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Mabel Fetterley

Miss Mabel Fetterley was born in 1885 and came to Swastika from the Huntsville area, in the year 1911, at the age of twenty six. She arrived with her mother and four nieces and nephews, children of her recently deceased sister, Ida White.

Their first home was a tent frame erected on the bank of the Blanche River, near the junction of the railway bridge and highway in present-day Swastika. Not one to shy away from hard work, Mabel cut, split, and sold wood that first winter. Unfortunately, they were flooded out the following spring. Mabel would later relocate to a log cabin situated on the opposite side of the Blanche River, west of where the gazebo is currently located in Fireman's Park. Here she stayed for many years to come.

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Mabel Fetterley - Age 18
Circa 1903



Credits:
Image loaned from Museum of Northern History Collection

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Carolyn O'Neil - "Mabel Fetterley"
2012
Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada

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Mabel's mother stayed with her for the first few years. She would cook and sell her baked goods from a tent pitched close to the railway station, the hub of the rapidly growing boomtown. They would feed new arrivals off the train and prospectors setting out to stake their claims, the likes of which was one Harry Oakes, soon to become quite good friends with Mabel.

According to an excerpt from Olive Petersen's "The Vanishing Prospector", (pg. 87, 1981edition):

"Harry Oakes loved fruit-cake," Mabel reminisced.
"He'd eat it for breakfast. When he was going out to the bush he'd make up a grubstake from baked stuff that we sold him. He owed us $40.00 once, and that was a lot of money in those days."
"Did he pay you when he came back?"
"Every cent of it. Years later, after he got rich, he sent me $200.00 when my mother died."
"I don't care what anyone says, Harry was good and kind."

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Carolyn O'Neil - "Mabel Fetterley and Baking"
2012
Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada


Credits:
Video loaned from MNH Auxiliary (Women of Kirkland Lake Exhibit 2012)

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Mabel obtained her prospecting licence in 1912, the "raison d'etre" of life in this rough country wasn't going to pass her by. In 1913, the New Ontario Prospectors' Association was formed and Mabel was a member right through to 1959, at least, when only four members remained. Soon after obtaining her licence she partnered up with Hiram Tobico and they staked the Tobico, Queen Lebel and Cambro-Kirkland. These properties generated some public interest but never became mines.

In 1924, Mabel was driving stagecoach from a rail station in Dane to the Argonaut Mine, (now Queenston Mines, Ltd., Beaverhouse Lake), a distance of 18 miles. Her nephew drove from Dane to North-western Quebec servicing new mining ventures opening up there. She and Hiram had already established the Tobico property, which eventually became the townsite of Dobie.

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Carolyn O'Neil - "Women in the Community"
2012
Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada


Credits:
Video loaned from MNH Auxiliary (Women of Kirkland Lake Exhibit 2012)

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During the winters, Mabel trapped and hunted; she gained notoriety after bagging the biggest moose on record at the time in the district, the spread of its rack being 63.5 inches.

Proud of her independence, Mabel was quoted as saying, "I always managed to support myself and those who were dependent on me. I always worked, even when there were no jobs to be had. I had to make work then, like cutting wood and selling it. But I never asked for help." (Article: Kirkland Courageous, by Olive Petersen, Northern Daily News, June 29. 1967)

Mabel continued to be a vital part of the community of Swastika until health concerns landed her in the Kirkland Lake Hospital where she died at the age of 91, in 1976. She is fondly remembered by many, to this day.