After I had seen the ruins of my grandparents homestead, I wanted to know more about the old farm, where my mother’s family had lived and worked for eighty-six years.
Mother had told me very little of her life growing up there. Maybe she didn’t want to remember the feel of hard times or the poorness that went with it. She was the oldest of her siblings, and pretty well became their second mother. She could never forget how her mother cried when she saw the property that Grandpa had bought and they would be calling home. He had bought it without Grandma knowing. To make things worst he had decided that they would become market gardeners.
They had moved from St. Albert, where mother had been born, and then to Salisbury, which is now part of Sherwood Park. When my mother was five years they moved old to North Edmonton on 127th Street and 146th Avenue. The journey by horse and wagon took from early morning to late evening.
The house was a four room, two story log building with interior walls of corrugated card board that crawled with bed bugs at night, even after spraying. There was a lean-to attached to the north side of the house, which became my mother’s bedroom. The door to get in to it was outside the main house. The house was heated by a large pot belly stove. There was a large hole in the living room ceiling to allow the heat to rise to warm the bedrooms during those long, cold winters. It was a long trip in the fall by horse and wagon to go to Starkey Coal Mine, north on 127th Street, where they got burlap sacks filled with coal to feed the pot belly stove and the kitchen stove during the winter. There was a large box for wood beside the kitchen range. The pot belly stove was set up in October and taken down the first of April, to make for more living space in the summer.
This house was to be home to eight children and two adults. Things became less crowded after mother was married and my uncles left to join the arm forces in 1939.
There was no well. Once a week they hooked up Nettie and Jessie the horses and put the water barrels on the wagon. They traveled to 127th Street and 127th Avenue, about a mile and a half away to get two or three barrels of fresh water from the water tower. It cost ten cents a barrel. During the cold nights of winter, the barrels were brought into the house, so they would not freeze up, but they still froze as the house got so cold. They used rain water for washing clothes and bathing. They had dug some wells by hand, but the water was only surface water, which made it only fit for the garden. It was almost twenty five years after moving on to the property that Grandpa had a fellow by the name of Giddy Bardo come and witch for water. The well was still pumping water when the property was sold.
The house was always full of family and friends on a Sunday, even though it was the only day of rest for Grandma. She still had to cook and cleanup. Mother, Aunt Mary and Grandma were the only females. If the boys felt noble they would help dry the dishes.
After living in the log home for over twenty five years, a new one was built, but before he had a chance to enjoy it Grandpa passed away.
