ELIZA JANE SIMPSON LOVED THIS VALLEY
Latest in series on pioneer women
On page 34 of “Girlhood Days in the Okanagan” (pages 34-40 of “The Eighth Report of the Okanagan Historical Society”), Eliza Jane (nee Simpson) Swalwell wrote: “I remember this valley when everything was in a wild state, before there was any wagon road and everything had to be brought in by pack-train, and all our dishes were of tin, and we baked bread and pies and roasted meat in a Dutch oven. There was great rejoicing when the road was completed to the (Okanagan) Mission.”
Eliza Jane Simpson was born in the North Okanagan on Dec. 14, 1868, eldest child of George William Simpson and Sarah Stepetsa.
George William Simpson was born about 1821, probably at Philadelphia, son of a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister. Simpson came to British Columbia in 1859, during the Fraser River Gold Rush, and subsequently went to the Cariboo gold fields.
In 1870, he purchased the Brent property at the south end of Duck Lake. Simpson sold this property to the Postill family in 1872 and moved south, in what is now Ellison district. He died on the Swalwell Ranch (Ellison) on Feb. 22, 1902 and was buried on that property, probably beside his wife Sarah, who died in 1901.
Sarah Stepetsa, was born at presentday Penticton about 1853. Eliza Jane Swalwell recorded details of her mother’s family in “Girlhood Days in the Okanagan” (page 40): “At one time there were two Indian Chiefs, one was Enoch who lived at Duck Lake, and the other Chief Pantherhead who lived at Westbank. Chief Pantherhead had two sisters, one was my mother (Sarah) who married G.W. Simpson, and died in 1901, one year before my father. The other sister married a Frenchman named Boriot, who had a cattle ranch near Kamloops . . . After her husband’s death my aunt (Mrs. Boriot) came to live with her brother, Chief Pantherhead, and later she married Chief Enoch. These two chiefs, Pantherhead and Enoch, were highly respected by both Indians and whites.
George Simpson and Sarah Stepetsa were married in Vernon district on Sept. 10, 1876. Their marriage registration records George Simpson’s parents as John and Marguerite Simpson. Sarah Stepetsa’s parents were listed but their names are difficult to read because of the challenging handwriting.
Eliza Jane wrote: “I loved and respected my father, and I loved and respected my mother. Both were strict and conscientious in the discharge of their duty, each as they understood it. (“Girlhood Days in the Okanagan,” page 37)
George and Sarah Simpson raised their children in Ellison:
• Eliza Jane: born Dec. 14, 1868.
• George William: born Jan. 24, 1871; died Oct. 30, 1930. He married Marguerite (c 1879-1930; maiden name unknown)
• Thomas: born Oct. 15, 1872; died Aug. 20, 1912. He married Eliza Jane “Lizette” Christien (c 1879-1909)
• Sarah Ann: born April 5, 1875; died June 22, 1956. She married Victor Borrie/Boriot (c 1869-1947)
• Livinia: baptized Dec.3, 1882; died young
• Charles: born March 29, 1891; died Nov. 7, 1982. He married Mary Christine Wilson (1900-1991)
Eliza was three years old when her family moved from the Duck Lake property to the present-day location of Kelowna Springs Golf Course.
In the mid-1870s, Eliza attended Okanagan School, located near presentday Orchard Park mall, where students from the Okanagan, Similkameen and Shuswap were capably taught by Angus McKenzie and Miss Minnie Coughlan. Eliza’s parents instilled in her a sense of religion — her father giving her the tenets of Christianity, her mother sharing her Indigenous spirituality.
Eliza was a midwife and assisted with local births, including the Sept. 23, 1884 birth of Margaret Annie Whelan, the author’s maternal grandmother. Margaret and Eliza became life-long friends, both eventually living at Winfield. When Margaret’s daughter, Wilma Clement, married Jim Hayes in 1943, Eliza Swalwell gave her an antique pressed-glass compote, a muchcherished heirloom and a tangible reminder of a special friendship.
On April 6, 1884, Eliza Jane Swalwell married Thomas Jones, born in England about 1839. They settled in Ellison, now the site of Kangaroo Creek Farm. Their only child, Thomas William Jones, born Aug. 13, 1886, was only five years old when his father died, on July 29, 1892. Thomas Jones Sr. was buried on the property which has had several names during the last 130-plus years: Jones, Swalwell, and Dickson ranches.
Eliza Jones did not long remain a widow. On May 10, 1895, she married William Pelissier Swalwell, born in Yorkshire, England on Sept. 25, 1855. Swalwell, related to the Postill family who purchased George Simpson’s ranch, came to the Okanagan in 1881 and lived at Winfield. They had no children.
After several years in Ellison, Eliza and William Swalwell moved to Winfield and farmed his former property, which he had recently re-purchased.
Ill-health caused William Swalwell to move to Kamloops, where he died on March 14, 1926.
Eliza Swalwell remained in Winfield, living in a beautiful home beside Vernon Creek, south of present-day George Elliot Secondary School. Retiring by nature, she was well-loved in her community, by family and friends alike. The community mourned her passing on Feb. 13, 1944.
Swalwell Park is named in her memory.
Eliza Jane Swalwell left an enduring legacy, through her writings about growing up in the Okanagan Valley in the 1870s and 1880, including the local Indigenous people and cowboys: “To me it was an exquisite pleasure as a girl to ride over this green and gracious pasture land in the mornings, and to see it stretching before me for miles with the Sand Rose (known to Indigenous people as “spetlam,” its roots an important food source) lying scattered on the ground as if a fairy princess had passed that way at dawn and children had strewn flowers in her path, and to see the sunlight on the hills.
“On such occasions I have sometimes seen things, or rather sensed something, so serene and beautiful that it left me weak and weeping as I sat in the saddle. (“Girlhood Days in the Okanagan”, page 36)
She concluded: “I do not know whether this responsiveness to certain beautiful aspects of nature comes to me from my Indian mother or from my father’s side of the house, but it probably comes from my mother’s side.
“It seems to me the whites are too much bound and limited, too much enslaved by their written creeds and confessions of faith. The Indians are free of that, and consequently they are closer to nature and reality, and to the Creator, than the whites.
“You cannot argue about such things, you cannot clothe what is eternal and infinite in finite words. Any attempt to do so only leads to an impasse and too often to a certain hardness of heart that has no reverence for anything and remains unmoved by mystical experiences.”
The next article in this series about pioneer Central Okanagan women, documenting the life of Maria (nee Houghton) Brent, is scheduled for Feb. 23.