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Map of the Living Prairie Museum Homestead
1950
Living Prairie Museum, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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1954.

And did you move in there with your children?

And wife.

And wife.

Yah.

And, who owned the property before you did?

I bought it through V.L.A.

What's V.L.A.?

Veteran's Land Act. They had it and it was given back when the people lived there moved out. It was empty for a long time and then we bought it.

And was the house there when you moved in?

Yes. Yes, yes.

But you had to do a bit of maintenance.

It was all empty and kids had busted a lot, busted a lot of the windows, broken a lot of the plaster inside. And it all had to be repaired.

Wow.

Some of the doors were banged off. We put doors on.

Do you know who got the property after you left?

City of Winnipeg.

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547 Lakeview Rd, front faced west, porch faced east. Home of the Watson Family.
1954
Homestead area, Living Prairie Museum, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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There was a house. Two-storey house. And had a ah, summer kitchen at the back of it, was about 12-14 feet square. Chimney on it for summer heat, or stove I should say.

Did you have a wood stove inside?

We didn't, but there was people before. We had a furnace in the basement.

Okay.

The basement was all wood. Built out of ship lath, and cement floor. There was a furnace down there and ah, with air ducts out and ah we used to burn mostly wood. And underneath the summer kitchen, there was another part of the basement, but we never used that either. That's for the ah, the well was down there, which we didn't use and part was kind of caved in. But the house stood up square. Um, we had a little porch off of the summer kitchen. And directly behind the house there was a small building, and it was dug out at the bottom for an ice house.

Mhmm.

We never used it, was just the shed there, that's all. Small shed. And the bottom was dug out for to put ice in. And our driveway was right along side, coming in the back. Kind of around to the south a little bit, where we turned around and there was a garden just directly behind by the driveway. Back about 50 feet, 40 feet, maybe, there was a barn. And it had a bit of a hay loft, it was just a homemade barn and it was about 30 feet by 30 feet. And there was an out house. And there's a garden direct south. First off we'd turned around in. They had a garden there. That was about ah, 80 by maybe 90? Approximate. And there was maple trees behind, behind the garden at the east side. (hits microphone) I'm sorry. South side there was elm trees. They'd been planted, spaced. And there was a fence there. And along the front there was the caragana hedge and a and a driveway to go through, or it was just grown over. There were no yard or nothin' really, just was there. And caraganas in front of the house. And there was maple trees spread along there also. The north side of the house wasn't our property, but there was a kind of trees in the bush there. It was maybe about a hundred deep and about 30 feet wide-40 feet wide. And out behind there was a garden. The guy before had apparently raised pigs and we, it was his manure pile and I cleaned it all off and we had potatoes and corn there.

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Spring Planting, east side of homestead, barn on the right
1955
547 Lakeview Road, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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Spring planting of Watson's garden, with a barn on the right. This picture was taken on the east side of present day Homestead area, Living Prairie Museum.

Circa 1955.

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Land Uses of the Homestead
1956
547 Lakeview Road, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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It was open prairie and people lived in the area. Used to cut the hay grass for the hay - get the hay off it. And ah, that was about it. The guy's name I'm trying to think, that used to get it was, ah, I'm sorry I can't just think of his name right now.

That's okay - if it comes to you, let me know.

And, ah, horses used to - horse back riding, they used to use it for horse back riding. And to the west they made a dirt track for speed racing. That was in the '60's.

Mhmm.

Otherwise it was just plain ordinary prairie. And like I said there's a guy came there and cut the sod. One he'd make a strip foot wide, and leave a foot to re-grow again and ah, that's how, how they got the, the sod off it. And then it grew back in again.

So how much area would he do the cutting in?

About 20 acres, approximate. From our place down to Ness and from Harcourt over to, the well there was the, what they called the rifle range, used to be - right west.

Okay.

Probably in this area too. They used to have a big ah, abutment, earth abutment for when they're target practicing--that was farther north. Ah, but we came there, there was no more, it was called the rifle range, but there was nothing there. Before that when we were younger, my dad, we lived in Marjorie Street in St. James, we used to bring our young stock, heifers out here for summer range. It was already fenced. It went over to Victoria Street, which is Sturgeon Road now.

From Harcourt?

From Harcourt to Victoria.

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Controlled Burns
1980
Living Prairie Museum, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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...crew of the guys and they'd go and they'd burn so much, and so much and they'd burn the whole works eventually. Otherwise, if the fire got away during the night they would burn our house down. And I did have what I call a fire guard. That was part of my gardens. On the east side, had it ploughed back about 30 - 40 feet. And the south side I had a path about 30 feet wide and the full depth. Of course then after it was ploughed and that, I couldn't waste the land, so I put potatoes in there. Or potatoes and corn or whatever.

So they would burn the prairie in order to protect the houses that surrounded it.

That's right, yeah yeah.

They'd come up and burn it. Otherwise if it was left there, somebody parked out there through a cigarette butt out, and it was dry and away it would go. And then they had no control over it. By the time they got there it'd be out of control. So. But yeah, they, they looked after it pretty good. And then of course too you'd see after it burns it comes up twice as good, so.

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Hauling Water
1945

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And ah, just south from, on Ronald street there used to be a stand pipe, pump. Do you know where the pump is now?

No.

It's gone. It's up, it was out in the prairie and you hand pumped, you know what that is?

Yeah, yeah.

And it still worked. And they used to come, the St. James municipality, health department used to come to pump and check the water and the water was still good, but we never used it.

You took the city water.

Yeah we used to come down and get the city water. There's a stand pipe on the corner and you just turned it on and off. And sometimes in the winter time we used to have a key, what they call a key. With just a space like that [(indicates a space of about a � - � an inch with his fingers)] and it went over top and you turned it. And it was on and you turned it off. But in the summer they used to put a standpipe so people could get a drink of water.

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Shirley on her Dad's back in the garden.
1955
547 Lakeview Road, St. James, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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The Watson's yard; Living Prairie Museum's current day Homestead area.

Shirley on her father's back in the garden.

Circa 1955.