Effie Culbert's Summer Kitchen

Remember the photo of Mel Culbert pretending to chop off the head of his little brother, Earl Culbert? (click here if you missed it.)

Here's another shot, probably from that same day at Poplar Farm near Lucan, Ontario. However, this time there's no threat of decapitation . . .

Earl Culbert (left) with his big brother Milward "Mel" Culbert and the family dog, standing at the back of the house at Poplar Farm located on Lot 19, Concession 2 (The Coursey Line) in Biddulph Township near Lucan, Ontario, Canada. Photo probably taken in the late 1930s. Click on photo to enlarge it.

I asked my siblings, Terry Culbert and Dana (Culbert) Garrett if they knew the purpose of that old wooden building attached to the back of the house. They told me it was Effie Culbert's summer kitchen. 

Effie Pearl (Taylor) Culbert, the wife of Myron Culbert, was the mother of the above-pictured Mel and Earl, along with four other sons: Cliff, Ken, Ivan, and Mert. 

Myron Culbert and Effie Taylor on their wedding day, 14 June 1911. Much cooking and cleaning and mending lay in store for our Effie.

It was here in her summer kitchen that Effie prepared the harvest from their abundance of fruits and vegetables. Effie canned, pickled and preserved their home-grown bounty. Not only was there enough produce to feed their large family, they also sold some of their produce at the Covent Garden Market in London, Ontario; a journey of over 20 miles (32 km) from their home.

See the pump on the right hand side of the summer kitchen photo? That pump was connected to an underground well, and it was the Culbert family's source of water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Like other farmers in the area, Myron and Effie didn't have indoor plumbing and running water so they had to go outdoors to the pump for all their water needs.

The water pump at Poplar Farm. Pumps, made of cast iron, drew the water up through an underground well. You had to push up and down on the long handle for the water to come out the spout.

Off that cement deck, Effie chopped the heads off the various fowl that she raised, such as chickens and turkeys. She plucked and prepared them for supper. This was many decades before anyone in our family became a vegan. Meat was the meal of choice for farm families at that time.

Effie's turkeys. You can see the summer kitchen in the background, attached to the house.

Effie would have spent many hours in her summer kitchen. Her work never ended. 

I've been reading Effie's diaries which include entries from 1931 through to her death in 1957. She made note of what she cooked, baked and/or canned, pickled or preserved on any given day, and listed her daily household chores. I've randomly chosen some entries from July 1939.

Effie's diary entry for July 11, 1939:

Earl and I went to the bush and got 3 quarts of blackberries. Merton picked cherries and I did 8 quarts.

The next day:

The boys and I picked 4 pails of peas. I canned some and done the ironing. 

A sampling of other July entries include:

I made pies and biscuits and cherry jam. 

I got up at 4:00 a.m. and churned butter and cleaned up the front part. I did 3 quarts of berries.

Merton and I did all the milking.

We went to church twice.

I ironed and made gooseberry and raspberry jam.

We threshed the wheat. I had 11 men for supper. I made the first apple pies.

I made chokecherry jam and jelly and mended a pair of pants for Cliff.

I cleaned up the upstairs and canned peas. 

I am trying to feed three little pigs. I washed and got some ironing done.

The above were just some of things she did during the course of any particular day that month.

Raising a family of six boys on a farm was a thankless and endless series of chores. Occasionally at the end of the day, Effie made time to listen to the radio. This seems to have been her only form of relaxation although I'm sure she had her hands busy mending at the same time as she was listening. 

Here's to Effie Culbert and her summer kitchen!

Off With Their Heads!

Fed up with your little brother? Mel Culbert shows you how to remedy the situation! ...

Milward Taylor "Mel" Culbert (1920-1958) with his little brother, Earl Culbert (1929-1994) on Poplar Farm near Lucan, Ontario, Canada.

 

Yes, that's an AXE in his hand! Little brother Earl's neck is on the chopping block. 

Another day of fun on the farm in the late 1930s.

Mel and Earl and their four brothers, Cliff, Ken, Ivan and Mert were the sons of Myron Manford Culbert and Effie Pearl Taylor. The six boys were the great-grandsons of John Culbert & Mary Ward.

FAMILY TREE FOR THE SIX SONS OF MYRON AND EFFIE CULBERT:

Ancestors:

John Culbert & Mary Ward (great-grandparents)

Richard Culbert & Jane Eleanor Fairhall (grandparents)

Myron Manford Culbert & Effie Pearl Taylor (parents).

Molasses Mischief

Today's Poplar Farm story comes to us from Terrence Patrick "Terry" Culbert who grew up in Lucan, Ontario, Canada. Terry, son of Mel Culbert and Mary Patrick, is the great-great-grandson of John Culbert and Mary Ward.

Terry with his father, Mel Culbert at Poplar Farm, 1944.

This story concerns the six sons of Myron Manford Culbert and Effie Pearl Taylor at Poplar Farm on the Coursey Road near Lucan.

Five of the six sons of Myron Manford Culbert and Effie Pearl Taylor, circa 1927. Left to right: Mel, Ken, Cliff, Ivan, and baby Mert. Missing is their brother, Earl who wasn't born until 1929.

Take it away, Terry!...

It was told to me many years ago that our wee father [Mel] and his five brothers [Cliff, Ken, Ivan, Mert and Earl] would raid Effie Pearl's pantry just off the kitchen and steal soda biscuits whenever they were made aware that a new barrel of molasses had been delivered to Myron and Effie's barn.

The barn at Poplar Farm. Photo from the collection of Hulda May (Culbert) Carscallen, courtesy of her granddaughter, Wendy (Gowland) Boole.

 

Now Myron and Effie, parents of those six naughty boys, had a herd of dairy cattle and a few pigs. The molasses was used primarily for the iron within, to be mixed with the cattle feed. The six brothers knew that the rich, fantastic taste from the new barrel was to be had as soon as the lid was removed. As days passed and scoops were inserted into the barrel, cow dung would get into that glorious liquid, and by all accounts would probably taste like shite and give them all the "green apple scoots."

My father introduced me to molasses as a very young child and as I
approach the ripe young age of 80, I still absolutely love it. In our
Prince Edward County pantry this very day, Barb and I have a 675g
container of Crosby's Fancy Molasses, no preservatives, gluten-free from St. John, New Brunswick.

Happy New Year from Poplar Farm

Let's travel back to New Year 1928 on Poplar Farm. Join the family of Myron and Effie Culbert at Poplar Farm, the Culbert homestead near Lucan, Ontario, Canada....

Left to right: Milward Taylor "Mel" Culbert; Ivan Hector Culbert; mother Effie Pearl (Taylor) Culbert holding Merton Manford Culbert; Kenneth Arthur Culbert; and Clifford Burton Culbert. Father Myron Manford Culbert is missing from the photo and is probably behind the camera. Their sixth and youngest son, William Earl Culbert was born the next year.

Same photo as above from a distance. Poplar Farm was located on Lot 19, Concession 2 (the Coursey Line) in Biddulph Township between McGillivray Drive & Mooresville Drive (closer to McGillivray Drive). Although the house is no longer in the Culbert family, it still stands today (minus the front veranda) and now uses the address 34851 Coursey Line, Lucan. This house was built by Richard Culbert, son of John Culbert and Mary Ward. The first house on the property was a log cabin built by John Culbert when he settled on the land in 1840 after leaving Ireland with his wife, Mary Ward and their children.

Happy New Year!

180th Anniversary of the Purchase of the Culbert Homestead near Lucan, Ontario

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I give thanks for this bill of sale...

Are you a descendant of John Culbert and his wife, Mary Ward? If so, you wouldn't have been born if not for that bill of sale. Or are you a descendant of John's brother, Richard Culbert and his wife, Ann Jane Harlton? Read on...

180 years ago today on 10 October 1840, our ancestor, John Culbert purchased Lot 19 on Concession 2 in Biddulph Township near Lucan, Ontario on what is known today as The Coursey Line. The image above is a copy of the Memorandum of Sale for those 100 acres, purchased from the Canada Company for the sum of 12 pounds, ten shillings. The man I believe to be John's brother, Richard Culbert purchased the property next door (Lot 18), three days after John purchased Lot 19.

John Culbert, his wife Mary Ward and their family made the voyage from Ireland to Canada in 1840, settling in Biddulph Township near Lucan, Ontario. None of us would be here today were it not for that voyage, and for that purchase of land.

The John Culbert-Mary Ward family, c1865. For more info about this photo, click here.

This being Thanksgiving weekend (here in Canada) let's raise our glasses in thanks of our ancestors making a new life in Canada. We're here today because of them.

If you're new to the Culbert Family History blog and want to learn more about our family, consider reading any of the following blog posts:

We don't know why the Culberts left Ireland but for my thoughts on the possible reasons, click here.

To read about the Culbert family's voyage from Ireland to Canada, click here.

For a biography of John Culbert, click here.

For a biography of John Culbert's wife, Mary Ward, click here. 

For a biography of Richard Culbert (the man I believe is John Culbert's brother,) click here.

To read about the Culbert homestead near Lucan, later known as Poplar Farm, click here. 

The Culbert homestead (Poplar Farm) as it looked in 2013.

Helen (Needham) Culbert’s Poplar Farm Memories

Poplar Farm, the Culbert homestead on Lot 19, Concession 2 (The Coursey Line) in Biddulph Township near Lucan, Ontario

A few years before she died, I asked Helen (Needham) Culbert to share her memories of meeting the Myron Culbert family for the first time at Poplar Farm, near Lucan, Ontario. 

Myron and Effie Culbert, Helen's future in-laws

Helen lived over 3,000 kilometres away from me in Calgary so I asked her daughter, Mary-Lynn Culbert to record Helen’s memories. Thank you, Mary-Lynn.

Helen Needham met the Culbert family when she was 18 years old. She was dating Myron and Effie’s son, Kenneth Arthur Culbert.

Helen Needham and Ken Culbert at Poplar Farm in the late 1930s.

How did you meet the Culberts?

Helen: I think it was on Myron and Effie’s 25th wedding anniversary in 1936. That’s the silver anniversary. 

Invitation to Myron & Effie's silver wedding anniversary party on 15 June 1936 at Poplar Farm

I’d only been going out with Ken for maybe a couple of months. They had all the relatives there and had set up big picnic tables from saw horses with plywood across, then covered them with table clothes under the big maples. The anniversary party was in June - there was a beautiful row of maples trees lining the lane leading up to the farm house, with the house at the end.  All the flowers were out in Effie’s garden.  They had a beautiful German Shepherd dog named Tony that Ken had brought home some time before. Tony was there greeting everyone.  He would come over and press himself against you. 

Ken had borrowed somebody’s car and brought out a gallon of ice cream from London. Ken’s older brother, Cliff brought a girlfriend.  

Cliff Culbert, Myron & Effie's first-born son

We didn’t know one another yet, but Cliff and his girlfriend and Ken and I had bought Myron and Effie the exact same silver candy dish as an anniversary present!

I met all five of Ken’s brothers that day. There must have been 50 guests or more there. They had a lot of lovely food.  

Newspaper account of Myron and Effie's silver wedding anniversary party

Myron Culbert (Ken’s father) was tall and slim with golden hair.  Mel Culbert (Ken’s brother) had curly, golden hair. Mel was too young to have a girlfriend yet. I never saw him cross or mad.  He was always full of fun.  He worked very hard. I think, if he’d lived longer, he would have been very successful. Mel was about two years younger than I was (he was about 16 years old at the time I met him - I was just 18).  

Mel Culbert (1920-1958)

Mert Culbert (Ken’s brother) was just a little kid. Earl Culbert (Ken’s youngest brother) was in the rocking chair.

Earl Culbert (left) and Mert Culbert (right). This photo would have been taken later than 1936.

Mrs. Culbert (Effie) thought her son Ivan Culbert looked like her, and I think Ivan was her favourite. Ken was quite fair too but Ivan was dark and had curly hair, like Effie.  

 

Ivan Culbert (Effie's favourite son)

Ken had told me stories about how strict his mother Effie was, so I was expecting something quite different than what I found.  Here was this little 100 pound woman, meek as a mouse, kissing and hugging her boys.

 

This photo of Effie Taylor before she married Myron Culbert shows how tiny she was.

Mr. Culbert (Myron) was very quiet. He was probably in pain from falling off the barn roof [note - he had surgery on his hips some time later when the pain became too great to bear any longer but never recovered fully]. 

The anniversary party was a lovely affair - white table clothes on the tables, silverware put out. There was potato salad, cabbage salad, devilled eggs, turkey, chicken, five or six different kinds of pies, cakes, cookies, tarts - the place was loaded with food. And tea was served. Everyone was socializing and talking. Some were playing croquet. It was lovely! 

This was my first time out to the farm. The Culberts had two farms at the time - I was impressed! I thought they were a very lovely family. Cliff and Ken were showing off their girlfriends to the family.  The place was spotless. Effie was a wonderful housekeeper, and a wonderful cook. She saw that the boys went to church and Sunday school every week. She was a friend of the minister’s wife. Every morning before breakfast they all knelt beside their chairs and Myron would pray out loud, then he would read a verse out of the Bible.

Helen (Needham) Culbert (1918-2018)

Thank you for your memories, Helen. We miss you.