Remembering an "Old-Timer"

When the long-sought obituary finally materializes for the ancestor one is researching, the question uppermost in mind, of course, is: will the newspaper report include that coveted list of relatives?

In the case of research on Thomas Guinan of Winnipeg—and formerly of Ontario and North Dakota—the answer was, thankfully, yes.

I'm not sure I would like to be remembered as an "old-timer," but that is how Thomas Guinan was presented in the long write-up published on May 5, 1937—three days after his death. Headlining the article, plainly enough, "T. Guinan, Old-Timer of Winnipeg, Dies," the Winnipeg Free Press devoted a good portion of two columns to a review of the man's life accomplishments.

Small wonder. The paper characterized the man as a "prominent figure in the development of Winnipeg and the west in the early part of the century."

Thomas Guinan's age was given as eighty—right away providing a warning to remember that all newspaper reports are suspect, when it comes to pristine accuracy. An earlier article had indicated that he was born six years earlier. Typo?

Still, the overall picture provides a guide for retracing the steps of Thomas Guinan's personal history.

Born in Huron county, Ont., on Nov. 10, 1856, he spent his early days on a farm near the village of Blake in Stanley county. Educated in the public schools of Ontario, he remained in that province until the late seventies, when he moved with his parents to North Dakota, where his family was one of the early settlers in the Langdon district.

Some of the details of his business dealings as a young adult we have already stumbled upon, thanks to newspaper reports in North Dakota, where Thomas had settled with the rest of the Guinan family.

Mr. Guinan later went into the hotel business at St. Thomas, N.D., where he lived for many years. Beginning in 1896, he served four years in the North Dakota legislature.

Of course, the main focus of Thomas Guinan's obituary would be his years spent back in Canada. Many of these details we've already uncovered, as well, including his original settlement in the Elm Creek area and his later involvement in the real estate business, headquartered in Winnipeg, as president of the Red River Land & Loan Company.

Remembering the article I had found yesterday on the court case calling some of his real estate deals into question, I was interested to see how the newspaper—now in retrospect—would portray that rough stretch of the Guinan history. In the circumspect graciousness reserved for the eulogized, the Free Press said merely that he "was instrumental in bringing many settlers to the west" and that "the present suburb of St. James was largely developed" by the Guinan company. However, the paper couldn't resist the understated reminder that

Mr. Guinan was a Conservative in politics, and was a staunch supporter of the late R. P. Roblin during his long term of office as premier of Manitoba.

Coming to the statement that all genealogists live for, the Free Press reported that Thomas Guinan was

survived by his widow and five children, Anne, Ethel, Thomas, Jr. and Stanley, all of Winnipeg, and Lawrence, of The Pas, Man.; three sisters, Mrs. Margaret Franklin, Grand Forks, N.D.; Mrs. Hector Falconer, Portland, Ore.; and Mrs. Thomas Graber, Regina, Sask.; and two brothers, Hugh, of Teulon, Man., and Daniel, of Moose Range, Sask.

Other than omitting the actual name of his widow, Thomas' obituary turned out to do a fine job of orienting us to the Guinan family constellation. As if wishing to further confirm the connection, the paper went on to include a post-funeral report on May 6, 1937, which added the names of the pallbearers, including Dan "Rayan" and Pat Ryan, likely nephews of Thomas Guinan through his by-then-deceased sister, Annie and her husband, James Ryan.

Newspapers being newspapers, that this obituary might have been embellished is a risk we have to take in seeking more information on the man. The political hot water swirling around the one episode of Thomas Guinan's career, though in this article presented quite innocuously, may well have led to what the newspaper benignly mentioned as the time when

he retired from business during the Great War and since then has lived quietly with his family....

However, dates and details of political analysis aside, the Guinan obituary provides us a guide through the underpinnings of Thomas' personal life, for which I am grateful. Between this tedious newspaper search, involving both the publications in North Dakota and in Winnipeg, and the outline of his family constellation, despite some discrepancies in details, I was finally able to locate a possible census record for the intact family before they left Ontario for North Dakota.

Not exactly in the "Stanley county" residence identified by the Free Press—and indexed under a spelling off by one critical letter—this 1871 census entry for the "Gainan" family in the Stanley district, still in Huron County, finally yielded the list of family members I had suspected would be the way it was. With Thomas at a promising fourteen years of age at that point, the list included the two brothers I had wondered about—Will and Joseph—as well as sister Annie and baby brother Hugh, likely named after the "Uncle Hugh Quigley" I had seen mentioned in various newspaper entries. Eight year old Margaret became the "Maggie" Guinan who later was wed to John Franklin in North Dakota. And Mary most likely later became Mrs. Falconer, mother of the unfortunate ten year old Stella, returned to her childhood home in North Dakota for burial.

Above: The "Gainan" family—likely the Guinan family—from the 1871 Canadian census for the Province of Ontario, Stanley township in Huron County. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Land Grabs: Doubting Thomas

Sometimes, it helps to go with your gut instincts.

Yesterday, I mentioned having that vague feeling, when looking at the Guinan brothers' enthusiasm over moving north from their Grafton-area farms to Canada. "Times are booming and he likes the country," reported the November 18, 1906, Daily Herald, out of nearby Grand Forks, North Dakota, concerning former resident Joseph Guinan. "Reports of the good climate and soil in that part of Canada are not exaggerated," affirmed another Daily Herald story about his brother, William Guinan, later on February 10, 1911.

Really?

I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, someone had a vested interest in getting rid of some property.

While GenealogyBank.com gave me the scoop on what was happening among the Guinan brothers, back home in North Dakota, I had to turn to NewspaperArchive.com to scour the reports from the Winnipeg side of the story. Sure enough, there was land to be sold and money to be made, and apparently at least one of the Guinans was in the midst of the deal.

Of course, I can't entirely be sure this is one of our Guinans. After all, trawling through 196 hits from my Guinan search at GenealogyBank gifted me with information overload. After diagramming and time-lining who was related to whom—a multi-hour project, I assure you—at least I can say I think this is one of our Guinan brothers.

The furor all seemed to center around the business savvy of one Thomas Guinan. He, in turn, was apparently related to both Joseph Guinan and our William Guinan, husband of the by-then-deceased daughter of Edward and Johanna Ryan (you know: either Margaret or Mary).

The trail northward started, sadly, with a report of the death of a ten year old girl, Stella Falconer. Though she had died in Elm Creek, Manitoba—due north about one hundred miles from the Guinan properties near Hoople, North Dakota—her parents had chosen to return her body to the family burial plot at Saint Thomas. Thus, her obituary appeared in the newspaper of the nearby Grand Forks, North Dakota: the Daily Herald of October 19, 1902.

Frustratingly, that obituary did not exactly mention the precise relationships between the Falconers and the Guinan family, but both Thomas and Will Guinan were mentioned as joining the funeral party on its journey southward from Canada, including the detail that they would be staying at the home of Joe Guinan.

So, who was this Thomas Guinan? As it turns out, following his trail through archived newspaper reports not only painted a colorful picture, but yielded the back story, once I arrived at his own obituary, later in 1937.

I had made a mental note about one entry I found early on, which hadn't specifically mentioned Thomas' name; only in retrospect was I able to go back and retrieve it as ours. From "The City: Bits of News" in Grand Forks' January 23, 1897, Daily Herald:

Representative Guinan, of Pembina County, tarried in the city yesterday. Guinan is good looking and a blamed nice fellow.

The good-looking representative, evidently, left his position before the time of the Falconer funeral in 1902. At least, we can assume. In the next news report I found of him, a decade later, he was billed as president of the Red River Loan and Land Company, presumably out of Winnipeg, where his ads were spotted in The Manitoba Free Press. Here's a sample of the copy from his ad run on March 21, 1912:

For Sale: Bergen and Rosser lands. 1840 ACRES—Known as the Clarke Howe Farm. This splendidly equipped farm is owned by me and I am offering the same for sale. All the land is under cultivation. Two sets splendid buildings, 3 windmills and water for unlimited stock. 1,000 acres ready for crop. For a quick sale $65.00 an acre. $25,000 cash; balance 5 years, at 6%.

It was a politically-instigated article appearing a few years earlier, though, that cast Thomas Guinan in a different light. Headlines from the March 3, 1909, Manitoba Free Press—only three years before the "postage stamp province" had its current borders established—shrieked, "Land Transaction Should Be Investigated."

The headlines went on to explain,

Sixteen thousand acres of swamp area transferred to the Province in December, 1907, were immediately sold to Thomas Guinan, who resold at a profit of from $2 to $3 an acre.

And that was just the headline.

From what appeared to be a politically-motivated vendetta against the then-current province premier, Sir Rodmond Roblin, a "public accounts committee" launched a "preliminary hearing" into a particular land transaction which was considered to have "some peculiar features."

That transaction, of course, was the land swap masterminded by none other than Thomas Guinan, the one whose brothers were so enthusiastically endorsing the popularity of moves north to Canada.

In that same March 9, 1909, Manitoba Free Press article on page five, every detail of the hearing was reported, down to the haggling by the Attorney General over questions plied during cross examination, and offense taken over insinuations that "a prominent Liberal" might have been somehow implicated in impropriety during the land transactions.

Whatever came of that episode in Mr. Guinan's life I haven't been able to determine. However, later newspaper entries of a more mundane nature did help to reveal some of Thomas Guinan's life history. From the Manitoba Free Press of November 9, 1912, a benign article entitled "Birthday Congratulations To," provided a helpful sketch:

Thomas Guinan (Winnipeg); born, Huron County, Ont., Nov. 10, 1850; member of North Dakota legislature, 1896-1900, when he moved to Winnipeg; president of Red River Loan and Land Company. 

The unfortunate report, July 22, 1916, of the death of Thomas Guinan's eldest daughter, Kate—then twenty five—revealed the detail that she was "born at St. Thomas, N.D., and removed with her parents to Winnipeg about 15 years ago." She, like the Falconers' daughter in 1902, found her final resting place at the family plot back in North Dakota.

But it was discovery of Thomas' own obituary, when his own last moments had arrived in 1937, that provided the complete road map of his life's travels—and, as you may have guessed, the story of how the rest of the Guinan family and their associated in-laws had made the journey from their original home in Ontario to the American farmland of North Dakota and then back again to Canada.

That, however, includes enough detail to merit a post of its own—tomorrow.

When Business is Booming

Call me crazy, but I decided one way to determine which of the many Guinans settling in the Grand Forks area of the Dakota Territory were related to our Ryans was to do a universal search of the surname in the historic newspapers collection at GenealogyBank.com. We do, after all, have the technology. Why not?

It took quite a while to sift through the 196 hits received from such a query. It will take even longer to sort out which Guinan was related to whom. Precious few of those news reports coupled the name Guinan with the surname Ryan, actually. But since at least two Guinans were in-laws of our Ryan line, I have a lot to learn by examining the comings and goings of the extended family.

While I'm still mulling over all the listings, don't think I'll just vacate this blog space. Oh, no. There are too many useful tidbits to share. So I may as well start with a few, today.

One of my main questions was, "What made the Ryan family decide, after emigrating from Ontario to the Dakota Territory, to return to Canada?"

I always had the hunch that Edward and Johanna Ryan did not make their cross-country move alone. Besides taking their adult children with them—well, at least three of them for certain—there were others whose names seemed to crop up, not only in North Dakota, but later, after their return to western Canada. Among those names were several of the extended Guinan family.

Evidently, some of the Guinans were—at least for a while—successful businessmen. It was quite entertaining, reading through the sometimes snarky editorial comments tossed into the local columns of the Grand Forks Daily Herald. Of course, there were many ads placed for the business of one Guinan relative—Thomas—but in addition to that, I gleaned enough to get a sense of life in early 1900s North Dakota. More importantly, I also got a glimpse at who was lobbying to move northward—and why.

This entry from the May 3, 1903, Daily Herald made me smile:

Thompson & Guinan have received a new tonophone, or in plain English one of those new fangled pianos that run by electricity and goes without fingers.

While Thomas Guinan was part of the extended family that still remained in North Dakota after the turn of the century, his brother Joseph Guinan—at least, I think he's his brother—had evidently already made the move northward. Under the headline, "Grabbing the Coin," in the November 18, 1906 edition of the Daily Herald, the report was made,

Joseph Guinan, who has been in Sasktoon, [sic] N. W. T., for some time, writes to friends in this city that he is making lots of money in the hotel business at that place. He says times are booming and he likes the country.

By February 10, 1911, another Guinan brother had chimed in, according to the Grand Forks newspaper.

Wm. Guinan of Saskatoon, a brother of Joe Guinan, a former business man of this city, and now also located at Saskatoon, is a visitor in the city, and will leave this morning for his Canadian home. Mr. Guinan reports that a large number of people in eastern and central Canada will move to the Peace River country in the spring, and that the reports of the good climate and soil in that part of Canada are not exaggerated.

Thinking of how blustery the weather could be in North Dakota, I have to wonder how "not exaggerated" the Guinan report of good climate farther north at the Peace River valley might have been. Somehow, it makes me wonder if the Guinans were single-handedly launching a public relations campaign to urge their friends, associates, and neighbors to all vacate Grand Forks and join them in moving to Canada.

Above: Vintage postcard of downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota, circa 1912, within the decade after many of the Guinan family had left the area for Canada. Courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.