Pope Family Tree

Jesse Oscar Anderson homesteaded NE 18-24-24 W2 in Saskatchewan, filing on December 22, 1905. Source: Penzance Prairie Profiles, page 62.

Jesse was a carpenter, and built a house in Penzance.

"Grace married Jesse Anderson, a young traveling homesteader from Illinois. ... The family's fortunes improved until 1912, when Stephen [Horn], Louis [Horn], John [Horn], and Jesse seeded over 400 acres of wheat with horses. Later that year young John was in a poker game that got out of hand and the farms were sold to pay his debt.

"In 1912 the families were on the move again. Stephen bought land from C.P.R. at Tudor, next to the Schafers. Louis and Ruth went to Montana, where Louis, a stern young man like his father, was sheriff of the frontier town of Plentywood from 1912 to 1917. Grace and Jesse went to the mining town of Butte, Montana. John went loggng in Washington. In 1916 Grace and Jesse went to Tudor and started a general store. Louis and Ruth and John arrived in Tudor in 1918. The Horn, Schafer and Anderson families all lived and farmed around Tudor through the 1920's. Most of the Horn, Schafer, Anderson and Kaughman children were born there." -- Horn, Shafer Family Book, 2004

"Grace met Jesse when the family lived in Craik. Grace was working in a photo studio in Regina when Jesse came in to have a passport photo taken. They were married December 1, 1909 in Craik Saskatchewan. Grace was a very religious lady, who was originally brought up a Quaker, but ended up being baptized as a Baptist" -- Horn, Shafer Family Book, 2004

"Jesse's father died when he was 12 years old and being the oldest he had to go to work. His first job was with the railroad. At 15 he started lumberjacking - this took him all across the United States. He came to Canada about 1905 and took up a homestead in an area called Tyne Castle, the closest town being Craik. It was while he was here that he met and married Grace.

"They moved to Dooley, Montana where Jesse tried to get into the army but was turned down because he was flat footed. Back to Tudor, Alberta where they bought a farm from the Canadian Pacific Railroad, right close to Grace's parents, Stephan and Rosetta Horn. While farming, they bought a store in Tudor which was a Post Office, Grocery, Hardware, and Lumber store all in one.

"After Louis was born Grace and Jesse moved to Everett, Washington and Jesse went to lumberjacking again. Meanwhile they rented out the land and store in Tudor. After a time they returned to Tudor and took over the store. When Rosetta was born the found out she needed special attention that they couldn't get in Tudor, so they moved to Millet, Alberta. The store in Tudor was rented out again. The store at Tudor burnt down, and there was no insurance on it. This meant they lost the land to pay the debts.

"At Millet, they bought a farm 'sight unseen' as in those days your word was honor. When they went to look at it, there was no doors or windows and the place was a real wreck. The kids enjoyed looking around and even though they were told not to go up the rickety old stairs to the second floor, they did, and found an old trunk full of doll clothes. Jesse and Grace must also have enjoyed their find a little, as they found two Queen Ann chairs, which they took home with them. Home at this time was a hotel in Millet. While there Louis contracted typhoid from the water. He was taken to the Wetaskiwin Hospital. He was very sick for a couple of weeks before they knew if he would live. He remained in hospital for 3 months.

"Jesse and Grace rented a farm from the Pinion's but the only thing it was good for was hay as the land was poor. Next they rented the Doan farm and it was good for mixed farming. The first year they had a beautiful crop, the next year the crop was looking good, then came a bad hail storm and wiped out everything, Jesse said "That's it we're moving to town"

"Jesse got a Massey-Harris dealership along with Pontiac and Buick cars. He bought a track grain, which meant that he bought grain even though he didn't have an elevator to keep it in. He had arranged for a box car to ship the grain. He had to clean the box cars to get rid of germs and vermin.

"Grace and Jesse moved to Edmonton in 1929 and he got a job as a Watkins distributor for the whole southside of Edmonton. He did this until Watkins decided to divide the southside into three divisions, and he could not make enough money to live on. He then got a job at Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator just east of Edmonton. He worked as a grain buyer until his lungs started to bother him so badly that he had to quit at the doctor's recommendation."

"Jesse then went to work at Muttart's Lumber - until he had a heart attack. When he was well enough, he got a job as as night watchman at Northwest Industries and was there for a couple of years. Then he took a job as a night clerk at the Ritz Hotel. In the daytime he was renovating homes. He had a stroke in 1943. Grace new she was going to have to do something, so she and Thelma went to look at a rooming house on Jasper Avenue and 97 Street. It had a ban on for soldiers because of the prostitutes. They figured that this would be a good thing for Jesse and that between them, they could handle it. So the family set about cleaning up the place and getting the prostitutes out. When they did the ban was lifted for the soldiers.

"At the time Thelma's husband, Wes, was overseas at war, as were Oliver and Louis. Thelma stayed with them and helped until Wes came home in 1946 and they moved. It was too much for Grace and Jesse to handle, and it wasn't long before they sold and moved the southside of Edmonton. A little over a year later they moved to the Bonnie Doon area where Jesse had built a house for them. While they were living in this house, he built another house on a corner lot, when he was finished, they moved into the newer one and sold the other. Jesse seemed to enjoy this type of work. He bought a couple of lots close to Thelma and Wes and built a couple of houses there, which he sold as well. At this point he could no longer do this type of work, so, in order to have something to do, he converted his garage to a Chinchilla raising project." -- Horn, Shafer Family Book, 2004