WEDDINGS
Nora and I held our wedding at McDougall United church in 1957. The officiating clergy were the Rev. Donald Bruce MacDonald, the minister at McDougall, and the Rev. Harry Peters, Nora’s uncle.
We later had a reception at the Corona Hotel in Edmonton which was attended by most of the guests at the wedding.
On our on our honeymoon we flew to Toronto and picked up a new car in Oakville that had been purchased through Nora’s fathers contacts in the auto sales business in Edmonton. We drove back to Edmonton in the new car after touring around in Ontario for a few days.
THE FIRST HOUSE
After living in an apartment for a few months, we purchased a new house in the Forest Heights area of Edmonton and settled into typical family life in the district. Later, I built a double garage to accommodate our two cars. We lived there for six years, until Dale started school. Since there was no convenient school in the neighborhood, we moved to another house in the Holyrood area. We continued to live there until we moved to the Churchill, a seniors’ apartment building in downtown Edmonton, in 2008.
BIRTHS OF OUR CHILDREN
Nora continued to work until mid-1958; she stopped work at that point because she was pregnant. The first child, Dale, was a difficult birth with protracted labor. However, he was a healthy child with no serious problems.
Our daughter, Cindy, was born with less difficulty. The principal problem was that I was involved in a theatrical production, in addition to my work, at the time and could not spend any time at the hospital.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY ON TV
The local television station, CFRN TV, had a program which provided a birthday party for children that was shown on TV. We took advantage of this for Dale’s sixth birthday.
When the host introduced the group, Cindy spoke up and said, “My name is Cindy”. The host seemingly recognized that she could be helpful in carrying out the program. Consequently, he turned the microphone over to her. She rose to the occasion and said, “This is my brother Dale, it’s his sixth birthday. This is Bobby, he lives next door. The others are Tommy and Larry, they live across the street. They are all in the same class at school. I am only four years old, so I don’t go to school. Larry’s sister comes to our house to babysit us. She likes to come because she likes to watch TV and they have no TV at their house”.
THE PERSISTENT LISTENER
When I came home from work, I liked to flake out on the chesterfield before supper. Cindy took advantage of this opportunity to sit on my chest, story book in hand, and demand, “Read me a story”. There was no easy way out, so I would read to her until supper was ready. The fact that she had heard the same story the day before didn’t matter; it was the attention that she wanted.
TYPING IS UNECESSARY
The schools provided the opportunity to learn typing. We tried to convince Dale that he should take advantage of this. However, he insisted, “I’m going to have a secretary to do my typing. I don’t need to learn how to type myself.” Despite the fact that most of his work time is spent on a computer, he still types with two fingers.
THE BEE IN MY EAR
Nora’s father had been very active in the beekeeping business. He was instrumental in setting up the Canadian Beekeeper’s Association. After his death, I used his equipment and kept a few hives of bees. Occasionally I would take Dale to the farm with me and leave him in the car while I attended to the bees. On one occasion he got out of the car and may have been stung. As a safety precaution I took him to the hospital in Edmonton; fortunately, they found that he was okay.
Shortly after this, he began to complain about having a bee in his ear. We considered that this was purely imaginary and didn’t worry too much about it. A short while later when we were in Jasper on vacation trip, he began to complain more loudly saying that his ear hurt very badly. We took him to the hospital in Jasper and they syringed this ear. You guessed it! What came out was a dead bee. It just goes to show you that you can’t always assume that a child is making up a story.
OUR CHLDREN’S EDUCATION
Our son, Dale, and daughter, Cindy, attended privately run kindergartens in the neighborhood and the local elementary school. They had one teacher in the classroom for each year. This was my first experience with “Meet The Teacher”. Generally no concerns came up during these meetings. I remember Dale bringing home a French horn that was almost as big as he was that he played in the music class.
In secondary school, they had different teachers for different subjects but stayed in one homeroom. The differences in the children became even more apparent here; Cindy was involved in most of the available activities. On the other hand, Dale only went to school because he had to and the principal news that he brought home was that there were a lot of dumb kids in the class. We told him that when he got to University he would find that this situation did not exist any longer.
Both children attended the University of Alberta and later went on to study at universities in the States. Dale obtained the degree of Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering and Cindy obtained a Master of Library and Information Science degree.
CHILDREN’S ALLOWANCE
We gave the children a small weekly allowance that was increased gradually as they got older. The only thing we asked for was an account of what they had spent the money on. Dale found this to be a real problem. Most of his explanations were “LOST”. He also paid Cindy to keep the records for him.
On the day after his 16th birthday, he got a job after school and weekends selling ice cream cones. With this newfound source of wealth, he told us he didn’t need his allowance anymore so he didn’t have to keep an accounting. We would have preferred that he maintained a record of his expenditures, but since he was earning the money we couldn’t say much about it.
Cindy also obtained a variety of jobs, after school and on the weekends, and the allowance scheme faded away.
THE MOTORCYCLE AND THE FENCE
One day I drove into the garage driveway and found Cindy and one of her classmates standing beside his motorcycle. As the story unfolded, it became apparent that she had been driving the motorcycle and had failed to stop in time to avoid hitting the fence. They were concerned about damage to the fence. However, it was made from wire mesh and was very durable so there was no damage to either the fence or the motorcycle.
My concerns were whether or not the riders had been hurt or if the motorcycle was damaged. It appeared that neither had happened and the motorcycle owner went on his way. To my knowledge Cindy has not been a big fan of motorcycles since.
DALE’S FIRST CAR
After his summer’s work, Dale felt prosperous enough to buy a car. Accordingly he came home with a used Toyota sports car. After a while, the car developed engine problems and it seemed that the best solution would be a different engine. He found a similar car that had been damaged beyond repair and we used our garage as a workshop to install its engine in the Toyota. This was not quite as simple as might appear because the cars were slightly different.
After we had finished the job, the next problem was disposing of the leftover parts. We rented a truck to take the chassis to a scrap yard. And somehow Dale managed to get the damaged engine to the farm at Bon Accord. As far as I know, it probably is still sitting there.
One night when Dale was coming home from the University, a police car came up behind him and signaled to him to stop. Dale decided that his sports car could outrun the police car, so he took off. However, he badly underestimated the capabilities of the police car and was soon forced to stop. Fortunately, the policeman didn’t charge him with a more serious offense than speeding. He did offer a comment, “You are a University student and are expected be a leader in society. You should behave in a more responsible manner”.
WEBSTER
Cindy decided to get a dog, a miniature dachshund named Webster. He spent his first night in his new home in a lengthy conversation with another dog that lived across the street from the apartment. The next day, Cindy was offered two choices by the apartment manager, “Either the dog goes or you both go”. As a result, our house became the next new home for Webster. He went almost everywhere I went and was accepted by most people.
A FAMILY PICTURE
NORA’S WORK AND VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES
In 1970 there was a shortage of Dietitians in Edmonton, so one of the professors at the University contacted a number of the former dietitians and arranged part time work for them. Nora spent some time at this and enjoyed getting reacquainted with her former profession.
She was very involved with the establishment of the school lunch program in the inner city. This was sponsored by the Edmonton City Center Church Program. She also worked with “Meals on Wheels” delivering meals to shut ins.
BECOMING A FARMER
In 1972, there were rumors that Revenue Canada was going to eliminate the capital gains exemption for farmland. To get around this potential problem, I bought the land that Nora had inherited from her father at the current appraised price. Nora’s brother did the actual farming for me and I paid him the going rate for this work. After a few years, I decided that this was not a very profitable arrangement, so I sold the land to Kevin, Nora’s nephew, who had taken over the farming when his father died.
MOVE TO THE CHURCHILL
In 2005, Nora was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease and we decided to move out of our house. We had been on the waiting list at the Churchill, a seniors’ apartment in downtown Edmonton, for some time and a vacancy came up at this time. We lived here for five years until her condition warranted more care, and she then went to a long-term care facility until her death in 2014. I am still living at the Churchill.
I am still involved in most of the activities that I participated in when we lived in our house. However, this doesn’t include shoveling snow or cutting the lawn.