In 1950, because I was a veteran returning to Alberta after the war, we were allotted 160 acres by the St. Mary’s River Development. It was now time for us to move onto and farm this property. We needed a home to live in, so bought Mr. Strong’s little cottage – a small building on my parents’ farm. Our plan was to fix it up, then move the building to our new land. We wanted to double the size of the cottage, and change the layout to suit our needs as a family.
It was now late spring – warm enough to work on this important project. While it was still on Dad’s land, we worked at making the structure larger and more livable. The original building was 24 feet long and 12 feet wide. We started by creating an addition of equal size. This would serve as a large front room. There was a brick chimney in the center of the building that I had to remove and rebuild after the new building was moved onto the location at our farm. My brothers Don and Art helped me wire the building. Therefore, after it arrived at the farm, we could hook our home up with Calgary power. It took a lot of time, and a lot of lumber to make this humble cottage look the way we wanted it.
We Nearly Became Firefighters - Twice!
During our renovations, we needed to get more lumber at a reasonable price. I contacted Bob Lewis, a friend of ours, about going to B.C. to purchase a truckload of wood in Fernie. Bob was eager to get another load for building on his place, so we decided to make the trip together. A day later we borrowed Dad’s one-ton Dodge Dakota truck. With Cora and our little son Roger, we left our half-built house early in the morning. At Cranford, we met Bob driving their big truck, with his wife Margaret, and their little daughter Laura. We traveled west through Lethbridge and past Fort Macleod up into the mountains to the mill town of Fernie. We stopped at the Galloway’s lumber mill to order the lumber we wanted, so we could pick it up early the next morning.
While our lumber was being processed, we had our supper, then booked a room each for our wives and little ones. Bob and I went downstairs to the beer parlor for a drink while our wives put the little ones to bed. Our plan was to have a beer each. While sitting, having our brew, we noticed that we were the only men in the parlor except for the older fellow who was tending the bar. Then this gentleman came over to our table to tell us there was a big forest fire nearby and the forest people had taken all of the available men away to fight the fire. He suggested we should finish our drink and get to our rooms before we were noticed. Otherwise, we might have to leave our wives and children to go firefighting. We picked up two more beers and disappeared to our rooms.
In the morning we loaded up our lumber and headed back to Alberta. When Cora and I arrived home, all was dark except for a small light in our kitchen. Upon entering, we discovered the light was coming from the glowing toaster we had left plugged in when we left home. Fortunately, it was sitting on the arborite table and the table wasn’t even warm! Apparently, the convection currents of air kept the table cool. It taught us a good lesson about checking appliances before leaving home!
There was a lot to get done this year. First, I helped Dad plant his crops, then I started working on our farm. Our property was irrigated land, with a canal that split our quarter section in half. The land-leveling contractors were preparing the south side of the property for our house. While they continued this work, I ploughed fifty acres on the north side of the canal. After tilling the earth to make a good seedbed, I planted oats. We learned that this land had been sitting idle for at least 30 years (the original homesteaders had gone elsewhere to make a living). Our crop was soon up and growing very well in the eager soil!
With the crops in, we now had time to have our little house transported to our farm. It would be hauled the five miles from my parents’ property, along back roads. This was a small job for an expert house mover and only took about six hours of his time. We packed up our glasses and dishes from the cabinets, then stood aside as the movers got the building onto a set of wheels. It was strange to see our house being pulled down the road by a large truck.
When it arrived on site, I helped them place our home exactly where we had planned. Some crested logs were put under the floor as a temporary foundation, and a way of leveling the house. I got right to work making more improvements, using the lumber we bought in Fernie B.C. I didn’t have any power tools, so all the cutting was done with a handsaw. I built an addition to the north end of the building, making our little home ten feet longer. This gave us enough room for a kitchen and breakfast nook. Our eating area could now accommodate a table and two benches, with seating room for six adults.
No kitchen is complete without a sink, so I built my wife a small sink that would run the grey water out to her garden. While at the sink, Cora would be able to look out her kitchen window to view the area where her garden would be next year. Our property in Claresholm had no running water. There, Cora had to venture outdoors (among the wild coyotes), to pump and haul water for cooking, laundry and bathing. She would be delighted to have water at her fingertips!
From the time we got the title to our property, we (along with five other neighbors) haggled with the Calgary Power people. We needed to have a hydro line run down our road so we could get electricity. By late summer, they finally got the poles in the ground and the wires and transformers bolted to the poles. My two brothers, Donald* and Art, had already wired our little house. All the lights and wall outlets were in place, making it easy for the electricians to hook us to the wires from the transformer. Now that Don was in Gibsons, I had to get brothers Ed and Art to wire our kitchen before I finished the building on the inside. The kitchen required 120 volt wiring for the electric stove that Cora wanted to purchase the next fall. Soon, she would have all the modern conveniences!
* Don and his wife Margaret had gone back to Gibsons, BC, with their little baby, to start an electrical business. Don had been an electrician when serving in the Canadian Navy during the war. He was somewhat of a genius with all things electronic, and completed several contracts with the Canadian government, creating underwater camera devices – years before computer technology was available.
The house was coming together well, but was not finished yet. We had a sink, but no running water. I dug out a small cellar under the house, with the help of a wheelbarrow. Then, using a car jack, I pressed a sand point pipe into the sandy ground under the house. The jack helped me press piping far enough into the sand to reach the water table. Next, we bought a hand pump that was able to draw water from the sand point pipe and push it up into the house sink. I was able to use my engineering abilities to make a pump jack from the mechanism of an ‘Easy Washing Machine’. It worked very well, and it was still being used years later when we left our farm. To be continued...
Easy Washing Machine
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