If I asked my friends what “father” means to them, I would likely get a wide variety of answers. One friend was the end of a large, boisterous family. Another was adopted by an older couple who didn’t believe in discipline of any sort. Still another was a big-city girl, transplanted to our tiny community to live with an aunt and uncle. Some had loving parents; some didn’t.
My own dad came from a rocky past. His mother died when he was only five years old. His 11-year-old sister took on the mothering role, loving and mentoring him. His elder brother was already away from home as a young teen, trying to find work.
Dad was born in 1921, not many years after the First World War. The economy was bleak. There were few jobs; there was no government assistance. Everyone did without. Many travelled across the country, hitching rides illegally on the train. Most were willing to do any work, just for a little food. Farm labourers, mending fences and horse bridles or repairing shoes: anything to stay alive.
From that era rose the generation that had to make do and to do without. Dad worked as a farmhand wherever he could. Between jobs, the family returned to Grandpa’s farm near Westward Ho.
Larry was school age and amassed a lengthy history of different schools. He was in Zella School one year, until it closed when Harmattan was completed. He also was in Carstairs several times. The rest of us spent the larger part of our school years in Sundre.
According to mom, I was only four when we finally settled at the farm. I’m not sure when I began exploring the farm’s outlying acres. At some point in our adventures we discovered a galvanized manual washing tub, buried in the weeds near the borrow pit where we liked to toboggan. The tub was a half circle, flat on top with a lid. There was a wooden handle; the tub could be filled with soapy water, a medium load of wash and agitated by rocking with the handle, back and forth.
I don’t remember that tub sitting anywhere other than in the patch of weeds. Did grandma ever use it? Was it there when they moved to the property? It doesn’t remain in my memories for long. Dad probably got rid of it or sold it.
He was meticulously organized. All the discarded and worn-out items that were dumped here and there when we moved in were quickly dealt with. An old binder moved to a site near the road, in a straight line with whatever else was destined to move on. We discovered the case for the binder twine was filled with a robin’s nest.
There was a noisy John Deere tractor out by the woodshed, probably grandpa’s as well. One summer a local handyman, Dick Metz, spent a lot of hours trying to make it run more smoothly but the “putt, putt, bang” never seemed to cease. I recall the noise but not the end of the tractor’s history.
Dad chose a small, sturdy Allis Chalmers tractor to accomplish his farm work. He used it to work the fields, haul the hayrack, pull the school bus out of the ditch, whatever was needed. He cleared the snow from our yard and the yards of all of the older neighbours around us.
Dad worked at Fyten’s sawmill, Fluor Gas Plant, Harmattan Gas Plant, and a plethora of construction jobs. He was a part of the crew that built the main school in Sundre, consolidating the several smaller buildings into one.
He worked with John Marek, Sid Doyle and Irven French in the Sundre and Olds areas. I see him still in his overalls and big boots, dragging home to carry on with milking cows and mending fences.
He taught us to work as well, and yet we also learned to sing and to pray and to be a friend to anyone who came across our path.
Our home was always filled with people, sometimes the neighbours from the next farm, sometimes new neighbours who came to enjoy a singalong. Hector had a rich tenor voice and dad enjoyed their friendship for years.
- Joyce Hoey is a longtime Gazette columnist
