life: “Vain, very vain, my weary search to find that bliss which centers only in the mind.”

It was reported in the P.E.I. Daily Examiner on December 11, 1886, “Died at the Parsonage in Mount Stewart, P.E.I., Anna, wife of Rev. John Goldsmith and daughter of George Wright.” Anna Wright Goldsmith died on November 19, 1886, probably from childbirth.

Rev. John Goldsmith’s sister, Margaret Ann, took over the household duties and looked after the children. She remained with her brother and was with him while he served in Alberton, P.E.I. and was known to have been in Miminegash, P.E.I. Margaret Ann also lived in Regina, Sask. and died in November, 1942.

From 1887 to 1890, Rev. Goldsmith was at Montague Bridge, and while there, his son, Oliver died. In 1890, the Goldsmiths moved to Souris, P.E.I. and remained there until 1893. From 1893 to 1896, Rev. Goldsmith was in charge of the circuit at Vernon River Bridge.

His next assignment was in the Alberton Circuit where he preached from 1896 to 1900. Upon leaving Alberton, P.E.I. in 1900, Rev. Goldsmith was called to serve in Bathurst, NB. from 1900 to 1904 and from August, 1904 to 1905, his pastorate was in Harcourt, N.B.

In the latter part of August, 1904, Rev. Goldsmith went to Saskatchewan on a harvest excursion trip. He stayed the required number of days in the harvest fields, and while there, he located a piece of land that he could buy for $10.00. He returned to New Brunswick to gather some household effects and some lumber. Rev. Goldsmith then headed west again in September, 1905, where he spent the winter building a house with the help of neighbors. He had made the decision to give up the ministry and to homestead as a farmer in the district of Longlakton, Saskatchewan.

Operating under pioneering conditions with horses, oxen and poor equipment, Rev. John Goldsmith was not a successful farmer.

His daughter, Violet Eveline, attended King’s College in New Brunswick and was graduated from the University of New Brunswick in 1905 with a B.A. degree. She became the first teacher in Stockholm, Sask. where she lived until she married the Rev. John Brown, a Presbyterian minister. Violet Eveline (Goldsmith) Brown lived in Drumheller, Sask. until she died in 1965. Her diary of the years she lived in various parsonages with her father is in the possession of her son, Arthur David Brown, but a copy is in the P.E.I. Archives, Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Rev. Go1dsmith’s second daughter, Mabel, had been very seriously sick with typhoid fever which left her in a very weakened physical condition. She died in a hospital in 1953 in Ponoka, Alberta.

Rev. John Goldsmith continued to farm without success until his death January 3, 1917. He is buried in the Longlakton Cemetery, Sask. which is about seven miles north of Lumsden, Sask.

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