By Bernice Buckler (Klotz) pg 334 More Big Hill Country 2009
Roy was born May 14, 1915 to Lillie Mildred Faggetter Buckler and David (Dave) Henry Buckler on the homestead farm near Bottrel, Alberta. He was the third son and new brother of Magdelene (Maggie), Albert, Violet, Frederick (Stan), and (later) Henry. Albert was fond of telling the story of the day Roy arrived. Albert was in the front room of the house lying on the floor drawing. Outside there was a snowstorm raging. Suddenly he heard a wail,jumped to his feet and ran to the window to see what the storm had brought. The midwife came out of the bedroom and told the kids they had a little brother.
They lived in a two storey log house, 28’x 28′, built in 1912. The attic had two rooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. The main floor consisted of a 4’x 8′ pantry, 8 ‘x 10’ washroom, one bedroom, kitchen and sitting room, and there was a cellar. The house which Walter Vaughn and Jack Reeves helped Dave build, had a cottage roof with dormer windows on the east and west ends. The barn had a peaked roof so Dave and Jack Reeve made a hip roof on it for storing feed. Roy was always under foot while building was going on, enjoying and trying to build too.
Attending Summit Hill for his schooling, Roy enjoyed the competition of sports days, baseball games, hockey and sometimes rodeo. One of his favourite memories was going to the Calgary Stampede for the first time. This was his first train ride from Cochrane to Calgary. They joined the King family for this outing. While in Calgary Dave and Lillie took their brood to a photographer for a family picture. Young Roy (two or three years old) refused to remove his hat. The photographer offered Roy a nickel to take it off but Roy took the nickel and kept his hat on.
Being the two youngest, Roy and Henry spent a lot of time together. They built a hut out under the cordwood saw fence. One night the boys got all settled and comfortable in their hut when they heard howls from the wild. Tumbling over each other it didn’t take long for them to beat a path back to the safety of the house.
There they discovered Albert had snuck out into the pasture and he was their “ferocious” animal. In 1925 Roy and Henry raised ducks to make money for a little red wagon. On September 26 there was a big snowstorm, leaving drifts so high that on the way to the pond the ducks actually walked over the fences. Roy remembered selling the ducks to Andison’s Meat Market in Cochrane. One way to get to town was catch a ride with the mailman for a cost of 25 cents. Roy did this one winter day when Mr. Johnson was delivering the mail but it was so cold that Roy walked most of the time to keep from freezing. When they arrived in Cochrane, Roy had to help Mr. Johnson from the sleigh and into the house to thaw out, then unhitch the horses and stable them. He was not happy to have paid 25 cents to have his suitcase ride into town.
Summit Hill was the local school and went up to Grade Eight. In Grade Two Roy was good at his times tables and, out of the twenty-four pupils, only Albert was able to beat him. By the time Roy was school age, he and his older brother Albert were very close. Roy would find out when his parents were planning a trip away for shopping and would play sick the morning they left. Once he was sure the folks were well on their way, he was out of bed and ready for any adventure Albert had planned. One day it was to bake raisin pies; both boys loved raisin pie and one piece was never enough. As soon as the pies were out of the oven they dug in, figuring as least one pie each. After sharing the first one, they couldn’t face the second. It took years before Lillie found out why they suddenly didn’t like raisin pie.
Summit Hill had joint school picnics with Westbrook, Lochend, Weedon, Cochrane Lakes, Horse Creek and Inglis. There would be horse races at these picnics and Bucklers had two of the fastest horses in the seven schools. Roy, Stan and Violet learned to ride on Gertie, a horse Dave bought from Henry Hoffman.
Jay Bowlen’s grandfather raised sunflowers in the field next to the school. He told the kids they could have all they wanted. Schaffers also raised sunflowers and would get upset if the kids got into them. Of course this meant it was much more exciting to raid Schaffer’s crop and sit on the school roof eating the seeds than to bother with the Bowlen ‘s crop.
The boys played shinny hockey and were on the Boggs hockey team. The ice was on the Boggs Ranch, Dog Pound Creek, Beaver Dam Creek or the slough below Ramsay Parson’s house. Some winters the springs behind the barn would be made into a rink and they could skate to Jim Reeves’ place. They would ride the calves in the corral at the barn when the folks were
away, but usually got caught. Invariably brother Stan would get thrown and catch his pants in the wire fence and have to explain to Lillie why they needed repairing. They would make bows and arrows from willow branches. Needing targets, they would get Lillie’s chickens and throw them into the air. If they were (un)lucky enough to hit the target, it got buried in the manure pile around the slough. Lillie sure lost a lot of her hens to the “chicken hawks”. Like most kids, they had to try smoking. They started out with pigweed leaves in newspaper and graduated to swiping tobacco from Dave’s tin.
In 1929 Stan had a job doing the Copithorne’s haying for three weeks in August but became sick and Roy took his place. All Roy’s wages went to pay for the mower Stan had purchased for the job. The haying crew consisted of Jim Reeve, Jack Reeve, Ray Schultz, Ed Young and Ed’s hired hand. They got a half-ton of prairie hay per acre.
At age 15 Roy finished school and went to Cochrane to live with Albert. They worked for Maggie and her husband Alvin Nelson at the Texaco station. Roy learned the hard way about motors. Alvin had him tear apart three different types of motors and clean them up, mixing the parts. When it was time to put them back together, all Alvin said was: “Nothing will fit where it doesn’t belong.” Roy couldn’t handle inside work because he got terrible headaches. It was hard to leave a job that paid $5.00 plus room and board. Roy returned to the farm.
One day Stan asked for some help to repair the windmill for his boss, a neighbour just across the road. When it came time to hoist the repairs into place, Roy asked how they would hold it and fasten it at the same time. Stan had organized that by calling two of the boss’s daughters to help hold the rope. Roy did not believe Pearl and Iris could do it, but they did. This was Roy’s first meeting with Iris Balderson.
Dave taught all six children to box and the boys joined the Boxing Club in Dog Pound. Albert went on to professional boxing with Roy acting as his second. He had only one professional ring fight, an exhibition round, but his opponent didn’t show up. During this time the Bucklers and Baldersons were becoming fast friends. Stan and Pearl married December 9, 1935 on Stan’s twenty-fourth birthday. Roy and Iris were dating. At age 19 Roy was told by doctors he had two weeks to live. Iris was in Duchess at the time helping her sister Bessie and Will with their five daughters. Roy headed to Duchess to share this news. Bessie and Will had gone away for a short holiday and Iris was there alone. She knew the neighbours were watching out for her
and thought it had been planned for Roy to arrive at that time, so she was not as welcoming as she could have been. Roy, unaware, thought Iris rather uncaring because of the news he had to tell her. Roy was staying at the hotel and as he walked over to the Lauvers in the dark, he stepped into the canal that ran down the street filling the local cisterns with water for drinking. He wasn’t very impressed with Iris’s welcome and now may have ruined his good suit to boot.
Returning home Roy went to see a new doctor in Canmore. Trained in Rochester, New York, Dr. Gelfand gave him some small pills that had a limited amount of arsenic in them, to thin the blood. Whatever the pills were they did the trick as Roy was to live another 70 years. Dr. Sid Gelfand became a good family friend. Roy remembers riding along with Dr. Sid in the car from Canmore to Cochrane. The good doctor was opening and reading his mail, while steering with his knees, never slowing down (travelling about fifty mph). About half way he looked at Roy and asked, “Are you scared?” Roy replied, “If you can ride it out, so can I.” The old Packard was a good heavy car and stuck well to the road. It was a hairy ride, the old road was really crooked.
1936 found Roy working for Ed Young during haying season. He started at 5:00 a.m. bringing in ten milk cows, milking them, having breakfast, then riding four miles on horseback to pump water for sixty head of cattle, another mile to roundup horses and have them ready for the other hired men to harness up to mow the hay. The work day for Roy ended at 5:30 p.m. when he rode home four miles, had supper, milked the cows, sharpened six mower knives and turned in for the night at 10:00 p.m. All this for $25.00 a month or $0.75 a day with room and board. Once this job ended Roy got a job stooking for Floyd Banta. He was there for two days when he was put on the binder behind four horses. After this job, Roy went hauling bundles for Ellis Banta. Wages were $1.00 a day or $2.00 if you had a team of horses. Roy made enough money to cover the farrn threshing bill with a little over for Christmas and spending money. He worked for Ellis for 4 years.
In 1937 Roy broke thirty acres on the farm with a 1020 Titan. That fall they bought a 15/30 McCormick Deering Tractor. The next year Roy took the new tractor out to break land and do other custom work for neighbors at $5.00 an acre. They bought a threshing machine and after doing nine days of their own threshing they moved to Dave McDougalls over in the Grand Valley. Going from farm to farm they worked for Rodgers, Cotterill, Liddells, D.P. MacDonald, Mrs. Ford, Delbecks, Eymas, Hansens, and Andersons.
The only rain that fell during this time was on the last day of November 3, 1938, at 2:00 p.m. Roy then headed for home, eighteen miles away arriving at 11:00 p.m. The next morning they awoke to six inches of snow. On November 5th, Graham Broatch arrived in the yard with a 1938 Plymouth. The car was a demonstrator that Graham and Molly had used for their honeymoon. Graham had a hand in getting the threshing jobs so D. Buckler & Sons was happy to purchase the car for repayment.
Roy invented a rock picker and had both the Canadian and U.S. patents for seventeen years. Unable to finance the production of his invention and anyone willing to put up the financing, the rock picker never became more than a model. Years later Roy saw it in a pamphlet of Balderstone Implements from Kansas. Turned out to be a distant cousin of Iris’s who was selling this machine!
Iris Irene was born June 2, I 919 on the family farm at Bircham, Alberta to Annabelle Fuller McLellan Balderson and Amos LeRoy Balderson. She grew up surrounded by fifteen brothers and sisters. There was Bessie, Duane, Clarence, Lenora, Mary, Laura, Jack, Jessie, Myrtle, Pearl, Patricia, Earl, Charles, Dorothy and Donald. She never lacked for playmates and, although a bit timid, didn’t lack for adventure.
The family moved to Calgary for a while and then back to Bircham. Iris attended the Beeman School for eight years enjoying ball games, dances, and yearly stampedes. She loved to play baseball and the outdoors and spent hours riding in an apple box fitted to her father’s binder. One of her favourite chores was to take the horses to and from the fields to give the teams a rest. Her least favourite chore was having to stop the water pump at the Waiteland place when the tanks were full. There was an old deserted building there and the rags on the windows would flap in the wind. Usually the tank was filled near dusk, so her imagination ran wild.
A big change came when Annabelle moved the family to Bottrel in I 934. Iris and Pearl found out what fanning was all about that summer. They had to do the stooking and fall work with the hired hand, Stan Buckler. Pearl later married Stan, and Iris later married his brother Roy. During this time Iris would go back to Bottrel for short visits to her mother, as well as looking for work.
When Iris turned eighteen her father gave her a chance to travel by funding a trip to see her sisters, who had married and moved to the United States. A three-month excursion turned into three years. She spent time in Oakland, San Francisco, Millionaire Island (Mercer Island), Seattle, Medford, Lakeview, and Los Angeles, working as a nanny or housemaid.
During this time away Iris and Roy had kept in touch through letters. On her return, she worked in Calgary until February 1941 when she married Roy James Buckler in the First Baptist Church in Calgary. The ceremony was officiated by Reverend Hall, with Roy’s brother Henry and Iris’s sister Pat standing up for them. They picked one of the coldest days of the year to marry and some of their dearest friends were unable to attend the wedding. On the way back to the reception at Roy’s sister Violet’s, in Cochrane, they rounded the corner at the top of the Big Hill and found a familiar car flipped over in the ditch. It was the groom’s brother Stan and the bride’s sister Pearl (Stan’s wife) and some other passengers. All were fine. The men righted the car and went on their way.
Roy and Iris moved onto his parent’s farm and shared the homestead for several months, while Roy built a new house where they lived for seventeen years. On April 25, 1942, their family began to increase with the birth of their daughter Mildred Iris. This young lady was the apple of her grandfather David’s eye. At an early age she spent time helping him with the farm chores. Later on Mildred spent hours with her “Granny” and Lillie. At the ripe old age of about two, Mildred went cranberry picking with Roy. This was a tiring job, so she looked around and saw a nice little hump to sit on. Next thing Roy heard was Mildred’s screams. The “hump” was an anthill and she was covered. After that, she inspected her “chairs” a little more carefully before using them.
Roy’s youngest brother Henry had joined the army and was shipped out from Vancouver. He had driven
his car and had to leave it there. Roy and his cousin Dave took the train over to fetch the car. This was not the best idea; Roy could have been in big trouble for leaving the farm as he was on twenty-four-hour notice if the Army needed him to join up. In Vancouver they picked up the car and set out for home, getting to Spence’s Bridge and spending the night in a hotel for $2.00. The next day they drove 30 miles west of Revelstoke and ran out of gas. They pulled into a post office lot and parked behind it, the manager discovered them and told them to get on their way. The manager had them drive into his garage and gave them gas from his rationed supply so they would leave. The mountain roads were very narrow in those days. When cars from opposite directions met, one had to back up until reaching a cut-out in the mountainside to allow the other car to pass. No Trans Canada Highway as we know it today.
On September 18, 1943, David Roy was born, missing his Granddad Dave’s birthday by one day. Being Granddad’s namesake, at a young age David decided to look like Granddad and big sister Mildred thought this a great idea. Iris discovered Mildred with scissors giving David a haircut. Granddad was bald on top with a fringe around his head. David almost got his wish before Mother discovered them. When they got a bit older, the two decided if Dad and Granddad could smoke, so could they. Around the house, they went gathering tobacco from leftover cigarettes and pipes. They took their findings to the barn where a helpful Dad and Granddad packed the bowl of an old pipe and helped the kids to light up. Iris had two very green children to contend with afterwards. On a windy day David and Mildred were out in the field near the slough and had a pack of matches. David swears to this day Mildred started the fire, but only he got the licking. Later on, if the two Davids went missing, you could bet the fishing poles were also gone.
On January 3, 1945, Ida Lenora was born Ida started her life in a hurry, arriving prematurely. As Ida got older, her love of animals was very evident. One evening as bedtime came, Ida was missing. An extensive search of the farm found her happy in the chicken coop. She was putting each chicken to sleep individually, by picking them up, cradling and rocking them, then setting the bird on the roost, all the while singing to them. One of her chores was to help David with the milking (a job he didn’t care for). Ida enjoyed milking and eventually took over the full milking chore, while David moved on to other jobs. Another pastime for these two was trapping gophers. Great fun until the day Ida caught her own thumb in the trap and had to go back to the house to get Iris to release it.
On August 17, 1946, another bundle of joy arrived at the Buckler home, Patricia Mary. She had not been home long when big sister Ida was packing her around the house. Soon “Pat” and “Mike”, as they were known, were both roaming the farmyard together. One morning soon after giving the girls their bath and sending them out in clean clothes, Iris looked out the window and saw a car in the yard. The people in the vehicle were bent over double with laughter. Iris discovered the source of cousins Hazel and Curly’s mirth. Two little girls peeping over the fence covered in mud. The only white showing was their eyes. One day one of the girls found a bird’s nest in the barn. They both hurried through lunch and shot out the door to go check the nest. As they left the house the dog barked, startling a horse tied in the yard. Just as Ida passed, Dick (the horse) kicked, splitting her knee wide open and leaving her with a large white scar. They never did get to see the nest.
By the time Mildred had started school, cousin Albert Henry Nelson had come to live at the farm. Henry was old enough to drive a team, so they rode to school in a wagon. Every so often when Mildred would get out to open the gate on the way home, Henry would urge the horses on so Mildred would have to run to catch up and get back in the wagon. One day Henry got out to open the gate and Mildred decided to get even. Once the horses got going, she could not stop them and they headed straight to the barn, Henry on the run one step behind. Fortunately, Granddad was there to stop the team. That ended the game. By the time all four were going to school they had horses, which they rode double. Iris told them time and again not to go through the barnyard bog, but Mildred and Pat were in a hurry one day. Right in the middle of the bog Ribbon, the horse, decided to rid herself of her passengers. Two very muddy girls had to go back for a bath. The children attended Summit Hill School until the Westbrook Composite School opened. Later on they attended school in Cochrane.
Iris’ father, Roy Balderson, offered to help Roy and Henry purchase some Canadian Pacific Railway land near Winchel Lake in 1945 then in 1947 Roy and Henry bought more land from the Royal Bank. This was timberland and the brothers started a sawmill to help cover the costs of farming. Roy worked all weekend on the farm getting things ready to make it easier for his Dad, Dave and the kids to do the chores during the week. From Monday to Friday Roy worked in the bush logging with Henry. During the summer Roy and Iris would take the family on a picnic and spend the time fishing. When the baseball season was on they took their picnics to the ball games. Sometimes two or three games were played in a day.
The spring of 1948 was extremely wet with the snow thaw. The family hadn’t been off the farm in months and travel wasn’t easy as the roads were washing out and the fields were muddy mires. Iris suffered a miscarriage and they didn’t know how they were going to get her out to the doctor. They contacted Violet Hogarth and she arranged to have Billy Andison fly out to the farm. Violet rode along to get him to the right place. They loaded Iris in the plane, but the wind was gusting making it difficult to take-off. Bill had Roy go stand on a hill in the field and when a gust hit him Roy was to wave and Bill would try to leave. It worked, with the plane just clearing the fence and tree lines. Roy and Violet took the car and made their way to Cochrane. It took over six hours as Roy had to get out and walk ahead of the car several times in deep water so Violet could drive the car and try to stay on the road. The summer of 1951, Roy and Iris took a rare vacation off the farm to visit cousins, Dennis and Alice Dendy, in Edgewater B.C. After a few days Roy was going stir crazy with nothing to do. Dennis got him a job with a local logger, which turned out to be very fortunate. When Roy and Iris came home they noticed car after car without windows and fields looked as if they were summer fallow. The day of the Dog Pound Stampede a hailstorm hit and did a lot of damage. Albert had been at the Stampede, but he had a blanket that he had put over his car and was able to protect his window from being shattered. Roy was glad he had worked during his holiday. He had $50.00 in his pocket; his pay had been $10.00 a day, a little fortune.
April 27, 1956 brought another family member, Bernice Irene. With four older siblings guess who was spoiled. There was always someone willing to look after baby.
The summer of 1957 brought some big changes into everyone’s lives. Roy had been ill for over two years, living on milk, eggs and little white pills. He could no longer continue to work on the farm, seven days a week. The farm and the sawmill were only making about $5,800 a year and had to support three families. The decision was made to sell off the cattle and divide things up. Unfortunately the fellow who bought the cattle didn’t have any money in the bank, so the cheque had to be held until he could make good on it. The family was uprooted and moved to the town of Cochrane. Roy and Iris rented a small apartment above Mrs. Moore for three months, while Roy finished haying and built a new home in Cochrane. He only had hand tools, but a cousin lent him a couple of power tools. Iris’s father Roy came out to help when he could and Henry’s wife Ellen’s brothers, the Norris boys also came by to lend a hand. The kids had to get used to being town kids, while Roy found it almost impossible to find a job. Iris had her hands full trying to keep the family going on just the $35.00 child allowance. Finally Roy found work taking care of the skating rink and helping Sid Norris on his dairy farm. He helped his brother-in-law, Harvey Hogarth, on the milk run from time to time. When delivering the milk to the depot in Calgary, a favourite place to eat was the Crystal Cafe. You could get coffee, full meal, and dessert for 25 cents. Later on, Roy ran a school bus route and worked for Frenchy Suel as a carpenter, learning the trade and branching out on his own. Roy built eight new houses for different family members as well as doing renovations on other homes and he built milking parlours for Sid Norris and for the Norris brothers. Both the Weedon Hall and Jumping Pound Hall were renovated and put on foundations by Roy with help from his brother Albert. During the ten years from 1963 to 1973 Roy worked for Fina Oil both at the gas plant and on the company houses on Cochrane Crescent.
Roy and David worked on the telephone lines in 1967-68 just before they were changed to rotary telephones. Their area was from Morley to Lochend, up to Mountain View county line down to the Bow River. Their territory had 300 miles of telephone lines.
Iris worked for Ellen Bryant as a waitress at the Chinook Cafe. The older kids took up babysitting for extra money. Bernice often went to the cafe with her Mum. She became fast friends with the cook Adele Sodonyte. Whenever Bernice ate at the cafe, she would
announce to Adele, “I want T-bone steak, please.” She always got her favourite pork chops. Sometimes, Bernice was allowed to help the waitress by taking the cream to the tables, but when people insisted on ‘tipping’, Iris stopped that. This was during the time that the Mannix pipeline went through town. The cafe often served 200-300 men for breakfast every morning. In later years Iris discovered that Adele could not read the orders the girls handed in, which were often just scribbles, but Adele had them call the orders as they set them down for her. She never messed up an order.
In 1963 Iris ran a kindergarten in the back area of the United Church, but at that time the grade school teachers felt it encroached on their territory, so she closed it down. Later she worked for R.E. and Alice Moore in the men’s department of their store. She ended up with a daycare home business. At one time she had twelve children all under school age. She always said the more children you had the less fights, as they always had someone else they could play with.
Mildred went to Calgary to keep a house for her Uncle Albert for room and board while she attended Henderson’s Secretarial School. She also worked for Ambrose Wise doing housework. She returned to Cochrane and worked in the Royal Bank for a few months. Mildred married John (Jack) Richard Elliott on August 13, 1960. They raised five children.
Around this time Patricia became ill with hepatitis. She was progressively worse over the next year, spending most of this time in and out of hospital. Mildred and Jack’s children, Jacquie and Darcy, were both born in the Calgary General Hospital where Patricia spent a lot of time. She was so happy to have a niece and nephew and treasured the short time she had with them before passing away on December 16, 1961.
Mildred and Jack lived in several areas of Alberta moving with Jack’s job on the oil rigs. They were in Cochrane when Jacqueline Irene was born and on the Whitfield farm outside of town when Darcy Norman came along, moving to Westward Ho and into their trailer just before Monesa Patricia joined them and to the Hollowood Ranch Store west of Cochrane before Marjorie Joy was born. Soon after they made their home in Exshaw where Gwendelyn Elizabeth completed the family. In 1974 with the help of Roy and several others, Mildred and Jack built a house in Exshaw and settled in that area. Jack worked for the Loders Lime plant, eventually working up to plant manager. September of 1995, Jack was offered a position in West Wendover, Nevada with the company. He and Mildred left family and friends behind to start out on a new adventure, on their own for the first time in about thirty .
years. All of their children were grown up. Jacquie had a stint in the Canadian Armed Forces and married Danny Strong. They spent six years in Germany before returning to Cold Lake where they adopted their son Andrew Johnathan. After moving several times they are now living in Crossfield. Darcy married Diane Berard and works at Spray Lakes Sawmill. They have lived in Cochrane for about 20 years and have a daughter Shianne Claudia Lynn. Monesa married Daniel Podmoroff and they eventually went back to their farming roots and are living outside of Wetaskiwin. Their son Keith David married Heather Jahnke and son Cody Adam is venturing into the working world now. Marjorie spent a lot of time in B .C. mostly in Radium Edgewater areas. She married Barry Cornelson. Unfortunately, she passed away on March 13, 2005, just before her 40th birthday. Gwendelyn Elizabeth married Leonard Lang. They lived and worked in Banff with their three children, Tero Parker, Xena Kennedy, and Chazz Alexander. Leonard passed away in November of 2000. Gwendelyn has been blessed with Robert King and they have two more children Tanzin Jadea and Corbin Texas.
It took some time for Mildred to adjust to the distance from family. She and Jack made at least two trips back to Alberta each year. Often Mildred would spend a month here with Roy after Iris passed on. Then on December 5th, 2003 Mildred lost her 4 1/2 year battle with cancer. The family has been fortunate to welcome Jack’s wife Arny into the fold. They have a large blended family and after retirement in 2006 will be busy trying to spend time with everyone.
December 21 , 1963 David married Patricia Lynn Black of Calgary. They, too, moved around before settling down. Starting their married life in Calgary, and spending a short time living with Roy and Iris, they welcomed a daughter Sandra Lee Ann. Moving into a basement apartment, their family increased with Clinton Roy. Another move to a house and yard and along came Kent David. In 1970 David and Pat were able to obtain a lot from their neighbour Robert Armistead and moved on a house, which they added onto and spent the next twenty years in. Also, during this time they completed their family with Cameron John. In 1989 David and Pat decided to move to the Winchel Lake area and made their home at Woodland Springs Ranching Ltd. After trying their luck at cattle and sheep ranching they returned to Cochrane and built a new home in Bow Ridge. David worked for Bill Wearmouth, the Alberta Highways Department Whittle Implements and Spray Lakes Sawmill. He spent one term on the Town Council in the 1970’s.
Sandra married Kevin Joseph Kinch and they have two daughters, Kay Lee Marie and Josie Lynn, and a son, Taiten Lee. Sandy and Kevin have made their home in Didsbury. Clinton married Veronika Schlathler and they have a son, Colton Roy. Clinton and Veronika have a horse ranch near Fort MacLeod and Clinton works in the agricultural field. Kent took up commercial electrical wiring and has settled in Crossfield. He has a son Austin Robert. Cameron works in the oil fields and on construction framing houses. He lives in Cochrane.
Ida worked at Scott Lake Hill as a waitress at least one summer and had a short stint as an operator at the Cochrane Telephone Exchange, while taking courses to become a nurse’s aide. On April 8, 1968, Ida settled down in Radville, Saskatchewan and married John Earl Williams. Ida had spent several years as a nurse’s aide (now known as an LPN) working in Drumheller, Medicine Hat, Rayville, and Moose Jaw before becoming a farmer’s wife. She and Earl lived in trailers, which they moved from the farm in fall to Radville and back to the farm in spring. Rochelle Della and Blakley Errol were both born during this time. Then Ida and Earl bought an acreage on the edge of Radville, where James John completed their family. In 1983 they moved to Pangman area, the “four corners”, which is where Highways #6 and #13 intersect. While Earl continued to farm, Ida moved the boys into Weyburn to finish their high school, and she did some part time nursing. With Earls passing in July 1994, Ida and Blake continued to farm for a couple of years. Rochelle had moved to Toronto and James followed her once he finished school. Ida decided to join them in Toronto. In 1997 the farms were sold and Blake moved to Cochrane and worked at Spray Lakes Sawmill for a while. Rochelle married Drayson Hendricks and they have three sons: Austin Drayson, Matthew Earl, and
Drayson Beau. They live in Barrie, Ontario. Blake married Ellen Higgins and they have 2 daughters, Emma Alexis and Alexandra Ella. They live in Wedlock, Saskatchewan. James married Sandra Vilene. They live in Scarborough, Ontario. Ida remarried in February 15, 2003 to Robert Gifkins and they reside in Barrie, Ontario.
At the ripe old age of seven, Bernice had her parents to herself. The older kids and grandkids came by to visit often. The nieces and nephews were closer in age to her than the actual siblings. Iris and Roy seldom went anywhere without Bernice. By the time she was eighteen, the three had become quite dependent on each other. They made several trips together to Reno to see Iris’s sister Jessie and brother-in-law Vern. They stopped along the way to visit other family members, Lenora and Harry, Myrtle and Ken, Laura’s husband Paul, and several of Iris’s nieces and nephews. Bernice developed a liking for travel. In the 1970’s she and friend Heather (Robinson) Brosseau traveled to Britain, Europe and Australia.
In 1980, Roy, Iris and Bernice took a trip to Ontario, Michigan, & Pennsylvania. Roy’s father David came from that area and they looked up his old school and then visited the house in Breslau, Ontario. area that David’s grandfather had built. Both buildings were still in use. This was the fourth trip to Michigan and Ontario for Roy, Iris and Bernice. Each time Roy would be upgrading his school bus so he would go to Brantford, Ontario and drive the new one back home. 1982 found the travelers in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Then in 1986, they journeyed to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. This time they had grandson Clinton with them. Many other shorter and closer trips were made, especially after
they got a 5th wheel. They ventured up the Alaskan Highway, getting back through the mountain passes just before the first snowstorms.
On October 10, 1987, Bernice married Maurice Gerald Klotz. Their courtship was spent building a house with a lot of help from Roy and many other family members. Having always teased David about not leaving home (he lived across the street for 20 years), Bernice learned to be quiet as she built on the lot next door to the folks. She has literally never left home, having lived with her parents until age 31 and moving across the driveway when she did move out. Roy kept busy with his yard work and lots of carpentry projects, while Iris found lots of time to spend helping her neighbours. Bob Armistead was able to stay in his home until Dolly and Allister moved from See be to be with him in 1979. During this time Iris checked on Bob two and three times daily, usually playing several hands of cribbage on each visit. Many other seniors depended on her to visit regularly. Both Roy and Iris had been avid curlers, and as retirees, became golfers. September 20, 1998 Roy and Iris attended grandson Blake’s wedding and two days later Iris ended up in hospital and passed away September 30, J 998. Roy was able to stay in his own home and was happy to work in his garden and yard. The last two years he supervised and advised Bernice while she did the actual work. Roy attended his great-grandson Keith’s wedding in Red Deer on September 11, 2004. On October 10, 2004 he passed on.
