Item - 1903, Nov 8 – Letter to Marion

Four (4) sheets of paper and envelope

Place: Regina [N.W.T.]

From: Alf [T.A. Patrick]

To: Mrs. Marion G. Patrick, Byron, Lucan, Middlesex Co., Ont[ario]

Delivery: Canada Post, postmarked

Details: 4 pp on Alexandra Hotel, Regina, N.W.T. letterhead. Envelope is printed with “Return to The Alexandra Hotel, F. Nash, Proprietor, Regina N.W.T.” in black ink.

Notes: T.A. Patrick writes a letter to his wife, Marion, while she is away in Ontario. He writes, "it is Sunday morning, again, and we have for the first time in, about, a month a completely overcast sky. Last night there was a slight flurry of snow but only a flurry. The weather is warm and the ground not yet frozen up. I do not recollect seeing the freeze-up delayed so late in the season before. I had instructions sent to Mr. Goodacre to dig the ditch to lower the level of the lake three feet, and I am wondering what progress has been made. Mr. Thomson surveyed and laid out the ditch. It is to be about a mile long and about nine feet deep for a short distance just where it comes out of the lake. I am anxious to get it well started this fell whether completed or not."

He informs his wife that he intends to go back to Yorkton to hold "a service of meetings all over the electoral district of Yorkton (not Mackenzie district) to explain the municipal ordinance, and generally the work of the session. This will mean a lot of travelling and will take two or three weeks." He mentions this now "because it may affect [Marion's] home coming," but if she desired "to prolong [her] visit it will be much less lonesome for [Patrick] if [he is] away through the country on political business than if [he was] at home." He states, "I have not visited my constituency since my election and have no yet seen the new town of Sheho."

Patricks thinks that he will go to Edmonton to visit his brother Emerson and to see Edmonton, Strathcona, and Wetaskiwin since his old pupil John Brown lives there. Patrick then updates his wife that his bronchitis is improving but that the "hotel life is wearying." However, he sees his brother, Jack, everyday. He writes about Jack, "if the benches of the Law Society meet at Brandon this month he may go there as acting Secretary of the Law Society with some prospect of being chosen permanent Secretary were Mackenzie resigned. The position is wroth $400 a year at least, and would exalt him very much in his profession but he is somewhat handicapped by the fact that Yorkton is somewhat remote and not directly connected by rail and mail routes with the rest of the Territories. However, next year will remedy this condition, and it may not ban him." Patrick continues that "Jack has ordered his library from the Canada Law Book Co. of Toronto. It will be more extensive than that of any other Yorkton lawyer. They give him all the time he wants to pay for it."

Patrick then changes the subject of his letter, explaining that "hotels all over the Territories are overcrowded, and many can not get beds. All signs point to an extraordinarily heavy immigration," with 6000 Mennonites going just north and west of Beau and Burch.

He then asks what is wrong with their friends Maude and Thompson, inquiring about the wedding, and discussing Mrs. Merriam's [Maude's mother's] reluctance to see her daughter marry. Patrick states that "nineteen years old is hardly old enough" but, then, jokes, "tell Leslie that if he had only decided to marry a Doukhobor or a Galician or Hungarian there would have been no delay."