Percy Sutton is described
in the Our Legacy book on page 192:
A young Englishman, Percy
Sutton, graduating in Theology from Manitoba College acquired a
homestead near Smoky Lake and conducted Church services for the
Methodist Church. He was a student and applied himself assiduously to
the study of the Ukrainian language. His valuable contribution to the
community was as an interpreter, and he gave great assistance in
organizing the new School Districts in that area. The farmers brought
their Government communications to him for interpretation, and business
transactions that needed explanation. They learned to trust his judgment
and he became the Justice of the Peace for Smoky Lake. His judgments
were not always popular, but he did his best to be fair, and on the
whole, they recognized it. He appreciated their arts, their love of
music, their colorful embroidery, their love of pageantry. He was an
accomplished painter himself.
Percy
Sutton was listed as the Methodist minister of the Austrian Mission between 1911 and
1921. The mission building in Smoky Lake (later known as the Smoky Lake United
Church)
wasn't built until 1920 - 21, and Mr. Sutton signed lumber recites in
1920. (Our Legacy History Book)
Percy married Ella
McLean, a teacher at the Kolokreeka
mission, in December of 1913, shortly before her death. (Kolakreeka
Diaries and Our Legacy History Book) Another Mrs. Sutton
is mentioned as having taught at Smoky Lake in 1921, and the notes about
Kolakreeka at the Provincial Archives suggest that he remarried around
1815 - 1816. By February 1816 Mrs. Sutton is said to have visited the
Mission for tea, so he was certainly remarried by then. His second wife
was Pheobe Code, another of the missionary women at Kolakreeka.
Rev. and Mrs. Sutton went to Holden, and worked there, and
then in 1925 they moved to the Wabaman area. Hills of Hope history
book, for
the Wabaman area, p482 records the following:
Reverend Percy Sutton and his wife Pheobe arrived at the Mission about 1925, and left in May of 1937. Since the Suttons were not blessed with any children there was no opportunity for a direct contact to obtain their family history. We know that they were a very English couple and came from a family of considerable means.