I recently took a genealogical journey. One of my stops along the way was in Saskatchewan, a province I hadn't yet stopped to visit. The place was of interest because I'd tracked my maternal grandparents back to Regina where they met and married. I have the marriage certificate to prove it. The certificate was enclosed in a booklet with scriptures, prayer and vows along with the signatures of the guests. But I wanted more.
How did this Englishman and my Canadian born grandmother of Scottish extraction ever meet? I thought maybe it had happened as a result of the Regina Cyclones of 1912. I ascertained that they were both within the affected zone or at least close to the scene of destruction at the time. It could have happened then but as I tracked down their various addresses during both of their stays in the Queen City, it seemed that a better bet was when they lived within 3 blocks of each other in 1914.
I found out more about the cyclone by checking copies of the Regina Leader Post at the Saskatchewan Archive. A visit to the Prairie History Room at the Regina Public Library gave me access to the Henderson Directories for Regina so I could track down my relatives' addresses through the years. They moved around a lot but in 1914 my grandfather Harold was living at 2301 Rae and my grandmother May was living at 2048 Rae. I finally found the right area of town after my mapping app sent me way on the other side of town. I found the correct area of town while looking for bookstores. In a walk down 13th Avenue which was in close proximity to my hotel, I stumbled across the Rae Street I wanted to find and realized there were only three blocks between where Harold and May had lived making me think that they likely came into contact then. Sometimes just walking the streets in an ancestral place brings more understanding.
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