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Note: Sydney's name at birth was Simon Green Jones. However, he later changed it to Sydney. His mother died a month after he was born and his father remarried a year or so later. His step mother was actually his real mother's cousin. In his youth he spent some of his time in a boarding school and some of it with his aunt Sally in Hanwood. She was unmarried. However, her sister Jane had a daughter Amy out of wedlock and Sally raised her as her own. They ran a sweet shop in Hanwood that was very popular. Sydney Jones lived with them for a while when he was a lad. There was a coal mine not far away and Sydney used to go and feed the pit poneys in the barn and down the mine.
Owen Jones writes in the book, Their Hopes Our Heritage :
My father Sydney Jones was born in Wellington, Shropshire, England. He attended boarding school at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. He worked for farmers - Wards of Edgmond, Edward Felton, and in Kinnersley in a factory making railway cars. It was during the time that he worked for the Feltons that he met "Gertie" his future wife.
On July 16, 1910 he set sail from Liverpool, England on the S.S. Dominion coming to Montreal and then by train arriving finally in Bresaylor on August 1, 1910. He hired Jimmy Taylor to drive him to Langmeade (Long Meadow), crossing the river on the Bresaylor ferry and proceeding by horse and buggy to Uncle George's farm. John Bogust Sr. was operating the ferry at this time. My father helped Uncle George with disking and breaking with the oxen. In the autumn he drove with Robert and Harold Stubbs with their wagon, rack and team of horses, crossing the new bridges between the Battlefords (the bridges were just being painted) through the Eagle Hills, by Saskatoon to the Hanley and Dundurn area, where they got work on a threshing crew. The winter was spent back on the farm.
In 1911 Sydney went to Saskatoon where he was employed with a Railway construction company, Sutherland and Buichell's, building a railway line between Saskatoon and Prince Albert. This outfit camped for six weeks by the Wakaw Lake and had to drink the lake water which was alkali and similar to taking Epsom Salts. My father drove a team with a scraper helping to build the grade for the railway line. Fresh meat was hauled up by a rope on a tall pole where it hung high in the sun and the breeze and was not bothered by flies. One evening in the late summer or early fall of 1911, my father rode horseback leaving the farm, fording the Turtle River, went on to to St. Hippolyte where he hitched unto a buggy and brought the doctor out to the farm where Harold, Uncle George and Aunt Florrie's third child was born. The return trip was made during the night, the horse was unharnessed and my father rode horseback home again.
In 1912 my father took a homestead by Lost Horse Creek, southeast of the Murray Lake area. He was there at the time of the Regina hurricane and remembered the strong winds on his homestead. In 1913 he took over Uncle George's homestead and let his homestead in the Lost Creek area go. My father also made a trip back to England but returned to the farm. In 1914 he sent for my future mother, the former Gertrude Mary Felton.
They met in Winnipeg and were married at Holy Trinity Anglican Church by a French Canadian Anglican minister at 7:00 P.M. on the evening of March 4, 1914. They travelled by train to Bresaylor and were met by Bill (William) Higgins. The next day he brought them back to the farm by horse and buggy due to the lack of snow for sleighs. The ice on the river was solid.
My mother told of life in the old log shack where on winter days, when attempting to bake bread, it was necessary to place the bread dough on the bed while it was rising or it wouldn't be warm enough. Also on rainy days water might leak through the sod roof.
Another house was built in a different location (the present farm yard) and this was used until 1924. At this time my father bought SW 12 48 20 including the house from a Mr. Peppinck, a carpenter who had built the house. He then contracted Mr. Arthur Regnier to move the house to this farm site. The house was blocked up and sat for about two weeks in the spring, the ground being bare. when a heavy snowfall of about one foot occurred. Mr. Regnier and other members of his family took sleighs and put them under the house and proceeded to move it with sixteen horses to its present location where I now live. The house was again put on blocks prior to a foundation being made. Mr. Regnier and crew arrived the next morning at 7 o'clock to begin dismantling the other house which my parents had to quickly vacate, getting their belongings moved to the new house. Mr. Regnier and his crew quickly took the other house apart, loaded it in sections on sleighs and it was taken to Mr. Regnier's farm as payment for moving this present house.
My parents and my two brothers, Frank and John and my sister Annie, journeyed to England in the latter part of 1920, returning in the spring of 1921. During this time a neighbor stayed on the farm and looked after the animals etc. John Boggust sent word to my father to return early in the spring as the ground was bare and intentions were to start farming April 1st. My father returned early, my mother coming back with Frank, Annie and John on April 26th to the farm by wagon with water and snow up to the axles.
In 1924 my father purchased his first Ford Model T car which was exchanged for a newer model in 1925.
My father at one time owned or rented the land on which is situated Picnic Lake. When he went there to cut hay, he found someone there already cutting his hay. What settlement was made in this matter is unknown to me, however, my father apparently de not retain the land for any lengthy period.
In 1926 an agreement was made between my father and Robert George Brumby and his wife Agnes whereby his half section, SW of 08 and NW of 05 47 19 would be purchased over a period of years and my father would, in turn purchase the west one half of Section 25 47 19 W3 from one to two miles south of Vawn. Our family consequently moved to this location in the spring of 1926 and lived there until the fall of 1932. Due to the stock market crash, poor grain prices, etc. Mr. Brumby was unable to pay for his farm and my father was unable to pay for the land at Vawn, and our family moved back to Langmeade in October of 1932.
My father was an original member of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool from its founding in 1924. He also was a trustee of Spenceville School District and for a number of years was People's Warden of All Saints Church.
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