Some Older Research

I was reviewing some of the old emails I had received from various people who have assisted me in trying to track down any information about Willy.  I realized that some of them were very interesting and reflected a great deal of work by the people who sent them.  They are certainly worth sharing and I apologize for not having posted them sooner.

From: Avalon

Hi Michael … pleased to meet you!  And Hi Holly … be careful of those high-fallutin’ words of praise that you’re doling out there on my behalf… it puts the pressure on to ‘produce’!!  😉

My tardiness in replying was because I was hard at work with the assignment.  I did quite extensive digging on the Willy puzzler and was basically coming up with more puzzling questions.  I was perplexed about the ‘working on trains and subsequent death by’ for Willy’s father.  If they were from your neck of the country, Michael, I wasn’t aware of train lines up that way back in that time period, other than perhaps for mining trams and tracks that could be referred to that way?  I also was curious why Willy referred to Roderick McRae as ‘Rodney’ … this isn’t normally a short form of Roderick … Roddy perhaps, but Rodney stood out as unusual.  I could find absolutely no trace of Willy, or any of his family, in searching the N.S. Civil records.  I could see perhaps not finding all of them mentioned, but to come up with nothing that matched seemed odd.  I also have an extensive obituary collection for N.S. deaths and none of the name combination searches that I tried yielded anything even close.

I decided to put out some feelers to some other researchers who I know and ones who would be familiar with the area that we were concluding this group were from.  I received back a very interesting reply which I will copy here to you.  This gal was even familiar with your web posting of Willy’s diary and apparently had almost made contact with you when she first came across it.  She confirms she too had similar thoughts to those that I was beginning to have as to whether we were literally ‘off track’ on the home roots of these families.  Your father has bequeathed you quite an intriguing mystery here!!!  Aside from the website, I wonder if a FaceBook or Twitter posting could yield additional exposure on them?  What you really need is for someone to recognize the people or the story rings familiar and the more exposure you can give the diary, the better the odds?

Here is the promised reply that I got …. you might be interested in making direct contact?

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Hi Avalon:
I rec’d your email from a cousin of mine living in Alberta. I belong to the Middle River Historical Society in Victoria County, N.S. and certainly recall reading the diary of William Henry Smith on line last year.

We have done quite an extensive search on William Henry Smith because of the fact that he seemed to be connected with Roderick MacRae, or Roddie, as he was known here in Middle River. I visited two of Roddie’s nephews and his surviving sister to show them the info that was posted by the gentleman who found the journal written by William Henry Smith in war mementos left by his deceased father.

These family members knew all of Roddie’s friends and ones he grew up with and there wasn’t a William Henry Smith. The fact that Pte. Smith called Pte. MacRae by the name Rodney seemed to be another reason that it had to be another Roderick MacRae that William Henry Smith was mentioning in his diary. Roddie’s family told me that he was never called Rodney. Also we have never found a Smith family in Middle River where the Mom was left a widow with William and two siblings. Roddie’s sister, Annie, with whom I spoke said she knew all of Roddie’s friends that he went to school with and there wasn’t a William Henry Smith.

Another peculiar fact is that the death date of Roderick/Roddie isn’t the same as in the Smith journal.

We feel that when the gentleman found William’s journal in his father’s war mementos, he probably checked out a Rodney MacRae in the North Nova Highlanders in WW2 and found Pte. Roderick MacRae from Middle River and just connected the two from items mentioned in the journal.

I also spoke with Bonnie Thornhill who was co-author of a book published listing veterans of World War I and II from Victoria County and she had no knowledge of a William Henry Smith from this area.

I really can’t advise where one should go from here. Perhaps a complete review of the names of the servicemen who were enlisted in the North Nova Highlanders at that particular time might be a start. The ones with whom I spoke suggested that Pte. Smith must have been from some other area of Nova Scotia possibly where there was a railroad system which could be many places in Nova Scotia but Middle River wouldn’t be one of them.

I planned on emailing the gentleman that published the journal on line to let him know that the information wasn’t correct but got distracted doing other things. Where do you live and are you a relative of William Smith?

I believe that young men could enlist from other provinces and still be a North Novie Highlander. So it’s possible William could be from N.B, or even Ont??? Don’t know, for sure.
Sorry I can’t be of more help. It would be nice to find out more about William Henry Smith.

Best regards,
Peggy