1

Farm Yard in the Distance
1930
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

2

A pioneer recalls life at home
October, 1987
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

Credits:
Mabel Watson

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Mabel: Margaret Miller asked me, one day, where we all slept down in the big house. And I told her Grandpa had the west room, we had the northwest room, Mother and Dad had the southeast room, and the boys had the northeast room. Father always had the east room that faced the barn.

Ron: Would there be a reason he had a room overlooking the barn?

Mabel: Well, I guess, in case of fire or anything they liked to be able to see what's going on.

Ron: OK Grandma, you married Herb in 1917?

Mabel: January of 1917

Ron: Did you get a homestead with him or did he have a homestead himself?

Mabel: He had a homestead where the house is. He had the house built but it wasn't plastered either 'til after we were married.

Donna: Would it be pretty chilly in those houses if they weren't plastered?

Mabel: We weren't in them in the winter without... they were plastered by winter time.

Ron: What would you have heated your home with?

Mabel: Wood or soft coal from the hills. They used to get wood over at the creek.

Ron: How did they get soft coal from the hills?

Mabel: Up towards Claybank or someplace there, there was coal they used to dig up in the hills. We might have got coal later on from Rouleau. Well, we had two stoves at one time, I think. There used to be a stovepipe go up through the bedroom floor and then to the chimney there. We must have had a cookstove beside our... but we had a drum upstairs on the stovepipe - what they called a drum. I used to hang the baby's clothes on a clothes-horse up there to dry them beside the drum on the stovepipe.

Donna: Did you have a good water supply at your farm?

Mabel: Yes. They got the well dug. We had another well closer to the house. Well, some will tell you they used to melt snow for washing and the boiler. Get it melted the day before to wash.

4

Aerial View of Daniel's Farm
1950
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

5

Team and Dray
1940
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

6

Blizzards

They were terrible. Snow would blow for days. The wind was so strong and snow blowing so hard that you couldn't see the barn from the house. Many farmers died when they would try to get from the barn back to the house and they got lost and froze to death. It became the custom to stretch a long clothesline or wire from the house to the barn and hang onto it. If a barn or house had a nail hole in it, the wind would drive a stream of snow right through it. Generally, in the spring, with a lot of snow on the ground, a warm wind from the west would start blowing and the snow would melt off in two or three days. This was known as a chinook wind.

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A Boy and His Calf
1945
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

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Did I ever milk a cow? Most certainly! I would rather go out and do chores than stay in & do dishes anytime. Dad had a dairy in the 30's and delivered milk to Avonlea. The hired men would milk the cows, bring the pails to the milk house where it was cooled in tubs of cold water, then bottled and put in other tubs of cold water. Some was separated and the cream was sold in smaller bottles. There was always lots of work to it, sterilizing the bottles, separators (they had about 50 different parts) and pails. When the milk was to be delivered I would hitch up Maud, a gently white horse, to the milk wagon which was loaded with bottles and we'd be off to town. She (the horse) would get to know the route and you didn't have to tell her what houses to stop at because she knew. In later years while still going to school I would often do the milking, clean the barn and feed the cows. They'd be bedded down in a clean stall with fresh straw to lay on. The barn had a cement floor but the stalls were a wooden floor built up 4 or 5" and the animals were tied to a manger in front of them. There was an alley in front of the mangers where you got fresh hay (which was forked down from the loft) to feed the cows. There were chop bins on either side of the barns too for feed. In the very early years, Dad & the hired men used lanterns to see by but in the 30's we had power in the barn.

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A Man with his Turkeys
1942
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

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Many farmers raised turkeys.

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Harvey and Bernard Schiml raising turkeys in their farmyard.
September, 1950
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

12

A Barn Raising (The First Wall)
1927
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

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The whole community showed up for a barn raising. The ribs were built on the floor, then many men, horses and ropes were used to pull them up and fix them in position.

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A Barn Raising (Almost Up)
1927
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada