Rev. W. C. Calder

Dates: b. Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1852 d. September 1931

Keywords: Presbyterian Church, Tonka Farm, Big Eddy, Alice Calder, David Calder

Cemetery Location: Block C, Row 13, Plot 18

William Caldwell Calder entered the ministry at an early age, moving his wife, Alice Mary Calder (nee Trump), and children west in the mid-1890s. He accepted the ministry position at Revelstoke Presbyterian Church in 1900. When a second Presbyterian church was established, Rev. Calder took over the ministry of St. Andrew’s Church. He retired when the two churches united in 1910.

Upon retirement, Mr. Calder began farming his land ‘Tonka Farm,’ at the Big Eddy amid the mountain scenery they all loved so much.  In 1915, the family purchased a valuable herd of Ayrshire cows to enter the dairy business. When the shortage of feed over winter became evident, the family built a silo the following summer – the first of its kind in the Revelstoke district.

After a brief illness, Mr. Calder died in 1931, at the age of 80. Alice Calder died in 1957 at the age of 94. The Calders had seven sons and three daughters: Bruce, Donald, Merle, Rex, William, James, David, Margaret, Martha, and a daughter who died prior to moving to British Columbia.

David Calder was shot by his brother-in-law, Thomas Allen, at the Allen’s Big Eddy residence on 20 July 1924. He died of his injuries at the Queen Victoria Hospital on 6 August 1924, at the age of 41, leaving behind a wife and four children.

The Calder family, date unknown.

Tonka Farm, Big Eddy, September 1963.