Last time I wrote about moving to the farm that I grew up on.
We were 1/2 mile from school so we could walk. But I was kept back a year, I started 1st grade at the age of 7. My mother thought that she could get more work done if I would stay back and play with Peter and Ben. Oh yes, Ben was born in 1949. I also remember watching the boys inside and she would be in the yard and able to watch the window, in case the boys were crying, and I needed her, all I needed to do was wave my arm and she would come in and check on us.
We were all in school till the year John turned 16 and he decided he would quit and help on the farm. He wanted to quit at a younger age but Mom and Dad insisted he go to school till 16 because if he quit younger than that she would loose his child allowance which was about $10.00 a month for him. The government paid about $6.00 for a baby and as a childs age increase so did the money up to $10.00. After age 16 money was discontinued for that child. Mom used this money to buy our groceries.
We had a two room school. Grades 1-6 in one room and 7-12 in the other. Each teacher had 6 grades to teach. In the year about 1955 Helen would have been in the 11th grade and they had to go to Glenbush school for 11 and 12. Then by 1958-1959 that was the last year for the Artichoke school. That year there were 9 students and 8 grades. Only three families attended that year. I was in 8th grade and one September day, everyone stayed home to dig potatoes except for me. It was the most miserable day in school for me that year. Here I was the only one in school with the male teacher who was in his mid 20's. After that year we were bused to Glenbush which was a 3 room school.
This was a big adjustment. I graduated from there in 1962 with 5 of us in the class.
I was 16 when I tranferred to Glenbush. Here each winter they would pour a skating rink. I was the size needed for a hockey rink. We were all required to get skates. Our teacher told us not to think wearing a skirt would get us exempted from skating. In school we always had a 15 min break in the am and also a 15 min break in the afternoon with an hour for lunch and exercise, like skating. So here I was 16 years old and all the other kids could just fly over the ice playing, crack the whip or some other game. But here I was, a very slow skater and just skating on the edge of the ice all by myself. Each winter I prayed for a broken bone. But it just didn't happen. I never did really enjoy skating nor get very good at it. After I graduated I never did put those skates on again.
One thing I did enjoy was curling. I never was good at that either but it was fun and you wore boots on that ice.
Oh yes, I just remembered something about the Artichoke school I went to. We didn't have running water so each day Dormouths would bring a pail of water to school and pour it into the container that had a spigot and if we didn't have a cup with us we would make a paper cup out a sheet of school paper, similar to a paper boat. The teacher kept telling us not us use paper for that but what do you do when your thirsty and need a drink.
I also attended another school for grade 6 and 7. Helen graduated in 1957. In order to help my parents out financially she applied to be a correspondence teacher. Well she go the job at a small school 25 miles from home. There was a teacherage there. So she wouldn't be by herself Mom and Dad had me go live with her. It was a one room school and again there were only 3 or 4 families with children there. I think we had about an attendance of 12 at that school. She guided us though our lessons and then we sent them into the school office for correcting and so they could see that we were learning what we were required for that year. She got paid $140.00 a month and gave $100.00 to my parents each month just keeping $40.00 for herself. This really helped mom and dad out with their bills. Helen did this for 2 years and then went on to secretary college and later a Medical Librarian.
These two years living in another area was a great experience. I'll talk about that maybe next time.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
Year of 1948
Year of 1948
I talked about the cellar being dug in a previous blog. Then the footers were poured and next the house was built. To save cost the barn that was square logs was tore down and that became our house, the demensions 24' x 28'. The cracks were filled with a mud made with straw. Then willow sticks were nailed to the walls diagonally on the inside and again mud plaster was made and put on the walls, Then a white wash was applied. The house was very cold. I remember living in it and we kids would run between the studs that were going to be walls once the dry wall was put up. Till then it was just one big room waiting for walls. In time linoleum was placed on the floor. For years each winter to keep the cellar warmer and also the house Dad would put fresh manure around at the foundation. For a while curtains were our walls.
So we had a house but now the few cattle and horses needed barn. Then they tore the old house down and made a barn out of it. We always had the joke of living in the barn...
But now we were only 1/2 mile from Artichoke School. John, Helen and Anne could walk to school. Till now, the first few years that John and Helen went a teacher picked them up and she took them in her horse drawn sleigh. As John got to be about 10 years old, he had a horse and the 3 of them went in a sleigh. I can still hear how worried Mom would get if they didn't some home by a certain time.
This move also put us 4 miles closer to the church we attended. Which was in german till I was about 10 and then the Sunday school materals were in English. In winter we mostly travelled by horse drawn caboose (which was an enclosed sleigh) and when the weather got warmer we rode in a box wagon pulled by horses until we got a tractor, and our first vehicle was a truck which was purchased in 1955. Dad, Mom, Helen, Peter and Ben sat in the cab and John, Anne and myself sat in the truck bed. We didn't feel very prim and proper crawling over the side of the truck where all the young dudes could see us doing that with a skirt or dress on.
Well, I am getting ahead of myself, so I will end now.
I talked about the cellar being dug in a previous blog. Then the footers were poured and next the house was built. To save cost the barn that was square logs was tore down and that became our house, the demensions 24' x 28'. The cracks were filled with a mud made with straw. Then willow sticks were nailed to the walls diagonally on the inside and again mud plaster was made and put on the walls, Then a white wash was applied. The house was very cold. I remember living in it and we kids would run between the studs that were going to be walls once the dry wall was put up. Till then it was just one big room waiting for walls. In time linoleum was placed on the floor. For years each winter to keep the cellar warmer and also the house Dad would put fresh manure around at the foundation. For a while curtains were our walls.
So we had a house but now the few cattle and horses needed barn. Then they tore the old house down and made a barn out of it. We always had the joke of living in the barn...
But now we were only 1/2 mile from Artichoke School. John, Helen and Anne could walk to school. Till now, the first few years that John and Helen went a teacher picked them up and she took them in her horse drawn sleigh. As John got to be about 10 years old, he had a horse and the 3 of them went in a sleigh. I can still hear how worried Mom would get if they didn't some home by a certain time.
This move also put us 4 miles closer to the church we attended. Which was in german till I was about 10 and then the Sunday school materals were in English. In winter we mostly travelled by horse drawn caboose (which was an enclosed sleigh) and when the weather got warmer we rode in a box wagon pulled by horses until we got a tractor, and our first vehicle was a truck which was purchased in 1955. Dad, Mom, Helen, Peter and Ben sat in the cab and John, Anne and myself sat in the truck bed. We didn't feel very prim and proper crawling over the side of the truck where all the young dudes could see us doing that with a skirt or dress on.
Well, I am getting ahead of myself, so I will end now.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Here is a activity I did with Adam, Austin and Grace this past summer. Baking bread. I bake about once a week and if Grace is here she needs to help me. Glen now is wanting to play with some too now. When the grands are here they all get some dough to make their own creation and get to take it home. I am sorry I didn't let my children be creative, but I really didn't bake bread then. But I have to add, they all are very good at baking now.
Being Grandparents is a lot different than raising your own. I'm thankful, that now at 70 I still have enough energy to keep Grace and Glen while Lana subs. Also, keep the others as needed.
Being Grandparents is a lot different than raising your own. I'm thankful, that now at 70 I still have enough energy to keep Grace and Glen while Lana subs. Also, keep the others as needed.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Fun
We go round and round chasing the other till one of us does a 360 turn and then we end up coming face to face with the other.
I am hopeing that soon Glen will be able to motorize his own car and they will be able to do this activity on their own. It sure is nice having laminant (fake hardwood floors) the vehicles really travel with a small amount of effort.
I don't have a picture but last week when we had out big snow I had the fun of being out with Amy and Lana's children making snowmen and even a snow cow. Then the next day Grace was at our house and we built 5 snowmen and she even made a 'Christmas tree for the Holidays'. That was her quote and her idea.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Snow
We just had a significant amount of snow during this past few days. I shoveled off the driveway and today while at Matt and Lana's I cleaned off their deck. What a heavy snow. With each shovel full of snow Grace hollared, "Don't take that snow, I want to eat more." How cute. But I commented that if we in Canada would have had heavy snow like that it wouldn't have taken long to get bath water melted or snow for washing clothes. We did not have a water supply on our farm so we melted snow for washing, bathing and washing dishes and clothes. When we got snow in we tried to get the snow from lower down because that was filled with more moisture than the light weight snow that was on top.
So in winter we only took bathes every other Saturday. We had a galvanized tub behind the house. This served as our freezer inbetween. Food was piled under it in order to keep it froze and the tub kept the animals from getting to our food. Then for the time that we took a bath we covered the food securely with something else. We carried the tub into John's room and water was put in it. First Peter and Ben usually took a bath. Then Mom usually was next and then me and last John. We just added more hot water with each person getting into the tub. Dad usually did not bath in winter. Why? I'm not sure. This now to me seems very grose. We washed out hair in a basin seperately in the kitchen before we bathed. We didnot wash our faces or heads in this water that was used by previous bathers.... Also, we did not have shampoo so I often washed my hair with hand soap or laundry detergent. And often my hair was just as greasy as it was before I washed it. Nor did we have deoderant. Such items were luxury that we couldn't afford. For a long time we didn't have tooth pasted either. We used salt water. Then we would carry the bath water out Sunday morning and put the tub over the food again.
In summer we used water out of our dugout or hauled it in barrels from a near by lake or used rain water that had collected in a barrel off of the house roof. Then in summer we did take weekly bathes.
Things changed in 1973 when plumbing was put in houses, and also telephones became a household item also.
No wonder we didn't have boyfriends before we left the farm and moved to the city. But this was a common way of life amoungst the poor people there. I believe we all smelt the same but maybe some more than others.
So in winter we only took bathes every other Saturday. We had a galvanized tub behind the house. This served as our freezer inbetween. Food was piled under it in order to keep it froze and the tub kept the animals from getting to our food. Then for the time that we took a bath we covered the food securely with something else. We carried the tub into John's room and water was put in it. First Peter and Ben usually took a bath. Then Mom usually was next and then me and last John. We just added more hot water with each person getting into the tub. Dad usually did not bath in winter. Why? I'm not sure. This now to me seems very grose. We washed out hair in a basin seperately in the kitchen before we bathed. We didnot wash our faces or heads in this water that was used by previous bathers.... Also, we did not have shampoo so I often washed my hair with hand soap or laundry detergent. And often my hair was just as greasy as it was before I washed it. Nor did we have deoderant. Such items were luxury that we couldn't afford. For a long time we didn't have tooth pasted either. We used salt water. Then we would carry the bath water out Sunday morning and put the tub over the food again.
In summer we used water out of our dugout or hauled it in barrels from a near by lake or used rain water that had collected in a barrel off of the house roof. Then in summer we did take weekly bathes.
Things changed in 1973 when plumbing was put in houses, and also telephones became a household item also.
No wonder we didn't have boyfriends before we left the farm and moved to the city. But this was a common way of life amoungst the poor people there. I believe we all smelt the same but maybe some more than others.
Monday, March 4, 2013
1943 till 1948
Well, I don't remember much in my first 5 years. But there are a few things I do remember. I remember the house we lived in during this time. We moved to another place in 1948. It had 3 rooms. The kitchen was in the middle, and on each end was a room. Previous to 1943, when my grandfather died, my grandparents had lived in the room to the north. I do not remember them living with us but I was told this was where my grandparents lived. After they died, John got their room for his bedroom. On the south side of the kitchen was the other room. This was the living room by day. At night curtains were pulled across the room and 6 of us slept in this room. In 1948 when we moved, John was 12, Helen 11, Anne 8, Betty 5 and Peter 1. Ben was born in 1949.
I remember when Peter was born.
Also, one night our neighbors house burnt down.
Anita Wiebe Schneider gave me a ring, but it was too big and I cried and begged for it so Mom gave it to me and I dropped it on the floor and it slipped between a crack in the floor and it was gone.
We had a well for water supply on this farm and it had a wall around it (but was like something you see in old pictures) where you lower a pail down with a rope and dip some water and then wind the rope back up on the rod that was across the top of the well and hoist it up like that.
I remember going to Aunt Helen and Uncle Ben's place (Anitas parents) and they had a small pump on a cabinet and could pump water by moving the handle up and down and they had a metal dipper from which we could drink and that water tasted so good.
I also remember the one time Dad took us kids along to Bournmouth, a small village, near out home and bought each of us an ice cream cone and us sitting on the store steps eating it.
I remember I was taken to the Dr. and he tickled my tummy. I 'm sure there wasn't much more wrong with me except tummy aches from being constipated. I remember taking some medicine, Alpincreter, not sure if this is German or English but I just talked to Helen and she said it seemed like a remedy medicine for most anything.
Then the most vivid and horrifing was one summer day our chimney caught on fire and John was taking pails of water up the roof to pour down the chimney, Mom was carrying our canned goods and stuff out of the house in case it burnt down, Helen I think ran to the neighbors for help and Anne and myself and Peter were in the garden crying. Dad, I think, had gone to N. Battleford that day. That had to have been the summer of 1948 and we moved to the new farm in Oct. But also that summer I remember Dad, Mom and John digging the cellar at the new farm and a blanket was put on the ground for me to take a nap. Somebody got stung by a bee and a mud plaster was put on it to make it feel better.
This is about all my brain can recall. Good night........ If I think of more, I will write about it at a later time.
I remember when Peter was born.
Also, one night our neighbors house burnt down.
Anita Wiebe Schneider gave me a ring, but it was too big and I cried and begged for it so Mom gave it to me and I dropped it on the floor and it slipped between a crack in the floor and it was gone.
We had a well for water supply on this farm and it had a wall around it (but was like something you see in old pictures) where you lower a pail down with a rope and dip some water and then wind the rope back up on the rod that was across the top of the well and hoist it up like that.
I remember going to Aunt Helen and Uncle Ben's place (Anitas parents) and they had a small pump on a cabinet and could pump water by moving the handle up and down and they had a metal dipper from which we could drink and that water tasted so good.
I also remember the one time Dad took us kids along to Bournmouth, a small village, near out home and bought each of us an ice cream cone and us sitting on the store steps eating it.
I remember I was taken to the Dr. and he tickled my tummy. I 'm sure there wasn't much more wrong with me except tummy aches from being constipated. I remember taking some medicine, Alpincreter, not sure if this is German or English but I just talked to Helen and she said it seemed like a remedy medicine for most anything.
Then the most vivid and horrifing was one summer day our chimney caught on fire and John was taking pails of water up the roof to pour down the chimney, Mom was carrying our canned goods and stuff out of the house in case it burnt down, Helen I think ran to the neighbors for help and Anne and myself and Peter were in the garden crying. Dad, I think, had gone to N. Battleford that day. That had to have been the summer of 1948 and we moved to the new farm in Oct. But also that summer I remember Dad, Mom and John digging the cellar at the new farm and a blanket was put on the ground for me to take a nap. Somebody got stung by a bee and a mud plaster was put on it to make it feel better.
This is about all my brain can recall. Good night........ If I think of more, I will write about it at a later time.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Witches Closet
Carol has been after me to blog some about my life in Canada as a young girl. Also, to let the grandkids know I lived much differently than they do now 55 years later.
I remember that we moved to our home place which was about 1/2 mile from school, named Artichoke, when I was 5 years of age. We were very poor and one year, not sure when it was but the janitor position came open at this school. Each morning about 5 am Dad would get up and walk to school and build a fire in the furnace or re-kindle it, if the Coal had still held fire. He then also would dust the desks from the dust that had been raised from the sweeping us kids had done the previous evening. Even though we used some green sweeping compound there was a good bit of dust. School started at 9 am, we had a 15 min recess in the am and also in the pm and 1 hour for lunch and school let out at 3:30pm.
This janitor position involved the whole family. Two kids stayed after school to sweep the floor each evening. Several times a year we as a family went to school on a Saturday and washed the floors and waxed them. Then the windows got washed mainly in fall and in spring. This was a two room school with 4 cloak rooms. Cloak rooms were where us kids hung out coats and put our boots and also our lunch boxes. NO BATHROOMS!!! We had a two holer down the path from the school. One for the boys and one for the girls. Also, want to add that we got paid $30 a month. We children didnot get allowance. We all just worked so provisions could be made for us a home.
This school remained in use till the summer of 1958. After this we were bused to the next school, Glenbush, 5 miles from home.
I remember, there was a closet in the basement underneath the stairs. It really was a storage closet for some junk and also we kept our brooms in it. Let me note here, we did not have electricity in the school so it was dark in the closet. We kids at school called it the 'Witches Closet'. It was a scary place for most of us especially when the older kids would try to shove the weaker and smaller ones in there and close the door. I really hated to go to the closet after sweeping the floors in order to put the broom away. The last school year from 1957-1958 only one room was was used for classes. Eight grades in one room. (I'll blog about that soon another time). So I was the only person sweeping each evening. It was kinda creepy being alone in the building and then having to take the brooms down to the witches closet. Also, my duty was to put a couple of shovels of coal on the fire to hold the fire over night so it wouldn't be so cold in the morning.
This was a family job and we worked at it together to help earn a bit of money.
I remember that we moved to our home place which was about 1/2 mile from school, named Artichoke, when I was 5 years of age. We were very poor and one year, not sure when it was but the janitor position came open at this school. Each morning about 5 am Dad would get up and walk to school and build a fire in the furnace or re-kindle it, if the Coal had still held fire. He then also would dust the desks from the dust that had been raised from the sweeping us kids had done the previous evening. Even though we used some green sweeping compound there was a good bit of dust. School started at 9 am, we had a 15 min recess in the am and also in the pm and 1 hour for lunch and school let out at 3:30pm.
This janitor position involved the whole family. Two kids stayed after school to sweep the floor each evening. Several times a year we as a family went to school on a Saturday and washed the floors and waxed them. Then the windows got washed mainly in fall and in spring. This was a two room school with 4 cloak rooms. Cloak rooms were where us kids hung out coats and put our boots and also our lunch boxes. NO BATHROOMS!!! We had a two holer down the path from the school. One for the boys and one for the girls. Also, want to add that we got paid $30 a month. We children didnot get allowance. We all just worked so provisions could be made for us a home.
This school remained in use till the summer of 1958. After this we were bused to the next school, Glenbush, 5 miles from home.
I remember, there was a closet in the basement underneath the stairs. It really was a storage closet for some junk and also we kept our brooms in it. Let me note here, we did not have electricity in the school so it was dark in the closet. We kids at school called it the 'Witches Closet'. It was a scary place for most of us especially when the older kids would try to shove the weaker and smaller ones in there and close the door. I really hated to go to the closet after sweeping the floors in order to put the broom away. The last school year from 1957-1958 only one room was was used for classes. Eight grades in one room. (I'll blog about that soon another time). So I was the only person sweeping each evening. It was kinda creepy being alone in the building and then having to take the brooms down to the witches closet. Also, my duty was to put a couple of shovels of coal on the fire to hold the fire over night so it wouldn't be so cold in the morning.
This was a family job and we worked at it together to help earn a bit of money.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)