To the Editor:
Sometimes in our own area there have been tragedies the present occupants know nothing about.
My second wife, who happens also to be my cousin had just such a thing happen in the early 1920s.
The Joy family owned the five acres that are just east of the traffic light on the highway at Trout Creek in Summerland.
This acreage was five acres of stumps and Tom Joy was clearing and burning those stumps. There were two older boys and four girls. Marion Joy was just a toddler in those days, and somehow she fell she had fallen in the hole of one of these burning stumps. Harriet Joy had found her, and somehow got her out of the burning stump and carried and dragged her as best she could to where there was help. Marion lived for some time, but eventually succumbed to the burns. When the Joys got home from the funeral, the bill for the funeral was in the mail. Times were hard and there was no way they could pay the bill. One of Tom Joys buddies - Hugh McLarty said, “Give me the bill, I’ll pay it!” He was a working partner of Tom Joys at the Summerland Research Station.
My wife Audrey was telling me that Marion used to say, “Audy - God loves you.”
Have any of you known what its like to have lost a dear little sister like that?
Wilf Miller, Keremeos