Lela Susan (Culbert) Beadle (1890-1992)

 If there was a prize for longetivity in the Culbert family, surely it would go to Lela (Culbert) Beadle who lived to celebrate her 102nd birthday.

Lela Culbert. Photo courtesy of Wendy (Gowland) Boole.

Lela Susan Culbert (pronounced LEE-la) was born 130 years ago today to Richard Culbert and Jane Eleanor Fairhall on 3 January 1890. She was born in a log house at Lot 19, Concession 2 on the Coursey Line near Lucan, Ontario, Canada. About a decade later, her father would build a new brick house and name the property Poplar Farm.

Lela's father built this new brick house to replace the log house in which Lela was born. The house was completed by 1900 or earlier when Lela was about 9 years old.

Lela's birth certificate erroneously lists her name as Susan Lillie Culbert. The person who informed the authorities about her birth was the local assessor, not her parents. He must have forgotten or mispoken her name when he went to the registration office. On her wedding certificate, she's correctly listed as Lela Susan Culbert. 

Her older siblings were Hulda (Culbert) Carscallen, G. Arthur Culbert, Myron Culbert, Ethel (Culbert) Gras, and Mary (Culbert) Hodgson. Another brother, Richard Edwin Culbert was born after Lela in 1896 but he died at age one month so Lela was the youngest child of the family.

The Richard Culbert-Jane Fairhall family. 1927. Front row, left to right: Parents, Jane (Fairhall) Culbert and Richard Culbert, and Ethel (Culbert) Gras. Back row, left to right: Hulda (Culbert) Carscallen; Myron Culbert; Lela (Culbert) Beadle; Arthur Culbert and Mary (Culbert) Hodgson.

Lela attended S.S. #2, also known as Atkinson's School, and then Lucan High School.

S.S. #2 Atkinsons's School in Biddulph Township.

She graduated from Stratford Hospital's nursing school in 1921 as a Registered Nurse. 

On 4 September 1926 in Stratford, 36-year-old Lela Susan Culbert married Albert Edwin Beadle, manager of a woolen mill. Albert, a 49-year-old widower, had two teenage children, Gordon and Anita. 

They lived at 253 Ontario Street in Stratford, Ontario.

Lela (Culbert) Beadle's house at 253 Ontario Street in Stratford, Ontario. For many years, Lela operated her home as a guest house for tourists and Stratford Festival theatregoers. This photo was taken in 2018, decades after Lela lived here.

Following her husband's death in 1953, Lela, now in her 60s, opened her house as a guest home to tourists and Stratford Festival theatregoers. She didn't find it to be hard work as there were usually only two or three guests at a time although she had as many as 10 people staying there overnight.

Lela with her mother and two of her three sisters. Front: Lela's mother, Jane Eleanor (Fairhall) Culbert. Back, left to right: Hulda (Culbert) Carscallen, Lela (Culbert) Beadle, and Mary (Culbert) Hodgson. Their sister, Ethel (Culbert) Gras is missing from the photo. This photo was taken in the 1940s prior to Jane (Fairhall) Culbert's death in 1949. Photo courtesy of Wendy (Gowland) Boole.

The four Culbert sisters on 30 May 1957. Left to right: Hulda (Culbert) Carscallen of Whitby, Ontario; Lela (Culbert) Beadle of Stratford, Ontario; Ethel (Culbert) Gras of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Mary (Culbert) Hodgson of Lucan, Ontario.

Lela was known to be a bit of a penny-pincher. It's said that, "Lela wouldn't give up 5 cents for anything." Have you heard about people who don't trust banks so they keep their money under their mattress? That was Lela.

To save money on household costs, Lela would ask her sister Mary to drop whatever she was doing in Lucan to come to Stratford to clean her house and sew new clothes for her. This, despite the fact that Mary was an old woman!

Despite these idiosyncracies, Lela was an interesting woman who regularly received friends and relatives into her home and made them feel welcome. Lela's niece, Alice (Carscallen) Griffiths said, "the tourist home and her interest in people have kept her young. She's no recluse."

 

When she was about 92 years old, Lela sold her house and moved into Stratford's PeopleCare Nursing Home. It was here that she celebrated her 100th birthday.

Lela died at the age of 102 years in Stratford on 6 February 1992. She is buried in Avondale Cemetery, Section 2, Row 2 in Stratford. 

FAMILY TREE FOR LELA SUSAN (CULBERT) BEADLE:

Ancestors:

John Culbert & Mary Ward (grandparents)

Richard Culbert & Jane Eleanor Fairhall (parents)

No descendants.

The 6 Children of Richard Culbert and Jane Fairhall

Richard Culbert (son of John Culbert & Mary Ward) married Jane Eleanor Fairhall on 16 December 1879. They lived at Poplar Farm on the Coursey Line near Lucan, Ontario, Canada. 

From 1881 to 1896 , Richard and Jane had seven children, six of whom lived to adulthood. These photos of the six Culbert siblings were taken in 1959...

Back row, left to right: George Arthur Culbert; Lela (Culbert) Beadle; and Myron Manford Culbert. 
Front row, left to right: Ethel Gertrude (Culbert) Gras; Hulda May (Culbert) Carscallen; and Mary Elsie (Culbert) Hodgson.

Looks like Hulda May (the oldest sibling) can't wait to get away from her little brothers and sisters!

There aren't many photos of these siblings all together because aside from Myron and Mary, they lived too far from one another to have regular visits. Arthur lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Lela in Stratford, Ontario; Myron lived on Poplar Farm near Lucan; Ethel in Vermont, USA; Hulda May in Whitby, Ontario; and Mary in Lucan. 

Many followers of the Culbert Family History blog are descended from this Richard Culbert-Jane Fairhall branch of the Culbert family.

If you missed an earlier post with more details about these Culbert siblings, click here.

The Richard Culbert - Jane Fairhall Family

Richard Culbert (1853-1932) was the youngest son of John Culbert and Mary Ward. Richard took over the family farm near Lucan, Ontario from his father. He replaced the log cabin with a brick house, and named the property Poplar Farm. It was here that Richard and his wife, Jane Eleanor Fairhall (1858-1949) raised their six children.

The Richard Culbert - Jane Fairhall family. Front, left to right: Jane and Richard, Ethel. Back, left to right: Hulda, Myron, Lela, Arthur, and Mary. Photo c1927.

The following are brief biographical sketches of each of Richard and Jane's children, in order of birth.

Hulda May (Culbert) Carscallen (1881-1972): Some family members called her "Hulda" and others called her "May." She started her career as a teacher at age 16. Hulda May married Reverend Charles Rupert Carscallen in 1905 at Poplar Farm. Soon after the wedding, they moved to China as educational missionaries. Many years later, they moved to Whitby, Ontario where Charles was Governor and Principal of Ontario Ladies College, and Hulda May was involved in many activities at the college such as librarian, and as officer of the Women's Missionary Society. They had four children. A biography was published about Hulda entitled, China Was My University by Eula C. Lapp. More about Hulda May here. 

George ARTHUR Culbert. (1882-1978): He was known as "George" by some relatives, and as "Arthur" by others. Arthur's photo looks like it may have been added in after the photo was actually taken (early Photoshopping!) If so, this is probably because Arthur moved away to Manitoba in his early twenties and became a hardware merchant. He married Jean McLeod Campbell in 1907 and they had six children.

Myron Manford Culbert (1884-1961): Myron married Effie Pearl Taylor in 1911. Myron took over the family farm when his aging parents moved to a small house in Lucan. Myron was active in municipal politics and served on the Biddulph Township Council for nine years, three of those years as Reeve of Biddulph. They had six children. More about Myron Culbert here. 

Ethel Gertrude (Culbert) Gras (1886-1986):  Ethel, an author, painter and poet, wrote a memoir, "Stories from Life" and a book of poetry, “Poems and Rhymes.” Ethel trained as a bookkeeper at Westervelt College in London, Ontario. Later, she attended Albert College in Belleville. She graduated with honours from Victoria University, University of Toronto in 1915.  That same year, she married Norman Scott Brien Gras, a Harvard graduate and professor of economics at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts who later went on to teach at Harvard. They lived in Massachusetts, in London, England, and at their summer home in South Hero, Vermont. They had four children. 

Mary Elsie (Culbert) Hodgson (1888-1988): Mary, a dressmaker who loved to sew, married Eldon Hodgson in 1913 at Poplar Farm. They farmed for many years on the 4th Concession of McGillivray Township. In 1946, they moved to Lucan to take care of Mary's elderly mother, Jane. Mary is remembered with great affection as a wonderful, warm person with a kind, generous spirit. They had five children, three whom lived to adulthood.

Susan LELA (Culbert) Beadle (1890-1992):  Lela lived in Stratford, worked as a nurse, and married Albert Beadle. After Albert’s death, Lela opened her house as a tourist home catering to people attending the Shakespearian Festival in Stratford. Of Richard and Jane's children, Lela lived the longest to the age of 102.

Richard Culbert & Jane (Fairhall) Culbert also had a 7^th child, Richard Edwin Culbert, born in 1896, who died when he was just one month old.