MARYFIELD - In March 1903, my grandfather made his last trip west as a railway mail clerk with CP Rail, sorting the letters and parcels that came.
His 16-year-old son slept in the baggage car from Ottawa to Indian Head. They brought a sleigh and a team of horses changing to wheels as the March snow melted. They tented by a water hole until they made another trip to Indian Head for lumber. They could see the CPR crew working on a second railway line to go from Regina to Stoughton and then to Winnipeg.
My granny’s worn, leather-bound prayer book reads Tyvan 1904. In that year, the two men had built what my aunt Mary would call “the shack”. There were three rooms on the little hill and they soon realized how exposed it would be in the winter. The two men picked enough stones to build a four-bedroom stone house and the stone walls of their future barns.
A few of their letters from the winter show how lonely they were when his father was away on another trip for supplies and lumber.
Twenty years later, we got the Eaton’s catalogue. My uncle called it the settler’s bible. Two more order forms came back with every order. You made out a money order at the post office and she took your cash, check or money order.
The catalogue had everything a settler would need, even building materials. Dad got the first read of the spring catalogue to compare prices with the winter one and then we children could make cut-out families. We took the good silverware to line our cut-out families on the parlor floor.
We had to have good imaginations as there was no television in 1930s Saskatchewan.
For years, when my father was in his 90s, from New Year’s Day until March 6, we would hear him lament, “If I live until my birthday”. He made no plans for the new year until that ominous day was over. He lived to be 97. He and my mother were able to afford care in Regina in a private home.
How fortunate we are to have Sunrise Villa. Our many thanks go out to the people in Maryfield and all who built the villa and continue to staff it so devotedly. We were on lockdown with no visitors or entertainment but now welcome our visitors back. Winter substituted for lockdown a century ago.
I spent one morning in the lounge area while the spring cleaning girls steam cleaned my carpet, and washed my whole room and wardrobe.
I spent $20 at the post office for American and Canadian stamps to support my habit. As a child I saved those stamps that came on letters. It took my husband to convince me that only old mint-condition stamps were valuable. We learned to write a letter in Grade 1 and would always write our grandparents.
We celebrated two birthdays so far in March with cake and song, John B. and Ralph. Happy birthday and many more.
