October 1944

This is the street to Pine Grove Cemetery. Pictorial clues are the house in the extreme left and the ditch for drainage of the muskeg. A haul truck served as a hearse. Rev. A.J. Calder, in the front passenger seat, was the minister of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church.

When Ernie Bies first asked me years ago to verify the burial of Alex Heino, I assumed he was buried in Geraldton’s first cemetery, registered in 1940 as The Geraldton Cemetery. Local names were Town Cemetery, Boulder Ridge Cemetery, and Old Catholic Cemetery, although there was a Protestant section.  Its access road ran three kilometers through the bush north from the developed section of town to a mining claim. It has been long abandoned. Digging up a transcription of grave markers in that cemetery from my archives, I did not find Alex Heino’s name.

                However, further research has revealed that Alex was buried in the new cemetery established in 1944. Pine Grove Cemetery still operates today on Beamish Avenue West.

My own parents rest in Pine Grove. The Municipality does not maintain an online registry of graves, so the website Find a Grave was a godsend.

                Alex Heino was born in Finland on May 14,1888. A news clip said he started work in Little Long Lac mine in 1938, but the inquest cited 1935. I have not researched his history. He was married to Elvi. They lived in Jonesville, a suburb of Geraldton originally called Johnsonville, where Little Long Lac miners built homes. There were no children.

                This image shows the coffin being carried over the rough ground of the cemetery on October 4, 1944. Today Pine Grove is beautifully landscaped.

                Jan (John) Bies was born in Slovakia on May 11, 1904. He arrived in Canada on May 13, 1927. He returned briefly to Slovakia to marry Anna Huckova in 1932.  A few miles outside of Hearst he homesteaded in Bradlo, a Slovak community.  Besides clearing the bush and running the farm, he worked such jobs as road building and logging.

                This image shows the mourners gathered in front of the casket draped with flowers. The lady in the back row, right, is Anna Bies, carrying her son Bill. Jan was still recovering in Little Long Lac Hospital.

In her memoir, Anna, John’s wife wrote, “In1939, we left for the mining town of Dobie [near Kirkland Lake]. In 1941, we went back to the farm in Bradlo, where William was born.”  William (Bill) was born in August 1941.

                With some cursory research, I located Dobie about 10 miles east of Kirkland Lake, site of Upper Canada Mines, which started in 1938. Ernie recalls family lore that his dad owned a truck and started building a rooming house, but never finished. How was Jan earning a living during those years? We can speculate that Jan obtained his mining credentials there. The 1930s were boom years for Kirkland Lake region. The Bies family may have found comfort with Slovaks and other Eastern Europeans who had relocated there.

Why did he return to the farm in 1941? We can continue to speculate. In the summer of 1941, there was considerable labour unrest among miners. The Kirkland Lake gold miners’ strike began on November 18, 1941. Some 4000 workers walked off the job. There were nation-wide repercussions. Humiliated miners returned to work after February 12, 1942. Many had quit.

In her memoir, Anna also wrote, “Our Martha was born in Hearst, and we moved to Geraldton in 1944, where Ernest [Ernie] was born. My husband worked at the Little Long Lac Gold Mine, but was badly injured in a mine accident. He quit his job and we returned to the farm in Bradlo [near Hearst] in 1946. He worked in the bush camps in the winters, hauling wood with the horses, only coming home at Christmas and in the spring.”

To date, Ernie and I have not discovered personal details nor photos of the Heino family. We do know that the Bies family had their struggles but still throve, as partially attested by this photo of all seven siblings in 1950.

Robert (Bob) and Margaret (Peggy) Lavoie married in 1939. I joined them in 1940, followed by Grace, John, and Susanne. Lord knows that growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s was a challenge. Our dad, Bob, suffered a near fatal accident in 1952 while logging near Longlac. But, really, when has life never been a challenge?

Some of us are lucky enough to be telling stories today.

That’s all, folks.