I started to write a summary of the process of putting the letters together but instead, I lifted the introduction I wrote for Letters to the Ranch, which appears below. Something about the process of assembling the book will become 6c.
INTRODUCTION TO "LETTERS TO THE RANCH"
In 1912, my grandparents Joseph and Martha (Patty) Wake Hinde emigrated with their family from Birmingham to Central Saskatchewan, settling east of the village of Borden. In time, the family formed Valley Springs Ranch, and lived there and worked the Ranch until after many decades the last of the family retired from active ranching.
Following the death of Henry Wake (Harry) Hinde in 1981, his widow Mary Needler Hinde and his sister Elsie Hinde Ingram made the decision to donate the documents, letters and photographs that had accumulated over the years at Valley Springs Ranch, to the Saskatchewan Archives Board. Subsequently Mary Hinde Crane and Roberta Hinde Rivett, granddaughters of Joseph and Martha Hinde, arranged for copies of much of this material to be made, largely sent from family members living elsewhere to the family at the Ranch. From those letters, this volume has been compiled.
The family at Valley Springs Ranch kept in close correspondence with members who had moved away, and with members who had remained in England. Several sequences of letters have emerged from examination of the Hinde Collection at the Saskatchewan Archives Board. Letters from Leonard Hinde, the oldest son, and Winifred Hinde Chamness, the second daughter, represent two groupings; these were children of Joseph and Martha who lived at a distance from the Ranch after their marriages. Letters from others of the immediate family are infrequent as usually their absences from the near environs of the Ranch were of limited duration. Another grouping is the letters from England. Woven into the letters from England are the very few letters that other members of the Hinde family wrote to each other during their rare absences from Valley Springs Ranch. All the letters donated to the Saskatchewan Archives Board have been transcribed to form this volume along with a few others kept by Bob and Susie Hinde.
All the letters from members of the Hinde family and of the Wake family in England and from others, are presented in the order of their date. Occasionally missing pages or omitted dates require guesses as to the date, but to the extent possible all are in chronological order.
From the available material it appears that letters were exchanged about every two months between the Sturge-Artiss family in England and the Hinde family in Canada. It is assumed that this began with their separation in 1912 and ended only with the death of Mary Artiss in the 1980s. Most of the letters which were preserved are from the period of World War II, and even with these the sequence is incomplete. Many factors may serve to explain these gaps. The preservation of letters is not a common or consistent practice generally, and it appears to be the case with this family as well. During the war, many letters clearly were lost in transit. There is a hint that some might have fallen prey to wartime censorship. In addition there is indication that letters were shared among family members near or distant, with no expectation of return.
The Hinde Letters present a similar picture, with the added note that many of them make reference to the financial difficulties that were a major reason for the family's emigration, and which followed them to their new life.
The available letters represent a treasure-trove of family history. It is a very different experience to know of wartime Britain through the letters of kinfolk during both World Wars and to know it through television documentaries, movies or books. The Sturge-Artiss letters date from 1914 to 1953. Although it is known that Mary Artiss continued to write to Susanna Hinde well after her husband Bob Hinde's death in 1978, these letters have not been preserved.
The Hinde letters begin in 1910, two years before the family emigrated, and continue until the death of Joseph Hinde in 1955, with one sad missive received following his death. The pre-emigration letter is shown here because of the foundation it provides for later letters relating to Joseph Hinde's financial situation.
The letters which became available through the Saskatchewan Archives Board have been footnoted to provide the reader with as much information as is known about the people named. Where nothing is known, it is assumed friends were named rather than kin. In some instances the nature of the connection is clear in the letters, in others it cannot, perhaps, be known now. In writing footnotes the editor had in mind her grandchildren, and what they might need to understand the content of the letters.
J. Denys Hinde of Cumbria provided the footnotes for the Hinde letters and he also provided much of the information in the Hinde family tree, Appendix I.
In 1958, Mary Hinde (later Crane) visited in England with many of the people mentioned in the letters. It is her knowledge that makes the connections for the English members of the family, in the footnotes of these letters.
Patty, or Pattie, is Martha Wake Hinde. Her sister, Annie Wake Sturge, and her niece Mary Sturge Artiss, are the writers of many of the letters. Martha's husband is Joseph Hinde, and Annie's, Edward Sturge. Mary's husband is Tom Artiss, and their children are Ruth, Christine, Joseph and David. Mary was the only child of Annie and Edward Sturge. Amy Sturge is the sister of Edward Sturge.
Uncle Joe is Joseph Hinde; Robert who signs the early letters is Joseph Hinde's brother. The later Robert is Joseph Hinde's nephew, son of the earlier Robert.
Mary Sadler is Joseph Hinde's sister. Maria Sadler is her daughter and Joseph's niece. Elsie Hinde is another niece of Joseph's, daughter of his brother Robert.
At the time these letters were written, all the writers and most of their kin and friends were members of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers.
Letters from Winifred and Leonard
Winifred left Valley Springs Ranch to live in West Branch, Iowa when she married. The context of her available letters indicates that she wrote to the Ranch weekly; if this is so, the vast majority of her letters was not preserved. Those which remain cluster around the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Leonard too left the Ranch, first to live in Saskatoon, and later, Ontario. His available letters begin during World War II and continue sporadically for a decade, after which several written by his wife Ruth were preserved.
These letters too are woven into the whole in chronological order.
A few other letters found in the SAB collection are included.