|
As told to Rosemary Phillips
Back to Chapters One
& Two
Chapter
Three - Life on the Canadian Prairie
(Dear reader, there are no photos with this section. Photos were
not considered important. The priority was survival, and food on
the table.)
Rebuilding a farm
The farm was terribly run down. The buildings were all dry rot
you know. But my father was a builder, a carpenter. We had the equipment,
you know, that thing that straightens out boards and whatever. The
men were workers. They rebuilt as much as possible and put fences
in and plowed up more land. Everything was nailed down and the well
was dug deeper. We had that first farm for two years I think. We
had bought the farm, but the former owner was to have half the crop.
When there was no crop he took the farm back.
Well then my father had a gold watch with several layers of openings,
and inside was an inscription – George Rempel. We sold it
to a schoolteacher for five bucks and with that five bucks we moved
from the farm we had just lost onto a rented farm. With five bucks!
Everyone did their part
I didn’t really do chores. I always milked cows. I liked
to milk. And I liked to ride a horse. We had horses. I don’t
know how we ever got all that stuff but we did. We had horses and
cows. And of course there weren’t any fences. When the weather
wasn’t good the horses would graze all with their backs to
the wind. Then they would go so far and couldn’t find their
way home. Well you know, there were also wild animals. You couldn’t
leave the horses out at night. So then I was the one who was always
on a horse looking for those lost horses. There were ravines with
water. I had to go into the ravines to see if the horses were there
or not. I loved it. I’d be riding all over and come home with
the horses.
I never did anything in the house. I was no good. I heard my mother
tell somebody one day, “She’s lazy”. I never forgot
that. I really wasn’t lazy but I didn’t like housework.
I always liked to cook. I was just sort of a natural. I never had
any lessons, nothing like that. But I didn’t like washing
dishes. And my sister, who was only two years older, well, she did
everything. She cooked and washed and did everything. And I was
just always looking for those horses and cows, eh, and milking.
Mother died after childbirth
We had an old maid look after my mother when Pete was born. That
was Mother’s last child. She was terribly torn inside. I never
knew what she died of. But later on I heard she had an infection.
We didn’t have a doctor. We were on the prairies you know.
And there was no money. She would not have been young. I’m
sure she had fifteen children or more. I was eight at the time.
It wasn’t long after we got to the Prairie.
My father married the old maid very quickly after Mother died.
For years I thought that wasn’t a good thing. But, I’ve
talked to women now whose mothers died and their fathers boarded
them out. They never got over that, being away from the family in
a strange place. But this way, because my father married this old
maid, we stayed home. At least this one didn’t have any children
of her own, which was a big blessing. She was a very good woman.
She never caused any trouble between us or my father or whatever.
The house was clean. And she wasn’t a good cook. I remember
that. But she was a good baker. She was a Mennonite. She would make
buns and then, because we didn’t have anything sweet to eat,
‘cause most everything was flour, she’d beat up an egg
and put a little sugar into it, and then wipe the bun with this.
And you’d kill yourself eating those buns. Just for that sugar,
eh. We would eat buns, oh boy. And we baked bread at least three
times a week ‘cause that was the main stay.
The Dirty Thirties
This was now the Dirty Thirties – and there were no crops
and the dirt was just blowing all over. There’d be top soil
– all blown away – and then the crops were so very poor
– and the prices – of wheat – it seems to me it
was 40 cents a bushel. Imagine! We didn’t have a thrashing
machine but we had all the other equipment. We couldn’t have
a thrashing machine because it was too expensive. So we had to rent
one, and with the binder twine, because the sheaves were bound,
it cost us what the wheat brought in.
No money – no relief
So, we didn’t earn anything. We weren’t starving because
we always had wheat, and we were always eating bread. But to have
a dollar? One time we got what was then called “relief.”
I think it was seven dollars a month. And at that time there were
at least a dozen around the table at least, if not more. We got
the seven dollars one month. And the next month. And then it didn’t
come. I remember my father. He always sat at the end of the table.
He looked around and said, “Well, the seven dollars should
have come already. Two weeks ago. It didn’t come. I assume
it’s not going to come. We don’t need it do we? No,
we don’t need it.” He had a slice of bread and off he
went. So I think maybe two months we got relief. Seven dollars a
month!
Boxcar to British Columbia
Nothing was happening. Wheat prices were – well, you had
to give it away. And cold. Miserable. And then my brother, the older
one, he went to British Columbia on the railroad. You know how the
bums sat on the top of the boxcars? He came home and said, “You
know, they’ve got fruit trees. They’ve got cherries.
They’ve got apples. They’ve got everything.”
Well it didn’t take us long. We disposed of what we had and
moved to Abbotsford. Then we bought fifteen acres and a small house.
I think they called them CPR houses because they were straight up
– there were two rooms downstairs and the upstairs was like
an attic – and you pulled a curtain through and you had two
bedrooms. And still we were this big family, eh.
Chapter 4 – The Snack Shack Drive-in
Abbotsford and a strawberry farm
We had to clear the land and pull the stumps out by hand eh. Like
you put dynamite under it, and it would fly up. It was all done
by hand. And then we put in strawberries. So then we had a strawberry
farm. And my father was a very good gardener.
Dick gets a job
The boys got older. The older ones got married. And they were away.
Then Dick was the oldest. He was 14 when he went to Mission. There
was a Frenchman who had a logging outfit, logging with horses. And
Dick was helping out. One day they were going up the side of a very
steep mountain, and the roads were very narrow. And those two horses,
they wouldn’t go past this one point. But Dick knew horses,
eh. So he put one horse behind the other, instead of side by side.
When the Frenchman saw that Dick knew what to do he said, “You’ve
got the job.” So he’s 14 years old and he’s working.
And he’d send home, it seems to me, six dollars a week - his
wages, eh. Because he was looking after the horses he was in room
and board. When he came home his lunch bucket was full of pies and
cakes and stuff you know. Bringing us food. You know he worked there
for quite some time eh. He always knew how to look after himself.
Katherine works as a maid for Mr. & Mrs. Harry Reifel
Then I went to Vancouver to work as a maid. Yes, a maid. I went
into a home that was called The Girls Home and there you could stay.
And this girls home, let me tell you, we had bread for every meal
and then they’d break it up and toast it in the oven and crumble
it up and we’d have it with milk in the morning like porridge.
But it was very reasonable and you didn’t have to pay until
you worked.
There was a phone and there was always an ad in the paper for domestic
help. You took your turn answering. Say there were three girls ahead
of me, they would each have to get a job before I did. And then
it was my turn. Then the phone rang and I answered and got the address
and went. And so here is this girl ahead of me and she’s got
a call. She said, “Would you go along with me?” Well,
I thought, if you pay my way. It was either five cents or seven
cents, but every seven cents counted. So she paid my way and we
got into this fabulous house – Reifel’s. Did you ever
hear about the Reifel’s? Well they were German. They owned
a lot of beer companies. Multi-millionaires. Big beautiful home
on South West Marine Drive (Rio Vista) overlooking the golf course.
This is where she was being interviewed. There were two gardeners,
one was married with a family and one was single. And a Chinese
cook. And the gardeners took us in and sat us down. And of course
Mrs. Reifel said to the girl, “Come on in here for an interview.”
So I’m just sitting there waiting, looking, you know, because
I’m not being interviewed. When we got through she came back
and looked at me and said, “I’ll have you.” Meaning
me. And I didn’t like housework!
This was Harry Reifel’s. It was beautiful– you came
in and there was this beautiful staircase round and round and you’d
stand there and look down into this foyer.
There were huge rooms with hand painting on the walls. There were
quarters in the basement for the Chinese cook. The ballroom was
in the basement, and there was dancing, and movies shown. It had
a swimming pool.
I was the upstairs maid, eh. And you did very little. The Chinaman
had to do everything. The Chinese man, he was the cook eh. And they
had two little girls, Barbara Ann, and I forget the other one, but
anyway, two little girls. And there was a nursemaid. She looked
after the children. And I waited on tables and I think I was about
as useless as getup but I was there nearly two years.
One time they went away, and Leana Reimer, she was the nursemaid,
she decided we were going to have a party. And (the Reifels) had
gone out . They could have come home for the night, but they were
staying in Ladner. And we had a rip snorting party in the basement.
Today when I think about it I think, “Oh my gosh, if they
had decided to come home, in the middle of this party…”
Mrs. Reifel, she came from a poor family. Her father was a bus
driver, a city bus driver. Her family would come and they always
looked out of place, you know. These people were multi-millionaires.
They were the richest people in Vancouver at that time.
Katherine gets married
 |
| Katherine Berg |
Then I met my husband Joe (Julius). Well, we used to go dancing,
with my brother Jack and his girlfriend. They had met him already.
In those days there weren’t that many men around. You hardly
met any eligible males. He had a good job – he was a tailor.
And he sewed for uniforms. I remember the braids that were on the
sleeves, that were on the shoulder. He was a beautiful tailor. I
always had very nice clothes because he made them all. I had a black
skirt that was fluted. I forget what happened to that, but it was
material that would never ever wear out.
I had two children, Sonia and Richard. They were three years apart.
Joe was a very hard worker and really knew how to do business eh.
He really knew how to come out smelling like a rose, whatever he
did. So anyway, he wanted his own business. We sold the house we
had in Vancouver, which I’m sure was paid for. Well he worked
and worked and worked. He had the best tailor shop in Vancouver
and he’d bring home piecework yet.
Bringing family over from Poland
We brought his sister over (from Poland) – she was younger,
not married, and she was also a tailoress. As soon as supper was
finished the table would be wiped off and the sewing would come
out and all night they would sew and make maybe one pair of pants.
She would do the handwork, and if she didn’t do it, I did
it. I think they got five bucks for that, for a whole pair of pants
with pockets. I mean tailor-made pants, not just any kind of stuff.
And then we brought all the rest of his family over, eh. There were
twelve or thirteen. They had been back and forth across Germany,
Poland and Russia and pretty well lost everything. So we brought
them all over.
Katherine goes it alone
I had a bad nervous breakdown, when the kids were small, and it
took me so long to get over it. Once I got over that then I though,
“I’ve got to get away. I can’t stand this forever.”
He was a very hard man to live with.
Joe was a very good buyer, right, and always made money. He had
bought a long stretch of property just outside of Aldergrove. The
front had a little old house on it. And the back was just property.
We built four houses up to lock up, meaning everything is in, but
no plumbing. In those days there was no running water. Just like
a shell of a house with windows and doors.
By now the kids were grown up and able to look after themselves.
I got a divorce. Joe kept saying we were going to divide the property
50-50. Well I knew very well there’d be no 50-50. But anyway,
he gave me the front piece of property with the little old house.
The property had been bought from an old couple and the understanding
was that they were to live free of rent in the house until they
died. It also had $4,000 owing on it. Joe gave me $4,000 and this
piece of property. He thought I’d put the $4,000 into the
property, but no, not me. I’d already been on my own for a
number of years. I was washing dishes in a restaurant. When the
old man died in the little house, the family took the mother to
live with them. Then the little house was empty, just when I needed
it. I was ready for it. So then we moved in; Sonya with her husband
Jim Willson, and me.
The Snack Shack drive-in
I had once seen a little stand across a street and somebody was
forever handing out food - there was always a car or truck stopping.
So I thought, “That’s a good idea.” I knew how
to cook, eh. Jim was a builder. I said, “That’s what
I’d like in the front of the property.”
Sonia and Jim gave up their jobs in Vancouver and we started building
what we called the “Snack Shack”. We lived in this little
house with no plumbing and no water, but it had electricity and
a chimney. So I bought an upright stove for five dollars. Remember,
I only had $4,000.
I’d seen somebody way up there (in authority) before I did
all this because we have to have an entrance off the old Trans Canada
highway on to the property. Some of my husband’s business
sense had rubbed off on me. So anyway, I had seen this man, George
Havers was his name, district superintendent, in New Westminster,
and I told him I’ve got $4,000 and by washing dishes and skimping
and saving I managed to always keep this $4,000. And now I’m
living in that little house. I told him that I’ve got this
corner property and I’ll put in a drive-in, but I’ve
got to have an entrance off the Trans Canada Highway. I was on the
corner of Beaver and Trans Canada. But there had to be an entrance.
You couldn’t go around the corner. He said, “You’ll
get an entrance.”
Gagliardi saves the day
Well, when we got closer to the drive-in being opened we wrote
several times back and forwards. Jim drew up the culvert, because
there was a deep ditch. And then he drew the entrance. I got a letter
back saying that seeing as how we’re not far from the corner
they didn’t think we needed an entrance, that we could go
around the corner and go in. Well, I knew Tunderveld who was next
to Gagliardi. I thought, “I’m going to phone Tunderveld
and tell him they promised me that entrance.” So I phoned
Tunderveld and I told him. He said, “Phone the old man (that
was Gagliardi, the minister) and you’ll see action.”
So I phoned Gagliardi and I told him the story. He said, “Next
week you phone Chilliwack and they’ll be in to put in your
entrance.”
Gagliardi got things done, just like that, eh. So I had the entrance
and the building and we called it the Snack Shack eh. We had a big
sign that said “Snack Shack”. Jim did all that because
he was a draftsman.
Good food and thick milk shakes
It was a gold mine because we had very good food, and hamburgers.
This was before McDonalds. Nobody had a drive-in. We bought good
meat and made patties with garlic and eggs and breadcrumbs. And
we would butter all the buns, mountains of them because we had a
very big business. And then we had fish and chips and ice cream
and milk shakes and coffee. The milk shakes were big you know so
thick with homemade ice cream.
We had it for a number of years. Then Sonia was expecting her first
baby. The young people then would go out on a weekend, everybody
was going away, and we of course had to work every day, all weekends,
all holidays, all evenings. Of course, we always had girls working,
and one of us would be working either the morning shift or the evening
shift. Jim and Sonia were tired and wanted to sell. I had a health
problem and needed major surgery. So we sold that and then I was
high and dry. Here I was, had a home and a business and money and
all of a sudden I’m by myself again.
The Snack Shack was just the beginning of many more adventures
that led Katherine to Vancouver and eventually to Grand Forks where
she and the family invested in, designed, built and operated Golden
Heights, restaurant and B&B, now a tourist landmark. Katherine
is now retired and living in Grand Forks.
Note: There are many more articles on this site.
Follow the link to view the Index
of Articles.
For information
on how I can write for you please contact
me. |
Go to Top of Page |
