My parents John William and Florence Alice Holmes came to Canada from Leeds, England in 1903 bringing my three young brothers, Alfred, Harold and Arthur, and leaving behind wee Norman who had died at the age of three months.
They settled in Winnipeg where my father found work as a wheelwright, and while they were in Winnipeg my sister Lily was born, named after Father's sister, and the first girl in the family. Father always said it changed his luck coming across the ocean. My sister was born on the 1st of April, 1905, a fact she has never lived down.
One of the most interesting stories Father ever told us was about the night she was born. When it was time for the doctor to come, the shortest way {to fetch the doctor} was through the grave yard. So off went Father as fast as he could go. To make matters worse, it was a dark, stormy night, with thunder and lightning, and after each flash it would be pitch black. Once Father fell over a tombstone, and then into a ditch full of water, so he was a sorry looking sight when he got to the doctor's house. We always liked this story very much.
After a few years in Winnipeg, Father took the urge to go farming and make his fortune. So he moved to Saskatchewan, to a place called Cut Knife. He first built a sod house and barn. I remember playing in the remains of the sod house when I was a little girl. After living in the sod house a log house was built. It had two bedrooms, a front room and afterwards, a kitchen was built on. This is where I was born on the 2nd of April, 1911. My sister Lily was sent to the neighbors for the day to keep her out of the way. She was six years old, and this was a real holiday for her! I was a very tiny baby. My sister tells me my face was about the size of a teacup the first time she saw me cuddled down beside my mother, and she was thrilled to have a baby sister.
Father never did make his fortune on the farm which he named Willow Creek Farm as there was a creek running through it with hills on both sides. It was a lovely spot. We really had a lot of fun while living there. We had a collie dog and a lamb (which grew into a sheep that used to butt us if we got to fighting together). It was during this time that Father planted trees around the farm yard; evergreens and maples. Years after the farm buildings were torn down the place was used as a picnic spot.
The railroad ran past our place with a bridge right near our house, and in the spring time when the creek was high, we would cross the creek on the railway bridge, walking on the ties because the barn was across the creek from the house. This was always very thrilling, but I expect if I went back now it would seem a very small bridge. I remember one day when Aunt Ellen Waring was visiting from England she went outside for something and feeling in a bit of a gay mood, waved to the engineer, slipped and fell flat on her seat. The engineer gave her an extra toot on the whistle.
While Auntie was with us we used to haul water from the creek to the house on a stone boat pulled by a horse, and Auntie rode down the hill in fine style, and was going to ride back up . Dad told her if she did, the barrels would slosh and she would get wet. But, she wasn't going to walk up, and sat herself down behind both barrels. The horse started with a jerk and off the stone boat came our dripping wet and angry aunt; blaming Dad, of course!
When I was a year and a half old our mother died with Bright's disease, and my dad and my brothers looked after us when we couldn't get a housekeeper.
I guess I must have been a lonely little girl because they tell me I used to go around the yard playing by myself and half crying, a sad little cry. If anyone asked me what was wrong I would say "Nuffing".
My youngest brother, Arthur, tells of the time Dad told him to wash my coat as Dad was going to take me somewhere. It was a cream coloured furry coat, Arthur called it my Teddy Bear coat. Well, he wasn't very old and didn't get the coat very clean, and Dad was quite cross with him as he had to wash it all over again.
Another story about Arthur is that one day he did something wrong. Dad was going to give him a licking, Arthur started to run towards the creek with Dad full tilt behind him. Just as he got to the creek he lay down. Dad fell over him and into the creek. It cooled him down and Arthur never did get that licking.
After a while Dad had a housekeeper who came to us bringing a baby girl, and Dad married her, thus giving us a step sister, Elsie, and later two half sisters, Edith and Devina. as each one came along I was more disgusted, as it only meant one more for me to dress and help look after.
When the my youngest sister was born Dad came into our bedroom and said "Hurry! Get dressed, I have something to show you!" I was excited as I dressed. In those days it was long legged underwear, and long black woolly stockings, (how they itched!) and then high felt boots that came nearly to the knees. Then it was the same thing with Elsie and Edith. Finally we sallied forth to see Dad's surprise; a new baby sister, to me just another one to dress and help along. I was so disappointed. I would have much preferred a new calf or a colt.
When dad started farming it was with oxen, and town (Paynton) was 22 miles away. It was a long, cold trip and not many trips were made in the year. Early in the fall would come the supplies; Apples in barrels, and wooden boxes of dried fruit and crackers, big rounds of cheese, and pails of jam and syrup to be used sparingly all through the winter. I remember we would start out in the fall by having half an apple, and as the apples got lower in the barrel they were cut to quarters.
We never had much to play with in the winter either, and were always glad when the new {Eaton's} catalogue came along so we could have the coloured pages out of the old one to make families from. The soft paper pages had to go out to the outhouse for use there. In those days nothing was wasted.
I remember Christmas on the farm, how Dad would go out and cut down a nice little willow tree, bring it home and decorate it. I don't know where we got our decorations, but they were lovely, and the most important thing was we had real candles, too. I well remember the care Dad used to take in placing the candles just so, careful of fire. We each received only one present, but our stocking always had candy and nuts and an orange in it. These we would take to bed with us and stay there until the fires were going and the house warm. I remember waking some mornings with frost on the bed covers where our breath lay.
I remember the first horses we had. Prince was a buckskin and our buggy horse who shied at his own shadow. His mate was Pongo, an iron grey. If we ever let them out of the barn it took days to get them in again.
We used to go behind the barn and ride the calves until Dad caught us one day and put a stop to it before we broke an arm or leg. All this time Lily was growing up and one night her first beau came calling, in a horse drawn buggy. He came for supper so his horse was put in the barn, and after supper when he was ready to go home, he headed for the barn to get his horse.
In the summer time we could cross the creek walking on a plank. He was crossing on the plank to get to the barn and all us girls came along behind him, skipping and jumping on the plank and bounced him off into the water. He just got his feet wet, but we got our seats warmed for being so rude. I can't remember him coming back.
Our creek had a spring, and in the winter we had to take the cattle there for a drink. We always bought our firewood from the Indians. I remember how important I felt when I was allowed to show them where the spring was when they needed to water their teams of horses.
After a while Dad decided farming wasn't for him and went to work on the C.N.R. at a place called Tatsfield. We lived on the farm for some time after that, Dad would come home on Saturday night and leave early Monday morning. Then he was transferred to Gallivan, and we moved with there leaving my eldest brother Alfred on the farm. It was in Gallivan that I started school, at the age of seven. I liked school and did pretty good, taking grade two and three together.
After a while Dad moved back to Tatsfield and we moved back to the farm, where we went 2 1/2 miles to Alfred's school. We would often see coyotes on our way. I remember having to go by a pasture with an old bull in it that used to snort and paw dirt everytime it saw us coming, and we were afraid of it. One day we had taken Edith, our young sister to school to a party, and coming home she stopped to admire a red bug. She liked bugs and crawly things. Our friend, the bull, was doing his usual antics, only this time we were sure he had jumped the fence, so we caught Edith by the hands and ran so fast to the railroad fence. She was short and chubby and mad because we wouldn't let her look at her bug.
Edith was always falling over her own feet. She would keep a bit of bread or cake in her mouth to suck on and fall asleep anyplace. One time she crawled into a banana crate and near got shipped off to the far corners of the earth.
War came in 1914 and our brothers all enlisted in the army. The two eldest went overseas, and both were wounded, but came safely home to us.
It was in 1918 that my stepmother {Florence Annie Orman} died from the Flu, leaving my dad once more with a small baby of 10 months, who was my youngest sister Devina. Even if I was disappointed at her birth, she was my special sister.
A couple in Gallivan, Mr and Mrs Jack Tippen, took her until she was five years old, when Dad decided she was to come home again, and home she came, a very spoilt little girl, and we had a merry time with her. When we wanted to dress her she fought, when it was time to undress her she fought. We finally got her settled down though.
When we left Gallivan, we moved to Macrorie. I was just going on 12 then. I remember, too, as we came through Saskatoon we stopped at Adelman's {Department Store} and Dad bought us new coats. They were all the same, brown with a small brown collar of fur. We thought they were wonderful, as it was our first time for going into a store and trying on anything. Before that it was always from a catalogue.
We stayed at Macrorie for a year and a half. When we arrived we had to stay in the hotel for a week while the section house was fumigated for bed bugs.The house was full, and even after we moved in we had to watch for them, painting the woodwork with formaldehyde.
Aunt Ellen Waring was caring for us at this time. She had once more left England and come to Canada to do this. She had a weak heart and breathed too much of the formaldehyde fumes, and died, so once more we were left alone for the third time. While we were in Macrorie my sister Lily met Stephen Chatry, the man she later married.
When I was fourteen we moved to Swanson where we once more had to battle bed bugs. I, with the help of my sisters, was going to school and keeping house. Finding this rather hard I quit school in April when I turned fifteen to keep house. In June Dad remarried, Blanche Norton, who was 13 years older than Dad, and an alcoholic besides.
I'm afraid she didn't like children very well and made our home rather miserable, so that fall at the age of fifteen I went out to work in Delisle for a woman who kept five boarders and one young son that wet the bed every night.
On wash day I had to get up at 3:00 a.m. to start the fire to heat the wash water and was in and out of bed until 6:00 a.m. when it was time to get up. I remember, too, how hard it was to push the twenty five pound polisher around, and when no one was looking would polish {the floor} on my knees with a cloth. After about six months of this my step-mother wanted me home to help straighten things out there. I next left home and went to Calgary where I worked for a Jewish family who had two young sons that I looked after. I left this and worked in a lunchroom for a month, didn't like that and went back to my Jewish family, until I was called home to help again.
A few months later I was asked by my brother Harold if I would go and help them for a while, as Ethel, his wife, was expecting their fifth baby, which turned out to be a girl after four boys. My brother not being well, I stayed there for a year and a half, and was almost 19 by now. I was riding horseback one day, and coming down hill, when the horse stepped on a stone and fell with me hurting my side, so my Dad ordered me home.
Sometime after this my brother had to go into the hospital where he had a large part of his stomach removed because of cancer. He came out to Swanson after his operation to see us all before going back to Gallivan where he lived. When he was saying good-bye he said "Good-bye Slim. I won't be seeing you again." Six months later he was dead, leaving a wife and 8 children, the oldest just fourteen years old.
Just before the death of my brother I married Percy Pratt Parsons on February 6, 1931 at Conquest, Saskatchewan. We lived on his mother's farm and she wasn't a bit happy at our marriage; she said he should have stayed single and looked after her. She spent the summers on the farm and the winters in Winnipeg with her son Bert. She made our lives quite miserable, and after two years of this we bought a small two roomed shack and moved it onto my husband's quarter of land, built a barn and hen house out of poles and straw, dug a well and with 4 horses, 3 cows, a few hens and $13.00 started the winter.
All this fussing and moving proved too much for my husband who had been born a "blue baby" and didn't walk until three and a half years old. He later, as a young man, had rheumatic fever which left him with a weak heart, and it started to bother him again.
So the next few years were grim; no crops, no rain and poor health.This was in the "Dirty Thirties". Every spring we would put in what crop we could, I doing the ploughing with five horses on the plough, a neighbor did the seeding as I couldn't drive the {seed} drill straight enough. We cut and stacked russian thistle for our cattle. That was a real hard job for me, I would itch for days after. We finally lost the farm for taxes in '38 and moved to Saskatoon where we rented a five room house for $8.00 a month. We were living on relief by this time and Percy's mother was back living with us, as my husband's health was really bad by this time. If we needed extra money for medicine I would go out and work for $1.00 a day washing walls and floors, etc.
We finally moved to a smaller house for $6.00 a month. We were living here when my husband died by his own hand. He just couldn't take being sick any longer and seeing me try so hard to keep things going. We had been married almost ten years. They were hard years, but we were happy in our love for each other.
At this time I went home to Swanson and kept house for my Dad and step-mother for a year and a half. During this time I met and married Carl Henry
 Photograph from the archives of Wilma "Billie" Holmes |
From there we worked in Vancouver in a saw mill. I had my appendix out about that time, and the damp weather didn't agree with me so we came back to Saskatoon in December 1943.
Henry couldn't find work so I went looking after Mr. and Mrs Norwood's house and three children during the day. In the spring Henry started to do carpenter work, and then we both started to work in the big house belonging to the Convent of Zion on Avenue A.
While we were working there Henry's father came to Saskatoon and said he was going to live with us, so we left our place of work as we couldn't stay there with him. We bought a 25 foot lot up near the Exhibition Grounds on St. George Avenue and with the bit of money we had, started to build a two room house. We lived in a tent in my sister's back yard in the mean time, as they were building their house, too. Henry worked on my sister's house and then on ours. When we had the shingles on the roof and one ply of boards on the walls and floors we moved in and even though we could lie in bed and see stars through the cracks in the boards, we felt like kings in our own home. We eventually finished off the two rooms
I was still working for Norwoods, and after we moved into our home, I started to take care of welfare children. I started with one at first and as I got braver increased to two.
Our daughter Lynne was number 5 on our list of babies and was a very sick little girl at eight months old. We kept and looked after and loved her for five years, and when the doctors decide she was well enough for adoption we decided we loved her too much to let her go. I know I was heartbroken at the thought. So, finally for the good of all concerned we were allowed to keep her.
To be continued................