Annie Stewart Gentles (1881–1955)

When I think of my Scottish Grannie Bell, I don't first think of a written recipe card. I think of a warm kitchen, the feel of a stool pulled close to the counter, and the simple confidence of someone who had made the same things so many times she barely needed measurements. Annie Stewart Gentles was that kind of Old Country cook — quietly skilled, consistent, and generous.

I'm preserving her biography because her baking was never just about sweets. It was about comfort, family, and making something good out of ordinary days. And when you see the few recipes of hers that were written down, you understand what a treasure that is.

Annie Stewart Gentles: My Scottish "Grannie"

Annie Stewart Gentles was born in Uphall, Scotland, in 1881. Her father was Archibald Gentles (1855-1926), originally of Muiravonside, and her mother was Ann Stewart MacDonald (1858-1944), daughter of James MacDonald (1821-1875) of Morayshire, Dyke, Scotland.

While in her teen years, Annie and her sister, Margaret Wallace Gentles, attended a commercial business college in Edinburgh, sometime around 1898, during the time when their parents lived in India.

Annie's father Archibald was a chemist and manager at the Uphall Oil Co. Ltd., later merged with Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Co. Ltd., in 1884. Accompanied by his wife, he had been sent to Assam, India for a year to oversee the building of a new plant for shale oil exploration.

Not long after Annie’s parents returned to Scotland, the entire family emigrated to Canada in 1903 and took out a homestead at Dog Pound Creek — now the hamlet of Dogpound — about 30 miles north of Calgary, Alberta.

Annie's father and her younger brother, Robert Gentles (1892-1916), built a permanent log house for the family that first prairie winter, while sleeping in a hastily built shack.

Meantime, Annie and Margaret lived with their mother in a cold, drafty covered wagon nearby that had a small wood-burning stove for heating and cooking. It was such a change from their comfortable life in the Old Country!¹

Later in 1906, Annie married my grandfather Ernest Leopold Bell (1863-1936), and they began homesteading thirteen miles north of Cochrane near the Beaver Dam Creek.

They ranched horses for sale to the North-West Mounted Police (N.W.M.P.) while raising four children: William Robert Bell, Annie Jessie Bell, Ernest Archibald Gentles Bell, and Margaret Stewart (Daisy) Bell.

Like other young men in the West, Ernie tried his hand at many things. As one of the famous Steele's Scouts, he had fought in the North West Rebellion in 1885. Though slightly under six feet tall, Ernie was nicknamed Shorty, being the shortest of the troop and rated by some its most expert plainsman.

Ernie later trekked overland to the Klondike gold fields in 1898, taking the arduous Edmonton route. The best claims had already been staked before he arrived at Dawson City, but he did manage to pan a few gold nuggets and visit his old friend Col. Sam Steele who had been appointed a member of the Territorial Council.

When he wed Annie, Ernie had a Calgary jeweler craft their wedding rings by combining his Klondike gold with Indian gold from a ring that Annie's parents had given to her.

Horses became less in demand after the First World War, so the Bells sold their ranch in 1918, and they moved to Ontario where they purchased a family farm east of Peterborough in the Township of Otonabee.²

The spacious two-storey farmhouse had been built of local fieldstone by Thomas Sedgwick in the 1830s at a cost of $300, including $80 for the stonework.

After my Grandpa Ernie died in 1936, Grannie Bell lived in one half of our stone house while my parents and I lived in the other half. So, I came to know her quite well when I was a youngster in the early 1950s.

Grannie was Scottish through and through, and an excellent cook. Sitting on a kitchen stool while watching her bake pies, cookies, and scones comprise some of my fondest childhood memories.

She would take a golden scone warm from the oven, carefully split it with a table knife, then dab "a wee bit of butter" on it followed by a generous dollop of her homemade orange marmalade. I can still remember the marvelous taste. And her oatmeal cookies were simply to die for!

Grannie cooked mostly from memory so not many of her recipes survived. However, I discovered several that she had handwritten in a notebook and for that we are grateful.

Return to Don Bell and Preserving Grannie's Recipes

Endnote

¹ Cochrane and Area Historical Society, Big Hill Country: Cochrane and Area (Cochrane, AB: Cochrane and Area Historical Society, 1977), 476

² Ibid., 701–703.