Don King's Memoirs - Odette de Foras

My friendship with Odette began in the late 1940's when I was working a clerk in Waltham Hardware. Several recently graduated school friends had obtained work in various stores and businesses in downtown High River and it was our habit to go together for coffee (actually it was hot chocolate), choosing a different café each week. (these were the New Look Café, the St. George Hotel's coffee shop, and the City Café.) On leaving Waltham's by the back door I would head South along the alley, past the back door of the New Look Café and at ten o'clock (our coffee time), would meet a person there who was in the act of loading the cafe's liquid garbage (swill) from the collecting barrels into 45 gallon drums in the box of an old half-ton truck - by bucket.

Our first few words to each other were in the form of greetings - good morning, nice day, etc, but for a few days I didn't know if the person was a man or a woman - stocky, fairly short, dressed in bib overalls, rubber boots and a man's checked shirt and old fedora hat, and speaking with a low voice. After a few days I discovered that it was a woman and we struck up an acquaintance, always pausing to chat a moment - I discovered also that she owned and operated a pig farm just west of High River and that she was the daughter of Count and Countess deForas, both deceased, leaving the farm to the daughter - Odette.