Laqua.ca

William Benjamin, son of Frank and Amelia Laqua, was born in Wabasha, Minnesota in 1899. He came with his family to Warner, Alberta, in 1910, when the Tenney family bought land in Warner and had hired the Laqua family to do carpentry work for them. William attended school in Warner and worked for his dad from the age of 17, building big barns and houses around that area.

Mildred was born in Berlin, Oklahoma in 1905, and came to Warner in 1910 with her parents, Robert and Emma Cooper. She attended school in Warner for two winters and spent summers at the homestead at Faith. The trips from Warner to Faith took two days, with an overnight stay at a halfway house. With the opening of school in Faith, she attended school there until grade ten. She then attended the Orion School for grade ten and the Warner School in grade 11.

William and Mildred were married in 1924. They lived in Warner for several years and then moved to the Florann district, where they bought the Jack Carrels farm. On that farm they operated the Florann post office for 20 years. They farmed and Bill did carpentry work for a large number of people in the surrounding areas. They raised four children there; William H., Charles, Joyce and Robert.

William Benjamin died in 1965. The following year, Mildred moved to Lethbridge. She has been actively involved in United Church Women's Organization. She was a founding member and the secretary-treasurer of the Golden Mile Senior Citizen's Center. She also helped initiate the Golden Mile Singers. The Golden Mile Center evolved into the Lethbridge Senior Citizen's Center and she remains actively involved in this organization.

Taken from Wagons to Wings Warner Alberta Histroy Book

William Benjamin, son of Frank and Amelia Laqua, was born in Wabasha, Minnesota in 1899. He came with his family to Warner, Alberta, in 1910, when the Tenney family bought land in Warner and had hired the Laqua family to do carpentry work for them. William attended school in Warner and worked for his dad from the age of 17, building big barns and houses around that area.

Mildred was born in Berlin, Oklahoma in 1905, and came to Warner in 1910 with her parents, Robert and Emma Cooper. She attended school in Warner for two winters and spent summers at the homestead at Faith. The trips from Warner to Faith took two days, with an overnight stay at a halfway house. With the opening of school in Faith, she attended school there until grade ten. She then attended the Orion School for grade ten and the Warner School in grade 11.

William and Mildred were married in 1924. They lived in Warner for several years and then moved to the Florann district, where they bought the Jack Carrels farm. On that farm they operated the Florann post office for 20 years. They farmed and Bill did carpentry work for a large number of people in the surrounding areas. They raised four children there; William H., Charles, Joyce and Robert.

William Benjamin died in 1965. The following year, Mildred moved to Lethbridge. She has been actively involved in United Church Women's Organization. She was a founding member and the secretary-treasurer of the Golden Mile Senior Citizen's Center. She also helped initiate the Golden Mile

William Henry Laqua was born June 6, 1926, in a little two-roomed house in Warner, Alberta, to William B. and Mildred Laqua. This house belonged to Robert James Cooper (his grandfather) and Mildred and William B. had lived there since their marriage. The house is no longer standing as it burned down shortly after the family moved to the farm. The family moved to the Florann district when he was two years old.

When Bill became of school age, his cousin, Amelia Nelson, and he lived with their grandparents, Frank and Amelia Laqua, in Warner. They attended school there for two years. In 1934, there was sufficient enrollment to open the Thistle Ridge School. Eleanor Laqua (Swallow) was the first teacher. Bill attended school at Thistle Ridge until he entered high school at Hoping. He drove the school van to the Hoping School from 1944 to 1949. He played baseball for the Lucky Strike team and was also active in curling in Foremost.

In 1956, Bill married Louise Schepers. They moved to Lethbridge in 1961 and in 1977, they moved to their present residence at Kipp. They have five children; Joanne, Thomas, Lorna, Gordon, and Mark. Bill has carried on the family tradition of being a carpenter.

Taken from Wagons to Wings Warner Alberta History Book

Frank Laqua Senior was born in Frankfurt, Germany, January 7, 1866. His wife, Amelia was born June 18, 1868, to Christian and Elizabeth Eggenberger in Thielman, Minnesota.

Frank left the old country in his teens to journey to America and settled in Wabasha, Minnesota. There, he married and had a son, Frank Junior. His wife, Alma, was ill from the time the baby was born and Amelia Eggenberger took care of her and the baby until Alma died. Baby Frank then went to live with Amelia's parents. When little Frank was three years old, Frank Senior and Amelia were married. They raised a family of 11 children, including Frank Junior. The children were: John, Elizabeth, Christian, William, Anna, Emil, Amelia M., Margaret, Eleanor and Lionel.

Dad (Frank Senior) was a wagon maker and carpenter by trade. In the spring of 1909, Dad, along with our oldest brother Frank, came from Wabasha to Warner, to work as carpenters on the Tenney brothers' farm. The Tenneys had come to Warner from Wabasha a few years earlier. When it was rumored that the land, some 30 to 40 miles east of Warner, was going to be opened for homesteads, Frank Junior went out and put up a squatter's shack on a homestead. As soon as the land was surveyed, he filed on his homestead claim. Dad filed, by proxy on a homestead a mile east and a half mile north of Frank's, for his second son, John. That fall, Dad went back to Wabasha to make arrangements to have our family move to Alberta the next year. In the spring of 1910, he returned to Warner to continue carpentering. Frank Junior brought up a carload of settlers' effects for the Williams family and returned to Wabasha for our belongings. John came later in the spring to complete the filing on his homestead. In September of 1910, Mother and the rest of the family made the journey to Warner. Aunt Louise, Mother's sister was heartbroken to see us leave. Uncle Chris, Mother's brother, took us to Minneapolis where we boarded a train that took us all the way to Lethbridge without changing trains. Even so, the journey was not easy for Mother with eight children. Elizabeth, our oldest sister, had always been a delicate child and tired easily. Eleanor, the youngest, was eight months old, so Anna who was only ten, did a lot of babysitting and kept tab on the rest of us during the long journey. Dad met us at the railway station and we spent that night in the Lethbridge Hotel. The next day we took the train to Warner.

That first winter we did not go to the homestead but stayed at the Cornelius Ott farm where Dad was building a big house and barn. We were not allowed to go far from the buildings as there were large herds of cattle pasturing nearby. Since we had never seen cattle, we were afraid of them, thinking they would charge us at the least provocation. In the spring, Mother and the family moved to the homestead and Dad stayed in Warner carpentering. By fall he had a house built for us in Warner and we moved there for the winter and for school. That same fall, Frank Junior built the house on the homestead that is still lived in today.

In the spring of 1912, we were out of school and on the homestead until late fall. Each year for the next four or five years, we would go back to Warner in the late fall and go to school until the spring break, when we would again move to the homestead for spring, summer and fall. We somehow managed to make a grade a year in school but there was much we didn't learn.

During the six or seven months we were on the homestead, Anna, Amelia or Emil would drive the cattle out to pasture a mile or so north of the homeplace, herd them all day and bring them in at night. There were no fences at that time, only head laws. In those early years, Dad would walk from Warner, carrying groceries on his back, to the homestead and then return to Warner, making the round trip in two days. He would do this almost every week.

In 1915, Dad came out to the homestead with us in the spring to help put in the crop. He didn't know how to harness the horses so one of the children would harness and unharness for him. That year we had our first good crop. The same year, Dad built a big barn on Johnny Carrels' homestead, using his own design and plans from a two foot by 12 inch plank. He had already built several in the Warner and New Dayton areas using those plans. He had two Doukhobor men working with him and they ate with us. Cooking for them created a problem for Mother as they didn't eat meat of any kind. However, she made lots of soup, using a soup bone for stock which they ate and enjoyed.

The following spring, Dad and Mother and the girls stayed in Warner while the boys and Elizabeth went to the homestead. She was going to cook for them but it was too hard for her, so she came back in and Anna and Amelia went out and did the cooking. In August 1916, Lionel was born. From then on until 1935, Dad and Mother stayed in Warner the year round. The boys batched in the winter on the homestead and in the spring, the girls went out to cook for them until harvest.

Amelia started school in Warner and remembers going to school in the Mohan building (where the telephone office was later located) for two or three grades. She was in grade eight before she wrote her first final exam and that was the first year she attended school the whole year. When the morning bell rang at the big school, the children would line up and march in. Emil remembers incurring the principal's wrath one morning when he and his partner, standing at the top of the stairs, bent over and everyone on the stairs behind them lost their balance and went down the stairs one after another. The principal picked up the two of them and they went headlong down the stairs too. Margaret, Eleanor and Lionel attended Warner school full term each year through high school.

During the winter of 1916 and 1917, John and Christian went north to Uncle Eggenberger's to work in the bush. William (Bill) worked with Dad carpentering and Frank Junior and Emil batched on the homestead. That winter we got our first car. Dad bought a McLaughlin Buick, which Bill drove all the time as Dad never learned to drive. Frank Junior bought a Maxwell and we had it on the farm. When he acquired the car, he bought himself a car coat. Ike Williams bought a Chevrolet at the same time. Vene Venum had the first car and it was a McLaughlin with no side doors and handbrakes on the fenders. It was the first car we had ever seen. Shortly after we got the car, Johnny Carrels got his first car and when he was learning to drive and we would meet someone coming towards us, he'd say, "Turn right, turn right" so we'd pass them on the right side. Before we had always driven horses and it didn't matter which side you passed on as horses wouldn't run into each other.

In the spring of 1917, John and Christian came back to help with the farming but after the crop was off in the fall, they found other work to do. This left Emil and Frank to batch on the homeplace. In the fall of 1918, John received his army call but before he was inducted, peace was declared. Dad, Bill and Frank went to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, in 1919, to do some carpentering. A tornado had gone through there, leaving enormous damage and carpenters were scarce. John and Christ went back up north again to Uncle John Eggenberger's, who by this time had moved further north. He had a saw mill where the boys found work. Emil stayed alone on the farm during the winter. After the carpentering season was over, Dad and Bill returned and Frank Junior went back to Wabasha. John and Christ came home and Emil and John batched on the farm. That same year, Westrups left their homestead and the Florann post office and toll telephone were moved to Laqua's. John became postmaster, and later the boys had a pool table upstairs. The bachelors in the district: Runo Norlin, Douglases, Holmberg boys, Ed Williams, Cliff Hunt, Johnny Carrels and the Laquas would play cards during the cold winter nights when they had to stay up to keep the fires going.

In the winter of 1920, a scarlet fever epidemic hit Warner and Emil, who was out on the farm, was the only one who did not contact it.

Anna, the first one to wed, married George Nelson in 1923. The next year William B. (Bill) was married to Mildred Cooper, Amelia to Walter Walsh and Margaret to Stanley Graham.

In 1927, Bill and Mildred moved to the homeplace from Warner. Since John had started doing road work for the municipality and was away from home most of the time, Mildred took over the post office.

A threshing machine and cook car were bought and the boys threshed throughout the country. Bill operated the threshing machine, John drove the header and Emil a header barge, and at least one of the girls cooked for the crew.

In 1930, Bill and Mildred bought the Johnny Carrel's farm, a half mile east of the homeplace and moved there, and the post office was established there. Mildred was postmistress for 20 years. Later that year Amelia came home and kept house for Emil, and John and her boys.

In 1935, Mother, Dad and Lionel moved back to the farm, close to most of their children. Anna married Ed Williams and lived across the road. Bill was half a mile east and Emil and Amelia, with her four boys, were already at the homeplace. Eleanor was teaching at Thistle Ridge School and living at home. John was married and living on the Horn place. Frank and Amelia's home in town was rented to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for three years. It was sold to the Youngs in the 1940's.

Dad died in 1938 and Mother in 1940 and they are both buried in Warner.

Frank Junior, the eldest of the Laqua children, bought his father's house in Wabasha and was married there. He sold his interest in the homestead to his Dad, returning to Warner, for a short visit in 1951 and in 1953. Frank died in 1954 and is buried in Wabasha.

John married Margaret Little. He passed away in 1963 and is buried in Warner. Margaret died in 1980 and is buried in Calgary.

In the winter of 1918-19, Elizabeth passed away during the influenza epidemic and is buried in Warner. Christian died in 1921 from complications following the scarlet fever attack. He is buried in Warner.

William (Bill) and Mildred had four children: William H. Junior, Charles, Joyce and Robert. William H.. who is a carpenter, married Louise Schepers. They live in Kipp and have five children: Joann, Tommy, Lorna, Gordon and Mark. Charles (Chuck) married Lylla Bailey and they have seven children: Jerry, Donald, Lyle (deceased in 1975), Bonnie, Dean, Janice, and Adrienne. Jerry is a carpenter, lives in Foremost and has one daughter. Donald married Evelyn Jensen. They have three children and live on the original Laqua homestead. Bonnie is married to Nick Paladino. They have a son and live in Lethbridge.

Dean married Robin Cowie and they have three children. They reside on the homeplace. Janice and Adrienne live at home. Joyce married Victor O'Connell. They live in London, Ontario, and have four children: Brian, Kathy, Kevin, and Graham. The three boys are married and all live in London. Brian has three children and Kevin has one son. Robert M., who is a carpenter, married Lillian Spankovich. They live at Cockrane and have three children: Robert, Debbie and Carey. William died in 1965 and is buried in Lethbridge. Mildred is living in Lethbridge.

Anna and George Nelson had one daughter, Amelia (Babe) who is married to Harold Wadams and lives in Calgary. They had two sons, Frank and Keith. In 1930, Anna married Ed Williams. They have three children: Laura Ann, Marjorie and Norman. Laura Ann married Harold Wesley. They live on the Williams homestead and raised two children: Sharon and Terry. Marjorie married Michael Voeller and they live at Conquerville where Marjorie teaches school. They have three children: Colleen, Fred and Todd. Colleen married Mike Galipeau and they have two children. They live in Lacombe and Fred and Todd are at home. Norman married Muriel Martin and they live in Foremost where Norman farms. They have three children: Debbie, Kelly and Kevin. Ed Williams died in 1954 and Anna still resides in Foremost.

Emil married Isabel Little, Margaret's sister, in 1937 and they have three children: David, Elizabeth and Chris. David is at home. Elizabeth married Robert Burns and they have four girls: Jane, Jeanne, Jeannine and Heather. They live in Calgary. Chris married Janet Heggen. They live in Grande Prairie and had three children: Curtis (deceased in 1981), Suzette and Brett. Emil passed away in 1982 and is buried in Foremost. Isabel lives in Foremost.

Amelia and Walter Walsh had four sons: Donald, Henry, Leslie and Edward. Donald married Della Hollihan and they have three children: Jimmie, Rita and Raylene. Jimmie married Barbara Flemming and they have three children. Rita married Nicky Perversoff and they have one daughter. Raylene lives in Lethbridge. Henry married Leona Fetter and they had six children: Brenda, Dale, Joy, Allan, Robert and Gordon. Brenda married Gerald Army and they have two children and live in Calgary. Dale married Pat Barch and they, with their three children, live in Cayley. Joy married Glen Brooks and they reside in Calgary where Allan also lives. Robert married Terry and they with their two boys live in Calgary. Gordon lives in British Columbia. Leslie married Edith Sullivan and they had three sons: Wayne, Ricky and Terry. Ricky married Susan, Terry married Gail ad they live in Millet. Edward married Susan Gavora and they, with their two children, Shelley and Chad, live in Foremost. Amelia married Ole Wang in 1943 and they had one son, Harold. He married Patricia Schinnour and they with their two children, live at St. Albert. Ole died in 1965 and is buried in Lethbridge. Amelia lives in Foremost.

Margaret married Stanley Graham of Warner and they have four children: Fred (deceased and buried in Warner), Roger, Gwen and Paul. Roger married Florence Cowie. They moved to Calgary and had three children: Carl, Lavenne and Brent. Roger is deceased and buried in Calgary. Gwen married Willard Pratt. They live in Calgary with their four children: Ricky, Kelly, Shannon and Erin. Paul is deceased and buried in Calgary. Stanley passed away in 1951 and is buried in Lethbridge. Margaret lives in Calgary.

Eleanor married Art Coolidge who is deceased. In 1937, she married Truman Swallow, who farmed in the Goddard area, from Milk River where Eleanor taught school until they retired to Lethbridge.

Lionel, a carpenter, married Edith Cooper. They live in Lethbridge and have three girls: Linda, Patricia and Eleanor. Linda married Robert Eglund of Blackie and they have two children, Julie and Brad. Julie is married and has one son. Patricia married Greg Hales. They live in Lethbridge where both teach school. Eleanor married David Orser and they with two daughters, live in Lethbridge. Lionel and Edith also have three foster daughters: Marilyn, Marcella and Sally.

Anna's daughter, Amelia Nelson, and Bill's son Billy, both went to school in Warner and stayed with their Grandma and Grandpa Laqua.

There are many memories of the good times we had as children; school concerts, picnics, hikes down the railway tracks and games after school. Amelia remembers playing "run, sheep, run" with the Catholic Church as home base. There was a set time to go home; someone's parent would call and everyone would go home.

Mom always had a good garden and kept chickens. She sewed for all of us and we will never forget her home made bread and buns. Each of us still follow the family traditions at Christmas and New Year's Day.

Taken from the "Wagons to Wings Warner Alberta History Book"

In the spring of 1909 our father, Frank Laqua Sr., a wagon maker and carpenter by trade, with his oldest son, Frank, came from Wabasha, Minnesota to Warner, Alberta to work as carpenters on the Tenney Brothers Farm. The Tenneys had came to Warner from Wabasha a few years earlier.

When it was rumored that the land some thirty to forty miles east of Warner was going to be opened for homesteads, Frank Jr. went out and put up a squatter's shack on a homestead and pre-emption. As soon as the land was surveyed Frank filed on his homestead claim. Frank Sr. filed by proxy on a homestead for his second son, John, a mile east and a half mile north of Frank's homestead. That fall Dad went back to Wabasha to make arrangements to have our family move to Alberta the next year.

In the spring of 1910 Dad returned to Warner to continue carpentering. Frank brought up a carload of settler's effects for the Williams family and returned to Wabasha for our carload of settler's effects. John came later in the spring to complete the filing of his homestead. In September of 1910 Mother and the rest of the family made the journey to Warner. Aunt Louisa, mother's sister, was heartbroken to see us leave. Uncle Chris, mother's brother, took us to Minneapolis where we got on a train that took us all the way to Lethbridge without changing trains. Even so, the journey wasn't easy for Mother with eight children. Elizabeth, our oldest sister had always been a delicate child and tired easily. Eleanor, the youngest, was a baby, nine months old so Anna, who was only ten, did a lot of babysitting and pretty well kept tab on the rest of us during the long journey. Dad met us at the railway station and we spent that night in the Lethbridge Hotel. The next day we took the train to Warner.

That first winter we did not go out to the homestead but stayed at the Cornelius Ott farm where Dad was building a big house and barn. We weren't allowed to go far from the buildings as there were large herds of cattle pasturing nearby and as we had never seen cattle we were afraid of them thinking they would charge us at the slightest provocation.

The next spring Mother and the family moved out to the homestead and Dad stayed on in Warner carpentering. By fall he had a house built for us in Warner and we moved back for the winter and school. That same fall Frank built the house on the homestead that is still lived in today.

In the spring of 1912 we were out of school and back on the homestead until late fall. Each year for the next four or five years we would go back to Warner in the late fall and go the homestead for the late spring, summer and fall. We somehow managed to make a grade a year in school but there was a lot we didn't learn. Dad would stay alone in Warner doing carpenter work.

During the six or seven months we were on the homestead, Anna, Amelia or Emil would drive the cows out to pasture a mile or so north of the home place, herd them all day and bring them in at night. There were no fences at that time-- only herd laws.

In those early years Dad would walk out from Warner, carrying groceries on his back to the homestead and then return to Warner, making the round trip in two days, almost every week.

In 1915 Dad came out to the homestead with us in the spring, to help put in the crop. Dad didn't know how to harness and unharness the horses so one of us--Anna, Amelia or Emil would harness and unharness them for him. That year we had our first real good crop.

That same year Dad built the big barn on Johnny Carrels' homestead, using his own design and plans for the round roofed building. Each rafter was hand-sawed form a 2' by 12" plank. He had already built several in the Warner and New Dayton area using those plans. He had two Doukhobor men carpentering with him and they ate with us. Cooking for them created a problem for Mother as they didn't eat meat of any kind. However, Mother made lots of vegetable soup, using a soup bone for stock which they ate and enjoyed.

The following spring Dad and Mother and the girls stayed in Warner while the boys and Elizabeth went out to the homestead. Elizabeth was going to cook and keep house for the boys but it proved to be too much hard work for her so she went back to Warner and Anna and Amelia came out and did the cooking.

In August of 1916 Lionel was born. From then until 1935 Dad and Mother stayed in Warner the year round with the boys batching in the winter on the homestead and the girls coming out in the spring to cook for them until after harvest.

Amelia was in Grade VIII before she wrote her first final exams and that was the first year she attended school the whole year. Margaret , Eleanor and Lionel attended the Warner school full term each year through high school and Eleanor upon graduating from the Warner High School went to Calgary Normal School. She received her teaching certificate and taught at King's Lake, Thistle Ridge, Tagona and Milk River schools.

The winter of 1916 and 1917, John and Christ went up north to Uncle John Eggenberger's to work in the bush. Bill worked with Dad carpentering and Frank and Emil batched on the homestead. That winter we got our first car. Dad bought a McLaughlin Buick, which Bill drove all the time as Dad never learned to drive. Frank got a Maxwell and we had it out to the farm. When Frank got the car, he bought himself a car coat, cap and gauntlet gloves, which he wore whenever he went with the car. Ike Williams bought a Chevrolet at the same time. Vene Venum had the first car and it was a McLaughlin with no side doors; handbrakes were on the fenders; it had carbide lamps, and a right handed steering wheel, and that was the first car we had ever seen. Shortly after we got our car, Johnny Carrels got his first car and when he was learning to drive, either riding with us or driving the car we would meet someone coming toward us he'd say turn right, turn right so we'd pass them on the right side. Before we had always passed on as horses wouldn't run into each other.

When spring came in 1917 John and Christ came back to help with the farming but after the crop was off in the fall they found other work to do leaving Emil and Frank to batch on the homeplace.

The fall of 1918 John received his army call but before he was inducted into the army "Peace" was declared. However that winter we were saddened by the loss of Elizabeth who passed away during the flu' epidemic. She is buried in Warner.

In 1919 Dad, Bill and Frank went down the Fergus Falls, Minnesota, carpentering. A tornado had gone through there leaving enormous damage, and carpenters were scarce. John and Christ went back up north again to Uncle John Eggenberger's who by this time had moved further north and had a sawmill and the boys worked in the sawmill.

Emil stayed on the farm alone during the winter. After the carpentering season was over Dad and Bill returned to Warner and Frank went back to Wabasha where he bought our old house. He got married there and sold his interest in the homestead to Dad, returning only for a short visit in 1951 and 1953. Frank died in 1954 and is buried in Wabasha.

After Frank went back to Wabasha, Christ and John came home and Emil and John batched on the farm. That same year Westrups left their homestead and the Florann Post Office and Toll telephone were moved to Laqua's and John became postmaster.

When the telephone line was moved the wire was rolled and unrolled by hand. The poles were pulled out of the ground using the back wheels and the reach of the wagon. The reach was tipped up as high as it would go, then a chain was tied around the telephone pole and over the axle, and the reach was pulled down and the roll of the axle worked like winch raising the pole a few inches at a time out of the ground. The poles were reset in holes dug with a bar and a telephone spoon. Ove Trapness, who had been a lineman before he came to the homestead country and had a pair of climbing spurs, climbed the poles and tied the wires into the main line. Every summer Ove worked on the telephone line and was the Telephone Company's trouble shooter.

After John became postmaster the boys had a pool table upstairs and the bachelors in the district--Douglases, Runo Norlin, Holmberg boys, Ed Williams, Cliff Hunt, Johnny Carrels and the Laquas would play pool or cards during the cold winter nights when they had to stay up to keep the fires going.

We had the first radio in the country, a two-tube Westinghouse that was bought from the Al Henley Hardware in Foremost.

To pay for it Emil hauled Mr. Henley's winter supply of coal from the Pat Goody coal mine. He used four horses and a wagon, hauling about four tons to the load and making the 45- mile trip in two days. The first day he would go down to the mine to get coal. Then he would wait until the coal was mined, loaded and go back home. The next day he would into Foremost, unload the coal and go back home.

The radio had connections for two sets of ear phones and we had two sets. Oscar Holmberg, Ed (Fat) Williams and Johnny Carrel each bought themselves a set and when they came we would plug the radio into a potato and the ear phones into the potato and have good reception for as many sets as you wanted to plug in and if the whole gang came we'd divide the ear phones and each would use just one.

In 1920 a government agriculture representative from Indian Head, Saskatchewan sold the homesteaders on the advantages of trees and we and our neighbors decided to plant windbreaks around the building. The trees were cuttings that came in the fall, were put in trenches and covered over winter, then in the spring we planted them, on an angle, rows four feet apart according to directions. The trees were free but we had to pay freight to Foremost. The caraganas that were planted then are still there but rows four feet apart proved to be too close for the dry years. Most of the poplars and Manitoba Maples died out and had to be replaced. In the fall of 1927 Emil worked for Stokelys and his wages were used to buy a few ash and elm trees, some fruit trees, lilacs and honeysuckle bushes form the Dominion Experimental Station in Manitoba. The apple and plum trees planted then lived for about twenty years and in 1951 these were replaced with apple and plum trees from the Bowden Alberta Nursery. Most of these, along with the lilacs, honeysuckle and caraganas are still there, although a few were lost when the county first started spraying the roadsides for weeds.

In the winter of 1920 a scarlet fever epidemic hit Warner and Emil who was out on the farm was the only one who did not come down with it sooner or later. Christ died in January, 1921 from complications following the scarlet fever attack and he is buried in Warner.

Hauling water was a problem we faced all the years we lived on the farm. In the first years we hauled drinking water by the barrel from the Milk River, ten miles south of us. Then we hauled water from the Stokely well. Later a well was dug on John's homestead and we hauled water from there. During the spring the well on John's would be under water and we would drink slough water until the well showed above the slough. We had a wooden tank on a wagon, that Dad had made, to haul water and in the spring we would attach an eight or ten foot wooden handle to a pail and used it like a dipper to scoop the water out of the deep part of the slough into the tank. In later years we hauled water form the Conways well at Lucky Strike in the early spring for drinking.

Wells were dug on almost every quarter section and most of them were dug by Jack McDonald who homesteaded north of us. Jack had been a coal miner in Scotland before he came out here and digging in the bottom of a well didn't seem to bother him. Some of the wells were witched and generally they found water where the well witcher said to dig, but it wasn't always fit to drink. Mother and Dad dug a well 40 feet deep, on the homestead. Dad did the digging and Mother hauled the dirt up using a windlass. The well had lots of water but it came through a seam of coal, was brackish in taste, brown in color and neither man nor beast could drink it so a dam was built in the draw north of the buildings and this provided water for the cattle and general household uses but no drinking water. In 1960 Bill had a deep well drilled on his place and while there was lots of water andit was good for the cattle, cooking and drinking, it had too high a salt content to be used on the lawns and gardens. After Chuck took over his dad's place he had another deep well drilled but it also had a high salt content.

During the early 1920's Margaret and Amelia continued to come out and cook for the boys during the busy season.

Anna was the first to get married, marrying George Nelson in 1923. The next year Bill married Mildred Cooper-- then Amelia married Walter Walsh and Margaret married Stanley Graham.

In 1927 Bill and Mildred moved out to the home place from Warner and Mildred took over the Post Office as John had started doing road work for the municipality and was away from home most of the time.

A Threshing machine and cook car was bought and the boys threshed through out the country, Bill running the threshing machine, John drove the header and Emil a header barge with at least one of the girls cooking for the crew.

In 1930 Bill and Mildred bought the Johnny Carrels farm, one half mile east of the home place and they moved there taking the Post Office with them. Mildred was postmistress for some 20 years. Later that year Amelia came home and kept house for Emil and John and her boys.

In 1935 Mother and Dad and Lionel moved back to the farm close to most of their children. Anna was remarried to Ed Williams and lived across the road, Bill was half mile east, Amelia was home with her four boys. Eleanor was teaching at Thistle Ridge school and she was living at home. John was married and living on the Horn Place, and Emil and Lionel were both at home.

Dad died in 1938 and Mother 1940 and both are buried in Warner.

Their family:

Anna married George Nelson and they had one daughter-- Amelia (Babe) who is married to Harold Wadams and live in Calgary. They had two sons, Frank and Keith.

Anna married Ed Williams in 1930. They had three children. Laura Ann, who married Harold Wesley live on the Williams homestead-their children, Sharon and Terry. Marjorie married Michael Voeller. They live at Conquerville where Marjorie teaches. They had three children, Colleen, Fred and Todd. Norman married Muriel Martin. They live in Foremost and Norman farms and works in a garage in Foremost. They have three children, Debbie, Kelley and Kevin. Ed died in 1964 and Anna still live in Foremost.

William B. married Mildred Cooper and had four children, William H. Jr. (Bill), Charles, Joyce and Robert . William H. married Louise Schepers; they live in Lethbridge. William is a carpenter and they have five children, Joanne, Tommy, Lorna, Gordon and Mark. Charles (Chuck) married Lylla Bailey. They have seven children, Jerry married Shirley Masuda--lives in Lethbridge and has one daughter, Michelle. Jerry is a carpenter. Donald is married to Evelyn Jensen. Dean, Janice and Adrienne live at home. Joyce married Victor O'Connell. They live in London, Ontario and have four children; Brian married and living in London; Kathy, Kevin, and Graham. Robert M. Married Lillian Spankovich; Robert is a carpenter and lives at Cockrane. They have three children, Robert, Debbie and Carey. Bill passed away in 1965--is buried in Lethbridge and Mildred moved to Lethbridge.

John H married Margaret Little. He passed away in 1963 and is buried in Warner. Margaret live in Calgary.

Amelia married Walter Walsh and they had four sons; Donald, married to Della Hollihan. They live at Lucky Strike on the Rimmer homestead had have three children; Jimmie married to Barbara Flemming-- has two children--Craig and Lana and farms with his dad. Rita married Nicky Perversoff, is living in Victoria and has one daughter Nicole; Raylene is still at home. Henry married Leona Fetter, lives in Arrowwood where Henry runs the Pool elevator. They have six children; Brenda married to Gerald Army and lives on Calgary with two chidlren-- Angela and Richard; Dale, married lives at Cayley, runs the Pool elevator and has one child, Michelle; Joy married Glen Brooks and lives in Calgary; Allan works for the Alberta Wheat Pool in Calgary; Robert works at a greenhouse in Calgary and Gordon is at home. Leslie married Edith Sullivan and lives in Foremost. They have three boys, Wayne, Ricky, and Terry. Eaward married Susan Gavora, lives in Foremost and works as welder for County of Forty of Mile. They have two children, Shelley and Chad.

Amelia married Ole Wang in 1943 and they had one son, Harold. He married Patricia Schinnour, lives in Calgary and has two children--Ken and Karen. Ole died in 1965 and is buried in Lethbridge. Amelia lives in Foremost.

Margaret married Stanley Graham of Warner. They had four children; Fred, deceased is buried in Warner; Roger married Florence Cowie--moved to Calgary and had three children, Carl, Lavenne and Brent. Roger is deceased and is buried in Calgary; Gwen married Willard Pratt, lives in Calgary and has four children Ricky, Kelley, Shannon and Erin; Paul is deceased and is buried in Calgary. Stanely passed away in 1951 and buried in Lethbridge. Margaret is living in Calgary.

Eleanor married Art Coolidge who is deceased. In 1937 she married Truman Swallow. They farmed in the Goddard district from Milk River where Eleanor was teaching until they retired to Lethbridge.

Lionel married Edith Cooper; Lionel carpenters in Lethbridge. They have three girls: Linda married Robert Eglund of Blackie, has two children Julie and Brad; Patricia married Ken Martin, lives and teaches in Lethbridge; Eleanor married David Oscar, live and Lethbridge and has one daughter. Lionels also have three foster daughters, Marilyn, Marcella and Sally.

Emil married Isabel Little and 1937. They are retired, live in Foremost and have three children: David at home; Elizabeth married Robert Burns, lives in Calgary and has four girls, Jane, Jeanne, Jeannine and Heather; Chris married Janet Heggen, lives at Vancouver and has three children, Curtis, Suzette and Brent.

The fall Emil and Isabel, Eleanor and Truman for married, Emil and Truman ran Ed William's combine and tractor, and the combine was named the "Loveship of '37".

John William's combine was named the "Sky Pilot" as Rev. Heuer was working for John Williams but when John discovered it, the printing was remove. However, the name renamed on Ed's combine and the following year Emil and Truman added another name "the Great Mistake of 38" and both names are still on the combine.

Many are the memories of the good times we had on the farm. The Sundays when the whole family got together, played ball, had supper and homemade icecream.. Those were the days; gone but not forgotten.

Taken from Long Shadows A History of Shortgrass Country