The Farm House

On any prairie farm the nerve centre is the farmhouse. On our Vauxhall farm this was certainly the case. It was a source of warmth and comfort, a feeding station, a laundry, first aide source and above all communication centre. Psychologically it provided a sense of safety and protection against the world's tribulations. We played games and played tricks. For example, I recall that my dog “Spot” would come in from a day-long hunt wet and exhausted. Dad would feed her and put a blanket on the floor behind the big warm stove for her to dry out and sleep. When I was very young I used to take a small piece of meat and creep behind the stove where she was deeply asleep. I would place the treat right in front of her nose and watch her nose begin to twitch, her legs begin to make running movements and finally she would wake up and look around bleary eyed, gulp the morsel and fall back asleep. I always laughed and laughed.

The Farm House

The kitchen was the centre of the Universe. We entered via the rear entrance from the house yard up a short flight of stairs into an anti room which contained a large kerosene-fed refrigerator and many storage shelves and cabinets with drawers, all plugged with supplies. Through an archway we entered the large kitchen with green pattern linoleum on the floor. On the left wall was a huge wood burning Findlay stove with water wells embedded to provide a source of hot water from the its heat. On the right wall was a long dining table which accommodated a dozen people. Straight ahead were counters and a large sink and the food preparation areas. There was a small room in the left corner with a couch which could be used as a bed and the large staticky radio - our entertainment Center and window on the world. At the far end of the kitchen, a passage way led into a circular hall where there was a furnace heated register or grill on the floor in the centre of the circle. Off the hall like spokes of a wheel were three doors leading to bed rooms, the bathroom and an archway into the furnished front sitting room furnished with a couch, overstuffed arm chairs, china cabinet, and nice rug on the floor. The exit through the front door led out onto a small deck and a cropped lawn. There was a mounted deer head with big horns hung at the front door that dad had shot as a teenager. Brother Don used to take this trophy down when my dad wasn’t looking and chase me around the house shrieking. The basement was a wonder. It housed a cream separator, an old Maytag wringer clothes washer, a canning machine and most important the coal burning furnace and the electric gas generator that charged a bank of batteries supplying 12 volt electricity to the house for lights etc. The water storage cistern was built into the wall. There were banks of shelves filled with bottled and canned produce. A large stone container contained an egg preservative called “water glass” which, when the eggs were submerged, kept them fairly fresh and usable for months. The basement was cool and in the heat of the summer meals were eaten in comfort downstairs. A refuge indeed. All in all the house was well planned and functional. In later years I have begun to marvel at how well planned and functional it was which was the case with the whole farm.

The farm house was backdrop to many family photos like this one of the Brumwell men: Don, Alex, Richard and Charles

The Vauxhall Farm: 1920-1944

First grain harvest on Vauxhall farm after move from Loverna

The Vauxhall farm was born in the early 1920s when my folks moved from the unirrigated Saskatchewan homestead to irrigated land seven miles from Vauxhall near the Bow River after several drought induced crop failures. I don’t know what greeted them, bald prairie or what. My appearance was a decade away. The farm was around 1500 acres, all under irrigation. I have no idea what or how much stuff they brought with them. A very practical farm configuration was developed The fields were fenced and a farm yard plan devised. It consisted of a large barn yard and a secondary smaller yard separated from the barnyard by a double row of quick growing caragana hedges from the farm house. Dad planted almost 1 km of popular trees along the entry road to the farm and around the house yard, probably as wind breaks. I used to play among them pretending to be in the forrest. He also planted rows of black and red currants.

Early buildings on the Vauxhall Farm

I don’t know the sequence of the construction of buildings. Most were there when I arrived. I suppose the comfortable farm house- maybe 1500 square feet- was certainly first and the big barn and granary early on. At some point other outbuildings appeared such as a machine shop, chicken house, garage. The pig house was the last when I was about age eight. My dad had an elderly carpenter named Harvey do most of the construction. He had ill fitting false teeth with he rattled and chewed and suddenly protrude out between his lips. I used to watch him waiting for this performance.

My mother, father and sister, Jean in the center

I gather that they had a series of successful irrigated crops in the 1920s leading up to the Great Depression. A population of farm animals appeared. They had a large herd of Hereford cattle and were proud of their championship bull "Prince Domino the Third" or something. At various times there were pigs, sheep and of course lots of chickens and turkeys. Grains and hay were grown to feed the animals. There were no veterinary services so dad had to deal with animal health problems such as an obstructed cow labour or a barbed wire cut on a hoof. Treatment of the animals was compassionate to a point but would be considered and sometimes brutal by today’s standards. The farm “fiddleback” brand similar to a figure of eight; was applied with a glowing hot branding iron to the calves rump - Ouch!! Worse was castration of bull calves with a huge pair of long handled tongs. Pigs and sheep were done with a knife. Dehorning of cattle was done with a short thick saw which produced a jet of blood shooting many feet. I remember the blood streaks on the corral fences.

The barn with the fiddle back brand

Dad employed several full hired men who ploughed, dug, chopped and did whatever was needed. Preparation for harvest was very busy and the farm complement of men would increase to 5 or 6. Two machines were used. A binder - horse drawn - cut the ripe grain and automatically bound it into sheaves called “stooks." Half dozen of the sheaves would be leaned together by hand into a tripod to dry. When ready they would be collected on to a large horse drawn wagon - a hay rack- and off loaded by hand into a threshing machine belt run from a small engine. A jet of grain the shot out down a pipe into a truck for transport to a storage granary. Exhausting work. They were well fed. I suppose they would burn thousands of calories per dawn to dusk of heavy labour. Later a sophisticated self propelled harvesting machine called combine, run by one or two men, appeared which cut and processed the grain in one operation. This was much more efficient and eliminated the old labour intensive harvesting procedure.

Farms hands harvesting on the farm

Stooks in the fields

My mother would have kitchen help as these men had enormous appetites. She sometimes would cook over 100 large pancakes, pounds of bacon, dozens of soft boiled eggs washed down with gallons of strong coffee. I watched Ed the huge Swede pile a dozen pancakes on his plate, put a large rashers of bacon between each one, then crack a half dozen soft boiled eggs on top. Over the works he would pour a big glug of syrup. Down the hatch. And then..... he would do it again!! She  baked bread almost every day, twelve loaves at a time and dozens of delicious baking powder biscuits buttered with home made strawberry jam which were taken to the men in the fields mid morning and mid afternoon for a snack with a tank of hot coffee.

Me, about the age when I was level with the table, watching the farmhands eat

As the depression deepened the roads, rails, waterways filled up with men shifting around the country looking for work. “Riding the rails” was popular. In our area some of these men would get off one line near Brooks and walk the twenty miles or so to Vauxhall where they could bum another ride on the other line and end up at the Coast in the hope of employment in a logging camp or maybe a cannery. At least the weather would not be as cold. We often saw a disheveled man shuffling down our road and he would come in for a hand out. They all got a meal and a bed in the bunk house for the night but had to move on in the morning with a lunch. Terrible times that didn’t really let up until the war loomed and and more jobs opened up. Terrible economic times that didn’t really let up until the war loomed and and more jobs opened up. Markets appeared for farm produce of all kinds.

In the depths of the depression my dad could hardly sell anything. My mother recounted that he would take a load of the best number one Marquis wheat into the over loaded  grain elevator in Vauxhall and bring it home again unsold. As war approached there was no problem selling all the farm products.

Personally I was very little affected by all the goings on. Well fed, healthy and comfortable. One of my few personal crises was in 1939 as war started. At the Vauxhall school we had a favourite teacher, Miss S, who was a German national. One day at lunchtime a Mountie appeared and took her away. Apparently all German and Italian nationals were interned during the duration of the war.  I don’t know if this was true. We never saw or heard about her again.

Homesteading: The Loverna Years

The details of early days at Loverna, Saskatchewan are a bit sketchy for me. However there are several detailed descriptions by Alberta historical societies that have a lot of information and pictures. Once a vibrant community of 500 people shortly after its formation around 1914 it became a railway hub. It gradually started to fade in the Great Depression and with several devastating fires it was derelict in the latter part of the 20th century.

Dry Land Farming in Loverna, Saskatchewan

Some of my family's faded black and white pictures survived. They look bleak and remind me of Steinbeck's description of the American sharecroppers in his book “ The Grapes of Wrath”. The village at its prime had stores, restaurants and doctors. The bald prairie surrounded it and there were measured-off farming sections for the homesteaders.

Alex and Ola break ground in Loverna

I visited Loverna in the 1990s in my RV and found a deteriorated cluster of run down buildings that seem to be for the storage of farm machinery although there was one that appeared to be a service and repair centre for the stored equipment. The “main“street contained a small stone monument almost covered with tumbling weed clusters. I pulled them back to find a brass plaque with a dozen names of local men killed in the first world and the inscription “Their Memory Will Live Forever” which I found a bit ironic considering the setting.

Alex and Ola were married on December 27th 1917. Very soon after they moved to Loverna. It must have been a muted event considering that the Mulligan family had just received notification that Vincent had been killed in France. Their first child Donald Vincent was born in the back of the Loverna store in late 1918 with the store owners wife as midwife or so the story went. We can only marvel at what must having greeted this young bride. A quiet cloistered life in town with her family must have been a far distant dream. The harsh reality of a sod house the first year and the daunting challenges of establishing a productive dry land farm must have been overwhelming. She had to learn to cook but thanks to Alex and a neighbour lady who taught her how to make bread she became a very good cook. Alex was able to build a small house - really a shack - fairly quickly. It seems that he planted some crops which failed in the dry land conditions

"Alex's homestead shack, Loverna," written in my mother's handwriting

Sometime in the early in the 1920s a Federal initiative established the Canada Land project and established an irrigation project across the Bow River near the town of Vauxhall in the SE part of Alberta. They abandoned Loverna and established a successful farm operation there where I grew up. The irrigation and climate allowed my dad to have two hay harvests a year. The family occupied this expanding farm until we moved to Victoria in 1944.