Sentimental Sunday: Home at Last, from a Summer Spent in Canada

Walsh Cove Sunrise, Desolation Sound, BC Canada. Photo by Betty Tartas Aug  2010

It was a wonderful summer!

In honor of our 30th anniversary, my husband & I took our Fisher 37 motorsailer "Mary Vance" north across the border to Desolation Sound Provincial Marine Park in British Columbia, Canada. Talk about sentimental.  We have been visiting this area by boat nearly every year since 1981, when we purchased our first sailboat.  Unfortunately, for the last four years we were not able to take our annual northward migration.  So this summer we were very happy to return at last.

Desolation Sound Marine Park is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, in my humble opinion, and I am certain thousands of other boaters feel the same way about it.

So what does my summer trip to Desolation Sound have to do with genealogy, you might ask?

The ancestors of my maternal grandmother, Ruby Bolton Brown,  had deep roots in Nova Scotia, Canada from the 1750s-1830s.  Her ancestors eventually moved south across the border to Portland, Maine in the 1830s.  They were shipwrights, spar-makers, fishermen, and sea-farers, all of them.   I suspect I have inherited my fascination with ships, boats & sailing from that branch of my family tree.

Ruby's father, Frank R Brown, had a  sister Phebe Brown, who was born 1868 in Folsom, CA. She married a Canadian, Charles Wallace Rhodes, the son of a prominent pioneer family from England that were early settlers in Victoria, British Columbia.

Phebe Brown Rhodes lived her entire adult life in Canada. My maternal grandmother visited her aunt Phebe  with her parents & sisters several times, as they sailed  between Unga Island, Alaska and San Francisco.

Phebe Brown Rhodes is buried in Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria. My mother and I made a trip to Victoria in 2002 to find Phebe's grave.  It was one of the most memorable trips we took together before she passed away.


Have a great day!

Betty

© Betty Tartas  2010