Leila Ida Goodchild

This week’s prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is ‘Longevity’. As I look over my tree I realize I have a number of ancestors on both my paternal and maternal side who lived a long life. I hope I have inherited those genes.

The person I chose, from this list of ancestors, is my maternal grandmother, Leila Ida Goodchild. She was born to William Elijah and Mary (née Harrison) Moore on July 1^st, 1894 in Ninga, Manitoba, Canada and preferred to be called ‘Ida’.

Ida was the oldest of ten children; she had five sisters and four brothers. The youngest sister was born a month before Ida was married. Ida moved to Oxbow, Saskatchewan with her parents and siblings in 1911.

Ida met and married my grandfather, George Frederick Goodchild, on January 3oth, 1917 in Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Canada. George arrived from England in 1905 and lived in the Boissevain, Manitoba area for a few years before moving to the Oxbow area in 1910. I never asked my grandmother how they met; I just presume George, with his English accent, swept Ida off her feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ida gave birth to nine children; 6 daughters and 3 sons over 16 years. Ida delivered all of the children on her own. She would get a piece of material, cut a hole it in, put it in the oven to sterilize it and then use it to tie the cord. The next day she would be up doing the housework and taking care of the children. Of these nine children, one died at birth because the cord was around his neck during delivery.

Ida and George started their farming life in the Oxbow area. In 1919, they moved to the Lonely Lake district in Manitoba where they had a homestead. This lasted only a few years and in 1926 they returned to Oxbow where they rented farms over the next 20+ years. They started with the Winteringham farm on the hill, then moved to the Sair farm, then the farm in the valley and finally the Simpson farm.

Ida was a great provider. She would can vegetables and meat and make jams, jellies and preserves for the winter months. Even during the ‘Dirty Thirties’ there was enough food on the table for the family.

Ida would knit and sew clothes for the family and hand sew quilts to keep the family warm at night. Ida was known to take the cotton sacks, that the 100 pounds of flour arrived in, dye them and make dresses and bloomers for the girls. Ida’s quilting was impressive; her hand stitching was uniform and small. Many of her quilts have become family heirlooms and have been handed down to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

During one of George’s walks he came across an orphaned fawn and carried it home to take care of. It was fed milk from a bottle and Ida’s oatmeal cookies and bread. Over time the fawn became tame and the family named her Beauty. She left in the fall but returned in the spring for some more cookies and to show off her baby. She remained tame but was protective of her fawn and didn’t let anyone go near it.

In the late 1940’s early 1950’s, the Simpson farm was no longer available for them to rent. By this time the children were grown and had moved away. George boarded with some neighbours. Ida did not want to take charity so she moved to Oxbow to look for work. She became a cook for the Oxbow Hospital and Oxbow School dormitory. She rented a small room in the attic of the hospital. Here she stayed until she had saved enough money to buy a home; a 2-storey house on Prospect Avenue. George moved into the house to live with Ida again.

During the oil exploration boom, Ida had oilmen as borders and fed them dinner at noon.  She was a great cook and one of the oilmen came back a few years later for a visit and he mentioned how good her meals were.

Ida was a determined woman who was self-sufficient, possibly some may say stubborn. At the age of 91 she was up a ladder washing the outside of her windows when she fell and broke her arm. She was admitted to hospital and during the healing of her arm other difficulties arose that prevented her discharge back home. She was admitted to a long-term care facility and passed away April 1^st, 1988; three months short of her 94^th birthday.

I remember my grandmother as loving, cheerful and giving. She was known for going to bed in the early evenings and was usually up about 5:00am to start the day. One of her sayings that I remember well was “One hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours after”. No matter the number of people who would drop in to visit she would put together a delicious tea or meal. For breakfast, she would always have a hot pot of porridge on the stove, no matter the season. Her biscuit jar was always full of freshly made biscuits and every time I make biscuits I think of the time I spent with her. I look forward to living a long, productive life like my grandmother.