From the Boswell family Bible, first owned by my great grandfather, on my mother's side and left by my mother to me, the following information is provided.
Walter Francis Boswell, died April 2, 1916, age seventy-six years, eight months, at Wabamun, Alberta. His widow, Mary Agnes (nee Faulkner), married Albert Kruse. She died Nov. 11, 1939 aged eighty-two years, six months at Ashcroft, British Columbia.
My mother was Rhoda Katherine Boswell, born June 8, 1881. She married Francis Edwin Cassan in 1900 and died March 21, 1967. Mother is buried at Vernon, British Columbia. My father, Francis E. Cassan, was born January 11, 1879 and died June 27, 1963. He is also buried at Vernon, British Columbia.
Children of Francis and Rhoda Cassan are as follows: Rhoda Agnes Cassan, born at Peterborough, Ontario April 10, 1902 and died in an Edmonton hospital on June 27, 1913. Harold Boswell Cassan was born at Peterborough, Ontario in 1906. Frances Priscilla Cassan was born November 24, 1910 on a homestead north of Wabamun, Alberta. Joseph Page Cassan was born on a farm near Gadsby, Alberta on December 12, 1919. I was christened Harold Boswell Cassan and have been known to many as "Jim". My sister Frances Priscilla was also known as "Toots" or "Tootsie".
My sister married in 1928 and has lived in the state of Washington since. She has six daughters and three sons.
We, the family, left Wabamun prior to 1920 to go onto a ranch near Lousana, Alberta. We sold out in 1918 and later bought and moved to a farm near Gadsby, Alberta. I attended final years of high school at Stettler and took teacher training at Camrose. My first school was Big Knife, a school two miles south of our home on the farm. My sister was among my pupils in grade eight.
Following that year 1924-25, I did not again live at home with my parents. I did teach a few months at Hansen Corner in 1927. I also taught at Sylvan School north of Wabamun - September to December 1926, and at Rexboro 1931-32. Hansen Corners and Sylvan were then open from Easter until Christmas.
I taught school, worked in the shipyards and in the Canadian Services during the war years. After the war I moved to Hope, British Columbia, and taught school there for nineteen years.
I was only eight when my parents left Wabamun but I can clearly remember the following incidents:
S.V. Patrick, of the Anglican Mission, was known to us as "Pah". He got together a troop of Boy Scouts and even though I was really too young to join I became one of them. Perhaps the most memorable summer was when we went to Onoway to join a camp of a few hundred Boy Scouts from Edmonton. A single horse hitched to a two-wheeled cart hauled our luggage, while we walked or played along the way. We camped one night near Lac Ste. Anne en route. The sad part was when our old horse died while we were there. We liked to stay over-night in a tent that was put up on a frame in the churchyard. In any case, I'm sure "Pah" did a lot towards making us happy and better for having known him.