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[ This article was originally presented to the Society's Saturday Meeting in December, 1997, and published in Volume 4, Number 3 (Summer 1998) of Anglo-Celtic Roots ]
I am Wayne WALKER, the son of Warren WALKER and June THOMAS. My father is the son of Wilfred Warren WALKER and Ruth Hazel SULIS. Ruth Hazel SULIS my grandmother is the daughter of Norman St. Clair SULIS and Jessie Howe MERRITT. This is a story about Norman SULIS's family.
As an introduction, let me share with you a little back ground so you will understand the underlying significance of this story. Family history, for most of you here today is a hobby or a pastime and in many cases even an obsession. As you may know, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and for members of our church, family history, in addition to the reasons for which you do your research, is a religious responsibility or personal duty to our ancestors. The end result of our family history efforts is the performance of temple work on behalf of our ancestors to seal families together for time and eternity. This information is then added to the International Genealogical Index (IGI).
There is a Book of Mormon scripture, 1 Nephi 3 verse 7, which reads "... I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded for I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." However, notwithstanding this assurance of assistance in our undertakings we are expected to do all we can utilizing our own talents.
With this background let me turn to my story. Actually you are the first group to whom I have ever related this story. This is somewhat surprising as the story is over 21 years old. It is a true story and I still can remember most of the details but I am working from memory at this point.
Over 21 years ago I was working on the SULIS family, my grandmother' s family which goes back to Loyalist days in Digby County, Nova Scotia, in particular a little village called Smith's Cove. I had been working on this family for a few years and was not getting very far, the family were Baptist by religion so there were no church records to speak of, there were no Nova Scotia government vital records for the period, the first census of use was in 1871, no family Bible could be located so it was just one dead end after another. None of my relatives knew very much either.
By the Fall of 1976 1 had basically reached the end of the available sources and had not really gone beyond Norman SULIS my great-grandfather. One evening as I was pondering what to do to somehow get a break in researching this family a "still small voice," or what one might call a "prompting," spoke to my mind four short simple words "G0 SEE UNCLE TED". Unless you have actually experienced this still small voice it is quite impossible for me to describe it to you, it is sort of like trying to describe the taste of salt to someone. Anyway, Uncle Ted, actually my great uncle, was my grandmother's brother who lived alone in Smith's Cove in the old family home. During my research on the SULIS family I had written to Uncle Ted on several occasions but he was a man of very few words and was of no real help beyond his immediate family.
Going to visit Uncle Ted would be no easy undertaking. I had not visited with him in over ten years. Smith's Cove, in Digby County, Nova Scotia is a very long way from Ottawa, and still a long way from the nearest airport in Halifax. However, shortly thereafter a work related opportunity to fly to Halifax came up, a military flight, down with one flight and then back with the next plane. This would give me a full day on the ground in Halifax so to speak. My shift working father coincidentally had that Saturday off and was easily persuaded to make the more that six hour round trip to just drop in on Uncle Ted. The full purpose of my interest in visiting Uncle Ted could not be shared with my father because, when you boiled it all down, I did not know why we were going on the visit.
We were fortunate, arriving around noon, Uncle Ted was home alone and was very pleased to see us. As a youngster I had many good times in this house and with my Uncle on his fishing boat. However the house also had known a lot of grief over the years, which I will not go into here. Over the required games of cribbage around the kitchen table, and getting soundly trounced as usual, we went over what he knew about the family which turned out to be basically what he had already shared in his short "fill-in-the-blanks" replies to my letters.
During a pause in the conversation that still small voice gave me a second direction: "GO LOOK IN THE WRITING DESK." As kids, during our visits, we were forbidden to enter some parts of the house. The old writing desk was one of those off limit areas. In what must have seemed to be a most brazen invasion of privacy, I asked Uncle Ted if he would mind if I looked through the old writing desk. His reply was quick, and somewhat discouraging "sure, but I cleaned it out years ago." We got up and went into room with the desk, rolled up its top and sure enough, as Uncle Ted had indicated the desk appeared empty, the cubby holes were empty, the drawers were empty. At that point, the small voice gave me a third direction: "LOOK IN THE BOX." Sitting in a comer of the desk was an old metal box, the creation of a very skilled tinsmith. I asked if he would mind if I looked in the metal box. Interestingly, I received the same reply, "go ahead, but I cleaned it out years ago." The box had been his father Norman SULIS's who had used it to keep his work tickets from the old Dominion Atlantic Railway. Well, I opened that box and sure enough it was empty, there appeared to be nothing in the box. I stood there looking in the apparently empty box somewhat perplexed. Then the still small voice gave a fourth and final instruction: "LIFT THE TRAY." The box was so finely crafted that it was not apparent that all the little compartments were part of a single tray which fit perfectly in the box. I lifted out the tray and my Uncle Ted was dumbfounded. He had lived with that box for all his seventy plus years and had never seen the tray removed, nor had my father who had lived with the box until he left to join the Navy.
What was in the box beneath this tray? Just a single piece of paper folded neatly in four. We took the paper back into the kitchen and opened it up to see what it contained. My uncle was at a loss for words as he had never seen the paper before. Not wanting to push my luck after completely invading my Uncle's privacy, for which he was most uncharacteristically tolerant, I quickly transcribed the contents of the paper.
At this point it was getting late and my father and I still had a long drive back to Halifax, actually Dartmouth, but I say Halifax because no one knows were Dartmouth is. When we said our goodbyes to Uncle Ted the paper was still sitting on the kitchen table. I don't believe I ever saw Uncle Ted again, I certainly have not seen that single sheet of paper since that brief visit in October 1976. Not too long after, Uncle Ted died and the box with its secret compartment disappeared, probably thrown out by his daughter.
Looking back, in just 17 simple words contained in four short directions, I was led to this simple but priceless document. Is anyone interested in what was written on the paper? I have summarized the details on this viewgraph. In the years since 1976 1 have uncovered a few snippets of this record but not the wealth of data it contained.
Frederick and Eliza SOULIS are my 3G Grandparents. their daughter Dorothy Laliah SOULIS is my 2G Grandmother and in turn Norman St: Clair SULIS's mother. Dorothy married Captain Robert Sear SULIS her second cousin. Note the surname spelling variation.
It would appear that this document had not seen the light of day for nearly one hundred years as the last entry on the piece of paper was Dec 1884, when Frederick died. Who was the author? Probably Dorothy his daughter as the tin box with its hidden paper eventually passed to her son Norman who was bon in 1877.
Reflecting back while preparing this item, it seems that, although not apparent to me back in 1976, this was a defining moment in my life and in my family history research efforts. The bringing forth of these names for temple work, and their subsequent inclusion in the International Genealogical Index, was not through any effort or intellectual exercise on my part. These names, having been hidden away and protected for nearly a century, were brought forth through the promised help.
In the words of the radio broadcaster, "and now you know the rest of the
story" concerning this particular group of lGI entries:
Frederick SOULIS, b 13 Aug 1808; d 12 Dec 1884; m 29 Dec 184 1 at
Annapolis Royal, Eliza Sophia RILEY, b 17 Dec 1818 the daughter of Simon W.
RILEY; d 9 Sep 1882
children:
William Sinclair SOULIS, b 27 Sep 1842
Sarah Sophia SOULIS, b 29 Oct 1843
Charles Allen SOULIS, b 12 Apr 1845
Bessie Riley SOULIS, b 11 Aug 1846; d 25 Mar 1867 of typhoid fever
George F SOULIS, b 18 Jan 1849; d 31 Jul 1868 at Havana, Cuba of yellow
fever
Dorothy Laliah SOULIS, b 7 Oct 1850
Simon R SOULIS, b 11 Sep 1852
Frederick SOULIS, b 23 Sep 1854
Robert SOULIS, b 21 Jun 1857; drowned 4 Sep 1871 at Smith' s Cove
Fenwick S SOULIS, b 15 Jul 1859
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