Thomas & Sarah Ann (nee Tennant) Grawberger
Thomas and Sarah Jane Grawberger came to Badger Manitoba about 1900 from the Tennant Settlement near what is now known as Chalk River, Ontario. They brought five of their children with them: George, Isaac, Sarah (Sadie), Margaret (Maggie) and Bill.
Their oldest daughter, Mary, remained in Chalk River and married a man named Alfred MacDonald on October 31, 1900. Mary & Alfred had chicken stew for their wedding supper as recounted by Elaine (Cuthbert) Tennant. The photo on the right is Alfred and Mary on their wedding day. Photo supplied by Perry MacDonald - Chalk River.
Badger was a thriving little town then, with a Post Office, stores, dance hall, section house, station and freight sheds. There were quite a few saw mills in the area and a lot of wood business. Tom worked on the Canadian National Railway and his wife Sarah Jane operated a boarding house.
Margaret, Sadie and Bill went to school in Badger.
In 1906, Tom took a homestead on S.E. 1/4 of 14-2-11 where he moved later after retiring from the C.N.R. because of illness. He lived there until his death in 1925 at the age of 70.
Their son, George joined the Army in 1914 and was reported missing in action in 1916 in World War I.
Bill married a girl in Vancouver and he died in 1954.
There are several Grawberger (notice that their name spelling is with an "e" not an "a" in Grawberger) families still living in the Piney Manitoba area.
ref: Pine Valley Echoes: a History of Badger, Menisino and Piney, p. 229
Author: Piney Area History Book Committee
Publisher: Piney Area History Book Committee, 1988ISBN0920739474, 9780920739471, Length343 pages
Thomas Tennant & Mary Ann Grawbarger
Thomas and Mary Ann and Robert Tennant (brother to Thomas) and his wife Elizabeth Grawbarger (sister to Mary Ann) rode the rails out to Manitoba in the very early 1900s. They probably came out just after they were bought out on the Tennant Settlement by the Federal Government to form the Petawawa Military Base in 1907/08. That's Thomas and Mary Ann on the right.
The major rail head where they moved to was Minnedosa Manitoba and they set up
their new homes near Fairmount Manitoba just north of Basswood. They were members of the Fairmount Church and Thomas and Mary Ann and Elizabeth are buried in the Fairmount Cemetery (just off Fairmount Road which is east of Manitoba Highway #270 - off Hwy #16). This is a photo on the right of Fairmount Church.
After Elizabeth died in 1913 her husband Robert Tennant (in his early 70s) picked up with his remaining family and they carried on the journey out to Egerton Alberta to become farmers once again. Egerton is just south east of Wainwright Alberta. That's Doug Tennant standing beside the headstone for Thomas Tennant and Mary Ann Grawbarger at Fairmount Cemetery in Fairmount Manitoba.
This is a photo of Fairmount Cemetery looking to the rear of it toward where Thomas & Mary Ann and her sister Elizabeth Grawbarger are buried.
