living history
A GENEROUS
COMMUNITY
BELINDA CROWSON
P H O T O G R A P H Y : C O U R T E S Y O F G A LT M U S E U M & A R C H I V E S
This year we celebrate Canada’s 150th by looking
back at some of the milestones of Canadian history,
and how they affected Southern Alberta, making it
the place we know and live in today. This issue, we
look at the ways Lethbridge residents have come
together as a community to help those in need, not
just in Southern Alberta, but across Canada as well.
G E N E R O S I T Y. That’s the theme I was given for this
article, and was asked if I could tie generosity to Lethbridge
history. I started to think of all the ways generosity has
been expressed historically. I quickly realized the difficulty
was going to be limiting the discussion to fit within my
word limit, as generosity and compassion are intrinsic
human values that we see locally, around the world, and
daily in large and small ways. From the volunteers and
various service organizations, to coaches and mentors; from
businesses that donate to events, teams and fundraisers;
from individuals in all our communities who quietly support
their neighbours or donate money to people in other
countries whom they’ll never meet; to those who donate
blood; those who donate food… There are so many stories
of generosity in action that I could never tell them all, so I
decided to look at the community as a whole and focus on
those times when Lethbridge residents stepped forward to
help when disaster struck another community.
The first time the Lethbridge community got together
to give was in 1891, shortly after Lethbridge became a
town. On the afternoon of February 21, 1891, an explosion
and fire swept through Number 1 and 2 Collieries near
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Springhill, Nova Scotia. In the disaster, 125 miners had been
killed, with some of the victims as young as 10 years old.
Across Canada and Britain, fundraising was put into place
to support the miners’ families. With Lethbridge being a
coal town itself, residents were compelled to help a fellow
mining community. For some people this was a very personal
donation. Some of the Lethbridge miners had recently
moved to Lethbridge from Nova Scotia, and knew some
of the victims. Lethbridge residents, Frank Crawford and
Angus Corrigan, lost brothers in the Springhill explosion.
A subscription was set up and members of the
community stepped forward to donate. The list of people
who contributed from Lethbridge took several columns in
the newspapers. In the Lethbridge News, Mayor Magrath
was able to report that on behalf of Lethbridge, he had
sent to Mayor Hall of Springhill a cheque for the amount
of $1,622.30 to “relieve distress,” and to support relief for
widows and orphans.
That was the first time the Lethbridge community stepped
forward to help another community, but it certainly wasn’t
the last. When Fernie needed help, Lethbridge, too, was
there. On August 1, 1908, Fernie suffered a great fire. In just
NOV-DEC 2017