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april 7, 2021
Lorne Fill Receives Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award Michelle Pinon News Advertiser Mundare area farmer Lorne Fill was officially recognized by Alberta Agriculture and Forestry for 100 years of family farming on the original Fill farmland. The award was presented to him by Fort SaskatchewanVegreville MLA Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk on March 30. Reflecting on the award and what it means, Lorne said, “It’s an emotional thing, isn’t it? I was just looking at the cows and realizing, and I’ve often thought of this before, “That you’re walking on the same land your grandfather walked on and so forth. So that’s kind of neat.” The farm, located six miles west of Mundare, was first settled by Andrew and Paulina Fill. “Paulina was born here, but my grandfather came over from the Ukraine in 1903. He spent 14 years or so in BC laying track between Prince Rupert and Quesnel and Prince George. He gravitated here and found the girl he liked. He went to see her parents and they said, “You can come back and see us when you have some land. So, I think that’s why I’m here,” chuckled Lorne. “They were married in 1919, but we couldn’t find any definitive evidence of them being on the land at that time. We had
Lorne sits beside the bronze plaque that was presented to him on March 30. (Michelle Pinon/Photo)
some lawyer paperwork, but it wasn’t definitive. So, in 1921 we found documentation where they paid taxes. So, that’s why it’s 1921, instead of 1919. However, in speaking with a cousin we feel that they may have lived with her parents for the first year or two. Another big story of his life was that shortly after they got married he was
crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. “I remember when I was 7, that was 1957 his hands were all crippled, like he couldn’t hold a spoon to feed himself. He couldn’t barely walk. So, his wife had to do the major share of the work here.” The couple raised two children, Donald and Josephine. Because Andrew developed rheumatoid arthritis at such a young age, a lot of the responsibilities on the farm fell to his wife Paulina, and later on to his dad Donald who assumed many of the duties when he was between 10 and 12 years of age. That continued into adulthood when Donald and his wife Margaret took over the family farm where they raised three children: Rose, Myron, and Lorne. Even though Donald didn’t express what it meant to him to carry on the fam-
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