Welcome to Page 5 of Mom's Book

Since I am writing this for "posterity" its obvious that I will be including things all of you now present will know all about. If you hang onto this book, it might interest future generations. Maybe.

Evelyn at approximately 12 years old.

Jan 24, 1996

As I said away back there somewhere, Edson was a town completely surrounded by forest. Thick, swampy forest. The fires were the big thing, but the forest also produced some of my favorite childhood memories—things that none of my children, except maybe Evelyn, will ever have the pleasure of seeing.

One spring day, when I was seven or eight, we woke to the sounds of birds—maybe thousands of them. All in our backyard. My mother was fond of knitting and she always made soft balls from the scraps of yarn left from her projects. One day we left one of those balls out in the yard and the birds found it and tore it to pieces. We had birds of every color and description scrapping over those bits of yarn, even Baltimore Orioles, which ordinarily would not be using that material in nest building! I wish we had had a movie camera to record that sight. We watched them all morning, trying to identify as many as possible, but even Mom couldn’t tell us what they all were.

The birds were not the only attraction of the forest. All summer long we had bouquets of wild flowers, and it didn’t take us smart aleck kids long to find out we could cadge a nickel, dime or even a quarter from some of the neighbors for a fist full of tiger lilies or marigolds. We also had a muddy swimming hole in the creed, a block or two from home, but as we grew older, we preferred to walk the three miles out to the McLeod River for our swimming. More dangerous, but cleaner and more fun, and besides it was too far away for mom to call us home.

Edson, as a town, or rather, the people, was not good to us. We were the largest family in town, and probably the poorest, and so did not fit in with the town "society". Dad had a job all through the depression, but when I look back on the conditions of his work and workplace—it was appalling. He never had a holiday in all his 50 years of working for the railroad. He worked 6 days a week and if he was ever sick, he lost pay. There was no union in those days and the CN could treat its employees any way they wanted to. After all his years of working dad retired with a pension of $29.42 per month in Dec. 1939. One thing he did have though, was a lifetime railway pass for himself and mom and the younger kids until they were 18. Dad was called a "stationary fireman" and his job was shoveling coal—8 or 9 tons every day—year in and year out—into those furnaces. Maybe its no wonder he had such a vile temper!

But it wasn’t all bad. He wasn’t cranky all the time. And he had a very good singing voice. He would sit in our big wooden rocking chair with two or three of the smallest kids on his knees, and several more standing on, and propelling, the rockers—and sang Scottish songs. The "r’s" rolled, the songs soared. "Roamin’ in the Gloamin’"—"I Ken a Lass"—dozens of the old songs. And he taught us all to love reading. All, that is, of the older ones. I can’t speak for the last few. Candace was born when Dad was almost 66. Mom was 40, and Candace already had a niece (Kay’s daughter, Dorothy) and a nephew (David), both of whom were six months old when she was born.

April 4, 1998

Its two years since I wrote anything in this chronicle, so now I think I will go back and fill in the years you older ones know all about, but the great-grands will remember nothing, and just might like to know. As I write I am sitting in my private room in Royal University Hospital, 80 years and 8 months old, and in hospital for a 3^rd time since November 2^nd, 1997. I have a type of cancer called multiple myeloma for over 9 years, which has ruined my back bones, and pretty well disabled me, but until the attack on November 1^st, I had been living my life pretty well, driving my car, and doing very well. Driving was easier than walking. I am now waiting for a verdict from a flock of doctors on what they will do with me next, so back to the story:

From 1966 on, our fortunes improved rapidly. I wrote a cookbook, and made 250 copies, which I expected to sell for money to go to Montreal for Expo 1967. Well, I was stunned to find that 250 was gone in no time flat, so we rolled off 250 more—sold 100 to Eaton’s, 100 to the Bay and the rest individually. Then another batch—200 to the Co-op, the other 50 to a drug store on Avenue H. In the end we sold over 5,000 copies at a profit of around 9 or 10 thousand dollars. Wealth and riches!! George and I went to expo, and had a wonderful time—me to see the sights of Expo, and George to flirt with the girls. (He was 17.)

By now, the cookbook is passé, as it was all baking, and most people are watching their diets! Anyway, the stencils wore out, and I couldn’t make any more.

George was the last to get married, on his 22^nd birthday. That was July 22, 1972. At about the same time both Bill and I got large raises in our salaries, so we were accumulating a fairly good bank account. We used the—oh, back up a bit. We had been investing in a $1,000 bond at $13.50 a month for several (10) years and when it came due it was worth $2,000 so we used that money for our first trip to Great Britain—3 wonderful weeks in 1971. We rented a car and drove all over England, Wales and Scotland. We met some of our Scottish relatives on Dad’s side (my dad) and brought home loads of pictures and souvenirs. Three more trips to Europe followed, in 1973, 1976, and 1979. By then we had met the English side of our connections (Bill’s cousin John). We were at his place when George phoned to tell us Zane had arrived (July 2, 1979) in the world.

The year before, we were at Freeport, in the Bahamas, when George phoned to let us know that Phaedra had made her entrance into the world (Feb. 8, 1978). One year before that we spent 3 glorious weeks in Hawaii. That brings us to 1979, when we, at last, moved out of the house on Avenue I, and into the house on Ruth Street, just a few days before Laurie’s wedding. We had lived on Avenue I for 34 years, ever since we gave up on farming.

We had got the travel bug in 1955, when we loaded up our 1940 Ford and drove out to Alberta, to visit my sister Betty and her family at Redwater, then on to Jasper, and seeing

the mountains up close for the first time in my life. We went from Jasper to Banff and back home through Calgary--the circle drive. In 1956, we had a 1950 Ford, which carried us out to the coast then back home through Washington, (forget—was it Idaho?) and whatever state the "Going to the Sun Highway" runs. What a trip!!

About 1983 or 1984, we took our last long trip. I had to attend two conventions that summer, the first in Halifax, and, with a week in between, the other in Toronto. Number one was with the Canadian Construction Association, and number two, the Institute of Association Executives. So I took my 3 weeks holiday and we went to Halifax 2 weeks before the convention started, rented a car and drove all over the Maritimes, took the ferry (a big ship) across to Newfoundland and drove all over (as much as we could)—right out to the farthest point we could reach. So then we could say we had traveled Canada from as far west as we could go to as far East.

We got back to Halifax in time for the convention, then flew back to Toronto, visited with friends there, then went to Ottawa for a few day’s visit with Cynthia and Bruce, back to Toronto for the convention, then home to Saskatoon—real tired. It was on that trip that I noticed something was wrong with Bill, but not until late fall was it diagnosed. He was developing Alzheimer’s, and you all know what that means. It was the end of our good times. I kept on with my work with the Construction Association, until June, 1985, then I retired to take care of him. By December I could not look after him due to my own health problems—1985 (surgery to remove a spleen gone wild). ITP it was called. So I had to put him in a nursing home. He died April 21^st, 1987. I have lived alone in the Ruth Street house ever since.

In January, 1989, I went on a 2 month trip to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii with sisters Betty and Jessie. We were only a few days into the Australian tour when I developed severe backaches, which kept getting worse. I hung on through the New Zealand trip, with two stops in their hospitals, then when we got to Hawaii, I stayed mostly in the hotels only going out in a wheelchair once in awhile. I had seen most of it before and it hurt too much to travel a lot. When we got back home, I went to my doctor and within a few days, I was in hospital (March 24), diagnosed on April 10, 1989, which would have been our 50^th wedding anniversary. Since then I have been on radiation and chemotherapy, except for a 2-year remission. At this moment, I do not know what the future holds for me. But if you have read what goes before and what will follow, you will know that I have at least led a full and busy life, and far more good times than bad. Even the years of poverty had lots of good times. We were too busy to be unhappy!!!!

Article and Photo from Saskatoon Star Phoenix, October 19^th, 1985, on the Occasion of My Retirement Party.

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