A Young David Naylor 2

Last evening, BLOG, got a first time comment from a reader by the name of Jessica, in the comment section on the post, 'A Young David Naylor'. Jess, has been reading BLOG for some time now, and is in fact Dave's girlfriend. So, as a welcome to our recently delurked reader friend, i'm posting again, some slides depicting some of young David's earliest times. Three slides, to be precise. Three slides sharing three characteristics; they all depict young David, a certain SLIGHTLY older Jeff, and three different, wheeled vehicles, one actually having three wheels. That's as far as i'm taking the three reference.

First slide, David as a baby, stuffed into the seating compartment of the GO-KART, with his have to be in every picture older brother, ME. GO-KART, created by my Dad, Doug Naylor, my brother, Robby Naylor, my other brother, Randy Naylor, and, i would guess, most likely, my mother, Marion Naylor. (Probably did the vinyl, fringed top). Pretty cool eh? We would run it down the front street, excessively, it had real steering, and real hand brakes. A very sturdy vehicle. And, if i remember correctly, somewhat inspired by the creepy vehicle from the '60's TV show, The Munsters, a favorite of my brothers and I.

The second slide, shows three Naylor brothers, (oops, another three reference), young David, now toddler age, atop the three wheeled tractor toy, (that one doesn't count as a new three reference, just a repeat of the original "three wheeled vehicle" reference), (are you tired of me saying "reference" yet?), then, my older brother Randy Naylor, doing something funny behind engine compartment of said tractor toy, and, of course, the pumpkinhead, myself. Don't we all look SOOO adorable? I wish we could still get together like this...but, the memories are precious nonetheless. (We liked tractor toys, (had some smaller, display type models also), likely derived from our experiences at our Uncle Jack's farm, at Vermilion, Alberta, where Randy and I, and i'm not sure if Dave did later, spent several weeks each summer visiting. We loved tractor rides with Uncle Jack, but i don't think he ever let me drive. Probably a good idea.)

The last of the three, is again, just me, and Dave. Seems Mother spent a lot of film and flashbulbs then photo-ing her two youngest. David's out of toddler stage here, no mo' diapers, looking very hap-hap-happy in a four wheeled stroller unit, with me supposedly at the reins. I doubt we were likely going anywhere special, probably just pushing the BABY around the yard. (JUST KIDDING, no longer a baby David).

Also, in the fine tradition of hand-me-downs, that jaunty straw hat David is holding was at one time mine, and, you will likely see it again in some other slides. Good thing we both had big heads.

One of Seven

OK, everybody, I’m starting a new wrinkle on my guest pieces on Jeff’s blog. I’m going to be talking about my CHILDREN, all seven of them, in their young days when I knew them best (probably, well, maybe). So stay tuned for all the lowdown on them as viewed from their devoted mother’s eyes…
First of the 7 member crew, of course, was LINDA RAE. Born 19 July 1948, 2 weeks early, she was actually scheduled for very close to our first marriage anniversary date, which would be 4 August 1948. But this girl has always been a mover and shaker and even at that early stage, was in a hurry to get here. Actually, I probably encouraged her arrival by walking around the exhibiton grounds (the fair was on in Edmonton) all day long; maybe just a touch of pre-meditation there, I was very sick of being pregnant and anxious to get it all over with. Anyhow, she arrived after a fairly long labour, weighing in at 6 lbs. 10 oz. Good weight, and strong, healthy baby EXCEPT a birth defect, hare lip and cleft palate. This was the first strike against poor baby Linda, to have a disfigurement which could prove to be a great deterrent to her future well-being, socially and emotionally…..but NOT SO, this was (and still is) A VALIANT SPIRIT! And through the blessings of cosmetic surgery and a medical miracle, she endured surgery three times, at 6 weeks, 9 months, and 8 years of age …… the first to fix her lip, the second for some better repair on lip and beginning on the palate, the third to construct a pseudo-palate using a brand new technique improvised by her very skilled surgeon who devised this just for her. It consisted of going further down into her throat and bringing a "flap" of skin forward in hopes that it would survive and help her speech. I was to be extremely careful, only feed her liquids after this procedure, and this I adhered to as closely as I could. She was to go back to the surgeon (Dr. Hitchin) after a week, he looked in her mouth/throat with a flashlight, "It’s all shot to HELL!" he snarled, quite enraged at the thought his work would not appear in the medical journals after all, very disappointed. "What should I feed her now, doctor?" I said. "Anything she wants. It doesn’t matter, it’s a failure!". So the kid was starving for solid food after a week of soup and juice and milkshakes….and tied right into a hamburger and fries as soon as we got away from the Doctor’s office. Fast forward a month, she was to go back for a further check-up to make sure no infection, etc. When I phoned for the appointment, Dr. Hitchin himself came on the phone, and inquired, what colour is the child’s mouth where I tried to put the flap?" I answered, "Doctor, it’s pink, and it certainly doesn’t look like it did when she was born!" He virtually yelled into the phone, "Bring her in to the office as soon as you can get here!". So I did, he examined her palate, and with a huge sigh of relief, said "It’s all there! There must have been so much slough-off that I couldn’t see that it was intact. This is miraculous, it’s never been tried before, and I’ve now proven that it works!". OH HAPPY DAY! The night before the operation I asked the elders to come and give her a blessing that everything would go well, and our righteous desires be fulfilled, NEVER, EVER DISCOUNT A PRIESTHOOD BLESSING!
The picture you see here was of Linda after the 2nd operation, she was 9 months old then, holding her favorite teddy, see the white hospital tag still around its neck. I took this picture of her on our sofa an hour after we brought her home. She was such a favorite of the nurses at the hospital, they wanted to keep her there as long as they could! She recovered wonderfully well, and truthfully, her birth defect, largely corrected, never slowed her down for one minute. She was very bright, very cute with her big blue eyes that could look so innocent when she was actually planning another bit of deviltry. When her neighborhood friends failed to show up, she would play by herself, but she developed an imaginary friend, called "Kibbie", talked to her in a constant stream of conversation, set a place for her when she held her own little tea party. Kibbie had to be included in all her doings, until the ‘real’ kids showed up, then she did the disappearing act. Linda never walked until she was 15 months old, simply because we bought her a ‘state of the art’ walker that was so streamlined and efficient, she could go like the wind in it, negotiating curves and corners with all the skill of a race-car driver. Hey, just thought of it, that was the beginnings of her very accomplished driving skills to this present day!
Linda was a great animal lover, especially dogs, I think I mentioned in the pet post, how she thought nothing of going over to the pound, which was near us in the river valley, looking over the stock, and choosing to BUY the one that struck her fancy. Remember I told you about the Alsatian she paid $5 for, that had such an attitude toward men, that it wouldn’t let Doug into the house when he got off shift at midnite. And remember the Capital Cleaners’ guard dog she ruined! There never was a dog that Linda didn’t like, and needless to say, they liked her back! She was magical with all animals. When she got into her teens, she decided she really liked horses, and so that precipitated many a trip to a local riding academy where she enjoyed learning to ride.
She did develop a bit of a fetish when it came to birds; I think it dated back to when we would let our succession of budgies out of the cage and allowed them to fly around the house, one startled her by landing on her head, and she began a life-long aversion to identified flying objects!
We were really fortunate that Linda developed many close friends with church girls, they kept each other on the straight and narrow, so to speak! In her teens it seemed to be a never-ending exchange of confidences, etc. on the telephone. It was as though the phone was glued to her ear, yattatayattata, for hours on end. Her life revolved around the YWMIA, school, friends, girls, boys.
After high school grad, she went into a nursing training program, worked at it in a half-interested fashion, and finally decided it wasn’t for her…gave that up, and enrolled at the U of A. Here she became heavily involved with the LDS doings at the Institute, and here she met the love of her life, whom she married a few months later. BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY. LINDA, will you take it from here? STUART PAUL FAIRBANKS comes into the picture!

Unfinished Business, Episode 2

So, peoples, to continue on…..After we married, Doug and I, in 1947, like I told you I worked up until 2 weeks before Linda was born, then relaxed and enjoyed my babies until Rob was a toddler. Things started to look "iffy" at Dad’s work about that time, frequent lay-offs during which he’d collect employment insurance benefits, but they were barely enough to survive on. So I went back to work for a few months at a place called Northern Engine, on 63 Avenue, doing mostly bookkeeping, accounts payable and receivable . I mostly remember that place because of the letter of reference they gave me when I quit, (being then pregnant with Rob). The boss was an old fuss-budget, and instead of saying Mrs Naylor is resigning because of pregnancy, he wrote "Mrs. Naylor is leaving our company after an exemplary record of service with us; She is resigning due to DOMESTIC ILLNESS." Domestic illness, my foot! What a fuddy-duddy he was. Fortunately I can’t even remember his name. When Rob was 10 months old, I accompanied my parents, brother Bob and sister Chris to Ithaca, New York, to visit Sandy and Shirley, and to deposit Chris into their home to take up her new job at Cornell. Sandy was then getting his PhD at Cornell, and they were already crowded into their ramshackle apartment, but hey! family’s family, and the more the merrier! Anyway, we were gone three weeks, my good neighbor Kay Sinclair, looked after Rob in her home, and practically had him toilet trained when we got back! Linda and Judy went to the farm for that three weeks, I’m sure they both have precious memories of that visit. So when I got back, I decided I had to get a job to help out the family finances….so I did. Part-time.
That’s when I met the Edmonton Retail Lumbermen’s Association. And for a coupla years in there, also had a second part-timer, as the first and only WOMAN SECRETARY to the Edmonton Highland Games Association. My boss at the Lumbermen’s, Charlie Sinclair, was an old retired lumberman, who mostly sat with his feet up in the office reading the paper, or talking on the phone to various lumberyard managers telling them how busy he was. Meanwhile, all the work was being done by MOI, writing the newsletters, compiling price lists of myriad building supply products, mimeographing, arranging managers’ meetings….credit meetings, maintaining a large credit file, setting up training programs, all the chores associated with the job. I managed the whole thing behind the scenes, so to speak, but after a couple of years of that I decided this is crazy….Charlie does zippo except attend the meetings and gladhand the boys, he gets the pay and I get peanuts. So I told him I was quitting! Then he decided HE was quitting after he realized I meant what I was saying. And he did. So then the lumber dealers all got together and decided I was to be the new Secretary-Manager, drawing Charlie’s salary instead of my pittance.
So for 17 years, I held that job, was respected as one of the few women managers of any sort in the lumber business….continued on with the programs already instituted, and added a few of my own to help increase the efficiency of the industry. I moved the office three times over the years, from 87 Avenue and 109 Street, to Whyte Avenue and 89 Street, to the Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre, and finally to the basement of our own house! Eventually the need for an association dwindled away, the old-timers had been replaced by aggressive sales teams, and competition became more of a by-word than any efforts to co-operate. So I facilitated the winding-down of the organization, in lieu of pay the last 6 months I was there, I took over the office equipment, I still had use for it, because by then I had another part-time job as secretary to the Edmonton Music Teachers’ Association. And big-time church responsibilities! Which, of course, I loved dearly….over the years I had the nebulous distinction of serving as ward Primary president, ward YWMIA president, and ward Relief Society president…plus many years in stake jobs.
Still there was also the desire to have a little more money coming in, even though Dad was such a good worker, did his best to provide for his family, and always turned his whole paycheck over to me to look after the finances and run the household. So somewhere in there, I discovered some previously hidden talents in the catering field. Through church caterings, used to raise money to pay our way as presidencies to the appropriate conferences in Salt Lake each year, I gained the confidence to start on my own as a private, part-time caterer. And this was the perfect answer to the "MONEY" dilemna. We plowed the profits back into the business at first, purchasing second-hand large pots, a steam table, a commercial meat slicer, servings bowls and utensils. Dad built wooden boxes for a lot of our supplies, with carrying handles on the sides, and we plugged away at it for many years, always using our kids as helpers, and when we needed more help , teams of young LDS couples who could always use an extra $50 for an evening of fun, but hard work! Made pots of money at it, which we carefully saved (mostly), and which tided us over when there were the inevitable down-turns in the steel and pipe industry, and Dad wold be laid off for short or long periods of time…..one time he was out of work for 6 months, and we lived very largely on our year’s supply! Supplemented by catering earnings.
I’m sure my children remember working at the caterings! I remember the horror of running out of food once, and having to order in 10 plates of Kentucky Fried to finish the dinner. That story would curl your hair. And remember when Stuart and Steve were carrying the very heavy, steaming FOIL ROASTER of sweet and sours, and it buckled in the middle of the community hall kitchen, and THEY DROPPED IT???? And the time I could have thoroughly poisoned 400 people at Anita Petersen’s wedding reception…..oh man, the good Lord was looking after me that time.
Well, peoples, that’s all the jobs I can remember…..except for the few craft enterprises I entered into, advanced macrame (sold some of those), and my disastrous clock-making business, over 200 of those. When I look back over my adult life, it’s been a lot of work, but a lot of fun, and I learnt many things I never would have otherwise. Each job I had added to my expertise at dealing with certain people, or things, or responsibilities…..all part of this journey we call LIFE. Forget about the destination, ENJOY THE TRIP!

'Tween Lakes

(This post is also a reissue of a post from burnt-cookies, about the 'tween lakes resort, where we would often spend our summer vacations. As written by M.N., the original post included only the first two pictures, i'm including 2 other slides regarding the boat spoken of herein.)



Let me tell you about these pictures! Before we could scratch together enough shekels to actually BUY a second-hand tent trailer (which, by the way, we thought was pure LUXURY) we just had a tent to take with us on our holidays to Tween Lakes. Tween Lakes was a campground stuffed into the little space between Lakes Okanagan and Kalamalka, and it was our favorite nesting place on our 2 week vacation each summer. There was a canal between the two lakes, and our favorite spot was right on the edge, where one summer we had Bob's red and white boat. How our kids loved that boat, and to have it right next to our car and tent was heaven. Anyway, that's where these two pictures were taken, the camera couldn't quite catch Randy's dithering, so that part of it is pretty blurry. (As you know, I don't often do "posed" pictures). Dad was really cheesed off that I snapped that one of him, he was already starting to yell at me. This was the same trip that we got caught in a whizzer of a thunderstorm in the Crowsnest Pass....to get the real thrill out of a thunderstorm, try meet one in the Crow, mountains all around that echo and reverberate the thunder claps, you think you've had a quick passage to hell. By dint of really pushing the old blue Chevy, we made it to a sparse campground just as twilight was descending into night, quickly found a nice little grassy space at the bottom of an incline, where we set up our tent. What dumb bunnies we were, the thunderstorm was on its way, we should've known better than to set up a tent in a topographical hollow, the rain came down and the sea came up. And the baby (Jeff, 10 months) was fast asleep in his makeshift playpen bed, soaked to the skin, actually floating in the 3 inches of water that quickly accumulated . AND NEVER EVEN WOKE UP! We scrambled out of our tent, which was by this time sagging at the seams, eventually it fell down, and we made it to the camp kitchen, along with the few other hapless victims of the storm already bedded down. We spent the rest of the night there. Oh Woe is me!

My Auntie Mary's Tapestry, by M.N.

(This post is a reissue of a post from the now defunct Burnt-Cookies, the blog i deleted in early February, now being returned to cyberville via my Mother's tendency to keep thousands of documents and emails on her computer).

My Auntie Mary's Tapestry

This beautiful tapestry, painstakingly done by my favorite aunt, my father's sister Mary, was bequeathed to me following her death on the day before Christmas 1938. It had hung in her home since she was a young girl, so by the time it got to me, it was somewhat the worse for wear. My parents kept it for me until after I married and had a home of my own. One day I decided to refurbish it, so I took it out of its frame (it's very fragile, over 100 years old), fashioned a new matt for it, out of burgundy-brown corduroy fabric, (a remnant of new cloth from a pair of pants I had sewn for son Rob), bought some gold leaf paint and repainted the frame. reassembled it, and then it hung in our home for many years, until Jeff said he liked it and needed a picture for his wall, (when he left home and moved into his own apartment). That's the story behind my Auntie Mary's Tapestry. Auntie Mary had her own tragic story; perhaps I'll share that with you sometime.

Unfinshed Business, by M.N.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS
So here I’m reporting on the various jobs I worked at after I finished training as a secretary. Never really used the shorthand much, hardly ever, so even though it was Pitman I learned, it didn’t do me much good. Bookkeeping was useful in some of my jobs, typing I was best at, getting to ninety words a minute before I even left business school. That skill has never left me….my first computer used to get confused and end up a half line behind me!
My first job was at North West Purchasing Limited (NWPL) in Edmonton, and this would be 1941 I guess, after the Yanks came into the war…..no, I think that’s wrong, it would have to be 1942, because wasn’t Pearl Harbour Dec 7/1941? Correct me if I’m wrong, guys! Anyway, the job entailed minor odds and ends of typing, but mostly I was a courier….I had a US Army car at my disposal, plus driver. Can’t remember her name, but she annoyed me no end, because she constantly picked her teeth, I mean, unceasingly! Isn’t it funny what sticks in your mind? NWPL was a purchasing agency for the goods and products the US Army needed for gouging the Alaska Highway out of the wilderness, in case they needed a supply route for trucks if the Japs took the war into North America. (via Alaska). So morning and afternoon, I delivered purchase orders to various agencies serving the US forces, big companies who quickly established themselves in Edmonton in order to be in on the action, or closer to it, I should say. I got tired of such a mindless job after a while, I probably worked there about a year.
Then I applied at the American Base itself, since I liked the Yanks just fine, they were at least movers and shakers. And they paid better than comparable Canadian firms. Until the acceptance came through, I worked for a month or two at a couple of fill-in jobs, one for an insurance agency; that was long enough to tell me insurance and I would never get along. Also worked at a magazine subscription agency who needed superlative typing speed and accuracy; they practically got down on bended knee when I told them I was leaving, promising me the world in advances. Blah, didn’t like that either. So I was relieved when the competition for the job at the base was resolved, and I was hired as a civilian payroll clerk. Me, who never liked arithmetic, math, geometry, algebra, ever, ever…became a payroll clerk. We had a whole department, with thousands of employees up and down the extent of the whole Alaska Highway. And there I was, for 4-1/2 years…in fact, I worked for the Yanks until 2 weeks before Linda was born! I loved my job, our payroll department had ½ of the Officers’ Club building on the airbase in Edmonton….each morning as we came to work, we had to trek through the Club to get to our desks, and each morning, we’d all put a nickel, dime or whatever into one of the one-armed bandits resting there. Hit the jackpot once, I remember, and there were coins all over the floor! The job was very exacting! That suited me just fine, I liked "exacting", still do….one time I remember most of the staff, well, 4 or 5 of us I guess, worked until 2:30 in the morning trying to find ONE PENNY! I achieved my moment of fame when I was the one that found it, then we could all go home, Mission Accomplished.
The boss of the payroll department was one Sergeant Charlie Sanford, from Deland, Florida. He was one TOUGH cookie to work for, let me tell you. But I quickly learned that if you worked hard and as efficiently as you could, he would deal you out a good measure of respect. My desk was right across from his, so I had his ugly mug in front of me all the time….actually he was a really homely guy, but once you got to know him, a prince of a person. He lived off the base, with his wife, in an apartment somewhere near the base. We became good friends before the war came to an end and he was de-mobbed back to the States. In fact, years later we visited them a coupla times in Deland! They had one son, eventually, must’ve been about Linda’s age, because she and he became pen pals and remained so for years and years….I can’t remember whether they ever met in person or not, did you, Linda?
One transfer took place while I worked for the Americans, and that was to Dawson Creek, B.C., where I worked in the supply warehouse with all the GI’s. I told you about that in the "boyfriends" post I think. I was only there for 6 months, as the war was drawing to a close.
But back in Edmonton, as the war wound down, staff was gradually let go, but not me! Not that I was trying to hang onto a good, well-paying job, I just didn’t get terminated! At the end , like in 1948, three years after the war ended, people…..I was doing FIVE different jobs, remnants of jobs, of course, but still 5 different areas, even cost accounting; I had lots of opportunities to use whatever skills I had accumulated by that time. I did the hiring, the firing, ran the department called Civilian Personnel, got the American civilians manning the closed bases up the line their orders and transport back to the States….I can’t even remember all the things I had to do. I suppose that’s when my "bossiness" started. When I got my final release two weeks before Linda arrived, it was accompanied by commendations from the Commanding General of the whole North West Service Command, I still have the letter in my stuff somewhere.
Those years were not all work, mind you, we had lots of fun too, in 1946 I met Dad (future post, people), followed by marriage a year later. Like I told you, I had a thing about dating co-workers, just didn’t do it, so my social life was tied up elsewhere. We, Doug and I, attended various functions at the Officers’ Club on the base, I remember well a masquerade party where everybody dressed up as something, and I ended up playing the piano for a very drunken group of fliers and administrators until the wee hours of the morning. Actually, that happened more than once, every party ended the same way; neither of us got drunk, as such….more than I can say for the rest of our American friends.
A coupla of things come to mind about work at the airbase, we sometimes ate in the cafeteria at lunchtime with other civilian employees in various departments, a scattering of GI’s and officers, ate there on occasion too, when they got tired of the mess hall food. Occasionally, we’d catch a bus and go to cafes and restaurants in the vicinity of the airbase, we often ate at the White Spot on the corner of 97th Street and 111 Avenue, where the burgers and fries were delicious. Our office was right beside the open tarmac where the jets warmed up, and sometimes you couldn’t hear yourself think the racket was so intense…..hey, maybe that’s where I got my major hearing defect! The whine of those jet engines, ugh, I can still remember it. One night, No. 2 hangar caught fire, and burnt right to the ground, a huge conflagration that could be seen all over Edmonton, despite the best efforts of the fire department, I think they got the planes out OK, but skillions of records were lost in the upstairs offices spanning the hangar. I worked in that hangar for months before that happened, de-classifying army-restricted stuff.
Another time, an aircraft was trying to land and couldn’t get his wheels down, he had to circle around the airspace for a long time to use up his fuel before pancaking on a runway. That was exciting for us, we all left the offices and watched when the pilot made the landing, pretty rough, but he made it, the plane then swirled around in a circle, wrecked the dragging wing completely. But the crew
were all OK, and it didn’t catch fire. Some of the pilots there were absolute dare-devils; I remember one guy who had seen aircraft action in the Pacific, had suffered horrible burns over his whole face, and ended up with no face at all. Plastic surgeons had to re-build his features, so he actually had a plastic face…..really ugly to look at, they weren’t very good sculptors, methinks. His buddies always had to keep a weather eye out for him, because if they were partying this fellow usually got plastered, and then he’d want to pick a fight with somebody. So the friends had to prevent this, because one punch in the face and all the surgeons’ work would be for nothing.
Sometimes, the girls in the office in the office would get a chance for a flip, usually to Great Falls AFB, where we would invade the PX and buy perfume, nylons, wartime-restricted stuff that was hard to get. Didn’t really have to go there to get it, as the pilots were back and forth all the time, and would buy us anything we wanted them to pick up for us. Other times, we’d just go up on a flight and fly around the city, out as far as the Fort or Devon or some other outlying towns, I don’t know what for, maybe they were training flights, or maybe they were just using up USAF gas. This really didn’t happen very often, mostly when the CO wasn’t around, the boys were more inclined to play. I remember one plane I flew in, the old PBY, the Flying Duck; great fun, we went out as far as Edson.
This account is again getting TOO LONG! I’ll save the jobs I had after we got married and had some family, to another time . None of them were as exciting as working for the U.S. forces, but then, there was a WAR on, and you eventually got the picture of how devastating war is…..many of us grew up pretty fast in the days of 1939 to 1945.

A Young David Naylor.

This is a slide post, from Jeff. It's intention is to highlight the younger years of my brother David Andrew Naylor, and it has NOTHING to do with whether i know he's reading this. If you know what i mean.
Essentially, these are four slides depicting, in one, the first, myself and my brothers, and, in the next three, just me and my brother David.

First, we have the four Naylor boys, minus one head, when David was just a baby, and Rob could lift him. I doubt that could happen now.
Doesn't he look like he's having fun? The baby in question?
Nice outfit eh? I wonder who wore it before Dave did.
We did the handmedown's like pro's.
Although it's more probably new, them baby one piece's don't look much sturdy to survive more than one baby.

The next is me and Dave, on the very long couch, likely some days within the taking of the previous picture. I'm wearing the same shirt, he has a STRIPED outfit on, and looks about as equally interested in the whole affair as the last pic.

He was still small enough to be propped up on some pumpkinhead thing, and probably not give a damn.

I wonder what he was thinking at this moment.

Other than, "yoah, stop flashin' that black box in my face"!

The last two i'll discuss as one. They're definitely sequential, almost like a two frame movie, from the late 60's.

I only have two questions;

did we ENJOY bathing outside?,

and, where is DAVID going in the second pic?

(I've got more of these, btw, so don't consider this over. Dude.)

School Days, by M-E-N.

Prelude from M-B-C, i thought maybe i'd post this later, but i choose instead to get it out of the way before my SHOWS. (Daily Show, and Colbert Report). I'm just glad i can't feel the nasty steam burn anymore, i got today at work, from the pressure steamer. It's worse than deep fryer burn. Almost like holes in your mouth. Not really though.

laters.


SCHOOL DAYS

So what was it like back in the olden days? Here’s my take on it….I started school in September of 1930, just before I turned 6 years of age. In an Alberta town called Tofield, where my father had delusions of making a go of a gas station there, didn’t last very long, a matter of a few summer months, but long enough for me to be enrolled in Grade 1 (the first grade, Camille). I can remember nothing of it, except the first day I was there, I fell off a teeter-totter and suffered a massive nose-bleed, and had to be sent home to recuperate…..the height of embarrassment for the new kid on the block. I’m sure I didn’t mind when we left Tofield shortly after this incident, not that it triggered the move or anything like that! My dad and my uncle Hughie got together in a joint venture in a gas station with minor repairs and tire products available, at the corner of 11th Avenue and Kingsway in New Westminster, B.C. I suppose the advantage of this establishment was that there were living quarters attached to the garage, and there we lived, in all our glory, crammed altogether … Millie, my cousin, too. She ran the tiny confectionery attached to the garage building, the one where Sandy baby bit the heads off of every chocolate jelly bear in the showcase. So much for sales that day, Millie (16) was somewhat incensed.
But I’m getting off the track here….the school’s name escapes me, but it was up a long hill and surrounded by a very bushy area, unused by most law-abiding citizens, the woods being famous for containing the makeshift residence of an escaped murderer named Bagley. This happened during the time I went to that school, and parents, teachers and kids were scared to death….percentage of fright probably in that order. Eventually the cops caught him. Anyway, I went there for that school term, and must have been fairly bright, as they shuffled me through two grades in that one year….so, when I was about to turn 7, I found myself in Grade 3 (the third grade, Camille). And moved back to Alberta to our farm, 22 miles from Vermilion, Alberta. Actually for the first couple of months after we got back (Model A Ford car, crammed to the gunwales with stuff, 2 kids and a toddler with curly blonde hair, AND a Scotch terrier pup, indomitable Tightwad Tibby), we lived with our Wilson grandparents at their home in the Wildmere district until the lease was up on our farm and the guy moved out. For those months, Jack and I went to Preston school, named after the old location of the Wilsons in Preston Pans, Haddington, in Scotland. About Preston school I remember ZIPPO so it must not have created much excitement in my youthful self.
So we’re back at the “Cummings Place”, where we mix-farmed until I graduated from Grade 9; going to a school named Paradise Valley (not to be confused with the town Paradise Valley which was far, far away), I even remember the number of the school, it was #1750. One-roomed, with a huge big-bellied, oil- burning stove in one corner, 2 cloakrooms at the back, one for boys, one for girls. Teacher’s desk at the front, several rows of small desks for the kids, mapcases and a picture of the reigning sovereign on the walls. Blackboard at the front, too….never called a chalk-board in those days. Made much use of by both teacher and students, as there wasn’t much of any other sort of visual aids, maybe a world globe, if I remember right. And a piano (oh, blessed piano, it kept me company when I chose to stay in the school at recess and lunch-time and pick out the songs I listened to on the radio at home). The teacher was qualified to teach all 12 grades, and did….this was probably a huge advantage for kids like me, who was inclined to sweep through my own grade work, and listen in when the teacher was working with the top grades. My two classmates were both boys, tiresome boys, Henry Eyben and Bill Titus, who often persisted in leaving me behind in the dust simply because my little short-legged Danny –horse couldn’t keep up to their long-legged, powerful steeds. They were just trying to humiliate me for beating their school marks into the ground. (Succeeded, too, guess you can’t win ‘em all). Anyway, in class I reigned supreme! In the Morrison home, it was not allowed to be relegated to second place in scholastics, and the teacher’s word was LAW! Woe betide the kid that brought home a less than successful report card, my father’s rage was unpleasant to see and had to be avoided at all costs.
An enormous surprise to everybody in the family, including me, the recipient, happened when I graduated from Grade 9. A package came in the mail one day addressed to Marion E. Morrison, accompanied by a letter of congratulations from the erstwhile Premier of Alberta, William Aberhart….very official –looking stuff, and upon opening it with trembling fingers, I discovered the Governor General’s medal for proficiency in Grade 9 for the huge Vegreville district. The medals were commissioned by Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor General of Canada, and awarded each year to the highest marks in each of the provinces. And I didn’t even have a chance to lord it over my two classmates, Henry and Bill, because we were already in the throes of moving to another farm, a cool 17 miles closer to Vermilion. That farm we rented on a 3-year lease from Uncle Ernie Wright, proprietor of the Vermilion Hotel, and married to my Dad’s sister, Christina.
The local school there was called Bowtell, named after Harry Bowtell, an influential early pioneer of the area. My mother was so happy to be closer to town…..what, seven miles away? After 6 years of virtual isolation in a sparsely settled district, it was heaven for all of us to be able to go to town every Saturday, shop, take in a movie, hang out with friends in the Boston Café. I attended Bowtell school for the whole of Grade 10; not really as an official student of the school, but to do my correspondence lessons. Yes, I took Grade 10 by correspondence; the lessons were mailed out to me every week by the Dept of Education for the province, and I worked hard at them. My art teacher was especially delighted, I remember, often penning remarks like “Shows great promise” blahblahblah, which was encouraging to me, but in later years, did not come to light until I started putting together my photojournals.
After Grade 10, and because the province was phasing out the country schools and arranging bussing for rural children in to the nearest towns, I was enrolled in Grade 11 in the little town of Kitscoty, Alberta, where the Dept of Education had taken over an old CIBC bank building, converted the offices upstairs into living quarters for a house-master and his wife and son, and two dormitory-type rooms for about a dozen girls. Maybe there were more, I suppose I could count them in some of the pictures I still have, but no matter….I loved my high school days.I became quite active in student affairs, president of the Students’ Union, played in the HS band (accordeon), editor of the year book, all sorts of extra-curricular activities. And still maintained my marks pretty well; we had supervised study downstairs on the main floor of the old bank building, every school night for two hours. Sadly, I was NEVER a sports lover…couldn’t stand basketball, hockey and baseball both rubbed off on me a bit, probably because my brothers were huge fans and participants. Soccer was unheard of in those days, no such thing, nor was football a much-recognized sport. Mostly games were played in the country school yards…..Prisoners’ Base, Anti-I-Over, Pum-Pum-Pullaway, marbles, Hop-scotch. Here again, I did not participate as much as some of the kids; until the teacher got sick and tired of listening to Home on the Range on the piano and I was ejected in favour of the games.
After Grade 12, I was shipped up to Edmonton to begin a business course at McTavish business college, a one-year enterprise that resulted in skills in typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping. And off to the BUSINESS WORLD! But that’s another story!

Having thought of Mother's family ring, i read this somewhere.

The Gregorian calendar has poems matching each month with its birthstone. These are traditionally the stones in English-speaking societies. It is not known whether these verses below are of the originally Gregorian calendar or not. In fact Tiffany & Co. published these poems "of unknown author" for the first time in a pamphlet in 1870.
Three of the verses are repeats,

By her who in January was born
No gem save garnets shall be worn
They will ensure her constancy
True friendship and fidelity.

The February born shall find
Sincerity and peace of mind,
Freedom from passion and from care,
If they, the amethyst will wear.

By her who in March was born
No gem save
Bloodstone shall be worn
They will ensure her constancy
True friendship and fidelity.

She who from April dates her years,
Diamonds shall wear,lest bitter tears
For vain repentance flow.

Who first beholds the light of day
In spring's sweet, flower month of
May
And wears an Emerald all her life
Shall be a loved and a loving wife.

By her who in June was born
No gem save Pearls shall be worn
They will ensure her constancy
True friendship and fidelity.

The gleaming Ruby should adorn,
All those who in July are born,
For thus they'll be exempt and free,
From lover's doubts and anxiety.

Wear a Peridot or for thee,
No conjugal fidelity,
The August born without this stone,
`Tis said, must live unloved; alone.

A maiden born when autumn leaves
Are rustling in September's breeze,
A Sapphire on her brow should bind;
To bring her joy and peace of mind.

October's child is born for woe,
And life's vicissitudes must know,
But lay an opal on her breast,
And hope will lull those woes to rest.

Who first comes to this world below
In dreary
November's fog and snow,
Should prize the topaz amber hue,
Emblem of friends and lovers true.

If cold
December gave you birth
The month of snow and ice and mirth
Place on your hand a turquoise blue;
Success will bless whate'er you do.

wordless post. court jester.

PRAIRIE FIRES:

(Presented by Marion Naylor)


(This is copied verbatim from my mother’s memoirs, (Homestead Days, 1906). Her name was Christina Graham (Wilson) Morrison. )
A very real menace in the early days were the numerous prairie fires that swept through parts of the country every year. Once started, by a spark, by lightning, or more often by man’s carelessness, and if fanned by a wind, it could travel with the speed of a fast-running horse. To protect buildings and haystacks, the settlers surrounded them with a fireguard, which was formed by plowing two furrows about 15 feet apart and burning off the grass between them, thus leaving the fire with nothing on which to feed. On quiet days of little or no wind this was sufficient to stop the fire, but on blustery windy days it was a different story.
On such a morning of a day in spring, on looking out we were appalled to see a large column of black smoke which seemed to be no great distance away, headed in our direction, and being driven by a strong north wind. The men hurriedly gathered gunny sacks, soaked them thoroughly in water, and took up positions to beat out any spark which might be blown across the fireguard. My brother Tom and I, eager for excitement, went along with them.
Soon we could see the flames come racing down a long hillside. Then one of the men shouted to us, “Run for the slough, it’s jumped the fireguard!” We ran pell-mell to a nearby slough in whose center there still remained a large snowdrift. We plunged in up to our waists and stood with our faces buried in our arms to ward off the smoke. The fire went racing past around the slough and was gone in a few minutes, leaving behind it the blackened ashes of the recently thick prairie wool grass. The cows, which had been feeding close by, had the ends of their tails and their heels singed. The fire raced on in the direction of the Cairns’ buildings, but no damage as the grass was trampled short there. That night, when the wind died down, we could still see the light from the flames away to the south, as the fire continued on to harass the settlers in its path.
There were other occasions when a fire would start up unexpectedly, and there was a rush to hitch the oxen to the plow and make a furrow around the buildings and haystacks. Two of our neighbors were one day talking by the roadside. One of them lit a cigarette and carelessly threw down the match. Almost at once, there was a puff of smoke at their feet, a burst of flames, and a fire was on its way again. Fortunately, there was little wind, and with the help of neighbors, it was soon brought under control; and as the years passed the fires gradually lessened, the settler’s plow putting the land under cultivation, and his cattle and horses keeping the grass eaten down.

Storyland Valley Zoo 1

I've been feeling kind of cranky lately, mostly just a bit of a mood crash. I regret it of course. So, i will take the time to actually post to my blog. It's the storyland valley zoo story. In two parts.

I'm too cranky to interlace the pics and the text, so i'll just start with the first.

The best thing about SVZ, in them days, was the train. Went all around the park, over a wee bridge where ducks floated by beneath, past the monkey cage, through a davey jones type simulation, limited animatroning involved, past some goats and other caged beast, and ended back at the start, after the last attraction on the ride, the single lonely polar bear in it's concrete enclosure. At least it's cold in the winter here. Bothers me to think of keeping a polar bear in Etown midsummer heat.

On the train, is Randy, Robby, Debbi, and some squarehead mutant trying not to drop the pumpkin head to the side.

I seriously think the lady in the patterned dress, picture left, is my/our

mother/grandmother.

Next pic, my sainted Brother Randy, being kissed, or licked, by a goat of some type. Aminals loved Randy, his peacefulness of course made them friends.

Last pic, the same dang train i mentioned earlier. Me staring into oblivion, and my 3 siblings all happy, and paying attention to the mom with the camera. Don't you love seeing such joy on Randy's face?

There's a few more SVZ slides, i'll post them next.

farm

DOWN ON THE FARM




One good thing you can say about life on a farm, is, generally, kids learn to work! Whether they want to or not, there is a certain "work ethic" instilled into them, as in "We-all-have-to-pitch-in, because many hands make light labour, or some such quaint homily, my mother often quoted.
Anyway, let me tell you about the Morrison kids’ chores on the farm, even if we we accepted our lot in life with sometimes less than good grace….
Jack and I were close in age, only 14 months apart, so we were assigned double duty, always, until he got big enough and strong enough to start picking rocks and I was relegated to be assistant housekeeper. Our first chores were gathering the eggs from the hen coop; a mindless job which could turn to hazardous if there happened to be a broody hen or two sitting on a clutch of eggs. Then we had to be a bit careful because some of those babies could peck at your intruding hand to the point that blood could be drawn. No way would they give up their eggs willingly, those eggs would provide them with baby chicks one day was their simple thought.
Then there was pumping water (hand pump before we finally managed to get a pump jack, which was a motorized device that pumped the water for us.) We had a huge tank which had to be kept filled for the cows and horses to drink out of, like the size of two large jacuzzis. Jack would pump 100 strokes, then I would, and so on, over and over until the dang thing was filled. This went on, year round, no respite in winter time; there was a waterproof heater immersed in the tank in winter, to keep the ice down, and of course the well never froze, as it was much below the frost line. Another part of that job was keeping the two buckets of water filled in the house…..that was our drinking water, cooking water, washing hands, whatever. At the side of the stove there was a reservoir for water too, which had to be kept filled as well, heat from the stove would heat it up nicely, and it was used for washing dishes, filling the kettle, stuff like that. No paper or plastic cups in those days, we all drank out of a "dipper" and far as I know, never caught too many of each other’s germs. For washing hands we had a small basin on the water bucket stand, and a common towel, used by everybody, hanging on a nail. When you were finished that little chore, you were supposed to wipe out the basin and chuck the dirty water into the "slop bucket", a big 5 gallon bucket which stood on the kitchen floor next to the "water"area. Sometimes, water in the basin would just sit there, forgotten, and on really cold nights, we’d get up in the morning, and it would have a sheet of ice over it.
Then there was the wood pile; one of the major preparations for winter was cutting down trees from the groves of poplar on our farm, and cutting them into stove-sized logs. For this my dad rigged up a motor that drove a special saw on a long belt, it was always at least a two man job, feeding the logs into the whirling saw and cutting them into lengths of about 20 inches. I’ll never forget one time, the Service boys (my dad’s cousins) were at our house, and they were all busily engaged in sawing up a huge pile of wood, when Bill Service let his left hand get too close to the blade, and bingo! his wrist was sliced almost right through. My dad pressed it back togethe again, then bound it up tightly, tightly, put a makeshift tourniquet on his arm, and off to town they went for the doctor to deal with it further. Anyhow, us kids were not allowed to help with this job, at least not when we were small, just too hazardous. Our part of the job was keeping the woodbox filled in the kitchen, so we packed loads of wood in from the woodpile every day, the old kitchen stove was constantly in use, with 8 mouths to fill three times a day, water to heat, or snow to melt for washing clothes, baking……my mother was constantly baking. And when I turned 11 or 12, I was responsible for contributing to the baking. I could bake VERY MEAN PIES! From scratch, of course, no pre-made pie crusts in those days.
A summer-time chore was "pulling weeds", Uncle Hughie used to pay us a special bonus for doing this job, 5 cents for a 5 gallon bucketful, pressed down as hard as you could. Pig weeds….we fed these to the pigs, appropriately enough, they loved them. Stinkweed was a first target, it came up early in the spring, and if the cows got into it, in their winter-starved search for anything green, it would taint their milk. Yeccchhh! Undrinkable. As the garden came up, we would have weed-pulling jobs there too. We were encouraged to have our own little garden spaces, and learned all about how to garden in those early days.
As we got bigger and better-muscled, we started milking the cows. You had tio be careful with a couple of them, as they were inclined to "kick the bucket", literally. I always told Jack he was much better than I at handling those bossies, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. We trained our barn cats (we never had housecats, they all lived in the barn, winter and summer), to sit up on their hind legs and we would squirt the odd stream of milk right into their little pink mouths. This was great fun for both milker and cat, but we didn’t dare let the grown-ups see this, they did not approve. As we moved into our teens and started going to the local country dances, we often wouldn’t get home until 4 or 5 in the morning, but before we could lay our grateful heads on a pillow, the milking had to be done! So off to the barn we’d go….A direct off-shoot of the milking was feeding the calves, they never had a chance to feed off their mothers. So it was our job to teach them to drink their milk out of a bucket, first you had to dip your fingers in the milk, then put them into the calf’s mouth and let it suck your fingers until finally, it would get the idea, and after butting the pail a few times in frustration, they learnt to drink in peace and harmony. I often had to go and find the new calves when they were born, if the pregnant cow had given birth in some remote area of the pasture (which they usually did, went off by themselves). Their mothers licked them until they were dry, then I would take them both home to the barn. I’ll never forget one little bull calf that had the nerve to put his head down, bellow and take a run at me like a full grown bull…..an hour old, instinct rules. At that point he could hardly even stagger, but no mistaking his intentions!
We all learned to stook, before the days of combines, a binder cut down the ripe grain, pulled by a four horse team, later by a tractor. The binder would cut the grain, form it into bundles with binder twine holding them together. Then they had to be picked up and formed into stooks, consisting of 8 or 10 bundles propped against each other, right side up (grain heads up, that is) in long rows all across the field. This was hard hard work….I really didn’t have to do much of it, but the boys had their turns. They also had to hitch the stone boat (a flat sleigh-like device on runners) and take it out to the fields and pick up the numerous rocks lying all over the place. I don't recall ever doing this chore, but Jack certainly did, and the other littler boys too, Sandy and Bob.
And so we all learned to work together…doing the chores, feeding the animals, planting the crops, tending them, the gardens. Our part of the country was too cold in the winter to grow any kind of small fruits, but there were wild saskatoons, chokecherries, pincherries, the latter two to be made into jellies or juices, the saskatoons to be canned (jarred) for winter use. In the summer time, when the saskatoons were at the height of their season, Jack and I would set off for our favorite patches, each wearing a belt, on which our picking pails (lard pails with handles) were attached and a milk bucket each. We’d come home with everything full to the brim. Then the distasteful job of picking over the berries, throwing out the wormy ones (just a few), picking out the stink bugs and the odd little twig or leaf that ended up in our booty. My mum canned usually a couple of hundred jars of saskatoons each summer, and they were our mainstay for desserts….and rhubarb.
That was life on the farm……I still have a few stories about those days, but this post is (again) getting too long! So see you all again, sometime soon!
UNOHOO.

"Those Darn Girls, Such Romanticists", by Unohoo

Oh, Kristy and Dayna, you are such romantics…somehow I knew you would want to delve into my secrets. Well, where should I start, you already know about No. 1, Andrew, so maybe I’ll just go on from there. To tell the truth, I probably had more b.b.f.s than even you, Dayn, I just NEVER talked about any of them, simply because Grampa wanted to know so badly, and you know me, I’m kinda stubborn! Anyway, you have to realize that my dating years were pretty well also the years of World War 2, so there were skillions of young men available, and indeed willing and gasping for feminine company. So dating servicemen was a given in those times, indeed almost a duty! Only trouble was they were here today, gone tomorrow, because they’d be on training plans in Edmonton, and then be posted overseas or perhaps somewhere else in Canada for further training, so the romances rarely lasted more than a few months. But another big opportunity smiled on us girls in the big E. in those days, we had great guys come from other countries to train in our city, and this was such a privilege to go out with those fellows from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. I only dated one American guy, in 1944, when I spent 6 months in Dawson Creek, BC, at the start of the Alaska Highway. The Yanks were kinda fast anyway, they’d do anything, even stand on their heads to “pick up” girls, but I had my pride and refused to allow myself to ever succumb to wolf whistles.

Anyhow, my first engagement was when I was 18, and yes, I accepted his ring, maybe I was still let down from Andrew, I don’t know, or maybe I was just in love with love. His name was Ernie Fox, he was an LAC in the RCAF, originally from Fox Creek, where his mom still lived. His sister lived in Edmonton, in Garneau district and I spent a lot of spare time at their home with Ernie, he was a nice guy….we went on all sorts of outings, even canoeing down the dang river, when I couldn’t swim???? where was my head. Well, I guess it was in the clouds, we had marriage plans half formulated, then I started thinking, hey, I’m too young to be doing this, and I want to be able to date other guys before he gets back from the war, if he gets back…..so I broke it off, gave him back his ring, and continued on my merry way. Heartless wench that I was, I’m ashamed now to think of how badly I treated him.

The next one was Tony, a soldier in the Canadian Army, who also trained in Edmonton. He also was an Albertan, actually, from a farm in the Bentley district sw of Red Deer. He was from a family of Finnish immigrants, I remember his last name, but I won’t even attempt to spell it for you. He was like Andrew, drop-dead handsome, and SEXY! I really liked him too as he was quite the fascinating guy, and he wanted to marry me as well, but I brushed aside the possibility of another engagement ring. I was beginning to think they weren’t such a good idea, too much commitment, you know? And a good thing that was, as eventually he transferred away too, and that one petered out.

In between these more serious romances, you realize I still dated a lot of fellows that were just casual outings, movies, the odd dinner date, dances, picnics, tobaggoning and skating in the winter time, my gracious, in wartime, a girl could date every night quite easily, especially me who worked in war-related jobs and met eligible young servicemen all the time. I was never a great beauty, sorry about that, but pleasant enough, and enough of a tomboy in my early, early days that I got on well with boys, I knew what made them tick, more or less! And I genuinely liked men! I admit it…in the years following, my co-workers in the jobs I worked at were all men, and they were very pleasant to work with, and although I never dated anybody I worked with, I liked associating with them, and learned to “talk their language” (not swearing, though, that wasn’t allowed around me!)
I was the only female in the warehouse that I worked in up in Dawson Creek, with about 15 GI’s from the sergeant on down. After they found out I wouldn’t go out with any of them, then they treated me as their sister, the girl next door sort of thing, and hang out in the office every chance they could get, tell me about their girl friends back home, I was sort of their best female friend and confidant. Besides I was going steady with a guy from the commissary corps I liked better than any of them. His name was Al Erickson, and he was from Bena, Minnesota, and oh man! Could he dance! We used to jive up a storm and the other dancers used to stop and gather around to watch us perform. He was sort of a little guy, but very charming in his way, and really a very kind person; in 1944 the war was beginning to wind down, and working in the food supply department as he was, he would often load up a jeep and take a load of food to the local orphanage, much to the delight of the nuns in charge of it. We went on a lot of day trips, commandeer an army vehicle and go up to Fort Nelson, Hudson Hope, etc, way back in the boondocks, usually a bunch of us, GI’s and civilian girls.
That came to an end when the base began closing down, and I was offered a transfer to Fairbanks, Alaska, or back to Edmonton. By that time I was sick of the north anyway, and homesick to see my family again, so dang it! Goodbye Al!

Casual dating again for a year or so….my memory is still pretty good, I can remember most of the guys I dated, at least their names, not necessarily where we went on dates…..Bernie, Kanga, Allen, Jim….I really liked Kanga, he was from Tenterfield in New South Wales, Australia, and when I discovered my distant Australian cousins a few years back through genealogical research, I told one of them, Des Lambert, about my long ago friend Kanga, and danged if he didn’t actually go there to look for the guy!
Everybody in Tenterfield (a small place) knew Kanga, but unfortunately he had passed away just a few months before, Des met his widow, nice lady, who was just leaving on a European tour, so they didn’t have much time to visit! He asked her did Kanga ever mention a Canadian girl named Marion! No, not that she could recall! She could remember him mentioning a Sally, and a couple of other names, so he must’ve gone on to conquer the world after he left Edmonon. There’s a story about Allen too, he was my best girl friend’s brother and he trained to be a pilot in the RCAF….I wrote to him for a long time, and a coupla times sent him a bottle of much-prized Seagram whiskey, inside a box of Lux Soap Flakes. Allen flew I don’t remember how many missions over France & Germany, and was wounded, came back after the war, completely BLIND. Somehow with the help of the girl he married, Gladys, he managed to cope with a job for Halliburton Oil, and they lived a pleasant enough life and raised a small family. So courageous. He died 10 or 15 years ago.

And that brings us up to 1946, the war was over at long last, and I met your grampa Doug Naylor, who brought a halt to all my meanderings among the opposite sex!! And that will be THE END OF THE STORY! Which I will tell you sometime in the future, as this post is already much too long, girls.

Ryan and Katya, the newest Sefcik family, in Snowy Montana

These are some photos from Facebook, of My Nephew Ryan Sefcik, and his beautiful new bride, Katya Vertai Sefcik, at the Sefcik family cabin, in Whitefish, Montana, taken just a few days ago. My sister Debbi is going to comment on these pictures in the comment section, so this will be her first official guest post. Don't the mountains look lovely in these pictures. I think the flat snow they're ski-dooing on, (sorry, don't know what it's called these days), is the frozen lake the cabin is situated at. What a happy looking couple, don't you think? My favorite pic is the one of Ryan carrying Katya.

It's pretty cold and snowy here in Edmonton, i hear there's lots of snow down at the cabin too...must be a pretty big storm system sitting over the Rockies right now. It's sure a lot prettier though outside the city's grimy streets, as you can see in these pictures.

Post by Kristy (how we chose our kids names)

This is a response to Uncle Jeff in the comment section, how we chose our kids names. The first name we wanted them to be different and unique. The second name is a family name with first boy and girl being named after there parents.

Zoë Michelle:

Zoë: I chose the name Zoë, it was a name I have loved for many years. I first heard it when my sisters friend was trying to name her baby and she was thinking Zoe and I said that sounded so funny and for some reason she had to keep repeating that name to me cause i kept thinking it was Ziggy. She never named that baby Zoe and after awhile I started liking it more and more. Lee also took quite a bit of convincing to get the name I wanted. We never found out what the baby's sex was until the day she was born so we had to figure out boy and girl names. After my whole pregnancy of saying the name Zoë for a girl Lee started liking it more each day as well. What made him give in was that he got to spell it the way he wanted which was having the french diaeresis ë. Lee served his mission in Quebec so was happy to bring some french influence into the name.

Michelle: This one is easy to explain, it's my middle name. I wanted my baby to be named after me but not my first name which I hear all the time.

Dreyton Leland:

Dreyton: this name was another name I chose, it took awhile to figure out a name for Dreyton. Lee and I had a hard time with choosing a name as the ones we wanted seemed to be very popular right now. Jacob, Ethan, and Preston were our top names at the beginning but they were too popular for our liking. One day I was just thinking about all the little boys I knew from daycare, and Dreyton popped in my head. Dreyton was a VERY cute boy, a little bit of a trouble maker but was such a cuddler too. I instantly loved that name for my baby as soon as I remembered it but again it took a bit of convincing for Lee to agree with the name. It wasn't because he didn't like it but because he wanted to name our first boy. An xbox360 (nintendo system) later the name was chosen.

Leland: well I hope everybody knows where this name came from, Lee's first name. Lee actually has two middle names James and Haines, Haines is Lee's mom's maiden name. After picking the first name Dreyton, Leland was a better sounding name to have as a middle name and I really liked that name more then the other two names.

If we had the ideal situation a boy and a girl next we already have the middle names picked out. I am not going to say what they will be until they're here but they are names from our grandparents.

In Your Mother's Words, Your Name...

In response to a request on the Naylor kids names, here's the scoop, chilluns. Right out of the horse's mouth, so to speak.....

Linda Rae: I think I mentioned before that in after years I was sorry we went to strictly popular names (not familial), for our first two children, we wised up later on and realized what's really important. But at the time we tried to choose names with a longer one for the first name, and a single syllable one for the 2nd name, with a double syllable last name, we thought it sounded...well, just more harmonious. So we had Linda Rae. This child proved to be a very pushy, enormously independent little fighter, who early-on grasped life by the horns and actually ruled the roost among the neighborhood children, even though the youngest of all of them, seriously younger, she recruited her army and assigned them their jobs in such areas as building the local snow fort, no ifs. ands, or buts, Linda Rae was juvenile queen of the neighborhood. I 'm afraid one of my most embarrassing situations in my life involved Linda at the age of three. Imagine us sitting out on our front porch in the cool of the evening, after an insufferably hot day, just taking our ease, as were all the rest of the neighbors, all sitting on their front porches (lawn chairs hadn't been invented yet).....when what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a little girl giggling outrageously and obviously enjoying the feel of the cool air on her BARE-NAKEDNESS (not a stitch on), and running up and down the sidewalk on the front street. Where she dumped her clothes is anybody's guess. Somehow I think she realized she was being just a tad naughty, but hang the consequences, she entertained the entire neighborhood, they loved it, can't say I did, but I sure never have forgotten it... Then there was......

Judith Anne: another lyrical name. After Linda, this baby was the sweetest, most lovable little being you could ever imagine, give her a bath, feed her and she was off to dreamland for like ? eight hours ? I would put her out on the front porch in her carriage (she too was a summer baby), and she would sleep like a little angel all day. One day I discovered our enormous black cat, Satan, sleeping with her, curled around her head, a little too close for her breathing comfort in my estimation, she was wriggling, red-faced and too small to cast off that big heavy cat. Satan got his walking papers that very day, I'm afraid. And never again would we have a cat when our children were small babies. Yes, perhaps peculiar attitude, but once warned, twice shy. Judy was the opposite in personality to Linda, never the leader, always the devoted follower. Linda was quite intensely jealous of her baby sister, I remember one time she was confiding in my sister, her Auntie Teeny, saying to her "Auntie Teeny, I'd like to frow (throw) dat baby in the river!" I don't remember what brought that one on, some terrible crisis probably. Then along came....

Robert Douglas: and here the pendulum really swung! Both family names! Robert for my brother Bob, Douglas for his father, of course. Rob was a nice happy baby too, as I recall. When he arrived he was seven lbs. 11 oz, a decent weight for a full-time boy baby.....Doug was so INCOHERENT at having a son after two daughters, that he told everybody the baby was eleven pounds, seven ounces (just a bit backwards there)....so I'm getting all these phone calls and congrats cards saying "Wow! Eleven-seven, that's a BIG BABY there! How did you manage that?" Rob was involved in another extremely embarrassing memory for me, I've never told this to anybody, probably because it was all my fault!!!!! You know how, with some baby boys anyway, when you're changing them and the cooler air hits their skin? something triggers the waterworks and wow! they soak everything within sight before you can get the new diaper pinnned in place? (Note here to grandchildren who never heard of diapers made of cloth and PINNED in place>) Anyway, (here's the embarrassing part...) I made the big mistake of changing Rob on the end of the kitchen table, instead of removing to the bedroom or his crib or some surface other than the kitchen table..... and, true to form, Rob did the little whiddle-whiddle thing, only with more push power than usual, and guess what? Hit the butter dish, which was still sitting on the far-end of the kitchen table. Yep! a good three feet, now that's P for Power, isn't it? Do you feel nauseous? I did, in fact I threw out both butter and dish, because I was sure it could never be
revived. I take all the blame for this misdemeanor. And then came....

Debra Christine: Debra was a really popular name at that time, although I abstained from the "Deborah" spelling as it smacked a little too much of the Jewish version....(OK so maybe I was just a tad racist at that point, having stemmed from a household where a father let everyone know how he felt about the Hunkies, the English, the Irish, etcetc, you get what I mean). The Christine was another form of Christina, who was my mother, my aunt, my sister, my great aunt, back to kingdom come......but with the "Debra" ending in an "a" I didn't think Debra Christina sounded as harmonious as Debra Christine. Besides, what simplified everything was her initials, DCN, mirrored those of her dad, seeing as how she was born on his birthday. She was born early in the wee hours of May 18th, I had been visiting at our house with the next-door neighbors, who went home about 11 p.m. with assurances, "well, if anything happens tonight, call on us!" Might explain here, Doug had left for work earlier ( he was a brakeman on the CNR at that time and would travel to North Battleford that night, and be back home early in the morning. Anyway, about 11:30 I had the first twinges of going into labour...and it was moving along pretty fast. So of course, I called Jim and Edie and told them I had to go to the hospital like right now! So over they came....Edie in her nightie and housecoat, hair up in curlers, I was still dressed, so just put on my pregnant coat, and off they went.....without me, Jim was so befuddled he took off in the car with just Edie in the front seat, and here am I, left behind, calling frantically, Hey Wait for me!
Well, that hurdle over with, and me esconced in the car too, we took off very erratically, for the hospital. When we got to the admitting desk, here we were, the three of us, Jim and Edie so obviously agitated (the pains were coming sharper and closer by this time), me, trying to be as calm as I could force myself to.....not really "showing" too much, I was astounded when the admitting clerk said "Excuse me, sir, but which one is the patient?" (Edie was quite obese).
Debbie, the reward, arrived in all her glory about an hour or two later. We thought Judy was easy? Debbie was a doll of a child, with the best nature of all of our children, before and after. Got along with everybody, sweet-faced with her big blue eyes and trusting nature.....there's something to be said of the "middle" child, they're predestined. Next was...

Randall Hugh: The Randall was RANDOM, although my friend Wilkie Wanless at the Lumbermen's Association where I worked, I remember, had some reservations about calling a child "Randy"......he had spent a lot of time during the war with an English squadron (he was a pilot) and evidently "randy" has some connotations to Brits that I knew nothing about. Anyway, the heart murmur, which was much more than a murmur, called patent ductis arteriosis, was detected immediately and poor little baby was in for a three week introduction to this world of tests, tests and more tests. Luckily he was born in the University Hospital, which was a teaching hospital in the first place, with probably the best neonatal unit in the city at that time. He was a cranky baby, when we finally got him home, probably in pain some of the time?? he was on digitalis for some months. But he seemed to thrive and gained weight fairly normally...although always small and wiry, he became as all small boys, intensely interested in cars and trucks and such-like toys when he was little, a baseball/basketball/dirt- bike- rider -from- hell as he grew older. Randy LOVED sports, and wasn't happy when the church teams tended to leave him sitting on the bench when the game got down to the last crunch. (His coach apologized to me, saying, I know he wants to play so much, right to the end, but when I look at him, so intense, with that bluish tinge to his skin and those clubbed fingers and toenails, I just freak out and through my own fear for him, I have to leave him sitting there....I'm so sorry!). When he was maybe 11 or 12, one day one of the Schlosser kids across the street from us threw a little metal car at Randy, which struck his eye, and he ended up with a displaced retina...well, off to the hospital he went. The problem was cleared up in a few days, but Randy was incensed every time the doctors and their interns came to check on him, the budding doctors always were much more interested in listening to his heart, it made a sound not commonly heard by the medical teams, and it was a good opportunity for teaching for those going on to cardiac training. And Randy would mutter "They're a lot more interested in my heart than in my eye!" I'm getting off the subject here.....Randy's second name, Hugh, was for my dearest and best uncle Hughie, who lived with our family all my growing-up days and was like a second father to me, and such a great influence in my life. Anyway, then along came....

Jeffrey Allan: Jeffrey was definitely destined to be "Russell", by this time, I had had my choice of names, pretty well, so I decided OK, Doug needs a turn at naming our numerous progeny, so this time, he can pick. And he picked "Russell"..... he announced it to the rest of the children, and Judy, always very sharp, pipes up and says, "Oh goodie! when he goes to school everybody will call him "Rusty Nayl". Well, if that name didn't go down the tubes, very quick-like. Jeff was my largest child, 9 lbs. 10 oz., big baby, very healthy, a beautiful child, with the "Wilson" big head, and an astounding intelligence that left us in awe much of the time. I think I've told of the times when he "got lost" because he was determined to go his own way, and see what HE wanted to see, he'd often find himself parted from the rest of the family, and provided us with many an anxious moment trying to find the dang kid. But he was never lost, it was the rest of us who were. Jeff's very active and enquiring mind enable him to pull down fantastic marks in school, his teachers doted on him. In his early years, like 3, 4, 5....he spoke with a lisp, and sometimes the things he came out with were hilariously funny to us. One time we were riding in the car, Dad driving, as always, approaching the railway crossing on 103 Street and Whyte Avenue, there was a train blocking the street, with the rear brakeman signalling the front brakeman with his hand signals.....I can still hear Jeff, watching intently from the back seat, at his father's shoulder, muttering "Look at that dumb Jack-eyeth pathing hith hand over hith eyeth! Doethn't he look thtupid?" ( "jackass" was one of his father's favorite derogatory expressions. Jeff was just reiterating what his dad would commonly come out with!) The "Allan" in his name was for Allan Sullivan, a close friend of my brother Bob, and also our upstairs room renter for some university years, a very fine young man and just like one of our own, you might say. We both agreed if our Jeff grew up to be as great a person as Allan, we would gladly give him a namesake. Besides, we thought the name very harmonious......

And last but never least, along came...

David Andrew. I had always loved the name David, years later I found it fairly often in my own family genealogy, although didn't know it at the time. Andrew likewise, some of my Haddows were Andrews, a good old Scottish name, you know I never forget my Scots origins, I myself am Scottish to the core, although perhaps not so tight-waddish as people like to believe the true Scot is. But I will let you in on a secret, I don't think David himself ever knew this......
Andrew Cairns was probably my first boy-friend when I was 16 or 17, I had never forgotten how disappointed I was when he went back to University to pursue his medical career. He lived in the small town of Kitscoty (or his family did), and had suffered peritonitis from a too-late removed appendix, and had to take a full year off his University studies. So back home he had to go, his dad was the local butcher, Scots' Catholic people....my best girlfriend Verna Potter was going steady with his younger brother Charlie, so probably just a diversion for Andrew, the four of us started hanging out. As for me, I thought the sun rose and set on him, he was devastatingly handsome, to begin with, smart, successful. He got his medical degree and carried on his practise in Edmonton for many years following those early days. (I kept track of the guy! must've been some lingering attraction there for me)....he married a lady who was to become the local consul for the Netherlands, so their lives revolved around medical and consulate circles. Of course I never told my husband the "real reason" I liked the name Andrew, he would've gone bonkers, and would never have permitted it!

So there you have it! what, how, why we named out children as we did! Never meant it to turn into "true confessions"
(that was the name of a popular magazine back in my teen days, the kind you kept stuffed under the mattress and only brought out when you and your bgf were somewhat star struck by the vagaries of Hollywood.)

One Artificial Tree, Three Christmas's

Following up on the last post regarding the artificial Christmas tree we got a few years after the pics from the last post were taken, here are 4 slides depicting various Naylors, and 3 Donellys, and the tree in question.
These, to my estimation are 3 different Christmas's, according to relative ages, position of tree and other furniture in the living room, and the appearance of the new 7th child, Little Boy.

(If he doesn't read my blog, i hope his ears are burning).

This first one is the earliest, i would guess it as '66 or '67, more likely '67. Notice the TV is on the end wall of the living room, and the tree is in the northeast corner.
And just look at all those presents. You'd think we were the Rockefellers. And always thrifty, gifts were neatly unwrapped, so paper could be saved for use next year.
This must have been either during the gift opening Christmas morning, since most gifts are still wrapped, or perhaps, at the traditional open one present on Christmas eve event.
Notice the shirt Dad is wearing. I still have that shirt.

It has onyx embellished snaps, instead of buttons.

This next one is a year or two later, '68ish i would say, Rob has put on a few inches, and Randy's hair is blonder, likely from having spent more time outside the summer before. The tree is again in the northeast corner of the living room, and Mother's first oil painting is on the east wall, moved over from the north wall, where it was in the last posts' pics.
Check out the 7up bottle, and Rob's way stylin' belt.

The next one i'm saying is likely to be '69, David has arrived in the picture, looking 2ish....isn't he cute? If only he had stayed that way. JAY/KAY!! The tree has moved to the southwest corner of the living room, as evidenced by the inclusion of the thermostat on the wall, in this scene. See how the present pile keeps growing each year? We were upwardly mobile poor! DEE-LUXE!!

This last one is the same Christmas as the one just before. How do i know? The position of the tree, the curio shelf, the little light-up church, and the pole lamp are all the same, and just below the curio shelf, in both shots, on the tree is a green light, and a red ball hanging below it.

This must be after Christmas, the presents are gone, Randy And I are likely wearing new shirts we got, and the Donelly's are over...probably Boxing Day i would think. And funny little Davey is pointing at his Mom, thinking, 'hey you, camera lady, what you doing'.