Prairie Trail - 1912 -p4-

by
Isabel Carmichael

A steam tractor outfit was once hired to do some breaking, and its five-furrow plow made a wide strip across a new field. We soon discovered it was a temperamental machine, and there were such long stops for repairs, winter found it marooned in a partially finished furrow. When spring came the faithful horses finished the job. These early tractors often complicated threshing operations, and in the rush of getting grain harvested, caused many anxious hours for owner and farmer. They moved from farm to farm, and the day they came with threshing mill in tow, was always thrilling beyond words to us children. When they left, a world of activity went with them, and we were so quiet and alone. What amounts of food and kettles of coffee and tea were consumed in the two or three days they were with us! There were no refrigerators, and a major breakdown, when replacement parts were not available locally, sent everyone into a frenzy. Harvesting the grain meant working all the daylight hours, and if the precious wheat threatened to "shell", night shifts when there would be a little dampness, saved much of the crop. This was before the days of combines. The new binder with flailing bars, rolling canvas, and mysterious knotter, lost its glamour when we got old enough to do our share stooking the sheaves left in its wake. Thickly studded acres compensated for aching shoulders, but years when stooks were scarce, despair hung over the dusty fields. What would have become of the Pioneer without the ever returning, bright hope of "Next Year"?
Civilization stalked our trail first with train freight service from Coronation to a "Y" at Monitor in July 1912. Then an application for a Post Office named "McDonald" or "Whitton", was granted with the name Whitton, as some other place had been named McDonald. Mail and passengers had come from Coronation by stage, but on termination of that contract these services were added to the train. A mail-driver named Guilfoyle ran a route including our office, three times a week, so Whitton, Alberta, named for our home district in Quebec, attained its identity. Ten years later, Model"T"s snorted and flapped their way from our farms with incredible speed, so we rented postal boxes in Monitor.
Two children were born in our settlement the first summer, and the attendant was Dr. Mooney who had built a small hospital at Consort. Typhoid claimed his life in 1913 at the age of twenty-five years. Then Dr. A.M. Day, who was also vey young, bought the hospital and took over the practice. He was a true pioneer in physique and temperament, keenly interested in our welfare, and we felt his kinship in our sicknesses and adversities. A call for the Doctor meant someone went to tell him he was needed. He might be miles from home, but we knew he would come as soon as possible. The fact that he and his family homesteaded near town strengthened the bond between him and his clientelle. To this he gave his life, and when he died after forty-four years of devoted medical services to the communities, we who had known his kindly, cheerful and capable care, mourned a true friend. During his time the local Red Cross took over the hospital, and later a municipal hospital was built. A poignant memory relates to the death of an infant sister in the pioneer hospital in 1915, and the solicitous care of her and mother by Doctor and Nurse. A small white head-stone marks her prairie grave at Consort.
As soon as possible, Whitton school distric t was formed, and our childish ears became accustomed to a new word, "debentures". School meetings were held in our homes, then loads of lumber came from Consort, and three strange carpenters built the school house on the school-section a half mile from us. Plans for the building, which father had to read for the builders, and specifications for equipment came from the Department of Education. How timid we were entering the school for the first time. It seemed so tall, with many windows on the Eastern side, and was so new-smelling. There were five of us, and we liked the young man from Ontario who came to teach. We learned the alphabet phonetically, and how to write it on our slates, before the great day came when we received Primers. The first lesson was "Apples! Apples! Fine red apples." The pictures of them were delightful. They appeared in the drawing books too, and we thought how wonderful it must be to see apples on a tree. We asked our parents about them, and the descriptions of the orchards at our old homes in Quebec enriched our dreams. Readers, and library books with fascinating fairy tales and tiresome geography, blackboards which were dark green, a phenomenon we couldn't understand, a globe stored by pulley and weight near the ceiling, maps, yardstick, tin measures, and a hand bell, were part of the equipment all evolved somehow with the "debentures". There were two outdoor toilets, and a stable for six horses. After the settlement grew it would be full of horses, the posessions of proud owners. We all learned to drive, and there was at least one saddle pony on every farm. Our first ride in a saddle with bare feet tucked in the straps above the stirrups was the thrill of a life-time, and the terror of our parents. These same bare feet stepped from sod to sod over the fire-guard of about ten furrows, surrounding our two acre schoolyard. This precaution, specified in the plans, was never needed in our district, but we often saw frightening, black clouds of smoke in the distance, and the men were commandeered to fight fire for it travelled fast in the thick wild grass.

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