Lives To Be Remembered

By Lynda Kiss

As genealogists we are not gathering cold facts but instead breathing life into all who have gone before. It is not just documenting but writing with pride what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are and have today.

Author unknown

 

In this book of social history I have recorded the lives of individuals who I have had the honour to know personally; with the exception of those who are the subject of the first two chapters of this book.

Bill Peyto's life has been recorded and honoured by the Town of Banff in Alberta Canada but perhaps he is little known now, in his home town of Welling in Kent. My purpose in adding to his record, is to draw attention to his extended family and the part they played in the development of Western Canada. Sadly I did not know my Great Aunt Maud Peyto, my Grandmother's youngest sister, but when visiting Banff in 2015 I met my Canadian cousins and they shared their affectionate memories of this devoted couple.

These are lives lived in the historical context of World War Two. Individuals, who as children and young adults, survived the effects of fear, loss and hardship during those war years and came to terms with the austerity of post-war.

They have known life without the protection of the NHS but are of the generation that contributed fully to the service by full employment until the age of 65 and longer.

They have received the benefit of a national health service and no doubt it has extended their life - it is good that some have enjoyed more years in retirement than spent working!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Q G S Publishing
• Release date: Jul 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386674474

Book preview

CONTENTS

PREFACE

DEDICATION

CHAPTER 1

THE WILLARD FAMILY

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

NOTES

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

As genealogists we are not gathering cold facts but instead breathing life into all who have gone before. It is not just documenting but writing with pride what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are and have today.

Author unknown

In this second book of social history I have recorded the lives of individuals who I have had the honour to know personally; with the exception of those who are the subject of the first two chapters of this book.

Bill Peyto's life has been recorded and honoured by the Town of Banff in Alberta Canada but perhaps he is little known now, in his home town of Welling in Kent. My purpose in adding to his record, is to draw attention to his extended family and the part they played in the development of Western Canada. Sadly I did not know my Great Aunt Maud Peyto, my Grandmother's youngest sister, but when visiting Banff in 2015 I met my Canadian cousins and they shared their affectionate memories of this devoted couple.

These are lives lived in the historical context of World War Two. Individuals, who as children and young adults, survived the effects of fear, loss and hardship during those war years and came to terms with the austerity of post-war.

They have known life without the protection of the NHS but are of the generation that contributed fully to the service by full employment until the age of 65 and longer.

They have received the benefit of a national health service and no doubt it has extended their life - it is good that some have enjoyed more years in retirement than spent working!

Why write about these people?

Their lives should be recorded.

They made history.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all those other WW11 survivors who are still with us - I hope they tell their story too, so it is recorded; it certainly should be.

'Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it'

Pericles

CHAPTER 1

BILL PAYTO and ALICE

BANFF - ALBERTA CANADA

Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885 in the Rocky Mountains; 110-180 km west of Calgary.The town of Banff is the largest urban area within a national park anywhere in the World. Late in the 19th Century, Superintendent George Stewart chose the location of the townsite’s main street, Banff Avenue, based on the best possible view of Cascade Mountain.

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Today any visitor to Banff cannot avoid BILL PEYTO. He stares steely-eyed from the sign welcoming visitors and providing directional information at the entrance to the Town as you turn off the Trans-Canada Highway.

EBENEZER WILLIAM PEYTO - 1869 - 1943

EBENEZER WILLIAM PEYTO was born 14th February 1869. The second son of AUGUSTAS and ELLEN PETYO, a family of six boys and three girls; living in Welling, Kent about nine miles from London, at that time a rural farming area. In 1887 aged only 18 he left the family home; sailing from Liverpool on the SS Circassian to start a new life in Canada; listed on the passenger list as an agricultural worker. He arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 1st March. Travelling on the newly completed Canadian Pacific railway he disembarked at Golden, British Columbia where he found work as a railway labourer. He travelled the country from coast to coast, working for the railway and prospecting; his knowledge of geology and paleontology was developed during this time. He briefly settled in the Montreal Valley area, northwest of Cochrane, Alberta; however ranching life was not to his liking and he returned to the mountains to settle finally in Banff. At first he was employed by the Dominion Government under the first Superintendent of the Banff National Park, George Stewart; building trails and other early park development work.

His experience and activities in the mountains developed a keen power of observation and knowledge of the National Park. When Tom Wilson launched his packing and outfitting business 'Bill' became his first and best-known guide. He remained associated with Mr. Wilson from 1894 until 1900 when Mr. Wilson retired from the business. During this period 'Bill' proved himself one of the outstanding trail men of the country. In 1894 he crossed Bow Summit and explored the Mistaya Valley including the Peyto Lake area (tourists today visiting Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway, will be led to one of the most stunning viewpoints in the Canadian Rockies, the massive Peyto Glacier emptying its melt-waters into the aquamarine waters of Peyto Lake at the foot of Peyto Peak - all named in his honour).

Peyto Lake and Peyto Glazier

In 1894 he led the first party to climb Mt. Assiniboine, an attempt that proved unsuccessful - it was a very dangerous mountain on account of its friable structure. It is located on the Great.Divide, on the BC/Alberta border in Canada. At 3,618m it is the highest peak in the Southern Continental Ranges of the Canadian Rockies. Six years later he guided Sir James Outram and his party to Mt. Assiniboine and while waiting for Outram and the others to successfully climb the mountain, Bill spent the time exploring its lower slopes.

This passage from 1895 in his 'mountain journal’  illustrates what a contented man he was -

they are celebrating this Dominion's birth today and it's worth celebrating too. Canada is everything that dear old England isn't - freedom to roam in these beautiful hills seeing no one but the wild things, freedom to say what's on a bloke's mind without looking over his shoulder, and freedom to earn a grubstake but using brains and wits instead of depending on one's station of birth.

In 1900 'Bill' answered the call to arms with the outbreak of the Boer War and enlisted in the Strathcona Horse and saw service throughout the entire campaign. He returned to Canada in 1901 and was publicly honored by his fellow citizens of Banff. In 1902 he married Miss Emily Wood of Edburne, BC and they had one son Robert W.F. Peyto. Sadly Emily died in 1906 and his son was sent to live with his wife's family on the coast while Bill worked on his mining and trapping interests in the Simpson Pass area. By 1913 he was one of the first park wardens in Banff National Park patrolling the Healy Creek area.

This warden duty was soon interrupted. In September 1914 Bill tried to enlist for WW1 but was turned down on age grounds. In May 1915, giving a false age, he enlisted in the 12th Canadian Mounted Rifles but soon trained as a Machine Gunner. One of his fingers had been twisted in his mountain work and he was informed it would have to be amputated if he was to operate the 'Vickers water cooled recoil machine gun' that needed two men to operate it. When the surgeon went to give him an anaesthetic Bill refused saying he wanted to watch the operation as he may need to do it for himself in future. Bill served with distinction in both Belgium and France. At the battle of Ypres early in 1916 he was seriously wounded from