Marten Reijersen was baptised as Marten Reijersz in 1637 at Amsterdam, the son of Reijer Reijersz (b. ca. 1604). He immigrated to New Amsterdam in 1646 and settled at Breuckelen (Brooklyn, New York). He married Annetie Joris in 1663. They had eleven children, 1664-1685. His grandson, Lucas Reyerse (1704-1764), migrated to a valley along the Pequannock River, with his family as a young boy. He married Elizabeth Howell, daughter of Capt. Daniel Howell, in 1736. They had five children, 1738-1745, born at Pequannock and Readington, New Jersey. After her death he married 2) Susanna Vaner der Linden (1712-1747). They had a child in 1747 who died as an infant. He married 3) Johanna Van Der Hoff in 1750 in New Jersey. They had seven children, 1752-1761. His two sons, Samuel Ryerse (1752-1812) and Joseph Ryerson (1761-1854) were American Loyalists and after the Revolutionary War settled in Norfolk County, Ontario. Their descendants lived in Ontario, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey and elsewhere.

In 1889, Alice Barrett moved west from Ontario to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia to keep house for her brother and uncle. She soon married Harold Parke, a former military officer, and recorded her experiences in a series of notebooks. Few women’s diaries have survived from that time, and Parke recalls a period of profound transformation in a region newly opened to white settlement by the railway. She was an astute observer and an exceptional writer, and her diaries provide valuable insights into work, health, religion, race and gender relations, and women’s lives. She was part of the circle of the Countess of Aberdeen, who stayed at nearby Coldstream Ranch, and became the first corresponding secretary of the Vernon chapter of the National Council of Women.