QUARRIERS
CANADIAN FAMILY
NEWSLETTER
QUARRIERS
March 1998 Page 1 of 2
| My Quarrier Connection
This story arrived by e-mail on February 12,1998. Three weeks ago whilst visiting a friend in Johnstone, outside Glasgow, I went to Quarriers Village for I had heard that I had been put in this home in 1942. Low and behold when visiting a souvenir shop in the grounds of the village, I met Bill Dunbar. He disappeared into the back of the shop and reappeared with my records, including my original birth certificate, and those of my brothers and sisters (now deceased). On the copy of my admission form was the name of my sister Margaret and my elder brother Archie. The sad part was that there was also another sister that I knew nothing about! Her name was Elizabeth Ann Cowan, 7 months old. I am now 58 years of age and to discover another sister (she must now be 56) is very sad. I had been put in the home at the age of two and a half. I was not an orphan: my father was a prisoner of war in Germany. He was repatriated in 1943 as a war casualty, at which time he took us from Quarriers Home. I felt very sad for this was the first factual information, I'd ever had about my very young childhood. My father died in 1944 of his wound, seven months later. Tom Cowan
Archie Kerr - Autobiography The following autobiography was kindly donated to us by Hazel Kerr, widow of Archie. I was born to Robert and Margaret (Gilmour) Kerr on October 20,1899 in Ayr, Scotland. My brother Robert was born on October 22, 1897 and a sister Margaret (Meg) on May 6, 1906. My mother died when baby "Meg" was born. My father was unable to keep the children, so Robert and I were put in the William Quarrier Home for Boys, and Meg was raised by Mrs. McCauley. |
On March 13,1913, at the
age of 13 years, I, along with thirty other boys who had passed a medical
examination for emigration, sailed for Canada.
After eight days of heavy seas and seasickness, we landed at Halifax. Here we boarded a train for Brockville where we were met by Mr. Winter and taken to Fairknowe, a boy's home. After two or three days in Brockville, I was taken to Perth where I was met by George Cherry, a farmer at North Burgess near Rideau Ferry. We immigrant boys had to stay where we were placed until we were 18 years old. Mr. Cherry was very mean and abusive but I had to put up with it until I was 18. In the spring of 1919 I left and went to work for another farmer, Will McLaren, and his son Roy and Drummond Centre for a few months. This place was infested with rats. I killed six before I could get the oats out of the bin for the horses. They were all through the house, too. Then they got four cats and the rats disappeared. While I was here, I learned to drive this Model T Ford. On August 12, 1919, I got on the train in Perth and went on the Harvest Excursion to Sinclair, Manitoba. I stayed with another man on a farm and worked in the fields. On November 1, I returned to Perth and went to work for Roy MaLaren's brother Jim for the winter. Here we cut cordwood and sold it to the neighbours, the schools, churches, and cheese factories. We got $10.00 a cord for body maple. In March 1920, Jack Hutchinson, who came out from Scotland when I did, went west with me to Allen, Saskatchewan for the summer. The farmers killed their winter's meat and smoked it, then threw it up on the top of the bins of wheat in the granary. In November, I returned to Perth and back to Jim McLaren's. After Christmas Jim came down with the 'flu. Then I took it. The doctor was called at 10:00a.m. and didn't come until 10:00 at night. He had so many stops along the way there were so many sick. He had a driver and they travelled by horse and cutter. After two years, I left McLaren's and went out to Hugh McEwen's on Prestvale Road, about 1/4 mile from Hillis Moulton's family. We would cut down mature trees and |