MR. AND MRS. MEARL PARKER by Mrs. Mearl Parker
Mearl Parker became an orphan early in life. In 1903 he came to Canada from the United States and made his home with his brother Clyde and family at Ardrossan.
He brought several horses with him and freighted supplies to railway construction camps when the Grand Trunk Railway was being built.
In 1911 he met Evelyn Cox who worked in the present Ardrossan Store. In April 1912 he and Evelyn were married in Edmonton.
Mearl then worked on irrigation ditches in Southern Alberta until all work was stopped by the war in 1914.
In 1916 he and his family moved to Onoway and lived there until his death in July 1971.
He farmed and also built the first car road from Pedley to the Jasper Park gates. Horses were used for all the work until mechanism took over.
In 1958 he sold his farm to his son Wayne and built a house beside his son's home.
In 1962 they celebrated their Golden Wedding. Many friends from out of town and the community at large attended. They were greatly honored.
Evelyn came from England with her sister in 1906 to a strange life in Fernie, B.C. She, her sister and brother-in-law came to Edmonton in 1908 and from there moved to a farm at Ardrossan, where she met the Parkers.
While at Ardrossan she was organist for the Methodist Church.
She, too, was an orphan.
Mearl and Evelyn
had five children, four of them married. One baby, Bentley, seventeen months
old, is buried at Ardrossan.
Go to the Web Family Card of Mearl and Evelyn Parker. |
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Created 30 January 2000 by Don Smith |
Last Updated 30 January 2000
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