Transcript of interview with Fanny Elizabeth Stewart-Leigh-Flynn (born January 8, 1916 died in Charlottetown on June 1997)

Transcript of interview with Fanny Elizabeth Stewart-Leigh-Flynn (born January 8, 1916 died in Charlottetown on June 1997)

Photo of Fanny Elizabeth Leigh-Flynn and Stewart Leigh taken on Prince Edward Island ferry


In process: December 1990: Transcript of interview with Fanny Elizabeth Stewart-Leigh-Flynn (born January 8, 1916 died in Charlottetown on June 1997), interviewed by Maureen Leigh-Flynn-Burhoe (born in Charlottetown on March 18, 1949). The transcript was corrected later by my mother Fanny E. Flynn but a number of these corrections are no longer visible. I have used [] for my own additions or questions.



Mother was Jean Ellis Stewart (b.2 April 1876 – died 1950s in Charlottetown) and her mother was Sarah Elizabeth Axtel (b. 1839) [Sarah Axtel-MacLennan-Stewart]. Her grandmother was a Fitzpatrick from Ireland. I don’t know where Axtel came from but they lived in Newfoundland.

She Sarah, was born in 1839 and the beginning of the story was at a time when her father used to take sailing ships down to South America . . . Her own mother and whatever family . . . there was some family, perhaps sisters . . . they died and she at sixteen [1855] . . . he couldn’t very well leave her . . . so he took her on his ship and they sailed to Brazil. She was supposed to have been a very nice looking girl. Since he owned the ship they would be in different kinds of entertainment . . . When they were being entertained she met this man, [John] MacLennan.[John b. c. 1829 or earlier?] He was a deep sea diver. He was comfortably off and he was living down there. His original home, his father was the first minister of the Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Prince Edward Island and the rest of the family were living in Prince Edward Island. So she met him and they fell in love. The father seeing this happening decided he was going to sail before the regular sailing date. He was kind of nervous about it. However John MacLennan got word from somebody else on the boat that her father was going to do this. And he got her off the boat in a rowboat and whisked her away and they were married. The father sailed back for Newfoundland and he died on the way. I don’t know if her father was buried at sea or what. John MacLennan had very good friends called the Cejames, Spanish isn’t it? [did she mean Portuguese?]. They had slaves . . . a plantation . All I know is they were well off people. They had their own chapel. So MacLennan and his young bride Sarah lived with them. They had two daughters, Lulu (Louise) and Francesca Cejames [?] I would almost think the oldest girl would be around six when they left Brazil. While they were there the little ones used to often run up and take the little statues can called them her baby Jesus and she’d play with them.

According to Mum it became too warm down there and it was decided that Sarah would come to Prince Edward Island to stay with his sisters with her two children and then he would follow some time later. He was supposed to have been a man who drank quite a bit. He was supposed to have been a nice looking man but . . .

So she came up [to Canada, to Charlottetown].

Now at the time they had the slaves down there. Now I believe she came to Halifax and then to Charlottetown harbour. The slave was sent up with her. His name was Varismo. When they got off the boat there was no one to meet them and they came up to [Upper] Prince Street [237 King Street ?] to MacLennan’s in something like a milk cart or something like that. And it was quite a sensational thing because there was this black man dressed in pure white carrying these little girls. But of course he couldn’t stay here so he went back. The last Sarah heard of him was he stopped in New York where he met a girl and married.

She spoke English but the father John MacLennan had seven languages. Sarah only spoke English but that wouldn’t be a problem. Their own language would be Spanish [or Portuguese?]

So anyway she and the children lived in the house up on Upper Prince Street right across from Rogers next to the Baptist Church. [I believe the Prince Street School was adjoined with the Baptist Church which was on the site where the Salvation Army is now located on Walthen Drive. The Baptist Church was there since 1836. It’s steeply was quite high therefore visible. It burnt in the 19th century.]The fretwork is all little animals.

[The house on Upper Prince Street . . . (That)] was built for the widow of the late John MacLennan [Senior] , minister of the Belfast Church. He died and was buried down there. When he died his wife came to town. It would be quite reasonable that this John MacLennan ─ who had quite a bit of money ─ could very well have done a lot of the building, paying for a lot of the building of that property.
[This is a photo of the St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Belfast ] It wasn’t a nice place to go. There were two of them and she’d only be in her early twenties and a nice looking person. Different people would come to take her out in their carriage. A judge who knew John MacLennan, he came to take her out. And someone else came to take her out. So the sisters would write back to John MacLennan making it sound as though she was picking up with people.

And the other story they sent down was that she was bringing up the children in the Catholic Church. Because when their maid asked to take the children to mass with her . . . and Grandma Stewart [Sarah Axtel-MacLennan-Stewart] said, “Of course.” The poor maid came home before the service was over terribly embarrassed because this little Fanny had run up to the altar in the Catholic Church here and you just didn’t do that! She had wanted to play with the baby Jesus.

So John McLennan came up about a year later and he landed in Halifax. They had the cobble streets there. I think it was Hollis Street. He was riding a horse that began to run away. He was a man who had a very bad temper. He held unto the reins but was pulled off the horse and was killed on the cobble stones.

So when the will was read, he made the will so that if she ever married, everything would go to the two children.

And this is the part that strikes me . . . What a mother would do . . . But in stories you often hear of it. She turned around and married anyway. She married my grandfather Norman Stewart. And if you notice there was quite a difference in their ages. She was born in 1839 and he was born in 1850 something.
So he [Norman Stewart] was a young man who came from the country to live down here [in Charlottetown]. He apparently had a little bit [of money] because he put money in a ship --- not to go himself. I’m kind of wondering if it was in the Fanny, that ship that was lost . . . that he put his money in to sail around. And I don’t know just what they would bring back but it was going to . . . you know, he’d be making money.

It was the first thing he did to make money and the ship went down and everything was gone. So she really ended up that she was kind of poor.

And the two girls were left with their aunts [on Upper Prince Street?]. And they grew up and one of them married a Mr. Moore. I think he was from Saint John, New Brunswick. And Lulu [Louise] married Dr. Tom Robbins. He was a dentist. They lived on King Street but not in the same house. Both of them began to drink. She was supposed to have had one child and she didn’t take care of the baby and it died.

And Grandma Stewart [Sarah Axtel-MacLennan-Stewart] used to send her second husband, Norman Stewart, up to take care of them and do things for them and all that. [Dr.]Tom Robbins died too. Grandma Stewart [Sarah Axtel-MacLennan-Stewart] used to send soup up. Lulu’s aunts didn’t pay any attention because once she started the drinking . . . She still had her money and she’d given him . . .

Now Francesca Cejames married Mr. Moore and they lived somewhere around Saint John. But Lulu was it.

[. . .]

Why I’m speaking of the toaster . . . You see this is all disjointed because you came to me too fast [laughing]. But the reason I’m talking about the toaster is long after we took it to Moncton and she loved it. When we moved back to Charlottetown in 1930 or 1931 Dad knew some people who weren't very well off. What he did he do but he bought Mum a new toaster thinking it would be a lovely thing and since she had a new toaster he whisked the old toaster away and gave it to these people. Mum said she would rather he would give my new toaster and Mum was always sorry about that [laughing]. God love him he didn't live much longer after that. How we knew that he did have some mortgages . . . but he was quite a man, for if they were poor and couldn't pay the interest . . . these mortgages would be mortgages he held from before he married Mum. He and Stewart went out for a drive and I don't know where it was but Hunter (?) River way and they went to this house and the people were so kind and good to Stewart and Dad. Stewart kind of wondered why they were making such a fuss. But the old lady said to Stewart, We'll never forget your father. When we couldn't pay the interest, he just said, We'll close the mortgage. Consider it paid.' and he gave them the mortgage to burn. Now we don't know how many properties he had (mortgages). He didn't own any properties that we know of. But that was his problem that he was too generous. So the money that was left to him . . .

Now when Grandma Peake . . . when she was in the heyday of her money, the interest on her money was $5000 a year. In their home they had the Nanny to look after the older two and the Nanny to look after the younger two, a man to look after the horses, etc. At that time $5000 a year would do a lot. When she died the interest was down to $800. You can tell from that will there wasn't a great deal. Some got $1500. With Dad --- I think she kind of liked Dad which was easy to do because Dad was a much nicer person than Uncle Tom or Alice or Alice's husband.

So then we went to Dartmouth and then we came back here to Charlottetown. Dad died in 1936. I married in 1946 and my brother Stewart never married.

A couple of gifts that Grandfather Leigh when he was in the navy brought home to his wife Fanny Peake: one was a jewel box. It had a kind of a hidden place. That jewel box was CL to FL and I think that the year was 1867. When grandmother died it apparently ended up with Fanny Alice, Dad's oldest sister who married Beer [Hubert Beer]. They were moving out to California in the 1920s. They had a sale. They lived on Longworth Avenue. They put out the jewel box and also a very nice Japanese box on the their grounds and they were having a sale. They were amongst a jumble of things. Uncle Tom, Dad's brother, saw them and said, "You're not selling my mother's jewel box and he put it under his arm. Now he had already been given as the oldest son all the epelets and all the cocked hat with the feathers in it, the naval stuff. Naturally it went to the oldest son. He took it to his own home on Kent Street. We never had any . . .

Passmore. They just went on living like everyone else. My mother was more outgoing than Aunt Bess. Aunt Bess was supposed to be a very beautiful person. As a matter of fact, Mum remembers one time a lady coming to visit when the kids were just young and she came in and she looked at the two of them and said, "Oh my! Bessie is such a beautiful child but that one isn't too much to look at." Mum said she hated [that woman] her ever since, even when Mum grew up. But any way she was more outgoing than . . .

But Grandma Stewart — from the way Mum spoke — she wasn't outwardly saying that she sat around — but Mum always seemed to be doing . . . She'd be setting the bread and she'd be doing all the . . . and it almost seemed as if her mother sat around as a lady almost. She used to go out to the . . . They used to play cards . . . with . . . there was a Mrs. Seaman, the Principal of the school, Prince Street School. She went to houses like that and played cards. But it always seemed to me that Mum did most of the housework and was home all the time. On her own she took music lessons. Mum did . . . And they had this old kind of a piano and on her own she decided that she was going to [buy another one]. There were two pianos that came to the Island and they had what they call a mandolin attachment and Aunt Lulu bought one and Mum was going to buy the other one. It was a very expensive one. I believe in my heart it was $400 but I'm not certain. Really it was an expensive thing. So anyway she signed a paper that she would buy this. Grandfather Stewart . . .

The shawl had nothing to do with the Leigh's or the Peake's. The shawl belonged to Sarah Elizabeth who was married first to MacLennan and later to Stewart. The shawl was given . . . She wore it when she got off the boat in Charlottetown . . . a beautiful made by the natives in Brazil. It would be a very costly one and the very long fringe. It was all covered in handwork and you couldn't tell the back from the front. The finish was so beautiful. But anyway it was given to mother. My brother and I were christened in it and all my children were christened in it. I have given that to my oldest daughter and she mentioned how it has gone from oldest daughter to oldest daughter and she only has one daughter Nathalie so possibly it will go to her.

Leigh (1838-1902) - Peake (1846-1910) married 1867

Bessie Beer and I have been working together on this and she has gone to Beaconsfield to . . . [get some of this.]

Charles Edward Leigh RN: this collection comprises some naval papers (personal), personal accounts and letters from this sister Millie and others. Of the Fleet Paymaster Charles Leigh RN. Born in 1838 in Barking, London. Entered the Royal Navy in 1853 and retired to civilian life in 1873 after twenty years service. He accepted the position as Manager of the Plymouth-Devon branch of the London and Southwestern Bank which he held until immigrating to Canada in 1878 where they lived in the Peake House, 50 Water Street then Belview, 27 Fitzroy Street now the Stamper Residence. This was written in 1987. He also lost all his money because he wasn't a good businessman. He was good in the navy but he wasn't a good business man. He put his money into slate and lost it all. So from then on he was pretty well living on his wife's income which was very high. This of course was at the time of Queen Victoria.

The jewelry box and the box from Japan — well, I expect it was from Japan — that would be bought as presents for his wife because he was still . . .

In 1867 he married Fanny Peake in Plymouth. Their children were Fanny Alice born 1868. She died in 1951[?]. Dad always used to say that Fanny Alice started having a heart condition when she was seventeen and actually she didn't die until 1954 so she outlived everyone of them. She took very good care of herself; Charles whom we call Tom, born 1869; Bessie Peake 1872 (whose actual christened name wasn't Bessie Peake but Bessie Pig [since] Grandfather Peake was a very bad-tempered man. At the christening the minister, who was deaf, couldn't get the name Peake. He thought they were giving the name . . . She wasn't Elizabeth, it was Bessie. And the old minister repeated incredulously, 'Bessie Pig Leigh?' and my grandfather corrected and said, 'Bessie Peake Leigh.' And the minister again repeated, 'Bessie Pig Leigh?' And the grandfather who was bad-tempered said, Yes! Bessie Pig Leigh!' [laughing]. They always called her, 'Pig.' just for badness. Of course on the papers it was written correctly. We don't know when she died. And there was Albert Edward. That was my father (1874-1936); and James (1877-1882).

Dad called his son Charles too. My uncle Charles was known as Tom to avoid confusion with his father Charles.

From 1878 they lived in Charlottetown where Fanny Peake was born in 1846. So apparently they went back to England. Of course, their father was in the business anyway. And during this period the series of letters were written by his sister Millie, trying to locate the missing documents required to establish claim to monies which may have been due to them.

Charles Leigh died in 1902 and Fanny Peake-Leigh died in 1910. Fanny Peake was the younger sister of James Peake who built Beaconsfield. Beaconsfield is a beautiful home almost across from Government House. James Peake was the brother of Fanny. The son of the original James Peake (1797-1860) built Beaconsfield. When the Prince of Wales came over here to visit he was supposed to have been entertained and stay with the Governor at the Governor's House. That was what was expected [and this is just hearsay] the Governor of the time was inclined to be mean and he pushed it off on. . . (because it cost quite a bit to entertain royalty) Beaconsfield . So James Peake had to entertain the . . .