JOHN MURRAY HOGG by Mary Hogg Alderson

Father came to the Egilson district the last part of July, 1919 with his family of Jim, myself, Jennie, Jack, Murray, Elsie, Ethel, Annie, Lizzie and Archie. Bill came up to the valley later and Edith was born in 1921.

He bought the quarter known as the Atcheson land and also the south half of the school section 2. There was a good deal of this land broken and in crop, on both places. Charlie Alderson had done the breaking on the school section and had it in crop, also on the Atcheson quarter.

Dad and Jim had brought myself, Murray, Elsie and Ethel by car from our home in southern Manitoba, Pipestone. As we were such a large family, they had to make two trips. That meant leaving us at Egilson while they returned for the rest. Dad came by train with the stock and machinery.

Things were pretty grim. The house was log. I believe there was a table in it. Maybe the Aldersons had put it there to use when they put the crop in. There was an old stove, but it was outside. We had brought bedding and food which couldn’t have been too much with six of us in the car to start with. However, Jim was to have been back in two or three days at the most but it was two weeks before they made it. The car broke down when they got as far as Virden and they had to send to Winnipeg for repairs. It’s a good thing it happened there as Mother knew a lot of people and they were able to visit with friends that she was never to see again.

However, we survived, with the help of the Alderson boys who were harvesting the crop. When mother did get there, the four of us were suffering from upset stomachs from the water. We weren’t used to the alkali that was in it. Dad dug two or three wells before he got water that we could use.

That fall Mother fed the threshing gang. It took all fall to get it done and it never stopped raining. The outfit never turned a wheel for three weeks. The men would go to their homes except one old fellow from Birch River who stayed in the caboose and ate with us. He busied himself by weaving baskets out of the willows.

Our neighbors at that time on the quarter west of us were Percy and Laura Taylor and their family. Alex Rooks lives there now. Percy and Laura were our witnesses when Jack and I were married in October, 1920. The George Laxdal family lived farther. They were the first girl friends I got to know. Freda made my wedding dress. Emily and I are still good friends. Egilson school at that time was just past the Laxdal house a little ways. Jack, Murray, Elsie, Ethel, Annie and Lizzie went there.

Our neighbors to the north were Eli Shaveldoff and his family. A mile or so east lived Bob Adams, a bachelor. He usually worked on the threshing gang. He had good horses and was a good horseman. He used to call them the “kids”. Bob always drove tank teams for the threshing outfits. His team always came in handy to give them a pull when things got stuck, which was often those days. Bob thought Mother made the best buttermilk.

I guess Father lived in the Egilson district about four years. This land grew good crops but for all the time he lived there, it froze before harvest. Dad bought land back in the Big Woody district. It didn’t freeze there as early as in the Egilson district. I don’t think mother liked it as well back there. She died in May of 1927. Father still went farther north. He homesteaded in McVey district. He loved the bush. He scrubbed many acres of land in his day. He loved the hunting and fishing this country provided. He lived at McVey until two years before he died in 1955.