Once again we were packed onto a train. Horses and furniture went too. This time we had no Charlie to care for the horses in the boxcar, so some of the family had to. I remember it was winter time and we loved seeing all the trees covered with snow. We missed trees. We were not travelling with as much comfort as we had coming from Ohio, but we made merry and sang Christmas carols most of the way. Everyone in the car joined in the singing and it was fun. We stayed in Edmonton for several weeks, the Fitkin family and us. I loved Edmonton and the shops all a-glitter with Christmas. We spent Christmas there and Mrs. Fitkin bought me my first sewing basket that Christmas.[This Christmas was spent in Edmonton in 1915 (Woodard 1987)] Dad had the horses in a stable he'd rented. He and the boys went to care for them each day. Sometimes we girls went too, but we didn't like barns as well as we did stores and we couldn't take the horses out and go for a ride. Finally, the time came when we once again had to leave the city. We again were on a train and it was so cold, even inside we needed out coats on. I can only remember that I was tired out when we arrived at some little place. A sleigh took us to a building where lots of people were sitting at long tables eating and it would be our turn next. Before that time came, us children were sitting on the floor behind a big heating stove and sound asleep. I remember nothing more till next morning when Dad woke us up and told us we were starting for our homestead. We were in a big covered sleigh, Dad was driving. The Fitkin family was following us in another sleigh. It seemed like there was snow just everywhere; a white icy road, white cliffs of snow on each side, and white covered trees as far as we could see. Dad said we'd stay at a halfway house that night and go on the next day. I don't know why the are called halfway houses, I suppose because they are halfway between here and there!

The thing that stands out in my mind the clearest on this part of our trip was that Mom had to go to the bathroom and there was no place to go! She was finally in so much distress that Dad located a container of some kind and said, "Here, use this and we'll throw it away." No way was she going to, unless we put a curtain around her so she could have a private place. This was arranged and I was so embarrassed! I just hoped no one at the halfway house would know what she did in that sleigh! When we got there it was dark, days are short in the winter, and we were all tired and hungry. They were waiting for us though, and the house was warm, the people friendly, and the food good. It was served family style and when I took a sip of my black coffee I almost gagged and whispered to Dad, "What's this?" He answered, "It's tea, drink it!" that was my introduction to black tea, strong as lye! That night we all slept in the loft of the halfway house.

The next morning we started again and that evening we arrived at Buchanan's house. Frank B. was the biggest rancher in this district and the stepfather of Rosebud and Ira. Rosebud was around my age, but much more grown-up acting and just beautiful with black hair and great black eyes. Ira was her elder brother. Frank was a huge, rough man, good natured at times, but with a mean temper. His wife was short and roly-poly and a great cook. She seemed to put great meals on that table three times a day with no effort at all, though looking back I can see that she really worked at it from morn till night. Anyway, we stayed here until Dad had our house built and our furniture had come. Also, he had to build shelter for our horses and a milk cow he'd bought. I imagine Dad was in a hurry to get us settled on our own homestead because it must have cost him plenty for board and room, as Frank seldom did anything for free.

The homestead was lovely. Our home was one big room for living and dining room and a kitchen area in one end, then three small bedrooms. I remember Frank B.'s ranch house was one great square room with a stairway leading up to another great square room with beds in each corner for whatever privacy there was.

There was a hill in back of our house and peat moss, we called it muskeg, cranberry bogs beyond that. In front of the house was a big meadow and running through it was a wide creek of pure sparkling water. There were lots of big fish in it too. Of course, we learned all of these things later on. The Fitkins homestead was just beyond ours, border to border. The Frank B.'s ranch was a few miles on the other side. The Frenchman's place was beyond Frank's ranch and that was where the mail came once a week, if weather permitted. It was quite a trip to get it in the winter, but fun in nice weather when we could fetch the mail on horseback, usually my job.

At the moment, though, we were busy getting settled. Our furniture from Ohio and our pictures and paintings on the log walls made it feel like home. We were quite cozy here, though this was only supposed to be our temporary home. Dad planned on building our permanent home on the hill back of us when warmer weather arrived. This home was more temporary than we could ever have dreamed it would be!

One early morning we were all fully dressed because of the cold, no lounging around in robes there, I looked up and saw flames around the stovepipe. "Dad!" I yelled, "The house is on fire!" It went so fast! The wind was so strong, all we saved were arms full of bedding, it took the roof and gutted the inside. All our furniture, clothes, dishes, everything except what we stood in and the bedding we'd saved. Dad hitched up the horses to the sleigh, piled it high with hay, put us all in it, threw our bedding on top because, though we were plenty warm while the fire was going, he knew he had to get us someplace to stay. About this time neighbors started to arrive so back we went to Frank B's ranch. Our friend, Mr. Moran, hitched up a team and started to make the rounds of all the ranchers to tell them of the new family's tragedy. Everyone was so good, by evening we had an assortment of clothing and various other things and offers of help to put up another house. Someone donated peeled logs for the frame and all the men in the area, including Indians from the Cree Reservation at Whitefish Lake, came to help raise it. [The Whitefish Lake Indian Reservation was established in 1885 by the Canadian government for the Strongwoods Cree (Sturtevant, 1981)]

They put it on the hill in back of the one that had burned, later the gutted log frame of the first house was used as a barn at the foot of the hill.

We had no furniture now so bunk beds were built in the walls of the bedroom, upper and lower bunks. Tables and benches were built of rough lumber, the tops being of slabwood with the smooth side up and the rounded bark side down! At this point it looked as if we were rapidly going from rags to riches in the wrong direction! We only had a heating stove with a flat top to cook on. We couldn't even bake, except a kind of hoecake baked in a fry pan and turned over when the bottom was cooked so both sides were cooked sorta like a big thick pancake. The first thing that happened when we started to move back was Mr. Frank B. took our one milk cow for payment of room and board, so much for sweet charity! His wife was so angry with him, she used to send milk and eggs to us whenever she could sneak them out that winter. Anyway, the first thing we did after we got settled was throw a party. It was really just dancing, food, and visiting, but it was the customary thing to do and everyone had a fine time. We all felt like old friends by the time the sun came up and the party broke up the next morning.

The Indians who helped after our house burned and who came to our house warming party were in western dress except for some moccasins. Some were college graduates. So Mom was not prepared for Indians in their own dress of buckskins, blankets, etc. with their Indian ponies. The first time she saw a party like that coming down the road in front of the house she panicked and insisted we all hide in the muskeg back of our house. The party met Dad a short time later coming home and told him his 'squaw was afraid and ran to hide' They thought it very funny, but were understanding and later on they always stopped, trouped into our house, sat around on the floor, and smoked! We'd ask, "Have you eaten?" They always answered, "Not yet, but soon." The soon coming out singing, like so-o-o-n.

The Indian chief invited us to a wedding feast and dance on the reservation. They had two kitchens going, one in which white peoples food was cooked and one for Indians. You could interchange if you wished. The upstairs was for sleeping and was full of children too tired to stay awake any longer. We stayed for 24 hours, then drove back home. Luckily the horses knew the way, we were all tired from having such a good time.

We had a hard time just eating that winter, game was plentiful, but Dad's guns had burned and the creek was frozen so thick! By spring, when my sister's birthday, Lou's, came on March 12, we were down to frozen potatoes and frozen cabbage. Did you ever eat frozen potatoes? First you put them in cold water and they soften enough so you can then wash them for boiling. They are so sweet they taste like you've added a cup of sugar. Frank B's married stepdaughter, Dora, sent her daughter, Opal, over with a one egg cake for Lou's birthday and we felt like we had a feast. You see, all our winter's supply of food had burned in the fire too.

Well, spring and summer came and things grew very fast in the long summer days there. We had a big garden and we picked cranberries in the bog back of the house and canned them. Also, we picked many other berries there. Dad built a large room size pantry onto the house and around it he built another wall with a space inside for blocks of ice and sawdust so we had a walk-in freezer. As soon as the roads were clear, he drove to Vegreville and got a large supply of staples of food we needed, also a rifle, shotgun, and pistol. We were never hungry again up there. Of course, by this time our relatives in Ohio had been told of our loss by fire and our Aunts sent us huge boxes of table linens, bedding, etc. Also, Dad got us a cook stove. We were so happy to be able to bake bread, cake, pies and cookies, as well as roast meat once more!

That summer we saw a mother moose come out of the dense forest on the other side of the creek and she brought her twin babies down to drink. We stood in the front yard and watched them for quite awhile until they went back into the woods. This was the summer we managed to get enough newspapers and magazines to paper the big room in our house. When I had nothing else to read I read the walls. Dad built a fence around our front yard. It was more for looks than anything. The cabin looked so pretty on top of the hill with the fence around it and the big trees in the muskeg as a background.

I was learning to ride horseback now. Rosebud was a great rider and taught me a lot about it. Both she and her niece, Opal, would just as soon ride bareback as with a saddle, but I much preferred a saddle.

I haven't said much about the families that went with us, though I visited the Fitkins lots of times. The Mother was usually curled up on a bed reading and the three girls were busy amusing themselves and each other. The house was always a mess. They were such a relaxed, easy family to be with, nothing mattered! An almost anything goes atmosphere seemed to be their lifestyle. Mr. Fitkin was easygoing too, so all was well with them. Of course, in less than a year they were back in Edmonton with their two grown sons.

The Morans were doing fine with their store, we made special trips to visit them as they lived farther away. Mrs. Moran was the aristocrat of the community having toured Europe and been presented there. She married quite late in life when she met Mr. Moran, who was older but quite wealthy. I can't believe she knew she was getting into this frontier type of life when she met and married her handsome stranger, but they had two children whom she adored and Mr. Moran always provided abundantly for her, although not in the style she'd have liked.

This was the age when children were supposed to be seen and not heard, but little pitchers have big ears and I sometimes knew as much or more about the adults lives as they did about each others, but I never discussed it with anyone and half the time didn't understand it, but remembered.

Mom was the youngest of the women who went homesteading and it grew harder and harder for her to cope with living the pioneer life. After all, it was like going back in time fifty years! Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Fitkin, and Mom loved to visit. I recall one time when Mrs. Moran told them she didn't really mind living up there, until the mice got into her drawers and ate the fringe off her centerpiece!' It wasn't until I was married that I realized I'd heard my first bawdy joke! At the time I was puzzled by why they laughed at her bad luck.