Stuart Booth Pozzi (1891 - 1957)

Born 16 Nov 1891 in Dublin, Ireland

Ancestors

Died 1 Apr 1957 at age 65 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

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Biography

Stuart Pozzi was born in Ireland.

Stuart Booth Pozzi was born 16 November 1891 at his parents' home at 56 Belgrave Square in Dublin, Ireland. His parents had left Scotland for Dublin to take advantage of the opportunities Dublin's expanding economy offered a tailor. Stuart's father died before his third birthday and his mother died just ten years later. I have found no further records of him until 1908, when his sister Annie set out to meet her fiance Albert Frohberger in Manitoba. Stuart and Annie took ship from Liverpool to Montreal, arriving there on May 2nd, 1908. From there, they traveled by train to meet Albert in Brandon, but Albert had changed the plan. He met them in Winnipeg and got them off the train there. Annie and Albert were married in Winnipeg on May 7th. Albert found little opportunity there and they moved to Seattle.

Stuart found work wherever he could, and in 1911 was enumerated in Souris, Manitoba where he was the hired help on the farm of George and Ruth Barefoot. By 1912, he was in or near High Prairie, Alberta and lived there at least to July 1914, when he formally declared abandonment of a homestead in the Grouard area which he said was too low and swampy. ^[1] Stuart described himself as a farm labourer when he enlisted in February 1916 in Regina, Saskatchewan. He was then described as being 5' 4' tall, with black hair, dark complexion and brown eyes. At that time, Stuart became known as Pozzie, adding the "e" to his surname to appear more British. He sent Annie a photo of himself in uniform holding a riding crop, taken at Ashford, Kent. Notes on the back indicate that he was a Private at C.O.C. there and could be reached at 11 Everett St. Stuart was invalided out of the armed forces in 1918. His wartime experiences left him deafened, which I've been told contributed to his preference for solitude.

The article on Stuart Pozzie in Land of Hope and Dreams tells us he was a freight driver for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vermilion after the war where he continued until moving to Grimshaw in 1928. There are three records of Stuart Pozzie holding land in the Alberta Homestead Index post 1930: 21-87-25 W5, 33-83-23-W5 and 28-83-23-W5. "He never got a farming outfit of his own, but had ... neighbours put in his small crop. He worked for some of the larger farmers at times, but mostly stayed home and lived on his little war pension." He sold the farm at SE 33-83-23-W5 to Robert Whannell in 1950. From 1940 to 1955, he was an office worker for Smith's Mills, an innovative small logging and lumber operation in the Chinook Valley. He appears from his photos to have had a cabin named "Bug House" in the Chinook Valley which lies about 20 miles north of Grimshaw.

Stuart died in an Edmonton hospital on April 1st, 1955 following a lengthy illness and was buried in Edmonton’s Westlawn Memorial Park. Bill Chidlow remembers his grandmother brought Stuart's phonograph and 78 rpm records home with her when she cleared out his things. He wonders what Stuart would have enjoyed having been so deaf.

Sources:

1. ↑ Accession 1970.313, film 2409, file number 2752436, application for entry for a homestead and declaration of abandonment stamped 3206805.

• Records made in the family Bible of Catherine Mathers Pozzi. Bible published in Oxford by The University Press in 1878; held by Bill Chidlow
• 1911 census of Canada, Manitoba, Souris, Township 5 Range 21 West of the 1st meridian
• Service record for Stuart Booth Pozzie published by Library and Archives of Canada.
• Land of Hope and Dreams : a History of Grimshaw and Districts (Grimshaw, Alberta, Grimshaw and District Historical Society, [1980])
• Peace River Record Gazette (Peace River, Alberta), Obituaries, entry for Stuart Booth Pozzie, page 8