The Sad Case of Rebecca Jenkins

                                       Pembroke, Ontario 1885-1886

It was 1885, there was war in the middle east. There were tensions between the British and Russians in Afghanistan which would soon break out into armed warfare. In Indochina the French, in their attempts to colonize what would become Vietnam, had suffered a series of defeats and been driven out of the countryside to their garrison in Hanoi.

 Irish nationalist were setting off bombs in London and in Canada a firebrand by the name of Louis Riel was talking rebellion on the prairies. As that rebellion intensified troops were sent west and Pembroke became one of the stopping points for the trains to pause and take on water and perhaps fuel. One of the first troop trains to stop here was met by a number of the local citizenry and even the town band came out to entertain the boys. The “boys” also availed themselves of the goods at Mrs. Little’s grocery store on the  north side of the tracks at the foot of Mackay Street and when word of this filtered back to town the good lady was once again hauled up in front of a judge and convicted of bootlegging.

The Quebec winter carnival was being advertised in the town papers, with this being the second year the popular toboggan slide was featured. However its popularity among the young led to a condemnation of the slide and its excitements by a couple of Ottawa priests who saw it as leading to immorality when ladies and gentlemen enjoyed the sport together. This most Canadian of outdoor, winter activities along with skating parties were said, by the good Fathers, to be “not so innocent as generally imagined.”

The old wooden bridge on the main street over the Muskrat River was the object of much debate both this month and continuing for the next of couple of years. The “old eyesore” as it was known was in a deplorable state of repair, horses had to be led across it and indeed fines were levied to anyone driving across the bridge at a rate of speed. This year $100 was set aside for some much needed repairs along with money allocated to construct a new bridge with the ongoing debate of whether it be made of wood, steel or stone.

In town that year Mr. Robert Menzies was opening a new bakery and confectionary store that “could be seen from the Post Office” with “Brides Cakes Made to Order.” 

Mr. Solomon Leveille had taken over the old stand of Mr. Stanley at the corner of Pembroke and Commercial Streets and was busy with his carriage, sleigh and buggy manufacturing business.

R.B. Gray’s Drug Store had in a new shipment of German Singing Canaries, honey in the comb and American and Canadian coal oil.

 And tragedy struck the manufacturing section of the main street when McAlister’s Woolen Mill was destroyed by fire with a loss of over $18,000 to the business.

All of this probably went unnoticed by a lady by the name of Rebecca Jenkins and her two children, Thomas, aged 15 and his brother Robert, aged 10 who were inmates at the local jail. Rebecca was what we would now refer to as homeless although then she was classed under the rather catchall name of vagrant. Her children, would now be referred to as  mentally handicapped or delayed but then, in the parlance of that time, were called idiots. Both were deaf and one was blind. 

Aside from court appearances the first reporting about them was when they were mentioned in November, 1885 at the Renfrew County Assizes. The following item appeared in the paper as to what was said at the the Assizes.

                        “We wish to draw your Lordships Attention to the fact

                         that Rebecca Jenkins and her two illegitimate children

                         have been confined to the gaol for nearly six years and

                         strongly recommend that some steps be taken for their 

                         removal to some more suitable place.”

And so they were released but it would appear that aside from gaining their freedom there was no provision made for their well being.  A month later, along with a slate of drunks, bootlegger's, wife beaters, animal abusers and street fighters, Rebecca and her children were once again convicted of vagrancy and given six month in jail with hard labour. The Pembroke Standard had this to say about their imprisonment:

                         “Again committed,__Rebecca Jenkins and her boys

                          have again been committed to gaol as vagrants by 

                          the police magistrate. This time their sentence is six

                          months with hard labor. It is not easy to see what hard 

                          labor these poor creatures are capable of doing. The boys

                          are idiots and mutes and one of them is blind. The mother

                          and  children have now been some six years or so in gaol 

                          here. They are not criminals; they are helpless waifs 

                          incapable of supporting themselves. There should be some 

                          provision made for a county workhouse where indigent and 

                          helpless persons, who cannot take care of themselves, might

                          be decently supported at the public expense instead of sending

                          them to gaol as criminals. This is a question we think the county

                          council should take into consideration without further delay.”

In February of 1886 the town council, between a motion concerning the hiring of a shorthand reporter for the court and sending a representative from the county to the Colonial Exhibition in Toronto  mentioned that:

                          “every effort be made to have Rebecca Jenkyns and her

                           children placed in a proper asylum;”

The asylum they would have been referring to was the Rockwood Asylum for the Insane in Kingston, Ontario, perhaps only a slightly better solution than confinement in the local jail where at least there was hope of eventual release.

There was, finally, in 1905, a workhouse for eastern Ontario located in Perth and called the House of Industry but this came too late for Rebecca and her children.

Only months later, in May of 1886, there was this notice in the Standard:

                                 

                          “Died In The Gaol___Thomas Jenkins, one of the

                           lunatics in the Pembroke gaol died yesterday afternoon,

                          aged about sixteen years. The unfortunate lad had 

                          been confined there about seven or eight years and

                          his sad death may be considered a great blessing.”

Again that September at the County Assizes the case of the remaining Jenkins boy was raised with hopes of having him examined by a doctor and placed in a more suitable place as he was not deemed to be a fit subject for the common jail. 

But just a week later on September 14, 1886, in the local news column of the Pembroke Standard, just below an ad for a cheap excursion to North Bay, there was this notice:

                        “One of the waifs of the Jenkyns family confined in

                         the jail here, a little boy, died last week from natural causes.”

That was the last that was heard of Rebecca Jenkins but it was not the end of incarcerating those individuals who through mental illness, despair or just bad luck found themselves penniless, homeless and friendless on the streets of Pembroke. 

Just two years later, in June of 1886 

                                   “A STRANGE PROCEEDING

                       Last week a German girl named Gustie Wilkie came from

                       her home in Wilberforce to town and entered the employ of

                       a family in the east end. When she had been at work for two

                      days she packed up her belongings and left. She traveled

                      through the town until she reached the extreme West end,

                      and there she sat down by the roadside and remained for

                      twelve or fifteen hours. She refused to speak and kind-

                      hearted residents of the neighborhood became alarmed

                      at her friendless condition and strange conduct and 

                      represented the matter to the authorities. The girl was

                      brought to the Police Court on a charge of vagrancy, and

                      was sent to jail for one month.”

Perhaps she was just a homesick girl, overwhelmed by her new duties in a strange house. Now with no money and no way of getting home she became a criminal for want of a friend to take her in.