Ella A. McLean
wife of Percy C. Sutton.
Born
June 24, 1881.
Died March 28. 1914
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God"
The 1996 edition of the Edwardsburgh Family Histories says that the McLean family came from Vermont and settled in Augusta Township in the early 1790s. They were United Empire Loyalists and Ella's father was Dr. Solomon McLean, the son of Solomon and Sarah Bissell (also UE) and grandson to the original Loyalist Duncan McLean 1755 - 1825. He graduated from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons at Kingston, Ontario in 1874 and married Harriet Waldron. They settled in Spencerville and had five children. Ella was the second oldest and in 1907 was a witness to her brother Charles Wedding. According to this source, Ella started work as a missionary in Alberta in 1910.
According to the Our Legacy book page 199 Ella McLean came to this area some around 1912, to work at the missions to the Ukrainians. However, the records at Victoria University say that she was stationed there from 1908 - 1913. The University was willing to supply the us with her student card and said that she was born in Spencerville, Ontario. The student card says that she was in university the four years leading up to May 1902.
In Frank Mitchell's A History of Pioneering he includes the following story of Miss McLean:
On another spring day before the ice went out of the river, two mission ladies, Miss Weekes and Miss McLean, arrived at the river in the late afternoon to find they couldn't possibly drive across. This would mean returning twelve miles to Andrew to spend the night, then on about seventy miles to Fort Saskatchewan the following day to cross on the bridge. From there they could continue on home to Kola Kreeka Mission at Smoky Lake after two days of travel. So to avoid all this, a friend, Harry Gordon, my brother, Gordon and I decided we would try to help the ladies in distress. We put long planks an dry dead trees together to make a kind of rough bridge across the twenty-foot stretch of open water that was flowing on either shore. This proved sufficient to hold the ladies. Crossing the horses over was much more difficult as they had to be forcefully led into the icy cold water up to their necks. Dr. Lawford met us on shore with horse blankets and took the horses to his warm barn. The buggy crossed last but not without a thorough ducking also. Without too much loss of time, the ladies went on their way rejoicing, promising they would remember us in their wills.
Ella is also mentioned In the Washtao Memories collection written by Ethylwynn Chase to Edith Weekes, forty years after the time when they had worked together as missionaries at Wahstao:
When our thermometer registered no more than 40º below we guessed at the lower temperature by the thickness of the hoar-frost that coated everything in the kitchen as soon as the morning kettle began to boil. Burning so much poplar wood naturally caused soot encrustations in the stove-pipes and ever so often they caught fire. We got to know the sound even before the pipes showed red, and each of us rushed for our favorite deterrent. Caroline separated the pipe from the stove and inserted a pie-plate of salt. You secured a pail of water and the only thing I could think of was the tin baking board - rather silly - but I had always a fear of a length of horizontal pipe falling. But one of our fire drills I never can forget for the scare we unintentionally gave Ella McLean the first winter after she joined us. We were all at breakfast when our experienced ears caught the ominous roaring in the stove pipes. We three exchanged startled glances but never a word. As one, we jumped up and dashed each for her individual specific while poor Ella sat startled and still, wondering if we had all gone crazy together. She had heard nothing of the menacing sound.
Ethylwynn Chase also comments to her friend about how convinced Ella was, that everyone would be able to understand English as long as she spoke slowly and clearly enough. Poor Ella, when she discovered that it didn't work!
In late 1913, Ella and Rev. Percy Sutton went back to Ontario to be married at Ella's community. Their wedding was Dec. 23, 1913.
In the Our Legacy history book it record on page 585 that while on her way to one of her classes Miss McLean was thrown from a buggy onto some stumps and received injuries that eventually lead to her death after her marriage to Percy Sutton. However, her medical certificate of death states that she died of Peritonitis. Peritonitis is an infection (or some other type of inflammation) of the peritoneum, a membrane that covers the surfaces of both the organs that lie in the abdominal cavity and the inner surface of the abdominal cavity itself. The cause of the Peritonitis is listed as tubal gestation, or what we now call ectopic pregnancy.
Ella died on March 28, 1914. March 31, the following was recorded in the society page of the Edmonton Journal:
The sad news was received at the Ruthenian Girl's Home yesterday morning of the death of Mrs. Sutton, wife of Rev. Mr. Sutton, missionary among the Austrians at Smoky Lake district.
Mrs. Sutton, formerly Miss McLean, was before her marriage, a worker in the W.M.S. of the Methodist church and had only resigned her position in December to get married on Xmas eve. Her loss is felt very heavily at the mission.
The Rev. Dr. Crawford of Pakan will perform the funeral ceremony on Tuesday, March 31, at 2:30 p.m. after which the remains will be laid in the Pakan Missionary cemetery.
The book Bridges of Friendship by Mae Laycock writes the following about Ella's funeral:
The little log church at Pakan was filled, with others crowded outside, when her funeral was held. As the sorrowing people passed by the casket for their last farewell, tears ran down their cheeks, and one father was heard to say, "She taught my children to love Jesus". It was a supreme tribute from a humble and grateful heart to a great little worker.
In the Missionary Outlook, May 1914, the following is recorded:
Mrs. Ella McLean Sutton, B.A.
"She lives life bravely, sweetly, truly,
Who lives for others in their need."Those who attended the meeting of the Board of Managers last year, will remember the physically petite but intellectually strong and spiritually brave, gracious and true missionary from Kolokreeka, Alta., who captivated all her hearers, Miss Ella McLean, B.A., just home on forlough after five years of service.
Then later the sense of loss many felt when informed that it was her intention to sever her connection with the society, that she would return to grace the home of one of our ministers. But in all hearts there were warmest wishes that happiness and length of days would be hers in her new sphere and home.
The following, received from the Rev. A. E. Sanderson of Spencerville, the home town of the late Mrs. Sutton, will be read with surprise and sorrow. "As you doubtless remember, the Rev. Percy G. and Mrs. Sutton were married just before Christmas. They reached their mission station at Smoky Lake, Alta., the first week in February. Within a month she was removed to the hospital at Pakan. It was thought at first that her malady would yield to treatment, and she seemed to improve, writing a very cheerful letter to her mother a little more than a week ago." She passed away on Sunday, March 29th. This trial is made the more sad for on Easter Sunday a year ago Dr. McLean, the father, was called home. To the mother, husband and family, the Outlook, on behalf of the women of the society, extends it sincerest sympathy, not in any formal way, but as sorrowing for one whom to know was to love, and with the sympathy there will be many prayers that sustaining grace may be vouchsafed to the sorrowing friends.
Return to the Victoria
Park Cemetery Collection
Or to Smoky Lake History Archive
Many thanks to the United Church Archives at Victoria University, Phyllis Weir of the Spencerville United Church, and the Grenville County Historical Society for helping supply information on Miss Ella McLean. Also thanks to James Knockleby, for finding a copy of Ella's death certificate for me.