Ion, Arthur

Personne

Ion, Arthur

Arthur Ion was born in England in 1867. He came to Canada as a young man, as a stowaway on a sailboat. He was soon discovered, and was put to work scrubbing floors and packing water for the Captain of the ship. Once on land, he eventually found employment in Quebec on a dairy farm. In 1900, he was married to Emma Booth, and the couple had two children; Albert and Mary. His wife Emma, died early in the young family's life, and Arthur suffered a devestating head injury at a neighbours barn raising at Barwick, Ontario, when a beam fell and fractured his skull. The notable Dr. Bethune of Emil, Ontario, performed a life-saving operation, but as a result of the injury, Arthur experienced severe headaches for the remainder of his life. On July 6th, 1904, Arthur married Mary Ion, a trained RN at Barwick. The couple had two children: William and Dorothy. The Ion's operated a hardware store there before eventually coming west in 1909. After a brief farming venture at Marquis, SK., they eventually settled on a homestead in the British Block near the Carlstadt (Alderson) area north of Medicine Hat. Arthur and Mary Ion kept letters and diaries of their homesteading experience, recording daily chores, family events, crop results and prices, weather etc., a practice Arthur Ion faithfully recorded until he passed away on November 6, 1944.

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