Chapter
Two
Soon after we arrived, Leonard and Eustace went off to Yorkton to find work. They found jobs working on Government telephone, putting up poles and stringing wires for the first telephones in that area. The “boss” of the gang was Frank Highfield of Dauphin. He delegated Len to do the cooking, such as it was. This was the start of my brother’s professional career, as he went on to train under a French chef, and became a first-class chef himself, working in the biggest hotels in Winnipeg and Regina. Then he was sent by the Hudson Bay Company, to Edmonton in 1912, to lay out and open up a dining-room in their store in that city. Some years later he was sent to Cardston Alberta, to superintend the setting up of the kitchen in the new Prince of Wales hotel in Waterton Lakes Park, where he served as chef for the first season.
Eustace, on the other hand, took to the work on telephone lines like a duck to water. When at home in the winter months, he took a correspondence course in “electronics” (as it would be called now). I can see him, in memory, sitting studying by the light of a coal-oil lamp – cat’s eye, as we sometimes called it. Then making out his graphs and charts, a complete mystery to the rest of us, then sending his papers each month with the answered questions and the said charts, etc. He eventually passed the exams, and was given his certificate. In the meantime he had built and installed a phone in our home, connected to that of my aunt and uncle. It was hooked onto the barbed-wire fence, and ran along them to the nearest point to my uncle’s house. It was the very first phone in all that large area, as this was 1909, and served us well until the first [8] government phones were installed, which was not until after the First World War if I remember aright. My brother was very clever, and I’m sure would have made a success in his career, and would have been into radio and TV; but when the war started, he entered the army, was sent to France, and never did return to us. Just one of the fine young men who could have been of help to their country, and a blessing to their parents, cut down in the prime of life.
At home, that first year or two, my brother and I led a very free and happy life. We helped with little chores, of course – wood, water, gardening, but there was no compulsion about it most of the time. We had a few hens, which were cooped up in a tiny cage close to the house. They had the scraps from the table, but we were all hearty eaters, so not much was left, and there were always cats and a dog to feed. We pulled weeds and wild grasses with seeds on them, and dropped them into the chicken’s small run, but they gradually died. We did not understand that the poor things needed grain; had they been let out, they could have found plenty of food, insects, grasshoppers, etc., but we were totally ignorant of how to run a farm.
It must have been terrible for my poor mother. She had lived in a city most of her life with all the then-known conveniences; running water, gas lighting, and indoor plumbing. Here, water had to be dipped out of a slough, and heated on the wood-burning stove before doing the washing. Clothes were rubbed on a plain piece of board (not even a glass washboard at that time) in a galvanised iron washtub. It was back-breaking work, as were all the jobs on the homestead. There was a shallow well for drinking water about eight feet deep. One spring, the water tasted “queer”, so Father emptied the well and found twenty seven rabbits at the bottom of it. It is a wonder we were not all sick. Often mice and frogs would get in there and die; then the job of dipping out the water would have to be undertaken again.
Father bought his first cow from his brother, Sam, for thirty dollars. She had a calf with her, and was a fairly good milker, but was afraid of any person but Father, so he always milked her. We kept well away, as at the least sign of someone else she would kick out, and spill all the milk in the pail, two gallons or more. She gave Father twelve calves in as many years, [9] ending up with twin male calves, which we named “Max” and “Maxim”. In the meantime, we had acquired other cows by raising or buying them. Our first cream-separator was not much larger than a coffee grinder. Father made a wooden bench for it with a seat for the operator to sit on. It was a VERY slow job, but easy to turn so that we children could do the job. Later on, when we had much more milk, a larger machine was purchased, and the men put up a small shed made with rough poplar lumber, which we grandiosely called “the dairy”. This was my particular domain – after the men had run the milk through with my help in changing pails, and refilling the tank as needed, I had the pails and separator to wash and scald twice a day – then churned the cream into butter, and made the butter into pound prints.
All this was a lot of work every day, Sundays and holidays included. Cows cannot be neglected because it is Sunday. Calves, pigs and chickens must all be fed, and cared for. Only those who have lived on a farm, and an un-electrified farm at that, can have any idea of the hard work it entails, the long hours of labour both summer and winter. I did it, both before and after marriage, for forty years of life in Saskatchewan. But it was a happy life in many ways. Hard work hurts no one; I was healthy and strong. Leonard bought a pony called “Major”, and from his back I rounded up the cows twice a day for milking, took them out to pasture again, was sent on errands to town and to Uncle’s place, but when Major was used on the land I had to walk.
I was a dreamy, imaginative child, and spent many hours alone among the trees with imaginary companions, also wandering about seeking wild fruit, which was far from abundant on our farm. I think the soil was poor. Some people had raspberries and strawberries in abundance; the latter had a very fine flavour, but were TINY. I could spend a whole morning, and come back home with no more than a cupful. Some years were better than others. I remember driving for miles to find a good raspberry patch. There had been a bush fire, and the next year the canes would spring up, and bear abundantly. There were a very few gooseberries too, and one tiny pot of jam was very precious to Mother.
[10] How she managed to keep us all fed and clean was a miracle. Of course, we had a big garden each year. I had a little plot of my own, and one year I grew quite a lot of citrons. They were round and green with pretty white markings, and made splendid preserves with lots of sugar and lemon, or ginger, flavouring. Father took half a dozen of them to Invermay to try and sell them for me. No one wanted them, and he had to practically beg the people at the hotel to give him fifty cents for the lot, as he told them “my little girl will be so disappointed”. It was like this with almost everything we grew or raised. Most people had their own gardens, and no one had money to buy from others. Sometimes Father was able to sell a load of firewood in the town.
In reading over my father’s autobiography, I see the following (footnote 1), and it is typical of prices at that time –
In 1907, I bought three sows and a boar, all young, and paid seven cents a pound, live-weight. Although they had fairly good litters, the price dropped, and I remember taking seventeen pigs, three months old, to Sheho. All I could get for them was two dollars each. They had cost me far more than that to raise. However, I could not take them home again, as there was no feed for them. There was no better success with the rest. I sold a sow and six pigs for twenty five dollars, and those I butchered brought only 5 cents a pound. That same year, I worked on the R.R (footnote 2). Had to rise at 4am, feed pigs, get my own breakfast, and walk three miles to the starting point. After shovelling gravel all day, arrived home 7pm, again fed pigs and self, and crawled into bed. No doubt I lost at least one hundred dollars on pigs that first year. For one thing, I had to buy feed instead of growing it, and sometimes could not even buy it. But later on, I had my own flour, bran and shorts, and wheat grits (cream of wheat) by taking wheat to the mill at Sheho, thus laying in a year’s supply. Also, I never again bought more than two young pigs at a time, one to breed, and one to fatten and butcher for the household.
[11] The trip to Sheho was a long, slow one with oxen, about twenty miles of rough prairie trails including several miles of “alkali flats” which were strewn so thickly with rocks, half in and half out of the ground, that they could not possibly be avoided. It was a case of bump, bump, bump all the way, very hard on the wagon, the feet of the oxen or horses, and on the human nerves.
A few people took homesteads on or near these flats, thinking no doubt that clearing the land would be easy, as there were no trees to clear off. One of these was Harry Deacon, who was later the postmaster at Invermay for many years. He soon found what an impossible task it was, as did others. I do not know if any of it has since been reclaimed. The School district was aptly named “Stonyview School District”. Then the Whitesand river had to be forded, and more miles of trail covered before reaching Sheho where was the nearest bank, a drug store, and the flour mill.
Transcriber’s footnotes:
1. This passage is in “Book 2” of T W Moore’s autobiography – click to follow the link. BJH
2. Railroad
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