All the pictures in this album, both identified and not identified, came to me from my grandmother, Alyce Greta (Conroy). This album was in a trunk with a large collection of letters, most of which were sent to Alyce's mother, Bertha Evelyn (Tupper) Conroy. Bertha was the daughter of Robert G. Tupper and Ruth Elizabeth Bentley of Middle Stewiacke, Colchester County, Nova Scotia. Elizabeth was the second owner of the album, it having been a gift from her older sister Jane when Elizabeth was twenty-two years old.
Elizabeth was from Billtown, Kings County, Nova Scotia, the daughter of Andrew Bentley and Ruth Ells. She was deaf, and attended the Deaf and Dumb institute in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That is where she met her future husband, Robert G. Tupper of Middle Stewiacke, Colchester County, who was also deaf. They probably lived on McNab's Island in the early years of their marriage, but they moved to Middle Stewiacke in about 1878 where they raised their family. Robert died there in 1908, but Elizabeth lived until 1950, long enough to teach her great-grandson (my father) some sign language.
The album passed at some point to Elizabeth's daughter, Bertha Evelyn (Tupper) Conroy. She also lived to an old age in Colchester County, mostly in Middle Stewiacke. I think Bertha was a bit sentimental, as she saved a lot of her family's papers. I also think her handwriting appears in the album (in ball-point pen). My grandmother was into her family history, and she might have pushed her mother to do it.
I believe that Alyce got the letters, pictures, and other documents from her mother when Bertha moved into a nursing home, back in the late 1970s or early 1980s. When Alyce (my grandmother) moved into a nursing home herself in 1997, those documents came to me.
So, you can see that the album has always been in the hands of family. It probably came from Billtown to Halifax, and then to Middle Stewiacke, where it stayed until it became a family document that wasn't to be messed with.
The album is in poor shape now. It looks like the album used to have many pictures mounted in it, but now only a few are still in there; most of the pictures were just tucked inside. I have scanned each of the pictures and put the album away. All of the pictures will be posted eventually; there are 48 total but unfortunately less than a third are identified.
