Travelling on the train was not new to us, but this was the first time we'd eaten three meals a day, in the dining car. It was very impressive. All the men had to wear coats and ties. I remember because one man attempted to go in shirt sleeves and was asked to 'please put on your coat, suh!" The finger bowls were new to us children, but Dad told us how to use them. When the train would stop Dad would go to check on Charlie and see how he was doing with the horses. I don't know how many days and nights we traveled, but it was pleasant and when I grew restless or tired of looking out the windows, I'd read. Everyone was great to us, the conductor brought us ice cream or candy several times when we made a short stop in the evening. No one seemed to mind a family traveling in those days. Of course, we were never allowed to bother the other passengers, but they seemed to like to come and sit and visit with us.

When we arrived in Calgary, Dad settled us in a hotel and we went to see that beautiful city. It was a lovely place to be in the springtime. Dad looked around and found a rooming house run by a widow with a grown daughter. They only took in good families. We loved it there and Dad and partners scouted around to see where it seemed best to settle down and make our new home. They settled on Redcliff, a little town six miles from Medicine Hat (where much natural gas comes from). There was a boom in real estate and building, so we got on the train again and landed in Redcliff. [Edmonton experienced a real estate boom in 1911/1912. In late 1912 and early 1913 the Hudson's Bay Company flooded the market with more land, causing a depression. Upon his arrival in Calgary in 1913, Ray White may have been influenced by the depressed Edmonton market and backtracked to Redcliff (Niddrie 1965)]

It was so booming it was hard to find a place to stay. A couple had jerrybuilt a rooming house. It was just rough lumber, the two by fours showing inside, rough splintering floor, and the walls were only partway up partitions between the rooms. A narrow hallway ran between two rows of rooms, each held a bed and washstand with pitcher and basin. Of course, everybody could hear everyone else even if they just breathed! Well, we had to stay there! And Dad got us meal tickets for a restaurant. A meal ticket is about the size of a playing card with numbers in little squares all around it. The cashier punched out numbers to equal the money spent on each meal.

Dad bought six lots out a ways, but within walking distance of town. Then he started to build a house in a hurry. We moved in as soon as the floor was laid and sides were up and roof on! Incomplete, but better than the place we were in. We had breakfast there, Mom and Goldie prepared it. Then before noon Paul and I would walk to town with a basket and order and we'd carry back our midday meal. It couldn't have been very far, if we at ten years and eight years carried it. I remember we'd have to change hands often coming home with the basket full, but the meal ticket was very handy to send with us.

Now this is prairie country and you could look for miles 'n miles. We didn't live out there long as Dad had another place in town he was building for us, another duplex. When we moved into it I was so happy because once again I could go to school. We had nice neighbors and children our age to play with. It was here that Mom took up the English custom of afternoon tea. It is a nice, relaxing thing to do and she and the neighbors visited back and forth for it each day.

Dad could no longer keep Goldie and Charlie as help so they rented the other side of the house and Charlie worked for Dad in his contracting and building business.

Now that I'd started school here, we had about a mile to walk each way so we carried our lunch. Most children did, only those living very close went home at noon. The rest of us went down to the basement to eat, seldom were we allowed to eat at our desks. I loved my teacher and school was always something I enjoyed. That winter I froze my ears so badly on my way to school and was so cold when I got there, even before the teacher, that I huddled by the warm radiator to get warm. That is no way to thaw frozen ears! They thawed alright, but turned black and swelled to twice their size. I almost lost them both. But nature took over and healed them. Any exposed part of the body froze quickly in that intense cold. We learned to grab a handful of snow and rub a spot on the cheek or nose that turned white and we watched out for anyone walking with us, too. Hands we clapped together and feet we stomped! The best thing to do was to keep everything covered with wool and to keep moving.

Mom was going to have another baby! It must have been hard on her not having as much help as she was sued to. None, in fact, except me, but I never heard her complain. Her feet and ankles swelled so that I used to sit at her feet and rub them every evening. Shortly before her time, my friend Joyce decided to tell me the facts of life in lurid and explicit detail. I was shocked and angry that she would say such things and shouted, "My Mom and Dad wouldn't do that!!" and then I ran home to ask. That evening as I sat rubbing Mom's ankles I looked up at her and said, "Mom, I know you're going to have a baby and I'm glad, but Joyce told me her Mom was going to come and take care of you for two weeks when the baby comes and then she told me lots of other things." I tried to tell her my newly learned facts. How I must have embarrassed her! But she reminded me that I knew about mothers giving birth, that I'd seen animals give birth and that sex was not dirty. Animals did it and that was how the seed was planted and their babies grew inside the mother until they were right for living in the world. That sex (she didn't use THAT word) for people was an act of love for married couples so they could have babies and babies could have Mothers and Fathers and be in a family. Well, I got the idea, sex is for animals, but an act of love for people!