BMHC LETTERS / STORIES
www.hillmanweb.com/bmhc/letters

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I am the great great granddaughter of Euretta Jane Dibble Boxall who died at the ‘Asylum’ in 1912.
Euretta Boxall Just a little history - to put a story and history to the name on the memorial.

Euretta was born September 10, 1861 in Ontario (East Zorro I believe). She married James William Boxall in 1880. He died in Parry Sound, Ontario in 1895, leaving her a widow at age 36. In the 1901 census she is listed as a servant in a household, along with her 3 year old daughter Mary. Family hearsay says that she was travelling to Saskatchewan with her son daughter and son in law to resettle in Saskatchewan. They stopped in Manitoba so that her daughter could give birth in about 1911. Then apparently Euretta got ‘sick’.  Family hearsay is that she was in the Asylum because she had a brain tumour. I am not aware whether or not they could diagnose a brain tumour back then. Her death record states cause of death was “Exhaustion chronic mental disease about 5 years.”
Euretta in back - far left
Euretta Boxall 1891 Photo

I am curious to learn more about Euretta. I wonder what she would have been diagnosed with today. I wonder when she entered the hospital and what it would have been like when she was there. I undersand that there was a fire and that some records were lost, but I wonder if there is any information about her left. I wonder if she was in the ‘Asylum’ at the time of the fire. I wonder if she lived long enough to reside in the new building. Do you know what date the rebuilt building was ready for them to move back in?

Any information you could pass on to us to help us in our quest in understanding more about my great grreatgrandmother and the institution would be fabulous and greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sandy Stampe Sobering

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