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Ruth (Davis) & Earl, along with their daughter Cora & son Irwin (Shorty), emigrated from a farm in south-eastern Saskatchewan in Nov. 1950. Ruth came from a family of 8 who had immigrated from Iowa, USA in 1914. Earl also came from a family of 8, all were born in Arcola, Sask., his parents had moved from Ontario. Cora and Irwin were both born in Saskatchewan.
Earl’s brother Dick and his family were living in Forest Grove and he persuaded Earl to come to FG and try starting a lumber company. Earl moved the family in Nov. 1950 after the crops had been harvested and a hired-hand was arranged to feed the cattle and maintain the farm over the winter. We returned to Saskatchewan the next year but only to pick-up more of our belongings and then we went back to BC to stay.
FG was an active community then; with a new school, new community hall, gravity fed water system, ball diamond, store, post office, stampede grounds, garage and a sub-division with lots available for sale, $100.per. The area was growing, families where moving in and the single men looking for work was ever changing. Ray Devor had a sawmill on Ruth Lake and Auld’s mill was on Bridge Creek. There was no quota system for timber sales so the Sellars brothers started to buy timber from the Provincial Government and put in sawmills. They bought Ray Devor’s mill and operated that for 4 years with logs being boomed on the lake and floated to the mill. They had other smaller portable mills operating directly on the timber sale and the rough dimension lumber was trucked to planer mills. The mills sometimes had bunk houses and a cook house in the mill site. The timber sales in those days were based on a minimum stump diameter and Forestry rules kept the new growth diameter to a minimum, which provided for a new crop in a few years. The Ruth Lake mill used horses for logging until the cat started to become more common. There where at least 2 families living in the mill site at Ruth Lake; Russ Meredith & Adolf Olson, along with single men in bunkhouses.
The winter of 1949/50, we lived with Dick Sellars’ family until we had our house built. The 18’ X 24’ structure was built on skids (2 large logs) so that it could be moved. – The house was moved twice and is still sitting in FG on lot 3. It has been added to and some changes but I can still see the original structure. The first move for the house was with Ross Redpath’s TD-24 to lot 1 where Ruth had cleaned and repaired the old school building to act as a coffee shop. The location was excellent because it was directly across from the school and the active ball diamond. Ruth ran the business for about 4 years. School kids, loggers, mill workers, sports fans and those in between enjoyed the good food prepared in the ‘shop’. Flapper pie was always a big hit. At one point, I can recall Mom feeding 23 men who worked in the mills; breakfast, a packed lunch and then a full supper meal. Some of the men lived in bunkhouses across the road from the shop. Nels Morris, Kenny McKlennan, Doug Fullerton, Bud Haddow, Tom Haddow, Lou Tortorelli, Jackie Tortorelli, Murt McNeil, and on and on. These young men, mostly from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, were in BC for the winter to work and make a grub stack. Many never went back to their native homes. Our family still exchange cards and visit with Doug Fullerton after all these years. The ‘shop’ was also well attended by the school kids at lunch time, $0.25 got you a pop and hot dog. There was a race from the school when the bell rang to get there first and place an order. Jerry Mason was always near the first. Donny Graham never got there first but he could always eat as many hot dogs as anyone. Even some of the teachers, including Mr Luxton, utilized the shop for meals.
When the coffee shop was closed, approx. 1956, Mom kept busy with janitorial work at the community hall, Women’s Institute activities, Post Mistress at Forest Grove and Buffalo Creek and many other asundry activities such as bowling, curling, canning, Legion projects and being a Gramma. When she was 85, she was still going to Hawaii, Alaska & Panama Canal crusing and doing the polar flight to Finland. Ruth and Earl moved to Boston Bar in 1980 to be closer to Cora & Irwin’s family. The climate in B.B. was better for gardening and fruit trees and their yard soon showed the ‘green’ thumbs acquired on the Prairies.
Earl passed away in Feb. of 2001 at the age of 93 and Ruth in Feb. of 2010 at the age of 94. Cora still resides in Boston Bar and Irwin in North Vancouver.
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