Being in the country important for Schlitt family
The Schlitt families in Prince George go back to the early 1920s. They have an amazing story but since this is only a column and not a book I can only scratch the surface as I introduce Fred (Frank) Schlitt.
Fred was born in Regina, Sask. in 1930; the second eldest of the seven children of John and Elizabeth Schlitt. They lived in the city of Regina where his father worked as an engineer at the local brewery. Fred was 15 years old when his parents announced that they didn’t like the fact that their four sons were being raised in a city so they decided to sell their house and move to Prince George.
Fred said, “I was so happy that we were moving to Prince George. My grandparents Emil and Lena Schlitt were living in Prince George and owned 160 acres out at Tabor Creek and all I could think about was that I would be able to see my grandparents and go hunting. I was excited that I would be able to go out into the bush whenever I wanted to and that we would be getting out of this big and dusty city.
“My father had previously invested and owned 160 acres out on Damms Road; it was all bush except for the 10 acres that we cleared. His brother (my uncle Steve Schlitt) owned a 160-acre farm on Bonnet Hill. Our plan was to live with my grandparents until we built a house and at the same time start an herbal farm and raise caraway seeds.
“Our new home was only partially finished when we moved in. We had a wood heater and tarpaper walls and one night, in 1947, we had a chimney fire and the place burned to the ground. Me and two of my brothers were asleep on the third floor when we became aware of the fire.
“Without even thinking about it I used my fists and broke the window so we could get out. We jumped onto a lean-to for the garage and made it safely to the ground. I was sick for months because of all the smoke in my lungs and my hand was cut and swollen from punching out the window.
“We moved back to my grandmother’s house. The herbal farm was not successful so we planted a hay crop. Our only income was the monthly family allowance check. The family allowance was $7 per child and there were seven of us. That was what kept us going and gave us something to eat.”
Fred’s father started a small sawmill and cut 4X6 planks for outside walls and built a second house.
The younger children attended elementary school at Dorothy Creek which is about two miles in on the Buckhorn Lake Road. Fred was 17 and there were no high schools in the area so he went to work in the family sawmill.
The house in Regina sold for $10,000 and his father bought two quarter sections of land at Beaver Creek near the old Art Knapp’s store. There was lots of timber on the land so his father John and his two uncles Paul and Joe Schlitt formed their own sawmill company.
Fred reflected back and said, “I was 19 years old and I now had my very first job and the worst job of my life stacking slabs on a cart and moving it about 100 feet over to the burner at a wage of 80 cents an hour. In fact, the job was so hard on me that I had nightmares about it.
“There was another fellow there that hated his job piling lumber so we traded jobs – which turned out to be another back-breaking job.
“I wanted to be a sawyer so I made that my goal. I dreamt that one day I would be a sawyer and earn their big wage of $2.50 an hour. By the time I was 20 I did jobs including millwright, edger man, trimmer and the sawyer’s job.
“In the 50s there were about 850 sawmills operating in the Prince George area. The owners were happy and making good money if they were able to put out 1,000 board-feet of lumber per man per day. That was nothing compared to the production happening these days.”
Fred married Edith Paula Dekany in 1953 and they have a very interesting story of how they met.
To make a long story short, Fred’s father knew of the Dekany family from his years living in Hungary previous to 1928 when he immigrated to Canada. He knew that they were good hardworking German people who fled from Hungary and went to Germany to get away from the Russians.
He kept track of them through their church and always said that if he ever had a chance to help them that he would.
Well, he did just that and sponsored the family so they could immigrate to Canada.
Fred said, “The Dekany family arrived here in 1951 and my father took them in. I was lucky because I married their daughter Edith.”
Fred and his brothers Joe, Herb and Danny formed their own company and took over Lars Strome’s sawmill at George Creek near Willow River.
Fred said, “We ran the sawmill for about six years and then the pulp mills started to arrive. We eventually sold our timber rights and quotas to Lawrence Tingle and we were out of the sawmill business.”
They moved into town and Edith became a stay-at-home mom. They bought their first brand new house on Moffat Street from Erwin Construction for $15,500.
Fred landed a great job at Netherlands Overseas Mills and worked there for the next 26 years until he retired at the age of 62 because of vision problems caused by many years of welding and hard surfacing with a flame.
He said, “It was a great company to work for and they were sure good to me. I worked as a millwright and they taught me all the modern ways of doing things in the lumber industry. It was a huge change coming from the small sawmill that I knew so well but they were patient and trained me well.
“Edith and I were married for 57 years when sadly she lost her battle with cancer and passed away in 2010. She was a great partner and cooked in the camp cookhouse until we sold the sawmill; after that she was busy raising the children.
“She was a happy person and singing all the time. She was a great wife and a good mother. My life really changed when I lost her to cancer.
“Now I live at River Bend and it has turned out to be the perfect move for me.
“Edith and I had four children; Bette (Roly) Falk, Eva (Ken) Schultz, Carol (Brad) Julihn and Ron (Dianne). We have 10 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren and believe me they are all great and I love every one of them.
“Our children did us proud and right now I don’t know what I would do without them.”