14

Once James and I went to Mooneys to visit, and James had to keep his face to the crowd, for behind he was bare naked. For a time Mother was the only white woman between Crystal City and Wakopa, 21 miles on one side, 24 miles on the other. Mother was boss and we all did what we were told - indeed she was the only man amongst us.

One day the first summer Mother sent me five miles across the prairie to our nearest neighbour to borrow a cup of salt. We had to haul our grist by oxen to Souris or Wakopa. One day I was drawing a load of potatoes to Arthur Rollins' Store at Killarney, we were crossing a river and the oxen had pulled themselves up on the other bank, when the current caught the load, turned over the wagon, and five bags of potatoes and five bags of flour washed down the creek.

15

Mrs. and Mr. W.J. Steel
1900

16

There were no doctors, but when you had a baby, or trouble, you always had some friend to turn to. One day Father, James and I were cutting a load of wood in the bush. My axe slipped and cut right through my boot and out the bottom of my foot in a three inch gash. James took me in his arms and backed through the bush, dragging me, and then held me on the middle tongue of the sleigh for half a mile to our house and laid me on the floor. Mrs. W. J. Steel, who was nurse and doctor to the neighbour­hood, came and bound my foot. In six weeks I was walking and regained the full use of my foot.

17

Hazeldell Carin
1890

18

In those early years we had church at our house, the minister coming from Cartwright: Dr. J. H. Riddle, Dr. James Stewart and Dr. Charles Gordon (Ralph Connor) were some of our early ministers. After Hazeldell School was built in 1890 the whole social life of the community centred around the school, with debates and box socials the favorite type of relaxation. I was superintendent of the Hazeldell Sunday School for 25 years. When we left Ontario, I had been in Book Two, and had forgotten all I had learned, so during the winters when I was a young man I attended school and learned to read, write and talk. My sister Mary became a school teacher and taught my sixty-year old mother how to read and write, giving her much pleasure in her last years.

19

Train in Cartwright
1910

20

Our family, who had endured so many hardships, grew up to be thrifty, energetic and successful. My brother James left for the Big Bend country in Washington and prospered. My sister Mary maried into the Stevenson family at Morris, and her children are thriving farmers and nurserymen. My sister Sarah married Augustus Taylor and homesteaded in the Fairdale district. In 1900 I took a homestead east of Holmfield, married Viola Fisher and later raised four children: adopted son Fred Warner, daughters Vera (Mrs. Clare Pybus, Winnipeg), Nora (Mrs. Garson Vogel, Winnipeg) and son Sam at Killarney. In 1927 I retired to Killarney, and am now in my ninety-ninth year, still alert in both mind and body.
But things were about to change for Old Cartwright. The railway was bing built and it was to pass thorough 2 miles south of where Old Cartwright had been built. It wasn't practical for all of the supplies to be loaded and then hauled 2 miles north so the birth of present day Cartwright began.