Lizzie and Albert

Sometime before 1915, Elizabeth Orilla Graham met Albert Boothe Curtiss (whose father and mother came from Michigan to Alberta). They were probably married in 1915. They had a farm in Claresholm where their first children were all born at home with the help of a midwife. The first child, Daniel, was born in 1916; their second son, Ward, in 1917; the third child, Theta, was born in 1918. My grandmother was pregnant with her fourth child in 1919 and that girl was eventually to grow up and become my mother, Esther Mary. My grandmother looks quite contented in the photo and I think she was happily married.

It's hard to imagine that Albert never grew much older than what you see in the photo. Such a charming young man he must have been!

In October 1919 around Halloween, Albert climbed up the windmill to fix it and something hit him on the head and mortally wounded him. Elizabeth, seven and a half months pregnant, ran across fields to get help, but Albert died. So she was left with three children under four years of age and pregnant with another child. She must have been devastated to now have no one to support her financially or emotionally. I imagine that from that moment on she became more and more unstable and peculiar. She also sought out religion and depended on her beliefs to carry her through, often to the detriment of looking after her children.

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