Mabel Gosling (1889~1989)
Mabel Gosling
George Hawke Hiffernan
Mabel Gosling, the daughter of George Morgan Gosling and Clara Matilda Wilkins was born in Bristol in 1889 and Christened on the 19th January 1896 in Bristol. She was an office clerk until the outbreak of WW1 when she became a volunteer Red Cross nurse working at the Beaufort Military Hospital in Fishponds, Bristol.
George Hawke Hiffernan was born in Mallow, County Cork, Ireland on 1st July 1887 to a Mrs Dorcas Hiffernan. Sometime during 1913 he arrived in British Columbia, Canada and on the 20th March 1914 he filed on a quarter of land for homesteading in the Peace River area.
On the 2nd October 1915 he volunteered for the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force (CEF) at Lake Saskatoon and on the 26th of June 1916 he arrived in England as a Private with the 66th Battalion. He was then transferred to the 8th Battalion and joined the unit in France at the Somme.
On the 26th of September 1916 he was shot in the thigh which resulted in a compound fracture of the femur and then while he was wounded he was buried (by debris from shell fire) and injured his left arm which he had previously fractured in 1904. He lay wounded in the field for three days before being rescued and taken to No. 12 General Hospital in Rouen. He stayed here for several days before being evacuated to England on the hospital Ship 'Western Australia' where he was taken to the Beaufort Hospital in Bristol, arriving on the 5th of October 1916. During his stay here he met Mabel, a Red Cross nurse, they fell in love and later married.
On the 15th of May 1917 he was transferred to the Canadian Convalescent Hospital Bear Wood, Wokingham, Berkshire where he stayed for several days before being returning to Canada on the SS Olympic (Troopship 2810) arriving on the 29th of July 1917. He was then transferred to Calgary where he was discharged on the 24th of August 1917. He did not immediately return to his Homestead quarter that he purchased in 1914, records show that he worked as a lineman in Lethbridge for a while.
George became a lineman and worked in Lethbridge where Mabel joined him after crossing in a bride ship. As soon as the situation warranted, the Hiffernans came to the Peace but conditions on George's homestead were not adequate for living, so they rented the Zimmerman place, later the Querin's quarter. In due course a very well built log house was erected at a neighbourhood 'bee' on George's homestead and the Hiffernans moved in. The Hiffernan place was noted for its fine garden and for years the neighbours picked raspberries from George's irrigated patch.York, Lillian. Lure of the South Peace. British Columbia: Alaska Highway Daily News, Fort St. John, B.C. & Peace River Block News, Dawson Creek, B.C., 1981.
On the 7th September 1929 Mabel's Brother - Walter Morgan Gosling and his son Harold traveled from Southampton, England to Canada on the 'Montroyal' Canadian Pacific Line arriving at Quebec one week later on the 14th September. As far as we can tell they both intended to emigrate to Canada with the intention of Harold inheriting the Hiffernan's farm when they retired. However sometime later Walter decided to return to England (reason unknown) and it is believed that he considered letting Harold stay behind but when the time came to actually go he couldn't bear to leave him and so they both returned to England.
George and Mabel built the farm up over the years and there are records of George winning prizes for the quality of his crops. They retired from the farm in the 1950s selling their land to the Wilfred Melias and moved to Dawson Creek and then in 1959 they moved to Victoria, Vancouver Island.
George died in Victoria on 10th August 1973 aged 86 after which Mabel sold the home and moved into an apartment near Beacon Hill Park, Victoria. Mabel died on the 2nd November 1989 aged 100 and both George & Mabel are buried at the Hatley Memorial Gardens, Vancouver Island (Ref: MC-097).
They had no children but George's legacy was a collection of photographs which were donated to the South Peace Historical Society Archives.