Connected to the Callaway Family history in Big Hill Country.
My great grandfather, Joseph Callaway, immigrated to Ontario in 1843. He married and he and his wife had 6 children. He owned an operated the Dominion Salt Works in Ontario. Joseph and his wife and children decided to come west travelling to Winnipeg, Manitoba by wagon, pulled by oxen. At night they turned the wagon box over to use as shelter. In 1886,the family moved farther west to the Brushy Ridge District in Alberta where he homesteaded the SE Sec 22 Twp 25 Rge 4 W5M.
Joseph’s oldest son, Emanuel Joseph “EJ.”, my grandfather was born in 1855 in Ontario and just before coming west with his parents he married Elizabeth Ferguson. Upon arriving in Manitoba, they homesteaded in Killarny Manitoba and had six children. Enthused about the stories from the west, E.J. and Elizabeth with their children moved to Monte Creek near Kamloops, British Columbia. In 1894, shortly after their arrival in Kamloops, Elizabeth died of Quinsy. In 1898, E.J. married Alice Miriam Partridge. In 1899, a daughter, Edith Sarah was born. In 1900, they moved with their family to the Springbank area where A.A. “Ted” and Mary were born.
In I 906, E.J. and Alice purchased 800 acre of land from George Wills and they moved to the Brushy Ridge district. They built a new house and it was here that Lily, Nora, Nellie and Alfred were born. Dr. Park and Mrs. Hughes from Cochrane were in attendance at their births. The family had now grown to 13 children. The younger children attended Brushy Ridge School and “E.J.” was on the Brushy Ridge School Board with Sykes Taylor and William Edge. “EJ .” was also a Government Weed Inspector for many years.
In 1929, my Dad, Arthur A. (Ted) Callaway married Jemima (Mamie) Ballantyne, who had come from Scotland to Calgary with her parents and brothers and sisters.
In 1932, my grandfather, Emanual Joseph passed away and left three quarter sections to my father.
I was born in 1929 in the Calgary General Hospital and have a sister Evelyn Aileen (Perkins) born December 2, 1935 also at the General. I started school at Brushy Ridge School, just across the road from our house, in 1934 and after passing grade nine in June 1944, I started High School in September at Western Canada High School in Calgary. Besides my regular classes I took a 2 year course in metals and a 3 year course in automotive. I also joined the Army Cadets and worked up to the rank of Staff-Sargeant.
I would go to Calgary, Sunday evening to where I boarded during the week, then catch a ride home with Harvey Hogarth Sr. (Hogarth’s Transport) on Friday afternoon.
I remember the streets in Calgary in the winter. There was no snowplowing. The roads built up with deep ruts in the snow and there was no getting out of them except at intersections where the ruts crossed each other. The same went with Highway # I to Cochrane (now highway IA.) The Trans Canada Highway# l did not exist at that time.
After I graduated from High School, I came home and worked with my Mom and Dad on the farm.
Looking back over the years, I remember the fire that swept through Jumping Pound and Brushy Ridge. It was rumored that the fire started by embers that had smoldered in a muskeg all summer up by the Jumping Pound Ranger Station. An 80 to 90 mile an hour wind fanned it up and away it went. It was November 19, 1936, a day to be remembered by many for years to come.
The winter of 1948 was one to remember. We measured the snow in feet not inches! The farms south of Cochrane had to rely on Griffins to keep the main road open with their D8 Caterpillar. By December 23, most of the road had to be abandoned because there was 10 to 15 feet of snow piled on the road. It was through the fields with a tractor escorting Johnny Arnell in his 1 ton truck taking the milk that had to go to the Model Dairies in Calgary daily. Come mid-April 1949, Griffins were finally able to open the road.
During these years we were not in the Municipal District of Rocky View # 44. We were in what they called a Rural Improvement District and the farmers looked after the roads themselves. This included building the roads, maintaining them, including culverts and small bridges and also grading them.
In 1937, Dad traded in his old Hart Parr tractor on a McCormick Deering W-30 tractor. It was the first rubber-tired tractor that the people west of Calgary had seen. Dad was constantly teased about that tractor. “It can’t do anything out in the field!”, the neighbours teased but strange as it may seem, two neighbors who had the same model tractors on steel, appeared in their fields before long with the steel cut off and replaced with rubber tires. Being that we had a tractor with rubber tires, we had the honor of doing the grading on the roads, pulling a grader that originally was pulled by 4 to 8 head of horses, whichever was needed to build and maintain the roads.
In Grandpa’s days you might say “the horse age” he had a horse-powered baler. In winter time, they would bale prairie wool then ship it from Cochrane by railroad to Banff, Lethbridge or where ever he had a market for it. They would bale for 3 days then load the hay on wagons and haul it to Cochrane with 4 horses pulling the wagon. Then they loaded it on the railroad cars. This took another 3 days. The bale weighed 110 – 120 pounds each.
When you look back and see what the farmers did in those days we don’t know what work is! All this was combined with braking horses to break and sell and some of them went to the Army in 1914-1919. They also had cattle, milked cows, sent milk to a cheese factory that was located 2 miles east of here, sold cream to the Cochrane Dairy which was located immediately west of Cochrane adjacent to the Highway l (now IA) where the Cochrane Ranche Provincial Historic Site is now located.
In the fall of l953 , I worked for a year and a half with Shell Oil Exploration.
On June 18, 1954, I married Yvonne Blow, daughter of Len and Mable Blow of Cochrane. In 1955, I left Shell Oil Exploration to come back to work with Mom and Dad on the farm. At this time Dad rented a half section from Arthur and Mary Coelen. We farmed this land for 19 years until it was sold for subdivision and is now called Tower Ridge.
In 1958, Yvonne and I started to build our own home. With the assistance of Lambert Brothers Construction, who did the basement foundation and framing up, the house began to take shape. In the meantime, Yvonne and I, with our daughter Debra, born November 1955, and our son David, born January 1957 lived with my Mom and Dad. It was a great day when we moved into our new home.
In March 1961, our daughter Susan was born and in September 1964 another daughter Marie was born.
My mother passed away May 15, 1963 and Dad and I continued to work together.
In 1964, I bought Pleasant View Farm from my Dad and continued with the dairy operation. I started working toward my goal of having a herd of Brown Swiss Dairy Cows in 1972. I eventually succeeded in having a complete herd of Brown Swiss Cows with one of the cows achieving the honor of holding the production record of milk production of Brown Swiss in Canada. My father passed away on March 31, 1986.
In December 2002, I retired from the dairy operation and sold our dairy herd after succeeding in reaching
my goal. Our dairy was the last dairy in this area. I am still actively producing hay and boarding cattle.
Yvonne keeps very busy, still volunteering and we are enjoying our grandchildren. Our children are achieving goals of their own.
Debra married Dave Millican in 1979 and they have two sons Kobe and Kelly. They live in Cochrane, Alberta.
David married Marilyn Fullerton in 1982. They have three daughters, Bailey, Paige and Cassandra. David lives west of Stavely Alberta and publishes the Angus World magazine.
Susan graduated with her Registered Nurse degree in Edmonton and became a neo-natal nurse. She moved to San Diego in 1986 to work in the San Diego Children’s Hospital. In 1992, she married Rocky Cook and they have a son , Robbie and a daughter Marie. Susan founded the S.C.R.U.B.S. Nurses Uniform Company which has been very successful.
Marie had an interior design business in Edmonton and married John Fentum in July 1994. They moved to Denver, Colorado in 1995 and they have 2 children, a daughter Alexis and a son Grant. Marie now builds houses and sells real estate.
Yvonne and I are enjoying our retirement visiting friends and family and doing a bit of travelling.
