I have searched and searched for some sort of history on this home and have come up with nothing which is really disappointing.
The first recorded owner was a Mr, E. Dunning who aquired the property in 1897. History books for the area acknowledges Mr. Dunning at the owner but write that there is no history for him except to say that he was a bachelor.
You can understand why anyone photographing this home would want to know something about it. Nestled close to the Souris River, this had to be a beautiful home in its prime. Tucked away down a long treed lane you come across the home.
In 1923 Mr. Robinson was the owner of the land. Mr. Robinson also did not have any known history written either except to say that Mr. Robinson farmed with his brother and that they were from the Medora area. A search of that book also came up empty handed.
If I am every lucky enough to find something on this house, I’ll be sure to rewrite what I find out.
Thank you Forgotten Manitoba for taking me out to see this house and getting another one off my to shoot list.
John, originally from England, came to Canada as a young boy. First settling in Cannington, Ontario and then moving west to Southwestern, Manitoba.
In 1882 John married Elizabeth and settled on another homestead. There they raised two boys, Sidney and William. As a young man Sidney purchased a 1/4 section of this same parcel of land and raised two sons of his own.
When Sidney’s son Cecil got married and needed a place of his own to farm and raise a family, he bought the southwest section of this land, close to his parents and started a family of his own.
Now this house has been in my to shoot binder for some time but Christian then discovered this old car behind the house and as much as I love old abandoned houses, when you add an old car to the mix, it makes it WAY better.
This was one of many locations we shot on this particular afternoon and thankfully since Christian had already been here, he was gracious enough to come back with me and take a few more shots of his own.
I did not post a photograph but this is another one of those old brick houses where the brick is now starting to fall off. I am going to assume that when the roof goes, the water leaks down between the wood structure and the brick which then causes the brick to fall off. There are a few of these red brick houses in the area and recall that there was a family that owned a company that made these bricks.
When I first saw this house posted online by another bando hunter, I immediately put it on my list to see. Back in May, a fellow bando hunter and I went there. One thing I did notice was the two lightning rods that were once attached to the house are now gone and the swinging door has one again closed itself, or maybe it had help.
Mr., born in England, immigrated to the United States and then ended up here in 1894. Upon his arrival he purchased this section of land. He met his wife when he got to Manitoba and they married in Brandon. From this union 3 girls were born. In 1902 he sold the farm to his brother-in-law and moved to town and purchased shares within the local flour mill and worked for many years in the community.
The history of the brother-in-law’s family is far more in depth but doesn’t really confirm anything about this house. Their earliest recorded history is 1196. In 1756 the family changed the spelling of their name, which really wasn’t that uncommon back then. The family are said to be the equivalent of English Feudal Lords and were the Lords of Duersen and Lissel in the Province of Brabant which is in the Netherlands. The earliest record of an ancestor coming to America was 1630. The earliest record on one coming to Canada was 1756 when they immigrated to Ontario. It is said that one of the children, at a young age, was lost in the woods and never found.
Now this is where it gets tricky. This family farmed on the NW corner of this section which would explain how this family is connected and how the original landowner met and married his wife. When they moved from the land to town to operate the flour mill, he sold the land to his brother-in-law. It is recorded that a farm on this land burnt down in 1916 when the family was away in Ontario. They lost everything in that fire.
I cannot confirm if this is a rebuild of the original home or if the house that burnt down was on another quarter of this section. Regardless this is quite the house. Unfortunately, it was not easy to photograph from the front given the tree line. And honestly, I didn’t even look at it from the back.
This is a neat old house which I thought would have been quite fancy for its time with its porch and upstairs deck. It certainly wasn’t your typical style home. The floors were caving in so we just peeked through the windows but inside there was plenty of old things to see.
It definitely goes up there on one of the neatest houses I’ve been to.
This is another tough one. I think I’m going to blame the current COVID-19 pandemic on this one as our library is not permitted to do inter-branch transfers. Anyways, I have some info but can’t confirm other info so I guess I’ll just go with what I know, kinda.
On a recent outing with Cade and the kids, we set out with the intention of finding and photographing one house and visiting a ghost town. Along the way, we found so many old houses and many of them we didn’t even stop at. I think I may have found a bit of a honey hole. Wahoo!
Okay, so back to the history. The first recorded family of this property owned the land for approximately 10 years. I was able to find a lengthy family history, I could not use any of the info because I could not match any info with certainty.
This land turned hands a few times since the start of this RM’s history. Mr. was born in 1869 in Waterford, Ireland and came to Canada in 1888. He landed in Brandon on July 4th and the next day headed to his first piece of land by oxen. He lived in a “shack” until he married and built a new home in 1893. The land he initially lived on was sold and this farm was acquired. Did they build this house? I do not know and I cannot confirm. They lived here until 1926 when they moved to town.
Mr. joined the United Church in town upon his arrival in Canada. He was a good singer and often sang to his family. He had been afflicted with infantile paralysis as a child and was lame because of it but he never allowed this handicap to interfere with his work or his community involvement.
Mr. was very fond of good driving horses and he and his family often drove to Oak Lake to visit his in-laws. Mr. passed away in 1940 and his wife in 1943. Together they raised five children.
As I said, the land is then sold again, multiple times but I cannot find any further information.
CRUMBLING MEMORIES 