(submitted by Cathy Unsworth)
Joseph Wesley McKay’s family emigrated from Glasgow, Scotland on the ship the Atlas, leaving Greenock on July 11, 1815 and arriving in Quebec City 62 days later. The family was given land in Lanark County, Upper Canada. Wesley’s great-grandfather, David Sr., lived in the same township.
Wesley’s grandfather, David McKay Jr. (1833–1923), came to Lambton County with his brother John. David Jr. married Dinah Chaplin (–1886), bought 200 acres in Plympton Twp. and made a life there. Their oldest child William Henry (1859–1889) married Elizabeth Jane Maw, bought a farm and built a frame home on Lot 2, Con. 1 NER, Warwick Twp. Here William Henry and Elizabeth Jane raised their son Joseph Wesley McKay.
Wesley McKay (–1957) married Amy Elizabeth Young (–1982). He served as a Councillor for Warwick between 1945 and 1948. He was killed in a drunk driving accident just ¼ mile from his home. Amy and Wesley’s son Harold had taken over the family farm just two years earlier.
It was always a haven to go to my Grandma McKay’s house for holidays, as I was the second youngest of ten children. On the farm there were lots of banty chickens running around. By the time July rolled by, it was like a big Easter egg hunt, going around and gathering all their accumulated eggs into a pile.
Another fond memory I have is waking up in the upstairs bedroom in our feather bed and running into Grandma’s bed to cuddle up with her, full of giggles. Even though there was indoor plumbing, we were only allowed to use it at bedtime. The rest of the time we were to use the outhouse, behind the wood shed.
Every morning Grandma would stoke the stove for breakfast, which always consisted of a bowl of hot porridge and a hard boiled egg. One of her golden rules was: if you have canned fruit you must also eat a slice of bread with it.
While eating breakfast we would look out the screen door to see our Aunt Ruby (Mrs. Harold McKay) heading down to the barn to help Uncle Harold with the milking of the cows. Aunt Ruby loved cats. I can still remember how ten to twenty cats would follow her in a line out to the barn, knowing that she would feed them some fresh cream soon.
(Harold died in 2000, Ruby (O’Hara) in 2007. They had no children.)
Grandma played games with us. Some of her favorite games were Bingo and Word Scramble. In Word Scramble, she would take a large word and we were to make as many smaller words as possible, in a set time. There was also the game “Name Your Colour” in which you picked a colour, and as the cars drove by you counted the number of cars in your chosen colour. Keep in mind, back 40 years ago there weren’t as many colours as today.
Chapter 24 of 25 - McKay, Joseph Wesley
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