By Jeanne Bacigalupo and John Walker

Valentine's Parents

Val's mother, Theresia Reindl, was born in Bavaria, Germany and was the youngest of seven children. Their parents died due to a throat disease when Theresia was two years old. An administrator took care of the family finances until the children were of age. Theresia had four brothers, three were Catholic priests: John, Joseph and Bamabas. The fourth brother stayed on the farm in Bavaria. John and Joseph came to Wisconsin, U.S.A., John settled in Schleisingerville and later in South Oshkosh. He remained in the same parish for twenty-three years, until his death of heart attack in 1890 or 1891. Joseph first settled in Barton, north-east of Schleisingerville and later travelled to China as a missionary. He was there two years when he died from sunstroke. Bamabas remained in Bavaria until his death in 1890 or 91.

Theresia came to Schleisingerville, Wisconsin, U.S.A. and worked for people who kept a general store until she married John Redig Aug. 3, 1859. He was a widower whose wife died giving birth. The family lived in a little two

story stone house in a town called Oshkosh. Theresa was eight years old and Philp was a baby when John and Theresia were married. John was drafted into the Civil War and a tintype picture had been taken of him then. There are no pictures of Theresia.

John and Theresa had 8 children. According to an 1870 census of Wisconsin, town of Schleisingerville, there was a John Redig age 48, a farmer born at Hesse, Darmstadt, and a Theresa (in her letter, Catherine spelled the name T'heresia) age 36 years old, born in Bavaria. Living at their home was: Theresa, age 19, Philip age 11, Mary, age 9, Joseph, age 8, Frederick, age 6, Anna age 4, and Elizabeth age, one year. Valentine, Margret and Catherine were born after these. Valentine was born in 1871, Margret in 1875 and Catherinein 1878. Theresia died in 1878 when she was about forty-four years old. Valentine was then seven years old and Catherine was three months old. Margret died eighteen months before Catherine was born.

In later years, John let his beard grow long; Catherine said in her letter to Ethel Redig Northgraves: "He did not have time to shave. He worked pretty hard in his last years up to about six months before he passed away, Dec. 21, 1898". Granddad Redig and I were always alone over winter months from beginning of November to about the middle of April to take care of horses, cows, pigs, geese, and chickens."   

Maude's Parents

Maude and Valentine

Valentine Redig left his home in Oshkosh Wisconsin when he was seventeen years old, to work in a creamery in Lyons

Nebraska. He boarded with a family called the Darlings; this is where he met Maude Kent who later became his wife. Maude was a niece to Mrs. Darling (Granddad Kent’s sister, Maria). Growing up, Maude worked hard at home sewing, cooking and cleaning to help with the large family. It was probably a vacation for her to visit her ‘Aunt Darling’, as they called her busy in the Creamery and could not get away. He was twenty-six years old and she was an attractive lady of twenty-nine years.  Valentine was a tall and handsome man who boarded at the Darling's. Valentine and Maude were to be married Feb. 27, 1897 but Valentine was simply too busy.

Valentine and Maude were married at the residence of L. L. Darling in Lyons, Nebraska on March 4, 1897. Rev. John Watson, an Episcopal minister of Omaha, officiated.

More than 70 guests assembled at the residence of L. L. Darling last Saturday evening to witness the marriage ceremony. The bridal pair stood directly under a large arch from which were suspended beautiful wedding bells. Miss Agnes Smith was the bridesmaid and Emory Clement groomsman. The audience was so large that it was impossible to seat them all at one table so the

elegant supper was served on small tables which was one of the best and most sumptuous ever given at any wedding in Lyons Nebraska.

The groom is a young man of sterling qualities and good habits and at present is manager of the Lyons Creamery.

The bride is a niece of L. L. Darling and is a very accomplished lady and highly spoken of by all her acquaintances.

The Lyons Mirror joins with the many friends in wishing them many pleasant years of wedded life.

So happy were all present and so pleasantly did they enjoy themselves that they did not notice that the clock had been turned backwards, causing them to remain longer than was customary. They received a large number of elegant, valuable and useful presents. The young couple lived with the Darlings for awhile until they were able to move into their own home.

The couple's first child, Florence Ilene, was born March 4, 1898. Valentine's father, John Redig, passed away Dec. 21, 1898. When Florence was fourteen months old, Valentine and Maude moved to Lacombe, Alberta in May 1899. Maude and her baby travelled on the Settlers' train, which had a wood burning stove to help warm the passengers. The Darlings had moved to Lacombe a year or so earlier and the young couple once again resided with them, this time, for six months, until they could move into their small log house. Maude's parents moved to the Lacombe area a few years later bringing the children that were still living at home, Ethel Kent Thomson was almost nine years old. "In the late winter before I was nine, I had rheumatism, and in April, three brothers, Art, Alf, and Dim, my sister Gertie and Mother and Daddy and I started by train for Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. When we got there Mother and Father decided that was not the place for us and we went on via train to Lacombe Alberta, where Aunt Maria was then living. We lived with them until Father got some land, six miles South East of Lacombe. Since a house had to be built, all hands helped to get the logs." (From Ethel's notes.) Jessie and Nellie (older sisters) were married and stayed in Illinois.

Valentine and Maude paid five hundred dollars for their farm. He brought with him from Nebraska, some farm equipment, three or four cows and a few horses. Unfortunately, a horse and a cow died, which was a costly setback, as they had to be replaced. Valentine went to work on a road-building project to pay the taxes on the property. They lived in the small log house for seven years before they were able to have their larger home built about 1909. During this time, their family had grown. Jessie Mayo was born April 5, 1901, Helen Maude Valentine, Dec. 5, 1903 and Ethel Elgerta, March 7, 1906. Another baby girl was born at eight months but Maude haemorrhaged and the baby lost its blood and died. The doctor stayed all night and put brandy on Maude's pulse and had her sip some. It was a long time before she regained her strength. Their youngest daughter, Maudie Lucille, was born July 28, 1910, after the move into the new home.

At over ninety-one years of age, Helen could remember distinctly some things that happened when she was about three years old. She remembered liking very much to help milk the cows. She stripped and stripped away into a little tin cup and did get some milk. She remembered Aunt Gertie, her mother's sister helping with the milking and that the cows were not tied but stood still while being milked. She also remembered when they made the move into the new house that she and her younger sister, Ethel Redig Northgraves, who was about twenty months old, wanted to help. They asked what could they carry. Ethel was given a stick to carry, but she often returned to the little house and banged away at the door for someone to open and let her in. Helen was given an oven scraper to carry into the new house.

Florence, Helen, Ethel, Maude and Jessie Redig - about 1912

The new house had three bedrooms upstairs, each with a large closet. Downstairs, there was a large kitchen and a pantry, a parlour a living room and a large bedroom. Later, Valentine had the house lifted and a basement built underneath. There was a large carpet with huge pink roses on a cream colour background. Helen remembered her Aunt Gertie spreading damp tea leaves on the carpets before she swept. Much later, the carpet was replaced with linoleum. There were no inside bathrooms, no electricity or running water. Their well was about a block away from the house and Valentine carried the water in two buckets, one in each hand, and kept the house supplied. It was a good well, the water was hard at first but when they went deeper, they had soft water. Sometimes, the girls helped. Helen mentioned in a telephone call that She and Ethel carried buckets of snow one after the other to fill the boiler on the stove with water for their Saturday evening bath. The metal tub, probably round, with two handles, was placed in the kitchen near the open oven door; the smallest

child had her bath first, continuing on to the oldest, using the same water. Florence didn't leave home until she was nineteen years old.

A tall Poplar tree grew on each of two sides of the house and an evergreen tree was outside the bedroom window. Maude planted a row of Manitoba Maples nearby and Valentine built a bench to sit upon and hung a swing for their girls.

Valentine was a large boned, lean man, close to six feet tall. He was generous and kind with a great sense of humour. Valentine was also industrious, frugal and orderly. He kept the ashes cleaned out from the three wood burning stoves, basement, kitchen and front room. There was always a supply of chopped wood and kindling; the stoves were lit in the morning before the rest of the family was up. Before winter came, each year, he took his team and wagon east of the town and cut by hand the trees he needed for firewood. He got the wood for his labour taking out the stumps, which helped clear the land. After hauling the wood home, he borrowed a gasoline engine from a neighbour and cut the logs which he later had to stack and split. He had no sons to help him.

During the haying season, Valentine arose at five o'clock in the morning to milk the cows. Soon he was in the field stooking the hay, sometimes until one O'clock in the morning. Helen and Jessie helped with the stooking when they were old enough. Before he was married, Valentine was a butter maker and had obtained a steam engineer certificate. This enabled him to be a steam engineer for threshing crews and he did this into October. He travelled south quite a way with the threshing crew. When the threshers were at their place, Maude had twelve extra people to feed three meals. When Valentine was away, Maude's sister, Gertie stayed with her and helped milk the cows.

In the wintertime, when the girls were small, Valentine drove them to school with the horse and bobsled, picking up neighbour children along the way. When they were older and could drive the horse themselves, Valentine had the horse hitched to the buggy, ready to go every morning. In the wintertime, he tucked them in with heated, wrapped bricks, giving them a warn send off.

Maude was an excellent seamstress and made most all the clothing for the five girls. She also tended a large garden with the girls helping sometimes. They had a large potato garden and stored them and other root vegetables in the basement during the winter. They had potatoes for most meals and Helen said she has peeled potatoes almost everyday of her life as that was her job after school, to peel the potatoes for their evening meal. There was a section of land next to theirs that had nothing but wild berries growing on it which were free for the picking. Maude canned many dozens of jars of raspberries and blue berries for their winter fruit. She also canned rhubarb with pineapple or other fruit to help sweeten it.

Many sheep grazed the rolling pasture-land of their farm and often a lamb greeted the girls as they came home from school, loving to play with them and chase around and around outside the house. Valentine sheared the sheep and stored the wool until the price was right. He raised mink and sold their pelts. Also, he raised, plucked and cleaned chickens, which he sold, ready for the oven. The family always had a good supply of fresh eggs. From their cows' milk the family was able to get enough cream and butter for their own use and some to sell. With a wooden box-like form, he moulded into pounds the butter, which his girls had churned and took it off to market. To make the work easier for Maude, Valentine bought a hand operated bread mixer and often the girls turned it for her, as she was a very small and slight woman. Valentine was a very tidy man, everything had to be in its place. The girls had to make sure that everything they used was put back where they had found it. Helen said that there was never a stick out of place. He was a kind loving father, but a strict disciplinarian, very insistent on good behaviour at the dinner table.

Ethel and Helen were constant companions. When they were about eight and eleven years old, during the summer Helen said that they would sometimes have a little nap. Then they would go into the garden and dig up a carrot each, wash it in the horses' water-trough, pick a large rhubarb leaf each which they used as sun parasols and walk up the lane toward the road visiting with each other all along the way. In the wintertime, they loved to find an unmarked space of snow and make a fox and goose ring. They were always together and usually chattering and laughing (much as they did in later years)

As all the girls grew older, they helped with the work. In the summer time, when their father worked in the fields, Jessie and Helen usually milked two or three cows and separated the cream from the milk each day before school. In

addition, they took a few turns each, making one hundred pumps at the water pump so the animals could drink. They made their own lunches and did the breakfast dishes.

As far back as she can remember, she said that her mother let her stay with her grandmother and grandfather Kent for three or four days at a time. They lived in a little cottage; her grandfather had red hair and moustache red whiskers and a beard that came down three or four inches. Some evenings, friends came to visit and they were served refreshments. I got my first piece of cheese there and it tasted so good. I think it was made differently then. I don't know whether we couldn't afford it or if Mom didn't make it. Anyway, the next time I remember having cheese was when we were picking blueberries, way out East of Lacombe, and Mom put cheese and bread and butter in sandwiches, a big slab of cheese and we thought we were in heaven. While at Grandma Kent's home, I would go out doors and look for four-leaf clovers; there were all kinds of them. I amused myself looking for them and I took them into Grandma to show her. I remember my Aunt Mable (Aunt Gertie's husband's sister) having her first baby there. (There were two families, brother sister married sister brother; Mable married Uncle Dim) When I was about seven years old, Grandma Kent was still cooking in the kitchen and able to get around well. They came out to our place on the farm every Sunday. Dad would go in and get them with horses and buggy or sled and then take them back again, about one and a half miles each way. Dad got his first car when I was about seventeen years old. Grandpa Kent had a paint and paper store. He gave us a nickel for candy when we went there. One day I went in and he didn’t give us

any. I decided to ask for it, but got a lecture on not asking for things.

Helen was eight years old in Oct. 1912 when Grandpa Kent died at the age of sixty three, in his home. She said that she remembered seeing him in his coffin in her family's home in Lacombe, and that he had been a Mason. In one of the pictures of the whole family, he is wearing the Mason's emblem on a chain attached to his vest or waistcoat. He had owned the paint and paper store in Lacombe and it had the A.W. Kent name on the storefront. As a young child, Florence started school in the room above the store; there was no other school there for her to attend. That must have been 1904 or 1905 as she was born in 1898 (Helen’s letter 5/29/93). Ethel was about five years old at the time of her Grandpa Kent's death. When Eliza Ann West Kent died in the Redig home, at the age of seventy-one years, Ethel was in grade nine and Helen was seventeen years old. Both Eliza and Arthur are buried in Lacombe,

Alberta, Canada. They had belonged to the Church of England.

Helen remembered Aunt Mary and Aunt Katie, Valentine's sisters from Wisconsin coming to visit them. Aunt Mary was about seventeen years older than Katie was and both were rather stout, large women. In addition, a brother, of Valentine's, Fred, who lived in California, and had never married, occasionally came to visit them. (See his picture sitting on the doorstep of the Redig house with the Redig girls with him.)

Years of Change

Nineteen thirty was an especially busy year for Maude and Valentine. Three weddings were held in their home. Ethel and Arthur Northgraves, March 2, Helen and Frank Richter, June 21 and Jessie and Ken Walker, July 15. A minister of the High English Church married all the couples. The next year three new grandchildren were born. Florence had been married for eleven years and contributed the first grandchildren.

The years went by; and there were more grandchildren. Once again children's voices were heard in the big house as they came with their parents to visit Valentine and Maude, now growing a little older. Helen spent a year with her parents after her first baby Sanda was born because her husband was building a larger home for them in the Kootenay area of B.C. She was able to make other visits occasionally.

Ethel travelled the hundred miles from Gadsby with husband Art and four children, usually in the summer when the roads were less muddy. They were mostly rough dirt roads then, and every bump could be felt in the Model A Ford. Heat was a problem in the summer time, but one time, Helen remembered, her nephew, Donald, being very glad for the snap down buttons holding the window coverings shut. Maybe that was one cool time. Then, it was quite a long trip, with no air conditioning and no heater, no disposable diapers or fast foods. Jessie must have made similar trips with her family from Raymond, Alberta and Florence as well from Grand Prairie, Alberta. Maudie was younger and married later in life; she brought her children to visit her parents when they had moved to another home.

In 1945 Valentine and Maude sold the farm and moved to Chilliwack, B.C. According to Ethel's journal, June 9, 1945, Art, Fred, Norma and Ethel drove to the Fraser River, crossed on the ferry, then on to Agassiz to pick up Redig's box of household things. On June 16,1945, Redigs arrived from Lacombe in their old car. (It had little vases to hold flowers, attached to the sides of the windshield--Jeanne's memory) Valentine and Maude lived with the Northgraves that winter, until they were able to move to their own farm, March 1, 1946. They had purchased the Eric Anderson farm, just South of the Northgraves farm; the two were about a quarter of a mile apart. Jessie, and Maudie with Cheryl, her two-year-old daughter, came to help with the move. They stayed for two weeks.

Valentine had not understood that dairy farming was so different in comparison to the type of farming he had done for so many years. Sept. 6th, 1946 he bought a small home in the town of Chilliwackk, about four miles from the farms. The address was 425 Yale Rd. East, Chwk. B.C. After selling the farm, the Redigs moved into their little home, Dec. 5th. Maude's health was failing and she began to need care. Valentine too had some health problems. In 1953, he was in the hospital for five weeks; he had a tumor blockage in his stomach. A large portion of his stomach was removed. The doctors gave him six months to live; he was not a quitter; he lived for seven more years. When Arthur brought him to the Northgraves home to recuperate, Valentine picked up a scythe and started slashing the tall grass around the farm that Arthur had not yet been able to cut down.

Helen remembered her father walking from the Safeway store to his home on Yale St., pushing a cart, full of groceries. The distance was about a mile and a half; he was over eighty years old. Another incident, remembered by Arthur, when he, Arthur was building a utility shed on the back of the family home on McConnell Rd., and was busy framing the foundation; before he knew it, Granddad had moved by wheelbarrow, half a pile of gravel for the cement.

During 1952, Maude needed more care than Valentine could give; Ethel began going to her parents' home two or three times a week, giving them the care they needed. Valentine had stomach surgery in 1953, Ethel's journal states: April, 15, 1953. Mom was with us, while Dad was in the hospital. Dad was with us about two weeks before his operation and a week after. They and I moved back in town, May 20,1953. After Fred (Northgraves ) and Jean (Campbell) were married Sept. 24, 1954, I stayed in steadily, coming home Sundays. Health failing, and quit at Dad's Apr. 5, 1955. Mom and Dad have been alone since Ethel had a mastectomy in Aug. 1956.

Florence and Jessie moved their parents to Lacombe where they lived with Florence for a time and then to a nursing home in Calgary. Fall, 1959, Ethel was having a lot of pain in her back and not feeling well at all. Later she learned that the cancer had returned, this time, it was in her bones.

January 3, 1960, in Calgary, Maude had a stroke and passed away January 7 th at the age of ninety-two. June 20,1960 Valentine passed away; he was eighty-nine years old; Ethel passed away June 23, 1960, not knowing that her father had predeceased her. She was fifty-four years old. Valentine and Maude are buried in Lacombe, Alberta and Ethel in Chilliwack, B.C.

The house where Valentine and Maude Redig lived in Lacombe is gone. There is a cemetery close to where the farm was. The farm was just across the North fence of the cemetery. There is a tree nursery on some of the old farm property and an airplane landing strip is on what was the lower pasture. There are mobile home lots where the house and barn were.

Florence and Jack McPhee

Alexander Joseph McPhee's father was the first in the family to sail for Canada. He finally settled and built a home at Markdale, Bruce County, Ontario. It is said that Alexander's father was a magistrate in Glasgow.

A master craftsman from the famous shipyards of Glasgow, Scotland, this ingenious builder constructed his house at Markdale to look like a ship. One can imagine him watching his fields from one of its "portholes" as he planned the season's plantings and harvests with his wife, who spoke only Gaelic. Alexander's wife died in 1921.

Their grandson, John William, son of Alexander Joseph McPhee and Mary Anne Fitzmaurice, was born in Hamilton, Ontario, so we presume that Alexander Joseph left the Markdale farm. Mrs. John William McPhee relates that her father-in-law, Alexander Joseph, was the oldest in the family but that he did not enjoy farming. He eventually

became a salesman in Ontario for a chocolate company. This experience in selling helped when he came west (about 1910) and became the agent for John Deere Company in Vermilion. Alexander Joseph later rented a farm near Vermilion to keep the family living together as Effie Irene, his daughter, was teaching at Wildwood School, a few miles out of Vermilion.

It was amazing that he did not enjoy farming in Bruce County, Ontario, yet would homestead in the northern wilderness of Alberta. Grandson Bill says, "He was a better salesman than farmer".

John William, better known as Jack, was fourteen years older than the eldest of the other three children. Needless to say he was a bit of an "idol" to the members, so, when he became District Manager of Alberta Government Telephones (all of Northern Alberta) in Grande Prairie, the family moved from Vermilion to take up homestead land within walking distance of the telephone office in Grande Prairie.

Effie was persuaded by her older brother to give up teaching and become the Chief Telephone Operator and A.G.T. Agent for the town and surrounding district.

Alexander stayed in Ontario and had a lifetime career with the C.N.R. until his death in Toronto in 1955. Sarah Marie married in the early 1920's and moved to Chicago where she lived out her life.

Effie Irene Margaret married Charles Field and they lived in Grande Prairie until Charlie joined the R.C.A.F. at the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1942, Charlie was the victim of an air explosion off the British Columbia coast; all on board were lost. Effie raised her two daughters, working occasionally to supplement the sparse army pension.

After Amy Marie and Eileen Margaret were married, Effie chose to go to Chicago and live with her sister. A mutual need was well served by this arrangement for nine years, until the death of Sarah Marie in 1978. Effie's health was not the best, so, she returned to Edmonton where care and medical attention has brought her back to being a very chipper and happy lady. Effie, at 83 years of age, has many a story of her three grandchildren.

JOHN WILLIAM McPHEE

John William, son of Alexander Joseph McPhee and Mary Anne Fitzmaurice, was born in Hamilton, Ontario on August 29th 1886. He married Florence Redig of Lacombe in 1919.

John William worked for Bell Telephone in Ontario for six years before coming to Edmonton, Alberta in 1910, where he was employed with Alberta Government Telephones and continued with A.G.T. until his retirement in 1951.

This means that he began as a "telephone man" in1904 - a real telephone pioneer. The Bell Company, first telephone company in the world, was in its infancy in 1904, having been founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877.

John's wife, Florence Redig, writes that she and John William moved to Grande Prairie in 1920 after their marriage in Lacombe in 1919. Their first three children were born there, the fourth child in Lacombe and the last in Taber.

A son, William Kent of Calgary, tells that after corning to Edmonton, John William labored on telephone lines east of Edmonton where they used horses and wagons to carry construction equipment.

Like many communities of the time, Grande Prairie and Peace River each had local telephone communications but

there was no line connecting the towns. They used North Alberta Railroad Telegraph to send messages from town to town. It was under John William, as local manager at Granline. Shortly after, these were tied into the A.G.T. system.

William Kent (Bill) remembers that these rurals were often in "bad repair". Sometimes, if the wires or poles went down in a storm, they were connected to the barbwire fencing until the farmer in charge of repairs had time to correct the damage. He also tells how, as a boy, he helped his Dad on a trouble-shooting trip on the line between Taber and Retlaw. It turned out that the problem was caused when some fun-loving cowboys had killed rattlesnakes and hung them up over the phone wires. Young Bill stayed in the car while his Dad climbed a pole and shook the snakes down. He said that he wouldn't get out of that car for anything!

He recalls that the southeast country was pretty desolate then. A phone man could easily get lost in a winter storm, and even in the hot summers, a breakdown in his old Series 4 Model T could leave him stranded miles from anyone. He eventually used a motorcycle to do his trouble-shooting and in later years, John

William traveled in a Chevy truck.

Many readers will remember how, as little children, we watched, fascinated, while the telephone man "walked up" the poles like a mountain climber - slapping the sharp, tinkling spurs into the soft cedar of the phone pole. He then leaned far out from the pole against the leather strap, which encircled both climber and pole while he made the repairs. For the uninitiated, these spurs were buckled onto the leg and the 2 1/2-inch sharp-pointed spurs protruded at the instep from stirrups, which were fastened to the climber's foot.

When we were very young, we didn't see the shiny spurs and we thought the man was magic. Later, we argued about whether he had "pointed things" on his feet or not. Strange that we never thought of asking the telephone man but children in those days were to be seen and not heard. Bill still retains his little-boy admiration for the brave dad who climbed the poles using only "spurs".

By 1930, the depression had hit and we can assume that John William was one of the suddenly unpopular telephone men who had to go from house to house removing the telephones of people who hadn't the money to pay their phone bills.

Many years later, Jack was transferred to Drumheller, 8Alberta where he retired and later they moved to Chilliwack, B.C. For a little while they had a chicken farm near Chilliwack and sold eggs. Shortly, they sold the farm and moved into the town. Jack had a heart attack and when he had recovered enough, they moved to Lacombe, Alberta. Jack passed away in 1957 and Florence in 1989. They are both buried at Lacombe, Alberta.

`

Jessie and Ken Walker

diploma in Home Economics. She then continued her studies at the University of Alberta and graduated in 1926 with a B.Sc. in HE (Home economics). Later in the late 1940s she took several summer school classes at the University of Alberta in Edmonton for her teaching certificate.  She was an adventurous lady playing hockey (goalie at times), horse back riding as well as racing horses with the natives and cowboys.  Jessie also played the violin in the school orchestra. She became a schoolteacher at the age of seventeen and first taught in the Peace River County in the summer to a class of forty students. The next year she taught in Taber where she meet Ken in the orchestra. She often taught in schools for Native Canadians who were good students, including those near Sundry and Frog Lake. 

Jessie married Ken Walker in 1930, another teacher at the Raymond School of Agriculture. Ken's instrument was the clarinet. Ken was an agriculturist (B.Sc.Ag, 1928 and later an M.Sc. in peat soils and fertilisation in 1934 at U. of Alberta). He played football and stayed at St. Joesph's College while at University. The couple lived in Raymond, Alberta

 for a few years, where Jessie taught cooking and sewing. She had Paul, their first child, who was born in Raymond in 1931, Douglas in Edmonton in 1932,  Patricia in 1934 and John in Stettler in 1937.

Ken and Jessie's wedding, July 15, 1930.

Ken was an implement dealer in Stettler for 3 years, then they moved to remote Youngstown in the winter of 1939

where he was the district agriculturist for 13 years. Here he travelled throughout his large district to meet and guide the farmers and the 4H clubs. They lived on a small farm near the Special Areas #5 facilities for road equipment. They had a comfortable two-story home with a large garden and two barns. Ken raised chickens, a few hogs, cows and horses, while Jessie had about 200 mink a few fox and some chinchillas in a small house with a shop.  They also had a horse and a stubborn Shetland pony for the children to ride (Doug is on the pony with Paul and Pat).

Lucille McPhee was the nanny for the first year or so as Jessie was teaching at the local school in Youngstown.  Everyone worked on the farm looking after the animals and the garden.  The children helped milk the cows and sold the milk to customers on the way to school each morning.  There was also an icehouse on the farm, which provided plenty of ice during the summer for a refrigerator, and for making ice cream.  Ken put together a wind powered electric system with large batteries in 1945 for lights for the house. The country and nearby town were a delightful place for the children to grow up as they were free to roam all over the farm, countryside and the nearby shops for the road machinery. Paul cycled many miles up and down the highway collecting beer bottles for extra money.  A slough beside the farm generally had enough water in the springtime to ">The family moved to Strathmore and a home in the Western Irrigation District's (WID) facilities in 1950. Ken continued as the district agriculturist and Jessie taught on the reserves at Turner Valley, Carbon and then Gleichen and also raised chinchillas. One Sunday while returning to Carbon she got stuck in the snow and the Hutterites rescued her

. Doug and John had a woodworking shop and bunks in the chinchilla house. John went through three motorcycles while in high school and loved to fly up and down the highway. He also worked in the nearby orchard for the WID for several summers.  He was in charge of the Lion's swimming pool and the instructor and lifeguard for the summer of 1954. He then worked for COMINCO in Calgary for the following two summers. 

Ken and Jessie were keen on their children getting the best education possible. Both Doug and Pat attended the University of Alberta obtaining degrees in chemical engineering and education respectively. Doug joined the Officer Training program while at University and learned to fly Harvards at Trenton, Ontario.  John first attended Paul, John, Pat and Doug Walker in Strathmore- about 1952

Mount Royal College in Calgary then the University of  Saskatchewan to get his B.Sc. (Eng. Physics, 1960 ) and later M.Sc. (1962). He inherited Doug's Triumph Mayflower car in 1958 when Doug

moved to Ontario and later drove it to Saskatoon.  It was very cantankerous car and eventually died and he then bought a new Ford Falcon in 1961. Jesse was always interested in sporty cars and first had a Volkswagen Carmen Ghia and then a blue Rambler Marlin, which eventually John acquired so she could buy a newer white Marlin.

 After Ken retired they moved into a larger home formerly owned by a doctor in Strathmore. The sizeable garden again produced many vegetables and flowers for friends and neighbours. Ken became a certified appraiser and practised for several years when they bought a trailer-home in Calgary for their summers.  They also had one in Tucson, Arizona, which they used for 14 winters. Jessie took up oil painting and captured many beautiful scenes of the nearby desert and mountains. In 1978 they left Calgary and moved to Penticton, B.C. and lived at 289 Windsor Ave. There Ken kept another splendid garden and was a member of the Penticton Garden Club and the Masons.  He curled, bowled and golfed there for many years.  Jessie raised blue ribbon Boston Bull Terrier dogs and painted numerous portraits - her favourite one was " Old Man with a Pipe" and some of her grandchildren. She also enjoyed sewing, weaving, crocheting and sketching. Jessie passed away in April 1991 and Ken just a few years later in December 1994. They are both buried in Penticton B.C. overlooking Lake Okanagan.

Ken and Jessie Walker - about 1970.

Paul worked for many years on the CN and CP railways in Alberta and B.C. and retired in Penticton where he has many friends. Paul enjoys travelling and often visits friends in Calgary, Princeton and occasionally in New Zealand.  Pat completed her B.Ed. at the University of Alberta in 1958.  She taught at numerous places including Banff, Kitimat, Cold Lake, West Germany, British Guyana and recently at Canberra, Australia. She retired in 1998 and has travelled extensively and returns to North America nearly ever year to visit friends and relatives.

Doug worked in Valleyfield near Montreal were he met a Scottish nurse, Elizabeth Hamill, in march 1958. They later were married at the Presbyterian Church in Mount Royal, PQ, October 31, 1960. They first lived in Kitchener then

moved to Brampton about 1962 and later moved into Toronto where Doug worked for an insurance company. Doug enjoyed an extensive workshop and large garden in their new home on Cleethorpes Blvd. in Scarborough. He made a lovely home and a fine dinning table and four chairs for his parents.

 Doug also curled and enjoyed swimming, sailing and golf. Doug and Liz liked to travel and often visited friends and relatives out west and in Scotland and had numerous vacations in the Caribbean. He passed away on Nov. 11, 1997 and was a great loss to his loving wife.

John met Violet Leinweber, a new teacher in Strathmore in 1957, who was from Acme, Alberta. He later married her in August 1960. They lived in Saskatoon for two years while John finished his M.Sc. and then they moved to Ottawa where John worked at the Geophysical Observatory for the Federal Dept. of Energy, Mines and Resources. They had two girls while in Ottawa; Annette (1962) and Sherry (1964). Burl and Lyle were born in Edmonton (Twins: Dec. 1968) while John was working on his Ph.D. in space physics.  The family returned to Ottawa in 1970. Both Lyle and Burl enjoyed playing hockey like their grandmother Jessie Walker.

Eileen and Bruce Hannah and son Miles, John and Vi Walker, Murray Alary, Andy Norlander and flower girls Ruth and Beccie Leinweber, August 20, 1960.

Helen

She had finished tenth grade, then completed enough training at the business school to venture out on her own. She was still sixteen years old when she went to work at a real estate office in Killam, Alberta for eight or nine months. From there, she went to work at the old Merchant’s Bank of Canada in the town of Alliance in Alberta. She was twenty years old when she moved to Seattle for about two years. It may have been at that time that she took a car trip to California with two other girls and a man who was a relative. He had previously taught her to drive. The car didn't go much over forty miles per hour comfortably but she had it up to fifty miles in order to pass another vehicle. It took them four days to get to California.

When Helen first moved to Seattle, she lived with her Aunt Ethel Thomson who was pregnant. Helen helped her Aunt for three weeks until Val Thomson was born. Her new job involved using a typewriter, an adding machine and sending checks to a clearinghouse. She shared an apartment with Mary Ince, her second cousin, and the daughter of Theo and Jessie. Theo was the son of Auntie Darling. (See the picture of the house in which he was born, Springfield Ill.)

In 1930 Frank and Helen moved to a small cabin on the property in the beautiful Kootenay area of British Colombia, where they would live for fifteen years except for the times that Helen was away for the births of her children. There was no electricity and the water had to be carried quite a distance up the hill to the cabin. At that time, there was just one large room (twenty by twenty four feet) in the cabin. A double bed, a table, two or three old wooden chairs and two benches were the extent of their furniture. An old trapper, who lived a couple of miles away, built some shelves behind the cabin door where Helen could store a few of her kitchen things. There was just one little cupboard, no counter-top, or drawers, only a couple of nails to hang a potato masher and an eggbeater. She washed her dishes in a dishpan on the table, with the water that she carried up the hill, and heated on the wood-burning stove. The firebox was partly burned out; when she baked her bread and buns, some of the ashes fell into the oven and onto the bread. Later, a better stove and a good floor were installed in the little home.

Frank' s father, in Germany, sent two hundred dollars every three months, until Hitler came to power in 1934. He would not permit money to be sent out of the country. From Germany also, came some mattresses and white pine furniture, a dresser and a buffet, which the family used for fourteen years.

In 1930, Frank's sister and father came from Germany to visit. Helen was three months pregnant and climbed with Frank and the others up one of the nearby mountains. When coming down, she had to sit and slide down carefully so that she would not fall. The visitors came again in 1938.

Helen was an enthusiastic gardener, growing peas, carrots and cabbage, "It was not a picnic" she said. They ate what they grew and brought onions, potatoes, and rice from the little town. In later years, she did a lot of canning of berries and vegetables. The land was too rocky and the soil too shallow to grow large potatoes; often the deer ate the carrot tops in the spring. Frank plowed a large field, grew alfalfa and oats and used a scythe to cut the crops one or two years until he was able to buy a mower. He had to stack the hay in stooks to dry it, then pitch it onto the stone boat (a heavy large sled pulled by horses) and haul it to the barn and pitch into the mow (with a pitch fork). It was a good barn (was there when they came) with room for three cows and a place for chickens. The cows and chickens had been brought across the river on the cable, the cows with ropes around their bellies and their feet hanging down over the water. The horses came later in June and July when the water was low. Helen said that she forded the river once, on a horse; the water was up to the "arm pits" of the horses; the river was wider than one hundred twenty-five feet and the bottom was very rocky.

Their meat mostly came from the game that Frank hunted, usually it was from white tailed deer. One time he had to go very high up the mountain to get a black tailed deer. There were months when they went ten days without red meat to eat. Frank trapped and sold furs in the wintertime; for a few summers, he guided hunting parties. In 1936 and 1937, he led into the mountains, two men from Texas and helped them achieve their goal, to bring back trophies which they could take home for display. They left the meat for Frank's family to consume. Sanda was about six and Diana about three years old.

While Helen was with her parents in Lacombe, at the time of Sanda's birth, Frank was building a larger log home; it had a few unfinished rooms which provided sleeping area in the summer time for visitors. The house had openings for the windows, but no glass and the family lived in the smaller enclosed part of the original cabin, which was shut off with doors. Lumber was too expensive and difficult to get across the river, thus the larger part of the cabin was never finished. Later, Frank and a helper moved a trapper's shack one-and-a-half miles, and joined it to the house. He and the trapper numbered each log and were able to put it back together properly.

Late one June night, Helen and thirteen-month-old Sanda were being pulled across the river on the cable car when it became stuck. Frank and two other men worked for three long hours to repair it. Helen and Sanda sat in the dark, very tired, hungry, cold and frightened. The mother sang to her child to keep her calm. It was ninety feet down to the river, and Frank and the men worked frantically. Finally, at one o'clock in the morning the cable car moved; mother and child were at last safely on solid ground. It was not like the modem chair lifts today, but made by trappers many years ago. The seat, made from planks, was about two feet wide, enough space for two people to sit. There was a two-by-four board at each side but nothing to lean your back against. It was like sitting on a swing, but it took a strong man to pull a person across the river. When Jessie came to visit, she had to wear a blindfold before she would attempt the crossing.

In 1934, Helen had been living in the Kootenay less than four years, when her parents and sister, Florence, came to visit. They were not entirely unexpected, but it was sort of a surprise. It took a long time to get mail; sometimes it was a couple of months for a letter to reach them because they had to cross the river on the cable and make the trip out of the Kootenay whenever they wanted their mail or some groceries. Frank kept an old De Soto car on the other side of the river, which they used when going to one of the, towns or to Lacombe. Helen said that she seldom went to town. At the time her visitors came, she was pregnant with her second child, Diana and had employed a woman, Mrs. Richardson, to help with the work. It was just a few weeks before birth and there were a goodly number of chickens to care for and water to haul up the hill. Mrs. Richardson, (later to become Helen's mother-in-law) worked for twelve dollars a month. She was first offered ten dollars but said; "Make it twelve and I'll come". She was worth it! She hauled the water, fixed the fire, washed the clothes on a board, and ironed, Sanda was three years old at the time.

Helen and Mrs. Richardson were out a little way from the house, picking wild strawberries when they heard the " toot toot " of Valentine's 1926 Oldsmobile. Frank went down and brought them across the river on the cable. At the time of this visit, Maude was now in her early sixties; the cable ride didn't seem to bother her. After the cable crossing, there was a three-quarter-mile up-hill hike to reach the cabin. It was July when they came and the beauty of the surrounding countryside was worth the effort. Typical, Valentine busied himself, he repaired the stove, made its door so that it closed properly, and made a new firebox out of an old gas or oil can.

Mrs. Richardson had left earlier and it was time for the Redigs and Florence to go home. Frank took Helen out also, in order to be near a hospital for the birth. As soon as the good-byes were said, both cars across the river started travelling on the Settler’s Road, the eight miles to the highway, the Banff-Windermere Highway. When they reached the highway, Val, Maude and Florence drove toward Banff, Frank and Helen drove toward Invermere. About ten miles down the road, Valentine's car developed trouble and they had to stop. Florence had teenagers and a husband waiting at home; she flagged a car and caught a ride into Banff where she could get transportation to her home. Valentine and Maude limped their car back to the Kootenay. They had to send out for the parts for their car, which took two weeks. Boots was born at the hospital in Invermere. Helen stayed in the hospital ten days, then, with friends travelled back to the Kootenay. Boots was about two weeks old then.

In March of 1939 Sanda, Helen, Frank and the new baby, Karl, were returning to the Kootenay from the Redigs' home, when Sanda contracted double pneumonia. She was in the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary for three months and at one time was strapped down and confined in an oxygen tent. The experience for Sanda was very traumatic. She had her eighth birthday in the hospital and has said that she will never forget that time in her life. Frank, Helen, Boots and baby Karl stayed in a hotel nearby so they could be with Sanda as much as possible. During this time, Jessie came from Raymond to visit Helen and the two sisters decided to go to a movie. Helen believes this is where she caught scarlet fever and was confined in the isolation Hospital in Calgary. Her Uncle Alf Kent and his wife Agnes lived in Calgary; fortunately, she was able to care for Karl. Helen was in the hospital for the last month of Sanda's stay there in the hospital. Frank took Boots back to the Kootenay. Sanda was released a week before Helen; a kind woman-friend of Helen's, living on a small farm near Calgary, cared for the still weak girl. The woman fixed her garage up so that Helen could stay there in further isolation for ten days after she was released. The doctors insisted on this procedure because they feared that Sanda, in her weakened condition, could be re-infected somehow by her mother. At the end of the ten days, Helen and Sanda collected Karl from Agnes and they were all finally able to return to their Kootenay home. It was now the month of July.

During World War II, (1939 - 1945) the Canadian government took Frank from his family because of his recent immigrant status. He was held in a camp along with many other German immigrants for about two years. They were first confined at Kananaskis, Alberta, then taken to Sudbury, Ontario and finally moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Helen and her children were alone for at least four months, no provisions were made for them by the government during that time. Karl, the youngest child, was just a year old. The horses, (about ten) had been given to an old trapper, a friend of Frank's and Helen's, to look after. The cow was shot and the meat was given to the meat market owner. They left the chickens. The family was given no recompense except for an eighty-three dollar check when Frank was finally released. Fortunately, it was summer time, and Helen and her Children were able to survive with their garden produce, eggs and milk from the one cow they still had. Otherwise, there was very little to eat and no one to help should an emergency arise, except perhaps a trapper a few miles away. Finally, the government moved them to a little house on the outskirts of a small town called Windermere. Helen brought the canned food she had put up during the summer. Fortunately, Mrs. Richardson's, son, Tom, helped as much as he could. Life was better, but still very difficult for Helen and her three children. Near the end of his second year, Frank required medical treatment and was taken to a hospital in Montreal. Some of the German men at the camp collected money so Helen could visit Frank. She took Karl who was now three years old, with her. Boots, then eight years old and Sanda eleven years old, stayed with friends. Frank gave Helen the name of a man in one of the Canadian Parliament Buildings who could possibly help Frank in obtaining an early release from the compound. Helen was successful and Frank came home in 1942 after two years of confinement.

The family lived in the little house in Windermere for a year and moved to a place in the country for another year. In 1944, they moved back to their Kootenay home taking with them ten cows and a bull. On horseback, Sanda, thirteen years and Diana helped with the cattle, fording the river and settling them on the new farm. In Sept. 1945, Helen and the children left the Kootenay to get the children to school in Invermere. She worked as a cook at the hospital for a few months, then in the Christmas tree yard and later in a coffee shop. She took food to Frank who was staying out at the old home so he could feed the cattle. During April 1946, they sold the Kootenay place and purchased a farm four miles from Invermere.

They lived on the Invermere farm for seven years and at one time had a herd of seventy-three whiteface beef cattle. As the calves came, the children made pets of them; every animal became friendly and tame.

Summer 1948 Arthur and Ethel Northgraves and their four children were visiting the Ricthers, having a great time riding horses, picking wild strawberries, and swimming at Fairmont Hot Springs. Sanda lived with the Northgraves in Chilliwack and attended high school for a year after which she did live-in childcare until she went back to Invermere, met and married Joe Taylor in 1952. Joe and Sanda worked very hard and were very successful growing and selling garden produce; many people wanted their fresh vegetables and fruits. Harvesting and selling Christmas trees during fall and into wintertime was another successful enterprise. Later Joe included landscaping as a sideline.

By 1953, things still were not working out at the Invermere farm for Helen. She and son Karl then fourteen years old lived with Sanda and Joe for a month, before going to Penticton. Helen worked there in a cannery for six months. During Thanksgiving, she travelled to visit her sister, Ethel, in Chilliwack, who encouraged her to stay. Helen took over the care of Maude and Val for three months to give Ethel a much needed break. Karl went back to Invermere, but stayed only three weeks. Helen found work at the army camp in Sardis, not far from Chilliwack, doing payroll and secretarial work for $150.00 a month, which seemed like a lot of money then. Ethel resumed the care of the Redigs and was able to go back to her own home evenings when Helen got off work. In January 1954, with Valentine's help, Helen was able to finance a house in Sardis and provide a home for Karl who had been living with Don and Margaret Northgraves. Boots had been living in Invennere; she also came to live with Helen. Edna, a young friend of Helen's from work, boarded there for fifty dollars a month. Boots did child care at first but soon was able to get waitress work at the officers' mess which paid one hundred fifty-five dollars a month. She was in the world of work and learned a lot.

Helen's work went well and by 1956 she was given a promotion to class three and transferred to Northern B.C. at Fort Nelson, a very cold place to live, near the Yukon border. In October 1956, Helen left Fort Nelson and went to Kamloops, and in Feb. 1958, she joined the Navy Dept. of the National Defense in Kamloops. She bought a house and Boots and Karl came to live with her. At this time, Val and Maude were in the nursing home in Calgary and Valentine was not very well. Ethel had just been blessed with a new grandchild. In a letter to Ethel, Helen describes a few of the things going on in her life. "I meant to write before this and congratulate Norma and Norm (Beer) on their big boy, wasn't it a whopper though, for a little thing like Norma. So glad he is doing fine, also the other babies, you have beaten me by a long shot, you with eight grandchildren and me with a little only two. I have been back from holidays and working now for three weeks. Sanda and family are just fine, kids growing and the new house is nice and comfy and handy, sure glad they are in there for the winter. They got a nice milk cow when we were there, so they will have plenty for kids and Joe to drink (he is a regular calf) and can sell cream or milk if they like. She cost almost $200 and is a dandy, real big, mostly black, some white and very gentle. In addition in town, at least it didn't stay, but out here in the hills, it was all white, but is gradually going this afternoon, rained in town all night.

Must close now and get ready to go home, Monday is a holiday. We had a turkey dinner here yesterday, at noon, free, from the Canteen fund, we will have another at Xmas I think, usually 2 or 3 a year. Have been taking big bouquets of dark rose asters home on week ends, they have beautiful flowers out here and now they will soon be gone, seems too bad to see them all bent over with the snow and no one picking them. I also have a bouquet in the office. So long and write again- soon, nice to hear all the news. Love to all, Helen.

The family had an interesting experience with a bear while Boots and Fred were first living on the Yahk property alone. A brown bear came prowling close to their little house. Their small feisty dog charged after the bear and ended up being cornered under the washing machine with the bear g to get him out. The only weapon the couple had was a BB gun; they did manage to frighten the bear away temporarily by making a racket. They drove to Creston, borrowed Tom's gun and on their return, found footprints of the bear very close to their front door. Just as they had feared, the bear returned during the night. This time, Fred was able to defend the home by wounding the bear severely. It was later found dead near the edge of a stream a little distance away.

In a letter to her niece, Jeanne, dated Sept. 29, 1961, Helen describes some of their life style while living in Yahk: "Fred and Diana (Boots) bought a small place about 7 miles from Yahk (between Creston and Cranbrook) last summer. We have built a small house for ourselves on it which is built on skids so we can move it when we want to". Both Fred and Tom are working away from home but get home every night. We had a garden butanda, Joe and family were here twice since we moved here, once in May and again in July. They like it here and we went for walks around the bush and picked flowers and strawberries. The highway is just beyond the gate and we can see cars and big transports etc. going by all the time. Other than that, our nearest neighbours are 2 miles to the North and about 2 miles to the South, only off the road. A ways farther along the road to the South it is about 5 miles to a neighbours so we are right in the wilderness, only the railway track isn't far away and we hear the trains.

August 20, 1966, Tom and Helen were married in the Cranbrook United Church. Norma and Jeanne, Ethel's daughters, were able to travel to be with their Aunt Helen on her special day. The Beers from Chilliwack came with the large station wagon loaded with their children. The Bacigalupos were living in Salt Lake City, in Stadium Village, cheap student housing, as Jeanne and Barry were students at the University of Utah. They travelled to Yahk in an ancient Cadillac, which gave them some trouble on the way and made them late. They were in time for the family gathering and meal after the wedding. It was wonderful to visit with relatives whom they had not seen for many years. In Yahk, the Bacigalupo children were fascinated with the gas washing machine, gas lamps, the older buildings and the beautiful countryside. They had been confined to city life; the wide-open spaces and different life style were very appealing.

In Vancouver, Boots and Fred were unsuccessful in finding work; they came back to Creston and rented a home. About that time, Tom and Helen also moved to Creston where Tom worked in a mill for three years. In 1971, they bought three and a half acres of property in Windermere, built a garage in which they lived while they built the house, with the help of Arthur Northgraves. During 1974, a couple from Sweden wanted to buy their house; Tom and Helen moved to Enderby, but in 1975, the Swedish couple had difficulty and the sale fell through; Tom and Helen received two thousand dollars for the trouble. They sold their Windermere place in 1978 and moved to Osooyus for six months then bought a house in Armstrong where they stayed for four years then rented the house out and bought another at Sicamoose. January 12th, 1984, Tom passed away. March 1984, Helen made application for residence at the Invermere apartment complex and was able to secure an apartment there by July 1 st. At Sicamoose, she held a sale of the things that she no longer needed. All of her children helped her to make the move back to Invermere, where she still resided until 1998 when she moved to Cranbrook. Tom's ashes were scattered on Windermere Creek.

Helen is happy in her apartment in Invermere. Sanda and Joe live about four miles away in Windermere. Their children, Faith and Rodney and spouses live in homes very close. Faith and her husband have two children; Rodney and his wife have two children also. Helen sees her family often, and has often stayed at Sanda's place a week or more at a time, house sitting or helping with some of the work. Helen gets out on little trips with friends and family; she has not been one to sit around the house. She still has good health for her age.

Boots and Fred live in Abbotsford, B.C. They have two sons, Jeffery, born April 16, 1962 that lives at Kelowna, B.C. He has two children from his first marriage and a one-year-old child in his present marriage. Corey, the other son, was born March 30, 1965, is a single man and lives in Whitehorse, B.C.

Karl was born in Lacombe, Alberta on Jan 15, 1939. Helen, Frank and the two girls had been staying with Val and Maude since the November before. They had to leave the Kootenay for the birth. Karl went into the Kootenay when he was about six months old and lived there until he was six years old. He lived in Invermere with his mother and the girls and went to school there for almost a year when the family moved to the farm four miles from town. When he was fourteen years old, Helen and Karl moved to Penticton for a few months and then to Chilliwack. When he was seventeen, he moved back to Invermere and got work. Later, he lived with Helen and Boots in Kamloops and got work there. He also worked in Lillooet and Creston. In 1962, he married Kay Goffie and they had two children, a son, Curtis, in Dec. 1963 and a daughter, Carrie in 1966. In 1966, he and Fred bought the Shaw place in Wasa and lived there for a few years. Then he built his own house and lived there another few years. In the meantime, he started work for the Skookumchuck Pulp Mill when it was first built. Later, he moved with Curtis to Kimberley and bought a house. (Curtis married.) Karl lived in the house for five or more years; then sold it and bought another house in Marysville. They were together for about nine years. Karl retired from the pulp mill in 2000. Curtis and his wife have two small sons and they also live in Marysville. Carrie is single and is studying for a job in forestry.

Helen's former cabin in the Kootenay is now being used for a resort for cross-country skiers; the owner has some pictures hanging on the walls of Helen, taken when she was young. The log house is gone. An Indian had been doing some work nearby and had lit a bon-fire. He left it unattended while he went to look for his horses. The fire spread to the log house and burned it, Helen’s dishes and other things that were inside. The cabin is one or two miles from Windermere. People had been hauling logs out of the Kootenay area. The government built a bridge across and the property is much more accessible.

About Religion

Helen responded to a question asked by a family member about the religion of Arthur and Eliza Kent and how did many of the Kents become Christian Science members. She said that Eliza and Arthur belonged to the High English Church but that their daughter, Jessie, started with the Christian Science people. She was instrumental in bringing in some of her siblings. Maude read a lot of the literature but never joined. She and Valentine never went to church. When they were young, the Redig girls walked to Sunday School at St. Cyprians English Church a mile and a half or so away.

Ethel and Art Northgraves

Ethel graduated from normal school, then taught first through eighth grades in country schools, mostly one room, for four and a half years before she married Arthur. Their first three years of marriage were spent a few miles out of Gadsby, Alberta, on a rented farm. It was in the small log house on that property that their first child, Jeanne, was born. Ethel had been to the hospital on a false alarm; but when she really needed to be in the hospital, a terrific rainstorm had made the roads full of gumbo mud. Arthur's sister, Elsie, a nurse, was there and the doctor arrived on horseback, just in time.

Jeanne was about three years old when the family moved to a larger nearby farm, called

the Wells Place. While living there, Donald, Fred and Norma were born in the Stettler Hospital, twenty-five miles away. In 1938, they, with Granddad Dent Northgraves and son, moved to Chilliwack, British Columbia where Arthur became a successful dairy farmer and later contracted some house building and renovating. Ethel and Arthur are both buried at the cemetery on Little Mountain, Chilliwack.

Maudie worked in the Bank of Montreal in Vegerville and met her husband, Frank Tillapaugh at the hotel where they both boarded. They were married in Regina when Maudie was about thirty years old, then they travelled around British Columbia for awhile as Frank was working in the Caribou area. He worked for a company that drilled for water and was moved around constantly. He was next sent to Ontario where Maudie lived the rest of her life with Frank, except when his job sometimes took him to another country. Maudie and Frank became the parents of two children, Cheryl and Murray and the grandparents to Shawn, Jean Paul, Jason and Jennifer. In 1967, Frank died from a brain tumor. Maudie died August 1993 at the age of eighty-three. They are buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens, London, Ontario, Canada.