Chapter
Four
When we arrived there were no church services of any kind. This did not suit my mother and aunt, who were used to morning and evening service with Sunday School in the afternoon, as well as mid-week prayer meeting.
We heard of an ex-Presbyterian minister who was farming right on the edge of “the flats”. The reasons for his retirement were two-fold. He had been in charge of a mission field at Moosomin and outlying districts, and had married there. He lost his wife in childbirth (the child too). Then a hearing problem became worse so that he was almost stone-deaf, could hear only by using a black, hard-rubber trumpet, which he carried with him everywhere. Mother and Aunt interviewed him, the Rev. Niel (sic) Morrison, and persuaded him to conduct a service in our homes, turn and turn about, ours and Aunt’s on alternate Sundays. The first one was at our house on a hot Sunday afternoon, and thirty-five people came! After the service, we served a hand-round supper, and they all stayed for another service in the evening conducted by another minister. I cannot think who he was; he must have just happened to turn up from somewhere, Invermay or Buchanan. After that first Sunday, the “congregation” settled down to about twenty people, and later on we transferred to the home of Mr and Mrs Price, as they had a larger room and were more centrally located. Then, just about this time, the people in the southeast end of the district, the Murrays, Deans, Prestons and others, had a building-bee, and erected a small log place, named it “The Pioneer School”, and held Sunday School there regularly. They had ministers out from Buchanan whenever possible. These were Methodist or Presbyterian, later United Church, and whenever there was no one else available, dear old Mr Morrison faithfully filled in.
[16] These were not his only points of ministry. He held services at Invermay, Margo, Kuroki, Chain of Lakes School, and north to Hazel Dell and Lintlaw. All the weddings, funerals and christenings in this huge territory were conducted by this staunchly dedicated man, who worked hard all week on his own farm to earn his living, and spent the whole of Sunday, while other farmers rested, driving from point to point in an open buggy (an open cutter in winter), his faithful horses black with sweat or covered with frost, according to the time of year. Of the meagre offerings – no one had much money – not a cent did he keep for his own expenses. All was sent to Toronto headquarters for missionary work. His congregations consisted of Baptists, Methodists, a few Presbyterians, even some Anglicans, and some who paid no allegiance to any particular denomination. At our house Mother played the small harmonium we had brought from England. Auntie had a tiny, portable organ designed for outdoor meetings. At Price’s, mother chose the hymns, and led the singing from the Presbyterian Book of Praise. Mr Morrison loved to hear the old Scottish Paraphrases, so Mother tried to include one of them often, though they sounded stilted and even discordant to Baptist ears! Mr Morrison married my sister Nora, brothers Leonard and Cyril, and myself when my turn came, as well as many other couples, probably hundreds of them throughout the years. And some of the babies which I saw him christen were later on married by this grand old man.
At last, in 1937 at the age of seventy-six, he was forced to give up farming, sell his beloved horses, and go to make his home with a nephew, Alex Morrison, at Argyle, Manitoba. He passed away in a Winnipeg hospital in 1941, aged eighty years. “He rests from his labours, and his works do follow him”.
In July of that first year, 1908, a community picnic was arranged to be held beside Newburn Lake on the Whitesand River, some eight miles from our place. We set off early in the morning, oxen hitched to the wagon, hay in the bed of the wagon box to soften the bumps, as we had to travel across those awful alkali flats. Another necessity was [17] an old pail with a smudge in it, a smouldering fire to give off smoke to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Arrived at the lake, two or three wagon-boxes were taken off, and turned upside down on the ground to form a long table, and covered with white oil-cloth. On this the food was spread; cold meat, potato salad, homemade bread and pickles, which all quickly disappeared. Mrs Price’s delectable wild strawberry pies, and Mrs Tingley’s iced layer-cakes, were gobbled up by the younger people. Dishes were taken down to the water to wash. In the afternoon, my mother, who was a born leader, gathered the women together, and formed a women’s association named “The Women’s Christian Union” with Mrs James Ferrie as the first president, Mrs Tingley as vice-president, and Mother as secretary-treasurer. As such, Mother planned the programmes, sent for supplies (ribbons for the members to wear), and carried on these monthly meetings summer and winter for over twenty years. They provided spiritual food for women who rarely if ever attended a church service, and combined with that were hints and helps for daily living. One month there would be a demonstration of First Aid, or home nursing. Another time, cooking demonstrations and many other subjects. Always it was a time for friendship and sociability as each hostess, in turn, provided a hearty tea while the men, drivers and others who might turn up, sat down for their supper at the kitchen table. Afterwards everyone joined together for a sing-song.
These meetings were held in forty different homes, from Dean’s in the southeast corner to Willis’ and Condon’s in the northwest towards Invermay, and about fifty women belonged. Not all could get out every month, but enough to be a good attendance. Commonly called “the Ladies’ Meeting” by the men, it was enjoyed by all, men and children as well as the ladies themselves. No matter how cold the weather, wrapped in blankets and quilts with hot stones at their feet, they would drive many miles to attend. Sometimes the men would declare, “You’re crazy to go – there won’t be anyone there!”; but the women insisted, “You hitch up the team, I mean to go!”, and always there would be enough to have the planned programme, and the social time afterwards.
[18] After Mrs Ferris went back to Toronto, Mrs Tingley carried on as President, and when she too returned to the east, we had dear old Mrs Dean until her untimely death during the First World War, then Mrs Murray took over. Always Mother carried it along until she, too, left to make her home in Lethbridge (footnote 2) for her last years of life. It was 1931 when she went, and by then a Homemakers Club had been formed, and continued for about fifteen years.
Transcriber’s footnotes:
2. Olive’s sister Helena presumably went with her mother; she (Helena) lived in Lethbridge until her death.
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