🌿 Remembering Great Aunt Mary
There’s a very important person in my life we haven’t written about yet: Mary Catherine Enos, my Great Aunt Mary. She never married, and her life spanned so much history, grief, and love.
I was born in 1962, the third child in a busy household, and my sister came just 15 months later. Aunt Mary came to help—my mom had to wean me early, so it must have been hard on everyone. But I have a feeling Aunt Mary filled my head with Indigenous knowledge, even though she was very Catholic.
She shared the same ancestry as my grand-uncle Jimmy and Grandpa John Joseph Enos: Iroquois, Songhees, Kalapuya, Souke, and Portuguese, with French heritage through her mother, Mary Ann Poirier. I never thought of her as brown at the time, but looking back, I realize how her heritage shaped her. Her hair was coarse, and I mostly remember her as older, practical, and gruff.
When my mom was sick—or perhaps after my dad had died, I’m not exactly sure—Aunt Mary came to look after us in Hope, BC, having previously lived in Surrey. She brought care, love, and wisdom, even while carrying her own grief: by 1960, her parents and siblings had all passed. She must have loved me deeply—it was good, but the timing was bittersweet.
Aunt Mary had traveled to Rome around 1970–73 and brought back little Jesus statues for us and a Mother Mary bottle filled with holy water for Mom. She also worked as a telephone operator for BC Tel, with a gruff voice and a love of wine and cigarettes—habits that perhaps influenced the rest of our family.
One moment that sticks with me: in 1979 or 1980, I was studying photography at school and could check out cameras. I brought one to Victoria to visit Aunt Mary. She had my great-grandfather’s diary—her father’s diary—full of day-to-day chores, weather observations, family visits, hunting deer, building fences, tending gardens, working in the blacksmith shop, and waiting for his father. She wouldn’t let me touch it, and at 18, I was hurt.
Eventually, she donated the diary to the Royal BC Museum, and I was the only one who remembered. Years later, in 2016, I finally got a scan of it with the help of a friend. A Portuguese-speaking lawyer friend even found five generations of baptism records in the Azores, all from the same church.
Through all of this, Aunt Mary taught me about resilience, love, memory, and family heritage. She preserved the past and carried it into our lives with quiet strength.
📜 Ancestry & Family Facts – Mary Catherine Enos
Personal Details
- Full Name: Mary Catherine Enos
- Birth: 25 March 1898, British Columbia, Canada
- Death: 9 October 1983, Victoria, BC, Canada
- Burial: Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC
- Religion: Roman Catholic
Parents
- Father: Joseph Enos (1867–1918)
- Mother: Mary Ann Poirier (1870–1940)
Siblings
- John Joseph Enos (1893–1956)
- James Charles Enos (1895–1960)
- Agnes Margaret Enos (1901–1924)
- Ann “Annie” Enos (1906–?)
Census & Occupation
- 1901 Census (Victoria, BC): Age 3, living with parents and brothers; recorded as Portuguese
- 1921 Census (Victoria, BC): Age 23, occupation: teacher; bilingual (English/French); wage: $800/year
- 1931 Census (Nanaimo/Sidney area, BC): Age 32, occupation: telephone operator; wage: $960/year
Career & Contributions
- Early Career: Teacher (1921)
- Later Career: Telephone operator for BC Tel (1931)
Family Contributions:
- Preserved her father’s diary documenting daily life: chores, gardening, blacksmith work, hunting, and weather
- Traveled to Rome in the early 1970s, bringing back religious items for family
- Caregiver to younger generations in her extended family
Notable Life Achievements
- Maintained family history and heritage through the diary and documentation
- Ensured her father’s diary was donated to the Royal BC Museum, preserving it for future generations
- Helped keep alive Indigenous knowledge, Catholic traditions, and Portuguese heritage within the family
⚠️ Disclaimer
I have done my best to document the life and family history of Great Aunt Mary Catherine Enos accurately, drawing from records, census data, and personal memories. Some details—especially dates, relationships, and recollections—may be incomplete or may change as new information becomes available. This story blends both historical facts and personal experiences, and I may update it in the future as I uncover more records or memories.
🤝 To All My Relations
I am on a mission to document our family history. If you have any family-tree information, stories, photos, or documents about our relatives, please share them. Every contribution helps preserve our Enos family legacy.
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