by Marjorie Bristow pg 622 Big Hill Country
Many a milestone has loomed on the horizon since my father, Sykes Taylor, was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1868, and my mother, Annie Smith, was born in Suffolk, England. My father, at the age of 12 years, came with his father to Minnesota, U.S.A. There did not appear to be a way of earning a living there, so they left Minnesota and went to Jarvis, Ontario. The slogan at the time was “Go West Young Man” so this is what the Taylors decided to do. The mother and seven other children had arrived from England and they all came to Morley.
where there was just a station and a stopping house. Just a few years previous the railway had passed through. ‘Twas here my grandparents and their family found plenty to do. At the stopping house, Grandmother cooked for as many as 100 persons some days: railroad men, train passengers, many Indians (sic) and a few local people. In a short while my grandfather Taylor became ill and passed away. He was the third white man to be buried in Calgary.
After Grandfather passed away, Grandmother Taylor married my mother’s brother, George Smith. They moved to Agassiz, British Columbia, where they lived until they passed away; my grandmother was in her nineties.
A few years later my mother, Annie Smith, her parents and family also came to Morley, where they found employment. They arrived there on the 24th of May and there was three feet of snow. For anyone just coming from England – what a sight to behold!
In 1893 my parents were married in the little church at Morley, a landmark still standing.
They were married by the Reverend John McDougall. The marriage certificate is still in the possession of one of my family.
A short time later my parents, grandparents and their families moved to Springbank and took up land. My parents’ first child, a girl, was born there, but at five months she passed away with erysipelas. Mabel (Mae) was born in 1895. I was born in 1898. Two years later a son was born on my birthday, but he passed away at birth. My grandfather Smith passed away and was buried in the Union Cemetery beside Grandfather Taylor. My grandmother Smith was in her eighties when she passed away and is also buried in the Union Cemetery.
My father decided he should have a home of his own, so he bought a quarter section from Oliver Mickle and took up a homestead next to it. He and Mother and their two daughters moved about ten miles west of their Springbank home. This new home was a well-built log house. The barns were log with sod roofs. Our place was surrounded by teepees. The Indians (sic) still used travois pulled with ponies and the squaws (sic) carried their papooses in a laced leather cradle strapped on their backs. The squaws (sic) wore bright coloured scarves, had Indian blankets wrapped around them for coats, and wore high-beaded buckskin moccasins. As there were few white women here, many white men married squaws.
My parents got together a team of horses, some chickens and a few milk cows. Milk was put in pans, the cream was skimmed off and made into butter, which they sold or traded for groceries. At this time there was no bridge over the Bow River to Cochrane so if you wished to go there you had to go a short distance west to Radnor Crossing. A few business places were being built in Cochrane and soon a bridge was built south of Cochrane.
A daughter Laura was born in 1902. In 1904 a daughter Lesley was born.
Father travelled miles to cut wood. He hauled it to Calgary and sold it for fuel for $3.00 a load. He also cut wood for home use. About 1904 soldiers were returning from the South African War. I faintly remember the many songs they sang. One was “Goodbye Dolly Grey, I Must Leave.” About that year gunslinger Ernie Cashel was being sought for murder. One evening he came to my grandmother’s house; my aunt, who later married Bill Bradley, was there too, and at gun point, he forced them to hide him in the attic and feed him. He stayed there for three days, but one night he left on their little pony. He turned the pony loose near Calgary and it wandered back home. Shortly afterwards, Cashel was burned out of an old shack by the police and sentenced to death. Everyone in the district had been frightened and hoped he would not come to their home.
By now some children in the district were getting to be school age. The school was built 1905 and my father was trustee for many years. My sister Laura had to start at the age of four and a half years to make up the number of pupils required to open the school. I was nearly eight years old before I started school. The school was opened in June 1906. It was called Brushy Ridge. In 1936 the school was destroyed by fire. It is believed that I am the eldest living pupil in 1975 who attended the Brushy Ridge School.
My dad required some help on the farm. My dad and I and my sisters, who were old enough, milked 20 or 30 cows by hand, fed calves and separated the milk before breakfast; then my sisters and I went to school.
Now Chris Bristow comes into the picture. He was born in Norfolk, England, very near to Sandringham Castle, the home of Kings and Queens. His parents were millers and bakers. His father was also a Methodist Lay Minister. The first seven children born to them were boys. On one occasion the mother bathed each one and sent them to bed; after all seven had had their turn, their mother went to see if they were in bed and she found them sitting on the front lawn with not a stitch on. They were right close to the roadside and passersby were all stopping to look. Chris was the ninth child of 13 children. He left home at the age of 17 years and in 1907 came to Canada. My father and a neighbor picked Chris up in Calgary and took him to our home where he worked for one year. He went to Yahk, British Columbia, and worked in the lumber mills, until the First World War started. Then he went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and joined the 46th Regiment, training in Manitoba. He went Overseas in 1915.
In 1908 a daughter Anne was born. Mother found the home too small, thus in the same vicinity my father built a new home into which the family moved. The phone was installed in 1910. In 1912 Father and Mother really rejoiced and we five daughters were thrilled to no end, for a son and brother, George Sykes, was born on May 24, 1912, Queen Victoria’s birthday.
In 1914 I took a trip to Jarvis, Ontario. I spent some time in Toronto and I visited Niagara Falls. I visited the parents and grandparents of Jack Pickersgill. Jack later became Minister of Transport in the Federal Government. His grandfather and my grandmother Taylor were brother and sister.
In Jarvis, where I had an uncle, I worked part time in a munitions factory and learned to drive a car. I stayed there for a year and a half. When I returned home, and because I could drive, my father bought a new Ford car from the first garage built in Cochrane, which was owned by Tom Quigley. There were only a few cars in the West at that time and no lady drivers. On one occasion, when I was driving in Calgary, a streetcar and I, in the Ford, collided on a very slippery street though I had the right of way. Very little damage was done so no charge was 623 getting to be school age. The school was built in laid; bent a fender some and punctured a tire.
Later an item came out in the Calgary Eye Opener, stating: “The First Lady Driver in the Calgary Area, Driving a Ford Car, and a Streetcar Collide on City Street.”
On one occasion Laura, Lesley and I went to a dance in Cochrane. Coming home, Laura thought she’d like to try driving, so coming up the Bow River Hill south of Cochrane, she ran over quite a deep bank and the three of us landed upside down in the ditch. Many others, driving teams and buggies, helped to push the car back on the road and we continued on our way home; only a headlight was cracked. We never did tell our father what went on.
No men were available as the War was still on so four of us girls and our father put up as much as one hundred tons of hay in a haying season with teams and older equipment.
Chris Bristow returned from the War; he was discharged due to a dislocated cartilage in his knee. His intention was to go to Australia, but my father persuaded him to stay and work with him. Chris worked for us for one winter. Later he helped to build the Central Alberta Sanatorium at Keith (now part of Calgary), then he went to Sibbald, Alberta, to look for land but found none to suit him. On his return we were married in my parents’ home in 1921. We moved to the Cochrane Lakes district where we rented land by the Lakes, but with no satisfaction. Spring was coming on soon and we wanted to get some different land, so we came to the place where we still live. We took a contract with the Soldier Settlement Board and bought the land for $19.00 per acre. Taxes at this time were $25.00 a year. What a dilapidated place it was. Soon we reboarded the house inside and out, thus making it as warm as any place could be. There was not one tree on this place when we came. We set out evergreens which we hauled with a team and stoneboat, seeded caraganas, and set out other small trees for protection around our house and garden.
Calvin was born August 7, 1924, our only son. We lost a daughter at birth, a couple of years later.
We got together ten head of milk cows, a few pigs, two teams of horses, and poultry. Chris worked with four horses on Municipal roads, going many miles away at times. I milked the eight or ten cows by hand and did all the other chores required. Chris broke more land; frost did not do too much damage, but hail and drought prevailed. We grew some wonderful crops especially wheat, but one year we threshed only 25 bushels of wheat and 12 bushels of oats through drought. We cut hay on roads and every nook and corner to get enough fodder for our stock. Another year we were hailed twice in June when the crops and gardens were just nicely through the ground. In September 1949, we had a grand crop and garden. We took Chris’ brother to the train en route to England and it hailed; when we came home we drove over ice which held the car.
The countryside looked like the Arctic Ocean; the hail took every kernel of grain and bashed it into the earth. The garden was cut up like so much salad. We saved nothing. Hail had come through the windows and the floors were all covered with ice. Our trees were all stripped on the north side. Animals were also badly bruised. It was the worst hailstorm I’ve ever seen. The worst blizzard I’ve known was in the year 1927. Chris and I and Calvin, who was about four years old, were at the barn when it hit. We could not find Calvin. Finally he came from somewhere and we had to start around the corner of the barn thrice before we could make it to the house. The storm lasted two full days.
When we first came here, all our neighbors were bachelors. Soon they visited us and enjoyed my homemade bread and a cup of tea. Now. all these people have passed on.
My dad gave me the 1917 Ford car, and on one occasion Chris figured he and our nearest neighbor, Jack Watkin, should drive it to town. After parking it, Chris hid a valuable pair of beaver mitts under the car seat. While coming home he rose up to get his mitts and when he looked up he was going over the road bank. He shouted, “Whoa,” but forgot he was not driving a team. Everything was over in the ditch, mail, groceries, egg crates and all. A neighbor came along with a team and pulled the car back on the road and they continued on their merry way with just a cracked windshield.
Calvin, now school age, rode his little pinto pony to Cochrane Lakes School. Chris was school trustee for many years. At the age of 15 years, Calvin, in Grade 8, watched an eclipse of the sun and burned the optic nerve in his eye. The optometrist said he must quit school and not read, not even a funny paper, for two years. He had started on piano and voice, but this deprived him of a future or any other career we had hoped for him. At first, he had to have his glasses changed every two months. In 1964 we finally located an eye surgeon, who operated on his eye and straightened the optic nerve; too late now to catch up on lost time. He went to work on ranches where he worked over the years for 29 years.
For entertainment in the winter, we drove with team and sleigh to many school concerts or to each neighbor in turn for dances. We had wonderful times. When Calvin first started to work he was paid 50 cents a day. Having gone through the Hungry Thirties, the three of us know what hard times are like. I worked in hay fields, threshed, stooked, bought my own team and worked side by side with Chris and Calvin and loved it.
In 1936 a fire went through the Brushy Ridge country, taking everything my folks owned except their house. My dad’s lifetime earnings were all gone; horses, cattle, poultry and all the buildings, grain and hay stacks too. My dad was ill with pleurisy and the loss was such a shock to him he passed away in the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary at the age of 68 years. His son, George, took over the farm and it was like starting all over again.
Although I was suffering from arthritis, I went to work at the Holy Cross Hospital in 1942 and took treatments in Calgary. I worked there until 1946. Chris managed alone while Calvin earned his own money working away from home. In 1946 I started work as cook for the Assiniboia Engineering Company for James R. Paget (father of Ken Paget, owner of the Two Rivers Ranch). We started at Cochrane, then worked at various towns on the way to St. Mary’s Dam, near Lethbridge, Alberta, where I cooked for 75 to 100 men. Here I had three girls to help me. I travelled from place to place in planes with Chuck Hodgson, whom many will remember as he trained many Cochrane recruits in World War II. He once landed in our field at home and picked me up. When finished at St. Mary’s Dam, we were moved to the Kananaskis where there was barely a trail. I wondered where we were going, but finally we got there. I could not get help to come and work there and as there were 40 to 50 men to cook for, I said, “I’ll get my own help,” so I sent for Calvin to come, which he did, and he turned out to be the best helper and waiter I ever had. In the fall when work was stopped, we came home, as Chris was not well. Calvin went back to work at Hutchinsons and we did not hire out anymore. When the crew went to Castor, Alberta, Mr. Paget was killed in a car accident.
My mother passed away in 1962, at the age of 87 years, at the home of my youngest sister Anne and her husband, with whom Mother had lived since she left the old home at Brushy Ridge.
What a wonderful personality my mother had. When she was first married she weighed less than 100 pounds. She washed clothes with a tub and scrub board for all of us. She made all our wearing apparel and she did all the baking for the family. At one time she made as many as 100 pounds of butter a week. She always went around the house singing.
Calvin, as a child, and I had two lovely horses and we rode through the fields and by the streams for hours. We loved the open spaces. One time Chris and Calvin were fixing fence and had the wheelbarrow with them. Suddenly it started to hail; they both got their heads underneath the wheelbarrow like two ostriches with their heads in the sand. I
n 1971 Chris and I celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary. My immediate relatives made a wedding cake and came to our home, bringing all the food with them. We are the only two of all the family who lived to celebrate such an event. We had just had the power installed so we received many lovely electrical appliances for gifts, from neighbors and community organizations. My own relatives gave us a gold-trimmed tea set and various other things. The Canadian Legion in Cochrane also gave us a party and gifts.
Though I am still able to do the garden and the lawn, Chris isn’t able to do much, but he still tells me some of his jokes. We have seeded the farm down to hay-so much for hail and drought – and turned the place over to Calvin to do with as he wishes.
Some folks ask Chris to what he attributes his long life and he answers, “Our happy home, contented mind, and because we are satisfied with what we have, not bothering about what others have and we have not.”
I would like to live again the freedom of my wonderful childhood days regardless of the modernized today. In the early days our mail came posted North West Territories. The Police were called the Royal North West Mounted Police. It was not until just before the First World War that pennies (l c – pieces) came into use, ’twas just even monies.
When we first came here, Chris was carrying two pails of water for the house, in the moonlight. When I opened the door in the hall and saw him standing there, with both fists I let him have full force. “Oh,” I said, “I thought it was a man standing there.” He replied, “What do you think I am?” From then on he told neighbors to whistle before they came in.
On another occasion Chris was driving the team on the stoneboat down to the slough to water the horses, when he hit a rock and fell off, breaking a bone in his leg. I unhitched the team and got him into the wheelbarrow and pushed him across the yard. The wheel came off the barrow, tipping him out on the ground. I looked about to see that no one was watching, then I practically carried him to the house.
Chris is now 85 and I am 76. We will keep right on to the end of the road. We hope a Senior Citizens Home will soon be built in Cochrane, so we may spend our last years there, if necessary. After 54 years it would be hard to leave the old place. Note: Mr. Bristow was asked the other day how he was feeling. He replied, “I’m like the government. I’m not in very good shape.”
