My grandmother-in-law, Ethel, is turning 95 today-- an age that only about 1% of the population will ever get to. Ethel is an avid and loyal reader of my blog, so I figured I would take this opportunity to wish her a happy birthday! I'm not sure if she will be horrified or pleased to be featured.
Andrew, Ethel and Tom at the Fairmont Palliser.
When Ethel turned 93, she wrote a short memoir, and had it printed and bound for distribution to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I thought I'd share a few of my favourite excerpts from her life.
Ethel was born on August 19, 1920 in Pakan, Alberta. she was the third child in a family of nine; four boys and five girls. Ethel would walk to school, about 5 or 6 miles. Her first teacher was a real old "school marm", who would punish students with a switch she would make them collect from outside.
"Our house has no electricity, running water or sewage. We used oil lamps, hauled water from a well and dumped our garbage in a hole dug for that purpose. Our heating was wood and coal stoves. Our daily chores were keeping the kitchen water tanks full, filling the wood box and coal bins. Our toilet was a little house at the back of the yard with two holes - and a pail of lime."
Bathing was an all-day affair, having to heat up water on a wood burning stove, and each sibling waited their turn. Laundry was an equally challenging task-- especially in the winter when the laundry would freeze, and they'd have to hang it in the kitchen near the fire to thaw it out.
In the summer, Ethel and her siblings picked fruit for canning and jam, played baseball, croquet, hide and seek and swam in the river. In the winter they tobogganed, skated, played hockey and skied on with homemade skis.
"I wouldn't have traded my life on the farm for anything. We were a large family-- nine children in a five room house with no facilities like we have today. It was a great upbringing. We learned to share, economize, get along together, etc. Of course there were fights, many of them, but our parents were strict and we didn't get away with much. When I look back on those days, I marvel at the way Mom and Dad worked to keep us fed and clothed. It makes me tired just thinking about it. I guess we were as poor as church mice, but we kids didn't realize it. It was our way of life."
Ethel on her 90th Birthday in 2010.
When Ethel turned 15, she went to live with her aunt and uncle, and eventually moved to Edmonton to find work. She was accepted into a government program that helped train young people for jobs. Her first placement was in a florist's shop-- she stayed there for two years.
Eventually Ethel went with her cousin to Forth Smith in the Northwest Territories to work in a hotel. It was her first trip on an airplane, and she was thrilled with the change of scenery. Ethel worked as a waitress in the hotel dining room. It was here in the Hotel MacKenzie that she met her future husband, Stan. Stan was a Hudson's Bay Company clerk working out of the Fort Fitzgerald store, and he would come over to Fort Smith to help out at the Bay.
"My cousin introduced him to me and I said, "Not bad, eh?". Of course my cousin had to blab it around and everyone teased me about it."
Tom and Ethel on Andrew`s scooter.
After nine months in the Northwest Territories, Ethel found the work too hard, and the hours too long, and decided to leave. Leaving Stan was difficult, but at the time HBC's policy was that single men couldn't get married until they'd been with the company for three years, and Stan had only been with the company for one year when she'd met him. She left with the understanding that she'd see him again on his next holiday.
From here Ethel headed to McMurray, and then on to Edmonton.
" There was an old trapper who took a shine to me and when we got to McMurray, he took me out to dinner at the Hotel and then to his house where he lived. It was full of Indian women which I'm sure were his live-in ladies. He wanted to buy me a fur coat and took me to a mink farm where he was insistent that he buy me enough to have a coat made. I had a terrible time convincing him I wasn't interested. He even proposed marriage. He was all of 65 or 70 years and I was 20 years old."
"When I got to Edmonton, I got a job at the aircraft repair plant where they repaired planes for the war as this was in the middle of wartime. I started in the paint shopping putting "dope" on planes. It was like a glue that you covered the surface of the plane with which hardened and became a stiff coat... It was awful working in the dope shop! The dope was strong and we were made to drink lots of milk to counteract the effect. From there I was sent to the shop that worked on magnetos and fuel pumps. They had to be cleaned and repaired and put back together and then installed on the planes and tested. Testing was my job. I used to go out to the airfield where the planes were and check the things as they installed them. Can you imagine anyone flying the plane after I'd okay'd them? I didn't have clue as to what I was doing but they seemed to think I was doing a good job."
While Ethel was working in the aircraft repair plant, she received a letter from Stan telling her she should pack a trunk with all her things and head to Snowdrift. Stan was coming out in July, and they could get married. That was the proposal she received-- he presumed she would say yes. And she did.
Ethel and I getting ready to enjoy some eggs benedict.
Ethel and Stan stayed in Snowdrift for several years, through the birth of her first daughter, Corinne, and their second daughter, Diana. Stan taught Ethel how to cook, and she became a pro at baking bread. In the winter they lived off frozen items such as caribou meat, fish and bread. By the spring they had to rely on canned goods. One spring, they ran out of most of their canned goods, and had to eat macaroni and beans until the supply boat finally came in.
"I remember one time when a trapper came for a visit. He has just come off the trap lines and stopped by to see Stan. These trappers didn't stay with us but stayed in a shack the Bay had for them. After he left, I went to brush of the chesterfield of the dog hair he had left behind. It was then I noticed the spot where he was sitting was moving
. It was covered with lice! He must have been crawling with them!"
"The first winter we were in Snowdrift Stan had an attack of appendicitis. It was October and the lake was about to freeze over. We had a short wave radio which we were able to contact Fort Resolution by tapping out our messages in Morse code. Dad knew how to operate it but I couldn't. When Stan took sick I tried to send a message to have a plane come in and pick us up and take Dad to the hospital in Yellowknife. I tapped a message out but they couldn't figure out what I was trying to tell them as I was making so many mistakes. Stan finally had to get on the radio and tell them what was wrong. They send a plane in right away."
After Diana was born, Stan and Ethel were transferred from Snowdrift to Fifth Meridian and eventually to Little Red River. Their last stop was in Fond du Lac. They stayed for several years, finally deciding to leave when Corinne was old enough for school.
"Our transportation on our final journey from the North consisted of planes, dog teams, train, car and sleigh... From my early life on the farm; to living in Canada's Northwest Territories with my husband Stan, I truly had a wonderful life."
Ethel and her four children.
Ethel and her family settled in Alberta, where she had two more children-- my mother-in-law, Barb, and her only son, Gerry. They enjoyed many years together, before Stan passed away in May 1999.
I really enjoyed reading Ethel's memoir. As time passes and years go by, I think it's easy to find yourself thinking that you've lived a normal life-- but normal lives can be truly extraordinary. So here's to a very happy 95th birthday for Ethel, a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, cousin, aunt, neighbour and friend!
