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The Hans Families of Caron   In the cemetery outside of the hamlet of Caron you will find gravestones for members of four Hans families. The story of these families begins with two brothers, John and Mathew Hans, who left Ireland around 1854 to settle in Wellington County, Ontario. They were Protestants from a predominently Catholic country. Their family though began this journey many years earlier from a Germany in which they were also members of a religious minority. Their family had arrived in Ireland more than 100 years earlier in a mass migration of German people from an area known as the Palatine. A number of Irish landowners were encouraged to accommodate the Palatines on their land and "colonies" of Palatines were established in County Limerick and in County Kerry. This is how the Hans family found its way to Ireland and it was from Ballymacelligot, in County Kerry, that brothers John and Mathew along with their wives Mary and Ann Hill and a number of children set sail for a new life in Canada. They were farmers and they pioneered land in Wellington County, Ontario and raised families. They were joined by other Irish families and others of German extraction and these neighbours became related through marriage. Then their children moved west, first into Manitoba and then in 1890 to Saskatchewan, where they homesteaded land north of the community of Caron. *******************
John Hans  John Hans was born
in 1843 in County Kerry, Ireland and came over to
Canada with his parents. The family lived in
Minto Township of Wellington County. John,
like his father, was a farmer and he farmed Lots
17 and 18 in Concession 3 of Minto Township.
Catherine Peever was born in 1851 in Sheenboro,
Quebec. The family moved from Ontario to the
Caron District, of what was then the North West
Territory, in 1890 and they appear on the 1891
census. When John arrived in the Caron
District he settled on the South East Quarter of
Section 12 in the Eighteenth Township, 29th Range
west of the 2nd Meridian
 John and Catherine had 8 children from Catherine born in 1875 to Evyline in 1895. They had 2 sons Matthew (Matt) and John Thomas (Top) both of whom stayed on to farm in the Caron municipality. John died in 1929 but Catherine lived to be 102 years old.  ********************** William Hans William Hans was born in Ireland in 1850, the son of Mathew Hans and a nephew of John Hans. By 188 he had set up his own home in Minto Township, Wellington County, Ontario, and he was married to Mary Ann Wilson. The couple had three children: Annie, John Alexander and Sarah J. In 1893 William took up a Western Land Grant and homesteaded the South West quarter of Section 28 in the 17th Township and 28th Range, West of the 2nd Meridian in the North West Territory. It was east of Caron and homesteaded in 1889.  In 1903 John Alexander, who was 23 by this time, took a Western Land Grant and homesteaded the Northwest Quarter of Section 28 in the 17th Township, Range 28, West of the 2nd Meridian. William, Mary Ann and John Alexander are buried in the Caron Cemetery and commemorated by the monument below. Mary and her son died within 2 days of each other in 1918, probably victims of the Spanish Flu pandemic.  ******************* Pierce Hans  Pierce Hans was
born Ireland. We believe he arrived in
Canada circa 1854. In 1871 he was living in
Minto Township of Wellington County, in Ontario
with his married brother Thomas. He is
listed in the family home. Pierce married
Jane Wilson in 1886 and 4 years later Pierce, Jane
and son Thomas went west and settled in the Caron
District. Tom, Pierce and Jane homesteaded
NE 10-18-29 and Jane homesteaded SW
10-18-29. The land maps in the Caron Book
suggest that in fact both pieces were homesteaded
by Jane.
 Pierce died in
1901. Jane carried on farming the land with
the help of Tom and her brother Richard.
That year, Tom says, "the neighbours came and
planted the crop in one day. There were 101
horses on the farm all at one time." The
crop proved to be the best in the district that
year. Jane remarried William Robinson but
when she died she was buried with Pierce.
Daughter Myrtle married M. Wes Smith from Aylesbury. Leonard married Grace Crawford of Palmer. Mary Lavina married Harry Osborne and the Caron History Book reports that they lived in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan. Emma married William Koehler of Caron and they had 3 children. Tom farmed the land after his father's death before selling it to Arthur Powell. ***********************
William V Hans William
(Billy) Hans left Palmerston, Ontario to
travel west in about 1895. He first moved to
Lauder, in South-Western Manitoba. He worked
as a "Call Boy" with the C.P.R. and lived with
a family called Coulings. We suspect that this
may have been David Couling and Mary Hans, his
uncle and aunt. William later moved on to
Saskatchewan and established himself in the
Caron District with the help of his Uncle John
Hans and his wife Catherine Peever. To avoid
confusion with his Uncle William Hans, Billy
adopted the name William V. Hans, the V being
chosen in honour of his mother Catherine Vick.
 It 1906 Billy
married Mary Ann (Minnie) Smith and they began
their married life on a farm three miles north of
Caron. Mary Ann Smith (Minnie) was one of
the first white children to be born in the Moose
Jaw area and she grew up at a time when the west
was young and homesteaders were settling that part
of the Northwest Territories that became
Saskatchewan. Louis Riel was a very "real" person
to her. When she was a little girl, crop failure
meant moving to the hills for the winter, where
forage for the cattle could be found, and shelter
for the family was provided by building a
makeshift cabin -- maybe a sod one -- into the
hills themselves. As a source of income her father
gathered buffalo bones and brought them to the
railroad by oxcart, where they were loaded in box
cars and shipped east. Her early years were spent
in the Pioneer District, and she learned to be a
dressmaker at a time when you made your own
patterns -- none were available in the stores.
In 1913 Billy and Minnie Hans moved to two acres on the edge of the town of Caron by which time the family consisted of Verla, Ben, Cameron and Lena. Later Stanley, Clayton, Dorothy and Gordon were born. Billy went to work for Crosby & Moses Implement Dealers. 
 Above left: Stanley & Cameron at the back and Gordon & Clayton in front Above right: Verla and Lena Billy died in
1949 and Minnie 5 years later.
********************** John Thomas Hans  John Thomas
was known as Top Hans a nickname that
apparently came from his days of playing
football for the Wesley Team from
Archydal. He was born in 1884 and was
about 6 years old when he arrived in the Caron
District. He attended Caron Prairie
School. He married Janet MacLachlen of
Eskbank in 1912. Top farmed his father's
farm unitil 1964 when it was sold to his
nephew Ralph (Cully) Wilson.
 Top and Janet
had two children: John Elgin (Buster)
and Agnes Catherine.
 Buster married Ivy Kitteringham and they moved to British Columbia living on Pender Island. Agnes Catherine married Donal Brooks and they had 4 children. Janet was a
member of the Ladies Aid and she played piano
at the church. Top was an avid curler
. Janet died in 1936 and Top
in 1964. Top was obviously a member of
the Masonic Lodge and Janet a member of the
Order of the Eastern Star.
*****************************
Matthew (Matt) Hans  Matt Hans
was born in 1882. He married Liza
Heron in 1906 and they lived on their
homestead north of Caron.
  Matt and
Liza had 2 girls, Vera and Effie.
The Caron History Book indicated that
Liza died in 1933 and Matt died in 1964.
********************** John Cameron Hans 
 He was christened
John Cameron Hans but he was known to everyone as
Cam. Cam Hans was born in 1910 to Minnie and
Billy Hans, who at the time were living on their
farm north of Caron. Cam met Amy Caroline MacRae
in Moose Jaw, where she worked at the National
Bakery. Cam and Amy married in 1940.
Following the wedding Cam and Amy set up home in
the farm house north of Caron.
 Their first
child was Marcia and their second child,
Audrey, followed two years later
It was in December of 1949 that Billy Hans
died and after that Cam, Amy and the girls
moved into the Caron house with Minnie.
Cam died in 1972 and Amy 15 years later.
They are both buried in the Caron Cemetery.  |