The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day 69

It was lovely to have some sort of contact with home again. As for ourselves, we still felt vulnerable and isolated

Iwould have loved to have gone with him from time to time, driving into the countryside. Sometimes he travelled many miles.

He came back with tales of the places he had been to and people he had met. He told me about three old brothers living in a shack at Cooking Lake. They were all over 70 years old and had always lived in comparative isolation.

Even yet there was no one very near to them but they were wanting to move further north. To their way of thinking the place was getting congested!

There was another old couple whose shack had burned down and who now lived in a henhouse.

They didn’t complain to Ronald about losing almost all their possessions, just mentioned how wonderful it was that their prize possession, the old family bible, had been saved.

They owned a quarter section of land and hoped it would bring in enough money to buy a flat in Edmonton. Good listener Another couple were in much the same position. They were both in their eighties and felt no longer able to farm.

They had a half section of land to sell. He was a huge man, bent with hard work. She was tiny.

They liked to talk to Ronald as many country people did. Ronald was a good listener. They liked to tell him about their lives.

Bob, the husband, told how in the beginning he had managed to raise just enough money to buy a half section.

The Province handed out parcels of land for very few dollars in these early days. He had to clear the land of trees before he could start any kind of cultivation.

He told Ronald how he had done it with the help of his tiny wife.

There were areas of muskeg on the land – waterlogged acres where it was necessary to wade through wet sludge up to the waist.

At times, when she was out helping him, he lifted her on to his shoulders while wading through the worst bits in case she disappeared out of sight.

His wife had been of the greatest help to him. As far as he was concerned she was beyond rubies.

One evening Ronald came home distressed about a family of recent immigrants. They were Dutch and had a lot of young children. They kept pigs. Disease had swept through the animals. They were ruined and would have to sell.

Their farm was quite far from the railroad. That would make a sale difficult. Ronald was determined to make every effort to sell it for them and get as good a price as possible.

Ronald also came across people who had made it, who perhaps had a nice house on the outskirts of Edmonton which on selling would give them enough money to buy a smaller one in the more temperate climate of Vancouver – the dream of many Edmontonians.

On the whole money was scarce and land was often sold at bargain prices. Ronald would come home some evenings and say: “What a bargain these folk got today. I wish I had had the money to buy it.” Vulnerable It was through Ronald’s job that we got to know an extended family of Scottish immigrants. The MacFarlanes bought a quarter section of land from Ronald up near Lake Nakamun.

The land hadn’t been cleared and was rather far from the railway but it was cheap. The MacFarlanes paid for it with the wood they took off the land. Ian MacFarlane had a good job with an oil company so it was more or less bought for a holiday place – somewhere to go at the weekends.

Back home in Scotland, Jill, his wife, had lived in a village close to our old farm for several years although I had never met her before.

It was lovely to have some sort of contact with home again. As for ourselves, we still felt vulnerable and isolated. What if either of us should fall ill?

Fortunately up till now illness had not been much of a problem. Ronald was anxious, however, that I should get fixed up with a doctor because of the forthcoming baby.

Adrian had told us that the doctor we had in Sandyhills had come to practise in Edmonton. We decided we could do no better than to go back to him.

We found out where he was – the east side of Edmonton – quite a long way from us. We had been told that as a rule, Edmonton’s doctors didn’t go out on calls much but, in case they had to, liked to have patients in their own area.

However, we wanted to have him as our doctor if he would have us.

“We won’t need you much.” I said on my first visit, “we keep pretty healthy.” He agreed to take us on.

Not long after I had been to see him Richard came home from school with a sore throat. He was feverish for a day or two until an alarming red rash appeared. I hadn’t seen anything like it before but the words scarlet fever came into my head.

Reluctantly I called the doctor. All the children were back from school when he came and the racket in the kitchen was dreadful. Scarlet fever “Good gracious, how many children have you got?” he said. I explained the situation. He went upstairs to examine Richard.

“How many of the children go to school?” he asked when we came back downstairs.

“Three,” I replied, “and Michael goes to playschool.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m not quite sure what it is but if I put down suspected scarlet fever on my chit of notifiable diseases, all the children will have to stay off school for six weeks. It’s the law in Alberta.

“We’ll see how things go. I’m just going to call it a streptococcal throat meantime. Richard is perhaps past the worst. I’ll give you these capsules for him and call back in a day or two. If you’re worried at all give me a phone.”

Richard took a wee while to recover but much to my surprise no one else took it.

In no time at all it seemed the Christmas holidays were upon us and for several days before Christmas I had all the children to entertain.

One day at the beginning of the holidays, while suffering the aftermaths of a cold and feeling tired and a bit sorry for myself, I wondered how I was going to cope. (More tomorrow.)