Canadian census records, now with grandparents

1931 was a year of 5,000 lbs of Pure Lard

Library and Archives Canada released the 1931 Census in June 2023. This was really important to me personally, because it’s the first census record that includes my grandparents.

“Preliminary Work of Taking Census Done”. Winnipeg Free Press, May 5, 1931, p. 6

I love context, so here it is. The early 1930s were Great Depression years in Canada. In 1931, the Prime Minister of Canada was Richard Bedford Bennett (never heard of him). The President of the USA was Herbert Hoover (like the vacuum?). Cab Calloway and His Orchestra recorded Minnie the Moocher. The movie Dracula, with Bela Lugosi, was released. The entire Anne of Green Gables series had already been released, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods was published a year later in 1932. And William Shatner was born!

Ad for Dracula at the Lyceum. Winnipeg Free Press, March 14, 1931, p. 21.

In mid-1931, three of my four grandparents were living in rural Manitoba, and one would soon be born in the same. All of my great-grandparents immigrated to Canada from Poland or Ukraine¹. Average wages were under $1,000/year, less for farmers².

They probably weren’t eating a lot of imported food, or wearing a lot of store-bought clothing, but here’s what would have been available at the time³:

Hudson’s Bay Company sale ad for food. Winnipeg Free Press, October 28, 1931, p. 12

Hudson’s Bay Company - Harvest sale clothing ad. Winnipeg Free Press, November 6, 1931, p. 11

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1. Grandmother - Minnie, age 1.5 years old, living with father and his sister’s family in the Rural Municipality of Macdonald, Manitoba.

Her mother was living in a tuberculosis sanitorium in Winnipeg. She passed a few years later.

2. Grandfather - Nick, age 4 years old, living in parents and older sister in the Rural Municipality of Lisgar, Manitoba. I never met him, though he was alive until 2007.

3. Grandfather - Sam, age 5 years old, living with parents, siblings, and grandmother in Bifrost, Rural Municipality of Selkirk, Manitoba.

4. Grandmother - Nettie’s family (census taken several months before her birth), parents and three older sisters, in Bifrost, Rural Municipality of Selkirk, Manitoba.

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My smiling grandparents with their first grandchild

1. My relatives’ listed birth countries changed across census years. One set of my great-grandparents spoke/wrote Polish and the other three sets spoke/wrote Ukrainian. Ish.

2. Statistics of salaries and wages paid in the forty leading industries, 1934, together with comparative figures of average salaries and wages paid in 1933, and totals and averages paid in previous representative years - https://www65.statcan.gc.ca/acyb02/1937/acyb02_19370459024b-eng.htm

3. Aylmer is still around but they don’t make canned loganberries anymore. Also, can we appreciate that this ad listed the volume of hot items? I’d like to know my odds for getting sale lard later in the day!