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 Catherine Schubert - Armstrong, BC Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 50° 26.761 W 119° 12.021
11U E 343778 N 5590536
This cairn, in Memorial Park, was erected in honour of Catherine Schubert, the first European woman to enter British Columbia overland from the east.
Waymark Code: WMMGZ9
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 09/20/2014
Views: 1
Both the park and cenotaph were erected by the municipalities of Armstrong and Spallumcheen. At the end of a long entry walk paved with brick pavers stands the cenotaph, a tall shaft of smooth granite blocks atop a broad three tiered base of granite and concrete. Near the top at the front a wreath is embossed on a central stone, well above the bronze plaques below. The cenotaph is centred within a large circle of brick pavers. On the cenotaph are plaques remembering the dead of World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
The cairn, set in the northeast corner of Memorial Park, is just west of Pleasant Valley Road. Roughly obelisk in shape, it bears a bronze plaque and a carving of a Red River Cart above.
Catherine was a member of The Overlanders, a party of gold seekers who travelled west from Ontario and Fort Garry to British Columbia in search of their fortune. Four months pregnant when they joined the Overlanders in Fort Garry, Catherine gave birth to a baby girl on October 13, 1862, the day after their arrival in Kamloops.
In Honour of Catherine Schubert
who in company with her husband
and three small children was a member
of the hazardous overland expedition
of 1862, across the Canadian Rockies
from Fort Garry to Kamloops.
A brave and notable Pioneer.
Erected by her friends and admirers
throughout British Columbia.
Catherine O'Hare Schubert
Catherine O'Hare was the first European woman to enter British Columbia overland from eastern Canada. She was the youngest of nine children born in Ireland in 1835. At the age of sixteen, she sailed to the United States and worked as a maid for a wealthy family in Springfield, Massachusetts. She used her spare time teaching herself to read.
When Catherine was nineteen, she met a twenty-seven year old German carpenter named Augustus Schubert. Catherine married Augustus in 1855 and they moved to St. Paul, on the Mississippi River.
Catherine opened a grocery store and made bread while Augustus worked as a carpenter. Their son Gus was born in 1856 and their daughter Mary Jane was born in 1858.
A depression hit the area and the family packed up and moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba (called Fort Garry).
In 1858, miners had discovered gold dust and nuggets in the lower Fraser Valley, in what is now the province of British Columbia.
On May 26, 1862, 150 men arrived by paddle-steamer at Fort Garry determined to follow the "overland" route to the Cariboo.
The Overlanders, as they came to be known, consisted of fifteen smaller groups of gold-seekers who had met as they travelled west.
Catherine's husband, Augustus, decided to join the Overlanders and go search for gold in the Cariboo. Catherine chose to accompany her husband as she had no intention of being left behind at Fort Garry to run their farm and store, and to care for their three small children.
Catherine was four months pregnant when she and her husband began their overland trek across the prairies and the Rocky Mountains with three children ages 5, 3, and 1.
After many hardships and terrifying adventures the Schuberts arrived in British Columbia. The family decided to travel down the Thompson River instead of the treacherous Fraser River.
Still floating down the Thompson River, Catherine went into labour on the raft. They went ashore, and Catherine was taken care of by the First Nations women at a local village. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, whom she named Rose.
Catherine supported the family while her husband unsuccessfully prospected for gold in Quesnel. In 1881, Augustus decided to give up his gold-hunting days and the Schuberts bought a farm in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.
Augustus died in 1908 and Catherine moved into nearby Armstrong. She remained an important part of the community until her death on July 18th, 1918.
From the BC Archives
Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link]
Location: Memorial Park
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