest daughter of Jonas Cardinal) of Saddle Lake Cree Nation. nohkom (my grandmother) Roseanna had eight children and seven were from Joseph P Houle. One of those children is nohtawiyis (my father), Jeremie James Houle.
As we track our family history, we have only stories to guide us because there is not much written historical information on Aboriginal people. In addition, data was collected from a European perspective; therefore our Cree way of relating (family connections) is different from European kinship and this wasn't taken into account and can be misleading and confusing, at times.
2 comments:
thats awesome 2 read lol i had no clue my moms grandfather had a daughter named roseanna so that means roseanna and my grandmother were sister's cus jonas cardinal was my grandmothers dad her names louisa half she married roy half and lived in saddle lake (duck lake) ....i do believe you no them?
Oh yes, I do know, I see your aunt's & uncle's lots too ~ tansi my relation. Jonas had three wives over the years due to his wife's passing away. nohkom Roseanna's mother passed when she was 13 yrs old and her & her siblings ended up in Blue Quills Residential School and Roseanna helped raise most of her siblings. I gotta post the family tree sometime.
Post a Comment