Father to Alfred,Lottie, Ethel, Muriel and Percy Leland, he was a lumber camp cook, baker and grocer. He and his family moved from St. John, Nova Scotia to EauClaire, Wisconsin, Dixon, Illinois and back to Eau Claire. He worked in lumber camps around Sayner and Rhinelander during the logging boom. Died of appendicitis only 5 months after his wife, fulfilling a vision he had at her bedside.
Ready to head south to Circle Palms in Phoenix for the winter, Alfred and Ettie are all smiles! 1960s
The Lelands
Ethel's Recollections • Genealogy • More stories & history
Pella • Alfred & Ettie • Leland Gallery • VanSpanckerens of Pella
Up North Photos • Frieda & John
Squirrel Lake Stories • Poems from the Lake
MANY VOICES contribute to the history of a family. Personal recollections, records, documents and photos all help construct rich images of the lives of our ancestors – both the individuals we knew and those we can only imagine. I was intrigued by all the names that are part of our history: Hepburns, Hoyt, Mayo... "Wow, I know someone with that name – maybe we're related!"
I was awestruck by the courage and resilience of our forebears: striking out to a new land, having survived three months' sailing to come ashore, dealing with loss and unimaginable challenges as they sought to succeed and thrive. Take the description of Robert and George Leland and John Mayo, shipwrecked off the Straits of Magellan for three years!
Town names take on new importance when their role in celebration or unheaval, like EauClaire, Wisconsin or Mascarene, New Brunswick, or lumber camps around Rhinelander, is revealed. I was delighted when the recollections intersected with some of my own memories, such as the tales of summers at Squirrel Lake, where I could feel my own five-year-old feet slapping down on the same dock, smell the wood smoke and hear the clang of the lids on the wood stove in the kitchen.
Many of the links in the genealogy deliver us to actual cemeteries of loved ones, or continued histories!
I have assembled the pieces that have come from many hands: Nancy Boutelle, Ronald L. Mattison, Jack Altekruse, and the bins of documents and photos from my parent's attic, which in turn came from their parents' attics or drawers or basements. There will surely be additions and edits, because history is dynamic and s gathering of perceptions as well as facts. The accumulation of facts and anecdotes continues, and even accelerates with the impact of the web. Many links in the genealogy deliver us to obituaries, extensively detailed information – even to actual resting places of loved ones. Amazing!
We travel throughtout Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa in following these people as they move through the 1800s and into the1900s. We see the happy moments, understand that there were tragedies and losses, and marvel
Please enjoy, and contact me if you have some material to add to the collection!
– Marcia "Marcy" Mattison