Antoine Maheu, and John Maheu

More lost souls, with the typical miss-spelt names to drive me crazy... A sad story here...


Creston Review  March 24, 1933
Antoine Methieu, a resident of Creston, who was taken to Essondale for treatment at the middle of last week, died there on Monday, according to word reaching Creston on Wednesday. He had been at Creston for the past two or three years, and with his brother was employed as house painter and decorator.

[  Real name: Antoine Maheu  passed away on the 20th of March 1933 at the age of 69 years, he is buried at Woodlands Cemetery, New Westminster, B.C.  in Cemetery block: 5  Cemetery plot: 39.
He was born in 1863 in Ontario   ]

 Not long after the death of his brother another sad turn of events

Creston Review August 3, 1934
Missing since Sunday, July 22nd, the body of Jack Mathieu was taken from the Goat River near the first bridge on the Kettle Valley Highway on Monday afternoon.  Deceased, who lived alone, was not missed until late in the week, and when the police were notified and on forcing an entrance to his shack discovered a note that indicated suicide was the motive. Deceased was a painter by trade and had long been unemployed, and those intimately acquainted with him state he was of late taking a morbid view of life. The dead man was 50 years of age. The funeral took place on Tuesday to Creston Cemetery. ( must be an unmarked grave, and he is not noted in the list in the link. )

John "Jack" Maheu is listed at B.C. Archives as being 58 years old, and date of death as 22nd of July 1934. Possibly an anglicized first name? 



My vain attempt to find out more of these two souls proved futile, the miss-spelled names make it difficult to trace them, not in directories, census...

Bertha Helen Sulem

I frequently come across articles like this in my researches:

Creston Review, December 22, 1933
Wynndel has lost another highly respected citizen in the death of Miss Bertha Helen Sulem, who passed away at Essondale, B.C., on December 12th at the age of 62 years. Deceased was a native of Lom, Norway, and came to America with her parents, who first located at Watonwan, Minnesota,  and later moved to Vidora, Saskatchewan, from which the deceased came to Wynndel  in 1923, and had made her home with her brother, T. Sulem. The late Miss sulem, while of a quiet and retiring disposition made many friends during her residence here and is survived by three sisters, Mrs. Gouper of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mrs. Ringheim of Kimberley, Mrs. Smith of Wynndel, and one brother Tom Sulem, who resides here. Burial was at Essondale.

One thing that is wrong about the article is the fact that there was no burials at Essondale until 1958 !

     Helen was born in Norway on the 14th of December 1872, was single and lived with her brother "Tom" Thorsten Sulem, (17 October1867, Norway --- 31 August 1943, Vancouver. bur. Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, B.C. )  Her mother was Ingeborg, and her father was John Sulem.
Helen is miss-named on the list as Helen Solen, so she proved slightly difficult to find.  She is actually buried at Woodlands, in New Westminster in what was known as the Institutional Cemetery, S.Bowell and Son, New Westminster were the funeral directors, who left me some information to chase, apparently cause of death was the cryptic:  Exhaustion of involutional Melancholia. She is in Cemetery block 15, Plot 42


Her sister Mary Sulem,(12 January 1870, Norway --- 26 August1946, Kimberley, B.C.)  was married to Ole Ringheim (1859-1928), they are both buried together in the Creston Cemetery. The Ringheim family appears to have been very close family friends with the Sulems, and were farming near to each other in Saskatchewan, and came from the same area in Norway.

 Crown grants of the Sulem and Ringheim families near Vidora, Saskatchewan.

Rest in Peace, Helen Sulem