Listed in 1851 Census under surname ‘Owen’, and as being age 3 his next birthday (making him born 1848-1849).Since his younger twin siblings (Sarah and Albert) were originally listed as being born in 1852, but were 10 days old on the 1851 census, this is probably correct more than my other info (or they were both several months premature).
According to the 1881 census, Elijah was living with his 2 years younger brother Albert at the time, and both were listed as farmers.
The grocery store that Elijah ran (and Arminella worked at) in Cartwright, MB burned down in on May 20, 1909. By the looks of some newspaper ads in June, 1909 in “The Review” (local Cartwright newspaper), he was trying to secure a new place to try and re-open, but wasn’t able to do it. It is also mentioned in the paper that telephone service to the north and west sections of Cartwright were cut off. The store was called “The Busy Bee”.
Elijah had a farm near Darlingford, MB before they moved to Cartwright. W1- Township 3-Range 7-Section 28 SE quarter. That land was purchased on Feb. 13, 1885. The family moved to Cartwright sometime around 1906, as mentioned in his obituary. I have records of Elijah buying things at the Darlingford store in 1904.
On a sad note: Elijah and Mary’s gravestone appears to have been permanently lost when the old graveyard at Cartwright was moved in 1962, to make room for a new highway. From talking to some local people who were there at the time, it appears as though somebody (or some company) was contracted to move the graves, but about 35-40 were missed, and were discovered when the highway construction crew hit them. At this point, the tombstones were missing, so they just move the graves to the new cemetery, and put up a memorial tombstone stating how many adults and how many children were moved, but not identifying any of them. According to old cemetery records, Elijah and Mary were buried in Plot #67 in the old graveyard, along with Russell Thompson Owens (Arminella and her husband Thompson Owens first born, who died June 20, 1909 at the age of 6 months and 14 days), and Thelma Marguerite Owens, who died July 20, 1915 at the age of 1 year and 23 days (4th child of Arminella and Thompson).
Birth date and place confirmed by Manitoba Vital Statistics record. Marriage date and place as well. Death record had his names spelled wrong (‘Eligha’).
Middle initial “L.” from the 1906 census (taken June 29, 1906).
1916 census has him working as a laborer for William Storey and Eliza Anne (his sister) in W1, Twp 3, Rg 7. Census was taken June 3, 1916.
His obituary in the July 12, 1917 Southern Manitoba Review newspaper says that he died of an attack of pneumonia that he had had for two weeks, with “much suffering”. It also mentioned that he had came to the Cartwright area around 1906, and bought the backery and confectionary business of Mr. Albert Walters, which he ran for a few years, later moving to Gray Block (where the new store was “burned out, the entire stock being a total loss”). It also mentions that he then went to Saskatchewan and filed on a homestead, and after proving on that, moved back to Cartwright (checking at www.saskhomesteads.com, he had 2 quart sections in his name: W2-SW quarter, Section 34, Township 35, Range 9, and W2-SW quarter, Section 5, Township 37, Range 9). Lastly, it mentions that he spent a lot of time in his last years helping to establish rural mail delivery for the district.
It should be mentioned that an old homestead map (from the Lintlaw history book) shows the W2-SW-34-35-9 is owned by “AF Boyle” (Atwell?), so they might have arranged selling it between them? W2-SW-5-37-9 on that same map belonged to CNR (railway). Not sure what year that map is from.