TREES TELL A STORY

If only these evergreens could talk...

A daughter shares the family history behind a row of evergreen trees planted by her dad, many years ago.

Igrew up on a hobby farm in British Columbia, not far from the sea. I believe that my father and mother were the first owners of the land, having settled there in the early 1940s. They cleared the land with a big work horse named Dolly, a wagon and a stone boat. There was no electricity, no telephone and we drew water from a well.

We kept cows and chickens and grew every kind of vegetable. The cows were a gentle herd of four. They produced milk for us and for the Fraser Valley Milk Producers Association. Every day, my father would load the metal container of milk onto a red wagon, and we would pull it down the road to the highway.

In those days, the road was dirt and full of potholes and muddy grooves when it rained. Summer meant dust and a dry well.

“Don’t run the water,” our mother would say. “The well’s running dry.”

To keep o the dust, my father planted long rows of small evergreen trees—one row along Duerin Road in front of the house and another row along the eastern property line.

“The trees will grow,” he said. “And when we get city water, I’ll cut them and sell them for Christmas trees.”

Those trees grew, and years later the water line was put in. For months afterwards, whenever we had company, my father would announce to no one in particular, “Wash. The water’s free,” or “Take a bath, we’ve got lots of water.”

He watered everything, even the road. The trees grew even taller, green on one side and dusty on the other, until finally the road was paved and the dust stopped.

But still the trees grew.

Now, in 2021, that land is part of a subdivision with a park in the middle.

But the trees along the eastern property line, the ones that my father planted so long ago, are still there. Those trees could tell so many stories: riding on the stone boat while Dolly pulled us around the bumpy ground, roasting potatoes in the ashes of a bonfire, calling the cows in to be milked, squirting milk at the barn cats and pulling the milk wagon down the dusty road to the corner.

We attended the opening of the park beside the trees. But who, besides us, could know the stories those trees could tell?

We’ve placed a bench in the park near the trees to let others know that once, long ago, this was a farm, and those who lived here are part of the history of this place.

Bottom from left: One row of trees stands tall; between each trunk is a stump —a souvenir of trees cut to make more room; the bench, often in shadow, looks out at the park.