The Qu’Appelle Valley

One winter, Father decided it would be better for the whole family to move to the Qu’Appelle Valley as the climate was somewhat warmer there than on the prairie. So we all went to the Valley. Father secured a small house there and we enjoyed it very much.

Fred Cochrane, Ada's husband, had given each of us (four) a pair of ice skates, the kind you clamp on your shoes, and my two brothers, Reuben and Harry, cleared off a nice big place on the river where we used to skate. Great fun!

Sometimes we would go down to the Bouldings and skate there. Once we went to a bachelor's to skate, a Mr. Everett. Eliza Boulding and I were the only girls in the crowd; oh, my sister, Ettie, sometimes came along. She was only about seven years old.

I remember what goops some of the men or boys were. I mean, the boys who were sent out from England to learn farming. They were called remittance men. Usually they were people or boys whom their parents did not want, sent them out to Canada to get rid of them and sent them "remittances;" money, every once in a while. Others were sent out to learn farming. Some were quite apt and soon picked up new ideas. Others remained goops for all time. Occasionally, some horses on the ranches would wander away and I remember on one ranch, I think it was on the Kerr and Binger ranch, some horses had gotten away and they sent one of these goops out to round them up. His name was Carnagan or Carnahan. He would ride the horse until he was out of sight of their house, then he would walk and lead his horse. You could hear him whistling as he plodded along through the snow. One time, he came to our door, why, I do not know. I went to the door when he knocked; there he stood with the bridle reins over his arm and he said, "It's just like a day in June! I'm looking for horses." My father, who was in the house said, 'Well, you had better ride your horse, you'll never catch them on foot." I suppose he had heard someone make the expression, "It's just like a day in June," and thought he was doing fine.

There was another sap who worked for Mr. Everett in the Valley. He was sent by his boss, Mr. Everett, to bring a load of household material, furniture or whatever it was, over to their new house. He did the craziest thing! He had a horse hitched to a stoneboat on which he was to haul his load over from the old place to the new. To make things a little more convenient, so he thought, he turned the stoneboat on its side to get it in through the door, loaded it to the hilt, then discovered he couldn't get it out! Had he been Irish, one would have thought, "Just like Paddy," but being English made it more ridiculous. Then there was a bachelor by the name of McCall who lived in a nice stone house across (on the north side of the Valley) from us. He was considered quite wealthy, though I wouldn't know. He had a man and his wife by the name of Mulligan working for him. Mrs. Mulligan was his housekeeper. They had a baby girl named Tootsie. Occasionally, Mother and I used to go over to visit Mrs. Mulligan. She was rather nice.

The Lambert family lived down near the McCall’s in the Valley. They were quite a family. Old Mrs. Lambert was a source of much conjecture among the neighbors. She pretended to be very religious, but she would steal things or condone the questionable deals her sons made with the smooth suave cloak of righteousness with which her whole family covered their lives. She had three sons: William, Harry and two daughters, Maggie and Mary. Maggie married a man by the name of McKay and Mary married a Mr. Sam Gregg. The whole outfit was Plymouth Brethren - a denomination similar to Aimie Semple McPherson's clique. Most people had very little time for the family because they pulled so many fast stunts. Still, they seemed to prosper, dressed well and were very sweet to the young ladies with whom they came in contact.

Occasionally, service was held at Mr. McCall's house and Mother, being a good churchwoman, would go and take me along to drive, though she was a grand horsewoman herself. Of course, I enjoyed going too for the simple reason it was some place to go. On one of these occasions, when service was over, William Lambert asked me if he could drive me home. Of course, I granted his humble request. Brother Reuben was with Mother and me that night. Well, we had a nice drive home, a distance of perhaps seven or eight miles, but, oh, the row when Mother got home!

Peter Stewart told me afterward that Mother was frantic when she found I had gone. She hunted all over the house, asking each person there, "had they seen Minnie," and when someone told her they had seen me leaving with William Lambert -- oh me, oh my.

Of course, I should have told Mother I was going with him, but I knew she would not have allowed me to do so; therefore, I followed the path of least resistance. Anyway, I enjoyed the drive home, but there was plenty to pay the next day. Mother told father of my transgression and, of course, Father didn't like the Lamberts either so he threatened to order any and all of them off the place should they dare to come around again.

Then Mother advised our preacher of my sin, and he warned her against allowing me to have anything to do with the Lamberts' boys -- told her they were "Wolves in sheep's clothing."

So then, having been out with our preacher for drives several times and knowing some of his weaknesses, I informed mother, "Say, you do not know Mr. Ridd (our preacher). He sure can hug and kiss like nobody's business. You should see and hear him talk." Wasn't I a devil!

However, that ended that episode. Mother didn't go to church any more for some time.

The Bouldings were another family who lived in the Valley not far from us. Mr. Boulding was a cousin to Aunt Lizzie McNeice. They had two daughters, Ida and Eliza, and a son, Charlie. Eliza and I were the only grown-up girls in the neighborhood and there were about fourteen young men. (When I married, Eliza Boulding was my bridesmaid.) One thing I liked so much that winter were the blackbirds; there were thousands of them everywhere. The trees would be full of them all along the roads and the music they made! It was like hundreds and hundreds of silver bells.

One day Mother went over to visit with Mrs. Mulligan for a while, so I decided to make an apple pie. When it was finished, I put it out on a snowdrift to cool, and crack went the pie plate and all the juice ran out. I had baked it on a delft plate. Well, I had to do something with the plate lest Mother found out about it, so I threw it away and my pie was lost. A day or two after, Mother asked me how my pie turned out. How she found out, I don't know, because I was alone the day I baked it and there was no one to tell her.

For several years, Annie was teaching over in the German settlement and boarding with a family by the name of Getner. As I said before, Ada had been teaching in the Wascana District but had married Fred Cochrane who had a farm there. More about these two sisters later.

In the spring of this year, we moved back to the farm. This must have been around 1888 - the year before I attended school in Regina. So, you see I am writing this in a rather jumbled way.

When I was slightly under fifteen years of age, my sister, Annie was ill while she was teaching a school at Boggy Creek. She came home and I finished her term there. It was only a summer school with about a dozen or fewer pupils. I boarded with a Mr. and Mrs. Gilchrist and drove to school, taking their daughter, Mary, with me each day. Mother drove me down to the Gilchrists the night before my first day’s teaching and told Mrs. Gilchrist that I was to be in bed by nine o'clock every night, and did she mean it.

Once, just before my fourteenth birthday, I had asked Mother how late I might stay up when I became fourteen. She replied, "You may stay up until nine o'clock when you are fourteen if you work all the time. "Now, wasn't that something? Mother sure had me under her thumb! One evening while I was at Gilchrists, a young man came over to see me, but believe me, when nine o’clock came 'round, this little devil slunk off to bed lest Mrs. Gilchrist should report unfavorably to my mother.

I think the children who attended that school were the stupidest ever born. Some of them didn't even know their own name.

Then, the summer I was fourteen, Mother decided I would have to ride over to Wascana to where Ada was teaching with some dresses Mother had made for her. It was in the spring of the year when the roads were breaking up. One couldn't travel by sleigh, as there were places where there was no snow – other places where there was plenty and too much. The snow was melting, making the going hard even on horseback.

I had never been there before and did not know my way there, but Mother said, "Go straight south until you come to the Boggy Creek; there you will find a house where two bachelors live. Ask then where you can hit the Hudson's Bay Trail. You will know it anyway when you come to it if you keep on straight south. The trail runs east and west and you will know it to be the Hudson's Bay Trail by the many wheel ruts that run side by side. Keep west on that until you come to a little shack and the man there will tell you where to cross the Wascana river, then after you cross the river, turn north about half a mile and you will come to Mr. Callander's where Ada is boarding." I was to return the next day. So, off I went on my pony, followed the instructions implicitly and arrived safely. Many times since it has struck me that it was quite an adventure for a girl of fourteen because the settlement was so scattered. These two places where I inquired my way were miles apart and no people living between. However, I made the trip there and back safely.

When the warmer weather came and the trails were dry, I made the trip many times with horse and buckboard. The crossing at Boggy Creek was worthy of its name. It was so muddy and boggy one had to take it at full giddy-epp. In fact, there were times when it was impossible to cross if the water was high which it was at certain times of the year.

I used to love to go to Wascana when Ada was teaching there. Sometimes I would stay at the Cooneys. Carrie Cooney, who later on married Billy Hamilton, a man who worked for the Browns but at that time kept house for her brothers, Ed, Tom and Ben. There was always lots of fun there. Ed was a great tease: he drove a lovely horse and buggy. His horse (or mare) was a pacer. Many a ride I had with Ed Cooney behind that pacer. Ed would, as soon as we came near any house, snake the reins, grab my hands, pull my arms around his neck, hold them there with one hand, guide the horse up to the door of the house and when the people came to the door would tell them what a hussy I was, wouldn't keep my arms to myself but insisted on keeping them around his neck.

The first time or two I got mad at him but that didn't do me any good, so I learned to take it all with good grace. There was always so much fun at the Cooneys. Nothing could keep me away from there.

Poor Ed, he loved my sister Ada deeply and wanted to marry her but she preferred Fred Cochrane. Many times we wished she had married Ed instead. He would have taken care of her; as it was, she slaved herself to death for Fred. Ada had Bertha first; she was a blue baby and died. Her second baby was Clara. Clara died in convulsions as they were taking her to the doctor in Regina. It was in the wintertime, in bitterly cold weather, and I suppose as usual Fred drove at a snail's pace. He was the worst and slowest driver I ever knew. Poor Ada, she was heartbroken. A few years later, she had another baby girl, Flossie. She was a sturdy little thing. Black eyes and hair and rosy lipped. Ada died when Flossie was about three years old. Poor Ada; she was so good and sweet. She deserved a better life. Everyone who knew her loved her.

The neighbor men gathered wild prairie roses and covered the walls of the little room where she lay in her coffin and they lined her grave with wild roses and laid hundreds of them around on the grave. It was June and she was only twenty-nine years old.

Mr. Reid, the Methodist minister, preached her funeral sermon and I remember he spoke of her being so young to die.

I shall never forget the expression on Ed Cooney’s face as he stood by her casket in the little church in Wascana. He loved her so.

Sister Maggie had come out from Sault Ste. Marie to nurse Ada through her last illness, and it seemed Fred didn't think he could afford to send for her and our brother, William, had said perhaps the family could help with her ticket. I knew nothing of this so was shocked when Fred asked me for what he called "Your (my) share" towards Maggie's fare. Well, George - my husband - wouldn't contribute, saying Fred was plenty well enough situated to bear the expense. I know Fred was fond of Ada but he was thoughtless and self-centered. Ettie had been with Ada and Fred for some time and I, too, had stayed with her a good bit of the time until Maggie came. Poor Annie was there for the funeral, heartbroken; she and Ada had been so close to each other.

Annie had married a brute of a man -- much to my disgust. He was a regular devil, though for several years she kept her troubles to herself. He starved and beat her and did not clothe her either. When we did discover how cruel he was to her, George - my husband - and sister Maggie went down there one day and took her away when her husband - Bob Nappier - was away from home. They took her to Father's home where Maggie was keeping house for him, and after a week or two she passed away. Glad and happy to go. Bob Nappier was a brute in every sense of the word.

Mother had passed away before Annie. Mother had been ill in bed for some time and one day while Father was carrying the mail from Craven to Tregarva a neighbor came to Mother's bedroom window and called her to get out, that a prairie fire was almost at the stable. Mother thought of the little calf tied in the stable so she got up hurriedly, took the butcher knife and cut the calf loose, came back to the house and, being exhausted from the fright and weakness, sat down on a bench outside the door and caught cold. She passed away in a few days. That was in the summer of Nineteen Hundred.

But I am years ahead of my story. Long before this, while we still lived on the farm, one day I was driving to Regina with pony and buckboard and when I came to the Boggy Creek bridge on Albert Street, there was a herd of pigs feeding just below and to one side of the bridge. My pony stood stock-still! Refused to move. She was terrified of the pigs. I tried to urge her on, but no. So I got out and took her by the bridle and tried to coax her over the bridge, when she reared up, turned and lit off over the prairie on the tear. There I was six miles from home, 6 miles from Regina, on foot and no help in sight. Presently, to my joy, a man came galloping over the little hill. He took in the situation, at once turned his horse and ran my pony down, caught her, tied his horse to mine, got in the buckboard and brought her back to me. He asked if I would lead his horse over the bridge and he thought he could persuade mine to cross. I said I'd ride his horse, but he said, "Oh, lady, it's a Mexican saddle" and was so surprised to see me hop into the saddle and ride sidesaddle across the bridge with no difficulty.

He finally got my pony over the bridge. When I took over my conveyance, he took his and told me his name was Cochrane (not Fred Cochrane) raised his hat quite politely and said he had to be in Regina by three o'clock and went off on the gallop. Afterwards, I found out he was going to meet his prospective bride who was to arrive on the three o'clock train from the east.

Well, I went on to Regina, did my shopping and started home, wondering how I would make the trip home when I reached the bridge. The pigs were nowhere in sight, however, so other than my pony shaking and trembling as we crossed the bridge, I got along fine and had quite an experience to relate when I arrived home.

In those days, each of us had our own pony and saddle. The saddle I used was Mother's. She had had it when she was a young woman and, of course, it was a sidesaddle. No girls rode astride when I was young, and if I do say so, there is no prettier sight than a properly seated lady riding sidesaddle. I remember when my brother, William, came west, he and I would go horseback riding on our ponies. He paid me many compliments as I rode. He loved to see me galloping my pony and my red hair flying in the wind. He always wanted me to wear my hair hanging, even long after I was married, which of course I couldn't do.

In December, or maybe November of 1899 (I may have the date wrong – Boer War), my brother, Harry, went to South Africa with the Strathcona Horse, which was under the command, I believe, of Colonel Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police stationed at Regina. H.D.B. Ketchen was in command or at least a sergeant in the same group of men.

H.D.B. Ketchen married a second cousin of mine, Margaret Robinson. He sent word to me that if I would name the baby (who was my son, Huntley) when he or she arrived, he, Ketchen, would send the baby a silver mug from South Africa. However, that was the last I ever heard of the silver mug!

When my brother Harry left it was about the time, or shortly after, Huntley was born because I couldn't go to Regina to see Harry off. George went but I had to stay home with the children and, if I remember correctly, Hunt was a couple of weeks or maybe three weeks old when they left Regina. Hunt was born Dec. 28th, 1899.

A year from that time (1900) George, the three boys, Eddie, Tommy, Huntley, and myself went to Ontario. Properly speaking, George and I went taking our three boys with us. Eddie was five and a half. Tommy two and a half or thereabouts (would be three in January) and Huntley was one year old. What a trip! Well, when we returned home in March, there was a silver mug - gold lined – on the sideboard, which Uncle Joe claimed he bought for Huntley. Maybe he did and again, maybe Ketchen had sent it from South Africa. At least, when Harry returned from South Africa, he told me Ketchen had told him that he, Ketchen, had sent the baby one from there. I always had an idea that was where the mug came from. I do not remember just how long Harry remained home, but he returned to South Africa after a short time as the war was still on, but before their ship, or ships, reached Cape Hope, the war was over, so home to Canada they returned. This was the Boer War, between the British and Dutch in South Africa.

It was during this time that Harry was in South Africa that Mother passed away. A very strange thing happened to Harry at the precise time of Mother's death. He had no knowledge of her illness or her passing away, but he said he and some others were sitting in their tent playing cards when his attention was arrested by the sight of Mother standing in the door of their tent in, as he described it, "a cloud of glory." He tried to reach her but as he approached, she vanished. He said the boys couldn't understand what was wrong as he had shouted, "Mother" and then ran outside. He said they compared the time there with that where Mother was living and found out when he did receive the letter from home telling of her passing, it was identical with the hour of her death.

The same apparition was seen by my brother, William, the day of her death. He was then living in Indian Head. On receiving the telegram telling him Mother was not expected to live, he started on his bicycle to ride home. He was nearly home, between Craven and Father's home; as he was riding up a little hill, or rise on the road, he said Mother appeared before him "in a cloud of glory." Mother had passed away shortly before he reached home.

These two instances are the truth. No one in our family ever was superstitious. Who knows why they were given to see this strange sight, but strange things do happen; they have happened to me, as I shall later relate.

While I am on the subject of things, shall I say supernatural, let me relate something that happened to me. I had just lost a little baby prematurely born and, a few days after the birth, while I was still in bed and was watching the sun going down (out of my bedroom window) the strangest thing happened. The sky took on the most beautiful rosy hue and the very sky seemed to open. Through this lovely, rosy cloud my brother, Alex, who had died and was buried many years previous, came floating down to me. He seemed to come right through the walls of the house. He took my hands in his and it seemed he drew my soul right out of my body. It was the strangest thing, the parting of my soul from my body felt like you would place your two hands together, palms facing, and then gently draw them apart. No pain in the least. Then he took my soul, which seemed the exact replica of my human body, in his arms and we floated up and up through space. I looked back to earth once and saw George - my husband - sitting by my body (which was lying in my bed) weeping for my departure. It seemed we had paused but a moment to look back, then continued on up to the gates, or it seemed beautiful curtains, where my brother Wesley was standing with my baby in his arms. I am sure I had not been dreaming or sleeping, because when the vision passed, I did not seem to awaken from a sleep or dream. It has always remained something unsolved to me. Why should this vision be granted me? It was a beautiful sight and remains fixed in my memory today, though fifty-two years have passed since then. Who knows?

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