Percy Sutton

This picture, from the Our Legacy History Book, has always posed a bit of a mystery to me. I do not know which wife the picture could be of.

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.

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