AGNES MARY NUGENT

AGNES MARY NUGENT (DORA LUCINDA4 WESTBURY, ADONIRAM JUDSON3 WESTBERRY, CSA, MOSES2, MOSES1) was born December 11, 1901 in Worthing, South Dakota, and died April 30, 1981 in Rosetown, Saskatchawan, Canada. She married WILLIAM LEITH September 18, 1923 in Canada. He was born October 27, 1886 in Scotia, Manitoba, and died July 12, 1972 in Rosetown, Saskatchawan, Canada.

Notes for WILLIAM LEITH:
I was born on a farm near Hamiota, Manitoba, on October 27, 1886. In 1905 my brother, John, came out west with a party of men from our neighborhood in Manitoba and filed on three homesteads. One for my twin brother George, one for me and one for himself. These were on section 4 , however John did not get his and George decided not to homestead, so I finally got the N.E. quarter of 4 – 28 -13.
The C.N.R. owned all the odd numbered sections of land, excepting sections 11 and 29, which was school land, also section 8, and three quarters on 26, which was held by The Hudson Bay Co. The Agents or Locators, as they were called, would sell a quarter or a half-section, and allow the man to homestead land adjacent to his purchase.
The fall of 1906 I came out to Hanley by train, bought enough lumber to build a shack, a stove and a few dishes, also a half ton of coal. I had Bill Anderson, who had a team of horses, bring me out to the homestead. I had known him in Manitoba and he had a homestead on section 12 in the same Township as I did.
We built a sack and I stayed about a month, and as there was no work to be had, I went to Saskatoon and got a job with the C.P.R. in the Roundhouse, wiping engines at eleven cents a hour for a ten hour day. I stayed a month but could not see any future in it, so quit and went to Prince Albert. It looked too cold there so I started back to Manitoba, but stopped off at Togo, Sask. and helped the Hearns’ , who were also neighbors from Manitoba, finish their threshing.
Just before Christmas I arrived home in Manitoba, and during the winter I acquired a Yoke of oxen, a plow, a disc harrow, also a water tank, which was very necessary as there was no surface water except Barbour Lake. In the latter part of March 1907, George Gray, who had a homestead in 10 – 28 -13, decided to load a car of settlers’ effects, and as he did not have a full carload, I took half the soace, and we started for Saskatchewan.
1906 -07 was the coldest winter on record. We started from Crandall to Brandon and from there to Regina, then the branch line from Regina to Hanley. That was the spring the C.N.R. took over the branch from the C.P.R., and at that time it did not have the rolling stock they have today, so it took us four days to reach Hanley from Regina, then a seventy-five mile trip to the homestead. I well remember crossing the Saskatchewan river at Rudy’s crossing, the ice was bare and I had to take a crowbar and chip the ice before the oxen would move ahead. I broke enough land with the oxen to prove up my homestead, then sold them to Daddy McCallum.
My homestead was the N.E. quarter of 4 – 28 – 13. Frank Lynch was my nearest neighbor, he had the N.W. quarter of the same section. When he brought Mrs. Lynch out, I spent more time at their place than I did at home, as baching was pretty tiresome. This was the beginning of a friendship that was to last for forty-three years.
We had some good times in the early days.
Charlie Campbell and I used to go to dances together and I remember one night we went to one at Mr. George Warren’s, who lived about seven miles south of us, and lost our way and came up to their house from the south. They asked us if we had been lost but we denied it, but the next morning they could see our sleigh tracks in the snow from the south and knew that we had lost our way.
I recall going in bathing one Sunday in Barbour Lake with the Anderson brothers, when a neighbor came down for water just where we had been swimming. He said ” The water looks kind of muddy ” and we said yes it did, but we didn’t tell him that we had been swimming there. He loaded up anyway and then he told us that it was for drinking water.
In the spring of 1910 I went to Saskatoon to file on the N.W. quarter of section 10 for my brother. I spent the night on the stairway of the Dominion Land Office, so that I would be the first one in the office in the morning. I had a chap bring my supper in to me so that no one else would have a chance to get in ahead of me. [ I got the land ].
My brother, John, came out from Manitoba in 1910 and we lived together on my homestead until 1914, when we moved up to the north half of 9 to live. We operated as the Leith Brothers until 1924. In 1917 we built a modern house on the farm, where John still resides.
It was in 1910 that Niles Sweet broke up my homestead, using a Case steam engine. I operated the engine part of that summer, then in the summer of 1911 my brother and I purchased a Hart-Parr tractor and broke up more land, and delivered our first grain to Sovereign that fall.
I was married Sept. 18, 1923 to Peggy Nugent of Swift Current, Sask., and we moved to our present home on the N.W. quarter of 8 – 28 -13 in 1924. Our son Donald was born in February 1926, who now with his wife Ruth and three sons live across the road from us.
The passing of old friends of homestead days such as Joe and Bob Whyte, Bill Orth, Frank and Mrs. Lynch, left us with a sense of loss, as did the retirement of my good friends Bert and Mrs. Maxwell, who now live in Victoria, B.C.
We have spent some winters away, but of late have been staying on the farm, where we are still enjoying good health and good neighbors.

Pioneer Laid to Rest

The passing of Mr. William Leith of Rosetown, Sask., occurred in the University Hospital on July 12, 1972 at the age of 85 years.
Mr. Leith was born at Scotia, Manitoba on October 27, 1886. He came to the Glamis district in 1905 where he homesteaded and has farmed until his passing. He was a Charter and Life Member of the Sovereign Masonic Lodge and was a member of the Wa Wa Temple in Regina.
He is survived by his wife Peggy; one son Donald of Rosetown; three grandsons William and Michael of Rosetown and Patrick of Saskatoon; one great grandson George of Rosetown; one sister Mrs. Elizabeth George of Regina; three nephews George Leith of Wiseton, Stuart Smith of Brandon and Baron George of Boston; four nieces Margaret Dillabough Of Kelowna, Betty Bacon of Vancouver, Beryl McEachern of Regina, and Ruby Godlein of Hamiota, Man.
Funeral services were held from the Rosetown United Church on Sunday, July 16, 1972 at 2:00pm with Rev. J.H. Young and Rev. S. McTavish officiating. Ushers were Mr. Bob Paton and Mr. Jack Smith. The floral tributes were attended to by Mr. Frank Wickett. Honorary pallbearers were Mr. Jack Pateman, Mr. Jack Lawson, Mr. Bert Hay, Mr. Ray Hough, Mr. Scott Rose, Mr. Ted Sparks, Mr. Jim Lynch, Mr. Avery McConnell. Members of the Masonic Lodge formed a guard of honor outside the church and at the cemetery.
Interment followed in the Rosetown Roselawn Cemetery with the following acting as pallbearers: Mr. Les Whyte, Mr. Ken Orth, Mr. Art Martin, Mr. Lindsay Nisbet, Mr. Mervin Walker, and Mr. Clive Hough.
Clements, Rosetown Funeral Home was in charge of the arrangements.

Child of AGNES NUGENT and WILLIAM LEITH is:
i. DONALD WILLIAM LEITH, b. February 12, 1926.