Chapter 8
Remembrances

In August of 1926, our Uncle Gus, who had stayed in Minnesota, came to Canada to spend time with us during harvest. A neighbor of theirs, Henry Hedin, drove his car up and Uncle Gus, with his daughter, Leona, rode with them.

Uncle Gus stayed mostly at Midale with Uncle Charlie and worked for him through harvest and threshing. When the weather wasn't fit to work, he traveled around and visited at our place, Uncle Elmer's in Halbrite, and Uncle Clair's east of Midale, Most of my generation, cousins especially, had seen very little of his family, and we thoroughly enjoyed listening to Uncle Gus and our parents discuss their life in Illinois and Minnesota. Uncle Gus was quite involved in secretary work in connection with county records and school board. He was interested in public affairs, could express his feelings in detail, and had the most perfect hand writing anyone could wish for. He was also a good carpenter and helped Uncle Charlie build a 12 by 12 granary while waiting for threshing conditions to improve. Cousin Leona, who was about the same age as our sister Nellie, (20 years) was asked to be Mama's helper through harvest and threshing. She was good help and we enjoyed her company. Henry Hedin also worked for us stooking and hauling bundles. He and George Johnson, along with "Polish" Stanley slept in the coal house. It was a large family of adults to cook for, namely Papa, Mama, Earl and Pearl, Charlie, Leona, George Johnson, Stanley and myself, and maybe Johnny too at times, for over two months until threshing was finished sometime in October. It also involved washing clothes. The men had ten or twelve work horses to care for, and helped Papa with the milking.

Oh yes, there were two other men I just discovered in the back recesses of my memory, Elbert and Lee Walden arrived when the weather brightened up after ten days of delay at the end of September. They were from Ohio, U.S.A., and had done no work in a western harvest operation. They soon caught on to pitching bundles - they may have had some experience handling horses. We got along well, and they stayed until threshing was completed. Lee, Elbert and I used to sit out in the horse barn almost every evening, talk and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes by the light of a kerosene lantern. It was a pleasant way to "kill or spend time" after we had bedded the horses down for the night. It was strange that I didn't pick up the habit of smoking, but as soon as they were gone the smoking habit vanished too.

Lee wasn't all that strong a person, and both Elbert and he were small, lightly built men, neither of them weighing over 150 pounds. But they were willing and honest. Elbert and Leona developed a relationship that ended in marriage in the Spring of 1927. Elbert stayed all winter in our community and worked for Jones Hodgen until Spring. He then traveled to Minnesota. He and Leona were married and raised a family of seven. They later moved to Washington state during the second world war. Some of their family have passed away. Leona died in the late 1960's - the remaining members of their family still live in the Mount Vernon area of Washington.

Uncle Gus, Henry and Leona left Midale in late October to return home to Minnesota. There were snowflakes in the air when we said our goodbyes. Uncle Gus and son Adolph were to return to Saskatchewan in 1930 to work through harvest and threshing. It seems rather strange that I don't recall much of what went on that year, perhaps because I was two more years into adult responsibilities and was fully occupied with work. Papa and Mama had both failed noticeably in health, and there had been many changes in our family in the short time of four years. I will speak more of this later in the chapter.

This seems like an appropriate time to relate another visit from the United States of one of Mama's sisters and her family in the summer of 1928, Aunt Hulda Hawkins, her husband Merlin, son Everett, daughter Marie and friend Bob Knall, all from Aledo, Illinois. They drove up in a 1928 Chevrolet sedan. They spent a busy time with our family. and all three of our Truman uncles and their families. Looking back now, I realize how immature I must have been, and didn't realty appreciate how much a visit like that means to adults. It was a last time for many of them. I visited with Aunt Hulda and Uncle Merlin once or twice in Illinois. Their family was married and scattered. Three of their family are still living, but I saw only cousin Pearl Gordon the last time I was in Illinois with sister Nellie in the Fall of 1985.

The fall of 1928 marked a lot of changes for our family. It was the last good crop to be harvested until 1940. 1930's crop was fair but the price of grain didn't do much for anybody. There was a severe hail storm that went through south of Halbrite. It started at Bill Sherrows and swept as far east as the Matt Nelson place, maybe a bit farther. It just missed Johnny's crop south of Halbrite. He had a little hail damage on the north end of his crop. It flattened a lot of the crop east of Sherrows.

Early in the spring of 1928 Bill Birmingham who lived about a mile north of Halbrite had a sale and quit farming. He farmed only one quarter of land. As a result he needed only a few horses and he took better care of them than he did of himself. One big team sold to a Mr. Barnes. He was a road building contractor and was currently in the process of building highway number 39 through the Halbrite area. Papa bought a little dappled gray mare, four years old, to team mate with Lady, also gray and one of Potty's colts. Her name was Dolly. She was pretty as a picture but grossly overweight. She wasn't that well broke, especially when it came to leading and barn manners. She would walk right over you if you weren't watching. We soon educated her out of those habits and Papa said we would have to start using her right now as a chore horse so she would be of some use through seeding. His main concern was to get some surplus weight off her (in other words, just a taste of oats) until she was in working condition. She was so fat her neck was crested like an adult stallion. She turned out to be a good little horse and they. "Dolly and Lady" were to be Earl's team. I think Earl hauled bundles with them that fall although he still was under 16 years of age.

That summer (1928) Charlie. Papa, Mama and Margaret drove to Minnesota to visit with Uncle Gus's family. Mabel, Earl and Pearl and I were at home in charge of everything. Charlie and I had seeded something over 300 acres of crop and I'm sure we were done with summer fallow for a while when they left home. Charlie had a "Star" automobile. four door sedan. Do any of you remember them? They were made by Durant Motors. later bought by Dodge Motor Company. While they were away we had a severe electrical storm one night. Lightning struck the lead-in telephone wire. traveled into the house, burnt some mercury oft one mirror, knocked some plaster off behind the mirror, also knocked several bricks off the chimney. If it hadn't been raining the shingles would have caught fire. The next day, we could see a large patch of black charred shingles. The crash of thunder was so loud I jumped out of bed and was halfway down the stairs before I was sure where I was. Mabel was right behind and we were really frightened. I don't know what Earl and Pearl's sensations were, as they were dependent on Mabel and me. Ever since then it has been difficult for me to enjoy a thunder storm. We had many lightning strikes close to home during the 1920's, too many to describe.

The George Billingsly family moved onto the Clair Ewers place in the spring of 1927. They were a large family of five boys and three girls. The oldest boy was working away from home and we saw him on only one or two occasions. We chummed with their family members of our age group and enjoyed being with them. Mabel was teaching at Crow Lake school one of those years. We threshed for them one year and that brought us closer than ever. It was probably the same year that we threshed for the Ludwig Stehr family. It must have been a long threshing run as we threshed the crop on 14 different quarter sections. most of it under cultivation. Billingslys had a sale in the spring of 1929 and moved back to Portreve. We didn't hear any more of them until about 1980. Hazel, Charlie's widow. was living in Nipawin when she learned that Eva who was twelve years old when we knew them first, was living at Snowden, just west of Nipawin. Margaret lives in Saskatoon and Cecil lives in Regina. He was married to Mary Price. Edson lives in North Battleford, and young George lives in Vancouver.

In September 1929, Ellen Anderson came to teach school at Crowe Lake and boarded at our place. It was a good arrangement. Margaret was going to school and they had company whether walking or driving. In winter we took them to school with team and covered sleigh. The only time I ever let a team run away from me was one morning when I had taken them to school and I left the team (May and Major) standing without tying them to anything. It was windy and the wind rattled something about the cover on the sleigh and they started off. I was standing on the step talking to Ellen. "Shame on me". The team turned and the rig upset. When they turned south toward home, the rig uprighted itself and they went on home without me. Nothing unfortunate happened but I guess Papa was outside doing something and he thought something didn't look just right when he found there was no driver along. He just got in and came to meet me. Well, I expect I was ashamed and had a red face but he didn't even scold me. I learned not to leave a high-lifed horse untied again. Ellen was a good person and good company to all of us. She was to stay with us until December 1930. Her father was a shoe and harness repair man in Trossachs. They drove a "Whippet" automobile and were to come to take Ellen home on holidays and weekends. We got to know them quite well. She had one brother and five sisters. Ellen was not always well and strong, having had polio when she was very young. She passed away in a Weyburn nursing home several years ago.

In 1927 Nellie went to teach school just west of Lake Alma. She and John Campbell were married and they moved to Dooley, Montana where John established a barbershop. John had worked at the west coast a couple of winters and wanted very much to go back there. He was afflicted with hayfever, which was an additional reason to get away from a dry, dusty climate. They kept moving west, often moving to an area of large construction jobs, such as the Fort Peck dam. There were lots of people and lots of business. Eventually they arrived at Tacoma, Washington in the early 1950's. Their family grew to adults in that area and are now scattered from Texas to Alaska. John Campbell passed away in January 1982.1 have spent a part of January each year since 1980 out there. The first two winters John was in a wheelchair. This year I am spending at home seeking to get this history completed.

Mabel was to go to Debden (sixty miles northwest of Prince Albert) in 1929 to teach school. She later married Charlie Herdman, and has lived her entire adult life in that area. Mabel taught school in the area after their marriage and even after her husband passed away in May 1954. Their entire family of four children live in the area close to home. Mabel is retired and spends the winter months in Prince Albert. She owns some land and has a small but comfortable house on it where she spends some time in summer.

Charlie and Hazel (Robinson) Truman lived a short time in the Art Body place, close to home. He helped me with farming until 1931 when they moved to the Hume area. They were to move north with Hazel's father in the summer of 1933. Both Johnny and Charlie's families moved north with small children and we often wondered what kind of an experience that would be. They weren't alone in this venture as very many families were doing likewise, seeking to escape the severe drought conditions to be experienced in the 1930's. Charlie and Hazel lived a while near Mistatim. Farm holdings were small and Charlie wasn't well. We were to learn later that he probably had a heart condition that affected his work performance all his adult years. He was always tired. nearly always behind in some way. He was a good horseman but hadn't the strength to use his ambition to get the work done. Many times I felt sorry for him and wondered why it was so difficult for him to get up in the morning. It all became very clear when he had a light heart attack and his doctors told him to slow down in the early 1950's. His doctor also told him his heart showed damage from an early age. He probably had rheumatic fever to a mild degree when just a boy.

One item I wish to touch on happened in the fall of 1927. Flax in those years was nearly always a late crop and was often left standing until all the other crop was threshed. That year Hodgens had some flax down by town that wasn't harvested until probably well into October. All the harvest hired help had left and they were ready to thresh this flax some time in November. The only help available was the surrounding neighbors. I don't remember who all was involved but Papa and I took a team and hayrack and went to help. I was driving my own team, Robin and Bird. What I hadn't done much of was to handle loose flax. Papa was field pitching and he tried to show me how to load the rack so it would be easy to unload (don't tramp the load - that's a no no). Well the ground was frozen and the wagons were rough, but we got the flax threshed. It must have been more than a one day job as we had to stay overnight. It was too far to go home five miles after dark. Some of us, I don't remember exactly how many, went to stay in what we called "Ernie Fredrichs" barn overnight. It was just on the next section east of Hodgens land, in other words the west half of Section 25-6-12. I can remember waking up at night and hearing the horses chewing hay downstairs. My hearing isn't that good anymore, but at that time it was a reassuring sound that everything was OK. In all it was a good experience to get out and help a neighbor take care of the crop.

In some of these recent years I have sought to recover who were our most respected friends and neighbors. Who did our parents really rely on for advice and help? If I were to narrow it down to one couple or one man. I am required to accept that Papa and Mr. Hodgen were good friends and had a very great respect for each other. One thing they had in common, was a liking for good horses. They both were good judges of horse quality, sought to raise good horses, and were especially proud of the horses they owned and drove. Mr. Hodgen had one of the better teams of driving horses in the community. Being almost ten miles from Halbrite and nine miles from Griffin he needed them. Deck and Rose were almost dapple gray. Mr. Hodgen called them "blood horses", probably an alternative to standard bred. One of them died in the late 1920's. It may have been during the horse flu epidemic of 1926. He never was able to replace her with another horse of equal quality.

When it comes to comparing neighborly compatibility I may as well add that Hodgens threshed for us for what I thought was many years. I don't remember anyone else threshing for us except about 1918 or thereabouts , Louis Larsen did our threshing that one year. Louis's brother-in-law, John Isaacson, was his steam engineer. Johnny and Charlie both hauled bundles to help make up the crew. Papa or the boys who did the work didn't collect any cash for the help, it simply went as collateral payment on the threshing bill.

One of Papa's favorite occupations was looking after our herd of milk cows. Selling cream was a reliable source of income and of course every good potential heifer became a milk cow. Papa's first venture into quality milk cows proved to be very alarming. He bought a mature purebred Guernsey bull in the Midale area. In a very short time Papa realized some of his cows were infected with Bangs disease, then more commonly called "contagious abortion". This was probably in 1918. The bull was sold for beef or whatever, and once again Papa went to Jones Hodgen for advice and ended up buying a year old Holstein bull from him. Hodgens had been producing and milking purebred Holsteins for several years. Within three years we had a string of young Holstein heifers that were to be good milk producers. The bull that sired them was sold to Uncle Charlie at Midale. Uncle Charlie soon had ten good milk producers and it was one of his greatest sources of pride to look after his cows and acknowledge what an important source of income they were. We were selling at least two cans of cream a week all through the 1920's. At first our cream went to the Souris Valley creamery in Estevan. There was a farmer's co-operative creamery in Weyburn, and in the very early 1920's another small creamery was established in Weyburn called the "Standard Dairy". Also in the early 1920's a creamery was established in Midale and we sold cream there too. During this era of the 1920's selling whole milk became rather an important industry and for a few years there were at least four different individual producers shipping milk to Weyburn from Halbrite. They were "Pat" Rubin, Bill Sherrow, Dave Lockeridge and John Smith. Five or six days a week these producers would deliver their cans of milk to the CPR station just before the "Local" passenger train went through to Weyburn at approximately six p.m. Pat Rubin used to be at our place to do some small veterinary jobs occasionally, and he soon became aware that Papa had some very good milk cows. It wasn't long until he succeeded in buying one. From then on when Pat wanted another milk cow he was at our place asking "What have you got to sell me, I need a good milk cow." I'm not sure how many good cows Pat bought from us. This activity spread to other potential buyers also. One of the other early buyers was "Billy" Lafrentz, Halbrite's harness maker. Another was Jack Collins, the blacksmith. Not a very complimentary way of naming him was "Old Man" Danforth, but that's the way we distinguished between him and son Dean. They bought two cows from us. Later on in 1932 Gunnar Goranson bought a milk cow. This was after Papa had passed away. So examples of Papa's milk cows went into many different places. We never received any complaints and I can only surmise that they were all satisfactory and as represented. I don't really remember Papa buying his Holstein bulls from anyone other than Mr. Hodgen. No doubt there were different blood lines in Hodgen's herd and it was quite possible to buy bulls that weren't closely related so that inbreeding was not too difficult to avoid.

In the fall of 1Q28 we shut down threshing one day because of high wind. It was getting near the end of threshing and Papa said we didn't really need to try to work on this kind of a day. Very Soon after dinner a "line ring" went out that a prairie fire east of Hodgen's was out of control and all available help was needed to bring it under control. Papa had bought a 1927 Ford touring car from Uncle Elmer just recently and he, Earl and I grabbed sacks, pails and shovels, piled in and away we went. Hodgen's steam engine had started a fire in the straw stack and away it went across the field and into a section of prairie, Section 11, just east of Hodgens. There were a good many people there to help but at this time I don't recall individuals. We ended up not far from Hammrell's, a place now owned by Vilcus. On our way back to the car we got a good look at section 11 and Papa became interested enough to ask who owned it. To this day I don't know who we received the information from that it was school land. Early in 1929 it was advertised that a public auction sale of school land was to be held in Weyburn in the last days of March. Papa made arrangements at the local bank in Halbrite for a cash deposit payment, and on the appointed day he and I drove to Weyburn to attend the sale. There were no other bidders on that particular parcel and Papa bought it at the minimum offer. I'm not sure if the upset price was 9 or 11 dollars an acre. There was much hustle and bustle to get done seeding at home that Spring So we could get over on section 11 and do some breaking to seed flax on.

Brother Charlie was still home and it seems he and I were doing all the farming. I can't remember where Earl fit in as he was sixteen years old and must have been out of school. I believe he worked for Uncle Clair one year and 1929 may have been the year - I am just guessing now. We had an abundance of work horses, sorrel Bird had raised three more colts making a brood of four colts from her. Two of them were sorrel with face faces, full sisters "Bess and Belle". Now I had five matching sorrels and Beauty, a black mare. That was my drill outfit. Bess and Belie were foaled in 1925, 1926 so Belle was only a three year old, yet she worked right through the whole season. Curly made the fifth Sorrel and was one of Polly's colts. He was a bit small but tough and strong as wire. Our Wallis tractor was still in use and as soon as seeding was well along at home, Charlie started breaking prairie on section 11. The ground was bare black from the fire and rocks showed up very plainly. It was a solid green carpet by the middle of May, almost beautiful. It was a comparatively dry Spring and outside of two big Sloughs in opposite corners of the half section, Charlie was driving about two hundred and eighty rod long rounds without a break. Papa made a planker twelve feet long out of three planks notched together so they were on an angle, and we picked up rocks for weight and worked the breaking with it ahead of the drill. It was a good load for six horses. I picked rocks until it became too heavy and I'd unload a few and pick up some more. When I was through with the planker, the rocks were also pretty well picked. I seeded the flax and Charlie kept on breaking until we had done 160 acres. A hundred acres was seeded to flax. It wasn't a good year, crops were light and the flax barely yielded five bushels an acre. We didn't want to attempt cutting it with a binder and then move the threshing machine up there, haul horse feed and dinners for the threshers even for one day. So, Papa decided to have Oscar Baker harvest it by straight combining it. Papa had bought a Massey "Yellow gear" wagon and grain tank in 1928, and I hauled the few loads of flax to Halbrite on that new wagon. It would appear that after paying for the cost of breaking, "mostly tractor fuel", flax seed and the combining, the net return must have been thin as paper. I don't remember what the price of flax was. No doubt the crop paid its way but there was no surplus for anything else.