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Nostalgia: Making the move over to Moose Jaw

Glossop people seeking a new life were packing their bags and emigrating east - to Moose Jaw in Canada.

Why the Saskachewan town was such an attraction no one knows. But the Chronicle was reporting the mini-Exodus back in January 1946. 

Our story started to circulate after a reader wrote in saying that a number of Glossop families had emigrated there around the early 1900s.

It seems that they all lived in the same neighbourhood and had formed a kind of Peakland colony.

By the strangest of coincidences, a Marion Riley, who was born in Moose Jaw, was living in Mill Street, Glossop, for 12 months because at the time her Canadian husband was stationed over here.

It seems Marion’s parents had emigrated to Moose Jaw around  36 years earlier - her mother was born in Glossop, and her (Marion’s) grandparents also moved to Canada.

Speaking to the Chronicle at the time, Marion, said: “There are quite a lot of Glossop people living in Moose Jaw.

“They are all living in the same district and it is surprising how well they have gone down there.”

It was Marion’s first visit to Glossop, which, with a 25,000 population, was roughly the same size as Moose Jaw, which was very much a farming community with most of the work age population employed in the town’s flour  mill.

Like Glossop in the 1970s, Moose Jaw’s main street was lined with shops on both sides, although the Canadian town’s version was a mile long!

If you know why Moose Jaw was such a magnet for Glossop people, please get in touch.

Main image:

NEW LIFE: Moose Jaw in Canada.

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