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- Birth: Ontario Canada Births 1869-1909, MS929_133, Certificate # 028036
Name: Melbourne Rannie Wilson* should be Ramie
Male
Parents: Oscar Wilson, Farmer & Annie Wilson
Signed: Oscar Wilson, Springford
Birth Date: Oct 12 1895
Registered: Jul 15 1896
Marriage: Ontario Marriages 1858-1926, MS932_461, Affadavit #014796
Groom: Melborne Raymond Wilson
Age: 22 yrs
Residence: Oxford Cty, Ontario
Bachelor
Occupation: Farmer
Religion: Baptist
Parents: Oscar Wilson & Annie Mitchell
Bride: Olive Jane Witts
Age: 20 yrs
Res: Oxford Cty, Ontario
Spinster
Occupation: Clerk
Religion: Baptist
Parents: Cyrus Witts & Edith Hall
Date of Marriage: 20 April 1918, Oxford Cty
Family legend states that Olive (Witts) Wilson also died in the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Marriage: Ontario Marriages 1858-1926, MS932_621, Certificate #016935 Affadavit
Groom: Melbourne Raymond Wilson
Age: 26 yrs
Widow
Occupation: Farmer
Religion: Baptist
Residence: Springford, Oxford Cty, Ontario
Parents: Oscar Wilson & Annie Mitchell
Bride: Pearl Lillian Oatman
Age: 26 yrs
Spinster
Baptist
Residence: Tillsonburg
Parents: Willis Oatman & Minnie Woodard
Date of Marriage: 07 Jun 1922, Oxford Cty, Ontario
Tweedsmuir History Springford Village & Farms, Springford Women's Institute Notes
" Melbourne Wilson had married Olive Witts from Norwich in 1916 and Olive died in the flu epidemic in 1918. Melbourne remarried in 1922 to Pearl Oatman and they stayed on the farm, farming it and other lands until it was turned over to their Son Douglas and his wife Marilyn in 1970. Melbourne and Pearl had two children, Douglas & Jean. Jean married Lorne Woodford and lived in Tillsonburg for many years. Doug married Marilyn Blair and they lived on the Hartwell Shattuck farm across the road.
Melbourne was a general farmer, maintaining a her of 18 milk cows, 12 sows, 200-300 chickens, and four horses until he got his first tractor, a Titan, followed by an International 1530, both with steel wheels. About 1947, Melbourne got his first rubber-tired tractor, an International M. His interest lay in his field crops, in which he took great pride, and in the machinery with which to grow and harvest them. He had a White thrashing machine for many years and threshed for the neighbourhood. His cutting box filled wht silos of the community.
He also produced a large gallonage of maple syrup each year from his 25 acres of hard maples. A newspaper article written for the Tillsonburg News about 1960, reported that he hung 1550 buckets to gather sap to produce 200 gallons of maple syrup. This production had been an annual event on the farm for fifty years. He gathered the sap in three 125 gallon tanks to geed theevaporator, a structure about 20 feet long and several feet wide housed in the sugar shanty. The sap was boiled to 218 degrees Fahrenheit before it was drawn off for storage.
Melbourne's Son Douglas always farmed with him. When Doug Wilson married they purchased the Shattuck farm across the road and ran the two farms together. They raised steers in the 1960's. J. W. Maus of Ayr, put them in, 30 to 40 at a time, to raise on grain. On the two farms they would have 80 - 100 steers at a time. In the 1970's they stopped raising steers and went to cash crop farming. Doug also did custom work, combining, cultivating and applying anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.
Pearl Wilson died in 1972 and Melbourne died in 1977. For a time the old house was vacant, until Grandson Ronald lived in it when first married. Unfortunately, the house burned one cold night in 1984. The big barns were eventually torn down and only drive sheds remain. In 1991, Son Gary took over the farm operation and continues the cash crop farming."
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