The Seibels at Boggy Creek - Part Two
Written by Henry S. Seibel c. 1955
Transcribed by Cliff Seibel - seibelce[at]gmail.com
When the New Hamburg threshing outfit was bought in 1907
the self-feeder was not yet developed and the thresher had to be fed by hand.
Instead of a feeder there was a platform in front of the cylinder and one or two
men stood on the platform and cut the twine and spread the sheaves out on a
sloping board in front of the cylinder so that the straw was fed in evenly. By
1909 the self-feeder had been developed and one was purchased to attach to the
New Hamburg Separator. It was then found that the added load was too much for
the steamer and it could now only pull the thresher at a reduced capacity. So
that same year my father decided to buy a big outfit and he ended up bringing
home a Reeves Steamer and a 44” Separator. This like the previous outfit was
bought without the down payment of a single dollar bill and the price was in the
neighborhood of $9000.00, It, like the previous outfit was paid for in the year
in which it was purchased. The philosophy of the day was "If you had the guts to
ask for that much credit you must have the guts to pay it too."
In 1909 both steam outfits were used and these two outfits
threshed practically all the farmers for 20 miless around. Two complete circles
were made. The wheat was threshed first and on the next round the oats and
barley was threshed. Farms were still comparatively small, but the crops must
have been pretty good for in that first year the Reeves outfit averaged about
4000 bushels of wheat per day and nearly 7000 bushels of oats per day.
The top of the heap on one of these outfits was the
engineer. He sot about $20.00 per day and was a plutocrat. Then came the
separator man who also was no ordinary mortal, he pocketed about $15.00 per day.
The water boy came next. He got $5.00 per day. He had two heavy wooden tanks
each with a separate team and he alternated them. Each tank had a heavy double
stroke pump on it and it was indeed a man sized Job to operate it. However, a
good water boy could fill a tank in about 10 minutes once he got to the water.
There was the rub. Sometimes he had to go as far as 5 miles for water as sloughs
gradually dried up. I remember a number of years when water had to be hauled
from what was then known as McElree’s slough. This was 3 miles from the
buildings on the farm and sometimes as much as 5 miles from the land where
threshing was in progress. Lo to him if he was late. The steam whistle then blew
an urgent message and he would start galloping his team to get there in time,
for if the water got too low in the boiler it could conceivably blow up. When
the sloughs dried up altogether then there was trouble for well water had to be
used. This was always hard water and it would cause heavy scaling in the boiler
and the flues would start to leak. Sometimes the flues would leak so hard that
not enough steam pressure could be had. The engineer would stop the outfit, rake
out the fire and douse the inside of the fire-box with steam, Then after a few
minutes he would crawl into the firebox and start "beating the flues”. In a hot
engine he could only stand about 10 minutes of this and usually he and the
separator-man and the owner alternated. This was pure torture and had to be
repeated again that night but not until the outfit was cooled down more. It
would be thought that no man could stand the heat, but I have seen it done many
times, I should mention that there was a small vent on each side of the boiler
which could be opened for air.
The outfit also used two spike pitchers. This was the
greatest height to which the ordinary man could aspire. When a teamster came up
with a load of sheaves the spike pitcher got on his load and helped the teamster
unload his load into the feeder.
Thus
the two spike pitchers worked steadily all day. The teamster sometimes got a
little rest if he got to the outfit before the previous load was unloaded, he
also was a highly paid man. He got $3.00 per day. The rest of the crew got $2.00
per day each. However the first year the big outfit used straw as used as fuel.
The fireman had to really work pushing in the straw and he had to know his
business as well otherwise the steam pressure would fluctuate. The fireman got
about $10.00 per day.
That first year the crew consisted of the engineer,
fireman, water boy, 2 spike pitchers, 12 teamsters, 6 field pitchers, separator
man and cook, a total of 25 men. I think we still have a picture available of
the original crew. At one time we had over 30 negatives on glass of that
original crew at work and at rest but it was a commonplace to us and so the
emulsion was cleaned off and the glass was used to repair the broken windows in
the barn.
They were indeed a hard working lot. The rule was that the
wheels on the machinery had to be turning at 6 o’clock. There was an hour off
for lunch and then the outfit continued till 7 o'clock in the evening. It was a
real 12-hour day. There was no snack either in the morning or in the evening. It
was discovered almost immediately that the small houses of those days could not
accommodate such a crew and so a bunkhouse and a cook wagon were put on. Next to
the engineer the cook was the prince of the outfit, he sometimes got as much as
the engineer. And what meals the crew could put away. There were meat and
potatoes 3 times per day and lots of bread and gravy and if a man wanted to eat
a whole pie by himself he could do so. The cook slept very little for he worked
till late and got up very early to feed the crew and wash the dishes. If his
meals ware very good some of the crew would help him with the dishes while
others could chop some firewood for him or perhaps haul some water for him. Of
course other considerations were expected in return for this friendship like
having a plentiful supply of cookies on hand to stuff their pockets with or grab
for a late night snack. On the other head if the cook prepared a poor meal or
two he had to do all his chores alone. How these cooks could do what they did is
beyond me.
That first year Saturday afternoon was a holiday. The
outfit worked through from 6 o'clock in the morning till 1 O’clock in the afternoon. Then a big barrel of
beer was tapped and laid in its cradle and the men had their dinner and sat around until
the beer was done or until they found a shady place in which to take a nap. My
father was kept busy every day with a driver and buggy merely bringing supplies
to the crew and sometimes if repairs had to be obtained he made two trips, but I
often heard him say that there was never another crew like this.
The threshing started that year in September and lasted
well into January, but most of the late threshing was stack threshing and was
done with a much-reduced crew. In later years I have met many farmers in
different parts of the province who have told me they were members of that
original crew and they all spoke of it with pride.
The engineers and separator men in those early years were
invariably Yankees who followed the harvest from the southern part of the United
States to Canada. Most of them were very thirsty people. They were good workers
but when rain stopped the outfit they would go to Regina and get tanked up. One
engineer whom I remember very well drank nothing but Old Crow and once he
started it was hard to get him to stop so threshing could start again.
Some of them took very great pride in their engines. My
father told me of one
engineer who always kept his engine so shined up and clean that he wore a white
cap, white socks and white gloves at his job, and at the end of the day they
were hardly soiled.
The engineer had to clean his boiler on Sundays. That was
his and the water boy’s job. A nozzle was put on a hose leading from the pump so
that high pressure could be obtained and the engineer directed the spray into
the inside of the boiler through inspection plates so that he could wash out the
scale from the boiler. It was usually an all day job and when it was done the
water boy had to fill up the boiler and then go and get his tanks filled up for
the next day. There was no pay for Sunday. If anything went wrong with the
outfit the repairs were usually made a night. There was no overtime for this
either.
The next year the country was overrun with steam outfits
and within another 3 years it was not worthwhile going out to do any custom
work. Many of the farmers who bought these were ruined. There were so many makes
of machinery and many of them were not very good and jobs became so scarce that
custom work didn't pay. The machinery companies would give you credit all right
but if you couldn’t pay they would first get a caveat on your land and then they
would sue and take your land and the machinery as well. The old machine was used
in threshing until 1925 and in 1926 a gas outfit was bought, but whenever
harvest came around there was always a nostalgic feeling for the smell of steam
and the puff of the exhaust and the starting whistle in the morning and the
stopping whistle at night and the hurry up whistles for sheaves and water in
between.
My grandfather died in 1914. I cannot remember him very
well. I remember that be wore a beard which was sometimes worn full and
sometimes was close cropped. I can remember that his pants were well patched and
often the patches themselves were patched. Although I understand that he was
often gruff and gnarly he was always kind and gentle with me. He had rheumatism
and used a stick to walk with. On two occasions he bad broken a leg above the
ankle when he was about a mile away from house doing something with an axe. On
both occasions he set his own leg and applied a splint and hobbled home with the
aid of his axe as a cane. I do not believe that he ever had a doctor set the
breaks.
I remember driving with him in the buggy and if he saw a
weed growing in the field he would stop and get out of the buggy and pull it.
When I knew him he did very little work on the farm but be always kept the trees
and bushes in the garden well hoed and during threshing time he was always
around the granary. On one occasion when he was in the granary a new man asked
him what the boss was paying him. He answered that all that he got was his board
and a package of tobacco each week. To look at his patched pants you could
believe it. That night the new man went to my father and asked him to deduct
enough from his pay to bring that poor old man a tin of tobacco and a pair of
pants and to charge it up to his wages.
I recall that I often had lunch with him in the afternoon.
He would make an open sandwich comprising a slice of bread with butter then
about a one-half inch layer of cottage cheese topped off with corn syrup. I seem
to recall that it was delicious. Potato pancakes were another favorite of his
and of my Uncle Martin's. I liked them too with cold milk. Another of his
favorites was Swiss cheese he rarely went to town himself but my father always
had a standing order for Swiss cheese. I always joined their feasts and enjoyed
it till one day I discovered why my lips always tickled when I ate Swiss cheese.
After that there was one customer less. But he and my Uncle Martin still ate it.
They said it was all cheese.
He spoke a number of languages fluently. He could speak
Ukrainian, Romanian Russian, Polish, Serbian, German and Cree. The Indians
always sought him out when they had some kind of trouble. Then my father would
go to the Indian agent with them and straighten it out. There were an incredible
number of blind Indians in those days. I remember that they would to carry a
paper with them authorizing them to beg. I saw many of them at the barn while my
grandfather was alive and they never left without a ham or two, several loaves
of bread and some potatoes. He never spoke English well.
There was no discrimination in the early days between
whites and Indians, If a family of Indians turned up at your farm in the
wintertime during a storm you always put them up in your house and fed them
until the storm was over because you never knew when you would have to seek
shelter at an Indian's house. The settlers also had to help each other. Whether
one was a Swede, German, Romanian, Hungarian, Galacian, Yankee or English
remittance man from a lordly family there was a remarkable understanding between
then,
I have some recollection from about 1912 or so. I recall
the Regina cyclone of that year. We were visiting at a farm about 3 miles from
Regina when it struck.
I do not know what the cultivated acreage of the farm was
at that time. It must have been considerable. However when the war broke out in 1914 and the call came for more wheat
my father bought a big plow for the steam engine. It had 12 - 14" breaker
bottoms, a huge big wooden platform and great long levers with which each plow
could be raised out of the ground and it cost $1500.00. It was used to break
about 700 acres that year and was used for plowing the summer fallow for about
another two years and was sold for scrap during the second world war and brought
$14.00. It was a brave sight to see this outfit proceeding across the land. The
steamer only traveled about 2¾ miles per hour but the wide swath of furrows behind it made it seem like the
very ultimate in efficiency.
That year also saw the best crop which the province had
had until then. I do not know what the yield was but some of the field yielded
well over 60 bushels per acre. So the next year saw a terrific expansion in
wheat and then disaster, RUST. Till then it was unknown but forever after it
would plague the farmer until his beloved Marquis wheat was replaced by Thatcher
or some other variety.
Since most of the work was still done by horses there had
to be a lot of horses.
There were over 3 sections under cultivation by this time. The Shire had given way to
the Clyde. They were somewhat smaller than the Shire but a good horse still
weighed about a ton or close to that. There were usually 8 outfits on the go at
one time, most of these were 8 horse outfits, but some of then were six horse
outfits. Thus over 50 horses were at work at one time. In addition there were
about 20 spare horses and a number of breeding animals - about 80 or 85 all
told. Some of them were very fine animals and I remember a number of teams that
sold for $1300.00.
Among the horses were a number of large animals that were
white or grey with black spots. Those were all the progeny of a remarkable mare
named Nellie which was of Arabian blood and which produced 28 colts in 28
successive years of breeding to Clydesdale stallions. She was 32 years of age
when she died. I never saw her ride nor in harness as she was kept purely for
breeding and she produced some remarkable progeny. The one we liked best was
"Blackie". He was all white with black spots and he could sustain a fast pace
for a long time. But the use of a quirt or whip was absolutely out whether he
was being ridden or was hitched to a buggy for he would then either throw you or
wreck the buggy. The hired men were always told never to use a whip on him and I
can remember several who forgot when they were riding him and came off the
ground without much skin on their faces.
The feed, which these horses took, was incredible. Three
hundred acres were regularly seeded to oats and if the crop was not first rate
more had to be bought, Hundreds of tons of hay or sheaves had to be put up. I
can recall that every spring we used to hire a blacksmith to keep the machinery
in repair and to sharpen the ploughshares and cultivator shovels. Each winter
for many years a harness maker came to the farm and from freeze up until spring
he did nothing but repair or make new harness. At least 20 spare traces and
pairs of lines were always on hand for spare and an assortment of other spare
harness parts. There was always a large supply of spare poles, eveners, double
trees, wiffle trees, collars and hames.
But it was not only the horses that took a lot of feed.
Usually there were at least 2 steady men during the winter to do the chores and
look after the animals and if the hayloft was full in the fall and at least 2
loads of feed were hauled each day the feed in the loft would last till spring.
Sometimes if many hogs were being raised there were two extra men in the winter.
Then in the spring at least 6 extra men were hired.
Butchering time at freeze-up in the fall was something to
see. It usually took a week and when it was over the smokehouse which was about
10 feet by 12 feet would be loaded with sausage and after that with curing hams
and bacon. All of these were heavily smoked and then they would keep during the
hottest weather without spoiling. In addition, to this the number of chickens,
ducks and calves which were eaten during the summer was remarkable. Every week
some fresh meat was also brought from the butcher shop. For the men worked hard
and they ate hard. Each fall after threshing about 2 tons of flour was bought
and stored on the farm. At the same tine also 10 large bags of sugar were
bought. The coffee was bought in 25 pound lots and the tea in 10 pound lots, and
neither lasted very long. The bread was all home baked once or twice a week in
huge big loaves weighing four or five pounds each and in batches of as many as
20 loaves at a time. The pies were baked in batches of about 20 at a time when
we had a full crew they didn’t last very long. Apple pies were the favorites.
During the summer the pies were made out of "Schnitz" or dried apples but during
the winter they were made out of whole apples. I can still remember the two huge
barrels of apples that were bought each fall, Usually one was of Northern Spies
and the other was of Ontario Russets. The Russets were the favorites for eating
but the spies were the larger. I remember one time when my sisters and I amassed
a fortune of .05 cents each. We gave it to my father to buy us a treat. At that
time he bought most of his groceries at Michel's and when we gave him our money
Mr. Michel picked out the 4 biggest Northern Spy apples he could find. They
weighed about 3 pounds each. Other pies were also baked. Usually a few custard
pies and some made with cottage cheese and raisins. The barrels of apples in the
fall brought a new thrill. To us children the fresh apples were synonymous with
“apple strudel”. This was indeed food for the gods and I recall that I could put
away 5 or 6 big pieces without any trouble. My other favorite food was "bean
soup” the way my mother could make it. When there was bean soup on the table I
always had an extra helping or two and ignored the other food unless the desert
was apple strudel. Then I had to strike a careful balance so that I could eat
enough of each one.
My uncles John and Adolph got married and left the farm
quite early. They had serious problems for a while. The trouble was that whiskey
was only about 10 cents per glass, but the custom of the day required that if
someone bought a drink for the house and you had one of those drinks, you had to
stay to buy a "round" for the house as well. This meant that you might have as
many as 20 drinks before you got out of the bar. Also the hotels were very
generous with credit but in the fall you were expected to pay up or give a
caveat on your farm and that meant that eventually the hotel-keeper would end up
owning the farm. They licked their weakness in the end, but it took a long time.
They were both exceptionally good teamsters and could
always get work with their horses. These were Uncle Adolph’s real downfall. He
loved good horses and just couldn’t stand to see anyone else with a better team
than his. When he saw such a team he just had to have it. That meant that many
tines he had to go into heavy debt and sometimes he ended up with no horses at
all. He was an inveterate “horse—swapper”. To be a good “horse-swapper” you not
only had to be able to dress up your team and groom them so that they looked
good, but you had to be able to doctor up their defects temporarily so that they
would not show up till after you had the "sucker's" money and he had taken the
horses home. Some of then had a remarkable knowledge of drugs. They could take a
worn out plug and by grooming him and doctoring him and drugging him in a few
days they had him prancing around with an arched neck like a stallion. They
never tried to sell you a horse but with the aid of drugs and a $200.00 harness
when you saw the team prancing past your house you just couldn't
resist the urge to buy and so customers clamored to buy the team. Many a time
however after you got your team home and the effect of the drugs wore off you
found that you had bought nothing but a worn out wreck. My Uncle Adolph got
“taken” many a time but I suspect that he did his share of taking too. The
horse-swapper must have his counterpart in the used car dealer of the present
day.
My two aunts too got married and left the district
although they always remained favorites of us children. But our idol was Uncle
Martin. He was my father’s youngest brother and he had been very ill with
rheumatic fever when he was a child and always had a heart condition and was
considered delicate and remained the baby of the family. For this reason he was
privileged to go high school because it was not considered that he was strong
enough to work on the farm. He was quite a joker too; I recall the uproar that
he caused at a certain wedding. In those days most houses were not too large but
when you went to a wedding you brought all your children with you including the
babies. Usually the babies were all laid together on the beds in one room and
there they were tended by their mothers as required. In those days children were
usually bundled and at one of these weddings my uncle Martin got the bright idea
of mixing up all the babies shortly before the wedding broke up. The mistakes
were not discovered until the mothers got home. As there were no telephones in
those days and some of the families lived as much as 20 miles apart and as my
uncle couldn't tell the difference between the babies and didn't know to whom he
had given who it took over a week to straighten out the mess. Needless to say my
uncle was In the dog house.
He also regularly pulled a certain stunt on my mother.
After a while he began running
the steam engine, but I don’t think he kept it very clean. Just when my mother
had cleaned up my sisters and me and go for a visit and while she was getting
dressed herself he always found some greasy part for us to hold. With our hands
covered with black soot and grease we always ended up wiping it on our clothes
so she bad to go through it all over again. Sometimes we got slapped for our
foolishness but most of the time it just meant that Uncle Martin stayed out of
sight for a few days. My mother was a very soft gentle woman and never bore a
grudge.
But Uncle Martin had one big failing. He liked girls and
the girls seemed to like him too. His indiscretions put him into a state of
disgrace many times and I can remember my grandmother who was a strict Lutheran
crying buckets of tears because she was sure he was going to hell. I remember
that she would never trust his clothes to the washing machine but always hand
washed them and kept his suits, shirts and ties neatly pressed and clean so that
he could make more conquests. Perhaps it was his heart condition that was
responsible for his actions. Although he had a serious heart condition all his
life when he died in 1928 it was of cancer. He was then only slightly over 30
years of age.
My father, Emil, bought his first car in 1915 or 1916. He
had been talking about it for about 2 years and I remember that he had his heart
set on an E.M.F. I remember the salesman bringing it to the farm one day. It had
huge brass acetylene headlights on the front and big brass levers on the side
and shiny leather seats and a lot of other brasswork to keep clean. My father
then went to the bank to get the money and told the manager what he was doing
and the manager asked him if he knew what the letters E.M.F. stood for and he
said “no”. The manager then said that it stood for "every morning fix”. That
ended my father's interest in that particular car, When he finally bought a car
it was a Ford Model “t” touring car. It had no self-starter or speedometer and
it had lots of brasswork that we children had to clean every Friday for the
weekly visit to Regina and probably a trip of 20 miles on Sunday. The pampering
that that car got at first! Although it never went more that 40 or 50 miles in a
week it got a complete oil change and grease job every Friday. But my
grandmother never would ride in it and it was funny when the whole family had to
go to Regina she and Uncle Martin would go in the buggy behind "Blackie" while
the rest of us went in "Lizzie".
The first car that I can recall seeing ran over and killed
my father's favorite dog “Nellie”. She was a pointer and an old dog when this
happened but at one time she was his constant companion whether he went to the
bush or elsewhere. There were no roads in those days but only trails. There were
very few fences too so when a storm came up suddenly in the winter it was quite
possible to be lost almost immediately. "Nellie" had an amazing sense. Just as
soon as the horses left the trail Nellie would jump out of the sleigh, run
ahead, and lead the horses back to the trail. The horses always followed her
when she was ahead of the team. There was an understanding between them. She was
rather shorter haired then the present pointers and In the winter when she rode
on the sleigh she was always covered with a blanket. On one occasion my father
credits this dog with saving his life.
It must have been quite a job to buy a car in those days.
At one time there were over 200 companies in the field and each of them had
their adherents. There were no roads and it was unusual to be able to go
anywhere with your car until July. Even then there would be a mud hole or two
every mile and some farmers had a steady income just hauling cars out of the
mud. In fact the odd farmer was accused of hauling water into the mud hole every
day just so it wouldn't dry up. The customary charge for a pull was $10.00, and
this discouraged long trips of any kind. The tires were not very good. The best
ones only stood up for about 500 miles. It was not till about 1918 that tires
began to improve. However the average car only drove about 500 miles per year.
The first car cost $360.00 and when it was overhauled about 2 years later the
overhaul cost over $300.00. I am much surprised that mechanics think they have a
good thing today. It must have been heaven for them in those days. The only sad
thing was that after you got your car back from the garage it very often wouldn't
run at all. I remember the car stalling several times. No one knew anything
about gasoline engines. Therefore when your car stalled you cranked and cranked
and if it didn’t start within a couple of hours and you were completely played
out you began to think about getting the nearest farmer to haul you and your car
home by team. They were always good about this sort of thing and strangely
enough the farmer who would charge you $10.00 for a pull through a mud hole
would think nothing at all of hauling you and your car 7 or 8 miles to your home
and then would refuse to take anything at all.
Emil Seibel, my father, was in many ways a remarkable man.
Although he was only 12 years old when he was brought to Canada he had already
completed the 6 primary grades at school and 2 high school grades. But he did
not go to school in Canada at all as he had to work hard from the day he got
here. He never leaned to write English very well but enough to get along. His
English vocabulary was rather limited but he could read the newspapers and books
with facility.
At an early age on the farm he became the king pin. My
grandfather paid very little attention to business. Be was much wore interested
in growing things and seeing to the cattle than he was in looking after business
Thus it was that my father did all the business and made all the decisions. He
bought the land and the machinery and the prize stallions and saw that the farm
made money. My grandfather would much rather sit down and swap tall tales with
his good friend Mr. Zora, the father of Mike and John or with Mr. McElree or
with one of the other bearded patriarchs of the time,
My father did a remarkable number of things. In the summer
when he was not hauling wood from the bush he was either working on the farm or
working out by day labor. There was a market gardener living about a mile from
the home farm. He used to work for this man. His hours were from 6 o'clock in
the morning until 7 o'clock at night and he had to bring his own lunch. He hoed,
weeded, prepared and packed the vegetables for sale. For this he got .50 cents
per day but he did learn the garden and vegetable business and for many years
potatoes and vegetables to the tune of about $1500.00 per year were sold to the
early stores. I heard my father say that in those years they never put out a
dollar for groceries but that the vegetable sales paid for all of them.
He also did some work for the municipality. It was about
1938 when we were driving along a road near the old city farm at Boggy Creek. He
asked me to stop the car as he had something to show me. We walked along and old
road and finally he showed me two culverts built of stone which at that time
were still useable, They were small culverts but they were built of stone
without any mortar and the rocks were arched over to form the top and they were
still in good condition at that time. He said he had built them over 38 years
before and that he had to work in about 18 inches of water while doing so and
that he was paid $2.00 per day which was twice as much as people normally got at
that time.
Very few of the immigrants could read or write English and
the idea of entrusting their grain to the railroad without a receipt of any kind
was beyond them and they could not understand why the bill of lading which they
filled out should be given to the railroad as well. The elevator in Regina paid
a very low price for their grain, thus taking advantage of this situation. My
father always took the side of the underdog and for two seasons he bought grain
himself at Regina and had it loaded by hand into the boxcars and paid the
farmers over .20 cents per bushel more that the elevator did and still made a
good profit.
There were no appraisers in those days with University
degrees in this kind of work. For many years my father did appraisal work for
the Trust Companies then operating out of Regina. He also did appraisal work for
some of the banks and his valuations and reports were always considered accurate
and reliable despite his lack of formal education. Later he became interested in
Life Insurance and for a while he made something of career of it. He was one of
the few men in the province up to that time who had written life insurance to
the value of over $60,000.00 in a single day and he did this many times.
He was a close acquaintance of men like Nicholas Flood
Davin, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Frederick Haultain, W.M, Martin, and many others.
Although he was known as a staunch Conservative all his life and the
Saskatchewan government was Liberal during the greater part of this time he
never hesitated to walk into any of the Minister's offices on business and on
many occasions they even took his advice. Between elections they were all his
friends but at election times he took his politics seriously and many an
argument have I heard between him and his relatives who almost without exception
were Liberal.
He was not considered to be easy to get along with and
perhaps that is true. He did like to get his own way although he later mellowed
somewhat. He didn’t like the hired men to talk back to him and if they did they
were fired and yet many men stayed with him for 10 or 12 years and when they
quit he helped to establish then in farming. Several workers kept coning back to
him every year for over 33 years.
He could be extremely generous too. He liked to support
lost causes and many a man got out of his troubles by coming to see him. If he
thought a man had been wronged he would back him to the limit. He helped out
with money too and he had notes and agreements from people whom he had helped
out to the value of over $40,000.00 on which he never collected a cent, and on
most of which he never tried to collect.
He fought almost continually with the Grand Trunk Pacific
Railway Company whose line crossed the farm and the fact that they were a big
corporation with more money than he had didn't faze him a bit. If they wanted to
get to the highest court he was quite agreeable and he beat them every time, He
refused to take the easy way out and if there was a principle at stake he would
fight to the limit.
He was a powerful and strong man, At picnics which he
attended, the "tug - o - war" was always one of the high spots because almost
invariably the side which he was on won. He could be gentle too as he always was
with the livestock and he never laid a hand on any of his children during his
whole life. He never let us off either. From 7 years of age onwards we had our
regular chores and all my school holidays were either spent weeding on my knees
in the garden or else with a hoe in my hand. From 7 years of age we milked cows
every day and eventually I milked 12 cows every morning and night 7 days a week.
I vowed that when I grew up I would never look at another cow or a garden. My
sisters worked equally as hard. He never gave any of us an allowance and even
when I was sent to school in the city I only got what money I absolutely had to
have although I got ahead of him 2 or 3 times by getting money for a new text
book and then buying a second baud one instead.
He had an amazing head and memory for figures and while he
took risks he seldom lost out in a business deal and was successful in most
things which he tackled. But then the “dirty thirties arrived. They started in
our district rather earlier than in some areas when he was completely hailed out
in 1927. The crop froze badly in 1928 and dried out in 1929. After that there
was hardly a decent crop until 1940. The crop in 1932 was not too bad but the
prices were terrible. He shipped 4 carloads of wheat which graded No. 1 “hard”
“no dockage" and netted 28 cents per bushel. That same fall he shipped 2
carloads of oats which reached the top grade and which were about $21.00 per
carload short of meeting the freight bill. The only thing that made any money
were the chickens and they paid all the bills for gasoline and oil for the
tractor and some other things as well. However I do remember at times the
tractor used up the gasoline faster that the chickens could lay eggs and then
the tractor was stopped to let them catch up. But he never gave up. While in
1927 he could easily have written a cheque for more than $10,000.00 by 1938 he
owed over $88,000.00 and the machinery and equipment were all worn out and yet
In a few years more he was out of debt and paid lots of income tax too.
He
finally moved to Regina to retire although overseeing the operation of the farm.
But people wouldn't let him retire. They wanted to do business with him. They
wanted to buy houses and so he found houses for them. Then they needed loans and
he got loans for them and he continued in real estate until the day of his
death. This overtook him in July 1956.
My mother predeceased my father by several years. She was
a very gentle woman. She was only 5 feet 2 inches in height but she made up for
it in other ways. She was of French stock her ancestors having emigrated from
Alsace Lorraine during one of the numerous seesawing religious persecutions
which took place in that region for many years. Her ancestors moved to Hungary
and hers was the only generation which did not still speak some French. She was
raised in town and what she must have thought on coming from that mild climate,
to this dreary land I do not know. She was not used to farm work and how she
could have fitted into this expanding farm with so many mouths to cook for and
clean and sew for and find time for numerous chores and bring up 7 children
besides I do not know. But she met the challenge as did the other woman of the
times and although many times she must have been ready to drop from weariness;
yet she continued so that the men would be fed and the children looked after and
the chores attended to. Saskatchewan has used her women very hard indeed and my
mother was no exception. She was literally worn out from overwork. The “dirty
thirties” must have been the worst of all. Everything was “make do”. The family
had to be fed when there was little to put in the pot. The chores had to be done
and there was nothing to show for it. By this time nearly worn out before her
time and ailing besides you would think that she would seek to withdraw from so
strenuous a life and yet every summer during school holidays and during the
Christmas holidays during the "thirties" and the war years as well every bed on
the farm was filled with nephews and nieces and with several orphan children as
well who had nowhere to spend their holidays. Even when she was sick in bed she
had a cheerful smile for everyone.
Of myself and my sisters and brother I will say little. We
had our share in some of these happenings and in the joys and sorrows as well,
but this is not our story.
On the contrary it is a story which repeats itself many
times in the lives of the immigrants who came to this country in the early years
of its development. They came from many lands and spoke many tongues. They
brought with them many varied customs. They had one thing in common - a look of
hope in their faces. They received no promises but the challenge to develop
this, at times, fierce and cruel land, and develop it they did. It was hardest
on the women but they dedicated themselves to their man and families and with a
fierce joy the men conquered this land and made it their land and ours. To them
is this story dedicated.
There are many other incidents which I could relate. I
could recall the fires which sometimes traveled for miles across the prairie and
brought out every able bodied man and boy for miles around to fight this great
destroyer. Sometimes hours later they returned home, faces, blackened, clothes
in tatters and spirits low for the hay was gone for another year and the animals
would have to eat straw till the grass grew again. Or perhaps, on another
occasion they would return triumphant through having licked the enemy.
Or I could hearken back to the influenza epidemic of 1918
when the entire family was laid low as well as all the hired men - eighteen
souls in all— and my father nursed and tended and fed all of us and looked after
about 200 head of livestock as well. And how at the same tine he tended several
other families as well and made a daily round trip of over 30 miles in an open
Ford to see that their fires were going and that they were looked after and of
how he somehow found the strength to meet this challenge too,
But the story must end now. It is one the repeats itself
in many lives. They were the pioneers and the conquerors and I am proud that my
parents and grandparents were of their number.
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