by Shirley Edge
Every Sunday one could see a rider heading down the Grand Valley road and, sure enough, it would be Clem Edge going to see his best girl, Peggy Morrison. Clem was a big strapping man who was making his living breaking horses. He was born in Derbyshire, England, on June 6, 1890, and was one of ten children born to Thomas and Mary Ellen Edge (nee Bestwick) who lived in the slate house, “Foufinside”, in Parwich, England. Clem went to school in Parwich.
When Clem was a young boy in England, he and his brothers would test their courage and have fun racing across the backs of cattle that were in huge pens. The object of the game was to try not to fall down among the milling cattle.
Clem and an older brother, Sidney (Sid), came to Canada when Clem was just fourteen. They started their life in Canada working for a farmer outside of Winnipeg. The following spring of 1905 they moved out west and Clem worked for the Bow River Horse Ranch breaking horses. Clem’s desire to see the country took him to California where he worked as a farm labourer at San Rafael. In 1908 Clem returned to Canada and took out a homestead, SE14 13-28-6-5, along Dog Pound Creek. Sidney managed to get a homestead, SW14 18-28-5-5, just east of Clem’s and they worked together. These homesteads are now part of the S7 Ranch owned by A. Garfield Stewart.
On July 29, 1914, Sid’s life was taken when he suffered a heart attack while driving a team and democrat up the Grand Valley road. He was buried in Cochrane.
Another older brother, William, born in 1880, was in South Africa for a time. He came to Canada to visit Clem and Sid and later settled in Spokane, Washington. He built an apartment block in Spokane; it is still known as the Edge Block. Will met his death when he was shot down on a street in Spokane.
Clem broke horses for Ozzie and Bill Johnson, and in 1914 he went to work for George Creighton at the Bar C.
On January 4, 1915, Clem joined the 12th Regiment of the Canadian Mounted Rifles and spent three years Overseas. When he returned from the Army, he worked his homestead, continued breaking and selling horses, and
resumed his courtship with Peggy Morrison. Clem was a good dancer. He would hitch up the team to the buggy, pick up Peggy and a bunch of the neighbours and head for the Orange Hall to dance to the music of Tom Quigley and Associates. The Morrison and the McEachen girls would take turns renting a room at the Murphy Hotel, so they would have a place to change into their party dresses.
Clem bought the Boney Thompson place (the Hornbach homestead) at the top of Grand Valley, along with a few cows and horses. At the same time, he purchased more cows and horses and the Bar 50 brand from a neighbour, Billy Bishop. With a place of his own, stocked with cattle, Clem felt he was now in good shape to propose to his girlfriend. Clem and Peggy were married June 14, 1922, in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Cochrane. Peggy’s sister Mary and her brother John stood up for them. After lunch at the Morrison place with the family and a few of the boys from the Union Bank, they headed to Banff by car for their honeymoon. Peggy was one of the few lucky girls who sported a tiffany-mounted diamond ring. On return from their honeymoon, they gathered up a bunch of their range cows and broke them to milk. Clem continued breaking horses for other people and worked with a road-building gang.
On March 9, 1924, their daughter, Margaret, was born. Tragedy struck when Margaret died of a heart seizure when she was just nine months old. Georgina Patterson ran two miles up Grand Valley to the Edge home to try and comfort Clem and Peggy.
In 1926 and 1927 Clem worked as a rodeo judge with the Alberta Stampede Company, owned by Peter Welch, travelling to Toronto, Chicago, Illinois, and Buffalo, New York. He also competed in local bucking contests as a bronc rider.
Their first son, Donald, was born on February 1. 1929. That year Clem and Peggy bought land just north of the 1A highway, S12 21-26-5-5 and 1, 21-26-5-5, from the Burns Foundation Company. It was a good winter in 1929, and Clem and Charlie Pedeprat worked hard to skid enough logs to build a house on this land. Skidding was difficult because there was very little snow. They lived in a tent beside the building site for most of the winter, then Clem started riding home at night.
Clement Norman arrived on the scene in August 1930, and when Peggy was able to return home from the hospital, they went to live at their new home, on the Bar 50 Ranch. This home was a beautiful log house with a stone fireplace and lots of room. Two extra rounds of logs were put on the house to allow plenty of headroom.
In May of 1932. a daughter, Edith, was born. During the thirties times were tough and life was hard on everyone, but at least in the country, the necessities of life were at hand. Power bills were of no concern, when it got dark people went to bed. They didn’t worry about lack of coal or an unpaid gas bill; they just headed outdoors and cut more wood. When cows were selling for a mere $10.00 per head they dismissed all thoughts
of income and concentrated on the necessities of life. They milked cows, churned butter, baked bread, killed beef or mutton and grew their own vegetables. A meagre portion of income was realized from the shipments of cream and a solid $2.95 was received for each five-gallon can of cream. Many essential purchases were made possible with the old cream cheque. Clothes were patched and old coats and pants were tenderly turned into patchwork quilts.
On a cold January 14th, in 1937, a third son, Frank, made his appearance into the Edge family. A few years later Clem and Peggy became second parents to another boy they soon regarded with as much affection and interest as their own. Bobby Orr came from Exshaw to spend several summers with the Edges and soon became a part of the family. He is now married with a family of his own and still comes “home” to visit Peggy at Christmas and on other special occasions. Pictures of Bobby in his childhood, and his graduation from University, hold a spot on the wall among the rest of the family photos.
Clem had his eye on a Clyde stallion, Stanmore Pride, and traded several horses to Ernie Young from Swalwell, Alberta, for him. Ernie and his daughter Annie (Mrs. Ed. Raby) arrived to gather the horses. Annie was a very capable young girl and because Peggy was having health problems following Frank’s birth, Annie was hired to help with the housework. However, it wasn’t long before she was kept busy outdoors running the Hart-Parr tractor.
The Edge home was much the same as most other homes in the area, except for one thing.
This was the place where the Beaupré schoolteacher boarded. For the most part, it took quite a hardening-in period, enduring the constant teasing of the Edge boys. Things like finding your horse saddled backwards and serenades like “Goodnight Irene” in the middle of the night led to a long and binding friendship among them all. When Donald first started school he walked a mile across the country to the Beaupré Creek School. Norman rode his pony “Pal” to school and for $2.00 a month he packed a gallon syrup pail of drinking water to the school each day. Eventually, they afforded a water bag which was certainly easier to tote on a saddle horse. Old Pal was long remembered for the many walk, trot and run races he won over the years at the local gymkhanas. Edith and Frank also rode to school.
There was always lots of repair work to be done around Edges. One day when Jack Stevenson, an Old Country carpenter and cabinet maker, who had built homes for some of the Edges south of the Bow River, was building a set of stairs up to the attic for Peggy, and Donald and Norman were building a roof on the barn, young Frank wandered down to a long cattle shed that had a straw roof. A scattering of straw remained in the feed bunk at one end, and Frank proceeded to build himself a fire in the middle of it. Norman saw there was trouble and came down from the roof of the barn and dragged the unconcerned little Frank out of the shed, and the flames soon engulfed the entire building. The reprimand that followed wasn’t quite so enjoyable.
Frank also spent a lot of time just sitting on the old ram. The ram was very co-operative; he would stand while Frank climbed aboard, but getting off was another matter. Frank knew the ram would attack with a good bunt when he tried
to dismount. The rest of the family usually ignored his beck and call – so sit he did!
During the Second World War, Peggy and a few other women in the area organized the Wildcat Hills Victory Club. Its purpose was to raise money for the Queen’s Canadian Fund. This fund helped to provide cigarettes for our soldiers and milk for the children of Britain. The women would meet once a month to plan fundraising activities and it was the duty of each one to organize and handle one fund-raising event. In October 1941, Peggy chose to have a barn dance in the new barn. The dance was a roaring success. The Wildcat Hills Victory Club, having served its purpose, was dissolved when the War ended.
During the summers of 1942 to 1945, Donald, 13, and Norman, 12, were hired by Tommy Farell. manager of P. Burns Ranches Limited, to keep tabs on the Burns cattle and check the salt licks in the Burns fields. This land was later purchased by Clem for $7.50 per acre.
In the fall the boys would help gather and trail 300-odd steers to Cochrane where they were loaded on cattle cars for shipment. Although the Edge boys only helped with this leg of the operation, the fall gathering was indeed a huge one. Cattle were gathered from Burns calf camp at Big Hill Creek and the Rocky Butte on the old George McDonald place and all were loaded out at Cochrane at the same time. Initially, these cattle came from C. K. Ranches, located on what is now known as West Dalhousie in Calgary, and were herded to the various summer camps.
The Bar 50 was also used as a stopping place for Frank Phillips and his pack string as he moved from Morgan Lewis’s en route to their big game trips down the Elk Valley in British Columbia via the Kananaskis Lakes. For three years starting the fall of 1944, Donald and
Norman spared three weeks to a month’s time from their studies to work for Frank as wranglers and packers on these trips.
One time, along with Angus and Elmer McDonald, Clem and Norman were cutting the summer supply of ice from the Ghost Dam. Clem slipped and fell on the ice and hollered to the others that he had broken his leg. They all thought he was joking and went on with their work. Further attempts to make them realize he was not just fooling failed, and finally, when he chose a few choice adjectives to describe his problem, they realized that he was in serious trouble. He had, in fact, severely broken his leg.
When Donald and Norman started high school, their parents drove them to the Cochrane School until Donald got his driver’s license. The boys would pick up Alice Jean Sharpe (Mrs. Harvey King) and drop her off each night. During the War, car parts were hard to get. One winter the transmission went out of the Ford car so Donald and Norman hitch-hiked or rode their saddle horses the nine miles to school. Father Lessard gave them hot soup at noon in return for hauling water and working on the Old Timer newspaper. Father Lessard also taught catechism in the Edge home. Donald finished his education at the Olds School of Agriculture and graduated in 1949. Edith also attended this college and graduated in 1951. Norman turned to rodeo and divided his time between helping his dad on the ranch and travelling to various rodeos, entering the different events. He liked bull riding best and ranked among the top ten bull riders for several years.
In June 1952, Clem and Peggy decided to drop in on the Austins. They were disappointed when they weren’t asked to stay for tea. Later they learned the reason why, when the Austins were among the many friends who arrived to surprise them with a shower in honour of their 30th Wedding Anniversary.
The year 1953 was indeed a proud one for Clem and Peggy when Edith became Calgary’s Stampede Queen. She received a scholarship and took a comptometer course and went to work for Socony Mobil Oil of Canada, Ltd. Later she spent three seasons as a camp cook for Brewsters in Banff.
The first wedding in the family took place in September 1955, when Norman married Shirley Moore of Calgary. The old Liddell (Creighton) place, where Mr. Beaupré and his wife had squatted years before, was to be their new home. They tore down the old Creighton house and used the lumber in their new home. Within the walls, they found a two-by-four with the following inscription: “This house erected for J. G. Creighton by Robert Downey in the year of 1903.” Their ranch is called the Beaupré Creek Ranch and they brand their black white-faced cattle with NE Half Diamond and use Bar 50 for their horse brand.
Only a few families along the lA highway had electricity, so Norman approached Calgary Power and on May 9, 1955, the Beaupré Rural Electrification Association was officially established. It originated with ten members: President, John L. R. McLenahan; Secretary-Treasurer, C. Norman Edge; and Directors: Margaret P. Hess, Bud Ullery, Bob McDougall, J. E. Parsons, Helen McDonald, F. Delbeke, Richard Philp, Henri Andersen and Maurice Johnsen.
Donald worked for three years with Calgary Power at the Ghost Plant, then he went to Banff to spend the summers working for Claude Brewster as head guide and superintendent. He spent nine winters in Carpenteria, California, working with polo ponies for Pat Linfoot and others. In 1957 Frank spent one season in California working with polo ponies for Mo Lightman. Donald spent that season in Florida.
In 1955 Frank graduated from St. Mary’s Boys’ School in Calgary. In November 1958, he married Lorraine Brown from Hodgson, Manitoba, who was working as a nursing aide at the Morley Indian Hospital. They live on their High Park Ranch in the Beaupré area and use the Bar 50 and Quarter Circle FJ as their cattle brands and the J Half Diamond as their horse brand.
While still employed with Claude Brewster, Donald spent three years in the 1960s guiding buffalo hunts in the Northwest Territories. He built two log cabins at Le Grand Detour Point on the Slave River. One hunter, Charlie Stoll, from New York, captured a trophy that was second to the world’s record at that time. Trophy buffalo hunts were inaugurated when Claude received the first permit. Donald was the first licensed guide for buffalo hunts in the N.W.T. Edith, who accompanied him for two seasons, was the first woman to cook on buffalo hunts in the N.W.T.
After the hunts, Edith returned to the business world and worked for Home Oil Company. She married Quentin Armstrong in October 1965, and they ranch at Nanton, Alberta.
Donald worked as a brand inspector for the Alberta Department of Agriculture at the Calgary Stockyards. He married Dorothy Bryant on March 12, 1966, and they live on the home quarter of the Bar 50 Ranch and run a cow-calf operation with Aberdeen Angus Hereford cross cattle. They use the DM Bar as their cattle brand and DM as their horse brand. Both these brands were registered by Don’s grandfather, Donald Campbell Morrison, in the late 1800s.
In 1932 Clem lost an eye. A piece of metal flew up and pierced his eyeball when he was repairing the binder, and in 1969 Donald lost the fingers and thumb of his right hand in an accident at harvest time.
In May of 1966, Clem passed away in the Colonel Belcher Hospital after a lengthy illness. Peggy still resides on the home ranch and is deeply involved in her families’ lives. She was chosen as a pioneer daughter for the year 1975, by the Southern Alberta Pioneers and Their Descendants Association.
All of the Edges have continued in the ranching industry. Norman continued rodeoing until just recently when he started judging. He has judged rodeos throughout Canada and most of the Western United States. He judged the Expo rodeo in Montreal in 1967 and the first rodeo in the new Madison Square Gardens in New York City in 1968. He was president of the Canadian Rodeo Cowboys’ Association for two years. Both Norman and Donald hold gold cards in this Association. Donald and Frank also do some judging and help at horse shows. Frank is an instructor for boy’s steer riding at the Calgary Stampede Rodeo College.
The movie industry has also come into the lives of the Edges. Peggy’s log house was used to film a story on the Siberian Snow Tigers. Norman was a technical advisor and a double in “King of the Grizzlies,” a Walt Disney film, and Frank has been a wrangler and special effects man for such movies as “Prime Cut,” “Pioneer Woman,” and “Buffalo Bill and the Indians.”
Granny, as Peggy is known to everyone, has eleven grandchildren. Norman and Shirley have four children: Duane, Jackie-Lou, Lyle and Marty. Frank and Lorraine also have four children: Terry, Kevin, Bobbi and Brandi. These children are involved in rodeo, and Lyle won the Canadian Junior Calf Roping Championship in 1975. They have all had their hand in the film industry. The Edge children took part in a story about ranch children for the T.V. program “Sesame Street” and it was filmed on the Beaupré Creek Ranch. Lyle also played a part in Walt Disney’s movie, “The Boy Who Talked to Badgers.” Terry, Duane and Kevin recently worked on the “Buffalo Bill and the Indians” movie filmed on the Morley Indian Reservation. Jackie spent last summer working as a camp cook on trail rides out of Banff. Edith and Quentin’s children, Margaret, Clem and Teddy, although still very young, have already been involved in the local horse shows and gymkhanas.
The tree of life goes on. Old roots give way to new limbs and it is apparent that ranching rodeo, and packing or trail riding in the high country has consistently crept into the lives of the Edges, no matter what the generation.
