Frederick
Edwin PENTZ was born on 4 Nov 1862 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He
died on 21 Sep 1932 in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. He was the first
child of Richard Edwin and Agnes Sophia Pentz, nee Corkum. When he
was young, the family supposedly moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and
then returned to Halifax when Fred was about eight. He had three
younger sisters, Ida May, Eudora Ann and Maud, and one younger
brother Richard.Frederick met his wife Emily by chance one day when they were only about 18. Emily lived in Jeddore, a small town southeast of Dartmouth on the shore, and one day she came into port on her uncle's ship and docked in Halifax Harbour. Fred was working as a clerk in a drugstore down by the piers, and Emily just happened to go in. Fred always remembered that she had on a white dress with blue ribbons that day -- it was the first and last time he ever noticed what any woman wore! Emily's mother Mary didn't like Fred though, and that presented a problem. However, Emily was expecting in the summer of 1882 and the two of them eloped. They were married by licence at Garrison Chapel in Halifax, both giving their ages as 21 when they were actually 19 and 18. I think this is probably because it was the age you needed to be to get married without parental consent..
After his marriage and his first child was born, Frederick decided he would become a druggist himself and attended Dalhousie University, Halifax in 1883 and received his pharmacy diploma.
For about eight years after their marriage, Frederick and Emily remained in Halifax and had six children there. In 1889 they moved to Hantsport in Hants Co, where they would have another 10 children. It was a small town and their home was at 31 Prince St. down by the waterfront. Frederick set up his own drugstore on Main Street. At that time all pills and prescriptions had to be made from scratch with herbs, and the family had a large garden of them by their home. Many others would have had to be ordered.
Frederick was appointed mayor of Hantsport on March 2, 1908 and served until August 2, 1910. At this time, he stated that he was going to leave the town and so it would be his last meeting. The minutes for his years in office cover about 90 pages. His signature, taken from one of the documents, and a photograph of him taken in front of his drugstore in Hantsport will be scanned into this web site for viewing in the near future.
Jessie Borden, a Hantsport historian who was the same age as Frederick's daughter Lottie and her grade 4 seatmate, remembers at a minstrel show years ago in town that they said Fred Pentz was trying for a shilling worth of Pentz, but only got 10 Pentz! (A play on words.)
Frederick set up another drugstore in Shubenacadie, and I think that is where he went in 1910. It was thought that in 1914 the family moved there with him while his son Walter took over the Hantsport store. However, in an August 1915 letter to Frederick from his son Arthur, he tells him to "write Mother", which sounds as if they are not living together.
The Shubenacadie drugstore stayed in the family until fairly recently. After Frederick's death his daughter Bertha, who became a druggist in 1920 and was probably the province's first woman pharmacist, managed it until 1943, when she became ill and asked her brother Frank to look after it while her son Malcolm took the pharmacy course. Frank ran it until 1949 when Mack took over. After his death in 1973 his son David Etter took over, and only recently it has become a tea room and bakery. It is called Pentz's Place.
Frederick seems to have been an outgoing, ambitious person, not only for himself but for his children. Four of his eight adult children, Bertha, Frank, Walter and Lottie became pharmacists like him, with Walter going on to become a doctor and Frank later wishing he had done the same! It also sounds in his letter to his dad that Arthur was trying to become a pharmacist, too. I say he was outgoing and ambitious for many reasons; because of how he met his wife, had the nerve to elope, then put himself through pharmacy school with a young family, and the role he played in Hantsport, not only as mayor but helping the poor through his vocation, often giving those who could not afford them free prescriptions.
Frederick and Emily kept a huge family bible with records of their chldren's births, marriages and deaths, and used it as well to keep things such as newspaper clippings about the family, In Memoriam cards and photographs. The bible was passed on to his eldest son, Frank William, who gave it to his eldest son, Edsel. Ed's widow Bette now lives in Calgary, Alberta and has the bible. Her son Brian will soon be e-mailing me copies of the pages and enclosures to be posted on this page.
Frederick died in Shubenacadie in his 70th year. He had been very ill for several months and died of hemepligia. He is buried in the Riverbank Cemetery, Hantsport near his parents. His wife Emily, who died of pneumonia a year later while living in a nursing home in Dartmouth, is buried beside him. Also, there is a headstone commemorating their son, R. Arthur, who died in the war, and their six children who died in early childhood. It is not known where Ernest Edwin is buried. Parents: Richard Edwin PENTZ and Agnes Sophia CORKUM.