pg 698 More Big Hill Country 2009
Sam Scott was born July 5, 1905, in County Down, Northern Ireland. He was raised on a small farm where William Scott, Sam’s father trained horses to ride and show. Sam rode horses very young and rode often.
In 1923, as a young man, Sam and his father came to Canada to work for the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Southern Alberta, building railroad beds and irrigation canals with horses. After two years working in Canada, Sam and William returned to Ireland for four years then they brought William’s wife Adelaide and Sam’s sisters Agnes, Charlotte (Lottie), Rose, and brothers Jimmy and Willy back to Alberta.
While the family was in quarantine in Quebec, Sam learned to shoot. One of the staff gave him a .22 rifle and ammunition and told him to shoot rats.
The Scott family worked on farms in Dalroy, Alberta. Sam returned to a large farm in the Big Bend area near Taber, Alberta where he had worked before. He farmed with up to sixteen horses. Two years later he joined the family working in the Dalroy area. In 1928, the Scott family moved to Glenbow Ranch, working for Chester de la Vergne of Glenbow, Alberta. Mr. de la Vergne sold the Glenbow Ranch to Mr. Eric L. Harvie in 1933 and the Scott family remained there.
Helen Mary Rowan was born June 9, 1912, in Calgary, Alberta. Her father came from Ontario and her grandparents, the Lawsons, had ranched on the Crowfoot Creek northwest of Gleichen, Alberta. Helen’s mother Isabella was an early teacher at Springbank School. She was much loved by her students and their parents so they pooled their finances to buy her a horse to ride to school.
Helen was raised and schooled in Calgary but her favorite holidays were spent on her grandparent’s ranch near Hussar, Alberta. She began working for her board and room while in Junior High School and continued through Normal School where she received her teaching certificate in 1932.
Helen managed to get a school on the prairie, northwest of Hussar. Shallow Water School was quite a change from the doctors’ homes she had worked and lived in, in Calgary. Her living quarters were a dugout basement under the school and it was full of mice. To get away from the mice as best she could, Helen slept on the floor of the classroom until some of her pupils brought her some cats.
Helen’s second school was Glendale School, northeast of Cochrane. Again it was a one-room school where she taught grades 1-9. While there she boarded at Thompsons and rode horseback to school.
Sam Scott, who was a neighbour of the Thompsons. was attracted to this good-looking teacher who loved to ride. One Sunday he arrived at the Thompsons, leading his favorite horse, and invited her to go for a ride. She accepted and suggested they go to visit her Uncle David Lawson who was now ranching south of Cochrane in Jumping Pound.
Sam Scott and Helen Rowan were married on September 28, 1935.
Sam and Helen’s first son David was born June 16, 1936. Sam was working on the Glenbow Ranch and farm chores were a very important part of their life. Milking cows and selling the cream was a major portion of their income in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1939, Helen joined the Glendale Women’s Institute and began her first chance at volunteering.
One very cold November day Eric Harvie and a group went hunting with Sam as their guide. They wounded a deer that crossed the Bow River south, at Glenbow. Sam followed the deer to check on it and upon his return discovered the current in the river was very swift and high. The Ghost Dam had been let out three hours prior. As Sam on his horse crossed the river, the horse rolled in the swift water and Sam and his horse got separated. The horse swam to the south bank and got out so Sam called him. The horse returned to Sam and he grabbed the saddle horn and they both made it to the north bank some distance downstream. Sam rode three miles home, frozen stiff like a statue, and had to have help to dismount. He never got a cold or anything from this adventure and he never again rode the horse that saved his life.
A second child, daughter Heather, was born on May 10, 1939. World War II broke out and Sam joined the Canadian Air Force. Their third child, a son Donald was born October 29, 1940. Helen moved herself and three small children to Calgary for a short time before finding a little house in Carstairs. Between the years 1940 and 1945 Helen taught Sunday School and a mid-week children’s group. She also played the piano in Carstairs United Church during this time.
When Sam returned from overseas in 1945, the family returned to Glenbow Ranch. Soon they had a truck and Helen resumed her membership in the Glendale W.I. and became involved in St. Andrew’s United Church, Cochrane.
While ranching with the Harvies at Glenbow, Sam was involved in the Calgary Stampede. He rode in the Wild Horse Race and was a Chuckwagon outrider until 1955 when he passed the outrider job on to David. David rode for Gordon Dingwall.
Sam also participated annually in the Calgary Horse Show from 1933 on, a time he enjoyed very much. He usually came home with more horses than he sold. He bought colts unbroken or “bad”. He then rode them, trained them and sold them for his pocket money.
William Scott, Sam’s father, and Eric Harvie, continued through the years as partners on the Glenbow Ranch until 1956 when William retired and the Sam Scott family were moved, three miles north on the Glenbow Road, to Spring Valley, (Mel Brown’s farm north on Glendale Road). This was a big deal, running water and a telephone! We moved six miles north out of the Bow Valley and saw sharp-tail grouse dancing for the first time.
Sam always had horses, saddle horses and draft horses that he trained and would trade down, a trained one for a green one. He fed cows with a team and hayrack until the 1970s.
David, Heather, and Donald attended Glendale School and in December 1957 Helen returned to the classroom at Bearspaw School teaching grades one to eight until 1964. After Donald moved on to High School, she began teaching at the new Andrew Sibbald Elementary School in Cochrane until 1976. She enjoyed these years of teaching even more than the early years. After she retired she substituted with regularity often at Cochrane High where she again came in contact with former elementary students.
In 1970, Sam retired from Glenbow Ranch and he and Helen moved into Cochrane. While Helen taught school, Sam worked part-time for Dennis Wearmouth, Jack Hawkwood and Bill Nugent. Sam filled his time with Bill Nugent as he loved horse sales. He had an eye for good horses and was often the middleman purchasing for neighbours. Many horses in the area had some part of Sam in their background.
During his retirement, many a Friday afternoon found him at home with his brother-in-law Curly Rowan, some rum, and a cribbage board. Sam made extra pocket money by tending the jail at the RCMP Barracks in Cochrane. There he also played cribbage with the Mounties and Annie Raby, when there was a female prisoner. Sam passed away in 1992.
Helen found much fulfillment in volunteering at the Big Hill Lodge in Cochrane. She led exercise classes, sing songs and loved to take a carload of folks on drives in the country and to church. She loved to play the piano and had many wonderful times playing for dances, sing songs and church services. Soon after the Bethany Care Centre was built in Cochrane, Helen regularly played and led sing songs there too.
Helen was honoured by the Cochrane and District Chamber of Commerce as the “the Volunteer of the Year”. She was still enjoying playing the piano, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and her many friends even at the age of 94. She enjoyed listening to “The Spirit of the West” on the radio as it reminded her of life with Sam and days on the ranch, both Glenbow and the Lawson ranch on the Crowfoot.
Helen passed away in 2007 at the age of 95 years.
