Only guests sleep in Grandpa’s bedroom now. He’s been dead more than five years, but it’s still “Grandpa’s bedroom.” Above his high double bed hangs a portrait of Grandma’s grandmother, my great-great grandmother. Her name was Mary Jane Walker.

She and her husband and family of five children left Ontario by train in the late 1890s and settled in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.She contracted pneumonia in 1902 and died at the age of 30. The family left Portage two years later and came further west by train. After disembarking, they came the rest of the way on in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. When they got to the White Sand River, it was overflowing its banks after heavy rains. They were forced to camp next to it for three days, along with other settlers, while they built a bridge to cross over.

There, Annie May, my 17-year-old great-grandmother, met my great-grandfather, who I remember as Grandpa Jack. They were married three years later.