Learning along the way to MH
Just a small town girl - looking for the real world.
It was January 7th, 1968, Ukrainian Christmas Day at my Grandparents house in the rural area near the village of Arnes, Manitoba. This occasion was the first time I was encouraged to be part of the after-dinner clean-up. I had turned 10 years old in the fall of 1967 which seemed to open up my new role of being old enough to be helpful in the kitchen. Drying dishes was my assigned task. I noticed the fancy dinner plates read, “Bone China – England” on the bottom. The every-day dinner plates read, “Hycroft China – Medicine Hat”. My 10-year-old-self imagined England and Medicine Hat were both somewhere across the world, places where I could only dream of.
You see, in the Interlake region of Manitoba, where my family lived, life was often a challenge. I didn’t understand why my grandparent’s house didn’t have running water or a real sink. The large cast iron wood stove had a hot water reservoir and all cooking was done on that stove – even the house was heated by that stove. No wonder I was kept from kitchen duties until I was ten! That stove was a beast, in the most positive sense of the word. Many basins or vessels were used for water. A cold-water bucket for drinking and cooking was always in a prime location in the kitchen. Large sink size basins were used for washing hair, hands, feet, and dishes. That family celebration opened my eyes to the difference between my town life and the hardships of farm life. My family home was small but outfitted with hot and cold running water, including a full three-piece bathroom. The farm had the dreaded outhouse but my Baba always had the white enameled chamber pot for us kids to pee. Water was a coveted resource on the farm. It was only found in the well, carefully carried in buckets to the house and the barns. Hot water was even more of a luxury. The smaller cast iron wood stove in the summer kitchen was used to heat water during the summer months. Heating up the farm house was not a practical thing to do during the hot and humid summer months so that summer kitchen was well used.
I started asking a lot of questions of my grandparents but they did not speak English very well. My farm questions had to be answered by my parents, usually on the drive home – 30 kilometers away – half of that trip on gravel roads. It is amazing how few technologies my grandparents’ farm had at their disposal. I realize how fortunate I was to have experienced a taste of that “homesteader” lifestyle. My family moved out of Manitoba – to Medicine Hat, in the summer of 1972. Many improvements took place on that farm in the years after my family relocated. I witnessed some upgrades take place, and I got to enjoy some new creature comforts while visiting the farm in future years. I reminisce about those years often and how many more memories I have running through my head…the “party line” phone, the milk/cream separator, the septic tank installation, the life sustaining gardens, etc. Imagine how thrilled I was when I saw my grandparents every-day China at Hycroft in Medicine Hat, Alberta, years later?!
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