1
Battery Power A Winter LuxuryBill Peterson gave the Murray Peterson family their first radio as a gift for the Christmas of 1940 or '41. He had bought it at a sale for 50˘. The catch was that they had to supply the battery for it. Well, they thought, how much can a battery cost?
The battery was indeed the expensive part. It cost $11.00 and was almost a month's salary for some people.
A new battery was purchased each November and lasted until April if the radio was used sparingly. Only the news and a limited number of shows like The Green Hornet, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and The Shadow were listened to. Battery power was too expensive to be wasted.
2
Bentley Curling RinkWhat a difference between the modern heated curling rink complex and the stand-alone Bentley curling rink building in the 1940's and early '50's! The first person into the rink would stoke up the old cook stove with wood and get it going, later adding coal so it would keep going and stay warm in the lunch/lobby area while people curled their games in the unheated area housing natural ice. Later there were two cook stoves as one was not enough. When one was eventually converted over to propane, it made heating up the lobby area much faster. The other stove was then used very little. After natural gas was installed, the second stove was removed.
A pot of coffee was always started right away. Often a pot of homemade soup was warmed up to provide a hot meal for curlers and their families. The menu during bonspiels often consisted of a large bowl of homemade stew or "sloppy joes" served on or with a hamburger bun and topped off with big onion slices soaked in vinegar. A variety of donated home-made pies were available for dessert.
The "no-flush" toilets for people at the curling rink were located at the far end of the ice surface and were the same temperature as the great outdoors. Often snow would be whipping in so no one stayed too long in them and everyone put off using the facility as long as they could. The men's room was on one side and the women's on the other. When you had to make the long trek down the board walkway to the far end, everyone knew where you were headed.
At one point some of the women that belonged to the Curling Club decided to take things into their own hands. "You were forever getting slivers off the old rough-hewn benches at the counter," a lady curler remembers, "and the men kept putting off rebuilding them." So one day some of the ladies decided to do something about it. They arrived early, before curling started, with wrecking bars, hammers and saws in hand and started tearing things apart. With little place to sit and eat, and things such a mess, the men soon jumped in to help rebuild the counter and benches and the project was completed.
3
Memories Of Growing Up In BentleyMy Parents, Alexander D. and Blanche Swanson, placed great importance on the value of education. So when father passed away in 1941, mother sold the farm ( in the Spruceville area) and in 1943, moved our family to Bentley in order for us (ages 8 and 15) to be close to school.
Being deaf had it's difficulties of course, especially in communication with a "hearing community". Mother had lost her hearing as a result of coming down with scarlet fever, which resulted in mastoids and her complete loss of hearing. She was an avid reader and kept up on what was going on by reading many newspapers and magazines. She also read lips and spoke quite well. We four children were frequently called upon to act as interpreters.
Our farm was located on the NW corner of the village. Our house was the one with the stone fence. The original house and farm buildings had been built many years earlier by Mr. C.F. Damron, who later sold the place to the Everden family and subsequently to mother.
Our mother was outgoing and had a great sense of humor, which helped our home to become a meeting place for all our friends. Our home was always full of young people playing cards, games and singing and dancing. The boisterousness of so many young people never seemed to bother her, and she would sometimes joke that perhaps it was better that she was deaf!
Farming was difficult with a young family in the absence of a father, but we somehow managed, with advice and help from kind neighbors, friends and merchants. Bentley was a closely-knit community, and people did essentially all their shopping locally. The village was complete with a full range of services, ranging from farm implement dealers to ladies wear stores.
Set on the eastern slope of the fertile Blindman Valley, the village was considered a jewel, a modern model village. Life was good in the community, and everyone shared in the happy times and the sometimes sad and tragic times.
School and sports were focal points with competition at different levels extending from Alix to Bluffton and further west to Eckville and Rocky Mountain House. Teams were made up of the members from the whole community, with our local doctor, Dr. Weaver, sometimes acting as catcher on the men's baseball team.
With village growth, we slowly lost numerous empty lots where we could play ball or other games. Main Street was a great place to bobsled at night when traffic was essentially non existent. Even the school horse barn (site of the present town offices) disappeared.
Overall, my memories of Bentley are fond indeed. From John Van Leest's blacksmith shop, where amazing things were created by his skilled hands, to the faint petroleum smell emitted by the tarsand floor in part of Russell Garries' hardware store on hot summer days.
Community dances were frequent and sometimes quite entertaining. Ladies on the east wall and gents on the west wall, at least until the dancing started. Sometimes the crowd would spill outside where a couple of men (usually slightly imbibed) would settle their differences with work-hardened fists!
Nostalgia can be both interesting and entertaining, and I look forward to the next Bentley homecoming.
4
Selling Farm Fresh Butter
During the years about 1942 to 1952 a local farm lady churned her own cream into butter, pressed it into 1 lb. blocks and wrapped it at home on the farm. It was then delivered to "Brown & Witherell's Store" in Bentley. Whatever dollar value was received for the butter was the amount of groceries they picked up that trip.It took a lot of churning to get 10 lbs. of butter, but it got most of the staples that were needed.
One time while en-route to deliver the butter, it got dumped off the back seat of the car. The butter was hastily cleaned up and re-wrapped with new paper at the store. Nothing was allowed to go to waste.
They received 20˘ a pound for the butter.
5
A Few Important DatesFirst silent movie in Bentley was on February 3, 1916.
The south side of Main Street burnt April 27, 1916.
Rails reached Bentley on November 28, 1917. The first passengers on the train were J.H. Damron, J.G. Blish and Brady Palmer.
Opened first elevator in Bentley, November 14, 1918.
Opened the first curling rink situated east of the old creamery, January 4, 1919.
Co-op store originally the Putland and Thorp Store burnt down March 27, 1919.
Record blizzard, 10-foot drifts, May 2, 1919.
Started to build new Co-op store, August 4, 1919. The same building as owned by the Holmes’s.
The Alexander Hotel and Pool Hall burnt down at 10:30P.M. on February 16, 1920.
On May 8, 1920, the Blindman River was in flood. The water came up to within six inches of the top of the bridge.
Garries Machine and Blacksmith Shop burnt down on November 24, 1921.
On May 18, 1922, the home on the old Whitesell place, two miles south of Bentley, burnt.
First electric lights in Bentley were turned on December 13, 1922.
Opened the first community hospital in Bentley on June 4, 1926.
A bad hailstorm and cyclone went through the district causing a lot of damage on July 8, 1927.
Opened the new hall in Bentley July 29, 1927.
The first talking pictures in Bentley were on April 4, 1930.
The Creamery burnt down October 10, 1930.
Blindman River was over its banks on July 2, 1931.
The first streetlights down the center of Main Street in Bentley were turned on by Tom Jackson, Mayor of Lacombe, on July 25, 1931.
Opened new hospital in Bentley on October 19, 1932.
6
First Pig to MarketA piglet (the runt of the litter) was given to a couple of young farmers of the Rainy Creek area, in 1941, by the farmer's father, who thought it would be too much work to try to raise the runt, and it might just die after a lot of work anyway. But the pig survived and grew very quickly, being fed left-over milk from the two cows that were being milked. The intention was to butcher the pig to provide them with meat, but when it reached market weight they just couldn't kill it to eat it. The pig was just too tame, so they decided to sell it instead.
The pig was loaded into the back seat of their 1937 Model "A" Ford car and transported to Bentley to the Blindman Valley Co-Operative Association usually known as the "Hog Pool" then managed by Glen A. Wright. The young wife drove the car while her husband sat in the back seat with the pig to keep it quiet.
They received about $4.00 for the 200 lb. pig.
7
Old Timer Speaks OutBentley Museum Archives
The Lacombe Globe - "Our District Old Timers Speak"
August 11, 1953
When I hit Bentley in 1903, I don't think there were more than about twelve people in the village. I remember there was a general store, run by B. Cook and Son. They had an old log building for business trade, about where the Mercantile Store now stands. McPherson was the name of another merchant in Bentley at the time I arrived. There weren't many people populated either. Just the same, the Blindman Valley looked good to me, and I figured if crops wouldn't grow there they wouldn't grow anywhere. So, I took up a homestead in the valley, six miles west of Bentley, and my figuring proved right. I farmed successfully at the same site for forty-five years. Now I'm the mail carrier for the Bentley district, and the Blindman Valley still looks to me like the best agricultural land in the country.
JOHN SOLBERG
Note: Not only was John Solberg a successful farmer and mail carrier, John was a champion old-time fiddle player who made his first violin from a cigar box. Fiddle playing was not his only skill. Mr. Solberg had a lifetime hobby of woodworking. He made many rocking chairs, desks, tables, bobsleighs, and little tables and chairs for children.
 |
 |
 |
 |