That summer he went to southern Alberta seeking work, but found none due to the drought. He came back to Kingman to the Boness family where he made his home whenever he was out of work. He also worked for Ole Bjorgum. During the winter he worked in the woods cutting and loading railway ties. Later he went to Vancouver and did contracting work for the Canadian National Railway.
He is married and has one son. He is now retired and lives at Delta B.C.
ADAM , Francois - Francois Adam gave Dinant it's name and owned the land on which Dinant was situated.
He was born at Louvain, Belgium on January 24, 1857. He was a Civil Engineer and had lost his parents and only sister. Around 1883 he arrived in Canada and worked for the C.N.R as a consulting engineer, and assisted in building the railroad through the rockies until 1885. For three years he was a fur trader in the Peace River area and each summer took his furs to London, England and visited his home town in Belgium. On a return trip he met Father Beillevaire in Montreal who came to establish himself at the Laboucane Settlement.
In 1887 he sent for his fiancee in Belgium and they were married by Father Beillevaire. He built a new ranch at Pipestone Creek near Gwynne. He also had a ranch at Beaver Lake, near Tofield and later a store at Duhamel. When the C.P.R line was extended east from Wetaskiwin to Sparling, later Camrose, he moved his family into town and is credited as being the founding father of Camrose. When the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was laid from Tofield to Calgary, Francois became their employee and he planned and established the townsites between Tofield and Calgary. He lso surveyed and purchased the right of way for the Railroad company.
Francois Adam passed away on May 15, 1961 at the age of 104 years. He was survived by six sons and one daughter.
ADAMSON, Charlie - Charlie Adamson was born in Ortofta Sweden, October 27, 1869. He came to Canada as a young boy and worked in British Columbia logging camps and mines until 1902, when he came to Alberta and homesteaded the S.W. 30-48-19-4. He died December 2 , 1942.
On June 13, 1908 he married Edna Charlotte Skalin, born October 26, 1889. She died January 9, 1950. They had seven children.
Charlie and Edna first lived on the S.W. corner of the section 30 when the railroad was surveyed in 1912. It would pass through their barn, so the Grand Trunk moved the building to it's presnt site of Harvey Adamson's, their grandson.
In 1936 Walter and Ernest Adamson took over the home place and their folks retired to Creston B.C until 1940 when they moved to Camrose to be closer to their children. They had seven children, ROBERT CARL, who died in infancy. FRITZ ALVIN , who was born Apr. 22 ,1910 and died Dec.5, 1969. He was a well respected farmer in the Lake Demay area. He was director for the Hampton Electrification Board, and on the Camrose Agricultural Society Board responsible for heavy horses. Besides farming he raised purebred Percherons and also purebred Shorthorn cattle. He never married.
WALTER ALPHONSE was born Mar. 7 , 1912 and died Mar. 24, 1964. He married Estella Anderson and farmed his father's land. They had three children. HARVEY ALLAN was born Aug. 16, 1943. He married Patricia Ostrowercha and they have two sons, Bryce Peter born Oct.12, 1974 and Grant Owen born Nov. 28, 1976. Harvey farms the homestead land S.W - 30-48-19-W4.
MARVIN WALTER, born Apr.11 , 1946 married Ann Inkster and have two sons Graham and Nolan. Marvin lives on an acreage in the Lindbrook area and works for the city of Edmonton.
SHARON EDNA was born Apr.30, 1947. Sharon lives in Edmonton and is employed by the Royal Bank of Fort Saskatchewan.
RUTH ALTHEA was born Oct. 23, 1913 and died Mar. 10, 1914.
JOHN HAROLD was born Apr.5, 1915. He married Ruth Risvold and in 1944 farmed the S.E-30-48-19-4 until 1948 when they took over Ruth's parents farm.They retired to live in Camrose in 1974. Harold bought , broke and sold horses most of his life. Many youngsters would come and ask him to help them buy a good riding horse. They would tell him what they wanted and how much money they had and he would get them a horse.
Harold and Ruth had four children. Duane, born Sept. 28, 1949. He married Faye Wordley and they live in Surrey B.C. They have three children. Raymond Herbert, born Aug.24, 1941. He married Elizabeth Brady. Ray farms and also owns and drives pony chuckwagons , which he does very well and has a large collection of trophies. Ray lives in Baily subdivision, they had three children.
ROBERT GARY, born Aug.14, 1943, married Patricia Smith. They live south of Camrose, own and operate the Adamson Realty Ltd. They have two sons.
CONNIE RUTH, was born Oct. 7, 1958 and married David Holmberg. They live in Rosalind. Connie works at the Camrose Savings and Credit Union.
ERNEST ERLAND, was born Dec. 20, 1916 and was a bachelor. At one time he owned the S.E-25-48-20-4 and the N.W-30-48-19-4. He sold in 1965 and moved to the Demay Lake area.
ELLA SOPHIE, was born Mar.26, 1918 and died May 28, 1932.
ANDERSON, John Albin - John Anderson came to Kingman from Bardo, Alberta in early 1909 and worked at various jobs such as on a ground breaking steam engine at the Creamery testing station, and the A. Horte Store.
In 1930 he organized the Bardo Male Chorus which consisted of over twenty voices. He sometimes walked to Bardo from Kingman on the railroad when roads were to muddy on which to drive. He also organized and led the Kingman - Lundemo brass band.
Albin was councilor for the Beaver County for 15 years and also reeve for two years. He operated the B.A Bulk station from 1936 to 1966.
In 1945 he married HAZEL HOVELSON. They had two children. RANDY was born in 1946 and AUDREY in 1947. They had the same birthday, June 29. They both took after their Father in their music abilities, singing at showers, weddings, anniversaries, at Chuch and variety programs.
Randy won several trophies for his singing and playing, including Search for Talent. In 1975 C.F.C.W Radio conducted a Klondike Day Talent competition and selected Randy as the winner. The major prize was a recording contract with Royalty Records and the production and distibution of a 45 R.P.M record. One side of the record featured a song "Let us Share" with words and music by Randy. The other side of the record, "It's Hard To Believe but it's True" featuring Randy singing words and music by Billy Young.
He married Pat Yake in 1967 and they had three children, Tammy, now 11 tears, Shelly, 9 years and Aaron, 2 years (in 1981). In 1967 he started working for N.A.D.P in Edmonton and got transferred to Camrose the same year, he worked there till his passing in 1979.
Audrey started working for Alberta Government Telephones in Wetaskiwin in 1965 and transferred to Camrose in 1966 where she has worked since. In 1972 she married a Camrose boy , Ron Fisher and they have two children, Kerri, 5 years old and Kimberley, 1 year old(in 1981). Ron works for Cunningham Refridgeration.
Albin passed away May 17, 1974.
ANDERSON, CARL - Carl Anderson homesteaded the S.E 30-48-19-4. He built a cozy home for his family but Mrs. Anderson was not well and died the year of 1918.
They had two children, a girl, "Gerlie" and a son, Leon.
Mr. Anderson remarried, and in the spring of 1920 sold his land and moved to California, U.S.A. His son Leon died at an early age when he died into an irrigation ditch and broke his neck.
He worked for Jim Erickson on the ranch by Armena the winter of 1910 and later on the railroad from Edmonton to Edson Alta. He talked of an incident where he and his fellow workers worked all day building a railrod grade by Chip Lake. They were working with horse and mule teams pulling scrapers. When evening came they went back to camp for the night. The following morning when they came back to continue work they discovered the grade was gone and there was a big ditch full of water. They later found out that the land had grown over the lake, or the lake had worked it's way under land. So the surveyors had to reroute the railroad.
Elis also worked on the coal branch railroad at a later date. Afew workers took on a contract to build a certain part of the road and had to supply their own food. They built a clay oven using wood for fuel. They knew it was hot enough when a dry stick smoked when rubbed on the walls of the oven. They baked bread and had pork and beans and coffee for most of the meals.
On Mar. 31, 1914 Elis married Petra B. Hanson, a Norwegian girl born in Crookstone , Minnisota on Aug. 28,1887. Her mother died when she was 3 and she moved from one family to another until Mr. and Mrs. Lunde took her in. The Lundes immigrated to Alberta in 1900 and homesteaded in the Lundemo district, thirty - five miles N.E of Wetaskiwin, where Petra grew up. She was confirmed in Scandia Church in 1903. She worked in the Driard Hotel to earn money to go back to the states to visit her brothers and sisters. Later she came back to Alberta and married Elis. It was a double wedding with Elis' sister, Victoria, and Albert Berg. They were the first couples to be married in the Wilhelmina Church.
Elis bought the N.W 1/4 -18-49-20-4 where he farmed and raised 3 children. His first son Elmer was born Sept. 20, 1915, followed by 2 daughters, Viola, born June 17, 1917 and Estella, born Aug.23, 1919. The 3 children walked two and one half miles across country to Brandland school on the N.E corner of section 6-49-20-W4.
Albert Berg bought his retired Father in laws (Anders Kristofferson) homestead and Johnas Anderson who married Elis' sister Kristina bought N.W 17-49-20-4.
Albert and Victoria had 3 children, Angeline, Vincent and Bernese. Johnas also had 3 children, Lydia, Hilmer and Ethel. These children would meet at Elis' brother Frank Anderson's place(S.E 18-49-20) and walk to Brandland school together.
The girls were well behaved but the boys, Hilmer, Elmer and Vincent were not always angels. They once led a girl through a three and a half foot deep water slough to wash her clean, because she had tattled on them at school. In winter the boys skied to school, they found the biggest hill to ski down on the way home. It was on Elias' place, there was a two wire fence halfway down the hill and to get the full benifit of the run they had to lay down on their skis and slide between the two wires. They found the risk of being cut by the wire challenging and thrilling.
At age 17 Elmer earned enough money to take a correspondence course in carpentry. He built many buildings in the community. He later worked with his brother in law Olaf Swanson. He attended N.A.I.T for a refresher course in 1972.
Olaf Swanson married Viola Anderson, they farmed John Andersons place by Miquelon Lake. The Provincial govt. bought the property to extend the Park. They moved to Edmonton with their two sons, Lawrence and Palmer.
Estella married Walter Adamson, they lived in the Dinant district and raised three children. Harvey their first , farms the home place and has purchased four more quarters. Marvin is a power electrician with the City of Edmonton and Sharon is involved in computer training for the Royal Bank in Edmonton. Estella's husband Walter died of a heart attack in 1964.
Elmer married Hilda Schoenknecht from Hay Lakes in 1947. They bought his Father's farm where they still live. They had five children, four sons, Dwayne, Elwin, Derry, Ross and one daughter Murial. Dwayne, born in 1951 married Jocelyn Perras of Morinville Alta. They have two daughters , Delaney, born in 1978 and Jillian, born 1979. Dwayne attended N.A.I.T in 1971-72 and later the University of Alberta. He is a senior systems analyst for the Provincial Govt. and lives in Sherwood Park.
Muriel, born in1953 is married to Myron Smolarchuk, a school teacher from Boyle. She attended Harrison College and was working as a stenographer at the Electrical Protection Branch in Edmonton. They reside in Edmonton and have one son, Daniel, born in 1978.
Elwin, born in 1961 is going to Lethbridge College and working part-time at Miquelon Provincial Park.
Derry, born 1968 and Ross, born 1970 are attending Hay Lakes School and helping with the farm work.
He was a happy -go -lucky type of fellow who enjoyed music and was a self taught accordian player. He worked for farmers in the area and around 1923 was working on the railroad section of Dinant.
In 1924 he married Ingrid Leird and they fixed up the little section bunkhouse for living quarters.
In Sept. 1924 Joyce was born. They later moved to a little house near Miquelon Lake. They had two or three more children. Around 1930 they moved to B.C and Happy was in an accident resulting in the loss of both legs, he spent his remaining years in the Provincial Infirmary in Vancouver.
He had another heartbreaking experience when one day he went shopping in his wheel chair. At the entrance he left his wheelchair and used crutches inside. When he arrived at the door to go home he found his wheel chair had been stolen.
ANDERSON, Jonas O. - written by Ethel Carlisle. My Dad , Jonas Anderson, immigrated from Wilhelmina, Sweden in 1904 with his wife Elizabeth and his two children , Adrian and Fredda. He homesteaded S.W. 6-49-20-W4 where his wife passed away in 1906.
He built the first Brandland school in 1906. This school burned a few years later.
In 1907, my Mother Kristina Anderson, came over from Sweden. She was the daughter of Anders Kristtofferson. The children of Anders Kristtofferson took the name Anderson when they came to Canada. Jonas and Kristina were married shortly after.
In 1909 Dad started a blacksmith shop in Bittern Lake, but the family stayed on the homestead.
Mother told about a bush fire that came when she was alone with the four children, Adrian, Fredda, Signe and Lydia. When she saw it coming she sent Fredda for help. My Mother put a ladder up and carried water to pour on the roof. Fredda eventually returned with help. The fire burned the barn, calves, and harness but the house was saved.
In 1910 the family moved to Bittern Lake. Hilmer was born in 1917 while we lived there. They moved back to Brandland area to live with my grandparents, the Anders Kristtofferson's.
I was born on the farm across from Miquelon Lake park gate. Shortly after that we moved to the next quarter east N.W. 17-49-20-W4. Dad had a sawmill with which he sawed lumber for many people. He carried on with his blacksmith job sharpening many plow shares. Horses were also shod.
I walked two miles to Brandland School. In the winter time there were such big snowbanks that my brothers and Bergs took turns taking us to school with the horses. In later years we used to ride with the Coykendall boys in their horse drawn cutter.
I remember when my brother Hilmer had bad tonsils and had them out. Very early one January morning Adrian bedded him down in the sleigh box with lots of hay and blankets and went to Camrose, a distance of 18 miles. Hilmer went up to Dr. Rogers office and had his tonsils out. When he woke up he came home in the sleigh box. The next winter Hilmer had to do the same for Adrian.
Before I started school, Alice Simonson and Mr. Milligan used to teach in Brandland and roomed and boarded at our place. While I went to school my teachers were Mrs. Gutary, Arther Erickson and Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins.
Dad died in the spring of 1936 when I was fourteen. It was so muddy that the undertaker couldn't come out. Hansel Johnson and John Person made a coffin of boards my brother got in Kingman. This coffin was lined with white sateen and covered with black sateen. The coffin was hauled to Wilhelmina church in a wagon.
My Mother acted as a midwife and delivered many babies in the district. Rain or shine we always attended services in the Wilhelmina Church. During the depression in the 30's there were many men walking around looking for work. My folks gave them a meal and sometimes socks or shoes if they needed them.
My sister Fredda, Mrs. John Anderson, passed away in 1956, sister Lydia, Mrs. James Carlson in 1974 and Hilmer in 1975.
Adrian lives at Golden, B.C. His wife passed away in 1977. Signe and her husband Martin Mareck live at Hope , B.C.
I, Ethel married Don Carisle of Tofield in 1942. Our first son passed away in infancy. We have six other children, Donna, Mrs. Kevin Wiltzen lives at Ross Creek. Elvera, Mrs. MacNevin lives in Edmonton and works for Hyalog Oil Field service. Keith lives at Oliver and is a welder. Rick lives in Tofield and works for Watson Construction. Grant lives at home and helps on the farm. We still live on the same farm where Don was born 65 years ago.
ANDERSON'S, Joseph, Ernest and Ada - Joseph Helmer Anderson came to Canada from Sweden in 1907 with his parents, Anders Johan and Augusta Wilhelmina Anderson, brother Ernest and sister Ada. He married Gladys Irene Broen in 1936. Their son Howard Douglas was born in 1941.
Joseph came to the Miquelon Lake district in the fall of 1926. In 1927 he purchased the NW 34-49-20-W4 and tried raising muskrats, sheep, cattle and did some trucking.
The family lived in this locality until June 1969 when they moved to Enderby, B.C. They resided there until May 1979 when they moved to the present location in Camrose Alberta. Their son lives in Armena. His occupation is that of heavy duty mechanic.
Joseph's brother Ernest taught school at Miquelon in 1915. His sister Ada was the teacher in 1917.
EDITORS NOTE: Ernest Anderson's interesting history appeared in the heritage magazine, Nov. Dec. 1976 issue.
ANDERSON, Karl, August - August 21, 1898 Karl Anderson was ushered into the world to take his place in a family of twelve children. He was born in a small village of Vesterbotton Sweden, to Katherina and Anders Kristofferson. The month of August in Sweden was the month for haymaking and since the women worked with the hay as well as the men, little August was two days old when he was brought along to the hay-field. There he slept on a haycock while his mother worked.
His folks , having heard of America across the ocean, with it's great opportunities for more room and wealth, decided to try their luck in the new land.Anders , his Father, left in 1906 and his Mother in 1907, taking three of her ten living children with her. The rest were left in Sweden to await money for their tickets. August, being only nine years old, was left behind to herd cattle for his living until such time as he could make the trip to Canada. Life held many hardships for a lad so young working for a living, far away from his parents. One by one his sisters and brothers left for Canada until only he and his brother Frank, were still in Sweden.
April, 1912, a ticket arrived for him, but he had to catch the boat at Tronjheim, Norway. There were many miles to travel between Wilhelmina and Tronjheim and it had to be done on skis, across country and over mountains and hills and lakes, to reach the boat. Crossing the North Sea to London, then to Liverpool they waited anxiously for passage across the Atlantic Ocean. The original plan was to board the new Titanic, but when they arrived they were informed there wasn't any room for them, so they waited for an older, smaller ship. The disappointment was great, but little did they know that a "heavenly power" had guided and gaurded them from the unseen peril of the sinking Titanic.
They arrived safe and sound at their parents home by Miquelon Lake near Kingman in the middle of June. Their parents were very suprised because they hardly dared to hope for their sons survival.
Most of his young life was spent around Lundemo, Hay Lakes, Dinant and Kingman, working for relatives and friends.
The year 1924 he met Ethel Telning, who was teaching at Brandland School and Jan. 29, 1927 they were married in Camrose. They lived in Bittern Lake until the spring of 1935 when they moved to the Edberg district.
They farmed and retired at Edberg until August passed away Dec. 19, 1977 and Ethel passed away Aug. 15, 1978.
Our wedding took place in the Kingman Swedish Lutheran Church. This was the first wedding to be performed in that new Church.
To our union , four children were born. My husband worked as a farm laborer the first years of our marriage. In 1917 we lived in Camrose where David was employed in draying. In 1921 we moved to Yakima , Washington where we lived for eleven years. We rented a farm in the Dinant area for twelve years until it was sold. Back to Camrose we went where my husband got employment with the Beaver Lumber. He worked with this company for nearly ten years when his health began to fail.
In 1965 we celebrated our 50th. anniversary. In 1969 my husband passed away at the age of 78 years.
I have many fond memories of my childhood days in the dear old home at Miquelon Lake.
ANDERSON (Pearson), Vera Eleanor - Vera Eleanor is the daughter of Eric and Alida Pearson.
She lives in Camrose and has a daughter , Colleen Margaret who married Patrick White and lives in Forestburg. They have two children, Darcy Lillian and Michael Patrick.
ARLIDGE (Pearson), Edith - Edith Pearson was born at Dinant in 1917 and took most of her schooling there before the family moved to the Lake Demay district.
On Dec. 8, 1937, Edith married Bob Arlidge of Edmonton. He passed away in 1959.
To this union were born four children, Eric is married and has two children. They live in Ottawa, Ont. He served 21 years of Army service in Canada.
Aleda married Amund Olson on Dec. 1, 1956. They have four children and live in Sherwood Park.
Vera married Wayne Dundas on Oct. 15 1960 in Edmonton. They have two children and are residing in Edmonton.
Cecil married Terry Bailey on Sept. 6, 1971. They have three children and are residing in Edmonton.
Edith is still living in Edmonton.
In those days Kingman was a thriving town. To get to Camrose was an event, and only necessary for doctors, dentists etc.
Most residents had big gardens which supplied fresh vegetables in the summer and were stored in various methods for the winter. Berries were plentiful so quarts of these were preserved. Fresh milk could be purchased every day and chickens kept people supplied with eggs and meat. It was nice to be wakened by a crowing rooster.
Alex had a trucking business from 1938 to 1946 with help from Bertil, Herbert and occasionally Shirley Wilson. After the war his sons resumed the responsibility of the trucking. From 1954 till his death in 1965 he attended the service station while his boys hauled grain, coal and cattle.
Alex was the musician of the family. He could play any instrument by ear, but his real love was the violin. He was a good whistler and whittler. Ingeborg could not carry a tune, but she managed to rock her children to sleep with a couple of Swedish ditties.
Ingeborg was very busy tending to children and household duties. To think back one wonders where the women got all there energy with no conveniences. Every Mother was in the same position, so I do not have to elaborate. Especially during the "dirty thirties", food and clothing could be skimpy, but at least Alex had a job which was a blessing. Ingeborg seemed to find time to do fancy work, reading and keep in touch with friends and relatives in Canada, U.S and Sweden. There was time to visit with her dear friends in town who were Mrs. Clarence Simonson, Mrs Petra Simonson, Mrs T.J Rogness, Mrs Molvick and others. Mother loved her Lord and Church.
In later years, 1954 onward, Alex and Ingeborg enjoyed many motor trips, some to Minnesota where he came from originally. When he went through at the border, he'd say, "Now we're getting into good country." but then coming home he'd say " I'm glad to be out of that place". He was teasing Ingeborg. She was able to return to her native land Sweden, three times. She enjoyed the visits, but as she said, "Canada is my home".
Ingeborg died Sept. 3, 1977.
David Asp, the youngest child was born Oct. 10, 1939 and was quite a care for them but a joy too. David's friend was Ronald Horte. He also enjoyed a piece of pie at the Seljehaug Cafe, where the Post Office is now. His big treat of the year was the week spent at Miquelon Lake Bible Camp. He loved the trips the family took usually in the late spring and was the first one to enter the motel to see if there was a fridge and a T.V. David had a good appetite. He lived at home until Jan. 8, 1973, when he went to reside in Elk A. at Michener Center, Red Deer. He comes home for visits several times a year.
Gertrude went to Calgary in 1930 to stay with Martha and Howard Kelly. They paid for her comptometer course which resulted in a position with the United Grain Growers Ltd. in June 1932. Her 41 years with the company were happy ones and gave her many lasting friendships. The U.G.G was very good to her, so she was glad to have the opportunity to work for them. On Aug. 3 , 1973 she retired and returned to Kingman where she intends to stay as long as she is able. It was wonderful for her to be with her Mother for four years.
There are many pleasant memories from her school years, such as coming home about 3:30 P.M to smell fresh bread or doughnuts - a treat with coffee. The basketball games were played on the rough and ready court at the school. The greatest excitement was to be at the Edmonton Exhibition and play the game though the Merry Midgets lost the first one to Bruderheim. That team won the championship so the M.M could not have done too poorly.
In the spring of the years 1929 and 1930, she'd look out the high school windows, just occasionally of course, and see the strong winds blow across the frshly planted fields carrying the soil west then next day blow it east. There was very little rain, so a little white cloud in the sky would restore hopes which were soon deflated.
One day at noon a few girls decided to play hooky, but couldn't think of a place to go so scrapped the idea. The day the nurse came out and the children had to take their shoes off, and Gertrude was so ashamed because of the holes in her stockings, but she noticed other girls had the same. The poor garter snakes the boys had killed and were so brave to wave before their fairer sex caused excitement at noon.
Bertil, Herbert and Douglas have their own histories.
Muriel (Asp) Hyde is the fourth child of Alex and Ingeborg and she tells this story. My fourth, fifth, 10th and 11th grades of schooling were taken in Kingman with S.D Simonson, the teacher. I took a secretarial course at Garbutt's Business School in Calgary.
In 1942 I joined the Army with the C.W.A.C and was sent to Vermillion , Alberta for one month for basic training. For the next four years I was stationed at Mewata Barracks, Calgary. When I joined the army, I planned to see the world, but did not get out of Alberta.
On Aug. 31, 1944 I married C. M Hyde. In Aug. 1946, I was discharged from the army and we moved to Vancouver B.C. Murray attended the University if British Columbia and graduated in law in 1950. Now he is a Judge in the county court of Westminster. We make our home in the city of New Westminster.
We have two sons, Douglas and Michael. Douglas is in the constuction business. He was married to Kris Harrison, Mar. 1979, and they are living in Burnaby, B.C. Michael married Mary Ellen Abel, Aug. 1976. He works for Woodward stores and they make their home in Abbotsford, B.C.
Bernice (Asp) Lawson, the youngest daughter of Alex and Ingeborg relates this history. My education was received in Hardisty, Alliance and Kingman.
In 1943 I left Kingman for Calgary where I took a comptometer course and worked for the Royalite Oil Company in Turner Valley. After leaving there I took an advanced course in weaving in Winnipeg and taught this craft in Saskatchewan for one year. In 1945 I joined the C.W.A.C and after discharge from the Armed Forces, I went to work for Canadian Oil Companies.
I married John Lawson of Regina in 1948. He is now in his 32nd year with the C.P.R. We have three sons, David, Richard and Gary all living in Calgary.
After Dad's forced retirement I became U.G.G Agent from 1937 to 1940. During the war years 1940-1945, I worked for Swift Canadian three years for a weekly pay of $31.00 on which I paid income tax. Working in the packing plant was quite an experience, cleanliness was of utmost importance. Also in these years I farmed for Mr. I. Ness. I enjoyed this very much especially driving six horses to do field work. In 1946 I went into the trucking business with my Father and Herbert, hauling grain and coal.
June 1946, I went with Hans Boness to Kansas, U.S.A, to combine for three months and we did so on our way home. It was interesting to see the American method of harvesting and selling grain. We had to wear boots for protection against rattlesnakes, but then I was told that the two legged variety was more dangerous.
From 1953-63 I drove the school bus and liked that too. Of course these youngsters have made their way in the world. There was one interesting incident when we got caught in a blizzard. I had pulled into the yard of Lloyd Bjorgum and there most of us spent the night.Some close by parents were able to come by tractor and get their children. The children thought it was great fun and the Bjorgums were most hospitable. I had to retire from this job due to health reasons.
In the meantime Dad, Herbert and I had acquired a Service Station, which kept us busy along with trucking and the school buses. Dad died in 1965 and we closed the service station in 1977 after a period of 23 years. Our hours in this business were from 7 A.M till 9 P.M seven days a week.
Now I am retired and hope to stay around Kingman for many years.
ASP, D.M - I was born in Provost Alberta, Nov. 28, 1921 and lived in many small Alberta towns until moving to Kingman for the first time in 1928where I attended school for grades one and two with Mr. Simon Simonson as my teacher. In 1930 the family moved from Kingman and I finished grade two at Metiskow Lake School, and then took grades three, four and five in Hardisty, grades six and seven in Alliance before moving back to Kingman in 1935. I finished school including what could be taken of grade twelve with Mr. Simonson again as my teacher. He must have been fed up with having me as a student for seven years.
Following high school and before joining the R.C.A.F., I cut brush along the road allowance with Lassie Ovelson and Gordon Simonson. During our rest periods Gordon and I would try to get Lassie to talk about the olden days and if successful, the rest periods would last quite a few minutes. It's to bad tape recorders were not available because many of his stories would have been very good for the history of the district.
I joined the Air Force in 1942 and recieved my pilots wings in 1943. My sister Muriel, who was then with the C.W.A.C. attended the wings parade. I went overseas and flew with the 407 Squadron, a Canadian Coastal Command Squadron, that searched for submarines. I like to think that our squadron was very instrumental in winning the battle of the Atlantic.
Following the war I attended the University of Alberta and recieved my medical degree in 1952. The same year I married Mary Boyd of Edmonton. It is interesting to note that her Father who travelled for Blue Ribbon often called on Mah Him at the International store.
My postgraduate training included training at the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary, the Provincial Laboratory of Public Health in Edmonton and at the Vancouver General Hospital. I recieved my certification in Pathology and worked for one year and a half at St. Joseph's Hospital in Victoria before moving to Calgary 1959, and have worked at the Holy Cross Hospital to the present date.
Mary and I have three daughters. Our eldest daughter Donna, who is married to Bert Hammerlindl of Drayton Valley, graduated in medicine at the University of Alberta in 1979 and is presently interning at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Kathy, our second daughter, is in her third year of nursing at the U. of A., and our youngest daughter Barbara is in the second year of Medical Laboratory Sciences at the U. of A. It will turn out to be an all medical family, as my wife is a nurse who took her training at the Royal Alexandra in Edmonton.
ASP, Herbert & Agda - Herbert Asp was born in a two room log house near Metiskow, Alberta, and after living in several communities came to Kingman with his Father, Alex, and brother Bert in the spring of 1928. With the help of Mr. Dettwiler, they built a one room house near the U.G.G. elevator. Later this was moved to the yard uptown and then sold to Albert Danielson and still later sold back to Alex Asp and it still stands on that property. The rest of the family moved here from New Norway in July after school was finished. Herbert took grade five and six schooling with Harry Sparby and Simon Simonson as teachers.
From 1930 to 1935 the family lived in Hardisty and Alliance and again moved back to Kingman. Meanwhile, Herbert attended a Barber school in Calgary, later setting up shop in Kingman, in a building where the present Post Office is now situated. The barbering pretty well came to an end when he lost his right index finger while sawing firewood.
In 1938 Alex Asp purchased a truck and Herbert worked with him until 1942 when he went to work as a grain buyer in the Searle elevator.
In Dec. of that year, he and Agda Ekdahl were married.
Agda Ekdahl was born in Sweden, and immigrated to Canada in 1927 at the age of five and 1/2 years, with her parents, Carl and Alfhild Ekdahl. They settled in the Miquelon district and Agda took her elementary and junior high schooling at Miquelon school, and one year of High school at Kingman. Following this she worked as a maid in Wetaskiwin, Edmonton and Calgary, a time much appreciated in preparing for the future occupation as wife, Mother and homemaker.
There was a lot of snow in 1942 and the only car available for the wedding of Herb and Agda, was that of John Holte, who drove the bride to the Church and the bride and bridegroom to their home after the ceremony. The guests came by horse and sleigh or walked. Herb and Agda first lived in the houseowned by Ole Bartness, now owned by Dick Soady.
The week after the wedding, Herb got his call to go into the Army, but got a postponement for three months because of the large amount of grain in the elevator.In Mar. of 1943 he joined the Army and trained at Camrose and Red Deer. In Sept. of the same year he was sent overseas to serve with the Army Service Corp as a driver, but instead ended up barbering for five months in Farnborough, England. Then in the spring of 1944, he was drafted to go to the Canadian 5th division in Italy where he was to be an ambulance driver for a casualty clearing post. The ambulance was a jeep converted to carry two stretchers, thus being able to get to difficult places where the larger vehicles could not go. By Sept. Herb , along with many others had contracted infectious hepatitis and spent some time in the canadian General Hospital in Rome, and also in a convelescent camp just out side that city. When he returned to service it was to a transport unit in the 1rst division.
In the early spring of 1945 all Canadian troops in Italy were transferred to the Western front. They travelled from Leghorn, Italy to Marsellaise, France by Landing Ship Tanks and then by truck convoys north across France to different localities in Belgium. Imagine the planning involved in moving tens of thousands of men, and also the food and equipment that would have to be stationed along the way. From their locations in Belgium, the 1rst and 5th division joined with their fellow divisions and proceeded to battle in Holland and Germany. A few weeks before the end of the war, a truce was called between the Canadians and Germans in West Holland so that food could be transported to the starving Hollanders. Day after day, the troops of both sides just sat beside their guns and watched the trucks roll by. This action, and the freeing of Holland from the German yoke, has endeared the Canadians in the hearts of these people even to this day.
Soldiers would meet friends from home at the most unexpected times, but for two men to meet several times seems rather unusual, especially when they are in altogether different types of work. Herb sailed overseas on the Queen Mary boat with 23,000 other troops, and while on the boat met Leonard Ovelson, Ross Flemming ,Hugo Stromner and Steve Lickoch. All were seperated in England, but in Apr. 1944 when he was walking up the gangplank of the Durban Castle to go to Italy, Herb again met Steve. In Naples after two weeks on the boat they were again seperated. One day in July 1945, Herb was driving down the road outside the city of Hilversum, Holland, and stopped to pick up two Canadian soldiers, one of them was none other than Steve. The next meeting was on the boat sailing from England back to Canada.
Herb came home from overseas in Oct. of 1945. In the meantime, Agda had moved out to the farm of her brother Gustav, and her Mother, and at this time a daughter Carolyn was born. At about the same time, Agda purchased a small house next to the Lutheran Church from a Mr. Johnson. Herb went back to work with the Searle Grain Co. the next spring and was later transferred to operate the elevators at Rosevear and Wildwood, Alberta. He resigned and they moved back to Kingman. Their son Larry was born in June 1947 while they lived at Wildwood.
Herb started a trucking business with his brother Bert, that continued on until the mid 1960's. In the fall of 1954 Bert and Herb opened a service station known as Asp Bros. Service, on the south side of Kingman, and continued until 1977. During this time they also operated school busses , first for the former Camrose school division and later for the County of Camrose. To date Herb has driven school bus for 26 years.
In 1958, Agda worked part-time in Holte's general store and in 1959 took over management of the store until 1964, having to stop due to back problems. In 1965 she went to work for Camrose Draperies and continued there for three and one half years. She later worked for Macleods in Camrose and also sewed drapes for Eatons until the death of Dave Malloy who was their interior decorator. In 1974 Agda purchased the former Baptist parsonage and is still using it as a drapery shop.
Herb and Agda still reside in the same house which has had some additions. Since their marriage they have been active in the affairs of the Kingman Baptist Church and the
Miquelon Bible Camp.
They have two children, Carolyn (Mrs Jim Cunningham) who lives in the Duhamel district and has two boys and one girl, and Larry who married Faye Macmillan. They live in Sherwood Park and have two girls.
BAASCH, A.D - A.D Baasch came from the Island of Fyn, Denmark around 1928. He first worked on a dairy farm across the road from the present Highway Motor Hotel just outside of Edmonton.Then he was an agricultural foreman at the Ponoka Mental Hospital, there he met Mrs. Baasch who was a nurse at the hospital.
Mr. Baasch rented a farm just north of Tofield for a time ,then later bought a farm in the Kingman area.
He owned a house in Edmonton which he rented to others but never used himself.
He was always interested in livestock and raised Angus cattle. He entered fat cattle in the Edmonton spring show. At one time he led the Kingman 4 - H beef club.
Mr. & Mrs. Baasch lived in Camrose for a time, then returned to their farm at Kingman. Their last years were spent in their house in Camrose.
BAKKEN, M.R - by Francis Bakken. - We moved from Monitor in Aug. of 1941 to Sulitjelma school, and were transferred to Dinant in Mar. 1942. Melvin Bakken taught Dinant Sr. room until the end of June 1943. We had a family of three when we came, Ron, Phillis and Laurel. Eleanor was born soon after.
We lived in the "chopper house". Cliff and Myrtle Rud had the store. Martin and Eleanor Linstrand and boys lived beside the store and he ran a grain elevator. Mr. Noonan from Camrose ran the other grain elevator. Mr. & Mrs. Hillman and two children lived in the station house, and he was the section man. Miss Elizabeth Peterson taught the Dinant Jr. room and boarded with Rud's. Marvin Olsen, a nephew came to stay with us and to attend school for the 1942-43 term.
We are now retired and live in Leduc. Ron married Pauline Boychuk and with their three boys live in Edmonton. Phyllis married Jack Haynes and they live in Toronto with their three daughters. Laurel is married to Lowel Throndson and they live in St. Albert with a daughter and son. Eleanor married Bill Zuk and they have two sons and two daughters, they live in Victoria. Marvin Olsen now lives in Red Deer with his family.
BAKKEN, Tolief - Tolief arrived in Canada in 1908 and first settled in the Lamont area. In 1919 he bought the northwest fraction of 12 from Gabriel Rosland, where he raised a few cattle and chickens. He was a bachelor.
In Apr. 1934 the discontentment of his cattlearoused the concern of some neighbors who went to investigate. He was found dead from natural causes. He was then 78 years of age and a recipient of Old Age Pension.
BANISTER, Ronald and Inez (Thorson) - Inez Adelaide Thorson, the daughter of Thor and Astrid Thorson, was born in Kingman, Alberta. Before she was school age Inez and her parents made an extended trip to Norway. When they returned they lived in a house on main street. When her Father became a grain buyer in Okotoks Alberta the family moved there. Her school days were spent in Okotoks.
She married Ronald Kitchener Banister of Okotoks. They have two sons and two daughters; Rodger Thorson, Harold Bertram, Laureen Astrid and Mary Inez.
Ronald is chairman of Banister Pipelines International Inc., Rodger is President and chairman of Banister Continental in Edmonton. Harold is Director and manager of Corpoate planning for Banister Continental in Edmonton.
Laureen is married to John Millman, he is an economist in the Dept. of Revenue in Ottawa.
Mary married Dr. Donald Johnstone who is in Toronto General Hospital in Orthopaedics.
Quote from " Oilweek, Oct. 8, 1979".
The Banister Group, headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, is one of the major heavy construction firms in Canada. The company specializes in large scale energy developments, multi lane highways, bridges, subways, dams, tunnels, gas distribution, underground utilities, marine and pipeline construction.
Ronald and Inez are now residents of Nassau, Bahamas and have a farm in Virginia, where they raise Simmental cattle.
BARCLAY, Francis (Cail) - Francis married Dan Barclay in 1934. They lived in Edmonton until 1951 when they moved to Abbotsford B.C where Mr. Barclay passed away Dec. 1977. They had one daughter Jean who is now living in Ponoka.
BARD, Gus & Family- In the early 1900's, Gust and Oscar as young men arrived from Sweden and settled on homestead land three miles southwest of Kingman. They built a two room, two storied log house which served as their home for a few years before they were able to build on to it. Mrs. Slind, a close neighbor did the laundry and bread baking for the Bard brothers before they were married. This helped them out and also gave Mrs. Slind some pin money.
At that time Wetaskiwin was their nearest shopping center and it took several days to make the round trip with horses and wagons. Weather and road conditions were determining factors in just how long it would take. It was on one of these excursions that Gust met a young Swedish girl who was working in town. Her name was Beda Englund and they soon fell in love and were married in July of 1908. In 1910, Beda's mother and stepfather, Louise and Carl Lindblom arrived from Sweden. They made their home in a little house on Gust and Beda's farm. In 1912-13 Carl passed away and Louise then made her home with the Bard family for a number of years. She passed away in a senior citizens home in Wetaskiwin in July of 1947 at the age of 83.
Gust and Beda were the proud parents of five children, Agnes, Astrid, Mabel, Violet and Arthur. The school was two miles from home, quite a distance for a new beginner, so Agnes, the eldest stayed with the John Slind family for the first year. Being away from home was not her only problem as she could not speak English and her teacher, Mrs. Brown, an English lady , knew no Swedish. Who knows how they managed to make themselves understood. The school was later moved a mile closer and set on a hill. It was called Pretty Hill School and probably took it's name from the first post office in the area. All the Bard children had pleasant memories of this school.
In 1920 Gust became restless and decided to look for greener pastures. He had a sale, rented his land and moved his family to California. While there Arthur, the only son in the family was born. In three and a half years and after several moves, the family decided to come back to Kingman and once again made their home on the family farm. In 1942 Gust and Beda sold out, retired and moved to Edmonton. Beda died in 1957 after a lingering illness. Gust passed away in 1965at the ripe old age of 93.
Agnes, the eldest daughter, married a Norwegian new comer, (he worked as a hired man on their farm) Peter Fjeseth in 1929. They purchased a quarter section of school land a few miles from the home place and built a two room house. Times were very hard in the early thirties and the Fjeseths had to give up their land as there was simply no money to make payments. they rented for a few years before they were able to buy it back.
Peter and Agnes raised a family of four, one daughter and three sons. Yvonne the eldest is an elementary school teacher. She is married to Clarence Nelson and lives in Bawlf, Alberta. They have two children, Barry and Cheryl, both of whom are school teachers.
Donald , the eldest son worked for Calgary Power and the Pembina Pipeline after finishing school. He was killed in a car accident in 1961 at the age of 27 years.
Douglas, next in line, is still at home, having taken over the family farm. He also works at the Stelco Steel Plant in Camrose.
Brian, the youngest, became a high school teacher. He taught for a number of years and then being an outdoor type of boy settled on homestead land in the Blueberry Mountain area of the Peace River country. He has now cleared most of the land and built all the farm buildings. He is married to Lana Minue and has no family.
Peter Fjeseth passed away in 1973 after a lingering heart condition at the age of 74. Agnes still resides on the farm.
Astrid Bard, next in line, married Edgar Edwards. They have resided in Edmonton for several years and have no family.
Mabel is married to Bill Winter, a sign painter. They are retired and live in Edmonton. Both enjoy travelling in their new motor home. Bill and Mabel have two children, Gail and Garry, neither are married. Gail is a silversmith and Garry an eavestrougher. Both live in Edmonton.
Violet married Arthur Sampson, a seed buyer. They have three children, Jean, Joyce and Rod. Art Sampson was killed in a car accident Aug. 20, 1977. Violet is living in Edmonton.
Arthur Bard grew up on the farm. In 1941 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. After returning home in 1945 he worked with an elevator construction company for a number of years. He married Mae Lapine in 1949. In Sept. of 1953 they moved to Portland Oregon where they still reside. They have no family.
BARD, Oscar - Mr. Oscar Bard emigrated from Sweden, coming to the U.S.A. in 1897. He worked at various jobs including working in copper mines in Minnesota and North Dakota.
In 1902 he came to Canada and homesteaded four miles southwest of Kingman. He often told how the settlers that lived further north and east would pass through and stop over on their way to Wetaskiwin for supplies.
In 1920 he married a young widow, Mrs. Signe Heiner, who had three children - Margaret, who married William Skaret and after his death, married Martin Hendrickson. Edward who married Ruby Grahn, and Dorthy who married Lars Knudson.
Oscar and Signe Bard had three children. Florence married William Helmig, who had four children. Bill and Florence had two boys. Bill Helmig passed away and Florence then married Leonard Niehaus and now lives in Daysland.
Verner married Margaret Johnson of Gimli, Manitoba and they live in Edmonton. They have two girls, Lorraine and Judy.
Raymond married Anne Wowyitca of Edmonton. Anne passed away after three short years of marriage. Raymond lives in Edmonton.
Oscsr Bard died in Mar. 1940 at the age of70. Signe Bard died Christmas morning in 1964 at age 73.
Pretty Hill was the house of learning for the Heiners and the Bard children with Kingman High School providing the high school education.
BATIUK, Frank - Frank was one of the sons born to one of our pioneers, his Dad's name was Nick Bartiuk who lived on SE1/4, 34-48-19-W4M. Frank lived just one mile north on NE1/4, 3-49-19-W4M, until his passing. He also worked at Drumheller coal mines for many winters. He was married to Anne Pochinick of Holden. They were blessed with five children, Orest, Lawrence, Leonard, Alexander and one daughter Evelyn. They all live at present in Edmonton, except Alexander who passed away at the age of 21. In 1952 their Mother Anne passed away at home at the age of 36 years.
Mrs. Annie Batiuk was the first patient to be treated with penicillin in the year 1946 at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. Doctors not knowing the end results were hoping penicillin would cure her.
Her husband Frank passed away in 1957 at the age of 47. The children were left as orphans at a very young age. Leonard must have been 5 years old and Evelyn, 6 or 7. Their Grandma Pochinick took Leanard and Evelyn home, brought them up and gave them an education. The four brothers stayed on the farm for a short while and then moved to Edmonton.
The children still remember their parents and their brother who are buried in Round Hill cemetery by the Ukranian Catholic Church. They visit the cemetery at least once a year to pay respect to the deceased and help keep the cemetery clean.
BATIUK, Mike - In 1901 Mike Batiuk and his family came from Probezna, Austria and settled in the Round Hill and Kingman area. He was one of the first settlers in the area.
When he first came to this area he bought a wagon and team of horses. Later he hauled freight from Wetaskiwin to Bosman's store in Round Hill. He followed the Indian trails as there were no roads then. In the winter even when it was 30 or 40 degrees below he dressed warmly and went with the sleigh. Many times he followed the Indian trails along Cooking Lake to Strathconato pick up supplies for Bosman's store. There were fourteen Batiuk children living in Alberta and British Columbia.
During the depression years in the early 1930's Mike and his family decided to move. At the age of 66 , he loaded a horse drawn wagon with supplies and followed the Indian trails to Alder Flats , Alberta. While on the way he met another man who helped him build a log shack before winter came. These men hewed logs and helped build the Alder Flats post office and a store. They also built a nursing station and living quarters for a nurse.
Mike and his family enjoyed living in this area where there was lots of fish, wild game and berries. They picked strawberries and blueberries by the buckets. When more settlers came wild berries were not so plentiful.
Members of the family in the Kingman area were Lena Batiuk, who married Frank Gogal and Frank Batiuk.
Frank Batiuk farmed SE1/4 3-49-19-W4. Frank and wife Ann had five children, Orest, Andy, Lawrence, Leonard and Evelyn. Frank and his wife passed away at an early age and Andy was killed in a highway accident. The other children live in Edmonton.
BEKKERUS, (Thompson) Dorphy- I was born on Nov. 21, 1917 at Camrose, incidentally, the same house that my Mother had lived in as a Scramstad girl. It had been turned into a nursing home by the new owners. My Dad, Alfred, was one of the four Thompson's( Theodore, Johnnie, Alfred and Mabel) who died in the 1918 flu epidemic.
After my Father's death, my Mother, Gunda, worked very hard cooking for boarders, doing chores and gardening. I can well remember going with her to Dinant for a sleigh load of coal with the horses, Nellie and Dolly borrowed from Petra Simonson.
I was five years old when my Mother married Roy Molvik, a carpenter. Two girls and two boys were born, Norman, Gordon, Nora and Jean.
I took all my nine and one half years of schooling in the Kingman school and never had the pleasure of a lady teacher. Leo Patterson was my grade one teacher and I finished my schooling in grade ten, with W.R. Butchart as a teacher.
At sixteen years of age I was offered a clerking job with Carl Larsons at La Glace. Times were hard and the 15.00 a month with room and board looked very inviting. On Feb.6, 1934 I journied by train from Edmonton to Sexsmith. I could easily get all my clothes into the borrowed suitcase. Carl Larson and Ken Larson and Johnny Hoflin had come the seventeen miles from La Glace to meet me in a closed-in cutter with an air tight heater, ( a caboose also used for hauling mail).
After a twenty hour train ride I was thrilled to be a guest at the Weicker Hotel with a free room to freshen up in as well as a free dinner because Hank Weicker had been a good friend of my Grandpa, Ed Thompson at Kleskun Lake.
I enjoyed working for the Larsons in the store and post office at La Glace and Buffalo Lake. I spent four and one half years with them. Of course my wages increased too. In 1936, I sent a train ticket to my Mother so I could get a glimpse of my baby sister Jean, who was now a year old.
In the fall of 1938, May Welsh and I went back to Kingman for the winter. In 1939 I married Harvey Bekkerus. We have two children and two grand-daughters.
Our daughter Doreen is married to Miles Kuryvail, who is a district agriculturalist.. They and their two daughters, Loralee and Karen, live a mile west of La Glace.
Our son, Darrel farms, he lives across the road from Kuryvails.
BENDIKSON, Dan and Pearl- Dan and Pearl Bendikson came to Kingman with their daughter Joan in 1935 to take over the garage for Oliver Thompson. They stayed a year before moving to Tofield. They lived at Hugo's for the time they lived at Kingman.
BENTSON, Phil and Cheryl- Phil and Cheryl moved to Kingman in Oct. of 1978 to the property formerly owned by Roy and Mary Larson. Their first child, Doyle was born Dec. 28, 1978 and their daughter Cindy on Aug. 28, 1980.
They opened Cheryl's Confectionary which is still operating today.
After Albert and Victoria were married they moved to Minneapolis Minnesota where Albert worked as a conductor on street cars. In Sept. a daughter Angeline was born. Three weeks later they moved back to the north Dinant area to begin farming. In 1916 a son, Vincent was born.
In the early summer of 1920 Albert thought he would like to live in California away from the cold and snow of Alberta, so he built a cupboard on the running board of his 1918 model T ford for some cooking utensils and groceries. In the back seat they loaded a tent, some bedding and personal clothes for the family with Angeline and Vincent on top of it all.With his wife beside him they drove off. They travelled about six weeks before they arrived at Escalon , California. Here they met the Gust Bard family who had also taken up residence there. Angeline took her first year of school there.
In the early summer of 1922 Albert and Victoria were ready to move back to Alberta. They then purchased what was her Father's homestead N.E. 18-49-20-W.4, beside Miquelon Lake. In June 1925 a daughter Bernese was born. Angeline, Vincent and Bernese attended the Brandland school.
In July 1934 Vincent passed away after a short illness. Now Vincent was old enough so he began farming with his Mother. In Nov. 1938 Vincent married Iris Erickson.
Victoria worked for a few years in Killam. She came back to Brandland district to keep house for Jonas Danielson who was left alone after the passing of his wife, Monica. In May 1945 she married Earling Reison, who had emigrated from Skien, Norway some time in 1928. At first he worked for different farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Later he worked as a carpenters helper. He worked a few years at the Miquelon Lake Park before his retirement. Earl and Victoria resided in a comfortable little house in the corner of the Ed Nordin farm. Victoria passed away in July, 1971.
BERG, Vincent - On Nov. 26, 1938, Vincent Berg married Iris Erickson. She came to the Hay Lakes district with her parents from Swede when she was seven years old. They lived at Hay Lakes for five years then they went homesteading in the Enilda district for another five years. After she finished school Iris came back to the Hay Lakes district and worked for various farm families for several years. Vincent had taken over his parents farm on the death of his Father. Vincent and Iris continued farming until 1970 when Vincent secured a job with the Provincial Parks Department at Cardston. Later they spent a couple of years at Pincher Creek.
The Berg's had four children, one died at two years of age. Berdine is married to Vern Busenius and has four children, Arne married Holly McLaughlin and has one child, Norma married Larry Tollefson and has two children.
Vincent retired in 1976. Later that year he died of a heart attack, Iris is living in Hay Lakes.
On Oct. 17, 1919 winter set in. I had four horses, two cows and six calves, all bought from Clarence Simonson through the S.S.B. I had no feed because of an exceptionally dry year. I worked for Clarence Simonson helping him with the haying and the harvesting so he came to my rescue offering to shelter and feed my stock on his place for the winter. I worked as a hired man for my board.
Here are some of the details of that terrible winter of 1919-20. I'll begin by mentioning some of the things that happened while I was hired by Clarence Simonson during harvest. I can remember so vividly how very poor the crops were because of the drought. The farmers were concerned that they would not have feed for their stock. They had burned all their straw piles never expecting a winter so terrible.
On the 16 of Oct., 1919 I was notified that I should take a team of horses and wagon and go to my farm and haul my share of the oat crop which Charlie Johnson had rented from Mr. Peterson. This I did , succeeding in procuring 300 bushels of fine oats, grown in the 20 acre field. It was dark when we finished.
Olaf Skalin with his big steamer threshed the grain which Charlie Johnson had stacked. All the stacks were placed so that the straw pile would be in a position of good shelter for his stock. Charlie Johnson lived one half mile east of my place, I had to sleep in the shack that night, it being to late to go back to Clarence Simonson's. About midnight a terrific storm blew up from the northwest, one of the worst blizzards I have ever experienced in my life. It turned bitterly cold but fortunately for me, Mr. Peterson, the former owner had cut and piled a lot of firewood around the house. Really kept me busy stoking the little stove to keep from freezing. Fortunatly I was able to put my horses in Oscar Bard's barn. Oscar's buildings were just across the fence on the south side of my farm.
The storm was still violent in the morning when lo and behold who should show up but my dear friend Clarence Simonson with a triple box sleigh and a fur coat for me. I had only light clothing because the weather was so nice when I left his place. We proceeded to go back to his farm where I worked all winter. Fortunately Clarence Simonson had not burned his straw piles and had enough feed to carry his and my stock through one of the longest and most terrible winters in the history of Alberta.
Thousands of head of cattle died from lack of feed. Carloads of green bundles were shipped in from Southern Alberta and sold for .25 a bundle off the car. From Oct. 17 until May 20, 1920 we were snowed in.
I rented my farm to Mr. Knight who came from the "dust bowl" in Saskachewan. He had a hard time there because the prices went down to practically nothing during the depression. The reason Annie and I left the farm was that after experiencing the usual troubles from farming such as hail, frost and drought we were unable to keep our payments up to the S.S.B., in spite of working for the Dinant coal mine as a miner for several winters. By the way, Ed French also worked in the mine, the coal dust was instrumental in causing his death after his retirement.
After giving up farming I became an elevator agent for United Grain Growers Ltd. for 28 years. Igot this job through Alex Asp, at that time the U.G.G agent for Kingman. I retired in Aug. 1958 and moved to Victoria, B.C where I could really indulge my fondness for fishing. We have really enjoyed our retirement. Our family visit us every year, we have three grandsons and two granddaughters, all in their twenties now.
I was so happy to recieve a quarter century club gold filled button to wear from the U.G.G Company not long ago. It really gave me a lift to think that I am not forgotten. The company wants me to wear it with pride and pleasure. I still wear my quarter century club watch which I recieved in 1955. It's a wonderful time piece.
My Annie is 82 and I'm 84 years old. We celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary last June, 1979. We are very thankfull that the dear Lord has spared us to be together so long. We have two daughters, Eleanor, Mrs. Robert Bell of Calgary and Lorraine, Mrs. Howard MacDonald of Acme , Alberta. My parents were Martin and Beatrice Bergh.
BERGLUND, J.I - Mr. Berglund homesteaded the S.E. 1/4-20-49-20-W4 in 1908 and worked hard at erecting buildings and breaking up land. Logs which were plentiful at that time were used in building, and his original log house still stands. He married a few years later but they seperated a short time after.
He continued farming until the early 1930's when illness forced him to sell his farm to Mr. Frank Farley in Camrose. Babs and John Erickson took over the farm in the spring of 1935.
Mr. Berglund came to Canada from the U.S.A. so after disposing of his farm he returned to the States where he died a short time later from cancer of the throat.
BIANOWSKI, Steve - Steve Bianowski was born in 1846 in the Ukraine and he later married Pearl Skolowski of Austria. Pearl, Steve, and their four children, Timko- seventeen, Katherine- thirteen, Dmetro(Mike) - twelve, and Tony- eight left the village of Stroceivka, Ukraine, Russia and immigrated to Canada. They travelled on a ship called Cannon from Russia to Canada in fourteen days, reaching Montreal on May 2, 1902. From Montreal the Boyanowskis went by train to Calgary where they switched to another train bound for Edmonton. Steve met with his land director, Mr. George Rakowski for the first time who owned a farm in the Dinant district, which is now a part of the county of Camrose. Mr. Rakowski drove from his farm by horse and wagon to Edmonton to meet the Boyanowski's upon their arrival and he had already made preperations for the family such as filing on a homestead. The land that he selected and filed on for them was located two miles south of Round Hill. After all the plans were brought to the attention of the Boyanowski's and cleared it was then time for Mr. Rakowski to leave Edmonton and return to his farm . While still assisting them he decided to take the Boyanowski's with him by horse and wagon to the Round Hill area. They arrived at their new home in half a week, bringing only a meagre amount of possesions along from the Ukraine. Later Steve purchased a team of horses and wagon from Mr. Rakowski.
During this year in 1902, Pearl and Stevev settled on their land, finished building a house and gained another member of the family. It was a daughter whom they named Mabel. Unfortunatly, Pearls and Steve's first Canadian born child did not survive more than two weeks.
Three years later on Nov. 7, 1905, Pearl passed away leaving the oldest daughter Katherine to take over her responsibilities. Following the death of his wife Steve stayed on the homestead until he married Annie Starcheski in July.
Annie Starcheski and her first husband Joseph, emigrated from Poland, arriving in Canada on June 1, 1901. He was a well educated landlord in Poland, had some medical experience and was a well to do person. He sold his 47 strips of land in Poland and brought with him the money from the land and a trunk of goods that contained many small tools. He guided his family that consisted of his second wife Annie, and their three children, Mary - six, Albina(Lena) - four, and Kazimer(Kris) - one. Joseph also brought with them three of four sons from his previous marriage. His first wife passed away in Poland earlier. The three sons were John, Anton and Dominik Starcheski and they had their families with them also. By July 12, 1901, Joseph and his family and the other three families were settled on their homesteads. The land that Annie and Joseph settled on was located three miles west and one mile north of Round Hill. Josephs other son was Carl Starcheski and he remained in Poland for a short time. He later came to Canada alone, leaving his wife and children in Poland in hopes of bringing them to Canada at a later date. However, he never did. It was on Jan.6, 1904 that Joseph Starcheski passed away.
After Steve and Annie's marriage in 1906, Steve sold his land and moved to where Joseph Starcheski died and where Annie remained after his death. That same year, Annie gave birth to their first child who they named Margaret. Annie and Steve continued to live on this homestead until April of 1926 when Steve passed away. Later, on May2, 1930, Annie passed away.
As for the children of Pearl and Steve Boyanowski, Annie Boyanowski and Joseph Starcheski, they had their own path of life. Timko Boyanowski married Mulania Horpenuik from Holden , Alberta. Their three children are Mary, Tilley and Steve. Mulania and Timko lived on a farm west of Holden until 1952 at which time they moved in to Holden. In May of 1954 Timko passed away due to cancer, Mulania lived for many years after her husbands death.
Katherine married William Hunka of Riley, Alberta. They have nine children, Margaret, Pete, Steve, John, Tony, Mike, Stanley, Anne, and Joyce. In 1968, Katherine passed away.
Throughout most of Dmetro (Mike) Boyanowski's life he worked in the Round hill, Kingman and Camrose areas doing various jobs. These included helping on the construction of the Kingman Railroad and working in the Spicer Coal mine in Dinant. Also Dmetro took part in the construction of the Duhamel Grand Trunk Railway Bridge at Duhamel, Alberta. In 1914 , on Nov. 21, Dmetro married Albina Starcheski. Albina was a cooks helper at the Tofield Hotel and also served as a maid in the Camrose and Round Hill area. Shortly after their marriage Albina and Dmetro farmed some C.P.R. land. They lived here for many years during which time their first and second sons, John and Joseph Bianowski were born. In 1922, Kazimer (Kris) Starcheski, Albina's younger brother passed away at the age of 22 from the bubonic plague. This left Kazimer's land available for buying. The bank would have taken it over if Albina and Dmetro hadn't spoken for it, as there was money owing against it. Dmetro sold his C.P.R. land to Stanley Starcheski, Albina's half nephew ( Anton Starcheski's son). As a result Albina and Dmetro moved on to Kazimer's land where he already had buildings for himself. Only the house remained incomplete. Annis and Steve's yard site was on a hill just west of Kazimer's and on the same quarter. As Dmetro and Albina farmed the land they began to pay the previous land debt ofKazimer's. Their major task was to continue breaking more land for cultivation. In 1926, Dmetro and Tony Sherbaniuk, a neighbor and close friend, went into partnership farming. Together , Tony and Dmetro farmed for three years until Tony became ill and later passed away. This left Dmetro with a decision whether to continue farming the land they had shared by himself. He decided not to . Instead he continued to break many acres of land, not only his own but also for other owners in the Round Hill area. It was hard during those years. Albina and Steve had lived through the depression, one of the worst events they had to face in Canada. Yet, they were also active in social affairs in the Round Hill and Kingman communities. Dmetro served on the Round Hill Church commitee for17 years and they also attended other festivities. In 1936 they gained another son and named him Frederick Julius Bianowski.
The Boyanowski's and Starcheski's purchased various goods such as groceries, oil, some equipment and fuel to satisfy their farming and other needs, in the villages of Round Hill and Kingman, and to some extent in Camrose. They recieved their mail through the post office in Kingman. Dmetro followed through on his individual farming until 1965, they sold the farm to their youngest son Frd and bought a house on an acre of land in Round Hill where they retired. Many years later Dmetro was overtaken by a short illness and on Feb. 3, 1977 he was admitted into the Camrose Senior Citizens Home, known as Rosehaven. He passed away on Feb. 21 of the same year at the age of 87. His wife, Albina, presently lives in Round Hill and is in good health at the age of 83.
John Bianowski is the eldest son of Dmetro and Albino and presently lives in Round Hill, he attended the Coal Hill School. In 1941 John enlisted in the army where he served for several years. Later, he moved to Manitoba and settled and farmed in the Brandon area. He married Anne Lewison of Manitoba in 1943. They had two children , Mai and Jenny, Anne died in 1965 in Manitoba and John returned to alberta. Mai , the oldest daughter lives on a farm near St. Lena, Alberta with her husband Jerry Mageau. They have two children. Jenny lives in Edmonton.
Albina and Dmetro's second son, Joseph Bianowski, lives in the Edmonton area, he also went to the Caol Hill school. He married Lorraine Gagne of Ardrossan on Nov. 21, 1960. They have three children, Stanley, Joanne and Andy.
Frederick, the youngest son of Albina and Dmetro, attended Round Hill school to the end of grade three and then went to Kingman school where he completed grade ten. He then enrolled in deisel mechanics at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. On June 26, 1959, he married Linda Darnell Emmerling, the daughter of Lena and Herman Emmerling Jr. of Wetaskiwin. They have two children, Beverly Lynn Mabel and Brenda Lee. On Jan. 5 , 1980, Beverly married Steve Peter Joseph Biro Jr. of Camrose, where they now live. Frd still lives and farms on the land that he was born on and bought from his parents in 1965.
Tony Boyanowski, youngest son of Pearl and Steve, is 88 years of age and lives in Drumheller, Alberta. He is married to Sophie Mackoweski from the Round Hill area and they have two sons, Elmer and Norman.
Margaret Boyanowski, the only child of Annie and Steve, married Fred Martin of Pitt Meadows, B.C. Their two sons are Andy and John. Andy Martin lives in Pitt Meadows and John Martin lives in Coquitlam, B.C. Margaret Martin passed away in 1968 in British Columbia.
Mary Starcheski, oldest daughter of Annie and Joseph, married Jacob Krezanoski from Hay Lakes, Alberta. Mary resides in Camrose at the age of 86 and their four children are Mike, William, John and Joe.
John Starcheski, the first son of Joseph Starcheski and his first wife from Poland, was married to a woman named Tillie. John died in Edmonton a number of years ago and Tillie still lives in Edmonton. Their children are Annie, Mary, Carol, Helen, Frank and Anton.
The second son from Joseph's first marriage was Anton Starcheski, he was married twice. His first wife was Palahna Powluck. Palahna and Anton's four children are Josie, Walter, Stanley and Anne. After Palahna passed away on Dec. 15, 1920, Anton married Ustina Melnichuck.
The third son of Joseph and his first wife was Domenik Starcheski. Domenik married Mary Powluk and their six children are Victoria, John, Joe, Mabel, Louis and Frank. Domenik passed away at the age of 94.
As for Carl Starcheski, the fourth son of Josephs first marriage, there is a lack of information about him. Written by Brenda L. Bianowski.
We had been living near Calgary for two years previous to going north, so the logs and woodlands of Kingman were a treat to us. Southern Alberta does not have trees except those that are planted and carefully nurtured. To arrive at a place that had groves of trees and green vegitation everywhere was a joy to behold.
The beautiful grain fields, golden with stubble from that years crop, seemed a picture of peace and plenty. We arrived there in late Nov. of a very unusual year. The weather had stayed warm without any snow fall and so it was still a golden autumn.
Soon the winter storms began. Mother had ordered warm clothing for us from T. Eaton mail order catalogue. The little log house took on the aspects of a home and the horses and cows were bedded down with straw in the old log barn.
I don't remember to much about that first winter except what a long way to school it was and how my Father or one of my brothers would drive the horses while I snuggled as deep as I could in the straw and blankets in the bottem of the sleigh. Plus we had been enrolled, my brothers and I in the wrong school. Nothing was done about it and so we went to Grand Forks that year. Mrs. Loolah Lerbekmo was the teacher and she was excellent. The highlight of that schoolyear was the Christmas program. Weeks went into practice of the various songs, poems and skits. People came from miles around in sleighs and cutters to see the performance. Then after the last curtain call, the great Christmas tree would be lit with real candles and sparklers. Santa Claus would come and pass out candy, brightly packaged gifts, nuts, apples and oranges to all the children. Awonderful time to remember!
But though the winter season brought Christmas, the other three seasons were my favorites. The mosquitoes were vicious and numerous but that didn't keep us from picnics at Miquelon Lake. Later when we got our first car, the model T ford, we ventured to Cooking Lake and Battle River.
Although we were the only Morman family in the area we were welcomed into the community and various Churches. We attended the white steepled Church in Kingman whenever a Minister would come from Camrose to hold revival meetings. Occasionally we attended the Mennonite Church. Wherever we visited we were treated with gracious kindness. Our neighbors became our friends and many were the dinner parties that were exchanged. Our nearest neighbor was the Thomas Gibson family, newlyweds from the house upon the hill. They were the first to pay us a visit and to welcome us to our far north home. The welcome grew into a steadfast friendship that multiplied over the years. Two children blessed their home, Florence and Clifford. They were still very small when we moved from Kingman to Camrose.
The second year we went to school in Kingman, but the wrong school again. Why the mix up? I don't know except we lived the same distance from three schools. My father must have been a good arguer because we attended Kingman school the next three years. The fourth year the school board won out and we went to Coal Hill where we should have gone in the first place. Oh well, Dad's arguing had it's merits, we got aquainted with the whole country side.
In Kingman school my teachers were Mr. Patterson and Mr. Harding. In Coal Hill my teachers were Miss Sawyers, Miss Johnstone and Miss Lindberg. Miss Lindberg was my favorite.
From Coal Hill I graduated to high school and then could legally go back to Kingman. Mr. Sparby was my ninth grade teacher. In the tenth grade I had Mr. Butchart, both were excellent teachers.
All these memories go back to the early twenties. We arrived in the fall of 1923 and were there when members of the community built the dance hall. My what good fun we had there, and what good music was brought in to our lives. We danced until 12 o'clock and then sack lunches were sold. After the brief intermission we all danced on until at least two in the morning. Those were the days!
I remember Kingman as being a town of white buildings. The most imposing were the school and the Church. They faced each other on the first street over from Main. The church , high steepled and white and the school , two storied and white gave the town an air of distinction not found in many places.
There were four stores at the time, three grocery and one hardware, the hardware store also housed the post office. Jim and Charlie Mah operated the largest store (grocery and dry goods). Next to them, on the right side was the hardware and post office run by Mr. Rogness, and adjacent to the Chineese store, a street in between, was Rodnunski's store. Down the street and on the other side was another grocery store run by Mr. Jardie. Kingman also boasted a blacksmith shop, the smithy was Mr. Blyckert, three huge grain elevators, a lumberyard run by Mr. Erickson and a railway station run by Mr. MacIntosh.
Such a long time to remember back, but how bright the memories are. Memories of riding our pony on the farm and when I became old enough, riding the pony to school, helping cook for the threshing crews, making pets of the cows and horses, holding fluffy baby chicks in my hands, riding on the tractor with my Dad, learning to drive the team of horses and actually allowed to harrow the garden spot.(did I ever think I was smart). Memories also of very special people - Verba Stutzman, Lillian Lindberg, Lily and Inez Erickson, Irene and Gladys Horte, Evelyn Welch, Marina and Delia Simonson, Julia Kozak, Gertrude Asp, Esther Rodnunski and others I'll probably think of as soon as this is in the mail.
We moved back to Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1932. Our dear Mother died in 1938 almost two months to the day after I was married. She went very suddenly, our Father passed away in 1959. My husband and I are now living in Salem, Oregon. This coming May we will have been married 42 years. We have three daughters, six granddaughters and two grandsons.
BJORGUM, Elsie (Pearson)- Elsie Lillian daughter of Eric and Alida Pearson married Merlin Bjorgum and they are farming the former Twomey farm, three miles east of Camrose on highway 13. I remember while Dad worked at the Dinant mines, some fifty years ago, Mother had a few cows to milk and care for. ( A custom still carried on in parts of Sweden, is that the women cared for themilk cows, while the men went to the woods or "skogen", so papa had to settle for the mine).
Mother had a horse and buggy to haul the extra milk to Camrose to help buy groceries. I'm sure this included lots of lumps of sugar and coffee. Our family really liked those four cornered candies.
It was not just the Swedish kids that liked them. By gum the Ukrainian kids would do anything to get a lump, as they only had fine sugar in their houses. We would gladly trade for a hunk of their garlic sausage. There were many cups of coffee exchanged among the neighbors.
Merlin can remember passing mother along the road to Camrose. She had her buggy full of little darlings and they would wave to each other as Merlins Dad whizzed by in his model T ford.
We have three children, Sheryl Ruth, who lives in Calgary and works for the Fox Realty Limited. Dawn Patricia is married to David Stang and lives in Camrose. They have two children, Amanda Dawn and Kimberly Jean. Gloria Faye lives in Edmonton where she works in a nursing home.
BJORGUM, Lloyd- Lloyd Bjorgum married Mildred Lyseng of Camrose in 1948. They reside on the farm that was owned by Lloyd's parents.
They have six children, Anne married Larry Knutson and resides in Mill Woods, Edmonton. They have two children, Shane and Cory. Grace married Bryan Hammer and resides in Edmonton. Paul married Elsie Prochnau and farms close to Kingman. They have two sons, Andy and Eric. Fern married Paul Wiuff. They live at Fort Saskatchewan and have a son Colin. Fern has her R.N. in nursing. Janet married Grant Manchur, they live in Sherwood Park and have a daughter Cindy. Sheldon is still at home and attending school in Kingman.
BJORGUM, Martin - Martin Bjorgum married Tilda Sogge on April 25, 1914 in Jackson, Minnesota, U.S.A. They came to the Kingman district on May 5, 1914 together with Mr. and Mrs. Emmet Olson. When they arrived at the Kingman station they were met and showered with rice by friends originally from Jackson. They were Mr. and Mrs. John Slind and family, Mr. and Mrs. Halvor Berge, Mr. and Mrs. Fuglem and family Mr. and Mrs. Hans Bjorgum and Mr. Clarence Bjorgum.
Martin and Tilda bought a quarter section of land from Ole Berge, most of the land was brush. The land was cleared of trees and stumps to be made into fields, they used horses to work the fields.
On Sundays when there was no church, the biggest joy was to meet at different homes for services, with Weir Osness leading the meetings.
In 1948 Martin and Tilda retired to Camrose where Martin passed away in 1976. His wife, Tilda, still resides there and recently celebrated her 90th birthday. She says the one reason for her good health and long life is the goodness of God, and also she never drank tea or coffee.
There were six children, Orvin (Norman) married Selma Paulson and they reside in Los Angeles, California. Hilma, married Martin Lowry, they reside in Langley, B.C. Merlin, marreid Elsie Pearson, they live in Camrose. Lloyd married Mildred Lyseng, they reside on the farm near Kingman. Thelma married Albert Dureau, they reside in Los Angeles, California. Leroy married Marian Haggerty, they reside in Edmonton. There are a total of 24 grandchildren.
The children walked across fields for over a mile to attend Pretty Hill School. Their teachers were Alice Stolee, Grace French, Helen Zeller, Agnes Hammerberg and Henry Simonson.
In 1942 he enlisted in the Canadian Army and served overseas. When he returned home he purchased the Gust Bard farm where Merval Skoglund now lives.
In 1954 he married the former Elsie Pearson of Camrose. They have three daughters, Sheryl lives in Calgary and works for the Permanent Trust Company. Dawn is married to Dave Stang and and lives in Camrose, they have two daughters, Amanda and Kimberley and a son Gregory. Gloria is married to John Riches and lives at Elkford, B.C.
Merlin farmed in the Kingman area until 1963 and then moved to Camrose where he operated the Camrose Mobile Feed service. In 1967 they moved to the former Twomey farm located three miles east of Camrose on highway 13. In 1976 they discontinued the feed mill business when they purchased the former Forestburg Collieries coal outlet. This business has been operated on this land for many years by Luscar Coal Company.
Just a little reminiscing by Merlin. When I was about twelve years old my parents decided to brush 50 acres of their land. They hired an Englishman ,Peter , to do the job. My Dad had moved a log house across the ice on Miquelon Lake from his old homestead and Peter was to board himself in this.
My brothers and I heard about camp chefs who could flip pancakes in the air and have them land back in the frying pan. This sounded like an interesting project for us to try. Mother made us some pancake batter but we were unsuccessful. After a few catastropies we were forbidden to practice in the kitchen, so we went to Peter's bunkhouse. We learned to make the batter ourselves and after many failures we finally perfected our technique so we could flip a pancake and have it land in the pan. We proudly showed our accomplishment to our parents and sisters. Yes, it truly could be done and we could do it every time.
On another occasion in 1932 my Father and I were driving on the windy, hilly Miquelon Lake road when we saaw Pastor and Mrs. Martin Berg ahead of us. They were driving a model A Ford. When Pastor Berg came to the top of a steep hill he saw Pete Winder in his big truck. There was no way they could meet on the narrow road so Pastor Berg turned the wheel and went down a steep bank. The car landed on it's top against some trees about 10 feet below the road. Dad and I managed to open the car door and help the folks out. They had been picking berries, so there were berries everywhere. Fortunatly the Bergs were not hurt. With the assistance of a neighbor we managed to get the car back on it's wheels. The car was not seriously damaged and after adding some water to the radiator it was ready to go. However, Pastor Berg didn't want to get in and drive. A neighbor volunteered to drive and after some persuasion they got in and were driven home.
One fall day a resident of Kingman had used cynogas, a deadly gas powder to kill bees, when removing the honey, but he had not buried the bees. The bees revived and were hungry and on the warpath. That evening I was on the street not far from the village hall, when I heard a rumble. Down the street came Charlie the peddlar with his "democrat" and team of horses at full gallop followed closely by a swarm of hungry, stinging bees. Charlie was expressing his feeling loudly as he came. Suddenly he lost control and went rolling onto the ground. He was unhurt and within minutes was back on his feet, the flow of words scarcely being interupted. After a while, Stanley Rogness and I managed to quiet the horses so Charlie got back in and went on his way, still loudly expressing his feelings.
BJORGUM, Ole - Ole Bjorgum's parents, Olavus and Helena, immigrated to Jackson Minnesota from Verdal, Norway in 1868. There were nine children in his family, Betsy, Ole, Carl, Otelda, Gina, Hans, Martin, Marie and Clarence. When these children grew up, Ole decided to come to Canada to buy a homestead. In 1903 he bought the N.E quarter of 24-20-49-4 as his homestead. At the same time he bought section 5-19-49-4 from the C.P.R. This land was covered with large poplars on the higher ground, willows in the low areas and the odd open area. Land at this time was selling for two and three dollars an acre, Edmund Thompson took all prospective land buyers around, including Ole. After buying the land Ole returned to Jackson and then to Norway. While in Norway he was united in marriage to Marie Efskind. Not long after they were married Ole left for Jackson, leaving his wife in Norway, she followed with their infant daughter Helga in the late spring of 1904. Selling some land and property in Jackson, they prepared to leave and establish a new home in Canada.
They brought with them a boxcar of settler effects consisting of horses, a wagon, several pieces of machinery, one being a binder with a right hand cut. Other goods included grain, flour, coffee, dried fruits(pears, apples, prunes and peaches). All food was then sold in large metal and usually nicely decorated containers.
After their arrival in Wetaskiwin by train they set off by wagon a distance of about forty miles of trails to their one room shack on section 5.
Two years later Ole and Marie began building a larger home and by 1907 they completed this beautiful home. In 1910, Ole and Victor Osness came and erected a wooden windmill in the yard. Then in 1912 they built a large barn measuring 34by 56 feet.
From the time Ole arrived he began breaking the land. The walking plough was used very little as the stumps were large and difficult. He hired steam tractors with large breaking ploughs which cut a 24" furrow. If the ploughing was done deep enough they could work the soil and plant the crop on top of the roots. Most roots and stumps took about two years to rot away. Ole and Knute Lyseng and Hoflin broke most of the land, others with steam tractors were Throndsons and Olaf Skalin. In 1914, Mr. Lefler, who had a gas caterpillar tractor and two plows, broke 25 acres on the field next to S.M Heie. This took all summer as the tracks kept falling off the tractor and the plough was plugging up with roots. One day Mr. Lefler, completely exasperated, took an axe and struck the plough breaking it and leaving him with only one plough to finish the job.
Ole began his mixed farming with horses. Every spring while the snow was on the ground, Ole seemed to enjoy the challenge of breaking horses. The grain grown was barley, oats and red fife wheat. It wasn't till 1916 that they were able to have a much improved strain called Marquis. Ole's first large field was 10 acres of wheat, besides the grain he raised hereferd cattle, hogs and many sheep. Page wire fences were put up to keep the sheep in but many were killed by coyotes. Milking was done by hand and the cream taken to the buying station in Kingman. Mr. Hannon, the drover from Tofield went around the district and bought livestock. He had the farmers bring ot to the stockyards in Kingman where they were shipped to Edmonton once a week. The drover prior to Mr. Hannon was Mr. Sheppherd who lived near Round Hill.
As the years passed, Ole and Marie's family had been steadily increasing. Helga born in Norway, and Ovel, Alvin, Myrtle, Sinnie, Odelia, Willie and Dorphy, all born in Canada. Sinnie died at three months from pneumonia and Odelia died from measles at the age of 4. These two sisters were laid to rest in the Kingman cemetery. All the children were born at home with the aide of two midwives.
Ole and Marie's children attended school in Coal Hill and later Kingman. The schools were about 1 and a 1/2 miles away and the children walked or rode horses winter or summer. Coal Hill school was built on Mr. Dalberg's homestead and in later years when the larger school districts were formed, it was moved to Hay Lakes by the Corn Hill Municipality. Some of the teachers at Coal Hill then were, Dr. Emmett, who lived in Kingman, Martha Anderson, sister to Albin Anderson who lived in Bardo, Miss Rorem of Bardo, Mrs. Alfred Currie, Miss Hanna Simonson, Mr. James Manson, Mr. Foster, and Grace Hall from New Brunswik , who married Mr. French. The families who attended Coal hill while the Bjorgum's attended were, Heie, Osness, Lowry, Lindberg, Batiuck, Lutczysyn, Grandahl, Welsh, Starcheski, Krezanoski and Bianowski.
While all the work went on outside, inside was no easy task either. Marie, besides the children to take of, had to be up early to get breakfast on the table. Ole always had several hired men and this meant large meals to prepare. While Marie prepared breakfast, the men fed, curried and harnessed the horses. Once or twice a week bread had to be made (royal yeast cakes were used). Cream had to be churned to butter, fruit had to be soaked and cooked. Sometimes the prepared fruit had frozen overnight on the kitchen table. Most places had root cellars and could store their vegetables over winter. Foods such as pork and beef had to be soaked in brine or salted, especially the pork. To ease this situation a beef ring was formed. Each family who belonged to the ring had to donate an animal, one animal being killed each week. Mr. Hartschen was the butcher and kept track of which part of the animal each family had been given that week. In this way each family was treated fairly and had fresh beef once a week. Wash days were back breaking days. Marie had to carry all the wash water three hundred feet up from the windmill, then wash clothes by hand. Ironing was tiresome too as the sad irons were heated on the cook stove and sometimes took quite a while to get hot enough for the job. In later years the Coleman gas iron appeared, they were an improvement if only to keep the heat of the house down on hot summer days. Some homes had mangles and could press a lot of the clothes. Coal oil lamps and stable lanterns were another time consuming job. The soot had to be cleaned out of the lamp chimneys by paper or old cloths, wicks had to be trimmed and coal oil put in, ready for use. Many can remember Marie with her full white apron gathering in the turkeys at night. Besides the cooking of meals , and these extra jobs, she found time for mending, knitting mitts and socks and carding wool for quilt making. She made many quilts for the home.
Harvesting was a busy time of year. Binders, pulled by horses or tractors cut and tied the grain into sheaves and they were set up in stooks ready for the steam threshing machines. To make it so each family would have some threshing done if bad weather came, the threshing crews would spend one day at each place. At harvest time Marie would have someone come and help as threshing crews were large, which made lots of extra baking and dishes to wash. By 1917, small gas threshing outfits started to replace the steam machines. The owners of the steam outfits did not like these gas outfits(coffee grinders) feeling that a heavy crop would put them out of business.
In 1909 the Grand Trunk Pacific railway passed through the newly surveyed town fo Kingman. They went broke in 1920, or a few years later. The government bought the railroad and it became the Canadian National Railway. The Canadian North, which ran through Round Hill, went broke about the same time and it too was taken over by the C.N.R. While the building of the rail was going on, the crew camped in Ole's field. Horses and mules were used to build the railroad. One day Ole and his two eldest children visited the camp, they had a large meal and delicious pie for dessert.
During the flu, only Helga and Ovel were sick, but many people died. There was very little one could do but care for the sick. The people wore gauze masks and had to depend on neighbors to help take care of the sick and do chores.
The Kingsbury family lived west of Ole on section4. They were very poor and had little in the way of food and clothing. One year Kinsbury decided he would grow corn, it turned out to be a good year and he hrvested a bumper crop. He loaded a wagon with this vegetable and drove to Edmonton to peddle it on the street, calling himself Corn King of Alberta. From this time on the area was known as Corn Hill Municipality. The following year he decided he would plant 10 acres of corn but frost came early and killed the crop. That ended his corn planting, Francis, Kingsbury's oldest son, homesteaded the quarter south of Ole and built a log Post Office. A few years later he sold the land to S.M Heie, except for 12 acres in the N.E corner to live on. They lived there till one day the house burnt down and they moved away. In 1910 a new Post Office was built in Kingman.
Another neighborand the first to live on the quarter where Fred Evenson now lives, was a family known as Peter Welsh with four children, Tommy, Harry, May and Pearl. Both parents died young and the children were brought up in seperate homes. Tommy by Sam Nomeland, Harry by Martin Bjorgum, May by the Rogness family in Kingman and Pearl by Wes Ingram. The parents are burried in Kingman Cemetery, Pearl passed away recently.
Other neighbors were the S.M Heie family and the Osness family who eventually sold to Joe and Hazel Wempe.
In 1916 Ole decided he would probably never by a car and bought a new democrat, a year later he broke down and bought his first model T.
As the years passed machinery was improving and the fields were becoming larger. Combines were built taking the place of the old steam threshers. Ole bought his first combine in 1947.
Just to mention an incident, John Ness, Ingvald's uncle, told Ovel that he had played a good joke on Sydbos. He had taken several fish in a bag and had gone to the creek beside Sydbos to fish. The creek was known to have no fish. Not allowing anyone to see him he carefully hooked the fish on the line and slid them into the water, then pulled them out and carefully laid them on the bank. When finished he picked up the fish, dropping them one by one into the bag and left the creek. Soon after, Sydbos were seen down by the creek fishing.
As time passed Ole's children grew up and Helga was united in marriage to Fred Evenson in 1935. Farming where Welshes lived, they raised 4 children, Marie, Harold, Fred and Orville. Fred, Helga's husband passed away in 1955 and was laid to rest in Kingman cemetery.
Ovel. farming on the old place was united in marriage to Mary Harrison in 1952. Mary had spent 15 years nursing. They raised 4 children, Mary Francis, Elizabeth, Enid and Ovel.
Alvin left the farm when Ovel was married and spent a few years in Camrose with Myrtle and then moved to Moose Lake where he had a small confectionary with cabins and boats to rent. It was known as Al's Friendly Beach. Alvin enjoyed living there and catering to tourists. Alvin and his wife Gladys, lived there until he passed away in 1978. He was buried in the Rife United Church cemetery at Moose Lake.
Myrtle cared for her mother for many years and later worked at Bethany Nursing Home in Camrose. At present she is living in her home in Camrose, her sister Helga lives with her.
Willie bought the Lindberg farm across from Ovel and was united in marriage to Irene Hanson in 1948. Their five children are, Elaine, Alice, Keith, Laurel and Glenn.
Dorphy went into training and became a registered nurse. She was employed at the Winnipeg General hospital where she met and married George McLeod in 1947. She enjoyed many years nursing in Toronto and Calgary and now has a lovely home at Anglemont, B.C.
Ole Bjorgum passed away in 1949 and Marie in 1958, both are buried in the Kingman cemetery.
Mary Francis graduated as a Registered Nurse from the Misericordia Hospital, Edmonton in April 1974. On Aug. 17, 1974 she married Gordon Pickup from Drayton Valley. They now have two boys, Christian and Jordan and live in Rocky Mountain House where Gordon teaches school. Elizabeth trained for the business world and was employed at the Royal Trust in Calgary for several years. On July 29, 1977 she joined the Canadian Armed Forces and at present is stationed at the Cold Lake Base. Enid graduated on June 23, 1976 from the misericordia Hospital as a Medical Laboratory Technologist and is presently working at the Charles Camsel Hospital, Edmonton. Ovel Jr. is helping his father with farming and plans to farm the home place in the future.
BJORGUM, William - In 1916, Ole Bjorgum, father of William, purchased a new democrat. Not satisfied with this means of transportation he aquired a new Model T Ford in 1917 and the addition of a son William, who learned to speak Norwegian before English.
In 1921 William had diptheria and by a miracle recovered from the dread disease. In 1924 he started school at Coal Hill, located on the S.W. corner of SE1/4-4-49-19-W4M. Walking a distance of a mile and a quarter was the usual way of getting to school. Teachers were paid a very small salary, but were strict and maintained a high standard of education.
At home, William was blessed witha very kind mother and firm Dad, plus two brothers and three sisters. Chores as a boy included feeding the cows, plowing with three horses and a little plow, and riding horseback to bring home the cows.
All field work was done by horses, until a steel wheel tractor was purchased. In 1930, the dirty 30's came along and conditions were very rough. Coffee was 5 cents a cup and a piece of pie sold for ten cents. Social gatherings in the hall, carpet ball. and gymnastics were a lot of fun. Farming was a family project and many good times were had besides the work.
In 1948, he married Irene Hanson of the Miquelon Lake district. Irene was born in the Tofield district and moved with her parents to Miquelon in 1933. She attended Miqelon school for grades 1 - 8. She recalls doing janitor work at the school for a number of years, earning five cents a day or twenty five cents a week. The work consisted of sweeping and tidying the school at night and being there in the morning to do the dusting and last minute tidying. The teacher usually made the fire and brought water to the school.
William and Irene lived for two years on the west half of section 33, which is now owned by Fred and Nancy Evenson. They lived in two graneries the first summer while their small, cozy three roomed house, complete with basement was being built. They tore down the old house that was on the farm and spent many hours pulling nails and salvaging the lumber which was to be used in the building of the new house. Roy Molvik, a well known carpenter in the area assisted them with the new home.
In 1950 their friend and neighbor, Stanley Lindberg decided to sell his farm. After much consideration and sleepless nights they decided if they could raise the money they would buy the farm. Alarger house, the barn, and other buildings looked very attractive as there were no buildings for livestock where they lived. Willie and Irene bought the Lindberg farm in the spring of 1950, after two years of little or no crops due to very dry weather, it was a big decision for them to make.
The spring of '50 was another dry one so crops were off to a poor start again. In early July a hailstorm flattened the crops and gardens, but with all the moisture that came with the storm, the crops made a quick comeback, and by the fall were looking pretty good. However a cold wet fall made harvest drag on until late Nov. when they finally had to give it up and leave it till spring.
With three years of crop failures it was obvious they would need another source of income, so in the spring of '51, they rented 8 cows from Irene's brother, Art. These, along with the two cows Willie's folks had given them, made a pretty good sized herd, considering that the milk and seperating were all done by hand.
Dec. of 1950 was an eventful time for the Bjorgum's as they were hooked up to Calgary power. What a joy to have good lights. Then of course came the electric iron to replace the sad irons and later a fridge, stove, washing machine, etc. It was in the next few years that the familiar wood piles began to dissapear in the area.
Willie and Irene continued to dairy and increase and improve their herd through artificial insemination. They started shipping milk in 1957 using milk cans and a can cooler. In 1967 regulations forced them to either go into bulk tank or quit. By this time they had a good herd of holstein cattle so decided to put in a bulk tank. They continued to dairy till their oldest son, Keith took over the dairy herd in 1975.
Willie and Irene have five children, Elaine, the oldest was very active in community activities such as Luther League and Pioneer girls. She also taught Sunday school and participated in most sports. She is a mathematics teacher and in Jan. 1975 left for a teaching position in Australia. She taught for one year in Townsville, Queensland. It was while teaching in Ravenshoe that she met Helge Nome from Kristiansand, Norway. He had lived in Australia for 11 years. They were married in Sept. 1977 and moved to Helge's homestead west of Ravenshoe. They have two sons Jarl and Kai.
Alice, the second daughter, also took part in community activities, she was very athletic and always came home with red ribbons from the trackmeet competitions. Alice is also a teacher and has taught in Thorsby for five years. In 1972 she married Rueben Halwa son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Halwa from Thorsby. Rueben was a heavy duty instructor for R. aaanngus in Edmonton. They live on their farm at Thorsby which borders the Saskatchewan River. They have gone into the dairy industry and are now farming full time. They have two children, Vincen and Vanessa.
Keith , the oldest son was active in cubbing and scouting, one of the highlights in Scouts was an exchange trip to Nova Scotia. He was also in the Air Cadets in Camrose and while ther he won a flying scholarship and earned his private pilots license. In 1974 Keith bought Bill Cail's farm north of Camrose and built a new double four herringbone milk parlour onto the existing barn. He took over the dairy herd in Feb. of '75. In Aug. 1976 he married Theresa Fritz, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Fritz of Allan , Saskatchewan. They have two daughters, Nadine and Rita.
Laurel , the youngest daughter has taken part in most community activities including 4 - H. Last year she was on a 4-H exchange trip to New Brunswick. She is at present finishing grade twelve in Camrose, and is planning a trip to visit her sister in Australia before going to University in the field of computers.
Glenn is finishing grade eight in Kingman. He is interested in the field of electricity but says he would like to farm as well.
BLOMANDER, Carl Otto - Carl emigrated from Ostergotland, Sweden to South Dakota in 1902. In 1912 he came to homestead at Old Wives, Saskatchewan. In 1920 he married Mary Pearl Carter who was born in Enniskillen Township, Lambton County in Ontario in 1898. Mary with her family had moved to Mostlack, Saskatchewan in the early 1900's. Carl and Mary had three children born in Saskatchewan. They were , Carl Allan, Helen Mary and Paul Otto.
In 1938 the family moved to a half section 7 miles west of Kingman or 3 miles south of Miquelon Lake. Neighbors included Mrs. Annie Coykendall who lived a half mile north, Verner Johnson a quarter mile south, Mike Lickoch a half mile east and Elfert Johnson a half mile west.
Allan recieved all his education at the Sweetgrass school in Saskatchewan. Helen also went to Sweetgrass school and finished her schooling at Brandland in 1939. Paul started school in Brandland which was half a mile south of the farm. The teacher was Harold Rolseth and Mr. Robinson was the school inspector. Paul started grade 9 in Hay Lakes but due to the distance to catch the bus he continued at Brandland with Mrs. Movold as his teacher. Grades 10, 11 and 12 were taken in Hay Lakes.
In Sept. 1941, Allan volunteered for active service and joined the navy. His basic training was taken in Edmonton, he served on several ships, including the HMCS Gifford. In 1945 he recieved his discharge. After spending the winter at home he commenced working with the Commenwealth Oil Drilling Company in the Lloydminister area and remained with the company until it branched out in to Saskatchewan. Allan was married and lived in Estevan Sask. where he had a family of three boys and one girl, he died there in 1975.
Helen continued working on the farm until 1944 when she moved to Camrose and worked at the Alice Hotel and a couple of restaurants. Later she worked at the Cecil Hotel and then Beaverlodge before settling on a farm near Tofield. She has a boy and a girl.
After finishing school in Hay Lakes, Paul spent a year at home, then worked in Edmonton at Muttarts Lumber. In June 1956 he got a job with Eldorado Mining and refining Co. at Great Bear Lake. In 1957, he returned home. In the meantime his parents sold the farm and moved to Hay Lakes. In 1958 Paul joined the Provost Corps and took his basic training at Shilo, Manitoba. He then was posted to Halifax where he married Shirley Richardseon. They have 3 boys and 3 girls. After postings to Fredericton, New Brunswick, Germany, Calgary. Wainwright and Penhold, he settled in Penhold working for Stewarts building supplies.
Carl and Mary Blomander continued to live in Hay Lakes. Mary passed away Feb. 14, 1965 and Carl, Nov. 20, 1971.
BLOMANDER, Carl ( by Helen Prostilo) - Charlie, Pearl, Allan, Helen, and Paul moved to the Brandland district in 1939 from Old Wives, Saskatchewan. The family bought a half section of land, half a mile north of Brandland school. They farmed there until about 1956 then retired and moved to Hay Lakes wher they bought a house. Pearl passed away in Feb.1965 and Charlie in 1971.
Allan served in the Navy for 4 years, then worked in the oilfields and lived in Esevan Saskatchewan. He was married and had 4 children, Bill, John, Dwight and Susan, Ann, Allan's wife still lives in Estevan with her family. Allan passed away in July 1975.
I, Helen, attended Brandland school for a couple of years. After the war I went to Camrose and Edmonton working for the Dept. of National Defence Base, Namao on Kingsway and then out to Namao for 7 years. From there i went to Uranium City, Saskatchewan and married Mike Prostilo.
Mike was a uranium underground miner who woked there for 11 years until he had a stroke in 1969. In Aug. 1970, we bought a house in Tofield, Alberta. There are two children,Micheal a grade ten student and Donna, in grade eight at Tofield school. MIke passed away in Feb. 1976. We now live on the George Arbon farm, southwest of Tofield.
BLUMER, Lorraine (Grundberg)- Dinant, although obliterated from the map, cannot be erased from our memories. Too many days, months and years were spent there to let us forget.
I, like many others, had to see for sure if there were any signs of Dinant left, so one day we took the familiar road from the farm that we had travelled so many times either on foot or by sleigh. I looked first for the old barn where our horse Kate was kept. It was gone. Then on past the two schools, the hall, and on to the store where we stopped for groceries and the mail. I looked across the road for the station where we used to meet the Friday morning train. There was nothing there, all had vanished.
Classmates came to mind, the Christmas concerts in the hall, the neighborhood football games, the school festivals in Camrose, the spring flower contests, the soup pot bubbling on the furnace while we worked, the school yard with the little slough and the favorite places we chose to eat our lunches. Then there were the teachers, Miss Pederson, Miss Horte and Mr. Simonson. How well they managed with so many students and grades! Mr. Percy Simonson left the year I was attending to join the Air Force.
Presently I am living in Edmonton near the University with my husband Carl. We have two boys. Doug finished his Arts degree and works with Air Canada. Randy is on his second year in Mechanical Engineering at the U. of A. For the past few years I have been Teacher Librarian at King Edward Elementary School in Edmonton. My love for books is still very strong. Although Dinant did not boast a great selection with only a few formidable titles such as "Pilgrims Progress" and "Oliver Twist" our reading program was supplemented with more appealing books generously shared by the Seidels from their private collection.
Recently my family and I had the opportunity of spending two years in Germany where my husband worked for the Dept. of National Defence in the Canadian schools. On one of our weekend tours from Hemer we headed through Germany, then Belgium and on to Paris. Along the highway I noticed signs indicating 120 km. to Dinant, 90 km to Dinant and so on, because it was late, we were dozing. Afraid that I might miss the event I said to my husband, " Don't let me sleep through Dinant!" It was after midnight when we arrived. There it was, a gem of a city nestled in a little valley with a lively river running through. Church steeples and numerous bridges decorated the skyline. I was delighted to have seen the original Dinant.
Although our Dinant may be sleeping we will always treasure the memories of those growing up years.
In the summer of 1911, Mr. Blyckert went to Kingman to start blacksmithing. The family lived in the upstairs of the post office until 1912 when he built a house next to the blacksmith shop. He worked until the fall of 1935 when illness forced him to quit his business. In Feb. 1936 he passed away at the age of 63.
Mrs. Blyckert, after disposing of the home and household effects, went to live with her daughters. She made her home with Ruth in the Camrose area until she decided to move to the Lutheran Home for the aged in Wetaskiwin in 1948. There she stayed until her death in Mar. 1959 at the age of 89.
In 1916, Ruth, the eldest daughter, left home to make her living as a hired girl. In Dec. 1920 she married a farmer, Joe Monson, of Camrose. They had three sons.
Lawrence, an electrician in the T.V repair business, lives in Sexsmith. Mr. and Mrs. L. Monson have four children all of whom are married.
Malcom, the second son, lived and farmed in the camrose area until his death in 1977.. He married and they had three sons.
Glen, the youngest, also lived in the Camrose area. Besides farming , he was in the dairy business. Now he lives in Calgary and is in the Real Estate business, Mr. and Mrs. Glen Monson have two children.
There are many fond memories of Kingman when Helen and I lived there. Everyone was in the same situation with very little of this worlds goods. We had good times in Church, Sunday school and in the recreation available. Ducks and rabbits were plentiful. Friends and neighbors shared dinners and suppers.
Education was one thing that was neglected in 1911. We had to attend Coal Hill school which was three miles southeast of Kingman. The two Blyckert girls and the five Lars Johnson children trudged their way to school. Walking was not crowded, we had no other transportation than our "shank ponies". Dr. Emmett, our teacher, rode his bicycle. He was also the village Doctor.
In the fall of 1912 our Dad, Carl, Lars Johnson and Tom Rogness decided we had to have a school in Kingman. They got in touch with the Dept. of Education and then purchased desks, blackboars etc. Teaching began that fall in the old Gaalaas house which in earlier days had been a restaurant on main street. Many Kozak children attended this school. Classes were held in this building until the fall of 1913 when we moved into the new two storied building, which was used until a new one was built in 1947.
Miss Adelia Rorem was our teacher in 1914-15. The teaching and discipine were excellent, she taught grades one to eleven. Many fine programs were put under her supervision.
The old Gaalaas house was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Johnson and they lived in it for many years. The two storied school, after thirty- three years was purchased by Henry Johnson, a former Kingmanite. He used the lumber to build a house in Camrose for his family.
Church services were held in the schoolhouse by Ministers of the Lutheran and Mission Covenant faiths, even for weddings. In the year 1914-15 the Swedish Lutherans decided to build a Church in Kingman. The Pastor, who was in charge of that congregation, was Pastor Leonard Heiner. He had charge of two other congregations as well. He faithfully served the three churches until he passed away in 1918, the year of the severe flu epidemic.
Christmas was the highlight. "Julotta" was held early in the morning on Christmas day in our beautiful little white church. How beautiful and festive with lit candles in the windows and a tree with all the white candles glowing.
Many fond memories linger of my childhood days in the friendly little hamlet of Kingman.
BOETTGER Families- William (May 9, 1890 - Mar. 18, 1963) and Lydia (Mar.17, 1895 - Apr. 13, 1971) moved to the Kingman area in the spring of 1919 from Mayton, near Olds, Alberta. They first rented land from O.C. Blackburn, SW 26-49-19-4, where Lyle Roth now lives. While living there, Edgar and Harold started school at Farmington.
In 1925 the family purchased the farm one and a half miles east of Kingman, NW 3-49-19-4, where Orvin and his family reside. This was the Coal Hill school district. The school was located in the SW corner of the SE 4-49-19-4. In addition to Edgar and Harold, Marvin , Eldon and Orvin all recieved their elementary education at this school.
Coal Hill school was heated with a Waterbury furnace in one corner with a long stovepipe to the chimney at the other end of the building. At times, depending from which way the wind blew, pupils at the far side of the room were not to warm, and phisical Education such as running on the spot helped to get the blood circulating again. A grate on top of the furnace was a good place to dry mitts and thaw out frozen ink bottles. One teacher also tried heating soup for a hot meal only to find the soup can exploded and deposited the contents all over the ceiling. The evident splash marks were a constant reminder of the disaster.
Beginning about 1930, William Boettger served on the school board as secretary Treasurer until the municipality began collecting the school taxes. He continued on the board until the larger school districts were formed. The Coal Hill school was later moved to Hay Lakes to be used as a class room, and then to a farm.
During the 1930's when teachers salaries dropped below $500.00 per year, the charge for room and board went as low as $15.00 to $20.00 per month. For starting fires and sweeping the school, an extra $10.00 a year was paid either to the teacher or one of the pupils. Local farmers hauled coal from Round Hill or Dodds mines for $1.00 a ton. Split wood was delivered for $2.00 a wagon load. During the winter, the children often walked to school across the fields single file, starting a perfectly straight trail from home to school. This gradually built up higher than the snow on either side. In the spring the path melted more slowly than the rest of the field, leaving a straight white line.
Other times "Minnie or "Pinnie" hitched to an open cutter would transport teacher and pupils to and from school and often there was runnaways and upsets, much to the dismay of both. During the winter months, "teddy" the shetland pony, provided transportation and let downs, many a time shying at a gopher or something, leaving the rider sitting on the ground. He was content just to walk or run ahead, not letting himself be caught until he reached home, where he would stand by the barn and wait to have his bridle taken off. One of the teachers had the humiliating experience of falling off:Teddy" into a mud puddle, just after having said "Look at me , here I come". On another occasion, one of the boys riding "Teddy" full gallop headed straight for a closed barbed wire gate. For some reason they didn't stop in time, resulting in scratched and cut arms and legs, the scars are visable to this day.
From 1930-1944, the following teachers boarded in the Boettger home; Grace (Bently) Saffran, Olive (Heffren) Stutzman, Gladys(Christianson) Simonson, Berit (Berhild) Hagen, Margaret "Peggy" Haynes, Donalda (Pearson) Schmidt, Margaret (Glasener) Wideman, as well as a number of Practice teachers. Also many hired girls were employed, a niece of Ethel Wideman made her home with them.
One of the things brought along with them to the area was a small steam engine. This was used for belt power for threshing and grinding grain for his own needs and other farmers in the district. In 1926, a new Minneapolis tractor and steel threshing machine was purchased in partnership with W.H Wideman. The steam engine was no longer used and dismanteled in the mid 30's, the boiler sold to the Camrose Tannery for $200.00. During the summer months, eight or twelve horses were used to plow or break land, after the tractor was aquired it was used instead.
In 1928, W.H Wideman took over the tractor and Will Boettger bought a new Massey Harris "Wallis" tractor for about $850.00. This was used as farm power along with the horses till 1940 when a new rubber tired tractor was purchased for about $1200.00. After this the horses were used less, by the mid 40's no field work was done by horse. During this time , man power became scarce and a machine called a stook sweep was used to haul bundles to the threshing machine. Grain was hauled with rubber tired trailers and later with trucks, and the use of a homemade elevator. With these changes the men required was reduced 40 percent. This method served during the interm until the swather and combine were accepted. During those years everyone cooperated to harvest the crops. Elevator men stayed far into the night and all night sometimes, getting their sleep in short snatches on a cot in the office.
Neighbors brought grain to put through the grinder for livestock feed. Sawing firewood and butchering animals were an annual event as neighbors gathered to share the work and fellowship, which was returned when they needed help.
William and Lydia were sincere Christians and members of the Mennonite church. He served as Sunday school teacher and superintendant as well as usher, treasurer and in other offices at various times. Every Sunday the whole family attended Church. Everyone in the home, including hired help, teachers or guests were invited along. Only the most severe weather, road conditions or health problems interferred with this practice. Before the municipality did the snow plowing, Will Boettger and Milo Stutzman opened the roads. Many Saturdays were spent with horses and shovels so cars could be used on Sunday. He was a farmer all his life and his five sons also became farmers. Eight of his grandsons are now farming in the area, four took up other occupations.
All the descendants live in Alberta except two, and most of them live in the Kingman, Tofield area.
Edgar married Norma Brenneman and they have four children. Eileen, a teacher married Tofiel Wegner and they have three sons, Glenn, Kieth and Phillip. Stanley, an electrical engineer at Olds College, married Deanna Knuenz , their children are Denise and Wayne. Kenneth, a farmer, married Myrna Martin, their children are Kevin, Allen and Andrea. Delbert is also a farmer.
Harold Boettger is Pastor at the Salem Mennonite Church, and also farms. He married Viola Stalter and has four sons and four daughters. Sanford farms and is married to Gwen Calvert, they have three daughters Colleen, Marla and Leanne. Gloria, a nursing aid and homemaker married Harley Stauffer. They reside in Fairview and have three daughters, Roxanne, Juanita and Nicole, and a son Wendell. Dennis, a medical doctor lives in Regina, he married Lucille Wideman and they have two sons, Jeffrey and Steven. Joyce, Mrs. Wendell Mullet, a teacher and homemaker lives in Bluesky and has two daughters, Laura and Heather, and a son, Johnathan. James, a farmer married Betty Rogers, they have a daughter Jyl. Lois, Mrs. Robert Sayer is a medical lab. secretary and homemaker lives in Carstairs, they have one son, Jeremy. Conrad, a registered nurse, married Beth Hartman and lives in La Juanta, Colorado. Betty is a student at the U.of A. in 4th year education, majoring in Physical Education.
Marvin, a farmer, married Edith Yoder, they have three sons. Derril is married to Wanda Good and has a son Bruce and daughter Lisa. Elwood married Heather Francis and has two sons Jason and Bradley. Jerry, as well as his brothers, is a farmer.
Eldon, married Marjorie Yodeer and is farming. Their children are Evonne, a teacher and homemaker, married Abe Poettcker. They have three children, Kimberley, Kurtis and Kevin. Gordon, a pilot for Hughs Air, lives in Ponoka. Glenda is a secretary in Edmonton.
Orvin married Elsie Stauffer, they live on the original Boettger farm and own the land where the coal Hill school was located. They have five children. Donald married Marilyn DeLapp, they live on the original farm where he farms as well as trucking part time. They have two daughters, Nicole and Janelle. Charlotte is a ward aide and Laura , a secretary, both live in Camrose. Brian and Douglas go to school and live at home.
The family is deeply grateful for having the privilege to grow up and live in the friendly, accepting neighborhood of Kingman.
BONESS, Jacob - Jacob Boness came from Bardu, Norway in the spring of 1900 and filed on a homestead, NW 1/4- 48-19-4 in Bardo , Alberta, just south of Tofield. In 1902 he married Marie Lerbekmo who had come from Bardu, Norway in 1895. They were the second couple to be married in this new settlement.
By 1917 they felt the need for more land so sold their farm and moved to Kingman district where they purchased a half section from Ed Thompson. It was the N 1/2 of 9-49-19-4 half a mile north and half a mile east of the village of Kingman. There were 70 acres of new breaking on this farm. In the spring of 1918 most of it was seeded to wheat. Prospects were good for a heavy yeilding crop but when it was beginning to ripen there was an early killing frost thet destroyed it all.
In the spring of 1918, Jacob bought his first automobile, a new Ford touring car from McLaughlin of Tofield for the sum of $666.00.
The next year was also one to be remembered. Winter set in early before any of the threshing could be done. There was lots of snow and to make matters worse there was a flu epidemic, so the year 1919-20 got to be known as the hard winter. Cattle were dying of starvation. Hans tells that they went to the Erskine area by train to buy oat sheaves, they had to be dug out of the snow and cost twenty five cents a bundle. Then they were loaded into boxcars and shipped by rail to Kingman. Hay was also hard to get and sold for over $100.00 a ton. So the first two years in Kingman were not profitable gor the Boness family. However, by milking cows as others did in the vicinity no one suffered from hunger.
During the early days he had a well digging machine so was engaged in drilling for water, he also acted as the local veterinarian. For a few years he served as counsillor for the Beaver Municipality
Mr. and Mrs. Boness had six children. The first five were born on the homestead in Bardo, namely, Hans, Dora, Malfrid, Palmer and Florence. In 1930 they moved to Camrose and it was there in 1931 the youngest son, Glen was born.
In 1937 they moved to Bawlf where they operated the Home Cafe until 1943 when they sold the business and retired to Vancouver.
In 1952 they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. They came back to Bardo for the occasion to celebrate where they had been married fifty years before.
Mr. and Mrs. Boness passed away in Vancouver, Jacob in 1954 and Marie in 1966. Hans went out on his own at an early age. Through the years he's been involved in trucking, farming and also in the machinery business. He hauled gasoline from the refinery at Black Diamond to various points in Alberta. The gas became known as "skunk gas" because it had such an offensive smell. However, farmers bought barrels of it for farm use because the price was lower.
When the Alaska highway was being built Hans hauled supplies from Edmonton as far north as Whitehorse. These were hazardous trips because they travelled on makeshift roads and accomodations were few and far between. Temperatures often dropped to 60 below F.
In 1940 he married Agnes Lee of Round Hill and then became engaged in farming as well as gravel hauling for road building programs in various parts of Alberta.
In 1947 he took his combine, truck and three Kingman men, Leslie Coykendall, Bert Asp and Sam Wideman to the United States to harvest a bumper crop. They combined in Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and came back in time for the Alberta harvest.
In 1949 Hans and Agnes bought a farm in the Dodds district. Here they farmed for several years. Agnes was also on the teaching staff at the Round Hill school. When Agnes was transferred to the Sifton school in Camrose they bought a house and moved there. Hans continued farming until 1972 when he sold out and retired. Since Agnes retired from teaching they have been spending the winter months in Arizona.
Dora became a school teacher and taught at Coal Hill and then Mannvile. She met Robert Bruce of Minburn, they were married at Camrose. After a brief period farming they moved to Leduc, where Bob was employed. Later they moved to Vancouver where they owned and operated a laundromat for many years. They had two children, James and Marion. James became an chemical engineer and is with Texaco Oil refinery in Toronto, he is married and has four children. Marion became a stewardess, she married Ralph Snider who was then a pilot for Canadian Pacific Airlines. They had two daughters. At present Marion owns a health food store in Vancouver.
Dora passed away in 1971 and Bob in 1978. Malfris married Louis Erga in 1927, they moved to the Pretty Hill district where they lived for 44 years. Florence became a teacher and married A. Swaren of Camrose in 1935. They had no family, she passed away in Vancouver in 1951.
Glen Boness moved with his parents to Bawlf when he was 6 years old. After a few years they moved to Vancouver where Glen recieved most of his education. He married Vivian Thomason in 1954. He presently lives in Prince George , B.C and works for the B.C Board of Industrial Relations. They have four children.
I married Signe Hagen of Forestburg, Alberta in June of 1938 and rented the Boness farm for a number of years, then bought the home quarter in 1960. We lived in the Searle Grain house in Kingman from 1958 to 62 when I was an elevator agent there.
We have two girls, Mrs. Vern Hanson (Darla) of Morinville and Mrs. Lawrence Rude (Diane) of Tofield. The Hanson's adopted two boys; the oldest was killed in July 1978 by a car. Darla is a nurse at St. Albert Hospital. Diane has a boy and a girl and does substitute teaching.
We sold the farm to Lloyd Erickson of Edmonton in 1971 and retired to Winfield B.C. We enjoy living in the Okanagan where fruit is plentiful but "Signe hs gotten her fill of fruit".
BOWICK, Robert - Robert (Bob) son of John and Edith Bowick of Tofield came to Kingman in 1932 to assist with the farming on the Oscar Thompson farm. In Dec. of 1935 Bob and Josie Thompson were married and started farming, living on the NW 1/4 of 12-49-20 east of first Miquelon Lake, known as the Charlie Olson place.
To this marriage eight children were born, Joyce, and her husband Walter Hay of Enderby, B.C are fruit stand operators. Wayne of Kingman is a farmer. Gary of Langley, B.C is a Real Estate salesman and land appraiser. Carol, Mrs. Bud Connell of Airdrie is a bookkeeper and housewife. Marvin of Sherwood Park is a building contractor. Grant of Kingman is a carpenter. Marion of Oakland , California is a Day Care center operator. Hal of Edmonton is a carpenter.
Bob having previously played hockey with the Tofield hockey team played with the Kingman team for a number of years. He took a keen intrest in the 4-H beef club of Kingman and became a leader following the retirement of Mr. A.D Baasch. Joyce, Wayne and Gary entered calves in the club for several years. Wayne won the Grand Champion at Tofield one year and Gary the Reserve Championship one year.
Bob trucked livestock, grain and lumber during the later years of the 1930's. During the war he hauled ties for the railroad at Niton, Alberta.
In 1944 Bob bought the SW 1/4 13-49-20-4. In 1947 he bought the Charlie Olson quarter and broke up the lake flat. In 1954 he bought the NE 1/4 13-49-20-4 which he broke and farmed. That quarter had many peices of pemmican and Indian rock tools. In 1975 he bought the NE 1/4 12-49-20-4 from Allan Olson.. In 1978 he sold the west half section of 13-49-20-4 to the Brace Holding Co.
Bob was a member of the Battle River Feeders Assc. and a director for 15 years.
Josie (Thompson) Bowick took her schooling in Kingman Except for one year at the John Russell High school in Camrose, rooming with Irene and Gladys Horte and Ina Lofgren. She took an active part in sports, especially basketball, playing on the Kingman team a number of years. She also took an active part in farming on her father's farm, driving a John Deere steel lug tractor while plowing in the spring and cutting grain in the fall with a binder. She hauled the grain from the threshing machine in a one ton 1928 Chev truck from her Dad's farm and many of the neighbors for a number of years. Mrs. Seljehaug (Henning), Mrs. MacIntosh and others used to ride with her to the threshing machine and the elevator. One instance she recalls is when the Rodnunsky twins rode with her to the threshing machine. One twin was adventurous while the other one stood back and watched, which was lucky in this instance. The adventurous one started to climb the new straw stack of loose straw. The straw soon came sliding down covering the lad. The brother quickly summoned help, or he might have smothered. Stanley Rogness was always part of the Thompson threshing crew as hopper boy and general helper.
In 1934 Josie filed on a homestead at Meadowview, about 12 miles west of Barrhead where Bob's mother had the post office and several other members of the Bowick family were located. With the help of Bob and his brother in law Jim Cunningham, they cut, skidded logs and built a log cabin. There she had some breaking done and spent periods of time living there until 1938. One time she returned home from Barrhead by bus with her infant daughter andconsiderable amount of luggage. All went well, the bus driver being very courteous and helpful. The bus trip from Tofield to Kingman left something to be desired. The bus was jumping ruts until she feared it would roll. Upon arrival in Kingman the bus driver literally dumped her luggage on the street instead of placing it on the stores platform. Needless to say , the bus service didn't last very long.
Josie has assisted Bob with the farming at intervals over the years. Now Bob and Josie live in the former Edmund Thompson home. Edmund was a grandfather of Josie's. They have lived there with Wayne for the past 15 years.
While reminiscing, Josie recalls taking her father by horse and cutter to Armena to catch the train to Edmonton. They spent the night at Carl Lyseng's home and returned the next day. Mr. and Mrs. Carl Lyseng now live at the Bethany Home in Camrose.
One incident she recalls happened upon her return from taking her father to the Tofield train. She was driving a horse and cutter, there was lots of snow on the side of the road. She saw a pig coming down the road and wondered what would happen when they met. She soon discovered that she was sitting in the cutter facing the fence without the horse. He had spooked, jumped the fence and was standing in a clump of bushes looking at her. The owners of the pig were not at home so she had to walk to the nearest neighbor which happened to be Mr. Dick Turner, now deceased. Mr. Turner came to her rescue, caught the horse and repaired the harness then hitched him to the cutter and she continued her journey home.
BOWICK, Grant - Grant Bowick married Catherine Sieben in Oct. of 1972. Cathy is the daughter of John and Mary Sieben of Provost. To this marriage were born three children, Robert, Kenton and Carla. Grant a carpenter works in the Sherwood Park, Ardrossan area, with his brother Marvin. In Dec. of 1972 they bought the Walter and Joyce Hay home, where they now reside.
BRACE, Lorne and Faith- We have decided to make Kingmen our permanent home after living in various other parts of the country. We chose this community becouse of its proximity to Edmonton, because we knew a number of people in the Edmonton area who came from the
Tofield-Kingmen district, and because we knew there was an active Lutheran congregation here. My grandparents on both sides were pioneers in Alberta, arriving here in the early 1900's from Ontario and the American mid-west. One set of grandparents homesteaded north of Youngstown, the other near Monitor. I was born in Calgary, and when I was very young my parents moved to the Turner Valley oilfield to a community called Royalties, which was a boom-town during World war II, during the development of that oil and gas field. My mother remembers that you could read outdoors at any time during the night in those years, because of the light from the gas flares. Royalties no longer exists; the site is now range land, much as it was in the days before white settlement. Faith was born in Birmingham, England, and her family came to Canada after the war and lived in Salmon Arm B.C. We met at the University of B.C. in Vancouver where I was studying in forestry and she in arts and education. I graduated in 1962 and went to work in Ontario for the Canadian Forestry Service in their research division. We were married in 1963, and lived in the Ottawa Valley, with a year out for further study in the U.S. for 9 years. Our three boys, David, Martin and John were all born in Deep River Ontario. Our daughter, Janet was born in Calgary in 1973.
In 1972 I asked for a transfer west, and had the choice of Edmonton or Victoria, B.C. We chose Edmonton and bought an acerage in the Wye district just east of Sherwood Park, where we lived for three years. I began to get tired of a three acre plot that was to small to farm and too big to garden, so we looked for farm land nearby, and saw Oscar Tollefson's farm for sale in the Edmonton newspaper. We bought this quarter from him in 1974, probablymainly because it had such a fine view to the south east. Both of us grew up in the mountains and feel most comfortable on top of a hill ! We cose the building site right away and thought it would be years before we were ready to move, but in Feb.1975 we made the decision and asked Harold Servold to drill a well. We moved into the basement in Sept. 1975. We are still in the process of building but we expect to be here a long time so we are not worried about when we complete our plans for the farmstead.
We are happily settled in Kingman. We have deeply appreciated the friendship of people here, and are pleased to put down roots in this community.
BRADY, Doreen (Stirret)- My name is Mrs. Thomas Brady (nee Doreen Mae Stirret). My father's name was Robert John Stirret and my mother's, Faith Stirret (nee Gee). I took my nine years of schooling in Farmington school.
I was married to Thomas Brady in 1950 and we moved to British Columbia and lived near Clearwater for nine years. Then we moved here to Niton Junction where we have our own home and still live. I am a custodian at the school and my husband works at the Procor gas plant.
We have eight children. Our oldest girl, Linda is married and lives on a farm at Red Deer and her husbund Stan Larrett has a back hoe company. They have one son, Shane, two years old. Our second daughter Faye lives in Edson and works at the Commador Hotel. Ronald our oldest son lives at Hinton and works at the Luscar Coal Mine, driving heavy equipment. He is married and has two sons, Wayne , three years old and David, one year old. Our third daughter, Barbara lives in Edson and has one girl, Kelly, one and a half years old. Her husband Bert Smith drives a bus. Our second son, Gerald lives in Edson and works for a trucking company. Our third son Kenneth, lives in Edson and works for an insulating company. Our forth daughter, Donna, lives in Red Deer and works in a grocery store and our youngest daughter Carol just graduated this spring, lives in Edson and works at a shoe store.
BREDESON, Fred and Peter Peterson - Peter Peterson (David Olson's uncle) and his friend, Fred Bredeson, emigrated from Sweden to the United States in 1899, where they were employed on the railway and in lumber camps. In 1902 they decided to go to Canada where it was reputed that free land was available. They arrived in Wetaskiwin and were shortly escorted by land guide to Daysland. However, this was not to their liking and even though the land was good for farming, there were very few trees suitable for building construction, and provisions were hard to obtain. They decided to make the best of the situation and forthwith dug a cave in a side hill where they proceeded to set up housekeeping. This lasted only three years and then Pete and Fred were trekking again to a new homestead on which Pete had filed. This is now the present David Olson farm. They each bought a team of oxen. Fred bought two herefords and Pete bought two aberdeen angus. In the meantime, the one room cabin was completed, and the two proceeded to start clearing the land. The cabin still stands east of the present dwelling, and was for many years used by another bachelor friend of Pete's, Nils Nelson. Breaking with oxen was a slow process so they decided to sell the oxen and switch to horses. Each managed to obtain $133.00 for their teams and purchased a team of horses which cost them $200.00. Later when they had managed to seed a crop, and also put up some hay, they decided to buy some cattle.
The existance of their first log barn proved to be very short as a stray fire came along and burned it down. Another barn was constructed out of poplar logs by a neighbor, Hansel Johnson. The lumber for the roof was hauled from Grue's sawmill north of Miquelon Lake. This barn was standing until 1972 when a wind storm lowered it to the ground. Fred gave up on cattle and moved to his own quarter located just S.E of Pete's land.
Pete decided to turn again to Angus cattle, and they became his favorite breed. He was able to secure a government loan for his first sire and this gave him his start.
Wetaskiwin was still the closest town, some thirty five miles away across country. They had to cross on a ferry at Gwynne. The trip took them two days by foot, they had to carry all provisions strapped to their backs.
Some years later they were joined by another bachelor, a Mr. Orberg who settled on the quarter immediatly north of Fred and east of Pete.. Orberg also raised a considerable number of cattle but they were shorthorns.
Mr. Orberg became renowned throughout the Wilhelmina district for his great ability to dance but he always wore moccasins. Whenever he went to dances, and he rarely missed any, all the women young and old wanted to have at least one dance with him.
Peter died in 1948, Fred moved from his farm to Camrose, where he passed away several years later.
BRENDA, Harry and Annie - Harry and Annie Brenda and their three sons, John, Bill and Mike arrived at Strathcona in the spring of 1901 from Austria. They went with Anton Dragon to Sandy Lake where they spent a short time. In the fall of 1901 they came to the Dinant district, staying with the M. Sherbanuik family while arranging for a homestead. They moved to the NE-6-48-19-4.
They built a house with a sod roof and other farm buildings. Their closest neighbors were the George Rakowskis, one mile north and one mile west, the Anton Dragons, one mile north and the Czternostiks, one and a half miles north.
Harry Brenda worked for the C.P.R, building railroad in the mountains in B.C and on the line into Camrose. They were able to buy a cow so they had milk and were able to raise their own meat. Bill recalls his mother going to Rakowski and getting potatoes and using the peals as seed the first year.
Harry Brenda walked to Edmonton for supplies in the early years making the return trip in ten days to two weeks. That was the closest store.
Bill tells of the time when he was quite young, he was going to Czternostiks to visit the children. He walked and was nearing their place when , in a clearing between the trees ther were many tents set up. He walked closer and saw many Indians lying in the shade as it was a very hot day. Bill went carefully toward home and when he passed the last tent he ran all the way home. He learned later that a group of Indians was moving to another reserve, but he's sure there's no one that could have caught up with him that day.
Four gaughters and one son were born in Canada. There was no school at first, but when the dinant school was built the younger children attended there.
John Brenda married Agnes Koberniski from Holden. John operated the poolroom at the Dinant mine for a time. Later they operated a small store in Edmonton. Both passed away there.
Mike married Lena Luezcyn, they lived on the NW8-48-19-4 for some years. Later they moved to a farm at Viking. Mike passed away there, Lena still lives in Viking.
Annie the eldest daughter, married Lawrence Budynski and they moved to Rochester, New York where they still reside.
Maggie married Joe Strilchuk from Round Hill. They farmed there for many years before retiring to Camrose. Joe passed away there. Maggie still lives in Camrose.
Anton married Pauline Ewaschuk, they moved to Sangudo where Anton passed away.
Mary married Clarence Robollski. They moved to Los Angeles where they still live.
Tillie passed away at the age of 18. Annie Brenda senior passed away in about 1928.
Bill worked in the early years at the Rakowski mine, driving the horse to hoist the coal out of the pit. Later he worked at the Dinant mine.
Harry Brenda passed away in the 1940's. Bill continued to live on the family farm until about twenty years ago.
On Jan. 14, 1980, Bill celebrated his 85th birthday. He feels fairly well, has a sharp memory and still drives his car regularly out into the country to visit his old neighbors.
Tilley founded the legion in Kingman and was an active member of the Lutheran Church until his passing in June 1959.
Margaurite is married to Olaf Knutson and lives in Evansburg. Morley was killed in England in 1944 while serving his country in the air force. Jean is married and lives in Calgary with her family. Alberta is married to Ralph Urquhart and lives in Morinville. Patsy is married to Sam Wideman and lives in Beaverlodge. I have 19 grandchildren and 35 greatgranchildren and still live in Kingman.
BROCKMAN, Fritz - Fritz arrived in Dinant in 1954 and taught in the senior room for the 1954-55 and 1955-56 school terms. Margaret was four months old when we arrived and we lived in the teacherage beside the hall. Carl was born in Aug. 1955. We moved from Dinant to Rosalind in 1956, and to Wetaskiwin in 1965.
Margaret is now waiting for a placement with Canadian Universities Service overseas and carl is married and working with Northwestern Utilities in Red Deer.
Fritz died Jan. 5, 1972 and I am still residing in Wetaskiwin.
BROCK, Olav and Anne - Olav and Anne Brock came to this area in 1895, settling on SE-1/4-34-49-19-W4. This land is now owned by W. Simonson. At first the family lived in a log house that had a sod roof, later the father and sons built a new frame house.
Gustav, the youngest son and only surviving member of the family, remembers his father working in his blacksmith shop that had the old fashioned bellows to keep the fire hot. He also remembers that they had a fish trap in the creek north of the house. Fish were plentiful those days.
Before leaving the farm they had an auction sale of all machinery and stock. Gustav remembers that they had a white mare called "Fly". When she was sold he was sitting on her back. A sudden clap of thunder startled her so she suddenly jumped forward- he landed on the ground behind her.
In 1912 the family moved to Edmonton. Gunder, Thorfin, Torval, Ingred and Gustav were all at home during the first years there. Gunder went to school, university and normal school and became a teacher and taught for many years. He married Selma Barstad and they raised seven children, Berenice, Stanley, Olive, Roald, Leeroy, Willard and Evelyn. Selma passed away in the 1940's and Gunder in the 1950's.
Torval was overseas with the 202nd battalion in WWI. After his return he married Anna Solberg and lived in the homeplace in Edmonton. He worked for the C.N.R in Calder. They raised four children, Audrie, Norma, Lorraine and Eva. Torval passed away in 1949. Anna lived to be 82 and died in 1979 in Edmonton, Alberta.
Thorfin became a mechanical engineer and spent many years in lumber camps in British Columbia and Oregon. He settled in Oregon and became an evangelist in the Four Square Gospel Church. He married Mae Sutton and they worked together in the church. Thorfin passed away in 1955 in Portland Oregon.
Ingred married G. Lagergren, a barber in Edmonton. They had two children, Irene and Donald. They resided in Edmonton for many years. Gus became ill and passed away in Camrose, Alberta. Ingred entered the senior citizens Lodge in Hythe , Alberta. She passed away in 1977.
Irene married lavern Sorgaard and they live at La Glace, Alberta. Donald lives in Edmonton.
In 1918, Gustav and his parents went to Camrose, his father was janitor of Camrose Lutheran College and his mother as cook. Gustav got his education there. After his graduation in 1922 they went back to Edmonton where he attended normal school and graduated as a teacher. His teaching career stretched over 47 years. In 1937 he married Helen Larson of Cold Lake. They have a son and daughter, Winona and Larry. Since retirement in 1970 they have lived in Haney, B.C.
Olav and Anne Brock spent their last years at Lea Park, Alberta. He passed away in 1936 at 85 years of age. She passed away in 1943. They are buried in the pioneer cemetery in Lea Park. A daughter, Gustava, passed away while they were living on the farm and is buried in Bardo cemetery.
BRONNUM, Andrew A. - Trees! Trees! Trees! The abundance of trees was the greatest impression the Bronnum children had of their first home in Alberta, at Hay lakes. Margareth stood in the doorway of the kitchen, babies, Helen and Myron were playing inside. She calles" Amy, Haddon, Yngvar, Morgan, Neil, suppertime! " She couldn't see them but soon they came climbing down like monkeys from the trees in the yard. After the barren country side of North Dakota this was a real park for them. Little did they realize how many of those trees they would have to brush off to clear the land in the years to come.
Andrew A. Bronnum was born in Sandefjord, Norway in 1865, Margareth Landgraf in Skien, Norway in 1872. They met in Chicago where she was employed as a governess and he was attending the ministerial seminary at Morgan Park with some classes in Cleveland Ohio. He was ordained a Baptist Minister in Valley City, North Dakota, Apr.10, 1896.
Both returned to Norway and were married in Tistedalen in 1896, where he was to preach for two years in exchange for financing his education. There three oldest children were born there, Amy in 1899, Hadden in 1901 and Yngvar in 1902.
The family came back to Chicago in 1902, then on to Seattle where Morgan was born in 1904. In 1905 they moved to Valley City, North Dakota where Andrew was a Pastor in the Baptist church for three terms. Neil was born in 1906, Helen, 1909 in Valley City and Myron in 1911 in Berthold.
They left North Dakota for Camrose Oct. 12, 1912 where Martin Bergh had engaged Mr. Bronnum as colporteur and missionary for the British and foriegn Bible society which dealt with the circulation of the scriptures according to languages of the people. When the family arrived in Camrose they stayed a few days at the john Larson home.
In Andrew's work he travelled hundreds of miles in his enclosed vehicle to which was hitched his faithful gray and white horse, Rock. His "Bible wagon" was well known in the district.
During the spring of 1915 the family moved to the Lugerquist farm, 49-20 section 12 N.E. quarter which is now owned by Bob Bowick. The log house is still there but has been moved closer to the road. It was built farther west near first Miquelon Lake (now dried up) but at that time it came to the west fence of the quarter. They lived there until the spring of 1920 when they moved into the new house built the winter beforeon their own land, 49-20 section 14 N.E. Mr. Johnson was the carpenter.
Margareth had only a few years to enjoy her home as she died there May 15, 1923. She is buried in the Camrose cemetery. The big new home burned down in 1928 due to a faulty furnace.
During his years in Alberta Mr. Bronnum was in great demand as a speaker on spiritual matters, especially to new comers and the young people wherever they met, in halls, churches or homes. Many people still in the area can remember his visits to their chidhood homes where he spoke to them about religion( any denomination) and about world affairs. He had travelled a great deal as a young man to such far away places as Australia and New Zealand so was learned on many subjects. In those days with no radio, T.V, daily newspapers and few books, his discourses were of great value. Some persons remember prophecies he made which have come true.
His wife accompanied him on some of his outings and later he was joined by his daughter Amy, who played the organ and sang. He lived his last years at Amy's home in Seattle where he died in 1952. He is buried in Seattle.
AMY - Amy took a course from the Chautauqua school of nursing and worked in Miss Gulikson's Maternity Home in Camrose 1917. She also worked for Dr.s Smith and Norby. She helped bring several local people into the world including Floyd Erickson and his sister Florence. As a private nurse she worked south of Camrose at various times. Her last nursing duties were spent at home caring for her Mother during her final illness.
In the mid-twenties she took a trip to visit relatives in Seattle, met Lingaar Haugen and they married in 1925. They had two children, Audrey, who married William Butler in 1972. They live near Olympia Washington and have no children. Grant married the former Wilma Short, they have three children, Susan, James Andrew and Lori Anne. They all live in Seattle near Amy.
HELEN - Helen married Nels Jenson of Holden in 1927, they moved to Everett Washington in 1938 where his family lived. Their children are Loren, Carol, Arlene, Phyllis and Larry. The families of Arlene, Phyllis and Larry all live in Everett, Loren's in Texas and Carol's in Portland Oregon. Carol and her husband Charles Rawl have three children, Cathy, Julie and Brian. Loren and his wife Ella are parents of a daughter Lorna and a son Gary. Arlene and Bill Hehn have a daughter Joni and two sons, Billy and Mark. Phyllis and Mel Kirkhus have three girls, Shelly, Lisa and Paige. Larry and his wife Carolhave two girls, Brenda and Sarah. Tis adds up to 13 grandchildren plus two greatgrandchildren for Helen and Nels, quite a family!
HADDON and MYRON - They stayed on the home place in a small house that had been built after the big fire. Later they bought the quarter just west of them and have done mixed farming on both quarters ever since.
A few years ago Haddon bought a house from Milo Stutzman which was located east of the cemetery corner. It is a large house and after moving it the boys have worked hard to make it an attractive, warm and comfortable home.
YNGVAR - He left for Valhalla Center in 1928 where he stayed with the Chris Horte family, later buying his own land. He returned, settled in Kingman and bought the house formerly occupied by the Hugo Stromner family. In the early days it was the blacksmith Blyckert's home. When it burned down some years later he moved a house in from Round Hill and has made many improvments on it.
MORGAN - He went to Seattle in 1928 and Neil followed in 1929. They stayed at Amy and Lingaar's until they went into the merchant marines. Both worked on the liner H.F. Alexander for several years travelling up and down the west coast from Alaska to Mexico and once to Hawaii.
On one stop Myron visited Neil and his wife, Faye in Alameda , California. There he met Madelon Taylor Wolff who had one son, Paul. Within a few weeks he proposed and they were married on Oct. 12, 1936 in her mother's home. They lived in Alameda for ten years where he worked for the parks dept., but Morgan never got the Kingman area and people out of his system so he came back in 1946. He found a place to live and Madelon joined him in Dec. 1947. They bought the half section just north of the Bronnum home place from Myrtle Bjorgum and called it squirrel Hill.
Soon after that Paul was in the army in South Korea but they had no problem having children to the farm. Stana and Jimmy Taylor(Madelon's brother's children) were there for seven summers in a row. Among their friends were Bob Bowicks family and the Johanson's.
Later Their grandaughter Janet was there for 14 summers, she was aquainted with the whole district and many slumber parties were held on squirrel Hill. Her parents Boots and Paul Taylor, the Jensons from Everett, the Haugens from Seattle and the Bronnum's from California were frequent visitors.
Stana married Richard Lennox and their sons Andy, Chris and Jamie come all the way from Philadephia to visit. Janet says her grandparents must stay on the farm until her son Morgan, now 2 years old, is big enough to come!
In Oct. 1961 the community honoured Madelon and Morgan with lovely silver anniversary celebration in the Kingman Hall. In 1974 the Bronnum's sold the south quarter of squirrel Hill to David Wooley, they had sold the north quarter to Lyle Christianson some years before. They moved to just south of William Simonson where Olive Sutton used to live.
NEIL - We've left Neil for last because of one important item, his grandson Steven is the only one to carry on the Bronnum name ! He married Faye Rhoads of Oakland California in 1933. They lived in Alameda a few years, later moved to Oakland and operated a restaurant until they retired.
Their three children are, Norman Neil, who married Elfonda Sudweeks of Utah in 1959. They have 3 girls, Debra, Pam and Sherry and one boy, Steven. They all reside in Pasadena, Cal. Roberta Faye married Robert Pratt in 1956, they have 4 children, Billy, Randy, Kim and Mathew. The family made a trip to Kingman and stayed the summer in the same Lugerquist log house that Bronnums lived in when they first came to the area. The Pratt's live in Hayword, Cal. Lucille Ruth married James Vickery in 1971, they have one son, Luke and live in Oakland.
Neil died on Feb. 13, 1980 in Oakland, he would have been 74 years old on Feb. 21st.
Haddon, Yngvar and Myron have never married.
Some early memories - Skating on first Miquelon Lake was a favorite winter pastime. The young men would take a homemade snowplow pulled by horses to clear off the snow. Bonfires were blazing at different parts of the lake so the skaters went from one to another, meeting freinds and enjoying coffee and lunch. In 1921 Hadden and Ella Erga fell through the ice and almost drowned. Another sport was using a sled mounted on ice skates with a sail made from a horse blanket. These "ice boats" could reach quite a speed and morgan can remember crashing into the rocks with one.
In those days before cars, most of the horses were used for field work during the week, so the young people took their trips on foot. The brothers remember walkiong many miles to dance on Saturday nights, escorting the Bard girls home, then getting home themselves about five in the morning. Their father met them at the porch and said "My but you boys are up early to do your chores !". What else could they do ?
One day Neil and Morgan were skinning a skunk in the basement. When the scent came pouring up through the furnace vents Amy and Helen went down in a flash and that particular pursuit ended in a hurry.
The brothers built a slab hut in the bush which was their favorite hideout and that of visiting children. William Osness decided to open a store in it and sold gum, candy bars, even pins and needles. One day he took in $2.00 ! He became a fine salesman in later years.
When the parents left home the boys would hold cattle auctions. Haddon was the auctioneer. One boy would lead the calves around the corral and the others would do some spirited bidding. They remember little Louis Kozak (Jack's son) telling of early days when he would stand in the creek and catch fish with his bare hands. When the early settlers came they almost lived on fish and jackrabbits until they got established.
Early memories of Madelon - My first trip to Edmonton was in early Dec. 1947 on a day that everything was dazzling as if covered in tinsel, it was my first sight of hoarfrost. In those days the trains ran north through Kingman at 10 a.m on Friday arriving in Edmonton at noon. I became aquainted with fellow passengers, Millie Skoglund, Martha Stromner and Flo Peterkin, the station agents wife. We seperated in Edmonton to do our errands and met again for the return trip at five that evening. We had bought treats and offered them to the conductor who prompyly invited us back to the caboose where we sat on cream cans, crates and boxes sharing the crew's coffee.
Hadden ans Myron had a mare named Beauty and a cutter. One day Morgan borrowed them to take me for a drive west through the winding hills. Myron a few days later took me to Kingman and it seemed as if the whole world was enveloped in silence except for the jingle of the sleigh bells. In Kingman the children clustered around the horse and sleigh as there were so few rigs like it.
The first Christmas concert I attended in the Lutheran church was a unique experience, there was a tree, and for the first time, electric lights. I believe they were wired from the plant in Oliver Thompson's garage. Each child recieved a bag of candy and nuts and the adults a shiney apple. Being so far from my family I was quite homesick. Hazel Anderson, sitting next to me must have realized this and asked "Would you like to hold my baby?" That was Audrey about six months old.
Ella and MIke Fuglem came walking through the snow from their house to the west of us carrying a blooming geranium to brighten our home. Halloween I went to the Stromner's to enjoy the trick or treats, youngsters with their costumes and songs. I spent the day the school opened in Sept. at the Bowick's home to share in the childrens impressions and experiences with new classes, new teachers and new lunch boxes.
I couldn't begin to count the families with whom we have spent so many enjoyable hours during our 32 years here. You all know who you are. The sensitivity, warmth and friendliness of all the Kingman people cannot be equaled. BROWN, T. Milton - My father, Thomas Robert Brown, born in Chatham Ontario, in 1874, was advised by his doctor to leave factory work at Gary Carriage Works there and to take up farming. He arrived in Kingman Oct. 8, 1914 via Edmonton, with his wife Olga Rowena (nee Tompkins, born in 1871 in Blenheim, Ontario) and their children Annie Ione and myself, Thomas Milton, born in Chatham in 1901 and 1904 respectivly. They bought a quarter section homestead from the original homesteader, N.E 34-48-20, and were later to buy the C.P.R quarter to the north. The original price for the land was $11.00 an acre, not including the land under sloughs. There was on three acre slough and about a dozen other smaller ones.
Not more than an hour after we arrived, Clara Hovelson came out of the woods with a quart of milk for her new neighbors, and the next day Adolph or Sigvald Slind arrived with a pork roast. No one could ask for better neighbors.
Dad immediatly began work on a 10 by 20 ft. frame house, using cedar shiplap he brought from Edmonton. Until it was ready the family lived in a large tent with a board floor. After the house was finished we children continued to sleep in the tent.
When we arrived there were five acres of land suitable for immediate cultivation. We grew potatoes, oats, wheat and barley and gradually cleared the land and drained the sloughs. We eventually had 50 to 60 head of livestock.
During the first winter we trapped 100 to 125 muskrats, for which we recieved .35 cents each. There were plenty of coyotes, weasel and deer during the first years. In the first 2 years we caught 10 lynx. Rabbits could be seen everywhere as we drove along the roads. Sometimes while deer hunting we would take refuge in the haystacks. We'd burrow deep in and spend a comfortable night while outside it was - 40 degrees F. We often stuffed newspapers in our clothes to keep warm.
The dry years set in by 1918, the rodents and deer and the predators that fed on them became fewer and fewer, the lynx disappeared entirely.
We children started school at Pretty Hill, where Miss Roof was the teacher. The Roof's later moved to Spirit River. My mother taught in Pretty Hill in 1915 or 16 and taught until 1926 either there or in Brandland, Miquelon or Dinant schools. Ninety five percent of the children at Pretty Hill spoke Norwegian at recess and after school and so I had to learn to speak Norwegian to have friends.
As we grew up we would go to dances throughout the district. I remember the time Louis Erga, Malfrid Boness, Irene Horte and myself crossed Miquelon Lake to attend a dance at Miquelon school and returned by horse and cutter at - 15 or20 degrees, half frozen.
One Halloween we rode our horses to a party at the home of one of the Kingman school teachers and later took the horses and lariats and roped all the used machinery from behind Marek's Implement sales building and blocked the road through Kingman with them.
My sister Annie married John A. Johnson, son of Andreas Johnson who lived in the Armena area. Annie and John moved to Seattle and then to Chatham and Kapusskasing, Ont. where John died in 1976. Two of his sisters, Mrs. John Throndson and Mrs. Anna Watland have since passed away. Annie is still residing at #210, 55 Cedar St. Kapuskasing.
They had five children, Bobby who was killed in WW II, Vevle, who is married to Eric Carter in Kapuskasing, Iris Ann, who is married to Harry Johnston in Sault Ste. Marie, Bruce who died of Kidney disease, and Eldon who also lives with his family in Kapuskasing.
Milfrid Boness, who eventually married Louis Erga, introduced me to her friend Julia Marie Johnson, who's family lived in Donalda. Julia had come to teach at Coal Hill in 1925-26.
In Nov. of 1926, Mother, Dad and I sold the farm and left Kingman to return to the Chatham area where we operated a motel and service station in Wardsville. I married Julia Johnson in 1930 in Toronto. We later weathered the depression in the Kamloops area of British Columbia, and then Dad's ill health forced us to move to Duncan and Victoria on Vancouver Island. Dad died in 1941.
Mother, Jewel and i moved to Vancouver and our daughter Marilyn Rowena was born there in 1946.
In 1959 we moved to Calgary where Jewel taught and i worked for the Southern Institute of Technology. Mother died there in 1964 at the age of 92. Jewel had a berry aneurism and stroke in 1968 and was an invalid for the next seven years. On my retirement I moved to the Sunshine Coast in B.C, built a house,and brought Jewel to the area hospital, where she died in 1975. I have since remarried Elizabeth Meyer, who was in charge of the nursing program at Wagner College on Staten Island, New York. Marilyn is living in Vancouver.
We had monthly Luther league meeting for the three churches. At these meetings we usually had a special event such as a hayride, skating party, scavenger hunt, curling bonspiel or other games. Young people from all over attended so we had a good time.
After serving in other congregations father and mother retired in Edmonton. Father passed away mar. 21, 1979. Mother has remarried and is living in Sedgwick.
I'm living in Camrose, Sharon in Calgary, Dan in Surrey, B.C, Diana in St. Albert, Marilyn in Meeting Creek and Phil in Westlock, Alberta.
BUTCHARD, Alex - Hercules Alex Butchard, better known as "Butch" was born in Dundee, Scotland on Aug.11 1886. He came to Chicago Illinois as a small boy. After the death of his mother, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Danielson became his foster parents.
They left South Dakota by covered wagon with 20 horses and 35 head of cattle and drove all the way with Butch riding a pony to herd the cattle. They arrived in Dinant on Aug. !, 1901.
In 1910 he homesteaded at West Wingham, Alberta with his partner John Olson, on the same section of land. They played a game of cards to see where they should build the first shack. John built his 12 by 14 ft shack and Butch's later. After the shacks were built he started working for Olson Livery Barn driving settlers who came from the United States. He also worked on several railway construction gangs where he drove four horses hitched to a fresno. During the winter he was back on his homestead, stabled his horses in a tent and enjoyed himself by attending as many as five dances a week.
In 1913, while riding a horse on a slippery road they felland Butch sustained a badley broken leg. Due to a kind nursing sister it was not amputated, but he was hospitalized for over five months.
In Dec. 1916 and 1917 he hauled grain with four head of horses. It took seven hours and he stayed at an overnight stopping house where he got so lousy he had to stop along the route to take off his shirt and get rid of the extra company.
In 1917 Butch came back to Dinant to work at the Porter Brothers store. Many will remember Butch for his talent in imprsonating a part in Negro plays and songs. He was also the leader of the Dinant Jazz Band featuring homemade instruments.
In 1923 he went to Ardley to work for the Porter Bros., later he got work with the C.N.R. at .25 cents an hour.
In 1925 he married Marie Auvigne. After their baby daughter was born they moved to Alix where they lived for 11 years. Then they retired to Calgary where they owned a small confectionary store until 1946.
Butch died in 1972 at the age of 86. Marie is enjoying her golden years keeping busy with her three grandsons, only daughter Marie and son in law Ron Johnson. BUCKINGHAM, Graham and Linda - We were raised in Big River , Saskatchewan and were married Oct. 17, 1970. Our home was in Edmonton for eight years. The two children are Allan and Mark.
In the spring of 1978 we moved to this area S.E 36-49-20-W4. Graham has been employed at Labatts Alberta Brewery for 10 years.
BYBERG, Jons - Jons Byberg filed on the N.W.24-20-48 W4 in 1902. He did not like Canada and returned to Minnesota before he got title to his land.
The Fuglems then filed for it and lived there several years, then they moved closer to Miquelon Lake. The buildings were rented to families whose husbands were working at the Dinant coal mines. About 1920 the land was bought by Alec French.
CAIL, Bill - Bill married Barbara Dettling on Nov. 10, 1942. They went to British Columbia where Bill was commercial fishing for five years. They returned to Camrose and purchased a farm about three and one half miles south of Dinant where they built a new home and planted trees for a beautiful farmsite. Bill sold the farm to Keith Bjorgum and is now retired and living in Camrose. They have three children, all living in Edmonton.
CAIL, Frank - Frank Cail lived on SE 36 and after his parents' death owned the south half of section 36. Frank had boiler papers and the Cails had the first steamer in the district. They broke up a lot of land in the district and did custom threshing. With the advent of the gasoline engine they had a portable feed grinding outfit.
In 1905, Frank married Katherine Fetzner from Bittern Lake. They had five children, Margaret, Francis, John, Bill and Jessie.
They farmed until 1926 when Frank and George bought the Dinant store and were in business until 1929 when they sold to Bosman and returned to the farm. In 1930, Frank and family returned to the store until 1934 when they sold to Mr. Roney and went back to farming.
On Sept. 1, 1945 Frank passed away, Mrs. Cail moved to Edmonton. In 1946 she became house mother at Pembina Hall and had this position until 1952 when she became ill. She passed away April 12, 1954.
CAIL, George - George and Pearl Cail arrived in 1900 and homesteaded the NE 36-47-20. When Pearl's brother Fred Steven left they took over the northwest quarter. In 1926 they bought into the Dinant store and also the north half of section 2 from Sam Olson. In 1929, George sold all his property and moved to Walnut Creek, California.
They had four children. Ray died young and is buried in the old Camrose cemetery. Ethel married Ole Strid and they moved to the Peace River country. Alfred and Harry went with the folks to California. Harry was killed in a motorcycle accident, Alfred is married and lives in Oroville, California, where he is retired.
CAIL, John Jr.- John Cail took over his father's farm, the south half of section 36. In 1946 he married Vera Jaremchuk and they lived on the home place until 1962 when he sold the farm to Pat McCarthy and they lived with Vera's brother Joe for two years.
In 1964 they bought the Hanson farm, one mile north of Camrose, here they built a new house and landscaped the yard. In 1977 they sold this farm and bought the D. Dandel farm, east half of 36, and as soon as their new house was finished they moved back to Dinant.
They have three children, Jim married Hazel Olsen and they live on their farm near Camrose, Diane married Dennis Liedtke and lives in Sherwood Park, with two children, Katherine is still at home.
CAIL, John - John and Mary Ann Cail, with sons Frank and George and his wife Pearl, and Pearl's brother Fred Steven, left Cedar Rapids Iowa, U.S.A. in 1900, and immigrated to Alberta. They filed for a homestead on 36-47-20-4 each taking a quarter.
John passed away before there were any cemeterys in the area and was buried in the pasture on NE36. When Mary ann died she was buried in the old cemetery on the north edge of Camrose. John's body was later exhumed and buried beside her.
CAMPBELL, Adeline (Simonson) - Adeline Phyllis Simonson, daughter of Clarence and Christine Simonson was married to Elmer John Campbell on Aug. 9, 1945 at Abbotsford, British Columbia. Elmer was a resident of the Ferintosh community and they had met at Red Deer Lake Bible Camp in 1938.
Elmer served in the armed services from 1940 to 1945. When they married they settled on a farm in Ferintosh. Donna was born in 1948, (Ira) Dean in 1950 and (Ila) Joan in 1952. In 1954 Elmer re - enlisted with the air force and was stationed at Penhold. Colleen was born in Red Deer in 1956. Elmer was transferred to Camp Borden, Ontario in 1959 and back to Penhold in 1966. He retired in 1968, Elmer and Addie now reside in Red Deer.
Donna married Larry Galloway in 1970, and resides in Red Deer. They have two children, Shelly Lynne and Janelle Christine. Dean married Karyn Kean in 1971 in Scarborough , Ont.. They have two children, Christopher and Kylie Raelene and reside in Whitby, Ont. Joan married Barry Ellis in 1976 and they reside in Regina Saskatchewan. Colleen was married to Wayne Dick in 1978 and they live in Red Deer.
CAMPBELL, Angus - In the spring of 1906 Angus Campbell with his 17 year old son Donald, left Barrie Ont. to go west in search of land. They came to Daysland and spent the summer working on the railroad. Later in the summer Don filed on a homestead in the Round Hill area where he farmed all his life. He married Agnes Law and raised a family of 8 boys and 3 girls. The boys are, Albert, Don Jr., Tom, Robert (deceased), George, William, Stewart and Lester. The girls are Margaret, Mrs. Hugh Pike, Doreen, Mrs. Hilmar Haugen and Shirley, Mrs. Cecil Stensrud. Don's son Stewart still resides on this land. Many of Don's children and grandchildren still live in Round Hill and surrounding areas.
In the fall of 1906 Mother Mary Campbell and daughters Nellie, Bell, Lily, Myrtle and Grace arrived in Camrose. Three older daughters remained in Barrie. The first year Angus, Mary and the girls lived in a log shack with a sod roof on the Eimer farm, the land right across from Rudolph Undin's. In the winter, snow completly covered the shack and rabbits sat on the roof. Rabbits were plentiful and a good source of meat. Nellie carried the drinking water for a mile, snow was melted for other uses. The next years were spent on the Lars Peterson farm, the old Baasch place by Harley Schmidts, and the Peter Scramstad farm, later owned by Oscar Simonson and now Julius Turi.
In 1910 Angus purchased from Henry Simonson the land which Ross Flemming now owns. Mrs. Campbell passed away April 13, 1911 at the age of 55. Angus continued farming on this land until 1918 when it was sold. On his return from a trip to Ontario, he bought land from the C.P.R and lived in a small house. This land was later the home of Grace and Herman Lawson for many years. In later years Angus spent time with his children and their families and finally retired from the farm in 1930. Angus passed away in 1936.
The younger girls went to Farmington school. Because they lived so close to the school, teachers quite often boarded at the Campbell home.
Jim and Bob Fletcher, batchelors, were neighbors of the Campells. When threshing for the Fletcher's the men sometimes boarded at Campbells. They were brought there for dinner in a wagon box pulled by a team. One horse of the team had his tail tied to the whipple tree because thats the only way it would pull. Jim Fletcher was very clever and could outdo many teachers when it came to solving problems. Jim had property in Texas and was about to leave on business pertaining to this property when he gave Bob one dollar and told him to have a good time.
One Sunday, Fred Eddie , an Englishman came walking in from Deville looking for work. He was all dressed up but Mr. Campbell hired him. he didn't know much about horses but with help, drove the girls somewhere. When he came home he took the horses' bridles off before unhitching them so they ran away and went over a fence. WW I was being fought so being a patriotic Englishman, he enlisted and was killed at Vimy Ridge in 1917.
During the first world war, pie, shadow and box socials were common to help raise money for the Red Cross. At the Farmington school, Percy Sutton and Charlie Fergstad bid against each other to try to get Miss Clark's basket. They finally pooled their money and together paid $25.00 for her basket, beating out any other young hopefuls and sharing teacher's company.
Myrtle and Grace played basketball in the evenings in Kingman and Bardo and other communities, travelling by horseback. Grace remembers her first car ride with Sam Stirret in 1915 in an open Ford.
The first time Grace saw Roy Flemming he was getting water near the Kingman cemetery, driving a roan team hitched to a wagon. He was so shy he got on the other side of the wagon and all Grace and Myrtle could see was his curly red hair sticking out from under his cap. Roy was interested in these girls and Myrtle in particular so he took the neighbors (Laws), along and went visiting at the Campbell's. Mrs. Law was a pianist and Campbells had a piano. After a successful courtship Roy and Myrtle were married Dec. 21, 1916.
Herman Lawson , who lived near Bardo was interested in Grace. Scottee Brownlee lived at Bardo Station so the two men took a hand car and their two violins and came down the tracks, then walked to Campbell's for an evening of music. Eventually this paid off and Herman and Grace were married Dec. 4, 1918 and have celebrated their 61st. wedding anniversary. To this union were born four daughters and two sons. The daughters are Marie, Mrs. Russell Olson, Evelyn, Mrs. Leonard Stauffer, Nina, Mrs. Marvin Moen and Vivian, Mrs. Elmer Geoglin. The boys are Leonard and Wayne. Herman and Grace are presently residing at the Tofield Lodge.
Bell was a nurse at Miserocordia Hospital in Edmonton and died Nov. 1, 1918 as a result of the flu.
Lily married Sam Stirret and lived north of Kingman.
Nellie became a registered nurse and went by dog team to Dawsen City. She married George Smith and they lived in the Yukon for some years. They later moved to Vancouver where they both passed away.
CAMPBELL, Nora Evelyn (Simonson) - Nora Evelyn, youngest of the Simonson family was born in Kingman on Jan. 3, 1925. During the early years she was able to speak Swedish, Norwegian and English. In high school she was taught French and Latin. Nora and her friend Bernice (Asp) Lawson used to take long walks and foundmuch enjoyment conversing in these languages. Nora took her high school in Kingman and a secretarial course at a private commercial school in Camrose.
During the war years , due to gas rationing, the forms of entertainment were limited to long walks in the evening with friends and perhaps a short ride on the flatcar, which would coast down a long grade from Kingman, about two miles. The country children would then go home, leaving the town children to push the flatcar back to Kingman.
Nora married George Campbell from Ferintosh on July 23, 1946. They moved to the home farm where George and his father farmed in partnership. At this time George was raising purebred Hereford cattle and purebred swine.
George and Nora have three children, Randy, Vincent and Sandra. Randy was born Aug. 22, 1947. He completed his high school in New Norway following which he enrolled in N.A.I.T, completing a course in electronic technology. He then worked in the high Arctic involved in radio communications and navigational equipment for an oil exploration company. Randy presently is employed by Interprovincial Pipe lines in Edmonton as an electrician. Randy married Rita Frenche of St. Albert on Aug.22, 1970, they have three children, Trevor, Steven and Angela.
Vincent Roger was born on May 11, 1949. He took his public schooling in Ferintosh and began high school in New Norway. Because of his interest in farming and his father's failing health, Vin began farming full time. On June 19, 1976 he married Laurele Scott of Kelsey. They took up residence in Ferintosh from where he continued to farm as well as serving on the village council, and the Battle River Planning Commision. Upon the death of his father, Vincent and his family moved to the farm to continue the operation, thus being the third generation to farm there. Vincent and Laurele have two sons, Sheldon and Ian.
Sandra completed her high school studies in New Norway and then supplemented this by taking a secretarial course in Camrose. She has continued her career in the secretarial field since that time. Presently she is employed by Shortreed & Shoctor law firm as a real estate and conveyancing secretary.
After George's death, Nora left the farm home and now resides in Camrose.
CARLSON, John Ole - John was born at Stode Sweden in 1865. In 1887 he immigrated to Isouti County, Minnesota, U.S.A, and worked in lumber camps. In 1902 he arrived at Pretty Hill and filed on homestead N.E 24-48-19-4.
Mr. Carlson loved speed. He owned a lively outlaw team of horses and it was no problem for him to cover the 12 miles to Camrose in one hour.
In 1912 he married a widow, Lizzie Selin. She had one son, Waldemar who was rather sickly and died as a young man. For about two years after his marriage John worked elsewhere and rented his farm to August Eastberg. He returned to his farm until 1920 when it was sold to Mr. McPhedran. John had a sale and retired to Creston , B.C where he died in 1936.
CHARLIE the peddler - Charlie the peddlar was a familiar caller during the 1920's. He started his peddling career in 1917. He was a Syrian Jew, he peddled mostly woman's garments. He would get his goods from Zellers and the Hudsons Bay Company in Edmonton, they would give him all the hard to sell goods.
One day Jonas Grundberg drove him to Edmonton in his car. Charlie had bought a two quart jar of cream from a farmer to give to a friend. Unfortunatly he dropped the jar on the sidewalk of Jasper ave. A burly policeman made him clean up the mess right there.
Usually, he drove a single horse and buggy or sleigh. Once he did drive a team of horses but had a runaway going east of Bethlehem Church. They ran into a telephone pole and one horse was killed. This left him very shaken so he went back to the one horse outfit.
He was Jewish but could speak several languages. He usually had his favorite places to spend the night and would always give clothing as payment. He was kind and generous but cranky. Often he would say "Cranky karing alla hop", Cranky old women, the whole bunch. Oscar Selin built a caboose for Charlie to shield him from the stormy weather.
In 1943 Charlie was taken to Edmonton, a sick man. He left all his belongings at the Stanley Selin farm. A few days later he died. Some of his friends came and picked up his suitcases and goods. The horse was sold to Schlenders at New Serepta. The caboose is still at the Stanley Selin farm now owned by Ed Whitehouse.
CHARNBERG, Arthur - Mr. Charnberg moved into the Brandland district shortly after WW I and bought the N.E 1/4-17-49-20-W4 from the C.P.R. He worked hard at clearing and breaking part of his quarter section for grain, and utilized the rest for pasture.
In 1929 he decided to move to Valleyview where he filed on a homestead and farmed until his death at 63 years of age. He had married early in life but his young wife passed away shortly after. The following is quoted from his obituary.
"He faced the toil and hardship of life with industry and courage. He was a man of his word: and integrity was written on his face. His farm was well tended, his little home, neat and cheery. He had a brave smile for all. His friends were many, his enemies, none."
CHRISTENSON, Wm. - William Christenson was the son of Christian and Anna Bjerkeg. Mr. and Mrs. Bjerkeg moved from Oslo ,Norway to Ulen, Minnesota in 1882. Seven children accompanied their parents, George, Lena, Kari, Anna, Petra, Albert and Ole. Ethel, Ludwig, William, Nels and Hilda were born in Felton, Minnesota. This is in Clay County near Ulen.
The boys jointly agreed to a change of name and took the surname Christianson.
Christian Bjerkeg died in the United states in 1900 at the age of 52. His wife Anna then immigrated to Canada in 1902 with her children, Anna, Ethel, Ludwig, William, Nels and Hilda. George, Kari, Petra and Ole remained in the States.
Lena Bjerkeg married Simon Simonson in 1889 while still in the States. In 1894 they moved to Alberta and settled in the Willow Flats district later renamed Farmington.
Ethel married Edgar R. Powell and settled in the Waskatenau area.
Anna Jr. spent her life in Alberta and is buried in the Camrose cemetery.
Albert came to Alberta some years before 1900. He said he had helped to set up the first buildings on the Simon Simonson homestead. This is the quarter section directly west of Farmington school site. In later years Albert returned to the Kingman district and is buried in the Bardo cemetery.
Apon arriving in Alberta, Mrs. Anna Bjerkeg filed on homestead, NW 32-49-19-W4 that was later called the Wenger farm and now in 1979 is farmed by Stan Wenger. Ludwig took out homestead rights on the quarter section SW 32-49-19-W4 adjacent to his mother's quarter. This is now owned by Arthur Mostowich. William took out homestead rights on SE 6-50-19-W4 a short distance to the north.
Albert, Ludwig and Nels all entered the barbering profession. Ludwig and Nels spent most of their lives in Edmonton and are buried there.
In 1906 Mrs. Bjerkeg moved to Camrose where she lived until her death in about 1920.
William Christenson was born in Felton, Minnesota in 1886. While in the camrose area, he and Nels, along with Ole Madison worked as teamsters for a firm hauling sand and gravel from Round Hill to Camrose for construction of the Normal school (now Rosehaven).
At this time he met Tilda Moe who had been born in Grafton, North Dakota in 1892. Her parents were John and Marit moe. They had immigrated to North Dakota in 1882 from Trondhjem , Norway. They settled in what was called the Halley district later called Armena, near Camrose. Their home often became a resting place for immigrants and travellers going from Wetaskiwin to points north and east such as Kingman and Bardo.
William and Tilda were married in 1911 and then lived for a time in Edmonton where William worked in the construction industry. He participated in the early stages of the construction of structures such as the High Level bridge. Their daughter Agnes was born in Edmonton.
In 1913 they moved to the Kingman area and for a time lived on the Simon Simonson homestead directly west of the Farmington school. This farm was later farmed for many years by Wm. Wideman and now in 1979 is owned by Leonard Wideman. While living on this farm, two children, Gladys and Clifford were born.
In 1915, the Christenson family purchased the SW 1/4 21-49-19-W4, a quarter section which had belonged to the C.P.R. The farm home was built on this quarter. The 1/4 section directly north was purchased later. It had been owned by H.N. Ronning. The Farmington school site was in the NW corner of this 1/4.
Still later Mr. Christenson bought the land they often referred to as the school 1/4, SE 29-49-19-W4 diagonally across the road NW of the school. This land is now owned by Wyman and Wildie Christenson.
William and Tilda retired from farming in 1954 and moved to Camrose. In 1956 William died from injuries suffered in a car accident. Tilda passed away in Camrose in 1969. They are buried in the family plot in the Kingman cemetery.
During their lives in the Kingman district Mr. and Mrs. Christenson were active in church and community affairs. They were among the earliest members of the Salem Lutheran church in Kingman.
Mr. Christenson served as a councilor for the cornhill municipality for a number of years and for a time he was Reeve of the municipality which later became the county of Beaver.
He served on the board of the farmington school district and he also served on the board of the Kingman rural high school district #8. This was a high school formed by the cooperating districts of Kingman, Farmington, Coal Hill and Pretty Hill. It was an early attempt to provide local high school services in Kingman and surrounding area.
Members of the Christenson family were Agnes, Gladys, Clifford, Vineola, Raymond, Wyman, Elvin, Elsie, luella, Orliph, Ilo, William Jr. and Lyle.
Agnes married Simon Simonson - see Henry and Petra Simonson history. Clifford lived and farmed all his life in the Kingman district. In 1937, he married Vera Currie of Round Hill. They have five children, Phyllis (Mrs. Rupert Hazelgrubber), Lester, Glennice (Mrs. George Franklin), Colin and Colleen (Mrs. Terry Brasco). Clifford passed away in Oct. 1979.
Vineola married Doug Johnson and is living in Calgary. They have two daughters, Karen and Rhonda. See - Vineola Mae Johnson history.
Raymond was flying officer during the second world war. After his time in the service he was employed at the Comox Air Base on Vancouver Island. He is now retired and lives in Courtenay, B.C.
Wyman has lived and farmed in the kingman district all his life except 1941-46 when he served in the headquarters staff of the R.C.A.F. After his discharge he returned to farming and married Wildie Davis. To this union were born five children, Sharon, Daniel, Chris, Greg and Rollin.
Elvin was employed in Seismic Oil drilling as well as construction. He passed away in Nov. 1972.
Elsie married Earle Lowe, district agriculturist, at Barrhead, Alberta. They have a family of four, Ronald, Corrine, Allan and Iris.
Luella married Fred Coykendall (see Fred Coykendall history).
Orliph was born in 1927. He was the victim of an accidental drowning in 1957 while employed as a welder by the Johnny Bosch Valligo Logging Co. at Jervis Inlet near Vancouver.
Ilo married Lorraine Durand of Duhamel. They made their home in Berwyn, Alberta. They had a family of five, Dennis, Wayne, Rod, Howard and Marlayne. Ilo passed away in May, 1975. Bill and his wife Yvette live in Edmonton where Bill is employed at the C.I.L Plant.
Lyle and family also live in Edmonton. He is employed as a pipe inspector for Rae Inspection services.
In 1939 my wife to be arrived in the early morning of Dec.30th at Tofield, having left Peterborough, Ont. on Dec. 26th, travelling by train. We were married that evening in Ryley, Alberta and came back to the farm that was to be our home for a few years.
In April of 1941 twin sons were born to us in edmonton. We stayed on the farm until Oct. of that year, then went back to Peterborough, Ont. where we made our home for some years. During that time another son and daughter were born to us.
I am now retired and come back west from time to time to visit our daughter, Beverly Ford and family, now living in Sherwood Park. We also visit our twin sons Dale and family, living in Jasper, Alberta and Paul and his family living at Mt. Robson, B.C.
Our other son, Harvey and family live near us at Peterborough and keeps an eye on our place when we come west to visit family and friends. We surly enjoy our visits to the kingman, Bardo districts very much.
CINNAMON, Sam - Selma recieved her education in the Farmington school, Bardo High school and Camrose Lutheran College. In 1932 she married Sam Cinnamon who employed by the C.N.R. They lived in Kingman the first three years and then purchased a farm, NW 1/4 35-49-19-W4 and moved there.
Sam braved many winter blizzards and shovelled through many snowdrifts and sometimes had to leave the car and walk the remainder of the way to get to his work.In the summer he had muddy roads to contend with as there were no gravelled roads until the 1950's.
A neighbor, Lee Roth, said he would set his watch when he saw Sam going to work. For a number of years, the telephone operator would give one long ring at a set time every morning, otherwise she recieved to many calls asking for the correct time. There were not to many radios in the district in the early years, so the correct time was always a problem.
They were both active members in the Bardo Lutheran Church. Selma was also active in the Bardo Lutheran church women's organization.
Sam took early retirment form the C.N. after having worked for thirty- eight years. He farmed until his passing in 1971.
A daughter, Sharon, completed the family circle. She, together with her husband, Richard Paquin and children, Craig, Mark and shauna live on an acerage near Ardrossan. Sharon operates her own Beauty salon at home. Richard keeps busy with his trucking business.
COLE, Mark - Marcus Franklin Cole was born in Michigan and came to Canada in 1907, settling in the Lacombe area. On Mar. 31, 1914 he was married to Isabella Rhind Edwards French.
Shortly after, the first world war was declared and Mr. Cole enlisted in the Army. He took his training at the Sarcee Camp, which was just on the outskirts of Calgary. Mrs. Cole and new daughter Isabelle moved to Calgary and stayed there until the troops left for overseas. By this time another daughter, Florence was born. Mrs. Cole and girls then moved to Scotford to reside with her family until the war was over.
Whem Mr. Cole returned he was employed by Mann Farm but got itchy feet and a yen to have his own farm. Through the Soldier Settlement Board he purchased the Berg farm at Dinant, Alberta.
They left Scotford and arrived at Dinant in the early summer of 1919. They encountered problems with the old log house which was infested and had to be fumigated several times before it was remodled and made comfortable. The land was said to have been seeded that spring but all they had was a dandy crop of wild oats. Having no income from the farm and a lot of expenses, Alex French and Mr. Cole went to work in the Spencer Mine.
The following spring they seeded the summer fallow and cleared more land which was broken with an old Mogul tractor. Reaping only a limited amount of feed, they both returned to the mine for several winters. Progress was slow, either it was early frost, hail or dried out years.
They were blessed with their first son, Jack, born in Jan.1921. In Mar. 1923 they encountered the worst snowstorm, clogging all outlets except the railroad tracks. During that storm, Mrs. Cole gave birth to their third daughter, beatrice, born on Mar. 17 (ST. Patrick's Day).
July 20th, 1926, they had another son Herbert Franklin, and Lily Slind came to assist them. On Sept. 6th, 1929 they were blessed with another daughter, Christine Mary.
The following Feb. they lost their second son, Herbert and Reverand Martin Bergh conducted the service in their home.
The depression hit in 1929 and into the thirties. They had a steady stream of men looking for work or board. Everyone in the community had the same financial problems. Mrs. Cole assisted at births, sickness and deaths for many years. Mr. Cole was on call for sick animals and mechanical problems.
In Dec. 1936 they adopted a baby boy whom they named Cecil Cyril. He now resides in Victoria, British Columbia with his wife Blanche and four children.
The second world war broke out in 1939 and Jack enlisted with the Air Force. After graduating in Saskatoon as Pilot Officer, he was sent to Halifax, from there he left for overseas. Just as he had completed his flying mission he was asked to take another officer's sortie, as his wife was seriously ill at home in Ottawa. Those were his last words to us, we were notified that he was missing in action over France on June 7, 1944.
The farm work became too heavy for Mr. and Mrs. Cole and they decided to sell the farm, which was purchased by Oscar Erga in June ,1952. After the auction sale the family left on a trip to visit Mr. Cole's relatives in Michigan. They returned in the fall and bought a home in the Highlands district in Edmonton where they resided until their death. Mrs. Cole passed away in 1957 and Mark Cole on June 5, 1972 at the age of 82.
Their daughters, Isabella Myaalveit and Florence Burchynski live in Edmonton. Beatrice Arthur also of Edmonton, passed away on Aug 7, 1972. Christine Kent lives in Michigan, U.S.A.
COOPER, Inez Viola (Erickson) - My parents were Erik and Hedvig Erickson. We lived for a while in a house later occupied by the Asps, then above Severson's store. Most of those years were spent in the dwelling constructed by the lumber company on the corner beside Blyckert's blacksmith shop. The house is now owned by B. Ingram.
My growing up period in Kingman was happy and eventful, from age 6 to 17, and life was peaceful. We kept active and healthy in a variety of sports. Because there were few toys during the depression days , our imaginations were developed, which was good. We made our own fun ! There were play houses in the grove, mock weddings, hikes to Miquelon Lake, weiner roasts, singsongs, parlor games, school concerts and Hallowe'en parties.
Having always felt sentimental about "the lod home town", I still think of those long ago neighbors and friends as almost family. We students were fortunate also in being provided with some excellent teachers, two of whom later became university professors.
My education was completed in Edmonton with grade 12 and nurses training. Abook of peoms was published for me by a Philadalphia firm.
Because my three children, Sylvia, Alan and Louise were born and raised elsewhere and we have lived as far away as Vancouver Island, Quebec, Yukon and the Northwest territories, I will not elaborate.
Opportunities to visit Kingman have been few but the village of my childhood shall continue to be fondly remembered.
CORNELIUS, Bert & Florence - In 1930 the Bert Cornelius family moved to Dinant, where Bert worked in the coal mines for the following eight years. In the spring of 1938 they moved to a farm north west of Kingman where they lived until 1974. Bert Cornelius helped form the first telephone company in the area. It was named the MacLake telephone company after a small lake on the Cornelius farm. Stanley Dunham was secretary.
In 1974 , after selling the farm, Florence and Bert moved to an acerage in the Okanagan Valley, near Enderby, British Columbia. After Bert's health failed they moved to Delta where he passed away in 1979.
There were five children, Joy married Leo Kelm, a farmer in the Bruce area. They have three children.
Harvey married Esther Ringen. They live in Tofield where Harvey is a contractor, their three children are Arlin, Kevin and Taunya.
Eileen is married to Conrad Sutton and lives in British Columbia. Their children are Lynette, Noland, Alysha and Kerwin. Lynette married Lorne Yakimvotch and has two children. Noland married Anette Casper and has two children. Alysha works in Burnaby, and Kevin attends school.
Gwen married Rudolph Kozak and they had four children, Brenda, Valerie, Eldon and Colleen. Brenda married Bob Cronk, a painter , and has one child. Valerie is married to Mark Fowler, a trucker. Eldon is a painter and Colleen attends school. Rudolph was killed in a car accident in 1969. Gwen later married Tony Kozak.
Marilyn married Dave Howarth and lives in Vernon, B.C, they have two children, Wayne and Wanda.
Florence resides in North Delta, B.C. with her daughter Eileen and her husband Conrad.
CORNELIUS, John - John and Ida Cornelius and their family moved from Bittern Lake to Dinant in 1922. John bought SE 13 from Carl Rosland and worked the land as well as in the mine. When the mine closed they moved to Round Hill and sold their land to Pete Soroka.
They had eight children, Bert, Melville, Lawrence, Evelyn, Ina, Effie, Donald and Olonzo.
Their happy memories of Dinant are of how everyone enjoyed the dances the miners had in their homes, also the tennis, football and horshoe games they used to play. Not to be forgotten are the annual Christmas concerts the school children put on.
Ina Cornelius married Ray Weitzels and lives in Edmonton.
CORNELIUS, Lawrence - Lawrence Cornelius married Nan McGuire. He was a miner, and with the closure of the Dinant mine they moved to Round Hill. In 1942 they moved to Edson to farm. He also worked for a dairy, a service station, for the forestry and then the Dept. of highways until his retirement. He is now a pensioner.
They had five children, Roger works for Bailey Construction at Hinton. His wife Pauline (nee Marchand) drives the school bus. They have four children, Gary died in 1965, he had one child. Rodney and Lynn live in Edson where he works as a carpenter and at a dairy. They have two children. Shirley married Chris Becker a timber contracter, they have two children. Sharon married Shawn Hunter, a butcher in Save Rite store in Edson, they have one child.
CORNELIUS, Melville - Melville married Jean McGuire. He worked in the Dinant mine and when it closed they moved to Round Hill. In 1950 they moved to Edson, he is now a pensioner.
They had three children. Jeannie married George maggs who works for Johnson & Herbert Construction, she works in the Medical Center. They have four children. Robert works at a service station and has three children. Marjory married Wally Teeter, he works on an oil rig and they have two children.
CORNELIUS, Olonzo - Olonzo married Eunice Feddema. They live in Red Deer and have four children. Elaine is a secretary and Jan a law clerk in clerk in Calgary. Terry, an auto body mechanic and Lon , a truck driver live in Edmonton.
COYKENDALL, Fred & Luella - We, Fred and Luella (Christenson) were both born and raised in the Kingman district. We were both active in sports. Fred enjoyed playing hockey and ball. I was interested in playing ball and skating. We were married Nov. 20,1948. In 1949 we purchased a quarter of land from C.K. Heiberg, this farm was mostly brush. We drilled a well and built a house right in the midst of the brush so we had stumps right up to the door. The first year we had a very early winter. There was no siding, nor had they done any finishing on the inside of the house. We were putting on siding when it was twenty below zera. During the winter we did some finishing on the inside. In the spring we decided to get a brush cutter to do some brushing. We could only afford to do about fifteen acres. A few years later we hired a brush cutter from Black Nugget Coal Co., Dodds Alberta. Clare Paulson drove the machine and cut all the brush this time.
The next summer it was the breaking to be done, and all those roots and rocks to pick. We spent many days out on the breaking picking roots. It looked as if we were getting nowhere. We hired Hugo Hovelson to help us, he suggested that we should hire some Indians from Hobbema, Alberta. The next morning Fred went to Hobbema and hired six Indian men, they enjoyed working with Hugo. They found arrow heads and rocks that had been carved or chipped around the center to tie strips of buffalo hide around. The early Indian settlers used the rocks for clubs. They also found pieces of pemmican, some of the Indians had never seen it before.
When the roots were all picked and the land ready to seed we decided to grow a field of registered seed oats. Then there was another chore, roguing the field. When the children got older they would help us roguing the fields. We would take strips, so many feet apart and walk from one end of the field to the other. I remember one time when we had come to the end of the field, the children had their arms full. I said to them, "You sure found a lot of wild oats". The reply was, "we don't know what wild oats look like so we picked tame oats, otherwise you'd think we wern't doing any picking !" In the year 1968, we won both first prize and reserve champion with a sample of registered seed oats at the Toronto Royal Winter Fair. We also won first at the Calgary Seed Fair the same year. I guess it was because the children helped roguing the fields.
We have four children, Larry, Linda, Beverly and Fred. The children were a big help to us when they were growing up, each of them doing their share of the work. Especially when it came to the nights of hockey and ball games, everyone seemed able to work faster on those nights. Larry and Fred enjoyed ball and hockey as well as taking part in Boy Scouts. Linda and Beverly never wanted to miss a ball game. As each of them got older and taking part in these activities, Fred and i started playing ball again for a few years, after that we did some coaching. Fred coached the Ladies ball team for several years and I coached the Girls' bantam team.
Linda and Beverly took music lessons on the accordian for several years, they played at variety programs etc., sometimes by themselves, sometimes with others. They used to practice music at home, quite often with several other young people - one of them being Diane Palm who plays the guitar as well as sing. She became more and more interested in practicing , more so than the rest of them. When she couldn't get here any other way, Larry was willing to go get her. Then we realized as time went by that her eyes wern't so much on the music as they were on Larry. They were married May 29, 1971. They have three children, Roxanne, Rodney and Joel. Larry works on construction as well as farming.
Linda took her high school at Round Hill and took part in sports there too. Anything that went on there she wanted to go to it, and finally we discovered it wasn't so much what went on there, but who would be there - Larry Banack, whom she married on Oct. 6, 1973. They live in Calgary where Larry works for Otis Elevator Co. He installs elevators in the high rise buildings. Linda is asst. manager at the Bank of Montreal, not far from their home.
Beverly's hbby, for some time now has been photography. She worked in occupational therapy for some time at Bethany Hospital in Camrose, she now works in Calgary.
Fred lives in Calgary and is working for Otis elevator installing them in high rises. He was home farming for one year, then went back to Calgary. Both he and Beverly miss the country and their dogs, I guess the saying can go for both of them - "You can take the boy or girl from the country , but you can't take the country from them."
We enjoy our three grandchildren as they live in the same yard as we do. In the morning we get up and everything is quiet, then a little later we hear their little voices outside and it seems like everything comes to life.
One incident that happened many years ago, still amuses me, and I like to tell others about it. Fred doesn't think it's funny. Shortly after we moved here Fred built a log barn and we used it for pigs and cattle until we could afford better. Anyway, Fred had bought a load of cattle and they were trucked home during the night, it was dark when they were unloaded. The next morning he saw that one of the animals was sick so he came and asked me to help him chase it in to the barn to give it some medicine. As soon as we were done I went back to the house as the children were small and alone. I was afraid of all these new cattle, not knowing what they were like, so when i left the barn I shut the door with Fred still in there. I got into the house and did my mornings work. I was expecting Fred to come in soon as he said he was going for a load of coal right away. He never came and he never came so I thought he was busy with something else. I opened the house door to feed the dog and heard a faint cry calling, "Help, help." I listened. It seemed to be coming from the barn. Iran and when I got close enough I saw what I had done, I had locked him in. There was no way he could get out because I had bolted the door from the outside. I hesitatingly went to let him out, I had to inspite of what the consequenses may be. They were as I had anticipated. All the way back to the house he told me how inconsiderate I'd been, etc. etc. I know now how it felt to feel badly but amused at the same time. Needless to say, it was late in the afternoon before we got our load of coal.
CURRIE, Alfred & Ethel - In about 1910, Ethel Shave arrived in Kingman by train. Prior to leaving London, England, arrangments had been made regarding her position as school teacher for Farmington school. She was to be met by a school trustee. In London, the school trustee is dressed up like a gentleman. There was only one person at the station, a typical farmer. Ethel went up to him and said " I was to meet the trustee of Farmington school." Jim Fletcher said " I am the trustee of Farmington school."
For a time she boarded at Angus Campbells and later at Henry Suttons. Ethel taught in various schools, Kingman, Round Hill, Farmington, Coal Hill and Saturna Island, B.C. She was spare teacher in Camrose. She took over the Kingman school after Mr. Peterson's death.
She had a number of experiences coming here. The trip to Canada had been difficult due to a bad storm at sea. Many passengers were seasick and the trip took almost twoweeks. One day only Ethel and the captain were down for breakfast.
Canadian winters brought other experiences. Once she went out with wet hands on a cold winter day to hang clothes on the line and to her suprise, she found her hand had stuck to the doorknob. She had no previous experience with frsty door knobs and thought someone had left jam on it.
Apparently she wasn't out here very long before Alfred Currie came to call, waiting outside the school house on horseback. Alfred Currie and Ethel Shave were married on Jan. 21, 1913. They spent the night at the Cecil Hotel in Edmonton.
They settled on the NW 1/4-2-49-19-W4. This was the homestead Charles Currie had proved up prior to this.
To this union were born five children, three boys and two girls, William, Clifford, Raymond, Eileen and Vera.
Prior to Alfred's marriage, the S 1/2 6-50-20-W4 was used for putting up hay for cattle. Instead of hauling the hay home, they chased the cattle up there in the fall and fed them over the fence and cut a hole in the ice in the slough for water. This took only a short time.
The rest of the day was spent hunting, trapping, cooking and playing tricks when they could. The trapping consisted of coyotes, weasels and muskrats. One year while staying there they had trapped over six hundred rats. When I say they, this could be Charlie Fergstad, Percy Sutton, Harold and Alfred Currie. The place they lived was a log shack witha sod roof. Food was potatoes, bread, bush or snowshoe rabbits and bush partridge.
One time they had a rat all reasy for the pan when one of the boys brought in some game, so out went the rat. Alfred said"It's to bad because then we would have known what rat tasted like." The partridges were so plentiful at times that if they shot one, it had to be through the head or left till they could get close enough to shoot it that way. This made it much easier to clean also.
Alfred talked to a trapper that trapped years before him. He said when he sold furs in Edmonton he would start walking at night across country and arrive in the city in the morning, at daylight with his furs. He said once he stopped to make himself some tea he could see two pairs of eyes looking at him, so he went to see what it was and found out two timber wolves were following him. He also stated that when he trapped,he used to average a lynx a day.
One day for tricks, Alfred tied a 40-82 rifle to the ridge pole on the roof with a long string from the trigger to a crack in the log at the head of his bed. Shortly after retiring he would shoot it off. Due to the sod roof you couldn't tell where the shots came from. Harold Currie rode up on horseback one day and said "Whats the rifle doing on the roof?" Then the mystery was solved.
CURRIE, William & Lillian - William Alfred Currie married Lillian Sutton, daughter of James and Pearl Sutton in 1941. They moved to the original farm of Charles Currie, where they still reside. In time William took over all the Currie property, N 1/2-2-49-19-W4 and S 1/2-6-50-20-W4.
To this union, two sons were born, Ronald William in 1947 and Howard James in 1952.
Ronald, after graduating from high school, attended N.A.I.T. for two yeas and recieved an honor diploma in Chemical Research Technology. During his studies he won six achievment awards. Upon graduation in 1969 he began working in food chemistry at the University of Alberta. He has been involved in studies in meat science, the chemical resolution of the enantiomorphs of O.P. - DDT and the lipid biochemistry of muscle. He is at present the author of ten scientific papers and has been recognized for technical assistance in numerous other publications. He has taught dental hygiene biochemistry for the past five years at the U. of A. and has served as a temporary instructor at N.A.I.T. in Chemistry and Biochemistry in the spring of 1979. Since Apr. 1978 he has been enrolled as a provisional candidate for Ph. D. in food biochemistry and hoped to complete a residency requirement beginning this Sept. on an N.S.E.R.C. scholarship.
Ronald married Germaine Chawrun in Nov. 1969. In Oct. 1978 they adopted a daughter, Desiree Dawn. They have just moved into their new house in Edmonton which they began building in 1978.
Howard, after graduating from high school, decided to go out working, he worked at several jobs. One which he enjoyed was at the Redwater Fertilizer Plant. His health wouldn't permit him to continue there. He began restoring old cars and is doing very well at this. He is now working at a body shop and is apprenticing. He hopes to take a six week course soon in this line of work. He still works at home on cars in his spare time, he feels this is a challange and enjoys his work. Howard married Nadine Zilinski in May 1971, they have a son named Scott, born in Jan. 1973. They live on an acerage in the Thorhild area.
CURRIE, Charles & Alice - In the fall of 1905 Charles Currie bought NE 1/4-2-49-19-W4 from Mr. Moberly. In the spring of 1906 he bought a carload of machinery, horses, furniture and stopped at Daysland. They drove by compass to Round Hill across country, there were no fences.
The women came later in the year of 1906. Charlies wife Alice must have had a pioneer spirit because she left a modern home to come here and live in a log house.
Charlie came west because in 1903 lightning struck his barn and burnt it to the ground, including all the hay. This was in Glenco, Ontario. He would have had to go in debt to build a new barn but he was told he could sell out and buy land here and be debt free. So "Go west young man" is what he did.
In the spring of 1906 he bought a number of cattle, but because of the hard winter he lost most of them, as did many others.
In 1910 he had Peter Lee build a barn for him. This barn still exists on this same farm, it needs the shingles replaced for the first time, and a bit of repair on the barn itself is needed.
Charlie and Alice had two boys, Alfred and Harold, and three girls, Gladys, Vera and Dorothy. Gladys married a banker, F.S. Rowsell. Vera married George Shepherd. Dorothy married Alex Adams, Alfred married Ethel Shave and Harold married Ruby Shepherd.
CUTHBERT, Robert - Robert (Scotty) Cuthbert, born in 1870, came to Alberta from Ontario about 1910. He came because a close friend of his, Robert Gee had already moved here. He boarded with the Gee family for a while, then homesteaded northwest of woodlawn school. Later he purchased the quarter section SW 36-49-20-W4, now owned by Gustav Ekdahl.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) McKay, born in 1882, came to Alberta from Ontario a few years later and married Robert. They milked cows, raised chickens and pigs and also raised grain for a living.
Gustav Ekdahl purchased their farm around 1947 and at this time, five acres were subdivided out of the quarter for them to live on. Elizabeth resided in Rosehaven until she passed away in 1959. Robert moved to Kingman and lived in a small house east of the skating rink. He later resided in Rosehaven until he passed away in 1954, they are both burried in the Kingman cemetery.
Dahl, Kenneth O. - My 15 years as a teacher in the county fo camrose were, and have remained, the best years that i have spent in education. In all the three areas where I taught i had known most of the parents and their locales were also familiar to my childhood days.
Kingman was a rather large place at the time I started teaching. The enrolment was 125 to 150. My monthly paycheck the first year netted me $112.00 clear after $12.00 had been taken off for income tax. Entertainment consisted of periodic movies in the Kingman hall. During the winter months the community met to play carpet ball and the youngsters played hockey during the week and skating parties with music on the weekends. Then ther was the badminton club where the high school students were able to enjoy themselves as well. There were whist nights during the week in the winter time.
Dinant was a very close knit little community and most of the people, in one way or another seemed to be related. Recreational activities consisted of dances in the local hall and the famous Pete Sizer dinners. I especially remember the Mexican and the russian dinners which were held at the Sikstrom and Lefty Rosland homes. Norwegian whist was played weekly during the winter months. Neighbors would take turns hosting them. The enrollment at our two room school house was small, never numbering much more than 34 students. Therefore if some were missing, they were easily noticed, and missed because they were needed to make up the football, softball or hockey teams during lunch hours. Mr. Clarence Johns was our bus driver and his wife, the postmistress. When the station was vacated in my second year at Dinant there was only on light left in the hamlet, and that was the principal's. The school and the teacherage were served by a gas engine that ran the electric plant. This luxury enabled us to show films as part of our curriculum. In the high school, gr. 7 to 10, the periods per subject were 30 minutes a day.
The teaching was arranged so that grades7 and 10 would recieve 15 minutes each of formal teaching and instruction per subject, and grades8 and 9 would recieve the same the next day. The students learned how to study and were able to work independantly. Mrs. French did fantastic work with her 20 or so students and all learned to read and do arithmatic as well as learning other subjects.
In spite the size of the school and the limited instruction time that could be alloted to each grade, over the years the students have all done well. Their attainments have included a Ph. D., many nurses, grads from technical schools as well as grads from the University of Alberta, particularly in education. Dr. J.R Hambly was our school superintendant after the death of Mr. C. Robinson, who had been superintendant of not only all my teachers at Brandland, but also mine, during my 5 years at Kingman.
To move to Hay Lakes presented a great challange to me. The school was much larger with an enrollment of over 300, a staff of 13-15, and a principal's office which I was able to use very little, except after hours when I had to attend to my clerical work, as I had no secretary. Also any disciplinary cases were attended after school if they were serious. Most cases had to be dealt with either on the spot or during lunch hour because my teaching load was so heavy. The local pool hall was my biggest headache, especially during the mornings, and more so in the spring when students were tired of studying. However as usual the parents were very co-operative and understanding. It was at Hay Lakes that i had, for the first time, a comfortable teacherage with a propane furnace in the basement and of course Calgary power.
I was born to Martin and Kristine dahl at Dinant, Alberta. I moved with my parents to Brandland - Wilhelmina district in 1935. I attended Brandland school for grades 1 to 8, Kingman for grades 9 and 10 and Camrose high school for grades 11 and 12.
For 15 years I taught school in the county of Camrose, one year as a classroom teacher, four years as a vice principal, and 10 years as a principal. I taught at kingman, Dinant and Hay Lakes. Since then, I taught a year atCamrose Composite, was principal at David Thompson high school in Rocky Mountain school division, served as a biology instructor and Dept. head at a government collage in Nigeria, West Africa, with the Dept. of External Aid. I taught two summer sessions course to teachers in Tanzania, lectured one summer at Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, and took a team of administrators to Ghana in 1977 to hol seminars for principals. For three years I was vice principal at the Rimby high school, then assigned and was appointed principal of F.R. Haythorne in the county of Strathcona, where I still am. My bachelor of education as well as diploma in Educational Administration was obtained from the University of Alberta.
Dahl, Martin - Martin immigrated to Canada from Rissa, near Trondheim, Norway in early 1924, at the age of 18 1/2 years old. He was followed a few years later by his senior brother Isak, who in his later years made his home in the Miquelon district, a quarter mile from Paulson's store and is now a patient at Rosehaven in Camrose.
Martin Dahl arrived in Halifax after a very rough and tiresome sea trip which took a week, aboard the H.M. Bergensfjord, one of the two Norwegian passenger liners that travelled to America. After another long trip by train, he arrived in Camrose where he was met by John Hanson, who lived a short distance north of town.
Work was obtainable for those that wanted it but wages were very low. He spent his winters, until 1927, working in lumber camps located along the Canadian National Rupert line and at Blue River, British Columbia, where he cut ties for the railway. The winters were cold and the snow was abundant. During the summer and fall he took on brushing contracts in the Armena district, clearing many acres of land that are now open fields of grain. He worked for both Edward and George Lyseng. In the fall he worked with the steam threshing crews south of Calgary.
Kristine Moen Jorgenson, immigrated to Canada from Orta, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway via ship, the Stavangerfjord in May 1927, together with a friend and her older sister Anne, who later married John Sware and lived in Enilda, Alberta until her death in the late 60's. The raiway journy took them to Edmonton where they lodged for the night at the Immigrant Hotel, after a nights rest they continued their journey to Hay Lakes where they were met by Ole and Hans Sandbu, two brothers who had left Gudbrandsdalen years before. They had established their home just south of Joseph Lake. Today the farm is owned by a nephew, Ole Sandbu. After a brief stay at Sandbu's the three found work, Kristine at the George Hendrickson's at Armena.During the latter part of 1927 she worked for lawyer Cornielle in Camrose.
On Feb.6, 1928, Martin and Kristine were married in Camrose. They lived for a while on the Grue farm, the remains of the old house still stand as a reminder and are located just southwest of the Glen Grue homesite. Later in 1928 they moved to the Dinant district on a quarter section of land immediatly north across the road from the present lan Erga farm.
For five years this was home, and it was while living there that the first two children, Kenneth and Mildred were born. Kenneth was to be the only child to be delivered by a physician, Dr. F.A. Nordbye, of Camrose. Therefore he presented the largest delivery bill, $30.00. Mrs. Hendrickson of armena served as midwife when Mildred and Lloyd were born. Mrs. Cole from Dinant, delivered Lillian and Alice, and Norman and Jean were born at the Michelson Nursing Home in Edberg.
In 1936, the family moved to the brandland Wilhelmina district, where Martin and Kristine still live. They are semi-retired and live in their new home on SE 8-20-49-W4, built in 1969. This was formerly Hudson's Bay Co. land and had been previously occupied by the Mike Lickoch family. They had moved a mile north where they established their home on a C.P.R. quarter. The reasons for moving to this community were first of all, the closness to the school, the good soil for mixed farming and it was a Scandinavian community.
The community consisted mostly of Swedish settlers who had come from the Wilhelmina area in northern Sweden and others from southern Sweden, mainly via the U.S.A. There were also two familys of Ukranian origin and we were the only Norwegian family. Our first teacher was an Englishman, Mr. Thorn Hawken, and therefore as one could imagine encountered many difficulties when he tried to teach us english. At recess time and noon hour, the main language was Swedish.
The land was not easy to clear and there was a dense forest, the sloughs were rutted by muskrat runs or contained the remains of large beaver lodges that had to be dug up. Father broke all the sloughs with a wooden beamed walking plough pulled by horse. It was heavy going because the plough wanted to tip over as it passed over the rough ground.
During the war years father was employed as a millwright with the Sproat Lake Sawmills on Vancouver Island in order to supplement the family income. Mother and her troop of children managed the farm. The winters seemed so much colder and longer during those early years. There was much to do however, and there was always time for fun. There were the yearly school and Christmas concerts, a hockey rink was made yearly on the Johnson slough and nearly every winter there was a skiing and tobogganing afternoon on the Swanlund hill, young and old took time off to attend. In those days none seemed to break any bones while skiing etc.
The highlight of any year was Christmas because that was a particular time set aside for feasting and visiting. This was also a time when extra effort went into the preperation of tratitional ethnic dishes, which together with our customs made it a happy and memorable event. During the summer dances were held at Hugo's hall near first Miquelon Lake, at the "Bowrie" near the stores at third Miquelon Lake and at various barns throughout the neighborhood such as, Danielson's, A. Johnson's and A. Zeller's, they were wild and lively times.
Ours was a close knit communityand even though times were difficult the cooperation and concern that existed among the neighbors made all things possible. During the winter practically all of the young boys had traplines of their own and were able to earn their own spending money and buy sorely needed clothes. In the spring, the boys were off again to raid crow and magpie nests, since the eggs, carefully blown brought a half a cent apiece, and a pair of feet brought five cents when turned in at the depot in Camrose.
The girls were always busy with their handwork which was carefully put away for future use.
The saddest events that took place in our family were the passings of Dean, Norman's first born son and that of Lillian, who left three children, two boys and a girl. Alice took them into her home and later Lynn moved permanently into Norman's family and is completing her grade 10.
1979 was a highlight year when three grandchildren were born. In 1978 the Dahl's observed their 50th wedding anniversary.
Their children, Kenneth, a school administrator, resides in Edmonton. Mildred, a housewife. lives in the Kingman district. Norman, a laboratory technician with Sherrit Gordon mines, resides in Edmonton. Lillian, a house wife and bank employee at Treasury Branch, deceased, Aug. 1968. Alice, a housewife and employee of the Main Treasury Branch in Edmonton ,and Jean, also a house wife and employee of Main Treasury Branch, Edmonton.
DAHLEN , Pastor & Mrs. A. - We lived in the parsonage at Kingman from Dec. 1965 to Sept. 1967, serving the Kingman Lutheran Parish. Our children, Arlene, married to LaVerne Erickson, lives at Rosebud, Alberta where they are in charge of a retreat center and Christian High School.
Ruth, married to Chester Hafso lives at Sylvan Lake, Alberta, they have four children. Chester is a finishing carpenter.
Daniel is married to Christine Rose, they have two children and live in Edmonton. Danny is co-owner of Layfield plastics.
We live in Camrose and pastor Faith Chapel, we also travel some in evangelism.
DAHLEN, Axel - Axel Dahlen, born Aug. 26, 1900, came to Canada from Sweden with his stepfather Paulsus Matson in 1923. They purchased a quarter of Canadian Pacifac Railway land which he farmed until 1966. It was then purchased by Ed Nordin.
Before retiring to Camrose he spent a great deal of time with his niece, Mrs. Gordon Simonson. Being a proficient carpenter, he built a playhouse for the Simonson children. It turned out so well, that he lived in it during the summer months, for four years.
Due to failing health, he moved to the Bethany Sunset Home in Camrose, where he now resides.
DANDELL, Carl & Wilhelmena - In 1920, Carl Dandell purchsed NE 35-48-20-4, one and a half miles south of Dinant. He and his young son, David came here from Sardis, B.C. in the spring to begin farming. David returned to Sardis in the fall but his father remained to build a house in preperation to bring his family to Alberta the next year. The two older daughters, Lillie and Helen, remained in Sardis. Lillie married David Stinton of Wyoming and moved there, where she still lives. Helen married Earl Brett of Chilliwack. She is now deceased. Carl's wife, Wilhelmena and their children, Esther, David and Morris came to join him as planned. Some years after, a nephew, Martin Knorring came from Sweden to live with the family and the Dinant farm became their permanent home. Carl Dandell died at the age of 55 as a result of an accident. Then Mrs. Dandell, Martin and Morris decided to move to Chilliwack, David purchased the farm and rented it out. Mrs. Dandell lived in Chilliwack until her death in 1953. Martin Knorring, now retired, and his wife still live there.
Esther attended the Camrose Lutheran Collage and then worked for Dr. Murray, a Camrose Dentist in his office. Later she returned to B.C. and married Hubert Vanderhoof. They have one son, Rod, they moved to Seattle and lived there until Hubert's death six years ago. Esther then went to Springfield, Virginia to be near her son and his family, and lives there now.
David attended Camrose Lutheran College for one year and continued his education at Camrose High and Camrose Normal schools. He taught at the Sea and Dinant schools. He graduated from the University of Alberta in 1931 with a B.Sc. degree. He then joined the staff of Red Deer school and eventually became principal. He held this position until his death from a heart attack in 1961. He married Gertrude Mohler of Ohaton in 1934 and they have three children, Margaret, Phyllis and Eric. During his teaching career, David still maintained a keen interest in his farm and always spent a portion of his summer holidays there.
Morris was in the army in WWII. After his discharge he attended S.A.I.T. in Calgary and then was employed by Alberta Government Telephones. He married Evelyn Jamieson of Toronto and they made their home in Calgary. They have two children, Irene and David. Both Morris and his wife are now deceased.
Carl and Wilhelmena Dandell were born in Sweden and did not immigrate to Canada until after the birth of their two oldest daughters. They were pleased with their country of choice and were especially glad that they had come to Dinant where they found congenial and friendly neighbors. Among those were the George and Frank Cail families with whom they maintained a life long friendship. It seems fitting that, when the time came to sell the Dandell farm, it was bought by Johnny Cail and his wife Vera, who now make it their home.
DANIELSON, Albert - Albert homesteaded the quarter section SW 30-49-19-W4 in the early 1900's. The log house he built on the farm still stands.
He milked cows and sold cream. He sold his land to Adolph Soma and moved to kingman, the present owner of that land is John Maunder.
His home in Kingman was the little house which is situated between the Asp home and what used to be the Asp Brother's Service Station. He lived there from 1929 till his death in 1936.
DANIELSON, Jacob - It was the spring of 1901 and conditions had reached a climax. Drought was wide spread and the area around Mobridge South Dakota was no exception. The first grain seeded did not sprout. Eyes turned northward to the land of promise. Many farmers sold out and started their trek to Canada.
Jacob and Caspara Danielson and their foster son Hercules Butchard together with the Andrew Johnson family, left MObridge in the middle of June 1901, in covered wagons, hauling their household effects and machinery. Hercules rode horseback to herd the 35 head of cattle and 20 horses along the route.
At Portal they loaded their possesions on an immigrant train and shipped to Wetaskiwin, arriving there on July 31, 1901. Here it rained and rained so there was a delay in finding their hometead. They lost all their horses except old Prince to swamp fever.
They were encouraged to squat on some land near Armena where they built a log house and put up hay for the winter. In the spring of 1902 they filed on NE22-48-20 and built a two story log house.
Their life of pioneering proved difficult. The rainy years had begun and there were mosquitos and water everywhere.. Their first load of hay was hauled by old Prince and a steer hitched along side. Jacob led the steer and Hercules led Prince. When the steer was broken in, they broke another for their first team of oxen. Without proper machinery and poor horse power, putting up enough dry hay and breaking enough land to prove up the homestead must have ben very trying.
Pauline Ford came to make her home with them. She rode horseback and attended the Pretty Hill school until 1919. The SE 27-48-20- was known as her quarter. This was later purchased by Martin Dahl.
Caspara passed away in Feb. 1921 after a lingering illness. Jacob was now alone and carried on with farming, but his efforts were not very rewarding. When the old age penson was $25.00 a month became available it proved to be a Godsend to him. He helped in the threshing run even when very old, usually hauling grain because his feet bothered him too much to haul bundles. This was the highlight of the years for him. There was fun and companionship with the crew and good and nourishing food, but the hard work caused him some severe nose bleeds.
He was quite a humorist, this one example. One evening he came in late for supper after unloading his grain. He walked to the center of the room all dusty and dirty, took off his cap and said, " Mrs. Meegelson, do you have a good strong comb ? I want to comb my hair." He always claimed he had so many brains, they had grown over his hair and it took a good strong comb to get the hair dug up.
The neighborhood children were always happy to see him come for a visit in his buggy and team of horses. At about 80 years old he sold his land to Nels Lyseng and went to Winfield to start over again. He was found in the hay field in Aug.1932 on his back, with his hands behind his head, cap over his eyes, taking his last sleep.
Jacob Danielson's original homestead is now owned by Allen Erga.
DANIELSON, Jonas A. - Jonas and Monica Danielson came from Sweden to Alberta Canada in 1904 with three children, Hildegard, Alex and Edith. Three other children, Henry, Emmy and Nanny were born in Canada.
Jonas homesteaded 6 miles east of Hay Lakes, SE 6-49-20-W4M, where he built a log house, enlarging it later on. In a few years he bought the SW 6-49-20-W4M and later C.P.R land east of Brandland school. This he sold to Thor Johnson after he retired. After Mr. Danielson's death the homestead was sold to Norman Selin, who presently farms it.
We all attended Brandland school until it was burned down by lightning, then went to school at the Wilhelmina church until a new school was built. My oldest sister Hildegard now lives in a senior citizens high rise apartment in Edmonton, Alberta. Henry is retired in Vancouver B.C. Edith suffers from arthritis and is in a nursing home in Wetaskiwin Alberta. I (Emmy) farmed three miles east of Hay Lakes, but when my husband Einar Broen died, 11 years ago, I sold the farm to my son Dennis. He farms it presently. Alex died at the age of 26 and Nanny at 1 and a 1/2 years. I bought a home in Edmonton, where I now live.
DASHCAVICH, Terry F. - My story will be brief as my association with Kingman is very limited. After three years of teaching experience I became the teaching principal of Kingman school in 1978. The school is very special to me as ot represents my first principalship, and I'm proud to be associated with a scholl that has such a long history. Kingman itself is a nice quiet place to live and only an hour away from my hometown of Edmonton. I was born and raised there but I have lived in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Estevan, Lomond and Rosemary (the latter two places are in southern Alberta) during the years of my University training and teaching experience.
DAVIDSON, Gladys (Grundberg) - I, Gladys Audrey Davidson, nee Grundberg, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Jonas E. Grundberg was born at the farm home in Dinant. I attended Dinant school taking grades1 to 3 with Mrs. Cynthia (Peterson) Sparby: grade 4 with Mr. Simon Simonson and grades 5 to 10 with Mr. Percy Simonson> in both grades 9 and 10, I was initiated into a musical role, given the responsibility and privilege to instruct and train fellow students in musical entries in the camrose Musical Festival. Grades 11 and 12 and Commerce were taken at Camrose Lutheran College. In 1942 I enrolled at the Edmonton Normal school, which because of war time conditions was a 'crash" training program of five months. For the remainder of the year I was sent to teach at a one room school in Peace River country, just north of North Star.
Returning to Camrose district, I taught at Baldenstein and Duhamel schools. I was married to Arthur Davidson who had returned from the armed forces and was farming with his parents north of Throndson school, now the Stavne farm.
We moved out to New Westminister, B.C. but on returning"home" for Christmas I was asked to teach at the Swea school until the end of June. Then I was called to teach at my home school, Dinant Jr. Room for the term of 1946-47. Upon completion of that term I returned to the coast and have since resided in Burnaby, B.C.
Aurthur was employed with the federal government in the Unemployment Insurance Commision until he passed away in 1972, after a year of illness in the Shaughnessy Military Hospital.
Gary, my oldest, is married and he and his wife Patricia haveone son Jeffry and a daughter Kylla. Gary is an electrician at Scott Paper. Heather, my daughter is also a teacher, married to William Gilbertson, an accountant, and they have a son Scott. Both Gary and Heather have their own homes in Surrey, B.C. Glen, my youngest son is still at home, attending college, majoring in science courses.
I continue to do substitute teaching in Burnaby, and I am also an organist and choir director at the church we attend.
DETTWILER, Joe & Elizabeth - DETTWILER, Noah & Mary - My oldest brother, Noah, his wife and daughter Ruth, came to Youngstown, Alberta in the spring of1910 from northern Michigan, believing it would improve his asthmatic condition.
Mother, father, two brothers, one sister and her family and i followed in the fall and homesteaded 11 miles north of Youngstown. In 1921 Noah, Mary and eight children were forced out of the area by drought and came to Kingman looking for work. Later my parents and I followed for the same reason. My brother Aaron and family returned to Michigan. Brother Soloman had died in 1912 at the age of 21. Sister Amanda Wilson and family had returned to the States for health reasons.
Our first home was on a farm owned by Ole Bjorgum. In 1924 we moved into the village of Kingman. Noah found plenty of work delivering the rural mail. He opened a shoe repair shop near the station. With the help of his wife he did draying until we settled in Kingman, then father became the drayman.
In 1929 Noah and family moved to Denver, Colorado, believing the higher altitude might relieve his asthma. In 1964 Mary died and Noah had a stroke nine years later. My brother Aaron died in 1961.
We continued to live in Kingman with father doing the draying business until his grandson, Shirley Wilson took it over in 1935. Father built houses and barns and many wooden stock water tanks. Father and I did janitor work at the school for part of a term. In winter he often opened the streets with his homemade snowplow pulled by a team of horses.
My parents celebrated their golden anniversary in 1932 at Salem Lutheran Church and Kingman Hall. On Nov. 9, 1040 my father passed away at 80 years of age. Mother died three years later at age 82. I was her daily nurse from Jan. to Oct. but I did have a lady to help me the last month.
I lived alone on the place I inherited. I sold my three west lots to Albin Anderson who built a house there. I often babysat Randy and Audrey, Hazel and Albin's children. I babysat for other people too.
Mother, father and I attended Salem Menninite church in our model T car. When I couldn't get there I would attend the Lutheran and Baptist churches in town.
In 1952 I sold my house to Johnny Johnson. At present Mr. & Mrs. Trevor Hamon own the home. I left for Toronto where people from Preston met me and took me to the Mennonite Fairview Home, where I've made my home since leaving Kingman.
I am happy to have Noah's eldest granddaughter living nearby. His daughter Edna Mellinger lives in Gulfport, Miss. U.S.A. She and her husband were in Kingman in 1977 for a visit. They have 5 children, Alice (Dettwiler) Zellers lives in Bakersfield, California. She is a widow and has no family. The other children of Noah and Mary are in various places in the States.
I try to keep in touch with Kingman by writing letters, reading the Camrose Canadian and phoning.
Malinda is remembered by Kingman residents for the times she walked over to the school to give the children Sunday school papers. For safety's sake, in the winter when it was icey she had spurs, a hob nail device she had attached to her shoes.
DEVERELL, Mrs. Margaret Smith - by Dorothy Lyseng -Margaret Watson Smith was born May 11, 1871, in Ailsa Craig, near Parkhill Ontario. She was one of 12 children and a twin, her twin sister was Agnes Wilson Smith. Margaret Smith became a teacher and taught in several locations in Ontario. In 1902 she moved west to Duhamel, Alberta to help her brother George Peter Smith who had bought the store there in 1901. Her mother , Hanna Smith, her twin Agnes and youngest brother Norman came with her at that time.
In due time Margaret married Mr. Alfred John SeymourDeverell on Mar. 3, 1904. Mr. Deverell had come from Tetsworth England, had been educated at Oxford and had come to Canada in 1896. He homesteaded in the Heather brae district south of Camrose. They settled on the homestead and raised four children, Fred, Dorothy, Jessie (Marion) and Christine. In 1923 the family moved to Camrose so the older children could attend high school and the Normal school. The depression was beginning so Mrs. Deverell kept boarders for a few years. In the spring of1925 she taught at the Sounding Lake school near Monitor until it closed in the fall. In Sept. 1927 she taught at the Farmington school at Kingman for one year 1927-28. The youngest child, Christine was with her on both these teaching experiences. The family then moved to Edmonton. Mrs. Deverell died in Edmonton on June 17, 1942 and is buried in the 107 Ave. cemetery. She loved her family and her Lord and was a faithful member of the Presbyterian Church as long as she lived.
ANDERSON, ELIS ANDREAS - Elis Anderson was born in Vesterbotten , Sweden on Jan. 10, 1889 and was Baptized and Confirmed in the Wilhelmina Church in Sweden. He immigrated to Camrose, Alberta in Dec. of 1909.
ANDERSON, NILS JOHN - Nils John Anderson "Happy" was born in Sweden in Oct. 1897. He was an orphan and was raised by his uncle. "Happy" was a very young boy when they immigrated to Canada and settled in the Miquelon Lake area.
ANDERSON, Mrs Ruth, Agnes - At the age of 15, I left my home with my parents Mr. and Mrs. Nels Johnson, to make my living as a house maid in Tofield. I did not stay there very long as there was an opening in the Post Office in Kingman and I accepted the offer. Iworked there till my marriage to David Anderson in Nov. 1915.
ASP Family - Alex and Ingeborg with their six children left New Norway, Alberta to reside in Kingman, in the spring of 1928. Alex was the agent for United Grain Growers Ltd. Alex purchased the home from the company, and the family lived there till the summer of 1930 when they moved to Metiskow, Hardisty, and Alliance, before returning in 1935 to stay. Gertrude did not go with them, she went to Calgary. Due to health reasons Alex retired from the U.G.G in 1936.
ASP, Bertil - I came to Kingman in 1928 and left for Hardisty and Allience in 1930. In 1935 I returned and have been here ever since.
BERG, Albert - Albert came from Wisconsin around1911 or 12. He farmed north east of Dinant. In the winter of 1914 he married Victoria Anderson, she had emigrated from Wilhelmina Sweden with her brother Frank in 1912. Victoria's parents, Anders and Katerine Kristofferson, had immigrated to Canada some years earlier. Their Father had borrowed money from Knut Lyseng of Armena to pay for their trip. On arriving in Canada Victoria worked for the Lyseng family to repay the loan.
BERGH, Joseph Spurgeon - Before I was discharged from the Army we had to fill out a form stating what occupation we wished to follow when we got home. As I knew farming took precedence over the other occupations because of shortages of food in the world I decided to get a farm through the Soldier settlement board. My Father who was a Scandinavian Baptist Minister was well aquainted with the Kingman area, and as this quarter section was available through the soldier settlement board, I purchased the S.W. 31-48-20-W4. I settled there in July 1919. A bachelor named Peterson had sold this 1/4 section to the S.S.B, there were 20 acres broken on this quarter.
BINGHAM, Edith Smith- I was nine years of age when my Father purchased a farm east of Kingman. It consisted of a quarter section of land, a three room log house, a log barn and log fenced corrals.
BJORGUM, Merlin Tilman - Merlin, the son of Martin and Tilda Bjorgum was born in Kingman in 1919. They resided on a farm three miles southwest of Kingman. He attended school aat Pretty Hill, Kingman and Camrose Lutheran College.
BJORGUM, Ovel - In 1952, Ovel Bjorgum was united in marriage to Mary Harrison of Dafoe, Saskatchewan in the Anglican church in Red Deer. Mary graduated as a Registered Nurse from the Humboldt Hospital in 1940. Mary and Ovel settled on the old homestead and raised four children, Mary Francis, Elizabeth, Enid and Ovel. The children attended Sunday School and were confirmed in the Salem Lutheran Church, Kingman. They attended Kingman school and the Camrose Composite High School.
BLYCKERT, Carl Rickard (by Ruth Monson)- Mr. and Mrs. Carl Rickard Blyckert and their two daughters, Ruth and Helen left their home in Stockholm, Sweden on May 1, 1911. They arrived in Ponoka on May 20 in search of a new life in a new country.
BONESS, Palmer - I came to Kingman in the fall of 1917 with the folks, three sisters and a brother hans. In 1931 my brother Glen was born.
BREWER, Tilley and Edna - Tilly and I were born and raised in New Brunswick. We moved out west in 1926 to Manville, Alberta. We had five children, Margaurite and Morley, born in New Brunswick. Jean, Alberta, and Patsy were born in Manville. From Manville we moved to Whitecourt. In 1939 Tilley joined the Army and served 3 years before being medically discharged. In the fall of 1943 we moved to Kingman where we managed the Beaver Lumber yard. We lived in the old Johnson house on main street until we built the new house beside the lumber yard in 1949.
BUE, Pastor Sigmund and Connie - Our family came from Lake Alma Saskatchewan to the Salem Lutheran Church in Kingman in 1961. Our father was Pastor for Round Hill and Bardo also. We lived in the house just north of Mabel Simonson.
CINNAMON, Arnold W. - I came to the Kingman, Bardo district in the spring of 1936, helping on my brother Sam Cinnamon's farm for a few years.
