My father was born on the farm north of Oak Lake on October 16, 1893 and was named Robert Cecil Smith, third child of Robert Klock and Margaret Maria Smith. Errol Klock Smith and Melville Frederick Smith preceded him. There were four to follow \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Grace, twins Walter and Ralph, and Muriel.<\/p>\n
Dad took his grade 9 in Griswold, perhaps a year or two of high school and later attended business school in Brandon for a short period. But he farmed nearly all of his life, buying our half section (S1\u00e2\u0081\u201e2 19-10-23) from a John Knevitt in 1920 or 1921. Why Dad was not in WW1, I never knew. He was 21 when the war started. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153RK\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had good political connections (Liberal) and maybe two sons in the war (Errol and Melville) was deemed to be enough. Dad worked hard on our farm for over 35 years, right through the Depression of the 1930s, but when my brother Lyman took over the farm, Dad was employed by the Federal Government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Farm Credit Corporation and later the Manitoba Ag. Credit Corporation. He also worked for the Province\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Assessment Branch, arranging suitable compensation for farmers who, for example, had land expropriated for various public works like the town of Carman floodway bypass and the Shellmouth Dam on the Assiniboine River in Western Manitoba. His younger, university-trained colleagues were impressed with his ability to get a fair deal for both the farmer and the government. He was really good at all these jobs and probably would have been better at that, than at farming.<\/p>\n
One anecdote from my teen age years tells a lot about Dad. One summer weekend my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153town\u00e2\u20ac\u009d friend, Albert Chass\u00c3\u00a9, who was one grade behind me in high school, came out to the farm for the weekend. It was summer and our work horses were stabled out of the hot sun. Albert thought it would be fun to throw stones through the open barn door to hit the horses and scare them. So we did, and the horses jumped forward when hit \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they were not hurt, just startled. In the middle of this stupid routine, I felt something hit me gently on the back. I turned around in time to see my Dad walking away after having tossed pebbles to hit both Albert and I. I was mortified. Dad had taught me a lesson I would never forget and he did it without saying a word.<\/p>\n
Dad and Mother, after farming, lived in Winnipeg briefly, then in a small house in Brandon before going into Hobbs Manor, a seniors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 residence. Mother died in 1983: Dad in 1985.<\/p>\n
Marion Agnes Smith was born on January 16, 1899, the third daughter (after Annie and Norah) of Alex Smith and Blanche Bannister. She worked in a Griswold (east of Oak Lake) drugstore and taught briefly at a one room school west of Souris, Manitoba. I know little about their courtship, but knowing Dad it was probably not particularly flamboyant. Dad did speak once about returning from Griswold on a wintery Sunday night. He apparently would take the driver (a light fast horse) and the cutter (a small 2 person sleigh) and drive out to south of Oak Lake, where Mother lived, stay for supper and drive her to her Griswold boarding place. Driving back to the home farm through the Sioux Valley Indian Reserve, he recalled seeing a teepee with the flap partly open and a fire burning inside. Now this was no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153display\u00e2\u20ac\u009d teepee at a summer fair or exhibition \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this was the real thing. Mother and Dad married in 1922.<\/p>\n
There was another \u00e2\u20ac\u0153First Nation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d connection \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this time with my Mother. When we lived on the farm, the Sioux Valley Reserve was only 3 miles away. Still, like many rural Canadians who lived adjacent to these reserves, we knew few of their residents and less about their way of life. Mrs. Pratt was a native woman who wove beautiful willow baskets and sold them around the area. She became my Mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good friend and when Mother could afford it, she bought \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for $2 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one of Mrs. Pratt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s baskets. Mrs. Pratt outlived my Mother and even into her 90s played the organ in the Sioux Valley Anglican Church. I have always wondered if, as a small child, Mrs. Pratt could have sat around a campfire on the reserve \u00e2\u20ac\u201c perhaps in a teepee \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and listened to elders who would have spoken about the Minnesota massacre of 1862. The Indian people in the Griswold area reserve were remnants of the Sioux people who fled north after the massacre. Because she knew mother so well, it is likely Mrs. Pratt would have felt comfortable speaking to me. Perhaps \u00e2\u20ac\u201c maybe not, but unfortunately I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never know.<\/p>\n
Somewhere I have an original letter from the University of Manitoba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Faculty of Pharmacy, sent to Mother in 1919, accepting her into Pharmacy with her excellent high school marks. I can only guess that Grandpa \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Alex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d probably said \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in his broad Scottish brogue: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No daughter of mine is going to University!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and nixed the deal. Or maybe it was lack of funds. How different her life would have been. Instead she married within a couple of years and worked so hard for so many years to keep things going on our little farm, enduring hardships today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s women can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even imagine. She was musical and loved to dance but Dad was from a strict family (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whistle on a Sunday if you must, but it must be a hymn!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), so Mother didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to dance very often.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too bad that the seniors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 place \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Hobbs Manor \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in Brandon wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t finished when Mother and Dad were ready and needed to go into such a facility. They finally did move in, but after a year or so Mother started to experience the early stages of dementia. She died in 1983, at age 84, of a heart attack. Dad lived on for about a year and a half, enjoyed Meals-on-Wheels and regular visits from high school attending grandchildren (ours), but broke a hip in 1985 and passed away in Brandon General Hospital at age 91.<\/p>\n
I was fortunate to have had such loving, caring parents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mother and Dad My father was born on the farm north of Oak Lake on October 16, 1893 and was named Robert Cecil Smith, third child of Robert Klock and Margaret Maria Smith. Errol Klock Smith and Melville Frederick Smith … Continue reading