Finding Flora by Elinor Florence
North of Lacombe, Flora found her home and her community. It didn’t look like that when she arrived, only weeks out of Scotland. Her quarter section of rolling countryside looked like an insurmountable challenge. She was a homesteader and a woman on her own. In writing Finding Flora, Elinor Florence was imaginatively finding her own roots.
Homesteaders were required by law to “prove” their assigned claim of a quarter section: build a house and a barn, and break and plant crops on five, then ten, then 15 acres each year. After three years, the homesteader could ask for ownership. Inspectors checked the fulfillment of terms several times during each year. “Free” land was given in exchange for laborious settlement, not accounting for the fact that the land was already inhabited when it was divided so neatly into sections (1 mile x 1 mile) and quarter sections.
Although Flora had a bona fide entitlement to her homestead, many of the men in the district resented that a woman was “competing” with them, rather than following the strict social norm of marrying and having children. The homestead inspector was one of the men who felt cheated by a woman working fertile ground. He took his spite out in multiple nick-picking inspections per year and in fomenting anger amongst his friends and other farmers.
Flora’s strength was her own, and it was bolstered by her neighbours. Not entirely by happenstance, four adjacent quarters were in the hands of women. Jessie trained horses on the settlement bequeathed to her following the expulsion of Métis from Manitoba; her land was rocky and hilly, quite well suited to her profession. Two ladies lived on land that had been purchased outright, and they re-created the elegance of England. The other homesteader, Peggy, was a widow from Wales who had come to Canada’s hard life to prevent her eldest son from going into the mines that had killed her husband. The hate-filled men sarcastically called the area “Ladyville”, which the women adopted with pride to undermine the men’s sense of superiority.
As the inhabitants of Ladyville proved their worth, as well as their land, they attracted allies in their battles, both physical and social. The rough and tumble of creating new communities caused hurt and healing. This is a story of Alberta.
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