Prairie Trail - 1912 -p5-
by
Isabel Carmichael
Shortly after our school was first opened we were visited by the school inspector. How awed we were by officialdom! The rest is forgotten except that he drove the first car we had ever seen. It was an unbelievable contraption. We had a chance to inspect it for it refused to go but a short distance from our house, near enough to bring our startled parents after us when we squeezed the rubber bulb that was its horn. In those days of no garages or experienced mechanics, and the hazards of trails instead of roads, early car drivers were pioneers indeed.
Through the mist of years, our little community is remembered as a family settlment, we were so dependent on each other. The custom of family prayers night and morning was observed in most homes, in Gaelic, often with psalms precented, for we were nearly all bilingual, and this Highland heritage had a special meaning in the context of our life and circumstances. A catechist from Lewis, Scotland, homesteaded near Consort, and was invited to conduct services in our new homes. After Whitton school was built, the congregation of Consort was organized, and we had a settled minister who had come from Ireland.
On July 12, 1913 King William made his debut in the infant town of Monitor, leading the parade for a gala Orangeman's picnic and sports day. All sorts of conveyances came loaded with new settlers out for the big event. A baseball game was the main attraction, along with other contests of skill and prowess. There was a booth selling food and treats. Icecream was served on saucers with spoons,--none since has ever tasted so good. Then came Consort's first annual fall fair. We came home from it with some laurels. Bossy Beauty, the Ayreshire cow with her heifer, and butter made from her cream took first prizes. In later years school fairs became popular. At the Neutral Hills Stampede we saw a wild west show in real life, Poynter's famous horse, Grey Ghost included. There were delightful berry picking excursions to Gooseberry Lake, where buckets full of saskatoons rewarded our diligence, and a cool drink from a spring on the Bartlett and Gatty ranch slaked our thirst. When this lovely lake was made a summer resort, it was ideal for picnics.
We used to get seeds from our teachers for a school garden, which introduced us to candytuft and mignonette, as well as six varieties of vegetables, and we carefully laid out our plots according to directions given. From this effort we exhibited at the school fairs, and learned something about grading as well as growing produce. In 1920 our seeds and soil were blown from location, and we found them growing in odd places out in the grass or among other crops. The wind-storm that did this darkened the sky and stung faces with particles of dust from newly seeded land. It had a wild and foreboding sound. Little did we think that in the next decade drought and dust would bring our fertile fields to almost desert conditions, and drive the young farmers off with cattle and goods to seek food for man and beast elsewhere. The depression years found many of those who had to vacate the pioneer homesteads of Whitton, beginning again in the Darwell area, fifty miles west of Edmonton. By 1948 the community we had founded had gone. Two descendants of the first settlers remained, and a newcomer took the other farms. A larger unit absorbed the school, and the building was sold. The hills lost some of their sharp peaks in the erosion, and clumps of brush dotted the landscape when rains came restoring productivity.
One woman in our group lost her wedding ring in the winter of 1915. Thirty-three years later she received it by mail at her manse home in Ontario. It had been found at the site of her pioneer home, and given to a relative who knew the story. A panorama of memories came with it. The grief over the loss, now turned to joy. The unrewarded search through newly churned butter, and through an unbaked batch of bread. Then hours spent boiling water on the kitchen stove to melt the wash water turned to ice on the frost cracked ground. There it gleamed on her finger again, lasting and solid as the marriage it sealed. How perfectly it symbolized the character of our sturdy pioneers, courageous and resourceful in meeting challenges, unscathed by adversity, and adaptable to new or changing conditions, ever the nation-builders.
The End
Settlers of Whitton, Alberta
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