An Interesting Discovery

I was browsing around my family tree on FamilySearch.org today and discovered that one source for my maternal grandmother, Lovina S Martin, listed her name as “Lavina.”

It was the 1911 Canadian Census, and an image of the page was attached, so I decided to take a look at it. It is true that the script could be read as “Lavina” rather than “Lovina.” That mis-spelling would not be too unlikely for this name that is rather rare even among Mennonites.

I scanned all the names in the family, and everything looked good. All five of the kids born before 1911 are there, and their birthdays and ages looked correct.

But then I noticed two other names included in the household:

• Alson Martin, servant, male, born Sept 1891, age 19, German, Mennonite
• Selina Brox, domestic, female, born May 1889, age 22, German, Mennonite

That second name caught my eye immediately. Selina Brox is the oldest sister of my paternal grandmother, Annie Brox.

I had never before heard that my paternal great-aunt was at one time a hired girl to my maternal great-grandparents, that there was ever any sort of relationship between the Louis Brox and John W Martin families before my father and mother started dating in the mid-1940s (or, more accurately, before my mother became friends with my dad’s younger sister Lydian in grade 1 at Heidelberg school). Who knew?

I suppose that the two families probably met at the Elmira Mennonite meeting house. The Brox family definitely attended services there, as they lived just north of Elmira (and Louis and Caroline are buried in the Elmira Mennonite cemetery). John W Martin’s family lived just south of Elmira until 1910, and John’s father, David B Martin, was a minister in that congregation until 1901, so they probably went to Elmira until they moved to their farm on the Linwood Road in Wellesley Township.

Well, OK, it’s probably interesting only to me and my siblings.

By the way, in 1917, six years after this census was taken, Selina married Christian M Brubacher (my maternal grandfather’s first and second cousin, incidentally), and they had 7 children together. She died on 22 Jul 1970 (aged 81 years) and is buried in the Winterbourne Old Order Mennonite Cemetery. I have met many of Selina and Christian’s descendants at our biannual Brox reunion.

(In case you’re more interested in Alson: he was a cousin of my grandmother Lovina, the son of her father’s brother, Aaron W Martin and his wife Susannah. Alson married Rebecca Eby in 1916, they had 7 children, and he died in 1978 at the age of 83. He’s buried in the South Peel Old Order Mennonite Cemetery.)

Here’s a portion of the entries for the John W Martin household in the 1911 census: