John Beamish and Ethel (Beamish) Ray both live in Edmonton. In 1903, our great-grandparents, Abner and Elizabeth Pickett, moved to Kilbride with their daughters Maude and Ethel. Ethel left Ontario for Edmonton in 1912, where she met and married our grandfather Dick Beamish. They eventually homesteaded in northern Alberta, where we grew up.
Our grandmother Ethel was a keen photographer and kept albums of pictures and postcards from her time in Kilbride. They were preserved by our parents and eventually by the two of us. We knew very little about Ethel Pickett’s early life in Nassagaweya and Kilbride but her photographs provided a wonderful insight into her life there. They even inspired a recent visit to Kilbride by one of us (John), including an exploration of the millpond on Bronte Creek where Ethel Pickett took her photographs in 1911.
Articles contributed by John Beamish and Ethel Ray:
Kilbride History Group 