How Did They Do It?

English...he could speak 8 different languages and could write in 3.

My goodness. I hope the diary goes on more!
Thanks.

It was common in Europe, where the countries are small, to
know your own native tongue as well as the languages of the countries that surrounded yours.

"At the livery stable, where we had put up the horses, we became acquainted with a man by the name of J.O. Varney who had come up from Iowa the year before with about 25 teams of horses together with a camp outfit and the necessary tools and equipment for grading work. He had been doing work under sub-contract grading the C.P.R. right-of-way between Brandon and Moose Jaw. After freeze up the previous fall he had left his horses to winter in the Qu'Appele Valley. Now in the spring he had returned from Iowa with about 15 more teams of horses. He made us an offer to join his outfit with our teams and he would give us as much of his sub-contract work as we could handle. We accepted his offer and shipped our horses along with his to Moose Jaw where we arrived just after the middle of April 1883. His first contract was grading some 2 miles near Swift Current. We started to do some 500 feet of this at 17 cents per cubic yard. At that rate we averaged a little over $13.00 per day per team. The troube, however, was that the sub-contractor only got about 1 1/2 miles of work to do at a time which would take about 3 weeks and then would have to move ahead about 100 miles to a new job. This meant much loss of time. Also in order to get supplies and feed for our horses we would have to go back to the end of the track-sometimes as much as 100 miles. These circumstances cut down our earnings greatly. For instance after we finished the contract east of Swift Current our nest job was west of Maple Creek, then on to Blackfoot Indian Reserve, about 40 miles east of Calgary and the last one just a few miles east of the present site of Banff, Alberta. From there on the construction consisted largely of rock work and we were not equiped for such work. We did, however, get jobs building so called "snow fences" through the hilly of rolling country between Swift Current and Caron. Some of these snow fences which we built can still be seen between Mortlach and Morse. They were built of earth piled about 4 or 5 feet high on or near the brow of the cuts wherever the the railroad cut through a hill or a knoll. We finished this work late in the fall of 1883. We then shipped our horses-by this time Billy and I had 2 more teams-back to Winnipeg.
After reaching Winnipeg a man by the name of Peter McArthur offered us a job to work our horses hauling saw-logs and ties in a camp he had near a lake called Ebb and Flow which lies between Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipegos-which is about 150 miles north and west of Winnipeg. We drove our teams to this place in very cold weather with a lot of snow and no road or stopping places or shelter for the last 80 miles of the way. However, we finally reached the camp and went to work. About the end of January Billy took sick and got worse from day to day. There was no doctor at the camp so after talking with the forman of the camp it was decided that he should be taken to a doctor and hospital. So we fixed up the sleigh with a box and using many blankets for Billy to lie on and for cover and started out for Winnipeg. I returned to the camp and worked there until the end of March when I took the horses to Portage la Prairie and put them in a livery stable there. Then I went to Winnipeg to see Billy. His illness had been Typhoid Fever but he had recovered and was almost his old self again.
We talked over our future plans and billy said he wanted to sel the horses and with his share start ranching near Maple Creek. So we went to Portage la Prairie and sold the horses and shortly after Billy left for the west."

"I then returned to Winnipeg where I found work with a contractor who was building a sewer on Water Street. Later I took a job with a man who was repairing and putting on new roofs. After working for him about a week he put me in charge of a gang of men. Whenever one or more of the gang quit it was up to me to find a replacement. Men were very scarce at the time and I often went to the Immigration Hall in the evenings looking for men. It was here that I met a man by the name of ****** who had just arrived. He was a man about 35 years of age, of medium size but he did not look robust enough to do a good days work and after a few days he had to quit. He told me that he was a married man with one child and that before coming to this country had been working in a dye works in Liverpool, England. About a week after quiting my gang he came and told me that he had looked the city over pretty thoroughly and found there was no dyeing and cleaning business established in the city. He felt that there was a great opening for such a business in Winnipeg. After a number of talks along these lines and
on being shown that an investment of only $800.00 was required to purchase the necessary equipment I finally agreed to furnish the money and go into partnership with him.We rented a store building or rather the lower floor of a frame building at *** Main Street South from a man by the name of Maxwell at $40.00 per month and opened up for business under the name of ****** *** *****. It looked, from the beginning that the business would prosper but ***** turned out to be lazy, extravegant and dishonest. Due to his laziness I was forced to do most of the work and by watching him closely I learned enough to carry on and care for the business. Later he tried in different ways to make me quit and get out but I stayed on. After a year and a half, Mr. Maxwell, the landlord, told me that we owed him nearly $300.00 for the rent and he thought it would be best for him to put the Bailiff in and close us out. He said that he had watched us closelywhich he was able to do as he lived in rooms over our store and he could see who was to blame for the situation. Finally he asked me if, in the event of a Bailliff's sale, I would get anyone to buy the equipment for me. A it happened my brother Ernest came to Winnipeg while the business was under seizure-he had gone west to British Columbia, Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane-and it was arranged for him to bid on the business for me at the sale which he did.So I was rid of ****** and Mr. Maxwell was so pleased that he reduced the rent from $40.00
to $35.00. After the sale I reopened the business and carried on. Soon ***** opened up just across the street from me but he did not last very long. From then on I paid the rent and all accounts promptly and had some balance left over. One Sunday during the winter of 1884 I was visiting an acquaintance and there met a young man by the name of Herman Wenzel who invited me to visit his home. There I met his father, mother and sister Wilhemina. I may say that for me it was love at first sight for Wilhemina and
thereafter, I was a very frequent visitor at the Wenzel home. We finally became engaged and were married in October, 1885. We carried on the business together and prospered in a moderate way."

This message was edited Jan 17, 2004 12:27 AM

Lilypon, this is fascinating. Please keep the story going when you can.
Bill

Wow, what a range of things your great-grandfather did, what a wealth of experience he must have had. Did you ever meet him, Lilypon?

No...he died in 1954 five years before I was born. Will keep entering his story but I am back to work tomorrow and
am a little over half way.

edited because his son, Henry (my grandfather) died in 1952

This message was edited Jan 16, 2004 9:13 PM

"In 1888, my brother, Ernest, had a postion with the C.P.R. Land Department as a settler's guide. Both the Dominion Government and the Railway Company were making great efforts to induce people, mostly from central Europe, to come to Canada and the C.P.R. decided t make an experiment in organizing a settlement of some of these people in the district south of Irvine and Dunmore, north of the Cypress Hills. They placed some 300 families on land in that locality during 1888 and 1889. The settlement was called Josephburg. My brother thought there would be a good oportunity for someone to go into that setlement and open a store. After some consideration, your mother and I decided
to undertake that move and so in the fall of 1889 we disposed of the dye works and moved to Josephburg.
At Josephburg we took up some land near the centre of the setlement and started to put up a building large enough to give us living quarters and also room for the store. The building was constructed by cutting down fir trees, having the logs cut and squared and then built into a building 40 feet square and one and a half stories high. When completed we moved in and opened the store for business. In Winnipeg I had bought a large stock of groceries, dry goods, hardware and a car load of flour. Some of the settlers seemed to have some money and could pay for what they bought but a large number of them soon had spent theirs and since they had not had time to put in any crop except a little garden stuff, they turned to anything to earn something. Some of the men went to Dunmore to work at transferring coal from the narrow gauge rail cars coming from the Galt Coal mines to the standard guage cars of the C.P.R. Others, men, women and children went out picking up Buffalo bones after I had found a market for such bones by shipping them to Minneapolis. Altogether I shipped more than 80 car loads at $80.00 per ton but by the fall of 1889 the bones were pretty well all picked up for many miles throughout the district, and on account of the very dry summer there was almost total crop failure that year. Again in 1890 the crops failed, so that everyone became very much discouraged and disheartened."

"Finally some of the leaders among the settlers suggested a
meeting be held to consider what should be done. This meeting was held in our store and it was decided to ask the C.P.R. to give transportation to a number of delegates so that they could go and look for a mroe favourable location. The Railway agreed to grant passes to 10 delegates so that they could go and look for a more favourable location. It was then decided that 5 delegates should go eastwards and the other 5 to go west. I was the leader of the latter group. Both groups left at the same time but as the railway from Calgary had only been graded to Red Deer we had to walk most of the way so it took us at least a week looking at the country between Red Deer and Edmonton. On reaching Edmonton we went to the Dominion Land Office and inquired for a tract of land which was open for homesteading. We found out that there was a large tract of land open in what was called the Horsehill District which commenced avout 5 miles north of Edmonton and extended to Sturgeon River about 20 miles further north. The soil appeared good and the land fairly level with a very good growth of grass. While in town we met a man by the name of Frank Oliver (afterwards Minister of the Interior in the Federal Government) who was interested in seeing the country settled and with his assistance we gained the consent of the Dominion Government Land Agent to close that district to entries until spring. We then left for home and after arriving back at Dunmore started to walk to 20 odd miles to the setlement. When we had gone about 6 miles of the way we met a long line of wagons coming towards us. When we met up with this procession we found that the same consisted of about 1/3 of the settlers and that they were on their way east to a district across
the Qu'Appelle Valley lying north of Wolsely and Grenfell, in which district they eventually founded wuch towns as Lemberg and Newdorf. They explaineda that the delegates who had inspected the district had liked it very much and made such a favourable report that many of the settlers decided to make the move there before winter set in and without waiting for the return of our delegation. The rest of us decided to wait until spring."

This message was edited Jan 15, 2004 8:59 PM

"Early nest spring all but two or three families moved to Dunmore and loaded their belongings into rail cars for Calgary. I went along with them alone. After reaching Edmonton only a part of those making the trip decided to take up land in the district we had selected the fall before. The reason for this was that a number of real estate agents got among them with glowing stories about other localities, the upshot of which was that 10 families went to a district called Stoney Plain about 20 miles from town, while others went to the Rapid Hill district and others to Fort Saskatchewan. As a result I became disgusted and returned home. We then decided to move what stock we had in the store to Dunmore and sell it there. The building I sold to a man who moved it to Dunmore.
I than bought a place with pretty good buildings near a little lake only about 6 miles from town. Before and after the settlement broke up I made several trips to the Mennonite Reserve South of Winnipeg where I bought a car load of cattle each time. I could buy young cows and heifers at from $4.00 to $7.00 per head. Some of these I soldto settlers and ranchers in the neighborhood and the rest I kept so that by the fall of 1892 we had 130 head of cattle and over 20 head of horses. I might say that while we had the store in the settlement I was appointed Postmaster with the office in the store and also carried the mail to Dunmore once a week. I was also appointed Justice of the Peace. While on one of my trips carrying the mail to Dunmore the man who kept a small hotel there introduced me to a stranger that had arrived a day or two before. This man, by the name of Tinney, told me that he had come from Mariposa near Orillia, Ontario, and that he had asthma so bad that the doctors had advised him to seek a change of climate and that the district around Medicine Hat might be good for him. He then asked me to take him out to our place for a few days. I agreed to this so he came back home with me. After staying a week or so and riding around with me checking our cattle he felt so much better that he was sure that this was the place for him to live and before leaving he wanted to know if we would sell out.
Mother and I talked the matter over for some time but finally came to the conclussion that, since our children,
Henry and Minnie, would soon be needing schooling which they could not get there, we should sell and we told the man that we would be willing to do so. We then made a tentative deal with him according ro which he would buy the quarter section with the buildings on it and all the cattle.
He said that before closing the deal he would like to use up the rest of his ticket and go on to Calgary. We told him this was alright with us and that if he found a place he liked better than ours we would not hold him to the bargain. In about a week's time he came back and told us that he had not looked very much because his ailment had gotten worse again and that he had decided to complete the deal for our place. So it was agreed that he would come and take possession on April 1st, 1893 and pay an agreed upon amount for the cattle and the land but he did not want any horses other than 2 saddle horses and a team. He then paid us $500.00 as a deposit and left."

Should I continue???? Anybody still interested????

Thank you for all the time, and effort you have made, to give this real life story to us, Lilypon.
It is very interesting.

I'm interested!~ Carry on!~

What happened next!?

Yes, please do. These are awesome. Such an interesting part of history.

Yes..please carry on..I know it must be time consuming, having to type it all but it is really good reading.
Thanks
Carol

oh good :)...after awhile I'm not sure if people are still interested...
"Just here I may say that we had an unusual experience with our cattle. In the spring of 1892 we had more that the usual amount of rain and as a result of which there was a heavy growth of grass and the cattle soon got fat. While riding over the range on day at the end of June,, I found 2 nice 2 year old steers dead and a few days later I found another one. I reported this to the Mounted Police at Maple Creek and their veterninarian came to our place to inspect both the dead cattle and the live ones. He told us that the cattle had died of blackleg and that the only remedy was to drive the cattle to some place like the sand hills where the pasture would be much poorer, but we had no way of doing this. We afterwards lost one more animal when,
on account of lack of rain the pasture soon began to dry up. Then in the fall a great prairie fire swept through the district. Your mother went out with me to fight the fire all afternoon and late into the night in an effort to save as much of the pasture as possible for our cattle. The next day while riding out to check up on the cattle and to see how much pasture was left, I found that 4 head had been caught in a dry slough which had been covered by long grass and had burned to death. The winter of 1892 was an unusually long and savage one with none of the usual chinooks and the cattle could not go out to foragein the part of the pasture that the fire had left us. But even if we had had plenty of pasture the cattle could not have reached it on account of the great depth of heavily encrusted snow. The condition was so bad that even the antelopes came to the valley between Maple Creek and Medicine Hat by the thousands to feed among the horses which could not get down to the grass by pawing. Many of the cowboys road amongst them and shot hundreds in order to save the pasture for the horses. While out riding one day I came across a buck which I caught and took home with me.
We did not have enough hay on hand to feed our cattle as much as they should have been fed with the result that 3 of our cattle died. Later in the spring we lost another 3 head of cattle by drowning in a creek which ran about a mile and a half back of our house. This creek was usually dry most of the year but when the heavy snow melted it became a regular torrent. So our experience during the ten months from June, 1892 and April, 1893, showed a loss of cattle because they were too fat in the summer, by fire in the fall, by shortage of feed in the winter and by drowning in the spring."

Still interested. I am going to have to keep saving the page though so I can read it at my leisure.
My husband thinks it is great also.

I'm relieved to hear that... :) you start feeling lonely when you just see your own posts ;) 1/2 way through page 24 out of 30...he concludes his story in 1929.

Lilypon, this is very interesting. I haven't posted because I am too busy just reading what he wrote. Thank you for all the time it is taking to type this for all of us. Lani

Me too - this is amazing to read - thank you !!

This is just fascinating! thank you for sharing it with us! I am anxious for the next chapter! Doris

Gosh, what they went through with that year with their cattle is mind-boggling. Sickness, fire, flood...That's something.

I've not caught up with all my watched DG threads until just now - I was saving the best (yours!) for last. It's so fun to get them in serial form. You're keeping us waiting on our tippytoes!

By the way, do you have any photos of your great-grandfather and his family you could upload?

Thank you for the nice compliments...I always thought it was a fascinating read...
"Mr. Tinney arrived in April as we had previously arranged so I rounded up the remained of our cattle and after counting them he paid for them at the rate agreed upon and also for the land. We still had 18 horses left after the sale. Between the time we made the deal for the cattle and the pace and the time we turned them over to the buyer we tried to make plans for our future but nothing definite resulted. As there was no demand for horses in that part of the country we decided to ship ours to the Mennonite Reserve in Manitoba hoping to seel them there. After disposing of the odds and ends we still had left it was decided that Mother and the children should stay at Dunmore untilI had reached my destination with the horses. We loaded the horses into a railroad car and I left with them along with August, a younger brother of mothers. Owing to some train trouble on the way it took much longer to reach Moose Jaw than it should have so it was necessary for us to unload the horses there and feed and water them. Here we found that one of the horses had foaled and 2 others were about to do so. After unloading the horses and feeding and water them, August and I went up town for something to eat. We happened to drop into the Brunswick Hotel which was
owned by ***** *********. After we came out of the dining room this man asked us about ourselves, where we had come from and where we were going. I rold him and then left for a walk to see the town. It seems that while we were gone ********* went to the stockyards and looked over the horses because that evening he came to me and asked me if I would buy his hotel with hime taking the horses as partial payment. I told him I would have to think the proposition over.
The next day I went to see a merchant by the name of T.W.Robinson whom I knew to have an interest with a brother-in-law by the name of Arthur Trent in a ranch some 15 miles from our old place. I asked Mr. Robinson about the Brunswick Hotel and told him that ************* had offered me a deal for it. He told me that the place was very much run down and that it needed improvements but he thought if these were made and the hotel properly conducted a person would do alright with it. He then introduced me to a Mr. Hamilton, who later became his partner in the store and one of his clerks who happened to be an Odd Fellow to which lodge I also belonged and through him I met a number of others. They all told me about the same as Mr. Robinson about the hotel. ************ introduced me to a man by the name of Mac Annable who who had a livery stable and he invited me to go for a ride out into the country. We went up towards Tuxford, as far north as the present site of Belbeck and around that district for a few miles. The country around there looked pretty good to me. After we got back *********** told me that he would sell the hotel to me, with the contents, except for a few personal articles, for $3,500.00 and would take the horses on account at a valuation to be agreed upon. We went to the stockyards with Mac. Annable and finally agreed on a value of $1100.00. I then told ********** that I could not close any deal without giving Mother a chance to see the place and the town and said that I would go back to Dunmore and bring here and the children to Moose Jaw."

I always liked cliffhangers ;~)....but really I have two teenagers and they too have to have their turn on the net...I'm in their bad books right now.



This message was edited Jan 17, 2004 12:45 AM

We have some pictures (somewhere) will look for them....

Oh, good!

Lilypon, I am reading this and loving it! Haven't finished but oh my this is interesting. What a great diary.

Wonderful reading, lilypon. I read some places I know well. Orillia and Muskoka, right close to where I grew up! My uncle has been with the OPP based in Orillia the past 30 yrs. The reason I never read books in periodicals where one chapter is published every week is because I am too impatient and it drives me nuts! to have to wait for the next installment. You're doin' it to me girl! But seriously, this is a wonderful diary and keepsake of your family to have. I think we all are jealous we don't have something like it! Fascinating stuff!

Excellent! I'm hanging on to the cliff!

Thanks so much for posting this! I will anxiously await the next installment! Love history!

I'm hanging on with Shoe.

lilypon, thank-you so much. i am looking forward to more. also the pictures!!! this is so interesting

Uh...Yardbird, that's my ticklish spot! You might wanna move one of your hands!

YARDBIRD!!! Behave yourself! (I'm shy, ya know...).

"When we had returned and Mother had seen the place and the town we talked the matter of the deal over and finally decided to try it. While I was away to get Mother and the children from Dunmore August stayed to look after the horses. He was staying at the hotel and ********** kept telling him about how good the business was at the hotel. One day he told August that he had to go to the bank and the stores and he asked August to look after the bar for him while he was away. ************ stayed away for a long time and left again so that August tended bar for the better part of two days. Business seemed to be pretty good and when we got to Moose Jaw, August told us how well the business had been. I learned later that ******** had distributed money amongst his friends for them to come and spend at the bar."

hope you're doing ok there shoe :)

"We completed the deal for the hotel about the middle of May and took possession on the 20th of that month. A few days later we learned that *********'s application for the renewal of his liquor license had been refused and that I would have to make an application for a license in my own name. There were two reasons for the refusal of ********'s
application, one, being the poor state of repair of the building and the other, his own personal conduct. In order to get our license we had to lay new flooring on the ground floor and replace all the partitions upstairs. These were single V joint boards with many holes cut in them so you could see from one room to another. We had them replaced with lathe and plaster and of course this meant we had to do
alot of painting. We then found out that because our application had not been made by the first of April, the same could not be considered by the Board of License Inspectors until July 20th. This meant that we would not be able to sell anything over the bar in the meantime. On account of insufficient moisture in 1892, 93, 94, and 95, crops in the district were very poor and with prices for grain very low our business was also very poor during those lean years. On many days our receipts over the bar amounted to only 2 or 3 dollars. We managed to get on only because Mother worked so hard, cooking all the meals with one girl serving them. We charged 25 cents for single meals, $4.50 for a meal ticket good for 21 meals or $20.00 per month for both room and board. In 1896 conditions began to improve and due to Mother's good cooking, management and the plentiful meals she served she built up a fine reputations for our place, so that our business also improved with the better conditions."

"in 1898 we felt that we should have a better place and considered buying a site for a new hotel. We had 2 sites in view, one consisting of 4 vacant lots on the site of the present Churchill Hotel (formerly the Maple Leaf) and the other also comprising 4 lots on the site of the present Christie Grant store. Both of these sites were offered us for $1,200.00 and we finally decided on the former. We then had plans prepared for the building by an architect in Regina and in 1899 started to build and to finish it."

more please!

Great reading! It brings back memories of younger days.
Growing up in northern Minnesota, we had some cold winter experiences. I just found this thread, read it all from start to finish.
My Son-Law has been making trips from here,(Southern Minnesota), last week & more this next week, to Milred,
(not sure of spelling) Saskatsewan. They are hauling breeding gilts from there back here. They go through Moose Jaw on their way. Haven't had a chance to talk to him about the trips. Takes 48 hours to make the round trip.
Keep on posting this is very interesting!
Bernie

I will...did enough typing at work today so will prob. continue tomorrow.

Thanks, lilypon. It's great reading!

CountryGardens - that'd be Saskatchewan. Gotta get that 'chew' in there. :)

:~D It's hard enough to pronounciate never mind spell...
when we cross the border we noticed people at Yellowstone studying our license plate and then trying to say it...they had a tough time of it.

Hope your son missed the rain we had...the streets and sidewalks are like a skating rink and the semi's were pulling off the highway in droves.

This message was edited Jan 17, 2004 9:31 PM