Edwin & Carry Carbee

CARBEE, DRESSER, MAVOR

Posted By: Allamakee co. Coordinator (email)
Date: 10/17/2006 at 07:22:34

Edwin and Carry Carbee
Edwin Blaisell Carbee was born in Compton, Quebec, on July 17, 1869. He was one of 10 children, having one brother and eight sisters.

In 1898 he married Caroline Mae Dresser at Postville, Iowa. The following year their first son, Edwin Dresser, was born.

Prior to coming to Western Canada, Edwin was a stock buyer with headquarters in Montreal. On his stock-buying trips to the North West Territories, he was greatly impressed withthe ranching prospects, so he decided to come here to live. In 1901 the family moved to their ranch, five miles south and one west of where Daysland was to build up. In the beginning all of their supplies were freighted in from Wetaskiain.

Two more sons were born. Albert, the second son, died from Black Measles, a very rare and deadly disease. It got its name from the fact tha tthe patient turned black from blood vessels breaking beneath the skin. The family was refused permission for his burial in the cemetery. He was buried north of the homestead in a secluded grave. (Due to the fact it was believed the germ would never die, the grave was never to be opened.) The third son died in infancy.

In 1908 Ed and Carry built a house in Daysland and moved in. From then on the ranching gradually changed to cropping the land. In 1918 Ed had 800 acres seeded to wheat (with a man responsible for each 100 acres). In July a devastating frost wiped out the whole district, including Ed's wheat. This he never fully recovered from.

Edwin passed away at th eage of 68 years on September 30, 1937. Carry then went to live with her sister-in-law Marcia and Jack Mavor until she went to St. Joseph's Hospital in Edmonton where she died at 81 years on December 1?, 1950. They are buried in the Daysland cemetery.

-source: Along the Crocus Trail : a history of Daysland and districts; Daysland, Alberta: Daysland History Book Society, no date; pg. 287