Every year we reflect on lives well lived and remember individuals we lost in 2024.
Roie Iris Hilland
1943 – 2024
Margaret Chalack
To be published March 15th, 2025
Richard Andrew Broatch
1942 – 2024
Broatch Family had been planned to be posted March 8th, 2025.
Richard Mac Makowichuk
November 27, 1946 –
August 24, 2024
You’re invited to read their stories and learn about their struggles and successes.
We apologize to any family whose loved one we may have missed.
The Big Hill rises some 4,400 feet above sea level; its northwestern flank is wooded with spruce, poplar, willow, saskatoon and chokecherry. The Indians called the hill “Manachaban”, signifying “the place where you get bows.” The town of Cochrane is situated at the base of its southwestern slope. Below the town the tree-edged Bow River flows in an easterly direction through a terraced valley.
Wooded foothills rise in the west and we behold the Rocky Mountains with familiar peaks such as Mount Aylmer, the Devil’s Head, and Black Rock.
The Ghost River, also known as Deadman River, forms our western perimeter. It was so named by the Crees because a ghost was seen going up and down the river picking up the skulls of the dead. Various creeks form the drainage system of the Big Hill country. In the northwest the Waiporous, Meadow, Owl, Le Sueur, Behanhouse, and Ranche Creeks flow through the wooded foothills of the Keystone and Wildcat Hills region. Historic and descriptive creeks, like Spencer, Beaupre, Coal, and Horse Creeks all eventually find their way to the valley of the Bow River. Big Hill Creek drains the Lochend districts and enters the Bow just west of Cochrane. The Dog Pound and Beaver Dam Creeks, both flowing in a northeasterly direction, form our northern perimeters.
The town of Cochrane is located in Sections 2 and 3, Township 26, Range 4, West of the 5th Meridian. It is 19 miles northwest of Calgary on Highway lA and is on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The main town lies at an altitude of 3,760 feet, at a Latitude of 51 11 ‘and Longitude of 114/28 W. The annual precipitation averages between 17-19 inches and droughts are rare. (This includes an average annual snowfall of 72.5 inches and a rainfall of 11.42 inches). Chinook winds which sweep over the mountains help to modify the winters with their warmth. Part of the Cochrane area is in the black soil zone; the soils in this zone are the most fertile in the province and have in their surface foot about 3 to 4 times as much nitrogen and organic matter as there is in the average brown or grey wooded soil. The frost-free season is approximately 100 days.
Generally speaking, extensive ranching, mixed farming and lumbering are the main industries. In the early days there were rock quarries which made use of the calcareous tufa deposits of Paskapoo sandstone along the Big Hill Creek, for building stone. Clay was used in the manufacturing of bricks. The sand and gravel industry is booming now. There are extensive gas fields in the Jumping Pound area, and oil explorations are being conducted in the Wildcat Hills region. Many producing wells are scattered throughout the Lochend and Inglis districts
Presently there are large dairy farms in operation on our eastern perimeter and scattered throughout the various districts.
The Big Hill country did not always have this same physical appearance. Although our local written history is only a few hundred years old our geological history: which is the history of our earth and its rocks, is millions of years old. Geological time is not counted in years or hundreds of years. but in ages, thus in geology, even a million years ago is considered a relatively short space of time.
During the Paleozoic Era, a geological time period extending from about 225 to 600 million years ago, great inland seas covered Alberta and our present Cochrane area. Various forms of marine life lived in the waters of these seas: creatures called trilobites (which were the first animals with a complex skeleton), primitive forms of snails, clams and corals, and various shells called Brachiopods. These creatures left behind their fossilized remains, so we know exactly what they looked like. As these creatures died their remains sank and came to rest at the bottom of the seas. These ancient graveyards of the dead and decayed remains of marine life were subjected to great pressure from overlying beds of silt and sand that had turned to rock. Through chemical changes and tremendous pressures occurring over countless millions of years, these vast marine beds became our present pools of crude petroleum and natural gas.
Between 70 and 225 million years ago the land became a marshy delta extending for thousands of square miles; this was called the Mesozoic Era. For part of the time the land was covered with warm marshy swamps with a dense growth of vegetation of tropical plant life, with ferns, figs, mosses and palm trees. It was a fetid world, the age of reptiles – teeming with crocodiles, turtles and huge dinosaurs. Horned, armorplated and duck-billed dinosaurs weighed up to 50 tons, and some were 20 feet tall; many were omniverous. Their skeletons became fossilized and some of their remains from the Red Deer River Badlands near Drumheller are in museums in Toronto, Ottawa, New York and Europe. From the ancient remains of these subtropical deltas comes the coal of the Drumheller Valley, of the Edmonton district, and along the outer foothills belt (e.g. Canmore mines).
Change is continuous and some 40 to 70 million years ago, the earth underwent a violent period of mountain building as the earth’s rocky crust was folded, bent, twisted and thrust upwards by great disturbances, some of them volcanic. The geography of Alberta began to take shape; the Rocky Mountains rose to form the backbone of the continent and inland seas were replaced by interior plains. This was the Cenozoic Era, and warm-blooded animals appeared: the small three-toed horse, the sabretooth tiger and hairy mammoths.
As the climate became colder, glaciers developed and flowed from north to south over the Northern Hemisphere. During their movement, rocks and debris were ground into soil. When the glaciers melted back this debris was deposited. A number of glacial and inter-glacial (when the glaciers melted back) periods occurred. There are numerous examples of glacial and inter-glacial action in Big Hill Country; the deep coulees carved out by rivers from the melting glaciers; the waterfall at the head of Big Hill Creek coulee; the terraces along the valley of the Bow River; glacial tills scattered throughout the area, and extensive gravel deposits.
Geology is part of our “living past”; it has made the Big Hill country what it is today – its rivers and lakes, prairies and rich soils, oil and gas. The Big Hill is made up of layers of rock of the Tertiary Age (Paskapoo formation). The Grade Six classes at the Andrew Sibbald Elementary School, Cochrane, study our geological past when they make their annual pilgrimage to Moose Mountain and gather fossil rocks containing Brachiopods, crinoids and other marine life of the Paleozoic Era. The Waiporous Crossing has a good example of sandstones and shales of the Cretaceous period. A rare event is finding fossilized “worm tracks” imbedded in rock belonging to the Cretaceous period, in the Ghost Diversion Dam area. The Jumping Pound gas field on the eastern edge of the foothills derives its gas from the thrust faults of the Mississippian strata, which was formed in the Paleozoic Era over 300 million years ago.
Gordon Hall of Cochrane has in his private collection, remains of prehistoric pleistocene animals. He has parts of an extinct western bison, Bison occidentalis, about 11,600 years old. The extinct Mexican ass, Equus conversidens was 11,600 years old. He also has the main beam of a woodland caribou, Rangifer caribou. All these were found in Clarke’s gravel pit at S. Cochrane and identified by A. Macs. Stalker and C. Churcher of the National Museum of Canada, Ottawa, in the 1960s. An ancient Bighorn sheep specimen was also found, which was over 11,000 years old; some others were recovered in the Griffin pits and placed in the museum at Ottawa.
It is generally believed that man first arrived in North America from Asia and Siberia over a land bridge in the Bering Strait during periods of glaciation. On other continents archaeologists, scientists who study the stone tools and skeletal remains of man, have found that man has been present over the last two million years or more, but in the Americas he has been a late-comer. Prehistoric man is believed to have journeyed down to Alberta through an ice-free corridor via Alaska and the Yukon.
In the Cochrane area, we have evidence of prehistoric man. Stone tools such as grooved mauls, stone axes and points have been found. 10 Teepee rings, which are signs of human habitation
along the Bow River as far west as Morley. Sites range from two or three teepee rings to as many as over 100. Many teepee rings are found in the Big Hill Creek area; others are scattered here and there. There were teepee rings on the Gilbert Flats, where the Cochrane Light Horse Association held their gymkhana for a few years, on what is now known as Cochrane Heights.
There are numerous buffalo jumps throughout the Big Hill country area: the Hutchinson buffalo jump, which was excavated and studied in 1972, the buffalo jumps in the Jumping Pound area and others in the Big Hill Creek perimeters, and still others further east. The Madden buffalo jump is known for its pictographs or rock paintings. It is the furthest north major jump that the University of Calgary has on file.
Medicine wheels are ceremonial rings of stone larger in diameter than teepee rings, sometimes reaching 50 feet or more in diameter. Some have large cairns in the middle, or spokes radiating from the center. Locally three have been discovered so far: one each in the general localities of Spy Hill, Bearspaw and the Big Hill Creek perimeters.
At Lake Minnewanka there is a very old site; the earliest remains are 12,000 years old. A Clovis point was discovered. It is the earliest evidence of man in the Rockies. Unfortunately this site was destroyed by the reservoir.
On the lA Highway at Coal Creek a horse was found buried in the cellar of building remains. This site was historic, and part of the Mitford Mines at Coal Creek. The prehistoric site had two teepee ring levels; one historic, about 1840 to 1870 (Stoney Indians), and the other was 2,000 years old and was a winter camp of three-plus tents.
In the Jumping Pound area archaeologists have found a number of prehistoric sites along the creek, such as buffalo jumps, teepee rings and camps. The remains of dogs were found at two sites on the Kumlin Ranch; one a kill dating to historic times and the other a prehistoric winter camp about 1,500 years old.
The Ghost-Morley area has yielded little information because of the Indian Reserve. There are teepee rings and campsites. A 10,000 year old point was found east of the Ghost River.
Professor Brlan 0. K. Reeves, Ph.D., Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta, states: “The oldest site in Western Canada is the Taber Child site, which is more than 48,000 years old. The second oldest is Old Crow in the Yukon, at about 28,000 years. Many archaeologists, particularly Americans, don’t believe it.”
Ironically, during World War I and World War II, tons and tons of buffalo bones were shipped in boxcars to be used for the manufacture of fertilizer, thus inadvertently destroying archaeological sites forever. Today many sites are being destroyed by rural housing and acreage developments.
The first white man to come to our area appears to be David Thompson (1770-1857), the great explorer and fur trader, in November 1800. On November 17, 1800, he started out on an exploratory trip with five members in the party. He started from Rocky Mountain House (established in 1799) and travelled south to the Bow River, at the present site of Calgary, then on to the Highwood where he visited two Pikenow camps; on his return he travelled northwest, where he crossed the Jumping Pound Creek on November 28, 1800. Then, searching for Duncan McGillveray, they camped a short distance above where the Ghost River joins the Bow. Here they saw large herds of buffalo bulls but no cows. Traversing the present Morley area, they killed four Bighorn sheep at Old Fork Creek and then travelled west to the Gap. On their return on December 1, they crossed the Ghost and continued northwest over Spencer Creek, Beaupre Creek, and on to the Dog Pound Creek, continuing on their journey until they reached Rocky Mountain House on December 3, 1800.
(Reference: Alberta Historical Society Review, Spring 1965.)
The Indians, which David Thompson referred to as the Pikenow Indians, were the Piegans, who were part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Old Bow Fort (or Piegan Post) was established by the Hudson’s Bay Company to encourage the fur trade with the Indians of the southern regions. It was situated at the junction of the Bow River and Bow Fort Creek (Township 25-7-5). Archaeological excavations conducted by Professor Paul Nesbitt, of the University of Calgary in 1970, reveal that Piegan Post was possibly first built in 1826, then abandoned and rebuilt again in 1833. It consisted of six buildings surrounded by a five-sided palisade With a bastion, or lookout tower. It was occupied until early 1834. John E. Harriot was in charge. The Indians proved too hostile, and as there were no enough beavers to make it a worthwhile project the fort was abandoned.
The Stoney Indians arrived in this area about 1845, thus they were comparative latecomers here. It is thought that the Mountain Crees preceded them by a few years, probably driving out the Piegans and some of the Kootenay tribe before them. Many of the local names are Cree or their equivalent in Stoney. It seems that the Stoney did not attach definite names to the features of the area.
“Our Stoney Indians are a branch of the great Dakota or Siouan Confederacy. They are Assiniboines, of which Stone) is an English translation.” Their name means “The people who cook v\ ith stones;” when it was translated into English this was shortened to Stone People and finally Stone) Indians or Stonies. The Athabascan Assiniboine had separated from the main body of the Assiniboine and settled in the Athabasca region a decade or two before the eighteenth century. Because of a scar-
city of game during the 1840s many of the Athabascan Assiniboine were forced to move south. Thus the group, which settled in the Bow Valley-Morley area, was called the Mountain Stoney.
In 1896 J. MacLean described them: “The Stoneys are of medium height, well-formed, of pleasing countenance and especially active in their movements. It is not too much to say that they are the most energetic of all tribes of the North-West. They are excellent horsemen and had the reputation of being great horse thieves. They were famous as scouts and were used in that capacity during the Riel Rebellion of 1885. Many were used during the survey of the C.P.R.”
In 1858 Dr. James Hector of the Palliser Expedition passed through the western perimeter of our area. He camped at the foot of Dream Hill; this is believed to be one of the more southerly Wildcat Hills, as he reached the Ghost River the next morning. Hector travelled southward over rolling hills towards the Bow River, where he noticed seams of coal in the shale and sandstone banks of the river (this would be around the mouth of Coal Creek). From their camp at Dream Hill Hector’s party could see a level plain that swept to the base of the mountains; the next day he realized that it was the valley of the Deadman or Ghost River.
It was Palliser’s report that had considerable influence on the decision to build the railroad to the north of the arid stretches. If this plan had been followed the growth of Cochrane would have been stalled for many years.
The arrival of Reverend George and Reverend John McDougall in 1873 at the confluence of the Bow and Ghost Rivers was of great importance, as they built a mission at Morleyville, and built a fort on a high hill north of the Bow River, approximately three miles north of the present McDougall Church. Here the families of Reverend John and his trader brother, David, were relatively safe from the prowling Blackfoot when the brothers were absent on business.
By 1875 on the flats north of the Bow River a small community appeared, consisting of a church, a mission house, a day school, a store and stables. In 1878 an orphanage for Indian children was provided. David McDougall brought his store supplies from Fort Benton, Montana, or from Fort Garry via Edmonton. Of this original historic site only the McDougall Church remains.
Andrew Sibbald came to Morley in 1875 to teach the Indians, and was the first schoolteacher in the West. That winter Rev. George McDougall lost his life in a blizzard. Andrew Sibbald left the school in 1879 to establish a small sawmill for the McDougalls, thereby supplying the first lumber for buildings in Calgary.
The settlement of Morleyville provided the first small nucleus for the large settlements that followed. In 1875 the establishment of the North West Mounted Police at Fort Calgary helped to keep order between the Blackfoot and the Stoney, and in 1877 Treaty No. 7 was signed. In the early 1880s many people came to settle in this region. The Cochrane Ranche was established 25 miles east of Morley, and many small ranches sprang up in between the two centers. Large-scale settlement became possible when the Canadian Pacific Railway came to Calgary and on through to Bow Valley and the Kicking Horse Pass (instead of 200 miles north through the Yellowhead Pass as some had expected). The towns of Cochrane and Mitford came into being after the coming of the railroad; Morley ceased to be the focal point of so many activities as these new towns expanded their influence.
Here’s our top 5 stories from 2024. Let’s goto, starting with number 5.
Click any image to get a better look.
5 – Norman Edge
4 – Top Stories of 2023 10 – 6
3 – Edith Edge Stampede Queen
2 – Wayne and Melva Blood
1 – Sam and Helen Scott
That’s our top stories of 2024. We hope they encouraged you, enlightened you, and brought a smile.
As a professional who continually gives back to Calgary, Josh Traptow is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Calgary which is a charitable Civic Partner of the City of Calgary.
Josh is an accomplished executive with experience on both sides of the boardroom. A sought after leader, communicator and advisor he has worked for both the municipal and provincial governments and has a unique understanding of the issues facing Calgary and our province.
He is an experienced political staffer at the both the Alberta Legislature and Calgary City Hall, having served in the Office of the Premier, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture & Rural Development and for two City Councillors.
He is a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee & Platinum Jubilee Medals for his contributions to his community and Canada. In 2016, Josh was recognized as a SAIT Outstanding Young Alumnus. In 2023, Josh was recognized with the Calgary Award for Heritage by the City of Calgary for his sustained contribution to heritage in our City. In 2024, he was recognized as one of 20 Compelling Calgarians by the Calgary Herald.
Josh is a 10+ year volunteer with the Calgary Stampede and currently is the 1st Vice-Chair of the Western Agriculture Heritage Committee and a Past Chair of the Agriculture & Western Events Media Committee.
He sits on the boards of the Alberta Motor Assxociation as a Calgary Regional Advisory Board Member and on the AMA Board of Governors.
He is also an active community volunteer, serving on the boards of the Women In Need Society (WINS) as the board chair, the History & Heroes Alberta Foundation and is a past chair of the Calgary Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC).
He has a diploma in Administrative Information Management from SAIT and a certificate in Public Relations from Mount Royal University. He also completed the ICD-Rotman Governance Essentials Program (GEP). He is a third generation Calgarian.
When the Fisher Block was built in the early 1900’s the top floor was used by the King Solomon Lodge for their meetings until the building was destroyed by fire. The Fisher Block was also used for social functions. In 1905, the Orangemen built a hall on the corner of First Street and Fourth Avenue West (present site of Addie’s Quilts). The Orangemen built an addition to this hall in 1924 but their organization folded in 1925.
In 1912, the Oddfellows Lodge was upstairs in the Howard Block. Their members converted the top floor into their meeting room and a social hall. When Sid Chester bought the Howard Block and turned the top floor into the Chester Hall, to be used as a dance hall and for social functions, the Oddfellows bought the Orangeman’s building to use for their group. The Oddfellows folded and sold the building to the Rebecca’s in 1966. The hall was rented out to the community for parties, movies, dances and other social events.
Sid Chester built a bowling alley in 1912 for Moise de Repentigny on First Avenue West. This building was later sold and turned into the first curling rink in Cochrane. It took nearly 90 years before a bowling alley would appear again in Cochrane.
In 1930, the Lodge for the B.P.O.E. (Elks, see their own story) Chapter built and opened their Memorial Hall on Second Avenue and Second Street West. This was the largest hall in Cochrane and was used for dances, Christmas Concerts, movies, meetings, banquets, minstrel shows, election polls, council chambers, library, bingos and extra school rooms. Wedding receptions, Remembrance Day Services and the Scout and Guide Groups met there. It became the centre of social activities and was known as the Community Hall. This building was renovated many times and due to its age and condition
was demolished in 2004.
Another milestone in Cochrane happened when the citizens and the Town got together and decided to build an outdoor swimming pool. It was a momentous occasion when the citizens watched their new swimming pool coming down the Cochrane hill in 1967. This pool was moved, in one piece from the Calgary location that built it. This was also the first time such a feat had been done. The pool was set up in the east end of town and in the winter an outdoor rink was located beside it. Many children and adults of the Big Hill Country used these great facilities for many years. In the 1990’s a lovely new indoor pool was built on 5th Avenue West by the Rodeo grounds and was welcomed by everyone.
In the early 1970’s an offer from an anonymous donor was made to the Town of Cochrane to match a named amount of funds to build a recreation arena. A group of citizens joined together to canvass the town and the surrounding farms and ranches to help match the funds. Although many farmers and ranchers did not have any cash to donate, they generously donated hay and truckloads of grain to this much-needed cause. Many donated cash so that the surrounding district residents would be able to use this Town of Cochrane facility. A new Arena was welcomed when it was built on the hill north of the new Cochrane High School. It opened in 1974 and is well used through the years by all. With the growing population in Cochrane these facilities became very crowded so a community group formed and raised the funds for the current Spray Lake Sawmills Recreation Centre. This facility strongly supported by Spray Lake Sawmills in Cochrane has become the hub of recreation and wellness for the Town of Cochrane.
Every year we like to review the most popular stories of the year. We want to focus our articles on when you like to see. What was that this year? Let’s take a look at 10 through 6.
10 – William Bradley Family
9 – Cochrane Legacy Statue
8 – Grand Old Lady of Cochrane
7 – Lorne Helmig Family
6 – Vern and Evelyn Lambert
Were you surprised? We were, several of the articles were reposted from previous years. We’re glad to see you liked some of our older stories. They resonate with us too. Come back next week for the Top 5.
Some stories came from More Big Hill Country and A Peep into the Past by Gordon and Belle Hall.
I was born June 2, 1957 at the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary. My parents are Neil and Robin (Williams) Harvie. I have three sisters, Pauli (1955), Carol (1959), and Katie (1962). We were raised in the Glendale area on Glenbow Ranch and attended school in Cochrane. My Dad began ranching in 1948, raising commercial Angus based cattle and later, Beefbooster Ml cattle in conjunction with the company that he helped found.
I attended grades I to 4 at the Elementary school which became Andrew Sibbald and is now Holy Spirit. Grades 5 and 6 were in the Old Brick School next door and then grades 7-12 were at Cochrane High School (except for Grade 10 when I attended Brentwood College on Vancouver Island).
I played minor hockey in Cochrane from the age of six where I learned the game from coaches Lorne Woods, Bob Beynon, Ken Raymond and Percy Alexander. I also was a member of the 1st Cochrane Cubs for six years, led by Den Mother Pat Woods. Because we lived out of town, I would leave my hockey equipment in the basement of Mrs. Neilson’s house (the old McNamee brick house). After school, I would pick up my gear, walk up to the outdoor rink and attend practice. On Monday nights, I would eat dinner with the Neilsons and then walk down to Cubs at the Community Hall.
At the High School, I played all the sports I could including football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, field hockey, and track. In my grade 12 year (197475), our school named the sports teams the “Cobras”. We also started playing tackle football that year in the new Rocky View School Division league and won the first title in a thrilling final at Foothills Park, defeating Airdrie 14-12.
Cochrane High was a perennial powerhouse in Badminton thanks to the coaching of teachers Mel Sly and Ron Bryant. Several players went all the way to Provincials during my years there. The Cobras would routinely win every title at Divisionals and Zones. Hal Henderson and I played Men’s Doubles and finished 5th in the province in 1975.
After High School, I went to New Zealand on an agriculture exchange program and worked on a sheep and cattle farm on the South Island for six months. When I returned, I went to the University of Alberta and completed a degree in Agriculture in 1980. Summers were spent on the ranch haying, fencing, riding and working cattle. In 1981, I returned to the ranch and decided that I wanted to be a grain farmer. I moved to the south side of the river in the north Springbank area where the ranch had a land base that was used for summer pasture. I started breaking land in the spring of 1981 and grew 100 acres of barley that year while continuing to break more land. By 1983, I had 1000 acres broken and was cropping barley, oats, rye and canola.
While at Unjversity, I learned to fly at the Edmonton Flying Club and obtained a private and commercial pilot’s licence. Once home, I began flying my Dad’s Super Cub that he purchased in 1961 to fly around the ranch to check on the cattle. I later took ownership of the Cub and still fly it today, hangaring it at the Springbank airport.
I bought a 50′ mobile home in 1982 and began building the farm shed, shop and granaries. In 1983, I married Jeanne (Harrison), whom I had met in Edmonton while at University. We were married at All Saints Anglican Church where I had attended Sunday School. We started building a house in 1984 and moved in on my birthday in 1985 with our first daughter, Jordan (1985) in tow. Our second daughter, Kelly was born in 1986 and son Ian in 1990.
My Dad, Neil, transferred the management of the Ranch to my sister, Katie and me in the early 1990s. He and Mom moved to Glen Eagles in Cochrane in 1997. He passed away in 1999 and Katie and I continue to manage the ranch and still grain farm. In 2006, our family sold a portion (3300 acres) of the ranch in the Bow River valley to the Provincial Government to create the “Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park”, fulfilling my father’s dream of protecting the native grasslands from development.
King Solomon Masonic Lodge # 41 Cochrane was formed on December 4, 1908. Tom Wearmouth was one of the first members and he received his fifty-year pin in 1959. Through the years the Masons have been very active with their work and have many members. They also had some social functions held in banquet halls in Calgary to raise funds for their organization. In 2004, Richard “Dick”, Hugh and Walter Wearmouth all received their fifty year pins at a ceremony held at the Masonic Lodge.
The history of the Masonic Lodge building is interesting. Along with the All Saints Anglican church it was moved from the little town of Mitford, NWT to Cochrane. It was originally built as a saloon and in 1892 converted into a school by Lady Adela Cochrane. In about 1899, after Mitford closed down, it was moved to Cochrane.
The original historic part of this building is comprised of the front two-thirds of the main Lodge Hall. Many teams of horses moved the building from Mitford where it was set on land owned by the Bruce/Grayson families and used for many years as a second school for the smaller children in Cochrane.
When the new brick school opened in 1918, the little building was used as a gymnasium. In 1926 the Brick School was expanded and this building remained empty for the next three years.
Cochrane’s King Solomon Masonic Lodge# 41 was established in 1908 and met in rented space for many years. They were renting rooms in the Fisher Block when that building was destroyed by a fire on September 23, 1928.
In 1929 the Lodge purchased the old school house and lot from Mrs. Charles Grayson. The building was rotated to face east and west, anterooms and storerooms were added and windows closed off. Electricity was installed. The first Lodge meeting was held in this building on November 14, 1929.
In 1950, the Lodge Hall was extended fourteen feet to the east and a kitchen/banquet lean-to added to the north side of the building. The original wooden boards were removed and the outside covered with asphalt brick siding. Water and sewer were not installed until 1955.
In the mid l 990’s the front steps were rebuilt and a wheelchair ramp added.
The building still serves as the home of King Solomon Lodge# 44, G.R.A. and of Zenith Chapter# 85, Order of the Eastern Star. In 2005 the Cochrane Town Council designated the building as a Municipal Historic Resource.
I was born Joan Robin Williams in Calgary on February 28, 1933. My mother was born in Okotoks in December, 1904, grew up in Calgary, and won an I.O.D.E. Scholarship to attend the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She was eligible, as her father had died as a result of wounds received in W.W.I. She graduated in 1926, and worked as a laboratory technician prior to marrying in 1929. My father was born in Calgary in 1907, and became a Chartered Accountant, joining his father’s business.
I’m an only child which I never felt deprived me of anything. In fact, it had many advantages. I was always treated as their equal by my Mom and Dad. As I grew up, I lived in eleven different homes in Calgary, as Dad liked improving and redecorating houses in his spare time, and then moving on. I thought moving was fun, but I think I must have been spared all the stress and work involved.
I attended Christopher Robin Kindergarten, Cliff Bungalow and Elbow Park Schools, Rideau Park Junior High, King Edward School, and then Western Canada High School. I spent three years at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, graduating in 1953 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. I worked as an accountant during the summers and then full time in my father’s office until I married Neil Harvie in 1954. I then moved out to Bearspaw Ranch (part of Glenbow Ranch) along the Bow River west of Calgary, and began my rural education.
I had little experience with the countryside when I was growing up. All I remember of summer holidays was picnicking and fly fishing with my Dad on Alberta and British Columbia streams. During W.W.II, we saved gas coupons so we could go as far as Radium Hot Springs or Lake Windermere. We had no family living on farms. I did learn to ride horseback at a stable in Calgary so I wasn’t totally new to that when I moved to the ranch. At Bearspaw, I raised chickens, fed pigs, rode horseback for pleasure and to help with cattle work, drove a team on a hay rake one summer, and later drove tractor occasionally when needed. For forty years or so, I helped at branding and weaning time inoculating calves and keeping records.
Neil Harvie was born in Calgary, December 3, 1929, and grew up there. His father acquired the Glenbow Ranch in the early nineteen thirties, so Neil spent a lot of his childhood there, horseback riding, working and learning about the ranch. He graduated from the University of Alberta in 1953 with a B.Sc. in Agriculture, moved out to the ranch to work there, and eventually took over full control. Over the years, he improved the hayfields and grain fields, and installed irrigation on the flats near the Bow River. He improved the Angus based cattle through keeping records and careful selection based on the cattle’s productivity and performance. Later he and some other ranchers developed the Beefbooster strain of cattle through cross-breeding, genetic testing and careful selection.
Neil was active and a director in the Western Stock Growers Association, Alberta Cattle Commission, Western Feedlots Ltd., Calgary Stampede, Calgary Airport Authority, and the Western Heritage Centre as well as many other organizations. He was honoured by the Cochrane Chamber of Commerce in 1996 by being named Ambassador of the Year. He also received the Cochrane Rotary Club’s Integrity Award in 1998.
Neil and I raised three daughters and a son, all of who attended Cochrane schools, have married, and have raised families of their own. Our oldest daughter Pauli ranches near Eckville, Alberta, and she and her husband Tim have two daughters. Jennifer is married and living in Edmonton, and has a one year old son. Lindsay married and is living in Sylvan Lake with her husband and their baby girl.
Our son Tim farms on the south side of the Bow River, east of Cochrane and he and Jeanne have two daughters Jordan and Kelly, and a son Ian. At this time, all three are finishing or pursuing further education. Carol and husband Terry pasture cattle on their ranch east of Cochrane, north of mghway lA. Their daughter Nadine and son Mason spent their school years in Cochrane.
Katie married and has three children, Braden, Kelsey and Curtis. They are also continuing their education. Tim and Katie continue to operate the ranch.
In the early 1960’s, Neil learned to fly an airplane and bought a Piper Super Cub which be hangared in a field close to home. The plane was very useful for keeping an eye on the cattle, fences, waterers, etc. on the ranch, as well as for recreational use. I also took lessons and enjoyed flying for several years. I found finally, that I couldn’t get enough hours in the air to stay current for my license because four young children took up most of my time. It’s like riding a bicycle – once you know how you don’t forget, but I haven’t tested it in a long time. I always felt, though, that in an emergency I could land the plane which was my reason for learning in the first place.
I joined the Glendale Women’s Institute in Cochrane in 1956, and have continued as a member to the present day. I’m an active member of All Saints’ Anglican church in Cochrane, and for fifty two years have belonged to the Samaritan Club of Calgary, which raises funds through rummage sales and other projects to help needy families in Calgary.
Neil and I built a home in GlenEagles in Cochrane in 1997 at the time when he was semi-retiring, and some of our family were becoming active in the management of our ranch. Two years later, Neil lost his battle with cancer, and I have continued to live in the home we built and settled in together. Our decision to move when we did turned out to be a very fortunate one for me as I continue to enjoy my home and my neighbours. I get great pleasure seeing my ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren grow and progress. My great-grandfather, Dr. Ritchie, and his family moved to the Jumping Pound district in 1904 (see Big Hill Country, page 735).
His daughter, my grandmother, is quoted in the original Vestry minute book of All Saints Anglican Church, and my grandfather was a visiting lay reader in All Saints. It is there where he met my grandmother. I find it interesting that a descendant of the Ritchie’s ended up living in the Cochrane area so many years later.
I feel fortunate to have been born and raised in a country where people are free and at peace. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to live in a rural area where I can appreciate the countryside, the animals, birds and wildflowers, and all the benefits of the wide open spaces.
It’s 1961 and my story has just begun,
We tried for a community for everyone.
It took a full year with lots of hard work,
And it really paid off without a quirk.
The Beaupre Creek School was converted henceforth ,
It’s 1962 and we’re registered up North.
Prior to this, so I am told,
Grand Valley School and Beaupre were old.
They had served their purpose , so it seems,
So off to Cochrane went kids and their dreams.
A higher education these days is a must,
Then off to SAIT in a cloud of dust.
It cost 650 bucks to register the Title,
By 1966 the land/school buy was final.
It took all those years of paperwork,
Dealing with protocol and many a jerk.
But it all paid off, I’m glad to say,
And every dog doth have his day.
Now 35 years have come and gone,
With it, tradition, dances and many a song.
So many people each doing their bit,
Trying to make Beaupre a great big hit.
There were Eymas, Brooks, and Edges there,
Serving on the Board and doing their share.
If by chance I miss someone out,
Don’t get upset or even shout.
To be given the honour of this great task,
Is almost more than I can ask.
If I miss out one or seven,
You can bet you ’11 get yours in heaven.
Courvilles, Jamiesons, Macullo, Wasson and Wills,
Beatons, Simpsons, and the Ullerys from Wildcat Hills,
Richards, Dawsons, McKendricks and McCoys,
Beggs, Hansens, McDonalds and Uncle Roy,
Greenways, Butters, Bryant, Bowlen and Hess,
Poynters, Wirsigs, Johnsons, and Auntie Bess.
Colemans, Watts, LePatourel, McLenahans and Guy,
McLean, McNabb, McGillis, MacGregor, MacMillan and Vi,
Dutchik, Chapman, Stehr, Anderson, and Ebba K.,
And all the others who passed this way.
When Louis Beaupre was alive,
He never thought a community would thrive.
MacLeod, Metcalfe, Norman, Braisher, and Pepper,
Shapter, Tidball, who could do better?
Yoshimura, Hammond, Robertson, and Kendall ,
We all go by a different handle.
But the end result is always the same,
Bringing to Beaupre pride and fame.
We have dances, cards and the Beaupre Band
Playschool and the art club trying their hand.
Cubs and Scouts and Bible School,
All living up to the Golden Rule
Horseshoes, baseball and a fire pit ,
And every August the gymkhana is a hit.
My story has now come to a hollow,
Some have gone and the rest will fo1low.
What’s gone on in between Has been a life-long dream.
We’ve all loved Beaupre with veneration,
And now it’s all up to the next generation
The Beaupre community has always been a beehive of activity and not to mention the playschool with Miss Wendy would be remiss. At the Annual General Meeting, October 19, 2001, accolades were on the evening’s agenda, and Linda Thomas (who became president at this meeting) delivered the following tribute: “As everyone knows, we often take this opportunity to present a plaque to a member who has contributed to our community. This year we ‘d like to show our appreciation to someone who has had a huge influence on our community and beyond. She has been quietly going about her business for so long, and is so well loved by the younger members of our community that, she has earned the permanent title of “Miss Wendy.” Wendy Butters’ playschool has such a good reputation that people bring their kids out here from Cochrane. I can personally attest to the fact that the kids love Miss Wendy’s school and sometimes they even get to play her guitar. She ‘s been teaching our children for 25 years and it’s time to let her know how much we appreciate it. So, on behalf of the executive and all the members of Beaupre, this plaque extols a big thank you to Miss Wendy.”
Shockingly, just a few days after the Annual General Meeting, our gathering place burnt down on Halloween night, October 31 , 2001 , and devastated our community. We lost valuable treasures including the 100-year-old piano and precious artworks by local artists. Sadly, Beaupre’s mascot, the old brass school bell used as a dinner bell or to get people’s attention at meetings, was somewhere in the ashes. However, that cloud had a silver lining as Ben Cornforth , Cornforth Excavating , who kindly hauled away the debris, sifted through the ruins and found it. Frank Brooks restored it and the bell is back in business at Beaupre.
Beaupre President Maureen Wills, who delivered the welcoming address, conveyed sincere thanks to fellow directors and to all those who helped with planning and designing the new hall. She extended a big thank you to those who donated artifacts for the decor, artworks, and funds – relating that cash donations were being sent in before we’d even asked for help. She extended a special thank you to MLA Janis Tarchuk for her attention to detail and caring attitude respecting youth and adults in our community. “When the old hall burnt down, along with it went the artifacts, but we still have old memories, and, now, it’s up to the younger generation to make new memories with beautiful people and a beautiful view.”
Beaupre Community Association Presidents
Norman Edge, 1962-63
Pierre Eyma, 1963-68
Donald Edge, 1968-70
Bruce Boothby, 1970- 71
Charlie MacDonald, 1971-73;1974-76;1980-82
Lloyd Greenway, 1973-74; 1977-80
Dennis Courville, 1976-77
Frank Brooks, 1982-83
Larry Beaton, 1983-84
Monte Butters, 1984-85
Maureen Wills, 1985-90; 1996-2001; 2002-04
Erik Butters, 1990-92
Bruce Kendall, 1992-96
Linda Thomas, 2001-02
Mary Lou Brooks, 2004-Present
Our new hall, with a wonderful mountain view, is serving the community well; it’s busier than ever, thanks to a good Board of Directors and an ambitious social committee. The usual card parties, meetings, seminars, musical concerts, annual family barbecue, art club activities, cancer fundraising, garage sales, spring tea, Christmas craft sale, weddings, playschool, children’s Christmas concerts, New Year’s parties, educational courses, birthdays, cowboy soiree dances, and various other types of social events are in full swing.
Speaking of dances, I always remember the story Jack Poynter used to tell on his wife, Tootie. In the early days, after arriving home one snowy winter night from an enjoyable dance at Beaupre, Tootie was removing her boots and a mouse jumped out and scampered across the kitchen floor. With a yell, she said, “That mouse was in my boot!” Jack’s reply, “Yeah, and he’s still alive – but he is pretty well gassed!”
The Jack Henderson family were all born in Northumberland County, England. Mr. Henderson was born April 18, 1899, at Workworth. He joined the Northumberland Fusiliers in April 1917, and fought in the second Battle of Mons in Belgium. Later he was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for nine months. He served with the British Army for three years.
After the War he married Elizabeth Hogg who was born May 10, 1892, at Powburn, England. Their oldest son, James, was born at Ellingham Gardens in 1924, and John was born at East House in 1926.
In the spring of 1928, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson and their two sons, aged two and four years, came to Canada on a Settlement Scheme drawn up by the British and Canadian Governments whereby 3,000 families were allowed to immigrate to Canada with all fares paid.
The Hendersons settled on a farm nine miles north of Cochrane, the N½ 16-27-4-5, where they did mixed farming. When the boys were old enough they went to Weedon School.
Mr. Henderson joined up in the Second World War in 1940 and spent three months training soldiers for active service Overseas. John Jr., joined the Canadian Army in the fall of 1944, at the age of 18, and served 15 months in the service. After the War, he took flying lessons and received his pilot’s license.
After 22 years the farm was sold in 1950, and the Henderson family moved into Cochrane. The boys bought road-building equipment and contracted road work. Mr. Henderson bought a service station north of Calgary, at Wessex, but later sold it and built one in Cochrane.
John married Gladys Prosser in 1957. Gladys was born in Calgary on September 13, 1938. They have seven children: Hal, Kerry, Mellissa, Richie, Ross, Scot, and Angela.
In 1962 James married Frances Hewitt in England and brought his bride home to Cochrane. Frances was born in Amble, Northumberland, on April 21, 1936. They have one son, William. Frances loved to play the piano and James bought her a new piano as a gift shortly after they came to Canada. Frances died of cancer on June 7, 1964. After the death of his wife, James and his son went to live with James’ mother, but she passed away in July 1971, at the age of 79. James and his son now live in the Bowness district of Calgary.
Mr. Henderson Sr. remarried. They sold their service station in Cochrane and now live on Vancouver Island, near Nanaimo.
The Henderson farm is now part of Glenbow Ranches owned by Neil Harvie.
An Address Presented on the Occasion of the Weedon Pioneer Community Association 25th Anniversary Commemorating the Years 1950 – 1975 Location of the First Hall, NE Sec 22 Twp 27 Rge 4
W5M November 19, 1949, was the first meeting to organize a community club in the Weedon District. (The Weedon School District No. 1947 was established March 11, 1908, and the school site was 10 miles north of Cochrane. The district was named by J. Kenneth Hammond after his home village in England.) Mr. Fred Adams acted as chairman, with a great deal of help from Cyril Britton. Much discussion on procuring the land and the Old Weedon School (closed June, 1943) for a community hall took place. Cards were played and lunch was served. The following made up the executive:
Mrs. R. Adams President
Mrs. Mary Bansemer
Secretary Directors: Mr. Karl Sammons Inglis
Mr. George Sheriff Cochrane Lakes
Mrs. H. Perkins Horse Creek
Mr. George Webb Weedon
Mr. George Webb Janitor
With the help of all these people and the community at large, along with Mr. W. H. Webb, Bill and Harry Webb an agreement for sale was drawn up and the Weedon School, located in the extreme NE Sec 22 Twp 27 Rge 4 WSM was sold to the community for $300.00.
During this time the directors and community decided to name the organization “Weedon Pioneer Community Association” and on February 23, 1950 the community hall was registered.
Many donations were made to the Weedon Pioneer Community Association in order to buy the school and on July 3, 1950 the Calgary School Division received their cheque for $300 .00.
In 1950 an agreement was made with Mr. W. H. Webb to lease his land upon which the school was located (2.02 acres) for ten years with the rent being $1.00 per year. This carried on until 1960, leased again until 1964, when it was decided to sell the Weedon School and the outbuildings to Heritage Park, Calgary.
Many activities took place in the hall in the form of card parties, showers, farewell parties and many enjoyable Christmas parties. Gas lamps and coal oil lamps were the order of the day at this time, along with coal and wood stoves. At one time a ton of coal was raffled and tickets were sold for 25¢ each.
The first insurance policy was taken out February 17 1951 for a premium of $27.25.
Membership was $1.00 and admission for dances was set at Gents 75¢ and Ladies 50¢ and any lady bringing lunch was admitted free. Card parties were 35¢ and children 16 years and under were free. One particular dance was recorded to have been a huge success with the music and lunch supplies costing $24.84 and still making a profit of $26.95. The music was supplied by Dorothy Arndt, Dorothy Dombroski and Mr. Anderson.
December 23, 1950 a Christmas party was held and 50 bags of candy and nuts were made up. Supplies were purchased at a cost of $23.70. Incidentally, the order: 16 pounds of mixed candy, 14 pounds of mixed nuts, two boxes of oranges, one box of apples, decorations, one pound of coffee, two pounds of cocoa and five pounds of sugar.
In the ensuring years, many renovations took place such as painting and improvements. In 1954 the subject of electricity came to great discussion, but ended with Mrs. Rickey Adams purchasing another gas lamp instead.
Means of making monies for the hall was difficult. The ladies catered farm sales for Ms. Angus Wiesman, Mr. Dave Holstein, Mrs. Peppard and others. This always being a fun time, though working hard and hearing the local gossip, everyone enjoyed it.
In 1957, the cost of living was on the rise, so with a unanimous vote it was decided to raise the price of admission to Gents $1.00 and Ladies 50¢. Coal was donated to the hall and a new stove too.
Many activities were held in the hall through these years, our Christmas parties being a highlight each year. Long will we remember George Webb and his School Bus Choir and his wonderful singing of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and also the sisters, Mrs. Wes Wilson and Mrs. C. Bristow, singing “Star of the East”. All the children playing piano, accordion or reciting and putting on plays, one group putting on a play “Look Out Liz”.
Lunch was always served at Christmas parties, showers, dances, etc. Coffee was always cooked in a large copper boiler on a coal and wood stove. A large apple box held the coffee cups and the men passed these on to the crowd. Cream and sugar were served, also sandwiches and cake. While Mum and Dad danced, small children slept on the kitchen table and benches until it was time to go home. Floor manager for the dances and calling the square dances was Mr. Fred Adams.
February 26, 1964 was perhaps a sad day for many when a meeting was called to discuss the selling of the Weedon Hall and out buildings. Mr. Red Cathcart of the Glenbow Foundation spoke about Heritage Park and the preservation of old buildings built prior to 1914. At this time, he offered $1,000.00 for the purchase of the hall. A special meeting was called where Mr. Bill Pratt spoke about Heritage Park. Much discussion ensued. The decision was made to sell the hall for $1 ,000 .00 and all contents to be held and stored by the Association. The saga of the first Weedon Hall was coming to a sad end, but everyone was pleased to know it would be well cared for in the new Heritage Park in Calgary. Many fond memories are expressed when folks visit this building. They feel proud to visit it anytime at the Park.
Now it was time (1964) to replace our Old Weedon Hall with a new one, so with the kind help of George Webb, the Beaver Dam School was located and we were able to purchase the building for a cost of $300.00. Beaver Dam School District No. 1056 was established on July 8, 1904. It was named by the first school organizers after the Beaver Dam Creek, which loops around the school from the North West. The school was 1.5 miles south of Madden, or 14 miles -west and one mile south of Crossfield. The school was moved at a cost of $400 .00 plus $20 .00 for moving the telephone and power lines. A new location for the hall had been found and we received permission from the Rocky View Municipality No. 44 to exchange the old
Cochrane Lakes School grounds (Cochrane Lake School District No. 1947, 1909. The school, 6 miles north of Cochrane, was named after the adjacent string of lakes) with Stan and Barbara Wilson for the present site, NE Sec 34 Twp 26 Rge 4 W5M, near the junction of highway 22 and the Weedon Trail; receiving the land title from the Wilson’s. Costs included lawyer fees of $43.00, transfer fees of $18.00, and lumber and footings for the basement of $93.76. Difficulties were encountered with getting someone to put in the basement; consequently the basement filled with water and it cost $10.00 to have it pumped out.
In 1965 the Cochrane Lakes Snow Plough Club disbanded and they donated the balance of their funds to the hall. We also received a Recreational Grant from the Alberta Government for $800.00 so in 1966 we were finally able to hire someone to put in the basement. The cost of material was $544.42 and the labour amounted to $713 .50 plus many volunteer hours of work donated by several people in the community. A further cost of $200.00 put the building on the basement and many more hours of work by volunteers.
We finally were able to have a grand opening of the hall on February 10, 1967. With the kind help of donations and Calgary Power we were fortunate in having the electricity for the opening, the installation costing $390.00. That was some difference to having gas and coal oil lamps in our old Weedon Hall! District folks donated chairs, tables, dishes, etc. to help with the hall. In 1967 Centennial Year, the Westbrook 4-H Beef Club gave the hall a face-lift with a fresh coat of paint. In October the basement floor was poured and the ladies served the men a potluck dinner.
December 2, 1967 a farewell party for Mr. and Mrs. George Sherriff was held; they had sold their farm and moved to Cochrane. Everyone of course was saddened to see them leave as they had helped so much in the establishment of our original hall. That winter it was decided to have our “first” New Years Party. It met with such success it has been carried on ever since. In the spring of 1969 our first Spring Tea was held in conjunction with the Lochend Ladies Club. A raffle for a side of beef with tickets at 50¢ each, this has continued with much success. This past year we were honoured to have bronze bookends donated and made by Malcolm McKenzie and again this year a bronze horse and rider.
In 1972 the Lochend School was sold and the sum of $300.00 was donated to the Association for improvements. (Lochend School District No. 2732 was established in 1912 and derived its name from the same source as the post office and church. The road from Calgary to the centre of the district became known as the “Lochend Road”.) At this time I may mention the Lochend Ladies have donated benches, dishes etc. to the hall and the board has been most grateful.
Each year there have been numerous dances, bingos, farewell parties, showers, anniversary parties, family gatherings, films, upholstery courses, fabric sales, 4-H and now the Cochrane & District Historical group uses the hall for their meetings. Dances now cost $6 .00 per couple and orchestra costs are $100.00 or more.
Propane heat was installed in the hall but now we are progressing one step further with natural gas heat to be installed this summer.
Since 1949, when the first meetings were held and we received our hall charter, there have been many changes. Water still has to be brought to the hall, out houses still have to be used, but from gas and coal oil lights, coal and wood and a dirt floor in the basement, we have progressed very favourably to a better hall with electricity, gas and a new addition to be built with the help of a Government grant. An Auction Sale to be held June 14, 1986 to raise additional funds. Without the kind help of many, many people making generous donations for the purchase of the hall and power and all construction work of the past, it would have been impossible to have our 25th Anniversary of the hall.
Since the 25th Anniversary celebrations in 1975, many more achievements have been reached by the Weedon Pioneer Community Association.
In the late 1970s a new addition was added on the east side of the hall, all construction was done with volunteer help. John Grimstead donated the excavating of the basement and Bert Powlesland donated the hardwood floor. All interior and exterior work was done with volunteers.
A water well was drilled by Floyd Thompson and a sewer system installed and the hall plumbed. A kitchen was built and a new gas stove bought to replace the electric stove. A furnace was installed. Washrooms were added to the hall.
A lovely old piano was donated by Mrs. Gladys Baptie, for which the community was very thankful.
In 1978 a play school was organized. Many children attended and their most loved teacher was “Miss Wendy”, Wendy Butters.
The group was started at the instigation of the then Mayor, Lydia Graham and a newer resident of Cochrane, Anne Richardson. Anne heard that the brick house on First Street, known to locals as the ‘Chapman house’, was in jeopardy of being tom down for a small high rise. She approached several people including Lydia and a group of about twelve people met at the CPED (Cochrane Partnership for Economic Development) Boardroom in January of 1999. After several meetings a core group was formed . The first due-paying members were: Rick Green, Lydia Graham, Anne Richardson , Bernice Klotz, Alice King, Jackie Sheir, and Tony Turner.
On July 6, 1999 a meeting was held at the King Solomon Masonic Lodge, where the group decided on their name: Cochrane Historical & Archival Preservation Society – a.k.a. CHAPS . The first executives were: President Anne Richard on Vice President Secretary Treasurer Members-at-Large David Beattie Gordon Davies, Bernice Klotz, Jackie Sheir, Gary Steven, and Doug Monro
On July 31, 1999 CHAPS received its corporate number and became an official Society. August 1, 2007 CHAPS became an official charitable organization.
CHAPS approached John Thomson and he was kind enough to design a logo for the group. The logo depicts a corner of a building with a brick foundation and clapboard siding. This is to commemorate the brickyards of the area and the small wooden shacks that were the first buildings. Then the name of the group was added, showing the acronym reading downwards along the side of the building.
Eventually, it was decided the meetings would be held on the third Wednesday of each month. Since its inception several projects have been undertaken, the major one being the preservation of the first official hospital in Cochrane, “The Davies House”. In order to accomplish this goal, several steps have been taken, mainly fundraising and trying to raise public awareness.
A sample walking tour was compiled in 1999 and Doug Munroe volunteered to take interested parties on the tour.
January 2000, the Town of Cochrane partnered with CHAPS and commissioned Cathy Bosch to do a “Footprint” of Old Town Cochrane. This project was done in three parts over 2000, 2001 and 2002.
January 2001 , Anne Richardson left the Cochrane area, leaving behind the legacy of a historical group with definite ideas and a firm foundation to build on.
CHAPS started having Spring and Fall Dinners as their main means of fundraising, adding the sale of pins of their logo at the Spring 2002 dinner and collector plates with the Cochrane CPR Station on them at the November 2006 dinner. Later, Lydia arranged for the group to participate in the Government run Lotteries Program and they worked Casino dates at the Frank Sissions Silver Dollar Casino. Other fundraisers were an Old-fashioned Strawberry Tea held at Mount St. Francis Retreat in June of 2006 and a month-long raffle in July of 2007.
In September 2002, CHAPS member, Marilyn Whittle, suggested that a sequel to the Big Hill Country book would be a good project as the original only covered up to 1945. Marilyn laid the groundwork and in January of 2006 the work started on the book “More Big Hill Country” . A group of approximately fifteen dedicated people took up this challenge.
During the Cochrane Centennial year of 2003, CHAPS hosted ten evenings at the Nan Boothby Memorial Library, one each month (except July and December) to introduce a new historical display the group had put together. These displays were of Cochrane – An Overview, Religion , Lodges, Social
life, Business, Sports, Industry, Education, Organizations, and Services. The first six of these displays were reconstructed in the Cochrane Community Centre during the Heritage Days weekend, where CHAPS hosted a portion of the 100th Anniversary celebrations. The group recruited the three original churches to hold teas each afternoon. The All Saints Anglican Church held their tea on Saturday, St. Mary’s Catholic Church took on Sunday and St. Andrew’s United Church took Monday.
CHAPS had been working on a more detailed walking tour booklet. The finished product, “Under the Big Hill”, was launched over the August weekend of the Centennial celebrations.
Another project was to have plaques set up in front of some of the historic buildings in the community. This project was started by Gordon Davies in May of 2004 and the first phase completed in the Spring of 2008. Seven buildings were selected: The Chapman House, The Howard Block, The Cochrane Hotel, The Andison Block (MacKay’s), The Andison Store, King Solomon Masonic Lodge and St. Andrew’s United Church. The second phase of this project is to have a plaque placed on the Cochrane Ranche to commemorate the ranch, the brickyard, the creamery and the dairy that were all part of his property.
CHAPS has a firm foundation of approximately 45 members which include single, family and corporate members that transfers to between 60 to 80 members strong. The main body of this group show their support by attending the fundraising dinners faithfully each time they are asked. Not only the basic board members but also several of our members regularly attend the monthly meetings. Members are expected to give only as much time and effort as they feel comfortable with. For many this is the membership and to attend the fundraisers; others give many hours to each individual project.
The group attends the Cochrane Trade Fair, the Bearspaw Fair, and the Lioness Craft Fair in order to try and let the community know who they are and what they are trying to do for the community. Over the years members have presented the Society to each of the new Town Councils, and worked with the Town to organize a Heritage Advisory committee for the council. Often the Society helps to present local talent by having them entertain at the fundraising dinners. Some of the local talent that have accommodated the Society are: Jesse Fowler, Wayne Dolen, Bobby Turner, Wendy Vaughn and Brooks Tower.
It is not the intention of the Cochrane Historical & Archival Preservation Society to stop progress, we only wish to retain some of our history and make sure it is passed on to coming generations. A community is only as strong as its foundation. Cochrane has a very strong foundation and we wish to retain and help build on it.
CHAPS 25th was celebrated on Aug 5, 2024.
Events included unveiling the new statue, Stockmens Memorial branding demonstration, RCMP in Red Serge, vintage Fire Truck, Wood Carving demo, Folklore Research info booth, Stoney Nakoda Elder speaker, Baggage cart restoration project presentation and Kids activities.
See the links below for local coverage of the event.
Message from Larry Want, CHAPS President
Hi everyone. Great news, the Cochrane Labour Day Parade Committee has asked CHAPS to be the Grand Parade Marshall in this year’s parade on Monday, September 2nd, 2024. We said YES.
This is quite an honour, privilege and compliment for CHAPS. This points to all the work our volunteers and members have done for the past 25 years. Congratulations CHAPS. More public awareness and free advertising brings CHAPS into the limelight!
I AM ASKING EVERY MEMBER TO COME AND JOIN ME IN RIDING, WALKING OR CRAWLING IN THIS PARADE.
We will be carrying the parade banner as well as our own CHAPS banner.
If you are able to wear historical western wear clothes, that would be excellent.
The Cochrane and Area Heritage Association was formed on July 1, 1978 primarily to raise funds for the Cochrane Ranche and promote our local heritage and history. It was duly registered in Alberta on August 30, 1978.
Original signees were: Marjorie Spicer, housewife: Ellen Buckler, teacher; Margaret Buckley, housewife; Daryl Downs, store clerk; and Alice Graham, nurse. Over these three decades we have held our meetings in various places: the town office, the Provincial Building the Westerson Cabin, Mrs. Marjorie Spicer’s sunroom, the Big Hill Lodge, Turner’s Inn in Turner Valley and the Perrenoud Ranche House.
The original Westerson Cabin in Cochrane (opposite the original Nan Boothby Library) was restored by the Cochrane and Area Heritage Association with the assistance of the Town of Cochrane and funds from the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation. It was used as an Information Centre during the 1988 Winter Olympics and a mini museum and Tourist Information Centre in the summer months.
Our association presents the Heritage Art Award and an Honourable Mention Award at the Cochrane Art Club’s Annual Art Show and Sale. To win this monetary award and certificate the artwork must depict the historical and natural aspects of the Cochrane area.
We also sponsor the Social Studies 30 Award at the Cochrane High School. It consists of a cash prize and certificate. One year five CHS students achieved the same high provincial score in their Social Studies 30 exams.
With the partnership of Cochrane town officials, we assisted in the naming of parks, streets and local special areas in Cochrane named after local pioneers and ranchers such as Mitford Park, Kerfoot Park, Copithorne Park, Fenton Park, Wearmouth Park, Crawford Park, and Samuel Spicer Park. The Cochrane Historical & Archival Preservation Society (CHAPS) assisted us in later years.
Some of our other projects were: the purchase of wooden log benches at the Cochrane Ranche, the Memorial Garden at Big Hill Lodge and helping to buy a large tent for the Cochrane Ranche, etc. On August 9, 1989 we accepted the Perrenoud Ranche House, an Alberta Historic Resource property lease with provisions: “The Cochrane and Area
Heritage Association and the Alberta Department of Culture will work together to help allocate funds from available grants”. Our association catalogued over one thousand historical artifacts in 1990 (P.H .90) for Alberta Culture.
Mrs. Marjorie Spicer was our president for many years. Some Cochrane and Area Heritage Association members past and present are: Marjorie Spicer, Edna Copithome, Ava Lewis, Walter Lewis, Jr., Walter Hutchinson, Gordon Hall, Amy Begg, Debbie Baire, Kathy Bosch, Belle Hall, Keryle Amidon, Jean Copithorne, Irene Copithorne, Norah Schmidt, Margaret Buckley, Faye McLeod, Marjorie Richmond, Jill Richards, Judy MacKenzie, Charlene Gale, Pat Birchall, Rick Green, Stan Phelps, Bobby and Sunni S. Turner.
For many years we have sold a substantial number of silver “Men of Vision II charms which were designed by the renowned local artist and sculptor, Malcolm J. MacKenzie. Proceeds are used for restoration programs. Times change. In the late 1990’s we felt that the Perrenoud Ranche House program and other “outside events” were our main projects and we suggested that another historical society should be formed in Cochrane itself to preserve and interpret the history of the rapidly growing town; and therefore the then heritage-minded mayor, Lydia Graham and forward looking individuals formed CHAPS (Cochrane Historical & Archival Preservation Society) in 1999.
Currently our major project is to restore, preserve and interpret the Perrenoud Ranche House Site, an Alberta Historic Resource which is an historic horse ranche northwest of Cochrane. The site consists of the 1910 family ranche house, the original log homestead, a log blacksmith shop, granaries, a log barn, a sawmill and a garage on ten acres of land.
Charles Emil Perrenoud was born in 1863 in Bescancon, France. His father was a jeweller. Charles came to Canada in 1886 and in 1888 he started ranching in Mortimer Coulee. On April 2, 1902, he married Laura M. Phipps in All Saints Anglican Church, Cochrane. They had three children, George, Emma and Agnes. Charles was a rancher who raised cattle and horses.
His son George never married. Emma married Ed Young of the Ingles district and Agnes married Frank Hutchinson of the Lochend area – all are now deceased. The heirs of the estate donated the Perrenoud Ranche House Site to the Provincial Government of Alberta.
The Perrenoud Ranche Art Centre had its grand opening on September 17 and 18, 2005. Many of the Perrenoud descendents were at the gala opening which had over 500 in the two-day period. The attendees included government officials, local dignitaries, municipal Councillor, friends and neighbours as well as cultural representatives from Edmonton and Calgary.
At present we have an artist-in-residence at the Perrenoud Ranche Art Centre: Stan Phelps. We hold art shows, craft sales, art classes and other community affairs. The site is open by appointment only.
Our latest projects have been the Jumping Pound Historic Building Survey 2005· The Big Hill Country Historic Building Survey 1 and 11, 2006 and 2007 and the Dog Pound/Bottrel Historic Building Survey 2007.
In the future, we plan to replicate the old log homestead and restore the spacious garage to accommodate an artists’ studio/children’s art classroom and open a museum and interpretive centre. Further restoration are ongoing. Our aim is to preserve the past and the present for the future.
Only time will tell what the future brings.
When my family moved from Calgary to Springbank in 1916, the first world war was in full swing. We moved onto a quarter section belonging to Frank Young. The quarter was about a mile east of the Red Dutton Arena in lower Springbank. The countryside in those days were covered with buffalo bones. The bones were gathered into piles and hauled to Calgary where they would be ground up for fertilizer and I understand they were also used in the manufacture of explosives. My dad had gathered a huge pile of bones and they sat in front of the house. One day mother heard a noise outside and in going out, she discovered two wagons with Sarcee natives helping themselves to the bones. In her best English she told them to leave and leave the bones alone. Promptly one native told her he didn’t understand English. Going into the house her eyes fell on dad’s double barrel shotgun. Picking it up she went out again, pulling the hammer back. The natives hastily unloaded their wagons and in 10 minutes were gone. This was one language they understood.
By the 1920s and ’30s there were not many bones left laying around, some however were being dug up in gravel pits and excavations. There is a spot in the Jumping Pound area called the Pile of Bones Hill. The oldtimers would tell you that they were the bones from Cochrane Ranche cattle lost in storms in the 1880s. The last buffalo was shot in this area in the 1880s. W.D. Kerfoot and his men ran an old bull into the the Cochrane Ranch corrals with a herd of cattle, where Kerfoot shot him.
In later years buffalo jumps or kill sites have been discovered along Jumping Pound Creek and also Big Hill Creek, one site was found at Big Hill Springs in 1968. It was excavated in the spring and summer of 1972 by students from the University of Calgary archaelogical division, with the permission of the landowner Jonathon Hutchinson. A number of arrowheads, spear points and other artifacts were found. The site is now catalogued as the Hutchinson Buffalo Jump “EHPO7”. Archaelogical evidence to date indicates that the Huchinson Buffalo Jump was primarily a jump site and butchering station that was used mainly in the fall of the year. There are teepee rings in four or five nearby locations, Some were on the high ground east of the springs. They were located there I would imagine as lookouts for the presence of other tribes. The dating of the Hutchinson Jump was somewhere between 300 AD to 1500 AD. There are three or four other sites along Big Hill Creek, but with the advent of acreage people, permission to explore the land is almost impossible.
When you visit Heritage Park and you stand in front of the Cochrane firehall, you read on the sign how the fire horses pulled the Cochrane fireman’s rig to fires around the village. It makes an exciting story but it never happened, not in Cochrane anyway, because at no time did horses pull the Cochrane outfit. In the first place the village was too small; you could run around the whole village in about 10 minutes. The rig was pulled by manpower and so was the ladder wagon. In later years a hitch was put on the rig so it could be pulled behind a car or truck.
Chas. Grayson, the Imperial Oil agent, had a big white horse he hooked to a dray with shafts; on the dray would be 100 gallon tank loaded with gasoline. Chas. would be heading for the garages to replenish their supply (not much gas used in those days). Ed Raby worked for Grayson and Ed got his start in the oil business when Charles retired. Then I remember George Bunney delivering milk and cream around town. He had a white horse also. The horse was almost human. As George would take a carrier load of milk and service two or three houses, the horse would bring the buggy around to the other street and stop and wait. The buggy was painted black and had a box built on the back to hold the milk. The dairy at that time was where the Franciscan Retreat is now.
The school barn was part of th school system in the 1920s and ’30s. The barn at the Cochrane School held about 20 head of horses. Some kids came by horse and cart, but most rode saddlehorse. Big and small, bronco and quiet horses, they brought the kids to school and for the most part stayed tied up in the barn for about eight hours. Sometimes the barn didn’t get cleaned out regularly and some of the horses were nearly standing on their heads.
“Rattlesnake” Pete Dixon, the local poundkeeper, had a big buckskin saddlehorse. The horse was kept in a barn on Powell Street. The buckskin was used more than once to pull cars up the muddy hill, and he was used to round up stray cattle and horses that found their way into town. Billy Johnson, the mail delivery man for rural route number one to the north and also Bottrel mail, had a small fast team. A democrat for the summer and a cutter for when there was snow on the ground, you could set your watch by his schedule; Billy was nearly always on time. Besides the mail he would bring any medicines from the drugstore in a desperate situation groceries. Billy’s outfit was used at funerals to get a coffin up to the graveyard when the snow was two feet deep and drifting.
Clem Gardner was the second son of Captain and Mrs. Gardner. He was born in Russel, Manitoba in 1885. The Elder Gardners came to Pirmez Creek the following year in a democrat with their two sons Clem and Teddy. Clem and his brother received some private schooling at home, later he attended school at Springbank for a few years. At Springbank School Clem met Helen Hutchinson, who was later to become his wife.
Clem’s first job at 17 was to break 70 head of horses for Goddard at the Bow River Horse Ranch. The ranch was situated on the south side of the· Bow River between Cochrane and Calgary. Clem was paid $5 per head for breaking. Captain Gardner felt at this time they were being crowded out so in 1905 Clem and his brother Teddy and sister Ruby headed for the Hand Hills country east of Drumheller. This proved to be a disastrous venture. In June of 1911, Clem married Helen Hutchinson. Helen was born in 1884, she and her parents came from Lanardshire, Scotland to Quebec and in 1887 they moved to Calgary. Helen and Clem’s first child, a boy, died as an infant and is buried on the ranch. Later three more children were born, Noel, Audrey and Joan. I believe Noel is the only one alive today.
Clem Gardner had to be one of Canada’s best all-round cowboys. He has a long list of accomplishments illustrated by the many trophies he has won, He rode in his first rodeos in 1907, and won bronc riding honors at the first Calgary Stampede in 1912. Clem had a chuckwagon of his own, and at Calgary, driving his own wagon, he had a penalty-free time of 1.10.1 He was the first driver to use Throughbred horses for chuckwagon racing, competing from 1923 to 1946. He owned and rode his own steeplechasers to many victories on the old Cochrane race track and at Millarville races.
Gardner’s favorite sport was polo and he played twice a week for the Calgary team, often trailing his ponies 25 miles each way, with the help of his two daughters. Clem competed in horse shows for more than 40 years. Clem Gardner was honored in 1952 by the Calgary Stampede Board for his many years of dedicated competition. In 1908 the Grayson place north of Bragg Creek was added to the home range, along with 300 head of cattle. He then added the Whittley place and six sections of the Rick’s ranch. Clem was well known in Cochrane and area. On Easter Sunday, 1963 Clem, who had been to St. Steven’s church in Calgary died of a heart attack on the way home. When Archdeacon Swanson conducted his funeral service, Swanson said “I say this of Clem Gardner, There was a man.”
For Albertans who liked their beer and hard liquor, July 1, 1916 prohibition was welcomed with all the enthusiasm of an earthquake or a prairie tornado. For the members of the Temperance and Moral Reform League, T.H. Miller, W.F. Gold and A.T. Cushing and authoress Nellie McClung and many others, it was a day for celebration, without liquor of course. For some bold men who were eager to make a fast buck – it was a day of challenge. With liquor and beer over 22 percent alcohol declared illegal, they would have to see that, somehow or other, burning thirsts were quenched. A bit risky, perhaps, but with huge profits involved, well, they would just have to take a few risks.
Bootlegging was not new in Alberta. It predated the arrival of the North West Mounted Police in 1874. It waned for a time but bloomed again with the arrival of the construction gangs building the Canadian Pacific Railway. Of all the members of the oldtime mounted police who struck terror in the hearts of the makers and distributors of illicit hootch, probably none surpassed Sergeant Thorne who with a detachment of mounted police were assigned the task of keeping the western end of Alberta section whiskey free.
It was no easy task, for hundreds of thirsty construction workers with money burning holes in their pockets, were clamoring for booze and dozens of eager bootleggers were doing their best to see that they got it.
For quite a time one lovely blond woman led Sgt. Thorne and his men a merry chase. Time after time she would show up at one camp or another, with the story she was looking for her brother. As sure as the sun rises in the east, after each visit, singing shouting and sometimes fighting would break out in camp and many of the men appeared to be intoxicated. None of the Mounties could ever recall her bringing anything more sinister looking than a batch of cookies into camp. Yet the evidence pointed to the fact that somehow the lady was sneaking booze into the camps. Finally, it dawned on Sergeant Thorne that the lovely lady appeared considerably thicker around the middle when she arrived than when she departed. He quickly summoned a police matron and waited for the next time the blond appeared at one of the camps. The resultant arrest and search revealed a rather startling development. For around her waist the young lady wore a rubber tube that held a gallon of hootch. A nozzle protruding from an ingenious belt buckle made dispensing quick and simple. A flip of the buckle, a slight contraction of abdominal muscles and presto, out came the booze, a stream sufficient to fill a two-ounce shot glass in a couple of seconds
It is with great honour and respect that I carry on the tale of my family, which began so long ago here in Big Hill Country. Like all pioneer stories, it is filled with determination, amazement and pride at what these folks accomplished with so very little. My grandfather William Henry Bradley, who referred to himself as “native son” of Cochrane, was born here on May 28, 1908, in the area known at the time as Brushy Ridge. His parents, William Percival (Billie the Strongman) and Mary Maude Bradley (nee Smith), were part of the great pioneer wave that populated the empty lands known then as Rupert’s Land.
Mary Smith was born on May 14, 1887, in England, and she and her family arrived from Europe to Morley, where they found employment, according to my great, great aunt, Marjorie Bristowe, of Cochrane, who chronicled the early family history. According to Marjorie, the family arrived on May 24 in Morley, only to find three feet of snow on the ground! It was these kinds of hardships that the pioneer men and women of Cochrane had to face on a daily basis.
Mary’s sister, Annie, was married to Sykes Taylor by the Reverend John McDougall at his church in Morley in 1893. Billie and Mary, who were just seventeen, were married in Cochrane on March 16, 1904. Little is known about the arrival of Billie Bradley
Like so many others, the young couple began a family. First born was Mamie, who was born on March 28, 1905, then William Henry, in 1908, and finally, John was born on February 19, 1912. The next part of this story is as hazy as stories can become. It seems that the same year my Great Uncle Johnny was born, Mary Bradley left Cochrane, with baby John and his sister Mamie, for Prince Rupert, BC. She left William Henry with his father, and later married a Mr. Pierce in Prince Rupert and had ten more children.
Billie and four year old Henry were now left alone, and Billie had to care for Henry in any way that he could. It is important to note here that as much as we remember the hardships of the pioneer life, the reality of what our ancestors went through is hard to imagine. Grandad wrote of his home, a canvas roof with boards up the sides, and remembered that it wasn’t so bad. However, I try to imagine the fear of a young mother with a brand new baby living in -20 to -30 below under such conditions, and I can begin to understand how some did not manage to remain in the inhospitable surroundings of early Cochrane.
Like all pioneers, Billie needed to rely on his neighbors to help him with his young son. Henry was “farmed out” with Doogle and Storey, two old bachelors who lived east of Cochrane. One day, they decided to make soup and brought out the frozen beef to cut off a soup bone from the shank. Henry was told to hold the beef on a pine block. Doogle swung at the meat with an axe, the meat slipped, and he cut off Henry’s index finger on his right hand. In his own words, Henry wrote, “First aid treatment, 1913 style, was to put my hand in a lard pail of salt and water and then wrap it in an old towel. Next, they had to catch the team, go to the neighbor’s and borrow a democrat, then take me to Dr. Steele at the hospital in Cochrane”. He remembers the doctor having to tie him down to work on his hand.
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It must have occurred to Billie that perhaps two old bachelors weren’t the best surrogate parents, so he soon had Henry boarded with Mr. and Mrs. William Sargeant in Cochrane. They were a childless couple who emigrated from England in 1910. There was also the matter of Henry needing to go to school, which the Sargeants made sure he did. They lived together in Cochrane, while Billie continued on with the pioneering spirit. He would often sign on with haying crews to help earn money, and while away in Claresholm on a haying crew in August 1915, he developed pneumonia and passed away. Henry was now an orphan, and continued to live with the Sargeants, who had decided to try their luck in Calgary.
Henry finished his schooling in Calgary, and lived as a teen in Calgary in the 1920′ s. One day he found out his next-door neighbor had a toaster in a repair shop, and while offering to pick it up for them, found out the repair shop didn’t have a delivery boy. He was hired for the job, and so began his quest for knowledge about things electrical. It was during this time the great excitement of radio started. Two university students also worked at the shop while Henry was there, and they had a great interest in radio. They began building the first crystal sets at the shop. In his memoir he recalls how he would get his earphones on and listen in on the crystal set to W.W. Grant’s CFCN program the “Voice of the Prairies”.
Henry’s fascination with things electrical stayed with him all his life. He was able to apprentice as an electrician starting in 1926. However, the spectre of the Dirty Thirties was looming on the horizon, and by 1930, there was very little work. Ever a son of a pioneer, Henry returned to his roots in Cochrane to look for work. He contacted Ernie Thompson of Cochrane to ask if he could sign on with Calgary Power. Ernie had a contract patrolling the lines from his farm out to the power plant at Horseshoe Falls on the Bow River near the Stoney Indian Reserve. Henry had known Ernie in his youth, when Billie had looked after Ernie’s farm. Ernie asked Henry if he could climb poles, to which Henry replied, “Sure”. It was awfully apparent that Henry didn’t know what he was doing, but, again, Ernie noticed that pioneering spirit, and he hired him on. Thus began Henry’s career with Calgary Power, and his return to his hometown.
While at King George School in Calgary, Henry had met Ida Cooper, who had emigrated with her family from Scotland in 1913. John (Jock) and Jemima Cooper (nee Sutherland) had three children when they emigrated from Scotland to Canada: Francis Sutherland, Margaret and Ida. Ida was born in 1910 in Brechin, and loved to tell the story of how she stood at the bow of the boat and peed on her new leather boots on the trip to Canada! If you had ever met Ida, who lived her final days at the Bethany Care Center in Cochrane, you would not be surprised by that story!
Henry wouldn’t marry Ida until he had steady work to support a family, so they were not married until Henry signed on with Calgary Power in 1931. They were married in Banff on March 28, 1931, which according to Grandma Ida, was the place to get married in those days. Her sister Margaret (Daisy) and husband Joe were the maid of honor and best man. They continued to reside in Calgary, but Henry, who was also by this time known as Hank, was becoming a “Cowboy Lineman”. It was his job to see that the people of Alberta got consistent and reliable electrical service. These cowboy linemen were tough guys who patrolled the lines and also repaired them when they found a problem. They ate and slept at farmhouses along the way, where the occupants, as the children of pioneers, were only too happy to extend the famous western hospitality to the guys who were responsible for keeping the power running! Hank had many stories to tell of staying with the families he had known in his youth in Cochrane.
Grandad was ever a pioneer son, and in the 1950’s became very interested in calling square dances. He and Grandma were very involved in square dancing, and Grandad became involved with the Calgary Stampede where he volunteered calling each morning of Stampede at Rope Square with the Square Dancing crew. He continued on with this throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s before he retired himself in his seventies. Son Stu continued on with the family tradition of square dance calling for the Calgary Stampede during the 1980’s and 1990’s. The Bradleys made a significant contribution to Calgary volunteerism through both Hank and Stu that lasted for more than forty years.
Hank and Ida had two sons: William Sargeant was born on August 18, 1932, and Stuart Cooper, on June 14, 1936. Both grew up in Calgary, attended high school at Crescent Heights High School, and met their prospective wives during their high school years. Bill married Maxine Oliphant on September 18, 1954, and had two children; Barth William, who was born on September 16, 1959, and Judith Maxine, born November 14, 1961. Bill and Maxine moved to Edmonton in the 1960’s, and have resided there ever since. Bill worked in finance, and Maxine, like most mothers of her day, created a second career after raising her children as a public school librarian.
Barth married Karen Grand of Edmonton on February 20, 1982, and has four children; Allison Norma (born September 27, 1986), Derrick Barth (born October 5, 1988), Gavin Cooper (born January 23, 1991), and Connor Gary (born May 14, 1993). Barth is a partner in his own accounting firm, and Karen is a teacher. Judith married Dr. Fraser Armstrong of Edmonton on December 27, 1985, and had two children; Kieran William (born July 7, 1993), and Emily Grace (born October 11,1994). Fraser runs a general family medical practice, and Judy runs her own graphic design business.
Stuart married Dixie Snell on June 29, 1957. They have three children; Shannon Marie, who was born on January 7, 1959, Laura Ann, who was born on August 1, 1961, and Jason Stuart, who was born on February 17, 1966. The Stuart Bradley family moved to Springbank in 1968 where all three children graduated from Springbank Community High School. Stuart carried on with the family tradition started by his Dad, and became a lineman with the City of Calgary Electric Service. The move to Springbank was precipitated by Stuart’s desire to start a dog-boarding kennel, and he ran Bradville Kennels in Springbank from 1969 – 1977. Like Maxine, Dixie started a second career after raising her children, and was the school secretary at Springbank Community High School from 1975 to 1997. Stu was also known as the local DJ during those years, and was a well-known community volunteer during his years as a Springbank resident. Dixie and Stu resided in Springbank until 2003, when they officially retired to Cochrane.
Shannon married Dr. Bryan Green of Estevan, SK on September 3, 1988. They have two children: Kai Stuart McMillan (born April 1, 1989), and Tieran Lars Sutherland (born September 6, 1991). Bryan works in the training field with Alberta’s oil and gas industry, and Shannon teaches at Bow Valley High School in Cochrane. Bryan and Shannon have been Cochrane residents since 1998, and their boys have attended elementary, middle and high school in Cochrane. Laura married Patrick Smith of Medicine Hat on October 10, 1981, Laura and Patrick moved to Caledon, Ontario in 1994 and live there with their three children: Corbin Patrick Bradley (born March 10, 1988), Miranda June (born September 17, 1990 and Blake William (born May 25 1991. Laura runs her own sales business, and Pat is in upper management with ICI Paints. Jason married Marcia Degraw of Cochrane on July 15, 1989. Jason and Marci made Cochrane their home shortly after they were married, and their two children were born there. They are Cherilyn Mai who was born on September 4, 1992, and
Noah Jason Ward, who was born on April 28, 1996. In 1998 Jason and Marci moved to the Sundre area to manage Red Deer River Ranches. Marci teaches with Chinook’s Edge School Division. Marci’s family, Neil and Marilyn Degraw, have resided in Cochrane since 1985.
This tale has been a fascinating journey back into the early history of Cochrane, and it was intriguing to find out that six generations of my family have lived in the area, from the Smiths, who first touched down at Morleyville circa 1880’s, through to Kai and Tieran Green, who have lived here since 1998. Although none have lived their entire lives in the area, every generation has lived in Cochrane and surrounding area for some time in their lives. We can only hope that someone from the next generation will continue this wonderful tradition that our ancestors started back in the first days of Cochrane!
Catherine Claudia Lynn Edge was born on May 3, 1914 to Claude and Anne Lynn on a farm near Atlee, Alberta. Her father, Claude (Clyde) was born in Oklahoma in 1884 and came to Canada as a young man to drill water wells. When he switched to drill oil and gas wells he took out his papers to become a Canadian citizen. Her mother, Anne (Young) Lynn was born in Virden, Manitoba in 1894. Claude and Anne Lynn were married in 1911. Claudia was the second eldest of six, having four brothers, Clarence, George, twins Bill and Barry and a sister Audrey. The family moved to Black Diamond and later when Claudia was in grade one her family moved to Calgary. Claudia attended Killarney School, Sunalta School and Western Canada High School in Calgary.
Claudia’s summers were spent swimming and canoeing at Bowness Park with her best friend Nora Bailey. The girls joined the Bowness Regatta Club, winning medals for their rowing and canoeing. In her grade twelve year, she was president of the Calgary Girls’ Council for CGIT (Canadian Girls In Training). While attending Western Canada High School, basketball became an important part of Claudia’s life. The high school team went two years without losing a game. This passion lead her to join and play for a ladies city team named “Coca Cola Kids”. The Coca Cola Kids had the honour of being one of the exhibition game openers for another team that Claudia fondly remembers: the Edmonton Grads. The Edmonton Grads went on tour all over the world and only lost 50 out of 500 games. Claudia was one of the lucky people to be invited to the party when this team dissolved..
Claudia graduated from Western Canada High School and went on to attend Normal School in Calgary. Her first job came at a school north of Rocky Mountain House called Golden Heights. This was a very poor area moneywise, but had family wealth. Claudia remembers the pride on a small pupil’s face when she came to school and told her teacher, “My big brother sent me a nickel!” When asked what she intended to do with the nickel, the student stated very matter of factly she had given it to her Mother to buy eggs.
So different from students today, who would just reply, “What would a nickel buy.” The area was remote enough that a horse was required to get around. The school was heated with wood in a round barrel stove, light at night came from a coal oil lamp and the teacher lived with the family of one of the students while being paid the handsome sum of $600 for the year. In September of 1936, Claudia came to teach in the Little Jumping Pound School, south of Cochrane. This area was an older more established area, but the school was an old granary located in Percy Copithorne’s bull pasture. After two years, she moved to Springbank School and taught there until 1940.
While teaching in the Jumping Pound area, Claudia met Norman Edge. Norman was born June 12, 1904 to William and Sarah (Ellis) Edge, one of eight brothers and sisters. Norman, Ethel, Wilbert, Edith, Oliver, Harry, David and Laurie made up the “South of the River Edges”. The family still has the silver tea set that Norman’s father was presented with as first prize for showing a Clydesdale stallion at the Territorial Spring Show in Calgary, the summer Norman was born. Norman liked to say the tea set was really a prize for the best looking baby born that year. Being born in the age before automobiles took over, it was no wonder that Norman took a great interest in Rodeo. He spent hours honing his craft, often on the neighbor’s cattle or horses. He also worked for D. P. McDonald and T. B. Jenkinson breaking polo ponies. Norman and brother Ollie made the rounds of small local rodeos, and finally tried the Calgary Stampede. In 1925, Norman won the Brahma Steer Riding and Bareback Bronc riding events. In 1925, he went to the west coast with the Peter Welsh Stampede Company. Two years later in 1927, Norman won the Steer Riding event again. In 1928 he won the Bareback Bronc riding and he gained permanent possession of a sterling silver trophy donated by the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company. In 1929, a team consisting of Johnny Munro, Ollie Edge and Norman Edge won the Wild Horse Race in Calgary. In the years from 1923-1937, he had competed in rodeos at Jumping Pound; Calgary; Montreal; Columbus, Ohio; Sundre; Hand Hills; Toronto; Pendelton, Oregon; the stadium in London, England; Winnipeg, Vancouver; Medicine Hat; Buffalo and New York. Norman retired from rodeo in 1937. After marrying Claudia, he worked as a chute and chuckwagon judge at the Calgary Stampede until 1955.
Claudia was staying with the Jack Copithorne family while teaching the local students. During Norman and Claudia’s courtship Claudia was careful to be considerate of the family by coming home at a decent hour and not making a lot of noise when she came in, especially going up the stairs. One night after saying goodnight to Norman and heading for the door leading upstairs, there was a sudden loud clashing and banging, and accompanying howls of laughter and giggles. The stairs had been covered with pots and pans, each dependent on those underneath to keep them there. Once the door opened the bottom pans fell, followed by the rest, causing the commotion. Everyone knew when “Teacher” had come home.
On December 23, 1940 Norman and Claudia were married in the living room in front of the fireplace in the new house Norman had built on NW Sec 35 Twp 24 Rge 4 W5M. They soon had their family of three boys, Garth, Barry and Lynn. With Norman involved in Rodeo and the Calgary Stampede, it wasn’t any surprise that each of their sons tried their hand at Rodeo; Garth as a bullrider, Barry and Lynn as ropers. Norman and Claudia had many friends from the rodeo circuit and from the neighboring ranches. Life was busy and full.
In 1956, Claudia returned to teaching and traveled country roads into Cochrane daily. She taught in the Andrew Sibbald School and Cochrane High School. Claudia really enjoyed being a teacher and being around children. It was a high point when one of her students came to visit. She retired in 1972, but worked as a substitute until 1977. Claudia saw a lot of changes in the school system and usually a vocal reprimand was enough to squash a student that was out of line.
Norman and Claudia traveled and wintered in Arizona enjoying their retirement. Norman passed away in 1996 at the age of 92. Claudia stayed on the ranch for almost another 10 years before moving into the Big Hill Lodge in November of 2005. Claudia was honored by the Cowgirl Cattle Company in 2001, when they saluted the role of women in Western Canada’s ranching history. Lieutenant Governor Lois Hole was on hand to present plaques to Claudia and Margaret McKinnon of the Airdrie-Crossfield area. This was a special evening for Claudia and she was very proud to be recognized.
Norman Frank Edge has sometimes been called “A Cowboy’s Cowboy”. He was born in 1904, in a log house in the Brushy Ridge district, south of Cochrane. He was the fourth eldest of a family of six boys and two girls born to William and Sarah Edge who were among the earliest settlers of this area.
When he was four or five years old, Norman and his brothers started rodeoing by riding pigs before they progressed to calves, and then to yearling steers or cows. He was born in a place and at a time when the horse was an essential part of living and his life had been strongly influenced by an interest in, and a love for, horses. He remembered, as a small boy, sitting on his father’s horse and loving the sound of the creaking saddle leathers as the animal cropped the grass under the heat of the noonday sun.
As teenagers, Norman and his brothers Ollie and Wilbert joined Sykes Robinson and other boys of the district to develop their rodeo skills on the neighbour’s steers, horses or even milk cows. The furious owners occasionally caught them snubbing-up an otherwise tame wheel horse.
In 1922, they started practicing on the XC Ranch, which was then owned by Dave Lawson. Dave encouraged the group to ride sale broncs, bareback and steers, as well as to rope. He built a chute which consisted of a hinged gate on each side of the horse with a small gate at his head. When the rider was ready, the gates were all flung back, called a shotgun chute.
The first rodeo Norman entered as a competitor was held in Sarcee about 1921. Norman and Wilbert hitched a ride on the mail truck with Jim and Bill Bateman. It was in the early twenties that Norman won the Novice Bronc Riding at Bragg Creek. There were rodeos held also at Morley, Jumping Pound, Cochrane and Bottrel.
The first Jumping Pound Rodeo was held in 1922. It was attended, among others, by Sykes Robinson, Peter Knight, Johnny Munro, Wilfred Sibbald, Eddie Bowlen, Horace Holloway, Percy Copithorne, Ollie Edge, Wilbert Edge and Norman Edge. Sykes won the Saddle Bronc event. Norman bucked off.
The lure of the “Big One” took them to Calgary in 1924 and many years thereafter. Since they had no money, they slept in the stock barns and ate pancakes instead of steaks. In 1925, Norman got lucky and won both the Brahma Steer Riding and Bareback Bronc Riding events. His name was engraved on both of the trophies but they had to be won twice to be kept. However, he did win a trophy saddle for being the win- ner of the Bareback Riding event.
In 1926, Norman and a bunch of cowboys went to Winnipeg to a rodeo sponsored by Peter Welsh, who was President of The Alberta Stampede Co. Ltd. Peter Welsh put on a string of rodeos in such places as Ottawa; Montreal; Toronto; Winnipeg; Vancouver:
New Westminster Columbus, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Buffalo, New York. Welsh owned the most famous string of bucking horses including Midnight, Gravedigger, Tumbleweed, The Gold-Dust Twins, Five Minutes Midnight to and Bassano.Lad. While traveling to most of the Welsh rodeos, Norman missed the 1926 Calgary Stampede.
In 1927, Norman won the Brahma Steer Riding at Calgary and since this was his second time to win the sterling silver trophy, donated by P. Burns Co., he won permanent possession.
In 1928 he won the Bareback Bronc riding again and thus won outright the second sterling silver trophy, donated by Calgary Brewing and Malting Co.
Norman competed in the Wild Horse Race several years. Sometimes he worked with partners Bert Young and Lawrence Parge. In 1929, with partners Johnny Munro and brother Ollie Edge he won a pair of spurs for first place in this event.
In the years from 1923 to 1937, when he retired from active rodeo competition, Norman competed in rodeos at Jumping Pound, Calgary, Montreal, Columbus, Sundre, Hand Hills, Toronto, Pendleton, Vancouver, New Westminster, Hussar, Ottawa, Buffalo and White City Stadium in London, England.
In the early thirties he won three major events at the Hand Hills Stampede. These included the Saddle Bronc Riding, the Bareback Riding and the Brahma Steer Riding.
On May of 1934, a group of Canadian cowboys including Herman Linder, Jack Streeter, Pat Burton, Jackie Cooper, Clark Lund, Frank Sharp, George McIntosh, Harry Knight, Pete Knight and Norman Edge were chosen to travel to London to a rodeo spon- sored by Tex Austin. There were about twenty American cowboys who also went to this rodeo. Some of the Canadians had a contract to supply bucking stock, and to travel with the stock on the boat. To quote Norman, “It’s a damn good thing my contract included transportation home because I didn’t win a crying dime in England”. The English Humane Society was very strict. The cowboys were required to tape their spurs so that no rowel could be used. In the calf roping event, the first calf out ran into the fence and its nose started to bleed. That was the end of the roping. Fox Hastings, the cowgirl bulldogger, ran afoul of the law when it was decided that she was too rough on her dogging steers.
The cowboys traveled principally by train, seldom had money, ate sparingly but enjoyed life to the fullest. When one of the bunch won some money, they could all eat, but they certainly did not win their fortunes
often not even a grubstake. In periods between stampedes, Norman went home to hay, fence, put in the crop or harvest. Rodeo promoters of the day included Guy Weadick, Tex Austin, Peter Welsh and the Calgary Stampede.
On one trip to Eastern Canada, the train carrying the cowboys had just pulled into Montreal station where there were a few buggies and surreys lined up ready to take tourists in horse drawn carts to visit the high spots of the old city. A French driver was lying back in his rig sound asleep with his reins slack……….one of the bunch who had been in the “vinegar” and was well enough oiled to be looking for fun, saw the horse with its head hanging down, half asleep. He let out a war whoop and jumped astride the horse. The terrified animal plunged into a runaway gallop. The poor Frenchman went out over the back of his rig, landing on the cement. When the horse, with his rider, reached the streetcar tracks, he slipped and fell, break- ing the shafts as well as parts of the harness. When the horse got up he had suffered no injury but the French driver, now awake, came running, waving his arms, talking a mile a minute and calling for the police. In no time there were three or four streetcars held up and police coming from every direction. The cowboys were outnumbered about three to one and unable to understand a word of French. The cowboy who had started the whole fracas found himself with a police- man on each arm and two behind him, marching him off to the police station. In the meantime, some of the cowboys gathered up the pieces and set about getting the rig and harness fixed. The rest gathered around the French driver and persuaded him to go for a friendly drink. They thought that if they could get him feeling good, he wouldn’t lay a charge. Well, it sure worked! A few hours later, when they came out of the bar, they were the best of friends. He slapped the cowboys on the back and said, “You Wests is the best mens I meet”. When Mr. Welsh heard about the incident, he gave the boys a stern lecture. An incident such as that could hurt rodeo and cause a big drop in revenue. He fin- ished his talk by saying, “If they will just keep that cowboy in the jug overnight, I will know where at least one of you is in the morning.” On the front page of the next morning’s newspaper were these headlines: “MONTREAL BEING INVADED BY WESTERN WILDMEN HERE TO PERFORM IN RODEO”. This turned out to be the best advertisement the rodeo had and it was sold out by noon.
In 1925, Bill Bateman and Norman went to a Peter Welsh rodeo in New Westminster. At that rodeo they saw Peter Welsh’s famous jumping horse ‘Barra Lad’,
with sixteen year old Louis Welsh up, clear the bars at eight feet one and one half inches, a new World’s Record. After making the jump over a top bar that was, for all intents and purposes tied down, Barra Lad land- ed safely, but fell forward on his knees and shoulder because of the tremendous impetus of the jump. He was up again immediately and received a standing ova- tion and a horseman’s wreath of flowers. Before morn- ing he died from internal hemorrhaging, probably brought on by the terrific strain of the jump.
During the winters of 1925 and 1926, Norman broke polo ponies as well as remounts for the police at D.P. McDonald’s Mount Royal Ranch.
From the fall of 1929 to the fall of 1932, Norman broke polo ponies for T.B. Jenkinson, who operated the Virginia Ranch north of Cochrane, and then moved his stock to a ranch in the sand hills north of Medicine Hat. Norman recalled that one of the greatest privileges of his life was watching those thoroughbreds, tails and manes streaming, powerful muscles flexing, racing across the open prairie, sheer beauty in action.
By the time Norman retired from rodeo in 1937, he was already involved in a partnership with his brothers to run the ranch at Cochrane and at Bassano.
In 1940, in a ceremony which took place by the fire- place in the house which they had just built on NW Sec 35 Twp 24 Rge 4 W5, Norman married Claudia Lynn. Claudia is the daughter of Claude (Clyde) William Lynn and Ann Lynn. She is the second of six children and was born near Suffield, Alberta in 1914. She start- ed school at Black Diamond, but during her first year moved with her family to Calgary where she took the remainder of her education, except for some time at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
In September of 1936, Claudia began teaching in the Little Jumping Pound School. After two years she moved to Springbank School and taught there until after she and Norman were married. From 1957 until 1974, when she retired, Claudia taught in the Cochrane Junior and Senior High Schools.
Norman and Claudia’s sons Garth, Barry and Lynn rode their horses to a one room country school. They won many trophies at local gymkhanas and later entered in Little Britches rodeos. Garth rode steers, Barry and Lynn roped calves. Garth followed the rodeo circuit seriously for two or three years and won a fair number of bull riding events, but eventually decided that rodeo was not for him. He farmed the land at Bassano for several years and then sold it to go into business. Lynn roped in Little Britches, but found that University and rodeo do not make enough time for either. Barry has been able to rope for many years.
Garth and Barb Edge live in Columbia Falls, Montana. Garth’s son Marshall (from a previous mar- riage) lives in London, Ontario. Marshall and his wife Kristine have three daughters: Mackenzie, Julia and Jacklyn. Marshall is an engineer and works for a com- pany called Sonometics that specializes in computer- ized heart technology.
Barry and Linda Edge ranch at Rimbey, Alberta and have two sons, Timothy and Dean. Timothy works for Euro-Disney in Paris, France and runs the Wild West Show. As a cowboy and an actor, he is “Wild Bill Hickok” in the show as well as a trick roper and stage- coach driver. Dean and his wife Jeanine live in Rimbey. Dean won the Canadian Auctioneering Championship and has placed third in the world. He has also been to the Canadian Finals Rodeo three times as a tie down calf roper. Jeanine works as a cosmetic con- sultant for Arbonne and part time at the auction mart.
Lynn and Judy Edge live in Cochrane. Lynn worked in the oil and gas patch for many years and was in charge of the commodity trading floors for some prominent companies. Lynn retired from the oil and gas industry and now works on the family ranch with his cutting horses. Judy is principal of a school in Calgary. Judy’s daughter, Robyn and her husband Dean Bilsky live in Edmonton with their two sons Colton and Kaden. Robyn is a teacher and Dean is a heavy duty mechanic. Lynn and Judy’s daughter, Roz lives on the home quarter with her husband Gary Kossowan and their son Korbin. Gary is a framer and Roz is a Pharmacy Technician.
Norman and Claudia thoroughly enjoyed their years as members of the Cochrane Light Horse Association. Besides competing in gymkhanas, they worked at such enterprises as building floats to represent Cochrane in the Calgary Stampede Parade.
In the spring of 1949, Norman got back to rodeo as a chute judge and chuckwagon judge at the Calgary stampede. He worked with old friends such as Frank Sharp, Percy Bennett, Don Thompson, Allie Streeter, Joe Fisher, Clark Lund, Dick West, Bob Carry, Eric Hodgson, Jiggs Boyce, Clarence Gingrich, Warren Cooper and many others. Norman worked at the Stampede up to and including 1955.
During the 1974 Stampede Norman, together with Eddie Watrin and Peter Vandermere, were honoured as old time cowboys. Each was presented with a framed poster and silver cufflinks. The inscription below the poster reads: “Norman Edge; In Appreciation For Your contribution To Rodeo; Calgary Exhibition and Stampede 1974”. In 1975, Norman received the same honour from Red Deer. The inscription on the plaque reads; “To Norman Edge For His Outstanding Contribution To the World of Rodeo Over A Period Of Many Years; Red Deer Exhibition Association, 1975”. At the Old timers’ Rodeo in Cochrane in 1983, Norman, together with Frank Sharp, Warren Cooper and Lloyd Dolen, received a plaque which is engraved; “Thanks Norman Edge. In appreciation For Your Dedication To The Sport Of Rodeo”.
Rodeo was a basic part of Norman’s life. There is a mystic call that speaks of our pioneer roots that certain- ly does not appeal to everyone. However, those who hear that call are willing to tackle a life of little mone- tary reward for the sense of accomplishment, in a sport which is strictly an individual effort.
In 1949 our father Bertraem (Bert) Nagle and partner Doug Weyman purchased 5.5 acres from local farmer Lauritz Pederson out of one of the first subdivisions approved by the MD of Rockyview in the community of Bearspaw. The most scenic property along the Calgary to Banff highway, it overlooked the Bow Valley and the Rockies and Calgary’s skyline, a distant 10 miles east. Dad and Doug’s dream was to build and own their own restaurant and after two years of backbreaking labor while still holding jobs in Calgary, the Nag-Way Inn opened its doors as a dining room and lunch counter, serving lunches and dinners six days a week to highway traffic, neighbors and Calgarians. Its first function was a banquet for the Associated Canadian Travelers, who were sponsors of the annual Calgary Stampede Queen competition.
At the time Calgary was a city of less than 200,000 people, and its western boundary was 14 Street N. W. Calgarians were attracted to the unique location, a landmark log building sitting some 700 feet above the city with an unparalleled view of Rocky mountain sunsets. Photos from the early fifties show many noteworthy events being held at the Nag-Way, like then Mayor Don Mackay presenting his now traditional white hat to a visiting celebrity, and banquets honoring 1950’s Stampede Queens Edith Edge and Princess Wapiti. A 1950’s local television show featured western bands performing in the Nag-Way’s dining room.
As the only restaurant between Calgary and Cochrane for many years, it became a tradition for Calgary families out on a Sunday drive to stop in for our Sunday buffet dinners. The Nag-Way Inn specialized in serving prime aged Alberta beef, roast beef, super-sized steaks and home style Southern fried chicken, served in a rustic mountain lodge setting where diners could enjoy the magnificent view from the large picture windows and a crackling log fire in the huge fireplace. The interior walls were made of upright quarter logs and Dad hung bearskins, deer heads, snowshoes and wooden skis on the knotty pine walls. A stage was later added to hold live bands who entertained diners on Friday and Saturday nights, when the large polished pine floor would be filled with dancing couples until the early hours of the morning.
As manager and host, Dad made everyone coming through the doors feel like special guests, and started a tradition of hospitality that continued throughout his career as a restauranteur. Even in later years when he became the main chef and confined himself to overseeing the menus, guests would still come into the kitchen to greet him, as “Bert” and “the Nag-Way” were one and the same to them.
Local artist Gerda Christofferson persuaded Dad to hang her portraits of natives from the Morley reserve which were offered for sale. Several of these artworks remained there until the restaurant was closed down, when Dad and Mom gave one to each of the family as a memento. Several other artists such as Duncan Crockford admired and painted the Rockies from that viewpoint.
Within two years of its opening, Dad became the sole owner of the restaurant and later changed the spelling of its name to the Nag-Way Inn. He bought an old Chrysler limousine to haul staff and groceries every day to and from the city. For a few years, we saw little of our Dad, as he was gone from morning to late at night six days a week. In 1954 he moved Mom and our family of four children out to a home he built behind the restaurant. Between the house and the building were a series of wagon ruts crossing the acreage that we learned was the old Morley Trail, the main travel route since the late 1800s from the native reserve west of Cochrane to Calgary. Roger was 14 and Gail was 12 when they were bused by Cliff Gillespie to Glendale School, where Grades 6 to 9 were taught by Mrs. May Masters. Norman and Larry at 4 and 2 years old were too young to go to school yet.
Gail remembers:
“We were some of the first “city slickers” to move into the farming communities of Bearspaw and Glendale, and we soon got used to the new experiences of having to take our lunches to school and learn together with several other grades in a one room schoolhouse ruled by the stern Mrs. May Masters. Every morning Roger and I would walk up the road for about quarter mile to the Bearspaw School, where we’d pile into our school bus van driven by Bearspaw serv- ice station owner Cliff Gillespie for the long drive to Glendale School. Cliff would drop off the first to fifth graders at Bearspaw School and pick up the sixth to ninth graders along the bus route to Glendale School. Some of our schoolmates still rode their horses to school once in a while and stabled them in the old horse bam behind the school.
When we arrived at the school on wintry mornings, we would be warmed by the huge furnace in the corner of the schoolroom that had already been started by neighbors George or Mary Armstrong, the school care- takers. After storing our coats and boots in the cloak- room, we’d greet our teacher already seated at her desk with a “Good morning, Mrs. Masters”, and you knew what kind of a day it was going to be for you by whether she answered you not! Although she was only a little over five feet tall, she had no trouble keeping order in her classroom or disciplining the biggest of the grade nine boys like Bob Teghtmeyer or Bill Armstrong, who towered over her.
Since the schoolhouses were also the community halls for the districts of Glendale and Bearspaw, we students would clear the room of our desks and polish the floor the last school day before a dance, when families would get together to socialize.
We would have to be on our best behavior there, too, because our teacher was also part of the local orchestra and would keep a watchful eye out for us! We learned to waltz, polka, schottische, two step and square dance to the calls of Roy Teghtmeyer until midnight. Then, out would come the sandwiches and desserts that everyone would bring to share with coffee and tea before heading home.
Christmas concerts were a highlight of the school year, and plays, poetry, music and singing were all practiced for many weeks ahead of the “big night”. Roger remembers:
“We always played sports like baseball or games like ante-i-over or run sheep run at recesses. In the wintertime, we’d scrape off a nearby slough to play hockey every lunch hour, or if it was too cold outside we’d play ping-pong. We needed everyone in the school to make up teams no matter whether we were good enough at the sport or not. We all joined in, cooperated with each other and ended up becoming life-long friends.
As we got older, we had dances at the Nag-Way and then the Lions Club sponsored a teen club at the Lions Hall where we’d hold meetings to plan dances, hayrides at George Biggars and skating parties at the Newsome or Hamilton dams.”
In the 1950’s, Premier Ernest Manning’s government liquor regulations permitted drinking only in government approved beer parlours attached to hotels. Men and women weren’t even allowed to drink together in Calgary. Separate rooms in bars segregated men and women, except in rural hotel bars, resulting in people traveling to Cochrane, Okotoks and Airdrie in order to enjoy a drink together. Restaurants couldn’t get liquor licenses, and individuals or organizations had to apply for permits to purchase alcohol for their parties. The Nag-Way sold soft drinks and ice to diners to enable them to enjoy their alcohol with their meals that was brought with them in the form of a bottle of favorite wine or other beverage that was stashed “under the table” in a brown paper bag! The Nag-Way house band played weekends, and the large dance floor was a big attraction to dance to the “big band” music of the day like “In the Mood” or “Chattanooga Choochoo”. Supper club reservations were booked in advance, and New Year’s Eve was always a sold-out event.
Norman and Larry walked to nearby Bearspaw School, another one room schoolhouse, for their first 6 grades and were taught first by Mrs. Bennett and then by Mrs. Helen Scott. Norman spent Grades 7 and 8 at Silver Springs School, then was bused by Bob Thomas to the Cochrane High School for Grades 9 to 12. Larry was in the last class to be taught at Bearspaw School
and followed Norman one year later, as he skipped a grade. After many years of neglect, the Bearspaw School has been restored and moved to a new location near the Bearspaw Community Hall.
Norman remembers:
“There were six or seven of us kids in the neighborhood who loved to play hockey, so we’d talk our parents into helping us build and flood a skating rink behind Cliff Gillespie’s Esso service station. We kids would help finance paying for the boards to build it by selling jelly beans, and some nice parent like Ed Cushing or Cliff Gillespie would make up the difference. After every practice, we’d flood the rink again from the service station water supply so it was ready for the next day, and Cliff would sharpen our skates on his old bench grinder any time we needed them done. The Lions Club bought us sweaters one year, and we played against a team from Glendale School once in a while. We’d be there every day we could and all day Saturdays.”
After a couple of years living alone on the acreage, Mom moved in with Gail and her grandsons in Symons Valley for five years, and then moved into the city, where she lived independently until 2003, enjoying her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The four of us children have remained in the Calgary area. Roger married Sharon Hott in 1961 and has two daugh- ters, Andrea and Colleen, who is married to Greg Garnsey and has a daughter Eden. Gail married Allan Fraser in 1965, is divorced and has three sons, James, Timothy and Christopher. James and his wife Elizabeth live in California and have two children, Kimberly and Brandon. Tim is married to Karl Maria and lives in Victoria while Chris lives in Vancouver. Norman mar- ried Janis Godfrey in 1975 and has a son, Jesse. Larry and his partner Shannon McGowan have a daughter Jennifer, her husband Dwayne Hanson and two grandchildren, Josiah and Abbey live in Chilliwack.
Norman, Janis and Jesse moved into the family home behind the Nag-Way in 1989 and still live there. After a series of severe falls and hospital stays, Mom died at 87 on November 21, 2006.
Since the Nag-Way Inn opened, the city of Calgary has expanded to within a half kilometer of the former restaurant, something never imagined by our Dad in 1949! For over 58 years the Nagle family has owned and enjoyed the Nag-Way property, extending through four generations. Currently the land is up for sale, as most of us children plan to retire away from Calgary, signaling the end of an era for the Nagle family in the Bearspaw community, and the Nag-Way Inn as a unique landmark to Calgary and the surrounding district.
Charlie Pedeprat was born on March 12, 1873 in the village of Belloc in the lower Pyrenees Mountains of France. He was 11 years old when he and his 18 year old brother came to live with their Uncle Jean D’Artique on his ranch on the Dog Pound Creek, northwest of Cochrane. On the train trip from Winnipeg to Calgary, the train travelled so slowly that the two boys, for amusement, would get off the train and run alongside of it.
Charlie worked for his Uncle Jean until he was seventeen then he worked on various ranches in the Cochrane district, including Cochrane Ranche, a major operation in the area. He used to recall that on spring
roundups they would have to go as far east as Gleichen to gather cattle that had drifted before the blizzards of winter. Mr. Pedeprat worked for one outfit after anoth- er, never taking up land of his own, and as he figured the pioneering life wasn’t for a woman, he never married. Charlie was in the Forestry Corps in the First World War and spent eleven months in Scotland before going to France.
To Cochrane “Old Timers”, Charlie was a master axe man, they still talk of the way he could dovetail the corners of a log cabin. For a time he worked for the C.P.R. at Banff building the Mount Assiniboia cabins, He also built a number of cabins at Sunshine ten miles out of Banff. He once had a contract to cut 900 railway ties, he did all of the work himself, often cutting as many as 40 ties a day.
In 1953 (at the tender age of 80), pneumonia forced his retirement. He lived with the Steele family of Cochrane the last twenty four years of his life.
Charlie Pedeprat passed away on Sunday, May 2, 1965 at the age of 92 in the Colonel Belcher Hospital after being in the hospital for only two days. He is buried in the Field of Honour in the Burnsland Cemetery in Calgary.
- Charles is mentioned often in our blogs for his skill with an axe. Pedeprat search of Blogs
- Jean Dartigue
- Forestry Corp
The Walter Moodie family arrived in the West via the Canadian Pacific Railway, in early September 1891. After a brief stay at the Alberta Hotel in downtown Calgary, they drove by wagon seventeen miles west of town to their new home on the Glenbow Ranche.
The land had been purchased in the spring of 1891 by Leslie Hill, Mrs. Moodie’s cousin, who had originally homesteaded in Montana. When Hill’s wife died, leaving him with two little girls and a newborn, Hill appealed to the Moodies to care for them in their home in rural Quebec. Now, three years later, Hill sold his horse ranch along the Mussleshell River in Montana and, with the help of eighteen-year-old Walter Moodie Jr. moved his herd across the Canadian/American border to eleven hundred acres of land west of the town of Calgary.
With his years of business experience in Quebec, Walter Moodie Sr. was to be the Glenbow manager. Young Walter took work on a nearby ranch and Janet Moodie and her daughters Margaret, Marion and Lucy kept house, looked after Hill’s three daughters and did their best to raise a garden. In a letter written in 1893 to a cousin in eastern Canada, Marion details the difficulties of gardening in a “dry and barren land” where there was limited water, late and early frosts and unfamiliar pests and predators.
The children were another source of concern when they presented with cuts and bruises, scarlet fever and typhoid. With no doctor in easy reach, Marion took on much of the medical and nursing care of the children and later the care of her mother who was suffering from cancer. In fact it was Janet’s illness which finally caused the family to leave Glenbow and move into Calgary in the spring of 1894 where she died in August of that year.
Leslie Hill remained at Glenbow for a time, finally reg- istering his brand in 1894, but by 1899 records show he had defaulted on payments for the land and shortly there- after his brand was no longer listed. In fact, by 1900 he had left the ranch, the west and Canada to take his three little girls to family in England.
In Calgary, Walter Moodie Sr. found work as an accountant and young Walter took what work he could get as a surveyor. With finances uncertain, and the young women in need of occupation Margaret, the eldest, left for Regina for teacher training and Marion began nurse’s training at the Calgary General Hospital. With seed money left by “Jimmy Smith”, a well-to- do young Chinese immigrant who had worked in Calgary restaurants for many years, Calgary opened its first public hospital in 1890, a tiny woodframe house where bullet holes ventilated the front door and the dining room doubled as an operating room. This is where Marion Moodie entered nurse’s training in January 1895, the first and only student. After three weeks in this cottage hospital, Marion assisted with the move to a handsome new sandstone structure on 12th Avenue East, working twelve hour night shifts in order to relieve the matron and only staff nurse, and stocking supplies in the new hospital in her spare time during the day. Three years and six months later, on July 28, 1898, Marion was presented with a silver medal, the first nurse to graduate from the Calgary General Hospital and the first nurse to graduate in what would later become the Province of Alberta.
Marion spent the next five years traveling throughout southern Alberta, wherever doctors requested she attend a case on a farm, a ranch or in town. Private duty in the home meant twenty-four hour duty with an hour or two off in the middle of the afternoon if she was lucky, and payment for her services if the family was willing to pay.
In the spring of 1903 Marion gave up private nursing and went back to hospital work as the only nurse of an eight-bed hospital in the town of Frank in the Crowsnest Pass. There was no relief for night duty so
she routinely worked sixteen hours or more preparing special diets, keeping the fires going in the cold weather, milking the cow when the doctor was away and cleaning patients, instruments and the wards. All this in addition to diagnosing, prescribing and carrying out treatments in the doctor’s absence and serving as anaesthetist when the doctor performed surgery.
Her one consolation during this period was the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside and Marion spent what free time she had walking, learning the names of local plants and adding to her collection of botanical specimens. This had been a hobby from her youth in Quebec, and throughout the years at Glenbow, in Calgary, and around the province her ramblings often resulted in stories, poems or watercolour paintings.
Early in 1905 Marion returned to Calgary to be with her father and sisters. While living at home she hoped to earn her living as a visiting nurse but found many of the patients who required the most care could pay the least, even fifty cents a visit being too much for some. In addition there were no street cars at that time and she found herself walking up to six and eight miles a day. After two years, just as home care was beginning to pay, exhaustion overtook her. Her health gave out and she withdrew from nursing for a time.
It was during this relatively quiet time that Marion founded the Calgary Natural History Society and frequently displayed her botanical specimens at the Public Library in Central Park.
By 1914 Marion was again involved in nursing, this time as a volunteer packing supplies for the Red Cross
war effort. By the following year she was once more on active duty as Assistant Matron of the Ogden Convalescent Hospital. (This building still stands on Ogden Road, S.E., Calgary.) When the Matron left to go overseas, Marion was made Nursing Sister in Charge under Military District 13 of the Canadian Army Medical Corps where she served until de-mobilization in 1919.
This was the end of Marion’s work in Alberta, although she continued to nurse in a sanatorium in Manitoba until poor health forced her to retire at the age of 60. In 1952 Marion returned to Calgary and the following March attended the opening ceremonies of the “new” Calgary General Hospital, wearing a copy of the uniform she had worn to her graduation.
Marion Moodie died in Calgary in 1958 at the age of 91. Photographs of Miss Moodie and her silver medal are on display on the main floor of the Calgary General Hospital, Peter Lougheed Centre, and her outstanding botanical specimens are part of herbarium collections at Harvard and Stanford Universities, the Smithsonian Institute and the University of Calgary. Some of the specimens almost certainly come from the rolling hills and grasslands near the Glenbow Ranche where Marion and her sisters rambled. This same land, with its spectacular view up the Bow River Valley, will soon be open to the public as part of Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park and, while the Moodie’s involvement with Glenbow was brief, may the history and the beau- ty of the land be protected forever.
For more on Marion Moodie’s life and career, see Alberta History, Winter 2001, Volume 49, #1.
Catherine Munn Smith is the great granddaughter of Walter and Janet Moodie.
