The next spring we moved to Ashmont, a small, but busy new settlement. Here Dad could find work. We moved to a ranch about a mile out. It was the McGregor ranch; a young couple and her dad lived here. [The Whites moved to Ashmont in the spring of 1917 (Woodard 1987)] We had quite close neighbors. These people had built near the corner of their homestead so the families were close. Here we had time to visit and maintain a certain social life. We had lots of friends and went to all the parties and dances. In fact, on New Year's Eve we had a big party and invited everybody - Doctors, Bankers, storekeepers and all. Everybody came and we cooked and baked for days to prepare for it.

The Walter Campbell ranch was the most prosperous and most fun to visit. Mrs. Walter was from the south of the USA and she told Mom and me that each time she was pregnant she was afraid the baby would be a throw back and be tainted black. I thought she must know that some of her men folk in the past must have married Negroes, but that wasn't what she meant. As far as she knew, there was none of this in her family, but she knew how it was in the south and it frightened her. As far as I know, all her children were real blond towheads! I used to help her in the kitchen when we visited her and she sent for me during harvest time to help with the cooking. I brushed and combed her hair many times while she and Mom visited in her bedroom. She said she'd never have married a southern man and was so happy when she met the big cattleman from the North. She was a big woman and I often made clothes for her on Mom's treadle machine, also made all the layettes.

One time while we were visiting, Dad said he'd saved enough to send me to boarding school that fall. He thought it was a shame for me not to go when I had such a brain and loved school so much. Up until now, I was still hoping to go to school so I was thrilled to think Dad planned to make my dream come true. After Dad had gone out with the men, Mrs. Walter asked Mom, "Do you think you'll let her go? He seems pretty determined." Mom answered, "We'll see! After all she doesn't need schooling, she'll only get married anyway."

Mrs. Moore was a schoolteacher and her husband carried the mail with horse and buggy. They had a large family and when the last little girl was born, she named her after me because I came to her home and cooked and cared for her and the children while she was confined. Later, they came to see us and when they left for home, forgot to take the baby! When I went to bed there she was, the little darling was sound asleep! They didn't miss her until they got home. Mr. Moore had to bring Ruth, the eldest daughter, and come get the baby since the mother nursed her. Had she been a bottle baby we might still have her.

While we lived in Ashmont Mom and Dad took the baby and made a trip to Edmonton to visit friends. Paul and I were to care for the rest of the family and take care of the stock while they were gone. We all got the flu; it was a real effort for Paul and me to keep going. We put Ray, Alvie, Lou and Jimmie to bed, kept them warm and tried to take care of them, while we tottered around trying to get the chores done. We knew when the folks were due home and were supposed to meet the train. It was winter and cold, so that day I managed to get a big pot of stew going, so they'd have something warm to eat when they got home. I remember telling Paul as I helped him hitch the team to the sleigh to be careful and that as soon as Mom and Dad got home we could give in and go to bed.

Their first words to him when he met the train were, "Get us home, we're awful sick!" So when that poor boy got home, he still couldn't go to bed and rest. Dolly didn't seem to have the flu but Mom and Dad did. We got a neighbor to go for the overworked doctor. After examining everyone (I tried to stay in the kitchen) the Doctor insisted on checking me, too. Guess he heard my wracking cough. He told me to undress and get to bed. I said, "I can't. Everybody else is sick and I have to stay up." The Doctor said, "If you aren't in bed in fifteen minutes, I'll undress you myself and put you there." So I got! He said he'd try to get someone in to care for us the next day. But in the meantime, Lou, having had it first and been put to bed, was improving and Mom's temperature and other symptoms were not as bad as the rest, so they could be up to care for the family until some help came. I felt so guilty!

I can't remember when Paul and I didn't work. He helped Dad out at freighting and other things before that, as well. Dad started taking him with him to help when he was about ten years old. Of course, all of us worked at farm and ranch work, but Paul and I actually were earning money at one job or another besides. Myself, I always had spending money, but never collected any wages for myself, as I'm sure Paul didn't. That's the way it was in those days.

Everyone was so frightened of influenza that year that it was very hard to get anyone to come into a house where people were known to have it. [The influenza epidemic of 1917 was so severe that many people died (Mackintosh, 1934)] However, the Doctor managed to find one kind soul, the 'Madam' of a few girls, in the newly sprung-up settlement. I remember her as dark and chubby and kind, dressed in dark clothing always. Mom sure scrambled back into bed with Dad fast when 'that woman' came and she stayed there until the Doctor said we were all well enough to be up. I almost had a nervous collapse that year. Too much responsibility and work for my age, I guess. I remember when the Doctor warned them about me and told them to ease up on what I was expected to do. He was young for a Doctor and fat, with asthma, but I thought he was very brave to talk to my parents like that, though the talk embarrassed me.

That spring Jimmie was in the corral where the mares with their new foals were. Mom was sick in bed, but she could see the corral reflected in the dresser mirror and she saw a colt kick Jimmie and knock him down. She screamed and I ran to see what it was, we ran to the corral and picked Jimmie up. The colt had kicked him in the face and it's little hoof had left it's print clear around the eye. Below the eye was cut and bleeding. We carried him in and cleaned it as best we could. An abscess formed below the eye and Paul and I took him in to the Doctor, who made me wait outside while he lanced and cleaned it. Paul got to go in, then the Doctor called us in and told both of us how to care for it at home. Little Jimmie was very brave and didn't cry at all. In a short time it was healed.

There were lots of men in this part of the country, but few women or girls who were not already married, so it was here that I started getting proposals. [The population of Alberta in 1918 was between 400,000 and 500,000 with men outnumbering the women 2 to 1 (Kerr 1975)] Now, I liked boys fine, but was not even thinking of marriage yet, so proposals not only embarrassed but frightened me at this time. They simply spoiled our friendship and fun. Nevertheless, we managed to enjoy the spring, summer and fall to the fullest. The next winter was the coldest we'd ever seen. The snow was so heavy the range animals couldn't scrape through the frozen top to get food. Although Dad took hay and feed out as far as he could, the animals often couldn't reach it and died. All the ranchers lost a lot of stock that year. Paul and I took to trapping muskrats on a lake a short ways back of our barn. Not only was it something different to do but the skins sold readily. We did this until the lake froze solid. This was the winter the thermometer registered seventy degrees below outside our back door, then went clear into the little ball at the bottom and broke! The one big room of the house, besides the three bedrooms, had a big kitchen range at one end, a big table in front of it lengthwise, and a good heater at the other end of the room. Still I froze my heels one days walking back and forth between the stoves. Now, that's cold!

Mom was sick in bed quite a lot of the time, so she and Dad's room opened off the kitchen and we left that door open, not only so Mom could be a part of the family doings, but also so some heat would be in the room. The men did as little work as possible outside, so were usually around the heating stove mending or polishing harness and saddles. It was so cold that even the wild animals were starved into coming near the house. One big dog-like creature came everyday because I threw bones and scraps out to him, throwing them closer to the house each time, until he'd come to the door and let us feed him each morning. They told me later that he was half wolf and half dog. Anyway, he came to the door one day and he was hurt, had a great wood sliver clear through his nostrils into his mouth. He kept whining to me and pawing at the sliver. I coaxed him in and he shivered and shook while I held his head and Paul took a pair of pliers and pulled the wood out. He cried out once, but made no attempt to hurt us. Then I washed his wound in warm salt water and put salve on it, fed him and let him out. He came every day to be doctored and fed until it was healed, then spring came and he left.

I was looking forward to my sixteenth birthday that spring and we had a big blizzard just before it came on April 20th [Edna White celebrated her 16th birthday in 1919 (Woodard, 1987)]. A homesteader stopped by and stayed and stayed. It was warm and he had someone to visit with, besides three good meals a day. He kinda liked the idea, so kept trying to sell me on the idea of marrying him. I got sick and tired of it. Being house bound was bad enough, but listening to him was adding insult to injury. Then he started teasing my little sister, Lou, saying that he'd take her and she'd have to keep house for him. She was only six and when he teased her until she cried, while I was serving my own birthday dinner, I blew up and told him off, then told Dad if his guest couldn't act like a gentleman, he could leave for home right now! After that he quit his teasing and when the sun came out he left for home.

I should explain that in the North our door was always open, not only to friends, but strangers as well and this homesteader we did not know at all. He simply stopped one evening and asked if he could stay the night and if he could put his horse in the barn. He got caught in a blizzard and just stayed on and on. This was the spring after I'd almost had a breakdown. His continual asking me to marry him and his teasing, with the boys laughing and Dad's somewhat embarrassed guffaws of laughter (because he was our guest), and all the noise and responsibilities I had, (with no way of getting away from it for even one minute of the day) brought me to the breaking point again. This was the only time I ever felt insulted by a proposal of marriage. Usually, I just did my best to keep my friends from popping the question because I knew I was going to say no and didn't want to hurt them.

As I said, Ashmont was a new settlement and three young men were there to put up a new bank. The bank may have been in St. Paul. Well, they weren't putting it up really, they were waiting for it to be built and had a big three-pole tent with a bank set up in front and living quarters in back until the bank building was finished. When the bank was finished and they'd moved in, Dad bought the big tent. All the time they were there I baked cake and bread for them twice a week and Dad and the boys delivered it. When I danced with them at parties they'd tell me now much they enjoyed my baking and thank me for being willing to do it.