FROM LONDON FLORIST TO ONTARIO FARMER
This article was in the The Canadian Countryman ( now The Farmers Advocate and Home magazine) on September 6, 1924 [we are striving to improve the reproductive quality]
Arthur's Bio: Arthur Knights, a Florist in London England having checked out Canada 4 years before, came to Ontario in 1907 with his wife Sarah and their 9 children, 5 sons and 4 daughters. Market gardening led to their first farm which they sold in 1912, where their larger second farm included dairy cows, and grew corn, oats and potatoes. The big barn had in large letters the latin words "LABOR OMNIA VINCIT" which means 'labour conquers all things' clearly under God as the poem makes very clear. As of 1924, 3 of the 5 sons starting up farming for themselves, 2 are working the home farm with 1 sister, and her 3 sisters have each married farmers.
A GOLDEN CHAIN – REMEMBERING ARTHUR AND SARAH KNIGHTS
NOVEMBER 7, 2024
Background:
We, Marion MacMillan, Margaret Quinn and I (Peter Stevens), today celebrate the One Year Anniversary, here in the Cedar Centre at Cedarvale Lodge in Georgina, Ontario, Canada of the Daily Devotion reading at 9am every day. These ‘Devo’s are written by Marshall and Jessica Jones.
Before we began, today, Marion gave me the poem below written by her Grandfather Arthur Knights on September 21, 1928 for his wife, Sarah E. White, on their Fortieth Wedding Anniversary.
Marion and I met in August 2023, in the run up to the first gathering of Resident’s Voice (the residents advocacy group initiated by Ziba Fisher). On August 22, 2023, Marion presented a History of nearby Ravenshoe United Church, who were celebrating their 150th Anniversary a month later on September 24, 2023 (Veronica and my Wedding Anniversary!).
Over the last year after reading Marshall’s daily Devo here, written from incarceration in Wisconsin USA (2001 to date), while serving life for a double homicide, Marion has been selecting a fitting hymn which we then play on the big TV screen that has just held God’s Word and Marshall and Jessica ministering to us through their life experiences.
Click here to go to Marshall’s page on Red Thread Poets, and click here for Jessica’s Endorsement of Marshall, (when a then single divorced woman who connected me to Marshall). The Endorsement is in the Psalm 91 Series – the first eBook we published. I deliberately include here Marshall and his now wife of two years, because it is the Devo’s that have built the relationship Marion and I have – for all of us a love of our Lord God.
I had learned of the joy Marion and her late husband Murray had with their family, and the love Marion and her sisters Evelyn and Beth had growing up singing and worshiping at home before the piano. And how the three sisters and parents driving in the car would sing hymns, sometimes with each singing a different hymn but all 5 at the same time!
When you read this poem you will see the seed of this love in the Lord from the girls grandparents. Hallelujah.
PAST POET REFLECTIONS are established to recognise the generations of giants and all poets and songwriters who have come before us - these are carefully selected by our Red Thread Poets, whom we acknowledge first above the poem or lyrics presented.