Welcome to our page of pictures and video that
show some of the interesting life we had growing
up on a farm in Manitoba, Canada and different
events in the life of My Precious Sweetheart of
45 years, bringing us down to our present
location in the mountains of British Columbia
along the mighty Fraser River ! I am now 71
and praising My Heavenly Father for all these
years of life with it's blessings and trials for
He is loving and kind to all men, even those
who do not love Him !
This will be "under construction" for some
time so check back often to see what is new !
My Parents, Philip & Hazel Weber, were married
in the little village of Bellsite on July 4, 1941.
I was born October 5, 1942 in the Swan River
hospital which was 42 miles from Bellsite, the
first of five in total.
This map will show the area of Manitoba in which
the first 20 years of my life brought many
happy moments !
War was raging in
Europe and Dad spent several years in the
Canadian Army. After his discharge we moved
to a little 1/4 section of land that was all bush
and trees and Dad built a neat little cabin for
his family and a shelter for our horses.
He cleared a garden space and worked hard
to keep us all warm and fed.
This is the neat little cabin with me and my
Sister Marge standing outside the door. The
picture on the right is Marge and our little
cousin Diane. By the time we moved to this
place, our brother "Ken" had been born also
and was about three years old.
We had such an interesting time growing up
with our Dear Christian Parents that it truly would
take a large book to tell it all ! I shall ever be
thankful that they taught us to have faith in God
and His Son Jesus Christ as our Savior from the
time we were born. There was no Lutheran Church
in the village, but a minster did come once in
a while and we also would attend other
protestant meetings from time to time. Giving
a child faith and love for the Great Creator God
is the most precious blessing Parents can bestow
upon their children !
One day while we were all busy doing our
"own thing", we suddenly realized that
Br. Ken had vanished ! Mother called and
called and no answer as we all began to search.
A little path behind the cabin led to the "outhouse"
about one hundred feet from there the forest
opened up into a wild hay meadow. Our dog Rover
led us to the meadow where Ken was laying in
the grass quiet as a mouse.
One day Dad was plowing the garden with the
neighbors old tractor called a "Hart Parr". It looked
something like this one .
These old tractors were a wonderful invention
but some of the first engines were one cylinder
and they made quite a frightening noise for
children, especially little people like our
brother Ken !
"Chooga- chooga- chooga - CHOOGA BOOM " !
Ken took off for the cabin in a stream of tears and screams of terror !
I had just turned 7 years and was going to
the little country school house which was a
daily walk of one and one quarter miles each
way so we had a two and one half mile walk
every day. I really liked going to school and
enjoyed the lessons and playing with the
other children. Our cousins lived one mile
further from school and I would sometimes
be at the corner at the right time to get a ride
with them in the horse drawn four wheeled
wagon called a "Democrat" .
Their Cousin, a boy called Arthur, lived even
two miles further from school and rode each
day on horseback !
Arthur and I were good Friends at school
and would spend lunch time making whistles
from young poplar trees in the spring and creating miniature farms and forts among the
small trees next to the school fence.
During the winter My Dad and our neighbor cut
cord-wood to earn the money for our daily needs.
Cord-wood is trees that have been cut down and
then cut into 8 ft. long pieces. It is sold to the
pulp mills for paper products. In those years a
man could go to the forestry and get a permit
for $2.00 and cut 22 cords of wood to sell. It
was a real help for many people ! In the Spring
from April to the end of June, when the sap was
running good, we would peel the bark off the
trees and get double the money for each cord.
We got 22 dollars for a peeled cord and
11 dollars not peeled. In the winter Dad would
haul un-peeled wood to town with the horses
and load it on a train car. In the summer,
the peeled wood was shipped by truck.
My Dad's Name was "Philip" which means a,
"lover of horses" and it was true of Dad.
Here are a few pictures.
One day my Dad and our Neighbor each took
a load of cord wood to town to load on the rail car.
Spring was coming and the tree bark that had
fallen into the snow during the winter was now
covering the snow making it harder for the horses
to pull up along side the train car.
Our neighbor had a large team of "Clydes" while Dad's horses were much smaller. As soon as our neighbor's team and sleigh hit the tree bark his horses stopped . Once stopped he could not get them going forward again. Dad said, "Unhook your team and
I'll pull it into place for you". "Philip", he replied,
"Are you saying that your ponies are going to move
this load and my Clydes can not move it" ! "Well",
Dad said, "Unhook your horses and we will find out."
So Reg unhooked his team and Dad hooked on with
our much smaller team. Dad then swung his team
hard to the left thus loosening the front runners
of the sleigh. He then called out the name of
the one horse with a little slap of the lines on
his rump. This got the load moving and then
Dad quickly swung to the right bringing
the sleigh parallel with the train car and never said "Whoa" until the sleigh was in the correct position !
It was beautiful to watch my Dad in action with
horses ! He really did love them with great
respect for their beauty and their ability when
properly handled ! We had so much fun and also
a lot of work was done with our horses.
Another time when I was twelve years old, I was
working with my Dad and Uncle Joe in the early
summer taking out 8 ft. cord wood. The wood
had been peeled for a few days so the outside
was dry because when first peeled it is like
a slippery fish ! I was riding the horse which was
harnessed as you see in this picture, only the
horse was almost white. The horse was pulling
a log about the size you see in this picture,
however we were back in the bush and there
were lots of stumps around from the trees
we had cut down. Well, we were going between
two stumps and there was an old log laying
across them. The horse stepped over the log, but
as soon as the log he was pulling came against it,
he stopped. Dad was near by and he said, "What
did you stop for" ? I said, "There is an old log in
the way. " Well, dad just came up to the horse,
give him a slap on the rump and shouted,
"Barney" ! Well Barney made a jump forward,
the old log busted and out we went to the
open field where we were piling the logs for
the truck to pick them up ! I was 12 years old
at the time this was happening.
One of my Mom's Sisters, who was also
Uncle Joe's wife and I were also peeling a lot
of the trees. We got ten cents a tree for the
smaller ones and a few cents more for the bigger
ones. They looked just like this when peeled :
That was 59 years ago. My life has taken
me many different places, but Arthur stayed on
his Dad's farm all these years. After many years
of no contact at all, I called him a few months ago
and he was selling the farm and moving closer
to town. It was really nice to hear his voice after
so many years and to know he is still able to
enjoy his days !
We lived on that quarter of land for one year
and then moved into the village while my dad
went to work for a logging company about ten
miles from home. He had no car or truck and
so wold stay a couple of weeks at a time in the
bush and then come home for a week-end.
When I was eight, we then moved to a farm
which was two miles from the village and there
we were for 18 years. But before we share all
the good times and trials of that period in our
life, we need to back up and tell about our life
in a little village near the Manitoba -
Saskatchewan border, called, "Westgate".
Here My Dad also worked for a logging and
saw mill company.
Westgate was just a small village but the
saw mill was quite big and produced a lot
of lumber. Dad was mostly in charge of the
bush crew, falling and hauling the logs a
couple of miles into town. This time the horses
were in the bush pulling out the logs to a small
open place and loaded unto big sleighs and
another man would come with a small
crawler tractor and pull the loaded sleighs
into the mill.
One day they had the first sleigh loaded and
needed to pull it forward to be able to load
the next sleigh. Dad asked the man driving
the team of horses to hook on and move the
sleigh forward which he did, but when he
said "gid up" the sleigh did not move. He
said to Dad, "They can't move this sleigh".
Dad said, "O' yes they can, swing .the team
to the left". This done Dad slapped the one
horse on her rump and hollered "June" !
Immediately the horsed jumped forward with
the sleigh behind them.
The teamster forgot that the sleigh runners
had frozen into the snow so when Dad told
him to swing the team to the left the sleigh
runners broke free and the horses pulled
the load with no problem !
This picture is not the exact team but this is
how it looked in the bush where they were
logging and this is how they loaded the logs
on the sleigh.
Then the crawler would come and take two
sleighs at a time to the mill. I remember
watching out the window every day as the
load of logs came from the bush. The
road went right by our window that went
to the saw mill.
I remember one day when my Mom's younger
sister was visiting us and she was going to
get something out of the attic and as soon
as she pushed up the door to the attic she was
attacked by a swarm of yellow jacket hornets !
She really got stung bad.
There was a couple of strange families living
in the village and they both had goats. The
goats like to climb up on top of cars, anybodies
car so that was not to good for having peace
with their neighbors !
We then moved back to Bellsite and lived in
a little cabin two miles East of the village. That
was a neat little place. The drinking water
was excellent and we grew some garden things
also. I remember in the evening as we would
go to bed the birds singing their evening hymn
to their Creator ! My Mother's brothers and
sisters would often come to visit and we
all would go fishing together at Swan Lake
which was about 7 miles East of our cabin.
In the Springtime when the Pickerel and Jackfish
headed up the small creeks to spawn we would
make snares from brass wire and catch them.
We also would use a .22 rifle. Dad would stand
a ways up stream and I a little ways from him
down stream and as the fish he shot floated
by I would toss them out on the bank ! We
have since become vegetarians, but at that
time we did not have a knowledge of diet
God has given in The Scripture, but we are
very thankful that we have become vegetarians
with all the hormones and diseases now
plaguing all the clean animals which were
once ok to eat if properly prepared. There
is no safe flesh of any kind today !
RENTING UNCLE ERNIE'S FARM
One of My Dad's older brothers was farming
the land on which the little cabin was located,
plus two other quarters that were just
across the road. Dad's brother decided to move
to B.C. and we were able to rent the land from
the owner, Mr. Ernie Biggham. He was a veteran
of world war one. He had married in France
after the war but his wife died from the flu
that overtook much of Europe just after the
war, so he was a bachelor.
We rented his farm for about ten years and then
he died of cancer. He was such a kind and good
man. He adopted us as his family and we loved
him as part of the family. We called him,
Uncle Ernie !
We had so many good times together on that
farm and we were all very sad when Uncle Ernie
died about 18 years later. The many happenings
I am going to share now, I do not remember
their exact order, but we surely had a lot of
interesting moments, some trials, but many
delightful moments as we grew up together
with our Dear Parents
who were so good to us children. We learned to
work in garden and field and spent many happy
hours picking the various kinds of wild fruit
so wonderfully supplied by our Kind Heavenly
Father !
This was one of our favorite spots on the
farm. It was just across from our house
which is to the left of the picture. There is a
little ravine that separates the house yard
from this spot. There were wild hazel nuts
down this little lane and over to the right
and East of this picture was one of our garden
spots. This picture is looking West towards
a little range of mountains of 2700 ft. elevation,
called the Porcupine Mountains. Along the base
of this mountain was an area we all called the,
Sand Flats. Wild Strawberries, Blue Berries and
Saskatoons grew in abundance and we would
have a delightful time together ! Mom and us
children would pick with in sight of the wagon
but Dad would disappear into the pines and
come back in a couple of hours with his pail
full of blue berries. When we got back home
we would sit round the table, pour a few berries
into a dinner plate and take out the little sticks,
leaves and bugs ! Mom always did a lot of
canning in glass jars for winter ! My Sweetheart
and I still do the same.
RENOVATIONS !
The house we first lived in on Uncle Ernie's
Farm, was a nice old house. It had been there
for a number of years and the log foundation
need to be replaced and other things, so Dad
decided to tear it down board by board and
completely rebuild it. We helped pull the nails
and every good nail and every good board
was saved for the new house that would
be built.
When the old house was down, Dad went
to the forest and brought home three or four
big logs the full length that the new house
would be. We had no cement, these logs
were the foundation ! Dad dug a cellar and
placed the logs in position and the laying
of the floor began ! It was very exciting for
we children ! It was like going camping as
we lived in a couple of small granaries while
this renovation was taking place.
This was in the month of June and we were
all looking forward to August when the fourth
baby was to arrive ! One day mom was making
some bread and for some reason she decided
to walk by the cellar excavation with her
flour mix in the bread pan. As she walked past
the cellar she stepped too close, the bank was
soft and down she went pan and baby and all !
She wasn't hurt at all so she just sat there in
the dirt and laughed and laughed !
Soon the "new-old" house was finished, this
is a picture in the winter when I was visiting
my parents. By this time I was twenty years
old and was working in Winnipeg for Canada
Carbon and Ribbon Company. They sold carbon
paper and typewriter ribbons. I was shipper
and receiver and delivery man .
The "fast back" Chevy in the picture, was
my second car. It was real good when I
bought it, but one day I left it at the garage
where I bought most of my gas for an "oil change".
Well, that weekend we went fishing at the
Seven Sisters dam about 150 miles from
Winnipeg. We had a great time, but on
the way home the car suddenly lost oil pressure
and the connecting rod started clicking. I
shut off the engine pulled over to the side
of the highway and looked underneath, the
oil plan plug had fallen out ! Obviously
the mechanic at the garage had forgotten
to tighten it ! So we filled it up with oil
and of course it had the "click, click, click"
that was not supposed to be there but i
actually drove a lot of miles before trading
it off on an old Doge 1 ton truck !
The year we built the "new - old house", August
brought the Family a Wee Baby Girl who was
given the name of "Francis" ! What a delight
she was !
We even had running water but we had to run
to the well with a bucket to get it ! The water
in the well was excellent and was also our
refrigerator for the milk and butter.
We had about 20 - 30 head of cattle and four
horses. A bunch of chickens and some pigs.
We planted a garden and Uncle Ernie planted
a beautiful garden and Mom canned for him
and for us. She always baked bread for him
and did his laundry. His garden was where an
old barn had stood and did it ever produce
great veggies and strawberries. Wild raspberries,
choke cherries and cranberries grew close by
and Mom would make choke cherry and cranberry
syrup.
IT'S A BEAR !
Black bears are seen all across Canada
and we had our share of them in Manitoba.
One day we were all in the garden hoeing
and pulling weeds when we heard a noise
coming from the trail that led down into a ravine
that was on the edge of the garden. Suddenly
a bear poked his head over the top and Mom
shouted, "Run kids run to the house' and to
me she said, "Rich run down to Uncle Ernies
and tell him to come with the rifle. Away
I went and in about 15 minutes we were back
with Uncle Ernie and his gun. Our faithful dog,
Rover had chased the bear up a tree so it
was an easy shot to put him to rest !
Another time we were out by some large trees
having a picnic lunch and Dad looked up and
there was a big black bear standing by the
house looking in the window. Well, the 30-30
was in the shop not far from where the bear
was standing. but he bullets were in the house.
When dad got the gun out of the shop and walked
towards the bear hollering at him to back off,
the bear went about 40 feet from the house
and stopped. Dad was able to get into the house
for the ammo and came out and shot the
intruder ! We called the neighbours who liked
to eat bear meat and they came and took
away the carcass.
One stormy night night dad woke up and heard
the new born calf that was resting in the hay
corral next to the barn calling for help. Dad got
dressed took the lantern and headed for the barn.
When he reached the corral fence where he knew
the calf was he surprised a big black bear
who was killing the poor little calf. Dad hollered
at him and he took off over the fence on the
other side. The bear had cruelly torn the
little calf with his big claws and it was too late
to save him !
Today we have a generation of "bear huggers"
who think more of the bears than of their own
safety and well being of other humans ! This is
nonsense. If a bear wanders into the village
or public park, he needs to be dealt with pronto !
There are way to many of these creatures
on the loose ! We hear of more and more
people being attacked by bears !
