The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day 70

We had no television but the programmes I occasionally glimpsed on Carmen’s screen did not make me think I was missing much

One morning I said to Ronald: “I must give the children something to do – get them games to play with or something.

“Would you look after them for 10 minutes or so, before you take off, while I go along to the drug store at the corner? It sells all sorts of things.” “I’ll go for you if you like,” he said. “Thanks, but I’d just like to get out of the house for 10 minutes,” I replied and donned my hooded parka.

Heavy with child now I trudged wearily along the snow-covered sidewalk. The man in the drug store was helpful and pleasant.

I told him of my plight – had he the colouring books, games etc that would keep seven young children amused for a while? He smiled at me and said: “Now aren’t you the lucky one.

“I had a customer in the other day and she had no children. Folks tell me their troubles you know.

“She sure would have loved a child but none had come along. You look after seven you say?”

Smiling

He gave a quick glance at my unmistakable bulge: “and there will be more. How interesting life must be for you.

“How many professions you have to follow – nurse, philosopher, cook, teacher, adviser – there’s sure no end to it. You need to be a bit of everything.”

Amazingly I began to feel better. He looked me out some games and colouring books. I walked home with a jaunty step.

How bright the sun was now, how azure the sky, how colourful the houses against the sparkling snow and the few people I met were smiling.

Christmas came and went. We still couldn’t afford to give the children much but then neither could Carmen next door so Tommy and Billy weren’t lording it over our lot.

Then, of course, once more the marvellous parcels came from home. Mother and others had put a great deal of love and thought into what they sent.

Ronald had New Year all arranged early. This time with folk of our own nationality. The MacFarlanes, to whom he had sold the quarter section.

They had encouraged quite a number of relations to come out to Edmonton. A brother and sister lived near and were having a party to which we were all invited – Ronald and I, Henry and the children.

It was a good night, just like back home, with singing, dancing, drinking and Ian MacFarlane playing the bagpipes.

It grew later and later. One by one the children fell asleep. It was four in the morning before we got home.

Ronald and Henry lifted the sleeping children and carried them up to bed.

And then they were off again – first footing they said. I wasn’t one bit pleased about this and let them know it, but they went anyway. I didn’t hear them come back. I was fast asleep.

Later I heard a sad tale of woe, not like Scotland at all – no joy anywhere!

They had ended up at a transport cafe at breakfast time where a lone cowboy sat eating apple pie and ice cream – ugg! Served them right!

Expensive

Ronald and I found entertainments outside home hard to afford. Not only did they cost a lot but a baby sitter was expensive no matter how young she might be.

Canadian children were taught the value of money from the age of two.

As soon as they were able to follow older brothers and sisters they would go knocking on doors and asking the occupants for empty bottles which they gave to mothers or fathers to exchange for cents at the supermarket.

We had no television but the programmes I occasionally glimpsed on Carmen’s screen did not make me think I was missing much.

Most of our entertainment took the form of visiting friends. The friends we visited more than any others were the German couple, Ted Shroers and his wife.

They had twin girls of four and a young baby boy born just before we got to know them.

On Sundays when we weren’t at the lake, they either came to our house or we went to theirs.

Ronald got on well with Ted and I with Heidi. We had a lot in common. By coincidence we even ended up with the same doctor. The Shroers lived on the east side of the city near to his surgery.

Heidi was having trouble with her four-year-olds who were still wetting the bed at night. She was impatient with them.

“I just smack zer bottoms until zay are blue and black and still zay wets ze bed,” she told me once, adding: “I told the doctor zat and what trouble he makes for me. He said I would never stop zem zat way.”

There were other customs we heard of, normal to some Germans but anathema to Canadians.

The kind of situation that shocked Canadians was couples with young babies going out dancing and leaving their babies tied into cots by tapes attached to sleeping bags – no baby sitter anywhere near.

The Germans thought nothing of it. The Canadians were dead against it. It wasn’t that the Germans didn’t love their children, it was just a different way of looking at things. I must admit that I thought the latter rather a dangerous custom.

Valuable

Only once while in Edmonton did Ronald and I go to see a film. Bill Martin, Ronald’s boss, tried to encourage us to go to the ten pin bowling alley – a favourite Canadian place of entertainment.

We went once or twice but found it too expensive. My main form of outside entertainment was the meetings of the Women’s Guild.

Something I had found stuffy at home was less so in Canada. A lot of the women members were of the same age as myself.

The guild was valuable to me in several ways – in getting to know people, for the entertainments and suppers they occasionally put on and for helping to rid me of an inherent shyness.

“Hold up your head,” Ronald had often said to me when going into a crowd of people. “They won’t eat you.”

As for speaking in public, it was quite beyond me. At some of the Guild functions I learned to do just that as even formal occasions seemed so much less formal and frightening than at home.

(More tomorrow.)