To the Prairies and Back

To THE PRAIRIEs AnD BACk

A Young Woman’s Push through the Great Depression, Wartime Service and Beyond

CATHIE BARTLETT

Author of Destination Prairie

CATHIE BARTLETT

A Young Highlander’s Journey in her New Land

To The Prairies and Back

A Young Woman’s Push through the Great Depression, Wartime Service and Beyond

CATHIE BARTLETT

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Southeastern Alberta June 1931

Iwas 12 years old and living in a place called Hazel Creek, a dot on the map in southeastern Alberta, when I stumbled upon a family secret that was to have far-reaching consequences for me and my sister. Before this skeleton in the closet was wrenched from its shelf deep in the Mausoleum of Subjects Never to be Discussed and surfaced the spring I finished Grade Seven, I thought I knew all about my family – that I was born in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland, that my father, Robert Sinclair, fought in the Great War and afterwards became a schoolteacher, that he married my mother, Elizabeth, when he was home on leave midway through the conflict, and that I was born the year after the war ended. That same year an advertisement in The Scotsman seeking teachers in the Canadian West caught my father’s eye and off we went, settling in a wee place called Diamond Coulee near Medicine Hat.

The thinking was that my father would do better in Canada, where the west was opening up, drawing people by the trainload. Teachers were in demand. My father figured after a few years in a country school he could advance to a larger centre, as a vice-principal or principal even, something he could only

dream about in Scotland. And for a while, things were working out for us in our new land. My sister Louisa arrived soon after we came to Canada, my father liked teaching at the one-room schoolhouse a few miles away and my mother was content, looking after the three of us and keeping up the small teacherage that came with Father’s job.

That all changed the next year when my mother died in childbirth, and my baby brother with her. My father managed somehow, and eighteen months later he remarried, to a teacher from the district, and now I had a stepmother, Rosemary, and two half-brothers, William and John. At some point my stepmother deemed the teacherage too small, so we moved to a rather nice two-storey house in nearby Hazel Creek, eleven miles from Irvine, where my father was school principal.

At least that’s how I thought it all happened. Until I overheard an exchange between my stepmother and the district superintendent’s wife at a gathering in June of 1931, that is. The occasion was the school district’s annual year-end picnic which that year was also marking the superintendent’s retirement. Despite the tough times, there was a good-sized crowd out, with prizes for the children’s races and plenty to eat for everyone.

I was standing with my father and stepmother, watching William get set to compete in one of the races for his age group, I think the potato sack race. The superintendent’s wife, Mrs. Anderson, a shrew of a woman my father detested, walked over from her self-appointed position standing guard at the picnic table where the contributions to the potluck lunch were being deposited. ‘I want to see who wins this race,’ Mrs. Anderson said. ‘I see your older boy is entered in it.’ ‘Yes, he is,’ my father answered, staring straight ahead. ‘Well maybe he’ll bring home the blue ribbon and the bag of candy, who knows,’ Mrs. Anderson prattled on. ‘Oh Rosemary, did Grace embroider your handkerchief?’ she asked my stepmother, nodding at a bit

of linen lodged in the pocket of Rosemary’s blouse. ‘Uh, no, my mother put it in my stocking last Christmas. I believe she bought it at the church bazaar,’ Rosemary replied rather briskly.

‘Grace was so skilled with a needle and floss I thought it might be one of her creations. Why I remember the lovely smocked dress Louisa wore to the picnic not long after Grace came over. Grace found it amongst Elizabeth’s things and finished it off, as I recall. How is Grace doing, by the way? Where did she get to?’

‘Uh, she’s fine,’ my father replied. ‘She’s married and lives up north. Oh look, the race is about to start.’

As it happened, William did win first prize. and on the way home doled out a piece of candy to Louisa and myself. John of course got two. No use complaining about it – that was the way with our half-brothers, or brothers, as our stepmother insisted we refer to them, just as she was our mother , not our stepmother.

Call it what you will; to me, she would always be Rosemary, my father’s second wife, and my only brother wasn’t with us.

After I got William and John off to bed – that was also the way, I had to help out a lot – I went downstairs looking for my father. He was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. “So, Father, who is this person called Grace that Mrs. Anderson was talking about? I’ve never heard of her before.’ ‘No one you have to know about, Alice,’ responded Rosemary as she sailed into the kitchen from the back porch. ‘You’re too curious for your own good. Now go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. We’ve got a busy day ahead tomorrow, church in the morning and afterwards to your grandparents’ place for lunch. Off you go.’

‘Step-grandparents, they’re my step- grandparents,’ I muttered to myself as I headed upstairs. Hmm, what is going on here, I wondered. Someone called Grace was part of my life when I was young, too young to remember her, and now Father and Rosemary don’t want to talk about her. Why on earth not?

Around and around that question circled my mind relentlessly as I tried to get to sleep that night. After a while, a tedious hour at least, likely longer, I heard Father and Rosemary talking in the parlour. Besides being curious, nosy even, I was a champion eavesdropper, often curling up on the landing to listen in on what was being discussed down below. Rosemary had the floor when I tuned in that night. ‘I thought we were done with her,’ she grumbled. ‘We got a good position for her, then what does she do but quit, leaving my mother’s friend in the lurch . . . and not inviting us to her wedding, such as it was, although when I heard later her bridesmaid was a squaw for heaven’s sake, thank God we weren’t there. I can’t believe an Indian was allowed inside the church. And that business about your grandfather, why if people here found out about that, the school trustees and the church board, we’d never live it down. Oh, why couldn’t that blasted Mrs. Anderson keep her mouth shut? If she wasn’t your boss’s wife I would have shut it for her! Anyway, let’s get off to bed, Robert.’

I crept back to my room and slipped under the covers, taking care not to wake Louisa. It was another long while before I could get to sleep, my mind vibrating from what I had just heard. Well, one thing for sure, this is not the end of it, as much as Father and Rosemary want it to be. I will get to the bottom of this puzzle, I promised myself.