Family History: Eric Pace

My Uncle Eric sent the book Glen Margaret by Anita Crathorne Legalley (Glen Margaret Publishing, 2004) to my dad.

It has a short chapter on the Pace family, including a family tree back to Thomas Pace, born in 1775. The Paces originally came from England to the USA and then on to Nova Scotia.

Thomas begat Ebenezer Pace [b. 1/28/1809]. Ebenezer begat William T. Pace [b. 1834] . William begat Joseph Lawson Pace [b 6/9/1863]. Joseph begat Eric Bleasdale Pace [b. 1897]. My grandfather (who we called Granddad) had (Uncle) Eric William Pace and GMP (who is now known as Granddad), who had DMP and yours truly, who had SKGP and EJP.

Here is a passage that talks about my grandfather's life:

Eric Pace was born in 1897 in Glen Margaret. He left school at 13 to help his father and brother run the meat business in Halifax. I don't think they had very much of a childhood; there was no time to play as their father was very strict and they had to work very hard as times were tough. Eric would drive a team of horses with the wagons filled with meat along the old road by Woodens bridge and out to Hubley on the Bay road. Their father would go to Antigonish and buy carloads of cattle and ship them to Richmond station in Halifax. I cannot imagine those boys driving the cattle through the streets of Halifax, ducking trolley coaches, dogs and heavens knows what else to get them to the Bay road and home. In 1921, they bought a truck and said goodbye to the old horse and wagon.

When Eric was 29 years old he moved to the United States, first to Walthrom and then to Taunton, where we worked as a meat cutter for four and a half years. He returned to Nova Scotia in 1930 and bought out the Dauphinee business in Hackett's Cove.

Eric's brother Bruce continued with the butchery business in Glen Margaret and had a truck that delivered meat to this area from the Head of St. Margaret's Bay to Dover. I remember going up to the butcher shop to buy meat for my mother and stopping to talk to Mrs. Pace; she made the best sugar cookies I've ever eaten.

There is a picture captioned "Hon. Leonard Pace, Nova Scotia Attorney General (1974)".

The book also has a chapter about the Crathorne Dance Hall, where my parents met. For the benefit of Google Earth version of my family history, it was "located across from #10369 Peggy's Cove Road."

My mom (you know, Nana) has done lots more research on the family tree. Mom, you should start a family history blog, and tell all the stories you know.

I wanted to copy this section of the book, in case this book goes out of print and becomes lost to time. Apologies to the author.