My father has purchased a lot in the Suburbs of Beverly. The town was located at the northeast corner of Edmonton; the city had a population of about 3500 people in 1912. Beverly had a population of around 200. The town had a few streets laid out and had built wooden sidewalks along some of the principal streets. I do remember how on a very cold winter morning you could hear the boards on the sidewalk snap loudly when someone walked on them, even if that person was miles away. It could have not been a greater contrast to what we had in Malmo where we lived in an apartment located closely together. Dad and some of his friends from work had built our house, the lot had been purchased from the town; we had a dirt road in front of our house and a sidewalk on one side of the street. The closest house to ours was about two blocks away.
When we arrived, the house was far from complete, but it was enclosed from the weather. Inside the home some walls had been erected but the interior had still to be completed. The house would have two rooms. One would be a general-purpose area containing the kitchen, dining room, and some general-purpose space. The other area was divided, the larger part for my parents' bedroom and a smaller part with two bunks, one on top of the other for Oscar and me. Two wood and coal burning stoves were installed before winter arrived. One stove was a kitchen range for cooking; it also provided heat in cold weather, and its principal fuel was wood. The other was a tall round coal and wood burning heater to warm the bedrooms and help heat the living room. This heater had icy-glass squares that acted as windows. It did help to light the area near the heater. The furniture we had was built by my dad, and resembled a picnic table and benches, he built our bunks. The only purchased furniture was our folk's bedstead.
We had a well with a pump in the backyard. A shed to house the wood and coal for the kitchen and the heater. The coal was mined along the banks of the Saskatchewan River that flowed through the city. We also had an outhouse in the backyard. Many of the neighbors had buildings for chickens, hogs and one or two cows. There were a few sheep, and I don't remember any goats. There were a few people who owned a horse and buggy that were used for transportation and to bring home the necessary food and goods from the retail stores in Edmonton, about four miles away. There was a small general store, and a blacksmith shop a few blocks from where we lived. In the two years prior to the first world war my father would take part in the field games in Edmonton. In one of those years, he won first prize in the pole-vaulting games. He was very proud of the cup he received. I do not remember any baseball, football or basketball games being played.
My mother, a city girl, must have been overwhelmed with the sparsely settled town and the relatively few people in the area. She couldn't talk to the neighbors near us; they were immigrants as we were. Why my mother stayed there was not much of a mystery. Neither she nor my father had money enough to finance the tickets back to Sweden. I remember my father on one occasion instructing me to go to the home of Mr. Bailey about two blocks away had have him get the doctor for my mother when Arthur was born.
Whenever we wanted to go anywhere, we walked. My mother was frightened by the cows that were tethered near the road. I don't believe she had ever seen one, she had seen horses, her father's team in Malmo, but that was the extent of her acquaintance with animals. A short time after our arrival my dad had been reading about raising chickens and selling the eggs as a means of making a living. In 1915, he bought a few eggs, built a brooder, and housed it in the fuel shed that was partially empty. He read that the leghorn type of hen was more productive than other types of chickens, so he decided to raise leghorns that my mother learned to feed and take care of. One of my first memories was my father staying up most of the night when the chicks were hatching in the spring. It was a close call, some day that were colder than usual he had to keep the chicks warm enough so they could make it to the next day. The eggs didn't help a great deal towards our living requirements, but they kept us from starving. We sold some roosters in the fall, and this helped us buy the things we needed. The chicks were our only animal's life in those days. We never owned a dog, cat or had canaries in the house.
My father had work and he would bring home the groceries etc. we needed from day to day. Very rarely would my mother and father go to the city to get specials things we needed. However, when they did go to Edmonton, Oscar and I would be sent to the nearby blacksmith shop, my father and the owner had become friends. The blacksmith was not married, and he would be invited to supper occasionally. My mother learned a few English words from this neighbor. It was about a year or so after our arrival that a Norwegian family, a new married husband and wife, built a house almost next door to our home. My mother now had someone she could talk too. The Swedish and Norwegian languages are somewhat similar.
In the fall of 1914, it was also this time that I began to go to school. The school was a two-story brick building with a full basement. The first four classes were taught on the first floor; the second four classes were on the second floor. The reason for the full basement was due to the heating system. To the students it was a place to spend recess and eat our lunch during the cold fall and winter months. It was much too cold to play outside; there were days when the temperature reached forty below zero. My mother later said that when I left home, I looked like a squat flat cylinder waddling towards school. During the winter months we played marbles, hiding games and climbed on exercise bars. In spring and fall some kids played soccer. There was no baseball, football or tennis. In later years when I attended school in the States, I was refused permission to spend my recess in the school basement.
When I started school the one instruction, I can remember from my parents was to learn the English language and then teach it to them. The school term was practically the same as the present school term (comparing it to US schools) with the summer months for vacation period. The grade school was the only school I can remember in the area, there were no junior or high schools. I do not believe there was an academy or University in Edmonton in those days. There may have been a private school that we were not aware of.
During the years 1912 and 1913 my father had work but in 1914 WWI began and Canada was part of the British Empire and immediately became involved. Work on new structures, factories etc. was discontinued and the countries resource were turned to the war effort. Sweden was neutral during the war, and we were still Swedish citizens. My father was a pacifist and continually got into trouble with the English and Scottish immigrants who heartedly favored the War against Germany. My father while a pacifist was also short tempered, and a person who would not take an insult without an answer. Many times, I remember him arriving home some nights with black eyes and a bloody nose.
With the beginning of the war, construction ceased, my father found work in the local coal mines that had been open long the Saskatchewan River or anywhere else he could earn a wage. It was during the winter of 1914-1915 that I got my first job, I was seven years old. The next-door Norwegian's husband and wife had gotten work as a cook and handyman at a lumber camp about 50 miles south from Edmonton near a small town named, Leduc. They had a baby and needed someone to watch it. They had written to my parents and asked if I could come to the camp for the winter to tend the child. I do not know if there were any wage involved or if I just got my keep. Anyway, shortly I was on my way to the camp by train. I was dropped off the train near a small building about as large as a one-half sized single car garage. There was no one there, but I was told to wait, and someone would be along to pick me up. There was not another building I could see. I waited what seemed like hours when a large sled pulled by two oxen appeared out of the woods. The driver picked up the box of my clothes and placed me and the box in the rear of the sled which was filled with hay and some blankets. I can remember riding in the sled, then walking behind the sled during the long way to the lumber camp. We arrived late at midnight, and I learned that oxen while steady walkers never broke into a trot or run.
The next morning, I learned we lived in the largest log building with quarters for the cook's husband and baby. These quarters were attached to the kitchen and dining room that accommodated thirty people. There was a bunkhouse for the for the lumberjacks and a shed for the oxen. Of course there was an outhouse. I found that addition to tending to the baby, I was expected to help set the tables for the meals and clean up afterwards. The lumberjacks got two meals a day at the camp and carried a lunch into the woods for their noon meal. When the handyman would hitch up the oxen and head towards where the men were cutting down trees, I was allowed to go with him. He was usually bringing things to the lumberjacks where they were harvesting trees. The men used two-man saws, that had two saw handles on both ends to cut down the trees.
The lumberjacks would make coffee, which might have been laced with liquor behind the foreman's back. The men had to be alert so the trees they felled did not fall on the men sawing a nearby tree. I learned also that the oxen had more to do than going to the train tracks to pick up help or extra goods. When the tress were down the men cut the branches off, a chain was fastened around the trunk, the oxen towed the trees to a nearby creek or riverbank where they were left until spring. In spring the logs were rolled into the water, fastened together like a raft and then floated down the creek or river to the sawmill to be cut into lumber. As I remember the men treated me well, however, I was forbidden to go into the bunkhouse when the men were there.
It was an interesting winter for me; it was the first time I had been away from home for any length of time. In the spring before I reached home, I had gotten a new baby brother, Art who was about 2 months old when I returned to Beverly. Art was the first one in our family to be born away from Sweden,
While I was gone my father had been forced to sell our house and lot, he could not continue to make the payments. We were living in a rental house. My dad was looking for another way to earn a living for the family. He found one running a farm, his wagers came from the funds received from the crops. The milk and eggs, etc. from the farm were used to pay for things we needed until the crops were harvested. My mother who was so frightened of cows learned to sit beside one and milk it twice a day. It was the first time I remember where we could drink all the milk we could hold.
This was really a wild country; no other farms were within a mile or two. When school started my brother, who was just starting school that year, rode an old horse every day, it was about 4 miles to this school. There was a single teacher for all classes. There were about 15 students usually and there were some grades without students. The way it worked was the teacher took one class at a time until the last class of the day, usually late in the afternoon. The students not in the grade, before their turn, were expected to study and prepare for special time with the teacher. I was a pretty good student, the one thing that usually got me into trouble was being caught reading a library book instead of doing my lesson assignments.
The school had a barn to house the horses, a well for water, a shed to store the wood for heating the building, and two outhouses, one for the girls and the other for the boys. The teachers were almost always young women. Our attendance at school was erratic due to either rain in the fall and snow in the winter forced us to stay home. Rarely did we finish a school term at one school.
I recall on one occasion when Oscar and I had gone to pick berries, we had wandered into the woods and found a blueberry patch. We were thrilled and sat down to pick and eat the blueberries. While we were picking the blueberries, I looked up and saw a big black bear about thirty feet away also eating the berries. Until I looked, I had not seen the bear or had the bear seen us. But now we both were startled, and Oscar and I got up and ran out of the woods for the house as fast as we could. The bear must have done the same thing, going in the opposite direction because I did not see him again
Early in the spring of 1916, we moved again to a farm near a small town called Rabbit Hill. The farm owner, Mr. King, and my father became friends as well as owner and tenant. Mr. King taught my father a great deal about farming. The terms for us as tenants, was one-half the value of the crops when harvested and the milk, eggs, chickens and occasionally a hog during the periods that the crops were ripening in the fields. The crops were usually wheat, oats or barley planted in a 40-acre area that had been cleared of trees and brush. The growing season was much too short for corn or maize. We had a large garden that my mother had charge of, she was coached by Mrs. King. It was one year when we could eat as much as we wanted.
Another fond memory happened in early summer when one of the sows (a pig for all you, city folks) had ten piglets and they were beautiful animals and Mr. King wanted to take them to the area fair where they could be judged for prizes. It seems however that the rules of the fair were that someone had to always be at the fair with the piglets and I was selected. I stayed in the building with the piglets for three days. Our sow and her babies won a prize, and I was interviewed by a reporter and the story, a picture, and my name were printed in the local paper. We didn't win first prize but the money we received was split between Mr. King and my father.
Another practice in this area was to let the cows out the front gate of the farm each day after morning milking with a bell cow leading the way the heard headed for the best grazing area. There were three or four farms in within two or three miles who also followed this practice. Late in the afternoon Oscar and I saddled our horses and went to the find the heard and bring them home for the evening milking. Sometime two or more hears of cows were in the same area and we located them by the special bell tone sound of our bell cow. One of the problems we had was when our bell cow would lie down to rest, the bell would not ring. There were evenings when we got the heard home after dark.
Another of the very distinct memories I have at this farm happened towards the fall. At sundown coyotes would gather in the trees around the cultivated area and howl, as the evening went along it would become a regular chorus. We would sit around the house and listen to them. At dusk the coyotes came out into the dark fields and approached the farm buildings. We had to be certain all the chickens and small animals were locked away for the night.
The entire family enjoyed this farm; we raised farm animals and had a large garden where we planted vegetables and potato. One of the kid's jobs was to pick potato bugs from the plants while they were growing and until the plants matured. We didn't like the job, but someone had to pick them. We didn't get to meet many of the neighbors or their children, the closest neighbor was more than a mile away. My mother had reluctantly become a farmer's wife, she learned to milk cows, feed the pigs and chickens and work in the garden. I am not sure she liked the duty, but she adjusted to it. That summer my sister, Ida, was born, this was the first girl child in the family.
The nearest small village was about five or six miles away and mother would hitch a horse to a buggy, drive to the village for flour, sugar, coffee etc. She paid for the groceries with the money from the eggs she sold. She usually took one of the children along. I stayed at the farm to watch my brother and sister and do the chores.
I remember this as a happy year for us all. One of the very few since we had come to Canada. When the fall came Mr. King, and my father split the results of the good grain crop. Later that fall Mr. King sold the farm, he settled what he owned my father, and we moved 10 miles to a vacant house in a more populated area.
The war was still going on, but the allies were doing much better with the supplies from the United States. There were talks that President Wilson was considering joining the war on the Allies side.
My father found work, I don't remember where, but he only came home about once or twice a month. There were other houses, approximately seven or eight, within a half mile of our house. Oscar and I attended school, it was somewhat larger than the ones we had been going to. This one had two rooms with two teachers. We walked to school with the neighbors' kids. We informed them that we were from Edmonton, and we were tough city kids. These kids told the children at school about Oscar and I and how tough we were and warned the bullies to leave them alone or we would take care of them. This only lasted of couple of days until the big farm boys gave both Oscar and I a beating. They found out we were not as tough as our talk. I returned to being a mortal and stayed out of big boys' way after that fight.
The house we moved into was a two-story wooden home. There was a barn, chicken shed and outhouse. We depended on the neighbors to bring groceries to us from a small town about seven miles away. There were four of us kids and we slept upstairs, and my parent slept downstairs. We had a small kitchen stove and a large wood burning heater in the living room. The stove pipe went through our room and was the only heat upstairs in the winter months. When we were called in the morning all of us would grab our clothes, hustle downstairs and dress around the big heater.
One incident stands out in my memory while we were living in this area. As I have stated, my father only came home rarely and during one of his away periods our wood pile, the fuel for the stove ran very low. We became worried and probably mentioned it at school. One weekend we woke up to hear a large band saw in our back years. Some of the neighbors came over to cut down some trees, cut them up with the band saw, and then they split the pieces. They received coffee from my mother and her heart fell thanks.
In 1918 we moved back to Edmonton, my father had found work there. WWI was ending, the United States joined the allies in 1917, and this tipped the balance against Germany. In November the war ended, and the soldiers began coming home and there were large celebrations all over Canada. During 1918 the flu, Spanish Flu, came to Canada and Alberta. Nearly 30,000 people contracted the flue and 5000 died. Our entire family including our newly born sister, Myrtle, had the flue but we all survived. The schools as well as all public gatherings were halted during the flu epidemic. As the school reopen Oscar, and I were soon at our desks. People were able to go out without masks and WW I was over.
In winter of 1918 my father decided to leave Canada and immigrate to the United States. He was in communication with someone in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He had gotten in touch with a contractor that needed bricklayers, and he left for there in the spring of 1919. Later that summer, my mother and five children left for the United States. We took the railroad train east to Winnipeg; Manitoba then changed to a train bound south to the United States passing through International Falls and continue to Minneapolis. We were met on the train by an immigration agent who checked to find out where we were going and why we were going there. We cleared customs without any problems. We continued and met my father in Minneapolis.
As usual my mother came through in the clutches. When we came to Canada in 1912, my mother brought us approximately 7000 miles on a ship and train from Sweden to Edmonton. She had two small boys, one four-year-old and one two years old. She traveled by herself with Oscar and I, she did not understand English but did an excellent job in getting us to Edmonton. Now, in 1919, she brought five children from Edmonton to Minneapolis a trip of 1200 miles. She was a remarkable woman, our mother.