52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 20
Prompt – Nature
Nature is a formidable force. No one
would know that better than the immigrants and settlers who came to
the Canadian prairies. It's beauty is breath taking and beckons to
all who see it. However behind it lurks the dangers that can imperil
life and limb.
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| 1950 Circa George and Helen (nee Peters) Heide |
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| Source is the GRanDMA (Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite
Ancestry) database,
the source of which is the California Mennonite Historical Society (CMHS). |
My father's older sister, Helena Peters
(1904 - 1994) married Gerhard (aka George) Heide (1906 – 1988).
They married July 25, 1925 in Hague, Saskatchewan. Uncle George
decided to write out his history for his family. What a beautiful
legacy. I am not sure when he wrote this. It is rich in detail of
his and Helen and their childrens' lives as he homesteaded their land
in Pierceland, Saskatchewan. Pierceland is within the Canadian Boreal
Forrest.
Pierceland is near the Saskatchewan
Alberta border south of Cold Lake and north of Beaver River. Uncle
George's story explains nature at its rawest. He and his wife took
it on and despite it all thrived. Enjoy his story. It really
belongs in the history books.
“Our
story starts in Hague, Saskatchewan where Helen and I were born. My
parents refused to learn English, so got a dictionary to translate
German to Spanish & decided that we would all learn the language
because we were moving to Mexico. I had no desire to move there
because I was dating Helen, & therefore we decided to get married
on July 1925. That November, three trainloads of Mennonites left for
Mexico, but I and my sister stayed behind. We lived in Hague for a
few years, where three of our children were born & then moved on
to Fielding, Saskatchewan. My family who went to Mexico have all died
by this time except, Isaac and Claus, who still live there. My sister
who stayed died in Burns Lake BC. When we moved to Fielding, my
brother Bernard, wanted to come back so I sent him the ticket &
he lived with us for a few years until we moved to Pierceland. When
we moved to Fielding we had a hard time because Helen could speak no
English and I very little. We had nothing, but luckily I found a job
for $45 a month, top wages at the time. We saved our money and bought
a team of horses, a wagon & a hay rack and loaded up everything
and moved to Pierceland arriving July of 1932. It took us 28 days
with 4 small children to get there. When we first got there we
thought we had made a huge mistake, it looked like a desert because
of a fire that had gone through in 1919. We had no idea how we would
make a living but knew we had to try. We had no tent, so I made a
dugout, a deep ridge, 9'x10' with a peaked roof of log poles &
sod, where we stayed nice and dry until October when our log home was
complete. Actually our log home never was finished because the logs
were 36'x38' and far to big to finish so we lived in a small corner
with a flat roof which if it rained outside 2 days it rained inside
another 2 days. Our son John, Born in Cold Lake was the first of our
children to call this his first home. This place was not called
Pierceland when we first got here, but in the fall of 1932, Joe
Hewlett dragged a granary in and called it the Pierceland Post
Office. Mail them came by horse delivered by (Frank Norris) from Cold
Lake to Pierceland & Beacon Hill. In order to have meat to eat I
had to hunt deer and while doing so at one time I found a beautiful
patch of blueberries, which we picked and sold to Jack Manderson's
store for 3 cents a pound. This bought us flour, sugar, and supplies
for the winter. The next year we dug seneca roots & sold then for
3 cent a pound, which makes a pretty skimpy living. Helen remembers a
time when we borrowed our friends team of horses & wagon, with a
grain box and crossed the Waterhen River and picked cranberries there
for a week straight. When we had a box full we sold them to Jack for
2 cents a pound & he was able to sell them to peddlers there who
bought the whole lot for 3 cents a pound in spite of the fact that
they were so juicy that the juice was dripping so badly that it
looked like blood dripping from the box. Pete recalls a time when
after a hard time working that they were rewarded with a bottle of
orange pop which then sold for 2 for5 cents. In the early years Helen
used to carry bread dough 1-1/2 miles to be baked in our nieghbours
oven and then home the same distance. When Anne was born we could not
afford milk and so she drank tea from a bottle and not milk. We made
our own pablum from flour boiled then drip dried and oven baked, with
a little sugar this was pablum. We didn't have a garden that first
year so I dug potatoes for 2 neighbors, one gave me a bag of turnips
and the other a bag of beets. To this day I can not tolerate eating
turnips. The mosquitoes and sand flies where so bad that we built a
smudge in a pail & put it on the wagon pole in front of the
horses, so that they could move their ears and there noses would not
get plugged. The horses died of swamp fever shortly after we moved
there and after that we either walked of took the dog team wherever
we needed to go. Many times when I was away Helen, with 6 children in
tow would row or sail across Jeglum Lake then walk to Pierceland for
supplies & back home again a distance of 4 miles each way. After
Betty was born on the Indian reservation in April we headed for our
own homestead & camped 1-1/2 miles away for a month while I
cleared a road to our place. Our homestead was a tent that Helen made
out of flour sacks, sewed by hand and the floor was spruce boughs and
we put plastic over the baby to keep her dry and warm. By this time I
had bushed enough for Isaac Unrau, for him to come & plow a patch
of 4 acres for our first real garden & a wheat crop. I had also
bushed 10 acres for Henry Keller and for that he gave me a cow that
was worth $10. This was our first cow, but it had a desire to run
home all the time so Helen had to walk over a mile to milk it morning
and evening. Over 75 families moved on to homesteads, each having a
quarter section. Some of them were, Kellers, Peters, Unraus, and
Harders. The first school, Helen, Mary, George and Pete attended,
which was 3 miles away. First teacher was P. J. Moynihan. Trapping
was the only way to earn money for food & clothing from 1931 to
1937. My trapping line was from Pierceland to Sicup Lake, a distance
of eighty miles, which took me 5 days to reach to far cabin, with
back packs weighing over 95 pounds of food, and on the way back this
would be replaced with furs. I was usually gone for a month then home
for 3 days and back again, which we did for 7-1/2 months each winter.
In the fall of 1937 and old fisherman, Isaac Unrau, hired me to teach
me how to ice fish with the 12 nets that he had. Then we sold the
fish to peddlers that came to the lake. One time while trapping I
fell through the ice up to my armpits and being all alone and two
miles from camp when I got out I started running, by the time I got
to the camp my pants where frozen so solid that I could not bend or
brake them. In the spring of 1938 we bought out second cow from Mr.
Pollock for $10, money from trapping. After helping Corny Unrau cut
logs for a new house he in turn helped me cut logs for a new house
which was 20'x20' with a new style cottage roof. Both families moved
in by the fall of 1938. I donated three acres of land for a new
school house, which was ready in a year and five of our children
attended that school. In 1938 we had two oxen, Hummy and Mike. On one
occasion when I was hauling a load of sand with the oxen, Ann who was
about 4 years old fell off the wagon. I hollered for the oxen to stop
but the wagon wheel rolled over her back. We immediately took her to
the Cold Lake hospital where she stayed for about 10 days, with
luckily no broken bones only bruises. In 1938 I traded the oxen for
horses which was the best team I ever had, Tiger and Tony. In the
fall of 1940 I had my own fishing outfit and I made a deal with Frank
Harder to give him half of my fish for eight shallow nets. I was
lucky to be able to catch more fish with these old rags than he did
with his new ones. I then had enough money to buy new nets and with
12 nets altogether I was now fishing on Pierce Lake and on Cold Lake.
In January of 1941 it was too cold for school so they shut it down
and we decided to go on a holiday to Saskatoon, with the horses and a
caboose heated by a stove, where 10 of us survived all cozy and warm.
Saskatoon was our home for about a month and on our way home the
caboose caught fire and we lost all our blankets and other stuff, but
as luck would have it our neighbors helped out and we got home in
April just before Vivian was born. Plus on the way home all eight
kids woke up with the measles. In 1942 I started fishing on Primrose
Lake with a full outfit. The first year I had no cabin, therefore,
Mary George and I slept in a grain box for five days. We fixed up a
cabin which needed a half wall, a window and a door. We used this
cabin until the Air Force took over the lake. Later I moved and
insulated caboose up and stayed in it, which is still there. That
same winter I bought one hundred tons of raw fish for which I paid 10
cents a piece, which made a pretty big pile of frozen fish. It was
about 40 degrees F. below or colder but about 3 PM that same day a
warm chinook came and was flapping the tails of the fish around, so
wanting to save the fish I hired some men to help me shovel snow on
the pile and lost only 50 pounds. I sure though I had lost the whole
pile but was so very lucky. In 1946 we started getting the Family
allowance which sure helped our family of thirteen. I bought my first
"pony" tractor in 1949 after trapping. Muskrats were five
dollars a pelt and I made $5,000.00 in three weeks, using only one
horse and a sled. With this it now took me only 10 days to works the
trap line which was about one town line of 24 miles. Tragedy struck
our family when our son-in-law, Dan Heinrichs, drowned. We were a
Sandy Beach on Pierce Lake having a family picnic. There was our
family and Helen, our daughter, and her family. Mr. & Mrs. Khol
and their daughter, who was playing on an inner tube when she fell
off. Helen's husband, Dan, ran to rescue her but they both lost their
lives. Dan left behind, besides Helen, two small daughters, Marlene,
Darlene and his unborn son.
In the fall of 1949 we built
our new house 18'x20', out of lumber. This house had a bedroom
upstairs and later on we added two more bedrooms and a kitchen. Also
in 1949 George got his Deputy Game Warden's Badge, which he held
until 1972, for a total of 23 years. It was also the years that he
had his first heart troubles, as he was driving by car to Saskatoon,
with Helen, Jake and Mrs. Ernest Lepine. This was time too when Jake
ate too many bananas and Helen had her eye operation. In 1950 George
legally began acting as a hunting guide. Many of the hunters were
Americans, from California, Michigan, the Dakotas, Montana, Atlanta
and Georgia, some also haling from Alberta, Saskatchewan and
Manitoba. He usually had 40 or more hunters in a season. In his 23
years of hunting he had only one hunter ever lost, and then only for
24 hours. This was Sid Unrau, a local fellow but his first time in
the bush, and one hunter from Battleford, Saskatchwan was lost for 2
hours. I never had any shooting accidents while guiding; after all my
preaching on safety and carelessness no one dared to do something
dumb. Most of the hunters bagged their game, with several moose
dressing over 1,000 pounds Joe Kisch of Saskatoon shot a trophy moose
and Mr. Jones of Meadow Lake, Sask., got a moose that dressed over
1,100 pounds, which was also a trophy. George himself shot a moose
that dressed around 1,000 pounds in 1949, in the early moose season.
George's Partners were, Albert Pahlke, & Ernest Promeau. While
setting up camp one year his partners said, how stupid we were to
come with no snow and no tracks to follow, They kept this up all
evening and I was too angry to say anything. The next morning George
told them that they could go which ever way they wanted, but if they
went west I would go east. They were just not going in the same
direction if they thought that it was sheer stupidity. So they went
west and George took of in an easterly direction and out of sight,
and started running so that they could not follow him. About a mile
east George heard a moose calling, and followed the sound and about
an hour later He has his moose. The moose was so big that he thought
it might be tough so he cut off a good sized chunk off the hind leg
which he took back to camp where the others were waiting. They asked
if I had heard any shooting, to which I replied, "No I hadn't
heard anyone. They said it could not have been me shooting because it
was too fast so he pulled the chuck of meet out of his pack and asked
them to cook it to see if it was fit to eat. In 20 minutes it was
well done, so since the meat was good he told them to leave their
rifles at camp because we had all the meat we needed. We went out and
dressed the animal and skidded it back to camp with the horses. The
moose was so big that the horses tired out three times while coming
to camp. After packing up we camped at Gold Mine Creek for the night
where we spread the meat out on sticks to cool as it was really cold
in the canyon. When we arrived home the next day we divided the meat
but there was more that we could handle, so we let the people in town
know. One man in particular, Joe Vanhovard, upon picking up his meat
was surprised that it was frozen and asked where my freezer was as it
had not frozen in Pierceland. I told him it was the little wooden
shed and he was really stumped. Another incident, about 1970. was
when George had Harvey Farslow as guide and the hunters were some
professors from Saskatoon and a doctor from Norway. Ian Hendersen
from Saskatoon and his partner shot a cow and calf one day, so we
brought them to camp and dressed them. That night some bears stories
were told and low and behold that night some bears dragged the moose
hides away. The next morning Ian went about a quarter of a mile into
the bush and saw a black object and thinking it was a bear he emptied
his .308 automatic into the black spot, then ran back to camp before
checking to see what it was that he had shot. At camp he met his
partner and wrote a note for me and left it on the table. When Harvey
and George got into camp & read the note, Harvey said,"If he
shot five shots into the bears chest we may as well wait here."
Just then Ian and his partner came back into camp laughing and Ian's
partner said, "That bear grew horns into a five point bull
moose. Ian looked for his note but since George had put it into his
pocket, and Ian not wanting his wife to hear about his bear story,
George then gave the note to his partner to give to Ian,s wife. In
the early 1930's one of my trips up north to Big Island Lake I
spotted a moose rubbing his antlers on a big jackpine, so I shot it
with one shot. By the time I got it down to my friend, Louis Pumas,
came down from where the moose had chased him and since I thought the
moose had more claim on him than I did I gave it to him. Ten days
later when I came back Louis had the whole thing sliced and dried and
put in a gunny sack, which was the only way he could get it home in
one trip on foot. In 1951 Helen, daughter, came home with her new
husband, Jake Isaac, and four children. There were 23 people in our
house for the winter. Helen, wife was a professional baker by this
time and we baked bread every day, 100 pound of flour a week and two
big pails of potatoes every day. In 1952 I got my out-fitter,s
license and in 1953 Helen and I traveled to Lloydminster to attend
the weddings of our two oldest sons, George and Pete. In 1956 the
girls came home from British Columbia and tore down the log house. In
1957 a small house was built for Mary and Ike during August before
their first son was born, where they lived for a couple of years
before moving to Buffalo Narrows, Sask. We then used the house for
brooding 200 chicks at a time until it burnt down in 1960 along with
the chicks and Ed's Whiskey. We sure had to laugh, because Ed losing
all his whiskey made up for us losing all our chicks as the bottles
exploded. In 1957 after the three youngest boys helped me earn
$350.00 and going to Saskatoon I lost it all to a pickpocket. In 1959
I began mink ranching starting with 60, but due to the fact that I
lost so many because of low flying jet planes in the end I lost all
the young one year plus 13 old ones that I killed the rest and gave
up that business. In 1960 Abe, my brother and his wife from Mexico
came to visit us. A few months later out house burnt down as Helen
was baking and I in the mink shed saw smoke pouring from the chimney
and out from under the roof, as I ran and was only able to save Helen
and lost everything else. When the kids got home from school the
house was in the cellar. We could not even make coffee. In town I
called our sons in Lloydminster, They came that night with blankets
and groceries and others donated clothes, groceries, dishes and other
necessities. The Eatons Company and the Red Cross also helped us out
greatly. It was 1961 when we began building our new house. Poured the
cement in the summer and moved in by fall, our first home with a
basement. In 1967 our three youngest sons all got married. Mel's in
Lloydminster and Jake and Dave's in Saskatoon. I missed Mel's wedding
as I was flown to Saskatoon to have a gallstone operation.
Lloydminster was the location of our family reunion in 1968, where
all our children and their families came except Helen & Mary.
Emma the last of our 18 children went to work in Lloyd, then in
Saskatoon in the hospital. Helen & I were alone for the first
time since 1925. George and Florence moved to Surrey, B.C. in 1969. I
acquired a new toboggan in 1970 and on a trip up north it blew a
piston 30 miles from Goodsoil. I walked back 23 miles in 2 feet of
snow, seven hours by the time I got to my truck and couldn't move my
feet enough to drive and could not walk for 2 weeks. 1971 proved what
a lucky man I am for I won a battle with cancer of my jaw, where they
removed part of the jaw and replaced it with a piece of my rib. Five
years later all tests had been negativeS In the spring of 1972 we
moved from the farm to the town of Pierceland and we love being close
to neighbors and have joined the Seniors Club and met and made many
old and new friends. Mel also sold the farm in Barrowman. That fall
the boys came home to help me build a 10'x28' extension onto the
house. We made a trip to Vancouver the year Helen's mother died at 92
years old and were stranded there for 6 weeks because trains and
buses were snowed under and planes were on strike. In 1973 we ended
up in Vancouver again when after spending Christmas with Jake and
Cheryl then Jack and Kay's for New Years, Then on to Creston, BC. to
Mary & Isaac's and then by bus to Vancouver. In 1975 Helen &
I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, with 10 of our children
coming home, to make this the thrill of our lives, with a repeating
of our marriage vows at the United Church in Town and a reception and
later on a dance at the Community Hall. As a gift from our family we
got our first color television set as well as other things. We are so
appreciative of all that was done for us. Helen and I had the
opportunity to travel with our daughter Viv and Ed and their family
to Mexico in a motor home. We were gone for three weeks and visited
with my brothers Isaac and Klaas, whom I had not seen for 50 years,
and after seeing how they lived I was doubly glad that I had not gone
with them to Mexico, for they were so poor it was worse than living
in the 1930's. I was so glad that my family had a better chance to
make better lives for themselves. During this trip we also saw,
Disneyland, Knots Berry Farm, San Diego Zoo, Hollywood, Universal
Studio, Las Vegas, and the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, etc. In
1977 I had a bad nosebleed. A blood vessel had broken. Kay and Jack
were visiting us and they drove me to Goodsoil. I was taken by
ambulance to Saskatoon. The End.”
Thank you and God bless you Uncle George for writing your story that we all may know of your tenacity, ingenuity, your heartbreaks and your triumphs in your life as a homesteader, settler, trapper, fisher, farmer,entrepreneur, husband, father, grandfather and the only uncle that I knew. You welcomed our family - the city slickers to your farm in the 1960's. A memorable experience to say the least.
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| Circa 1949 Helen and George Heide & Family |
In Loving Memory
Wendy
