by Elaine Thomas | Sep 3, 2021 | Old Times, Rural Life, Western Canada
Peter Macklin, a recent arrival to Western Canada back in September 1960, and I share fond memories of our first day of school. Peter was beginning his job as a full-time bus driver and I was finally old enough to start grade one. Although I couldn’t wait to climb...
by Elaine Thomas | Aug 6, 2021 | Old Times, Rural Texas, Saving Stories, World War II
The lessons that Florence Hertel Farek learned at a two-room country school in Freyburg, Texas, still make her smile. In the 1930s, the Schulenburg, Texas, resident, who turns 95 tomorrow, lived on a farm in the rural South Central Texas community. Most of the kids,...
by Elaine Thomas | Apr 16, 2021 | Family, Rural Life, Saving Stories, Western Canada
“Pretty postage stamps? Oh yes, this sheet of ‘Birds of Prey’ is especially nice,” the helpful postal office worker told me. “No birds,” I murmured. Glancing up, she did not comment, but I think she was wondering, “Who doesn’t like birds?” That would be me. Before I...
by Elaine Thomas | Feb 19, 2021 | Family, Old Times, Rural Life, Saving Stories, Western Canada
I was in the second grade that long-ago February morning in the Alberta foothills when Old Man Winter had such a fierce grip. To walk the quarter-mile uphill from our farmhouse to the main road where we’d catch the school bus, Mom had wrapped me in multiple layers...