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Preserving Innisfail pioneer home means Isabella Sinclair’s story will live on

House from 1890 will be moved next month to historical village
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The log home of one of Central Alberta’s first indomitable female pioneers is about to be moved to Innisfail’s historical village.

“Our boys and girls need to believe that they can do anything” — and Isabella Sinclair’s story underlines this, said Anna Lenters, president of the Innisfail and District Historical Society.

“Bella” — considered by some to be the first white woman settler in the area — was an Ontario resident of Scottish stock, who was also on board the first passenger train that stopped in Calgary in 1883.

Crossing the country unaccompanied was extremely brave, since it was potentially scandalous journey for a Victorian woman, added Lenters. But Sinclair was determined to come West at age 16 or 17 to keep house for her two brothers — even if it meant initially living in their sod-roofed home, or “soddie.”

Five years later, Isabella (whose maiden name was Brown) married David Sinclair. She resided for a few years in a movable rail car with her trestle-bridge builder husband, until the young couple’s first child was born.

In about 1890, the Sinclairs moved into the peak-roofed log house that David had been completing on his homestead.

It’s this home that will be moved to the Innisfail and District Historical Village by a Red Deer company early next month.

The project has been a long labour for area volunteers — especially resident John Thomson, who lived in the Sinclair’s wood-clad log home as a child. He remembers visiting Mrs. Sinclair, “a quiet old woman” who served him and his mother tea.

Since the deteriorating house sitting on Thomson’s rural property has been empty since the 1950s, Thomson first pushed the idea of saving it about 20 years ago. But it took a series of charitable teas, bake sales and fashion shows to raise the $55,000 needed to remove asbestos from the two-storey structure, and move it onto a new foundation, said Lenters.

Seeing the white-washed house finally installed in the park will be a thrill for 84-year-old Thomson.

“After all the years of planning, it seems surreal,” added Lenters, who plans to raise more money to turn the house into an interpretive museum that tells Isabella’s life story.

An early Women’s Institute member, Sinclair raised five children (among her grandchildren was the late William Sinclair, former Chief Justice of the Alberta Supreme Court). Isabella and David were involved in establishing education in the district, and lived in their rural house until they moved to town in 1929.

“They were community-minded people at a time when the community was just getting on its feet,” said Lenters.

David passed away in 1949 and Isabella died a year later. Both are buried in the local cemetery.



lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com

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