Chapter 3.1.10
Sarah Bramhill Munford

Sarah Naomi Bramhill was born on August 1, 1895 in Palmerston, Minto Township, Ontario, Canada. She was the eighth child of Matthew Bramhill and Elizabeth Bent of Minto Township. Sarah married Alfred Munford on December 30, 1915 and raised their family on their farm in Saskatchewan. See their story below in "Pioneering In Southern Saskatchewan" by Sarah’s daughter Lauretta Shewan.

Sarah (Bramhill) and Alfred Munford were blessed with 6 children.
                  Mildred (Mrs. Allen Thomson) b. April 10, 1917.
                  Lauretta (Mrs. Leslie Shewan) b. May 25, 1919.
                  Frances (Mrs. Mervyn Kelly) b. March 10, 1992
                  Elmer (June Gordon) b. November 25, 1923.
                  Vera (Mrs. Gordon Hannon) b.  February 27, 1927.
                  Wilma (Mrs. John Dawson) b. January 26, 1933.
          For more information on their families click on their name to be linked to other pages.

Sarah passed away September 23, 1979 in Lafleche, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Pioneering In Southern Saskatchewan
By Lauretta Shewan

Alfred Munford, Lauretta Shewan's father, was born in Winfarthing, Norfolk County, England on August 4, 1887. Alfred's father, Ellis Munford, came to Canada in 1888. He liked what he saw in Canada so sent for his wife and family to join him in Canada. So Grandma Hannah (Eagle) Munford packed up their belonging and with their four daughters and one son, Alfred who was 1 year, 3 months and 2 days old, set sail for Canada. It was very rough crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It took them six weeks. They were all seasick. Can you imagine Grandmother not feeling well and looking after 5 seasick children? They landed in Montreal on November 3, 1888.

The family settled in Harriston, Ontario and then lived in a little house by the railway tracks just a little ways up the tracks to the south of the Matthew Bramhill farm home. My Grandfather, Ellis Munford, worked for the Grand Trunk Railway, which later became the Canadian National Railway (CNR and later CN Rail). The little log house was torn down long ago but when visiting in Ontario, in 1939, Lauretta and some of her Bramhill cousins walked down the track to where the little section house stood and we were surprised to see Rhubarb plants and Lily of the Valley still growing. My Grandparents, Ellis and Hannah Munford, lived here from 1889 to 1892 when they decided to go farming on the gravel road from Harriston to Cotswold near the Beehive School. Grandma Hannah died in 1893.

Grandpa Ellis married Ellen Bramhill in 1895. Step-Grandmother Ellen died on January 5, 1909. In 1911 Grandpa married Mrs. Ruth Burns.

In 1907 Dad went to work at the Niagara Chemical Works in Niagara Falls New York, USA. In 1909, dad had the urge to go west. His sisters thought it was terrible for him to want to go out to such a wild country. Dad asked Will Thacheray what he thought about it and he told Dad that he could make a living if he scratched hard enough. Dad found this to be true and it really was tough going.

In 1909 Dad decided to go west to Weyburn, Saskatchewan. The night before he left his sister Elizabeth made a pocket on the inside of his undershirt. They put the whole sum of $50.00 into the pocket and sewed the pocket up so he wouldn't loose the money, as this was all the money Dad had and him going to the wild and wooly west. Dad landed in Weyburn and spent the winter working for Andy Ingles.

In the spring of 1910, Alfred Munford, Eli Goodwin, and Herb Rodgers started out with a team of mules on a "democrat" across the prairie looking for land to homestead on. Dad finally found what he thought would be a good place to live so he went to the Land Office in Moose Jaw and filed on the North One-Half of Section 4, Township 5, Range 7, west of the 3rd Meridian.

After filing his claim, he went back to Ontario to gather up what he needed to start living on his homestead. He had six months compulsory homestead duties to do in order to keep the land. They had excursions on the railroad so Dad got a settler's car. He loaded his farming supplies, household furniture, groceries, personal belongings, stove, a two deck box on the wagon, and two oxen named Jim and Bob for which he paid $225. To the load he added feed for his oxen, and a walking plough, and then headed for Morris Saskatchewan the nearest town on the rail line to his homestead.

Alfred Munford on his way to his homestead – Spring 1911

 In the spring of 1911, upon arriving in Morris he unloaded the settler's car and put all his belongings into the two deck wagon box hitched up to the oxen. There was another man by the name of Billy Peel who had taken up a homestead a few miles from Dad’s homestead. The two men, with their loaded wagons, started out on the 70-mile trip to their homestead. It was a 3-day trip. All went well until they came to where the present town of Kincaid stands, where they were confronted with the Pinto Creek Flat being flooded with water 2 miles wide. They had no idea what was under the water, but had no choice, so they started across. Sometimes the water was so deep the oxen had to swim and Dad was so afraid the wagon box would float off the wheels, but they made it across safely, and arrived at the homestead.

Now began the hard work. He first had to build a house. He took his walking plough and ploughed the land. He got slabs of sod to build his sod house.

The sod house had 2 rooms – kitchen and bedroom. The bedroom was divided by a curtain making 2 bedrooms. The sod walls were 3 feet thick; the walls inside were plastered with mud. They put on building paper and then wallpaper. It was warm in the winter and stayed cool in the summer. The shack had 3 little windows. Dad also built a sod barn. The farmstead was situated on the bank of the Wood River. A little coal-oil lamp was used for light. When Dad got settled he had the whole sum of 10 cents left to do him all summer.

Dad got a few laying hens from a neighbour, Mrs. Jack Thomson (nee Mabel Fallis from Minto Township). She baked bread for Dad. Dad’s meal at noon mainly consisted of several fried eggs and bread. Lauretta has the enamel plate that he used to fry his eggs on. He could only work the oxen so many hours so had time to prepare a good supper.

Sod Barn of Uncle Roy Stinson – June 12, 1912
L to R: 2nd from left is Alfred Munford, 3rd from left is Roy Stinson, last on right is
Mervyn Goodwin son of Hannah Keziah Bramhill and Richard Goodwin.

Roy Stinson married Florence Munford sister of Alfred Munford.
 

The nearest post office was Morris, Saskatchewan, 70 miles away, so Dad didn’t get the mail very often. In 1913 Dad’s sister, Florence Munford, decided she would come west and keep house for Dad. She wrote Dad a letter, saying she would be in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on a certain day. When she arrived Dad wasn’t there to meet her (no telephone in those days). Aunt Florence was in Moose Jaw 2 weeks before Dad went to Morris for his mail. Dad wrote her a letter while he was in Morris and told her to stay in Moose Jaw for the winter and he told her to come to Morris on a certain day in the spring and he would be there to meet her. So Aunt Florence came to the homestead in 1914 and kept house for Dad until he was married.

In 1913 the railroad was built on the Assiniboia Shaunavon line. Shaunavon was the end of the rail. The little town of Meyronne sprang up just 25 miles from Dad’s homestead, where they could haul their wheat, get their groceries and mail. By this time Dad had purchased some horses and the trip to Meyronne with horses making it much easier, only took two days. The district where Dad lived was called the Milly District and eventually there was a post office and store just 4 miles from home.

Before Alfred came west, he had been dating Sarah Bramhill. In 1914 he rented his farm to Jack Thomson and he and his sister Florence went back to Ontario to ask Sarah to come out west and see if she would like to live in the west before he asked her to marry him. In July 1915 Sarah Bramhill, Alfred Munford and his sister Florence went back west.

Mother looked the homestead over. She must have liked what she saw, as she accepted Alfred’s proposal of marriage. Sarah got on the train at Meyronne and went to Shaunavon where her Uncle Albert Corbett met her. It was a 50-mile trip by horse and buggy, to where Uncle Albert and Aunt Naomi (Bent) Corbett lived. Mother thought they would never get there. Uncle Albert said they’d stop at Big Muddy for dinner (or lunch, as we’d call it today). Mother wondered what kind of a place Big Muddy would be. But she was surprised when Uncle Albert stopped by a river. He brought out a lunch that Aunt Naomi had packed for them. While they ate their lunch, the horse fed on the grass. Eventually they got to the Corbett homestead.

Mother began preparing for her wedding. Sarah and Alfred planned to get married soon but when they applied for a marriage license they were told they would have to wait, due to so many pioneers getting married. They couldn’t get a license for a while, in fact, not until December.

So on December 30, 1915 Sarah Bramhill and Alfred Munford were married in the house of her Uncle Albert and Aunt Naomi (Bent) Corbitt on their farm. (Naomi was one of the Bent triplets, daughters of Sophia and William Bent and sister of Lauretta’s Grandma Elizabeth (Bent) – Mrs. Matthew Bramhill). Albert and Naomi Corbitt’s farm was at Lone Tree about 50 miles from Shaunavon, Saskatchewan (the end of the rail line). The best man at the wedding was Roy Stinson. Bridesmaid was Florence Munford. Aunt Florence stayed with mother and dad and June 1, 1916 Aunt Florence and Roy Stinson were married and lived on Roy’s homestead just 2 miles from Sarah and Alfred.

After the wedding Sarah and Alfred went by train from Shaunavon to Meyronne and were met by a friend to take them the 25 miles to the homestead by team and sleigh. He had big rocks heated in the oven at the hotel in Meyronne to keep them warm on the long trip to the homestead. They were after dark getting home. They got lost and had to depend on the horses to take them home.

So in 1915 Sarah and Alfred began their life together on the homestead. Mother and Dad were truly pioneers. They suffered lots of hardships. A lot of hard work went into ploughing a half section, 320 acres of land with a walking plough and oxen. There were no telephones in that part of the west, no doctors for miles, no electricity, no indoor plumbing. A bath was taken in the laundry tub with water hauled from the Wood River and heated on the stove, starting from youngest to the oldest. We all bathed in the same water, just adding more hot water for each person. Our toilet was a little building a few feet from the house, but believe me it was a long ways in the cold below zero weather. I can assure you there was no reading the newspaper or Eaton’s Catalogue (which was in the out-house to be used for toilet tissue). You made the trip as quickly as possible. There were no washing machines in those days. You used a plunger and scrub board. The clothes were hung on a clothesline outside no matter how cold. Many a bed-sheet was split in half while it hung frozen on the line.

Prairie Fires

The worst fear of pioneering in the west was the prairie fires. There are many stories that Dad told about prairie fires. But the one Lauretta recorded happened in the fall of 1915. Called the Big Prairie Fire, it started at Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, 90 miles from Dad’s homestead. The main branch of the fire was north of the present town of McCord and a smaller branch of fire was going through 8 miles south of the present town of McCord. As Dad’s homestead was on the south side of the Wood River the fire didn’t get across to his homestead so he was lucky. Most of the farmyards had fireguards ploughed around their farm buildings but in several cases the fire jumped the fireguard and wiped out several farmyards, loosing everything. One of these pioneers, a neighbour of my dad’s, one mile away, Len Walters lost all his oat sheave stacks as the fire jumped the fireguard.

There was one story that the Munford children liked to hear Dad tell about the Big 1915 Prairie Fire. Dave Myles, a pioneer lived 4 miles from Dad’s. He was driving home when he saw the prairie fire to the west. Now the prairie grass was dry in the bottom and with a wind it spread very quickly. Dave Myles with his team and buggy hurried home as fast as he could because he could see the fire fast approaching his farmyard. As he drove along towards home he was thinking of how he could get his team unhitched and onto the plough to start turning up black earth on his fireguard. As he drove in the yard he yelled to his sister to bring the butcher knife so he could slash the tugs on the horses’ harness. This just shows you how foolish a person can be when in a hurry and excited. Because he could have unhitched the tugs on the horses’ harness a lot quicker then he cut them with the butcher knife.

Their Family
Sarah (Bramhill) and Alfred Munford were blessed with 6 children.

  1. Mildred (Mrs. Allen Thomson). Mildred was born in the century old house on Lot 21, Concession 3, Minto Township, April 10, 1917.
  2. Lauretta (Mrs. Leslie Shewan) was born in the sod Shack on the Homestead North half of section 4, Township 5, Range 7, west of 3rd meridian. The closest Doctor was 65 miles away so Lauretta was brought into this world by a midwife on May 25, 1919. Now in those days my mother had to remain in bed, flat on her back for 10 days so baby Lauretta was looked after by midwife, Mrs. George Hamilton till mother could get up and around.
  3. Frances (Mrs. Mervyn Kelly) was born March 10, 1922 at a nursing home in Meyronne, Sask.
  4. The long awaited boy, Elmer (June Gordon) arrived. Elmer was born in the sod shack, November 25, 1923.
  5. Vera (Mrs. Gordon Hannon) was born in the frame house that we moved into in 1925. Vera was born February 27, 1927.
  6. Wilma (Mrs. John Dawson) was born in our new house on January 26, 1933.
Alfred lived 14 years in the sod shack and Sarah lived there for 10 years. In 1924 they bought another half section of land across the river. There was a little frame house on this farm. We moved there in 1925. There was a kitchen and 2 bedrooms. With our growing family we needed more space so in 1926 they started building a new two-story house, with 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, front room, big dining-kitchen area. It had a pantry and washroom and back entry, full-sized basement. What a luxury to have so much space. Electricity was supplied by a Delco light plant. Yes and believe it or not indoor plumbing, running water, bath tub and a flush toilet, etc. Built-in cupboard in the pantry. We moved into our new house March 10, 1927, and many a happy year was spent here until one by one the children got married and left home.

Alfred Munford Family – 1935
L to R Back: Mildred, Mother Sarah, and Father Alfred holding Wilma
L to R Front Row: Elmer, Frances, Vera, Lauretta





 Note: All our nice hats that were in style then.

Munford Family – 1956
L to R Standing at Back: Frances, Elmer
L to R Front Row: Vera, Lauretta, Mother Sarah, Father Alfred, Mildred, Wilma

In 1959 Sarah and Alfred retired to the little town of McCord where they lived till their passing. Alfred died on February 23, 1969 and Sarah died on September 21, 1979.

In 1928 the rail line came through from Assiniboia to Mankata (Mankata is the end of this rail line). But we are sorry to say that in 1999 a lot of these rail lines have been abandoned.

The little town of McCord sprung up in 1928 making life a lot easier for the pioneers as they only had 8 miles to haul grain, get groceries, etc.

Method of travel started with wagon and oxen, horse and buggy, horse back over prairie trails and in 1924 dad and mother bought their first car, a Model "T" Ford and in 1927 a Chev "Ton" truck. The roads have improved over the years.

 In 1998 the family of Sarah (Bramhill) and Alfred Munford had 116 family members.


Munford Family – 1965
L to R Back: Allen Thomson, John Dawson, Mervin Kelly, Elmer Munford, Gordon Hannon
L to R Middle Row: Wilma Dawson, Frances Kelly, June Munford, Leslie Shewan, Vera Hannon
L to R Front Row: Mildred Thomson, Alfred Munford (Dad), Sarah (Bramhill) Munford, Lauretta Shewan

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