thebravestcanadian

Studio photo of Helen wearing her wedding dress.  Family photo.

Among the guests was Ted`s famous uncle, the Hon. Edgar Dewdney, 77, builder of the Dewdney Trail through the British Columbia interior, and later as a senior minister in the cabinets of Sir John A. Macdonald.  He has the distinction of being the only Canadian to serve as Lieutenant Governor in two separate jurisdictions: Northwest Territories in the 1880s and B.C. in the 1890s.  After both of Ted’s parents had died when he was age 11, he was legally adopted by his uncle Edgar Dewdney, and lived for several years in the lieutenant governor’s residence in Victoria known as Cary Castle.

Ted’s maternal grandfather William Leigh was Victoria’s city clerk, serving from 1864 until his death in 1884.

Helen and Ted and the wedding party.  Family photo.

Helen`s father Frederick Peters (former premier of PEI) was working in Prince Rupert as city solicitor and could not make it to the wedding due to a civic emergency, so the role of father of the bride in the ceremony was taken by his second cousin, Colonel James Peters, who had lived in Victoria off and on since arriving in 1887 in command of the first West Coast defence force. In 1912 Col. Peters had retired from his position as district officer commanding for BC, and was serving as alderman in the new municipality of Esquimalt.

Frederick Peters served as premier of Prince Edward Island from 1891 to 1897, when he resigned to move west.  His brother Arthur Peters served as premier from 1901 until his death in 1908.  Both men were Liberals and also served as attorney-general.

Helen’s mother Bertha Hamilton Gray was a daughter of Col. John Hamilton Gray and Susan Bartley-Pennefather.  Col. Gray was head of the PEI colonial government (equivalent to premier) from 1863 to 1865, and served as host and chairman of the historic Charlottetown Conference of September 1864 that got the ball rolling towards Canada becoming a self-governing nation in 1867.

cutting the wedding cake.  Family photo.

Helen was born in Charlottetown in 1887 and came west with her family to Oak Bay in 1898, when her father Fred joined Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper in a law partnership based in Victoria that served clients there as well as Vancouver and Dawson City in the gold-rush Yukon. Fred and Tupper parted ways in about 1902, and the Peters family moved to Esquimalt in 1909 before moving to Prince Rupert a couple of years later. Ted and Helen began their marriage in Vernon, and then moved on to Greenwood, New Denver, Rossland, Trail and finally to Nelson as the bank transferred him from place to place as an accountant and later as branch manager.

Hon. Edgar Dewdney (with his distinctive mutton chop facial hair) with the bride Helen, and his nephew Ted is partially obscured behind him.   Family photo.

Ted was born in Victoria in 1880, son of Walter Dewdney and Carrie Leigh. After he became an orphan at age 11, he was legally adopted by his uncle Edgar. I never knew Ted because he died in 1952 when I was a baby, but Helen was an extremely close grandmother because after Ted`s death she came to live with my family in Nelson and was like a second mother to me. She often talked of the old days and wrote down some of her memories in notes and letters, but I wish I had thought to do a tape-recorded interview with her before she died in 1976.

report of the wedding in June 20, 1912 Victoria Times newspaper.