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Margaret Fowler  1838 – 1923

Mrs. Margaret Fowler, pioneer of the Hullett district in Manitoba, was born in Upper Canada in the township of Tuckersmith, on February 28, 1838.

Her parents, James and Agnes Martin, were born in Scotland and came to Upper Canada early in the 1830’s, homesteading in Huron County.  Maggie Martin (Mrs. Fowler) received her schooling in a log schoolhouse.  The tutors came from Scotland and were good teachers, for when she was over eighty, she could write an interesting letter with very few words spelled wrong.

She used to recall an incident during her school days.  The schoolmaster used to take the class skating, all hanging on to his coat-tails.  One big girl pulled too hard, and a tail tore off, so they stuck it into a back pocket.

When Maggie Martin was nineteen, she married Charles Fowler who was twenty-three years old.  They were married March 20th, 1857, at Clinton, in Huron County.

Charles Fowler was born in Yorkshire, England, November 4, 1834.  At the age of seven he came to Upper Canada with his family, and they undertook the gigantic task of making for themselves a home in the wilderness of Huron County.

After Charles and Margaret Fowler were married, they farmed for many years near Seaforth in the Hullett district.  They had eight children:  James Alexander, born May 1858; Agnes, born March 2, 1860;  Charles, born February 14, 1863;  Ann Elizabeth, born December 10, 1865;  Margaret Jane, born in 1868, but she did not live much over a year; Dina Mary, born December 9, 1973; William Isaiah, born April 12, 1877; Maggie May, born Mary 19, 1881.  They were all born in the Hullett district of Huron, Ontario.
After farming in Ontario for twenty-five years, the Fowlers decided to go west to Manitoba where homesteads could be taken up, so in 1882 Mr. Fowler and the older boys came out to Manitoba and homesteaded on N.E. 28-3-16, the farm now owned by R. Foote.  They built a log shanty and a stable, then Mr. Fowler returned to Ontario, leaving the older members of the family to live on the homestead.
The next year, in 1883, the rest of the family moved out to Manitoba.  The nearest railway was Brandon, so it was a long drive to the homestead, but they had Fowler relatives living near where Nesbitt is today, so they stopped there to visit.
Isaiah, a little boy of five, remembered how they let him out to run behind the wagon, through the tall prairie grass, the last quarter mile to the homestead.

The Fowlers brought horses and purebred shorthorn cattle to Manitoba.

The Fowlers found themselves pioneering for the second time.  The children (Dina, Isaiah, and later May) went to West Derby and Northcote schools until Hullett School was built in 1892.  It was named after the old school district of Hullett, Ontario.

Neighbours lived miles apart in those days, but Margaret Fowler loved to visit, and she was always a welcome and cheerful visitor where there was sickness. She used to ride miles on her white pony, attending to the sick.  She was midwife at the birth of most of the babies born around there in those early days.

Church was held in the homes in those early days.  The ministers used to travel around the country.  The Reverend Andrew Stewart held services in the Fowler home.  The Fowlers were Methodists.

In December 1885, their daughter, Agnes, married a bachelor neighbor, Peter Finnen, and in 1886 Ann married Peter’s brother, Alex.
James married in 1887 and lived in the Tisdale district a few years before moving to Mather to the farm his grandson still farms.
Charles married Edith Dafoe on January 1, 1890, and Dina married Thomas Christian, a young Englishman, in 1893.
The Fowlers moved to 33-3-16 in 1890, after Ed. Midford built them a frame house which was situated on a hill on the bank of the LIttle Pembina River.  This house is still in use today.

The married members of the family had all settled close to the home farm, and the grandchildren loved to come and visit.  In the summer, their grandmother always gave them a pail and sent them to the bush to pick berries for their mothers.  One granddaughter balked at the idea of always having to pick berries, so she went into the bush and filled her pail over half full of leaves and put a few berries on top.

Mr. Fowler’s heart was not very strong, and in November 1896 he died.

Mrs. Fowler made her home for many years with her son, Isaiah, and daughter, May, until May married William Massey in 1912, and Isaiah married Ada Beacom in 1913.

From then until her death on September 11, 1923, she made her home among her sons and daughters.  Due to an accident, one of her knees was stiff, so she went on crutches for many years.  She could reach a long way with a crutch, and many a naughty child received a tap on the head.  She loved to rock the babies to sleep, and many the nuts she cracked as she rocked to and fro, and sometimes little fingers didn’t move away in time either.

Mrs. Fowler saw the bushlands of Ontario made into fertile farms, and the western prairies, which were as the Indians left them, develop into prosperous farmsteads, towns and even cities, in a short span of years.

She saw Canada become a nation in her lifetime, and not only saw it, she helped to make it one.