Stories From My Childhood

Written by Velma Broadhead

Illustrated by Natalie Asplund

Stories From My ChildhoodWritten by Velma Broadhead

Illustrated by Natalie Asplund

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Stories From My Childhood W

ritten by Velma Broadhead

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Stories From My ChildhoodWritten by Velma Broadhead

Illustrated by Natalie Asplund Red

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Velma Harker was born in 1911. In her later years she sat down at her home in Cardston Alberta and wrote down the memories of her life on a pad of yellow lined paper. This book is a collection of some of those stories from her childhood. The stories are told in her own words just as they were written on that pad of paper.

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Dad and Mother worked on the Buck Ranch which was south of Magrath it was while Olive was a baby. Mother had a frightening experience there. She said the men had all gone up to another field to work and she was bathing my sister Olive. I was rather a bashful child and she said I kept hanging on to her skirt while she was trying to give Olive her bath. She told me to go and play but I wouldn’t move. I said, “Mama, there’s a man.” She said yes go and play, but I still wouldn’t move. I said “Mama, there’s a man.” She thought one of the men from the ranch had forgotten something and she said, “Yes, I know there’s a man. He won’t hurt you.” But I still wouldn’t move.

She looked around and there was a great big fellow unkept with a black beard. She said, “The men are down at the barn.” He just laughed and said, “Oh, no, they are gone.” And then he laughed again such an ugly laugh and mother began to be real frightened, but she said, “Yes, the men are at the barn. I’ll go call them.”

She went to the door and called, “Oh, Ross.” The man just mocked her. He would call, “Oh, Ross” and then he’d laugh this ugly laugh. She called 2 or 3 times. He said, “I know you’re here alone, I watched the men go.” But she called again praying in her heart that someone would answer and the last time she called one of the men answered. As soon as they answered the unwelcome visitor took off through the back door.

Mother told what had happened and they looked around the house and not far away found where his horse had been tied and there were several cigarette butts so they figured he had been there quite a while watching for them to leave. The man from the ranch said they had forgotten something and he had to come back to the barn to get it when he heard Mother calling. She always said it was an answer to her prayer. Then the boss told my father to move his wife and children back to town because he didn’t want anything to happen to them.

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While they were living at the Buck Ranch, Mother wanted to come to Magrath to see her mother and she had a little one-horse buggy with a top on and she had a little mare she drove she called Pet with a little colt. She hooked up the horse and put my sister and I in the buggy and started for town.

She had to go through a field and when she opened the gate, there was a bull lying by the side of the road. She got back in the buggy and started on. Suddenly the buggy lurched to one side and then the other. There was a little window in the back of the buggy and she looked back and this bull had got up and followed her. It had its horns underneath the box of the buggy and was tossing it’s head from side to side.

Mother couldn’t get the horse to go very fast she kept slowing down to let her colt catch up. The bull followed us for about a mile and Mother thought several times he was going to tip the buggy over. Mother prayed for the Lord to protect her and her babies and before she arrived at the gate on the other side of the field it had got its horns out from underneath the buggy and wandered off into the field.

There had been a herd of cattle driving through the field and one of the other animals had jumped on its back and hurt it and it wouldn’t travel with the rest so they just left it there beside the road. Mother said she was sure grateful to arrive safely at her mother’s home in Magrath.

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When I was about 5 years old my parents moved on a ranch of Bro. Archibald about 6 miles from Cardston. There was a school and a church called Leavitt about 2 miles from where we lived. Mother and Dad milked about 25 cows and sold cream to the creamery. Sometimes mother had to milk all of them by herself and they didn’t have milking machines to help in those days.

One day she had to milk alone and so she told me to watch the baby. Charles was about a year old at that time. Mom had him undressed and ready for bed. She said we could play on her bed with him but to be careful and not let him fall off. He rolled over the edge and I caught him by the bottom of his night gown. He was too heavy for me to pull him back on the bed and I started screaming for mother to come quick.

Mother heard our screams and came on the run. The kitchen door was open but when she stepped on the porch she fell and I guess it paralyzed her for a few minutes and she couldn’t get up. She said it seemed like ages and she could see the baby’s face was black and he couldn’t cry because the neck of his night gown was choking him.

Mother said it was a terrible experience to know her baby was choking to death and she couldn’t move nor speak a word. Again she turned to her Father in Heaven and prayed for His help. It seemed like a long time to her, but I expect it was only a minute when she could get her voice back and she told me to let him down on the floor easy like, so I did as Mother directed and he was soon crying lustily, again. In a few minutes Mother was able to get up and get the baby tucked safely into his bed.

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When we first moved to Leavitt there were two or three boxes of empty shotgun shells on the pantry shelf. They were capped but had no powder in them. Olive and I wanted to play with them so Mother asked Dad if we could have them. He said he couldn’t see that it would hurt. He didn’t have a shotgun and they weren’t any use to him. We took them to our play box and used to build with them like you would build with blocks. We had lots of fun with them too but we got a little lazy and didn’t want to pick them up and put them back in the toy box when we were finished. Charles was just crawling around at the age where everything went into his mouth. Well they made him have canker sores and his mouth was just terrible and he wouldn’t eat and was real sick. After he got better we had been playing with the shot gun shells and left them on the floor. Mother and Dad were just going out to milk and Mother told us to pick those shells up and put them away before they came back from milking. She said, “You know that’s what made the baby so sick and if every one of them aren’t put away when we come back I am going to burn them.” And off they went to milk. After Mother and Dad had gone I suggested to Olive that we were tired of them anyway and why don’t we burn them. We had a cook stove with a little door on the end where you could put coal in the fire box without taking the lids off. So we opened this little door and started piling the shells in the stove. We left the door open to watch them burn. Soon as they got hot they started popping and jumping like crazy. Even the lids on the stove jumped up and down a little. We thought this was great fun. Olive was just tall enough that the door was about her eye level and she stood there watching the shells burn and I was throwing them in the fire. Then it happened. One of the little metal caps flew out through the door and lodged in Olive’s left cheek just below her eye. Of course I started to cry too. Mother and Dad, hearing all this shooting going on and our screams from the house, came on the run. As I said before, we were several miles out of town and Dad said the piece of copper had to come out and it was a long ways to town as the only way they had to go was with a team and buggy. Well, he got the pliers and tried to pull it out but it was lodged right in the bone and every time he pulled Olive screamed louder and moved her head forward so he couldn’t get enough pressure on it. He told Mother to hold her head but Mother was crying too and hysterical and said she couldn’t. My Dad said, “This had got to come out. Now you sit down on this chair.” He got Mother on the chair and put Olive on her lap. Now he said, “You can do it and you’ve got to do it. Hold her hands with one hand and hold her head against your chest with the other hand and don’t let her move her head.” Well, Dad’s sharp words brought Mother to her senses and made her realize this had to be. So, she did as Dad said. He put the pliers on again and pulled the piece out of Olive’s face. She still carries the scar to this day.

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Another thing that happened while we were living there was another experience while Mother and Dad was out to milk. Mother told us to sit and watch out of the window while they milked. Charles was about 18 months old at this time and had white curly hair. There was a box of black shoe polish sitting on the window sill and we opened it and put our fingers in it and we decided to change Charles hair to black.

So, Olive and I proceeded to smear this shoe polish all over his hair. Where we got it on his forehead it looked so nice and shiny we decided to put it all over his face. He thought this was great. Mother couldn't see us sitting at the window, so she decided to bring a couple of buckets of milk to the house and see what we were up to.

We saw Mother coming and hid behind the kitchen door. When she opened the door we just pushed Charles out in front of her. Mother said he just grinned up at her and looked just like a little nigger baby. She was so startled she nearly dropped the milk buckets. Well, needless to say, we were chastised severely and sent off to bed. This was Mother’s favorite punishment. She said it took a whole pound of butter to get the shoe polish off Charles and that his hair looked dirty all summer till it grew out. The joys of a family, eh?

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Not long after that I had a sore toe and it was very painful. Then a blue streak went up my leg. The doctor didn’t seem to know what it was. Mother said the streak went up my hip and around my body twice. I cried all the time except when they gave me medicine to make me sleep. One day Mother had been to Cardston and the doctor gave her some new medicine. Aunt Lizy Harker saw the doctor that afternoon and asked him how I was. He told her I wasn’t any better and that there wasn’t any hope of me getting better and that he had given Mother medicine for me that would hasten the end. Well, Aunt Lizy drove out to my folks that night and told them not to give me the medicine and what the doctor had said. The folks fasted and prayed for me and had me administered to, but it seemed like I didn’t get better. The special missionaries came to our house and I was crying and they asked my mother what was the matter. She told them about my illness and they came over and asked me if I wouldn’t like to be administered to. I said, “No, I already have been and Heavenly Father doesn’t hear my prayers to get well.” They tried to persuade me and finally I said, “Alright, but don’t ask Heavenly Father to make me well. Just ask Him to let me die because I can’t stand this pain any more.” They did administer to me and Brother Bonnie rebuked the disease and promised me I would get well. Shortly after that a swelling came on my neck a little behind my ear and Mother put a linseed poultice on it. She said when she was cleaning the linseed off there was a black speck in the swelling. She thought that was funny. She took a cloth and was going to wipe it again, but when she looked the speck was gone. While she was watching, it came back again. She put her fingers on each side and pressed a little and a worm shot out. It was about as big around as a matchstick and half as long. She poulticed my neck again and got three worms out of the same place and one came out of my nose. She took me to Lethbridge to a doctor and he said if she got any more to put them in alcohol and bring them to him and they would have them analyzed to see what they were. We stopped at Magrath to my Aunt Rind’s. My gum hurt and I kept fussing about this sore place in my mouth. The other kids were playing hide and seek in the bedroom so I went to play with them. It was dark and I felt something in my mouth. I went to spit it out in my hand and I dropped it. I told mother and they got the flashlight to look for it and sure enough, they found another of these worms. They put it in a little bottle with some alcohol and sent it to Lethbridge to the doctor. When the report came back it said it was the larva of a gad fly. The doctor said it was very rare in the northern countries but usually lived in hot climates. He said they lay their eggs in an abrasion in the skin or in the nose and when they hatch they feed on the body. This was the last one I ever seen and I was free of any pain. I have always been grateful to the Priesthood of God and the elders who hold it and for my Heavenly Father for the blessing he gave me.

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Not long after that we moved to another ranch owned by Ed Cahoon. It was on the creek farther south from where we were at Archibald’s. There wasn’t any school close by so I stayed in Cardston with my father’s sister Edna and family during the week and went home on weekends. I was in grade 2 and my teacher was Miss Cykes. Sometimes when Aunt Edna was going away she would send me over to Aunt Bell Marsden’s. She was my father’s aunt. I didn’t like to go there very much because she had some girls older than I and they teased me. Uncle Charlie Marsden run the dray and he had an outfit he took people to the railway depot in. It had seats along the sides and windows all along each side. They had a great big house and whenever we went on the train, we would stay at Uncle Charlie and Aunt Bell’s. He would take us to the depot in this rig. He had a beautiful team he drove on it. Aunt Belle was Grandma Harker’s sister. I was 8 years old in August and on the 19th of October they were going to have a baptism and they held it in the Lee Creek right by our house. I remember there was snow on the ground. There were three of us to be baptized: Ellen Cahoon, Ross Wright, and myself. Orvin Redford baptized me and Dad wrapped me in a quilt as soon as I came out of the water and carried me up to the house. When we were dried and dressed we were confirmed in our living room. There were trees growing all along the creek and we had a little foot bridge made by putting two logs across the creek and nailing boards across them. We kids liked to go across this bridge and play house in the trees. We laid sticks or rocks along to make the boundaries of our house and the partitions of the different rooms were the same way. Sometimes we just took a stick and drew lines on the ground to show where our house was. We sure had lots of fun. While we lived there Aunt Margaret came to visit us. She was 6 years older than I, so I guess she was about 15 at the time. It was in the fall and there was snow and the reservoir was frozen over. We had been coaxing to go skating but Mother told us we were too little to go by ourselves. So, when Aunt Margaret came we started asking Mother if we could go if Aunt Margaret went with us. Mom asked Dad if the pond was frozen hard enough for us to skate and he said he thought it was. So away we went. We got out 10 or 12 feet and the ice started cracking and we beat it for shore, but didn’t quite make it before it broke. I scrambled out and Aunt Margaret was in the water too. She looked around to see where Olive was and saw her just floating under the ice. Olive had long hair and her braids were floating out from under the ice. Aunt Margaret grabbed her by the braids and pulled her out. We were very wet, cold and scared and it was many a day before we wanted to go skating again.

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Another thing I remember very well while we lived at the Cahoon's ranch was Dad fixing and oiling his harnesses. He put a wash basin full of oil on the stove to warm and told me to watch it and tell him when it was hot. I went to tell him it was hot and I guess I let it get too hot because it boiled over and ran all over the stove and caught fire and the flames were shooting almost to the ceiling.

The cat was asleep under the reservoir and the oil ran down on to it. The cat just let out a terrible yowl and went out of that house like a streak. Dad came running and took the flaming pan of oil outside and they finally got the fire out without it setting the house on fire, but we never saw the cat for weeks, but we used to hear it yowling at night, but couldn’t find it and it wouldn’t come when you called it. When it finally did come back, all the hair was off along it’s back.

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We lived at the Cahoon's ranch in 1916 and 1917 while the 1st world war was on. My father was a United States citizen and didn’t have to go to the Canadian army, but towards the end of the war he was sent a draught notice from the U.S. Army. I can remember how worried we were about Dad having to go to war. I guess I was worried too. I remember dreaming that the Germans came to our house and they were putting big guns up against the gable ends and shooting off the roof. I woke up and I was so scared I was shaking. Dad didn’t have to go to the army though because the armistice was signed before he left.

It was a real hard winter in 1918 and they couldn’t get hay for the cattle and lots of them died. Dad took his over to Hill Spring to his father’s but lots of them still died.

I remember we had a democrat and Mother used to make us a bed in the bottom and we kids would crawl in there and go to sleep while they drove to Hill Spring to see Grandpa and Grandma Harker. I liked to go to Grandma’s. She had sparkling black eyes and white hair and they had a cook car west of their house where the boys slept. Uncle Vern and Elmer. They just had a small 2-room house. I liked to play the gramophone. It was an Ellison and had records that were like tubes about 3” across and 6 inches long and they were hollow and you put them on a cylinder to play them.

We moved back to Magrath when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We lived in Grandma Heap’s house when my brother Roy was born. He was a very small baby with black eyes and dark hair. When he was about 3 weeks old they had a Character Ball in Magrath and my cousin D.R. and I dressed up as Indians and I carried Roy on my back for my little papoose. He was so dark he looked like a little Indian baby. We won 1st prize, too.

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Then we moved to the old Merrill house on the end block. There were four rows of trees just in front of the house then there were more trees out at the front of the lot. While living here there was a circus came to tour and it was reported one of the panthers got away. One of Dodger girls told me her sister and her boyfriend Percy Poulsen saw it sitting by our gate an it ran into our trees. I remember for weeks I was just petrified to walk through those trees at night and we had to go through them to get from the gate to the house.

I think it was while we lived here Mother sent me up town and the wind was blowing hard. I had a cape and it kept blowing open so I turned around and went backwards and I tripped on a broken sidewalk and fell and sprained my arm.

Then we moved to another house about 2 blocks north of here. We didn’t live there very long when we moved again to a little house next door to the one where we lived. It was just 2 rooms and it was here my brother Warren was born.

We lived there about a year and in the spring 1926 we moved to Diamond City north of Lethbridge. Dad bought 80 acres there. We lived in Diamond City the first year but the folks built a house and we moved to the farm about a mile and ½ out of town. The folks had a lot of little chickens and a brooder. The brooder went out and the chicks piled up and smothered about 1/3 of them. After that Mother used to sleep in the chicken coup until the chicks got big enough and it was warm enough not to need the brooder.

I remember going to church one Sunday. It s a long time to go to Sunday School and have Relief Society while the men had priesthood and then Sacrament Meeting. Warren was just talking good, I guess about 2 ½ years old and he was tired and fussy. Mom told him to keep quiet and he just yelled out, “No, I won’t! I want to go home and go swimming!” Every one in the church could hear him. Talk about being embarrassed! My mother just wished a hole would open up in the floor and let her through.

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I was about 16 when we lived in Diamond City and I liked to go to the dances. There weren‘t very many boys in the church my age but one named Bob Walker asked me to go to the dance, so I said I would but he didn’t come and didn’t come and we didn’t have a phone. I finally got disgusted and went to the dance alone. My brother Charles had gone earlier and I figured I could come home with him. But I met my girl friend and her beau and they wanted me to go with them to the dance.

When we got there Ralph went in and said there wasn’t anyone there much and suggested we go to Picture Butte about 12 mile away. I said I better not without asking my Mother. Well they promised to have me home before this dance was out and I agreed to go. If I had gone in and told Charles I was going it would have been okay, but I didn’t and Charles didn’t know I was there at all. Well we left the dance at Diamond City and went to Picture Butte. We left Picture Butte so I would be home in time, but we hit a bump and broke an axle in the car and had to walk home. It was about 5 am when I crawled in to bed.

Mother was awake and had been just frantic because when Charles came home he said I wasn’t at the dance and hadn’t seen anything of me. I just got nicely off to sleep when my Dad called and told me to get up. I said I was too sleepy, but he made me get up anyway. He said, “You kept your mother awake all night worrying about you, so you can let her sleep and you get breakfast.” Boy, I hated to get up.

I found out later Bob Walker couldn’t get his car started and that’s why he didn’t show up and he had no way to let me know.

Grandpa and Grandma Harker came to visit us in the summer of 1928. Grandma wasn’t too well and they were going to move off of their ranch at Hill Spring and wanted my dad to buy the ranch. He only had 50 acres at Diamond City and Grandpa’s ranch was 420 acres so he decided to by it. Grandma Harker died in January 1929.

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We moved in March in the spring of 1929. Dad chartered a freight car and he took the furniture in one end and the livestock in the other and he stayed with the animals in the train to feed and water them. Mother and we children went up by car with Armand Sabey. There were seven of us children besides Mother so it was quite a car full and they tied the suitcase on the fender of the car. We had to cross the river bridge and it was a real sharp turn and then we had to go up a hill. When we got part way up the hill, Mother noticed the suitcase was gone. Mother said she knew it was on when we went onto the bridge. A car passed us going the other way just after we started up the hill.

Mr. Sabey turned around and went back but the suitcase was no where to be seen. Dad’s best clothes were in it and his wallet was in the pocket with quite a bit of money in it. Soon we saw the car ahead of us that passed us at the bridge. Brother Sabey started tooting his horn but he didn’t stop until he sped up and passed him and signaled for him to stop. He had picked up the suit case alright and we had chased him about 6 or 8 miles before we caught up to him. Mother was sure thankful to get it back.

Dad was up town in Hill Spring to meet us with a team and democrate. It was a cold March day and the roads were so muddy and I thought it was a terrible place to move to. The house was only two rooms and we had to sleep on a cot in the kitchen.

That fall Dad built a basement under the house and I had to stay out of school to help turn the cement mixer. We did it all by a hand mixer. I was in grade 11 that year and missed quite a bit of school and I just couldn’t seem to get the math right. The teacher wasn’t very good at explaining it. He kept saying, “It’s in your text book. Read it.” I did read it many times but still had trouble and was very discouraged, so I applied to the Galt School of nursing to go in and train for a nurse. In December I received an answer and was accepted as a student of nursing. I had to go to Lethbridge on the train. It was a slow old freight train with a passenger car and it took all day.

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