The Family Herald
Vol. 1 Issue 5
Greetings & Website Launch
24 March 2004
If you have any photographs or data you
would like to see added, please feel free to contact
Barry at barrymack4@hotmail.com or
x2003xda@stfx.ca.
Greetings all! Hope you have been enjoying
the last couple of issues. Henceforth, all new issues
of The Family Herald will be on the web, under
Barry’s newest creation, The MacKenzie Genealogy
Dad’s Songs
Page, available online at: www.geocities.com/
mackhistory2004. However, if you prefer them by
Cliff Watling loved to sing; he loved to sing songs
mail, please contact me and I will see that you are
that until his children discovered his heartbreaking
placed on the mailing list.
past, made little sense to them. When Flemming and
Please visit frequently and enjoy the myriad of
Kay (MacDonald/Watling)
photographs and
Rasmussen arrived at the
articles regarding the
2001 Homecoming of the
MacKenzies of
descendants of Donald and
Napan, New
Barbara (Dick) Watling,
Brunswick, and
they brought with them a
connected families.
series of songs that Kay
The George M.
recalls her father singing. I
Loggie Tin-Type
have taken the liberty of
Collection is now
selecting a few for our
online, featuring
readers. As you read, you
seventeen tin
may realize the connection
photographs from the
between the people in the
Loggie and
songs and the life Uncle
MacKenzie
Fig. 1: Alexander K. and Murdoch MacKenzie, MacKenzie
Cliff led. Learn and enjoy.
collections.
Settlement, Little Branch – Available @
“He was quite the
Persons featured
www.geocities.com/mackhsitory2004.
entertainer. He would
include Mr. and
sing
these
songs
in
his
wonderful
tenor voice or play
Mrs. David Loggie, Point aux Carr, Murdoch and
them
on
the
harmonica.
Here
is
a
typical selection of
Alex K. MacKenzie of the Hardwoods, Alexander
the
many
he
sang.”
–
Kay
Rasmussen
MacKnight, Napan, John K. MacKenzie, Cape
Breton, and Annabella (MacKnight) Loggie of Lower
The Letter Edged in Black
Napan.
I was standing by the window yesterday morning,
Also online is a MacKenzie/Loggie photo
without a thought of worry or of care.
album, drawing largely from the collection of the late
When I saw the postman coming up the pathway,
John Loggie MacKenzie, including images of John,
with his happy smiling face and jaunty air.
William and Elmira (Loggie) MacKenzie. A series of
photographs taken by Lena MacKenzie, later Mrs.
He rang the bell and whistled as he waited.
Robert B. Harvey, in 1933 is also part of the
And then he said, “Good morning to you, Jack.”
collection. These photos encompass various
But he little knew the sorrow that he brought me,
members of the family of Will and Elmira.
as he handed me that letter edged in black.
Featured in the collection include the only
known photograph of Catherine Grace (Katie)
With trembling hands I took the letter from him.
MacKenzie, 1875-196, and Janie Isabel
I opened it and this is what I read;
(MacKenzie) Coltart, of whom pictures are very
“Come home my boy, your dear old daddy wants
scarce.
you.
Please find online also all editions of The
Come home my boy, your dear old mothers’ dead.”
Family Herald, and links to The Family Chronicle,
and Jack Godfrey’s Black River Genealogical Site,
“The last words that your mother ever uttered,
all filled with invaluable information about the early
were to tell my boy I want him to come back.
settlers of Glenelg Parish.
My eyes are blurred, my poor old heart is breaking;
While I’m writing you this letter edged in black.”
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the shop where father was working and a cow
coming and looking in the door. It scared me and
I’ve never forgotten it.
Our ancestors were all from some part of
Scotland. Mostly from the Highlands, the McBeaths
& McNaughtons as the name implies. The McBeaths
Two Little Girls in Blue
and McNaughton families were two of the earliest
An old man gazed on a photograph, in a locket he’d
settlers. I don’t know what year they came over nor
worn for years.
the part they came from. But you would get an idea
His nephew then asked the reason why, that picture
from those old stone tablets in the churchyard. One
had caused him tears.
son Malcolm McNaughton of the first of the name
Now lad, if you’ll
who settled in B.R. married Barbara
listen I’ll tell you a
McBeath, daughter of the first
story that’s sad but
McBeath. The story goes that they
true.
walked to Chatham to be married and
Your father and I at
carried their shoes with them, whether
the school one day,
to save wear and tear on the shoes
met two little girls in
(boots) or because it was easier that
blue.
way history doesn’t relate. Well the
Chorus:
years went by, and I think every one
Two little girls in blue,
must have been visited by the storks
Fig. 2: J. Cliff Watling with sisters,
lad, two little girls in
for they had a large family, 9 or 10.
Bess and Emily. Calgary, 1910.
blue.
The three younger ones could be the only
They were sisters; we
ones you ever saw, and I don’t know if
were brothers, we learned to love the two.
you saw more than one. Anyway you know their
One little girl in blue, lad, won your father’s heart.
families. There was Uncle Robert (great uncles of
Became your mother, I married the other, but we
mine – father’s uncle) father of Stuart, Lena &
have drifted apart.
F______ Uncle Jim (Free’s father) and Uncle Allan.
Then there was William of the older members (Bill’s
That picture is one of those girls, he said, and to me
Malk’s father) Sandie (Jim’s across the river from
she was once a wife.
home), Duncan (Donald’s father). I think that was all
I thought that no longer she loved me lad, and we
the boys and two girls. I think the name was
parted that night for life.
Christena who married Sandy Edge an older brother
My fancy of jealousy wronged a heart, a heart that
of Uncle Bill and last but not least Elizabeth (Betsy)
was good and true.
who married Alexander Dick – my grandfather. I said
For two better girls never lived than they; those two
‘last’ but she was actually not the youngest of the
little girls in blue.
family. I remember hearing it said that Grandma’s
Chorus:
sister and her daughter (Aunt Agnes) married two
brothers. But that could easily happen in those big
families. As Lena McNaughton (Lena was Stuart’s
Letter from Etta (Dick) MacLaggan to
sister) and I went to school together & were the
Eileen (Dick) Krebbs
same age but her father was my father’s uncle. Now
Calgary, Alberta, Jan. 14/65
to go back a generation again. Barbara who married
Dear Eileen:Malcolm had a sister Margaret who married one of
I was surprised and pleased to receive a letter
the ancestors of Johnny Archie’s family and the
from you today. I had been thinking of dropping you
William McNaughtons (up near Edge’s).
a line, as you had asked me in your Xmas letter
I don’t know just how they happened to
where father learned the carpenter trade, and if he
choose B. River. One of the old McBeaths must
built the house.
have been a plasterer for he plastered the old
Well to begin with his father came here from
church. They seem to have been the “elite” of the
Stirling Scotland. And he was a carpenter by trade.
place for in the old church were four square corner
Was “the shop” not a few steps from Uncle Malk’s
pews and one, the old McBeath one, was raised a
house when you were there? I don’t know whether it
step higher than the rest. That was the pew we sat
is now or not, but he had everything in the way of
in. I don’t know how come. Malk McN. Used to sit in
tools, and when father wanted to do any carpenter
it too. To come back to the building of our house.
work (he built that cupboard that is in the kitchen still
Yes quite likely father built it, with his father’s help.
I suppose) he always went over to the shop and did
And apparently Uncle John his brother lent a hand at
it. I remember when I was a little girl of being over in
Forgive me for the angry words I’ve spoken.
You know right well I never meant them, Jack.
May the angels bear me witness while I tell you.
As I’m writing you this letter edged in black”
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the shingling of the roof anyway because years later
in your time after a fire, your father was re-shingling
the roof and came upon a shingle with the name
John Dick and the date I think 1184 or 85 on it.
These two brothers John and Jim went west to
Idaho in the early days and apparently both got
typhoid fever, as well as a brother of Aunt Mary’s
who was with them. Archie Cameron & Uncle Jim
died there and Uncle John came home. But was
never well. Aunt Maggie it seems engineered a
marriage with him and Teenie (John W.’s sister) and
his first cousin. But he didn’t live long. She
afterwards married a Billy McBeath in Moncton.
J. Archie Mills
W. Roy Mills
Thomas McLean
Basil McDonald
William Adams
Frank J. Godfrey
Lest we forget.
N.B.:
Of this group, twenty-seven had volunteered
and were accepted; seven volunteered but were not
accepted; and eleven were drafted and accepted.
Those names bolded are those of the brave
young men who made the Supreme Sacrifice, and
gave their lives on the battlefield.
One of the list’s most distinguished members,
J. Archibald MacNaughton, returned again to serve
[The letter continues on this page, but my copy is
for King and Country in a second Great War in 1939.
from here cut off]
Archie joined the North Shore Regiment as an
officer at the beginning of the war, and was
Signed,
remembered fondly by the Regimental chaplain,
Aunt Etta (Dick) MacLaggan
Rev. Major Raymond Myles Hickey, in his book, The
Scarlet Dawn:
ROLL OF HONOUR
“As I looked across the room, a face caught
my eye: the kindest, the most expressive face that I
ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCH,
have ever seen. I nudged Clint Gammon and said,
BLACK RIVER, N.B.
“Who is that officer over there?” “Oh, that’s Archie
ENLISTMENT FOR OVERSEAS SERVICE
MacNaughton,” said Gammon. The next minute, I
World War I
was shaking hands with the biggest, the noblest
character I met in this war – Archie
Joseph W. Finno
MacNaughton. Little did I know that on June
Ward Gibson
the seventh, four years later, I would bury
Herbert T. McDonald
Archie near a blossoming hedge, where the
George Adams
shore gently dips to kiss to noisy waves on
Archibald Watling
the beaches of Normandy.” [I quote from
Hugh Kelly
memory, and apologize for any minor
Alex McNaughton
punctuation errors. BRM]
Frank McLean
As the excerpt suggests, during the
Ernest Watling
infamous Normandy raid of 6 June 1944,
Robert Godfrey
Archie MacNaughton was taken down by
Ernest Williston
enemy fire, and is buried in Beny-sur-Mer
George McDonald
Cemetery near Normandy, France. He left
James Palmer
behind to mourn his loss, a wife, and two
Ernest McDonald
young children.
Stephen J. Dick
My grandmother, Lorna (Watling)
Andrew Godfrey
MacKenzie, a neighbour of the
Fig.
2:
Maj.
J.
Archie
MacNaughton.
J. Archie McNaughton
MacNaughton family at Black River
Killed 6 June 1944, Normandy Raid.
Archibald Godfrey
Bridge, remembers Archie MacNaughton
James Adams
as one of the finest men that ever walked the earth.
Samuel Godfrey
Walter McDonald
It was the bravery of men like Archie, who needed
Thomas McDonald
Ernest Gibson
not return to the battlefield but rather had done their
Herbert McDonald
Leslie Cameron
duty years before, that made the War so significant
Campbell McDonald
George McLean
to Black River and the rest of the Empire.
William McDonald
Arch. M. Cameron
To Archie MacNaughton, and to all the brave
James R. MacRae
William McLean
young boys who gave their lives so that this country
Archibald McLean
Garvie McLean
may be free and just, this issue of the family herald
Frederick McLean
William J. Watling
is lovingly and respectfully dedicated.
Willard G. Watling
John G. McLean
David Sullivan
Fred F. Fowlie
To subscribe: barrymack4@hotmail.com
Fred J. McDonald
Online: www.geocities.com/mackhistory
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