Tombstone Tuesday: ANNABLE, John

John
Hannibul¹

Locally compiled history book excerpt from Our Harvest of Memories (1983):

Annable, John
by Charlie Bruce

John Annable came to Canada and to the Sturgeon Valley district about 1906. He filed on his homestead, S.E. 16-51-2-W3, and lived in a cave, dug on the south side of the hill until his death.

He had a fine, well care for, big team of bays. They pulled a wagon (no box) -- just planks on the running gear. For lines he pulled two ropes from the outside of each horse and a short rope from one horse to the other. He would sit on the planks and put his feet against the bolster on the wagon, wrap the rope around each hand and hang onto them.

He had a housekeeper, Mrs. Rosenblade, from England, who stayed for a short while then went to Western Canada.

John had told my dad when he died he wanted to be buried on his own place. Approximately two or three years later [in 1922*], the horses ran away with him, and the pole came down and threw him into the air. He came down and broke his neck. He was laid to rest in the southwest corner of the cemetery, next to his homestead, in Holy Trinity Churchyard, the nearest location possible to being buried on his farm.²

The reason for the misspelling on the Paulhus Funeral Service aluminum plaque marker is that it, along with the others like it in the churchyard, were commissioned and installed years later by the cemetery committee and there was obviously a clear miss-communication regarding John's last name.

*Death year provided by a great-granddaughter in 2016.

Sources:
[1]Holy Trinity Anglican Cemetery (Sturgeon Valley, R.M. of Shellbrook no. 493, Saskatchewan, Canada; in NE Section 16, Township 51, Range 2, West of the 3rd Meridian), John Hannibul[Annable] marker, photographed by Alanna Carswell, September 2009.
[2]Coles, Cathy, ed. "Annable, John." Our Harvest of Memories: Foxdale, Sturgeon Valley, Silver Cliff, Three Creeks, Rayside, Rich Valley. Shellbrook: Shell River North Book Committee, 1983. pp. 509. Print.