LOOKING BACK

 

We return to 1995 in this week’s reminder of Eldridgeville’s history

They should have read the fine print...

June 15, 1995
Eloise Chicory Butterbun—Guest Columnist and great-granddaughter of Esther Chicory

ELDRIDGEVILLE, Ontario — June 15 1995 will be remembered as a day of celebration in Eldridgeville, as residents gathered to bid farewell to the town’s beloved matriarch, Mrs. Esther Chicory. Lifelong residents have spent recent days sharing memories of the remarkable woman and her extraordinary family. Newcomers to Eldridgeville may not know the most fascinating details of her life story.

Esther Chicory was the only child of Lester and Bertha Shockwell. Records at the First Methodist Church tell us she was born on the first day of July 1895 and married local boy Wilbur Chicory before her eighteenth birthday. Their first son, Arnold, was born the following year, and thereafter babies kept arriving.

By October 1926, Esther and Wilbur were raising eight sons with another baby on the way when Esther read a very intriguing article in the Toronto Daily Star. The last will and testament of a wealthy Toronto lawyer, Charles Vance Millar, bequeathed a million dollars to the mother who gave birth to the greatest number of children in the decade following his death. An optimist by nature and never one to shy away from a challenge, Esther firmly believed this was a contest she was destined to win. After convincing Wilbur, the couple agreed it was best to keep their ambition to themselves, after all the fewer competitors the better.

As luck would have it, just one week after the announcement of the 'Stork Derby', Esther gave birth to twin girls, Isabella and Isadora. The only two daughters in the Chicory family, they were referred to with great affection by townsfolk, collectively as the Chicory Twins. (Ask an old-timer to explain how the term of endearment lead to the incident at the VE Day Parade of 1945, which, to this day, the very mention causes the girls to bristle.) Their birth, solidified Esther’s determination to claim the prize and the family grew rapidly from then on. Early in 1928 another son was born and in 1930 twin boys, who take great pride, to this day, in being known as the Mischief Makers.

(For those who have lost track, that's thirteen children—eleven boys and two girls, with five of them arriving since the "Stork Derby" began.)

Although certain there was no competition in town, Esther kept a watchful eye on the growth of other families in Eldridgeville. Mrs. Caldicutt seemed to be the closest contender, having four in the same time period, but Mr. Caldicutt, who was well into his fifties, was through with raising babies and confided as much in Wilbur.

As the deadline approached, Esther had given birth to four more, all boys—giving the Chicory family nine babies born in ten years and 17 children in total; the three oldest now married with children of their own. It was reported that more than twenty-four women had given birth to at least eight babies during the decade.

Confident, hopeful, and dreaming of a house with indoor plumbing, Esther and Wilbur enlisted the aid of local lawyer Lester Druthers. On their behalf, he appeared at the scheduled hearing, along with thirty two other lawyers attempting to claim the fortune. Judge William Middleton quickly eliminated claims made by anyone who didn’t have at least nine children under the age of ten. There were now five families remaining, each having nine children born during the derby. Druthers was confident the prize money would be split evenly between the five families.

But Esther and Wilbur hadn’t read the fine print, nor apparently had Druthers. The contest was open only to residents of Toronto. The Chicory claim from Eldgridgeville was disqualified.

Often asked what it was like to raise so many children, Mrs. Chicory would chuckle and say, “Now that’s a million dollar question!”

Esther passed away peacefully at home where she lived with her two spinster daughters. She is also survived by her fifteen sons and too-many-to-count grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren most of whom remain in the Eldridgeville community. The entire town came out for her funeral service and burial at the Methodist Cemetery where Wilbur has been waiting since 1959.