The Family Homestead

In one of the photos below you’ll see Marilyn’s doll carriage from her childhood and the abandoned farm house documented in this post, was her home at the time. The old family homestead has been vacant for about sixty years but still holds many memories and here a cherished toy has been brought home, if only for an evening. Then it goes back into the keepsake collection where she lives today.

We found the whole experience quite moving, but we’re sentimental types and choke up over the silliest of things. Meanwhile we’re being looked at as though we’ve lost our minds.

The house dates back to about 1902 and has been empty for about half that time. Alberta had yet to be a province back then and that title wouldn’t come till a few years later. When her grandparents settled in this scenic valley, they called it the Northwest Territories. That’s some food for thought and reminds us, the world in this little corner, in the form we know it, has only existed for a short blip. How different things were not all that long and it’s sobering in a way.

Consider this: the entire population of what would become present day Alberta (all 661,848 square kilometres of it) came in at something around a hundred thousand and change back then. All that vast countryside, and it’s big area my friends, and that’s it. Calgary and Edmonton, both with populations around one point four million today, were little dots on the map and home to maybe ten thousand each. People were spread thin!

The old Family Homestead.

There was not a single town nearby to the homestead when built and wouldn’t be for a number of years. You get the picture and we’re talking about a plot of land that may as well been on the moon and rivaled it for isolation. Everything people hold dear and take for granted in 2022, all those modern conveniences we can’t live without, didn’t exist then. Not one of them and we wouldn’t last five seconds in that world.

Several generations called this tiny place home and at times it must have been crowded. Grandma and Pa had four kids, so six people jammed into a space no bigger than a garage.

What Mom left behind.

Laid out in almost an L form, there’s two bedrooms, one at each end, plus a sitting room and kitchen in between. Cozy and homey! They raised horses here on the land and supplied them far and wide. Some made it to the Calgary Stampede in its early years and other were racing stock.

Most recently, Marilyn, her brother, her folks and grandpa occupied the house and lived here until the late 1950s when they moved to town. Still a kid at the time, she fondly recalls her family homestead and the time spend here. It’s a scenic setting, very different than the surrounding prairie, with a few scattered trees and a little river running through the property.

There’s a shallow crossing just downstream, used by local first nations people for generations and even after the family settled the land. Sometimes roaming groups would drop and visit, a story told to Marilyn by her Grandma. In the early days, this was very much the wild prairie, a real hinterland, with few other settlers living nearby. Grandpa came by way of the US before setting down roots, right here at this very spot and looking around, we can see why he picked the spot. There’s everything a person would need and in a beautiful setting to boot.

The old house continued to be used as a summer getaway into the mid-1960s, but it’s been empty ever since.

Cattle roam the property present day and the building boarded up to prevent entry. That’s their “calling cards” underfoot and we’re advised to step carefully.

Looking inside one can still see odd bits left behind from when occupied and a lifetime has passed, yet there’s still these reminders. Just think if it, that chair might have been last sat in maybe six decades ago and right beside, there’s books on the shelf waiting to be read. Except they’ll never be read and turn to dust when touched.

The floor in the kitchen has collapsed into the root cellar and has taken the fridge with it. There’s no basement otherwise so we’re safe walking about the other rooms. You can smell a pie cooking in that old wood stove and hear the kids playing outside. We keeping flashing back to long ago.

Marilyn’s certain those shoes belonged to her Mom and they’re real fashionable ones too. She speaks of the hand pump in the kitchen for water, and storing ice for summer use, down in the ice house near the river.

The house has settled and nothing’s level any more, yet on the outside it doesn’t look so bad. That pink wall’s awesome!

In the yard, there’s several outbuildings and all are in varying stages of collapse. Old machinery and hunks of this and that are scattered about. Since no one seemed to throw anything away in the old days (and where would it go anyway – no dumps back then) and the amount of stuff accumulated over time could be substantial.

Here’s an vintage TV (a more modern cast-off), the old dog house, some little brown jug (unbroken too), old cars and truck parts, an oil lamp we nearly tripped over, a vacuum tube from an old radio, I guess, buried in the dirt and other flotsam. All of it takes us back.

Elkes biscuits are best at tea time. How’d that old box survive out in the open so long?

There’s the grill off a Canadian Military Pattern Truck from World War Two. Produced in the hundreds of thousands and used by various Commonwealth forces, they were said to be ”the country’s most important contribution to Allied victory”. They were produced by both GM and Ford of Canada.

There’s a real old vehicle (a truck we think), or rather remains of one, under a collapsed building and the wood spoke wheel suggest it’s something from the 1920s or before. We looks close in hopes of IDing it, but there’s not much left, so we’re unsure.

A little something is eyed sticking out of the dirt and on closer examination turns out to be a toy gun, one of those old ones made of metal, all twisted, mangled and rusted through. Hmmm, I wonder? We show it to Marilyn, in case it’s recognized and she responds excitingly it once belonged to her brother. She remembers it from long ago! Later it’s reunited with its former owner as a surprise gift and we’ve yet to hear back his response.

Here it’s a chance find, sitting underfoot for sixty or seventy years, waiting, and now the little kid ain’t so kid-like anymore, but he and this toy are together again Holding back those sniffles and breaking out the tissues…

A plaything of this sorts would be frowned upon today, but back then, all little boys had them. The cap gun kind (not sure about if this is one) were great for scaring the wits out of Mom and especially her cat.

That old wagon and hay mower were moved by horse power, of the animal kind. Not all that long ago, beasts were used for many farm tasks and in stark comparison to the highly mechanized operations of today. Just like a farm dog, a good horse became part of the family and treated well.

In a scenic little valley – cows grazing above.

Cattle are seen on the ridge above and at times seemed oddly interested in the goings on down here. We’re being watched!

At times we could hear vehicles up that way (rounding up the cows?) and later in the evening, it sounded almost like a party had broken out. They were whoopin’ and hollerin’ and I doubt they knew we were down here and able to eavesdrop on their antics. There’s little in the way of filters when a cowboy lets loose and it sounded as though they were right beside us. Learned some new four letter words that night.

Odd and ends.

The fun went on and one up there while we waited for it to get dark for one final photo. Under a blanket of stars, we hoped to make it appear as though the old homestead looked lived in again, for one last time. The lights are on and dinner’s on the table…the illusion is strong.

They were still at it, there out of sight, as we packed up for the night and left. Look at that, it’s midnight and they’re going strong. They’ll be nursing hangovers tomorrow…

There’s always new and interesting content posted regularly so drop by often!

They’re saying…

“Well written and well researched. You feel part of the adventure!” David Fionn Clarke.

Abandoned…
Abandoned Places: The Bishop House – Home only to memories and ghosts.
St Elias – This hidden monastery but what’s with that piano?
Whitepool – A derelict prairie sentinel in the middle of a field.
Blackfoot Farmer’s Market – They just up and left.

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: Summer and Fall, 2021.
Location: Middle of Nowhere, AB.
Article references and thanks: Marilyn and Local History Books.

As many as five or six people lived in the tiny house.

Horse powered.

There’s an old vehicle under there.

The grill off a Canadian Military Pattern Truck.

It predates Alberta as a province.

Hang your jacket and come on in.

We rarely find intact glass objects.

It’s been sixty years since someone called it home.

The floor over the root cellar has given way.

So many coats of paint.

Returned to it’s owner but he’s much older now.

Late in the day is an inspiring time to photograph.

We’re being watched.

For the family pooch.

Old bit and pieces dumped out back.

This old grill off some forgotten vehicle.

An old vacuum tube found half buried in the dirt.

A child’s toy brought home.

Marilyn’s our host and lived here as a kid.

Now the old house is empty and quiet.

To light the way.

Elkes are best with tea.

It looks lived in again, if only for one night.