Edwin Vance Todd farmed at Strathmore from about 1911 to 1925.  During that time he owned four parcels of land totalling 320 acres just east of Strathmore that all border along Highway One.  He was a camera buff and his photo albums of those early times include about 100  photos taken around Strathmore, Calgary, and some other areas around Alberta and British Columbia. Most of them are quite small, maybe about 2 x 3" and faded.  Quite a few are labeled with a place and date.

The oldest of a family of 10 children, Edwin Vance Todd was born at Union, Cass County, Nebraska. He graduated from Plattsmouth High School. He was a descendant of Christopher Todd of Pontefract, Yorkshire, who sailed to the New Haven Colony, Connecticut, in 1637 aboard The Hector. Horace Greeley Todd. who farmed at his Pine Hill Stock Farm, Murray, Nebraska,  provided for each of his six sons to have their own farmland.  For Vance it was the land at Strathmore. Initially his Aunt Emmaline came to Strathmore, too, to be the cook and housekeeper. Vance recalled skating to town on the frozen canal, as well as telling about smuggling leather boots into Canada in the bottom of his luggage shipment because there was a high duty on leather goods.
 
View of Red GateFarm located on Highway 1 about 2 miles east of Strathmore.
Photo by E. V. Todd
Vance owned the following parcels totalling 320 acres bordering on Highway One:

Vance and Aunt Emmaline traveled by train to the San Francisco World's Fair of 1916.  On the train, they met Nellie Elizabeth Rusher and her family, who were traveling from their home at Rollette, North Dakota. Her father, Francis  Rusher, was the son of Frederick and Wilhelmina Rusher, who had immigrated from Graz, Bavaria,  to Bedford, Pennsylvania. Nellie had just been awarded a scholarship to study music at the Julliard Institute of Music in New York. She was an accomplished pianist.  Must have been love at first sight! Instead of attending the music institute, the following March she married and went to Strathmore with Vance by train. Nellie and Vance honeymooned at Lake Louise.
 
Vance and Nellie's Wedding Day  
March 16, 1917
Rollette, North Dakota 

 Lloyd Glenn Todd		 During their time at Strathmore, Vance and Nellie adopted two children. Their son is Lloyd Glenn Todd, born Herbert Lloyd King, May 14, 1919. Their daughter is Eileen May Todd, born Vivian May Hamblen, in 1923.

The Todds were joined at Red Gate Farm in 1918 by Nellie's widowed sister, Mrs. Ada Chapman, and her two sons, Ralph and Kenneth.  In the Fall of 1925, the Todds left Strathmore for Vancouver, Washington, U. S. A. Huddled under bear skin rugs, they rode in the snow from their farm to the train station at Strathmore by a horse drawn sleigh.

See other photos by E. V. Todd of the time  (to be added):

Web page created by Dr. Nancy Todd, daughter of Lloyd Glenn Todd and a Professor of Education at Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington.   See also her web page:

Updated May 17, 1999.

http://www.oocities.org/drnancytodd/harrygtodd.html


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