Harry and Maggie Wilcox
This document is about Harry and Maggie Wilcox and is an abstract from the book “Wilcox Family History”. It covers the time from about 1911, when Harry arrived in the Cariboo, to the mid 1950’s.
Harry Wilcox
Harry was the youngest of the Michael and Alice Wilcox family, born in 1893 in Haney, B.C. That same year his father was hospitalized in Essondale clinic and Harry was not to see much of his father for the first 8 years of his life. By his teen years, he had moved to Kamloops with the rest of the family where he went to high school. The last school photo we have was 1908 and it was unlikely he would be in school past 1910 or 1911. His older brothers were already working with the CPR or construction but for some reason he chose another path. Instead, he went northwest, up the Cariboo trail to the 100 Mile House region and took up homesteading in a dot on the map called Forest Grove. The best guess by the family is he ‘may’ have visited the area in 1911, met a few of the locals (no doubt the Bourgeois family) then returned in 1912 to start carving a home and farm out of the bush about 4 miles north of Forest Grove. The government was encouraging such development. Harry may not have spent the first few winters there, say up to 1915, but after getting a home completed he would have stayed as winter trapping was a lucrative and a major source of money to develop the farm2. The 1911 census captured Harry in Moodyville (North Vancouver), no doubt with his sister Mary and family. One could speculate that Mary’s husband Arthur Williamson, a mining entrepreneur who traveled all over B.C. might have suggested this area to Harry. This was stagecoach days in the Cariboo and one of Harry’s stories was about freezing his butt off one late fall day on the stagecoach to Ashcroft. He went there to pick up the CP train, apparently heading for Vancouver for the winter. Perhaps Vancouver would be warmer or, he wanted to visit his father and/or his sister Mary Williamson. In another story he was on the last stagecoach into 100 Mile House just before the new PGE train arrived (1917 or so).
Harry did an incredible amount of work to open up the land. The flat parts of his homestead were creek bottom and willow choked, all of which had to be cleared for hay fields so he could start to grow his herd of Poll Angus beef cattle.
Half a dozen miles to the west, by Dempsey Lake, there were more open meadows and he also took up land there (as did his brother John A) for the hay, likely before he had cleared what he had selected as a home place. We are not sure why he just didn’t go there and take that as the home place. An acre per month for clearing works out to about 20 years of work. Winters would be cutting shakes from dried poplar, the ever-present softwood; also much used as low-grade firewood. The home farm had, eventually, at least 3 big barns, numerous sheds and other buildings, all of which had shingle roofs cut by hand. Curiously enough, it was his mother Alice who had the Crown Grant (CG) for the land on which the home place was built. It is likely that his family were somewhat involved with Harry’s venture. His brother John A. had crown grants beside Harry’s properties and when Harry’s son Terry was pulling the thin plywood ceiling off the original old farmhouse the backside still showed the shipping address – “Wilcox Brothers”. As John A had regular work on the railroad we presume their arrangement was Jack provided some money and Harry did the work to prove-in the land.
In later years Harry took up some land in the Bradley Creek area, 4 miles north over the hill in the next creek bottom valley. More barns, outbuildings, and another log home were built and more land had to be cleared. There would be ‘cattle drives’ back and forth between the two places to make use of the hay stored at each place. At peak Harry probably had about 150 head of cattle. In the early days the Wilcox Lake on the adjacent map was known as Silver Lake.
By 1916 Harry was “established”. The Eva Doyle diaries3 cover a few month period of that year and Harry was entertaining family. His mother was there as was Mary and Arthur Williamson, although no mention is made of the two Williamson children. He must have had a big enough house to accommodate (or the Williamsons stayed elsewhere – the diaries are unclear). Also, over by the aforementioned Dempsey Lake, the McClary family had arrived, including daughter Irica, and taken over the Bannerman property. Life was looking good! It is likely about this time that a lovely fishing lake a few miles to the east, presumably still unnamed, was given the name Ruth Lake4, after the first daughter of Mary and Arthur Williamson. One gets the sense that Mary and Harry were fairly close. Being 8 years older perhaps Mary did a little mothering of her young brother. Mary must have visited often enough in the 1930’s to make a strong impression on Harry’s second family. Burla Bourgeois5 recalls in primary school a teacher was trying to get Roy to recite, “Mary had a doll . . . “, over and over again, and all Roy could say was “Aunty Mary had a doll . . .”. By the 1940’s the Williamson visiting seemed to have stopped. Three of Harry’s daughters were born in North Vancouver in the 1930’s so no doubt their mother stayed with the Williamsons in their North Van home.
In the first decade or so trapping was the main winter activity. Beaver were numerous and the pelts in demand. Mink, weasel and muskrat were also trapped (leg hold traps, of course), skinned, stretched, dried, bundled and shipped off. By the 1940’s the beaver were pretty much trapped out and it was no longer a viable business. It was still okay for the kids, good pocket money, as we could trap a few red squirrels and get 50 cents for each good skin. That was not bad change in the 1940’s and 1950’s when 50 cents bought you a box of 22 caliber shorts. The trappers would often have long trap lines that would take days to get around, so they would have their trap cabins built at strategic spots. The next picture is unlabeled but
one guess is this would be one of Harry’s early trapping cabins. It is either that or the first crude shelter Harry built in 1912 or so. We are not sure when the first main house was built, likely by 19163, and it served until 1942 when 7 children and more on the way dictated a bigger house be built. The original was relegated to storage or a bunkhouse for mill crews when the older boys entered that business.Irica McClary
The McClarys arrived in the Dempsey Lake area in 1914 with their five children. Irica was the oldest and had taken up her own homestead property (1918 Crown Grant by Spring Lake), but this changed in 1919 when she and Harry married. One year later Irica died with the birth of their daughter June, whereupon the McClary grandparents took in June and raised her. It was a home birth and Irica is buried on the farm.
Margaret Bryce
Margaret Beveridge Smellie Bryce (Maggie to all) was the second wife of Henry Joseph Wilcox (Harry to all). Maggie supposedly came to the Cariboo to visit two relatives, but in rather short order met Harry and never returned to Scotland. Her long and rather curious name was a result of the practice of the day, which was to recognize ancestral lineage with the middle names of children. The Bryce family was from Blackburn2, in West Lothian County, Scotland. Some time prior to 1922 Annie Gowans Bryce, an aunt to Maggie, answered a newspaper ad from the Cariboo by a Jean Baptiste Francis Nogues, who was looking for a housekeeper with wife potential. She arrived to “housekeep” for Jean Nogues, who had a home over by the McClarys near Dempsey Lake. She married Jean in 1922 and later sponsored a nephew, Walter McQueen (Maggie’s brother), to come to Canada in 1924. Walter worked as a general farm hand and laborer, did work for Harry, and probably spent much time around Forest Grove courting Theresa Jacobson. Harry was perturbed to notice that Walter had pictures of ‘other women’ in his wallet while squiring the fair Theresa. When learning they were his sisters and all was above board and okay, he became intrigued and somehow Walter arranged for his sister Maggie to visit her aunt Annie Nogues.
Margaret Beveridge Smellie (Maggie) arrived in 1925 and promptly got together with Harry. They married in 1927 and went on to raise a family of nine.
Harry and Maggie
[From here on in this chapter the more comfortable terms Mom and Dad will be used for Maggie and Harry. When the pronoun “I” is used it is the author, Phil, putting in his 2 cents worth].
Mom and Dad lived a simple basic survival kind of life. Between building the herd and farm and raising kids it was never ending labour for both of them, with not much in the way of excitement except farm disasters and more kids. I wonder if Mom had any idea what was ahead when she hopped on the boat; must have required a spirit of adventure. Some idea of that basic life can be gleaned by looking at all those things that consumed their time:
Food On The Table - The Garden
Dad had a huge garden to feed the ever growing flock and the many relatives that would drop in “for a week or two”. In the spring it was order seeds, cut up the seed potatoes, plant, then weed, weed, weed all summer. Late summer and fall it was harvest and store. Mom would be canning anything that could be canned. The potatoes were dug up, dried, sacked and stored in the root cellar along with onions, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, etc. For a while there was sauerkraut percolating in a vat behind the living room wood heater, with a rock to hold the lid on and keep the mice out. After harvest manure was hauled from behind the barn and spread over the garden, ready for the next season. In the fall there was usually a produce trip to Lillooet for tomatoes, apples, pears, plums, and squash, things that would not grow in the Forest Grove climate. Mom canned much of this produce. Similar trips were also made to Kamloops – also a big deal to the kids - eating in restaurants, going to a movie, sleeping in a hotel. Didn’t get any better! There were also annual or semiannual supply runs to Williams Lake (80 miles one-way) to buy many sacks of flour for the bread. The kids that got to go along much enjoyed these road trips, crammed in the back of the pickup under the homebuilt cover. By the end of summer the pantry shelves were pretty loaded. Any of the “finer” stuff came from Woodward’s, a Vancouver store that offered mail order anything. Sugar, spices, some canned goods (Spam, back when it was a meat product!).
[Dad loved to garden and grew one even when he didn’t have to. More than once he mentioned he should move to the Fraser valley for really good gardening. He may have remembered hungry years and probably wondered about his father’s choice of Haney for farming! Security of food was indeed high on his mind as Sheila remembers him once saying that he always worried about the garden not providing and where that would leave the family!]
On the food theme, another annual rite, probably in the spring, was the order for chicks (not sure if this was Woodward’s). This box of 30 or 40 peeping leghorn chicks would arrive, to be set up in a warm spot in the living room until the chicks were big enough be put out in the chicken coop, ready for the hawks. Eggs to sell and chickens to eat, the latter always requiring someone to take an axe to a chicken neck, a task much hated by me as a youngster because it usually meant the fidgety chicken lost its head a little bit at a time (but nowhere near as gross as being told to get rid of excess barn cats). The chicken coop was Mom’s domain but the kids would often be hauled in to help clean the coop – an awful job as the smell was absolutely terrible by the end of winter. Geese were also kept but that was before my time. Janet can recall her and Mom always having an egg for lunch - Janet a chicken egg and Mom a big goose egg.
Our diet was pretty basic, especially in the winter when what you ate came from the root cellar (potatoes, parsnips and carrots), along with tough beef (or deer), always fried to “well done”, and whatever home preserves remained. Breakfast was always oatmeal porridge and if you got up late it was pretty solid stuff. In later years there might have been seasonal fresh fruit, whenever a fruit vendor from the Okanagan showed up.
Haying
Putting up hay was essential to keeping a herd through the winter and there were always prayers for good weather at the right time. Mid to late summer the hay would be cut, left to dry a few days, raked into windrows, stooked, pitch forked into a wagon then hauled to the barn or hayshed. Putting up hay was essential to keeping a herd through the winter and there were always prayers for good weather at the right time. Mid to late summer the hay would be cut, left to dry a few days, raked into windrows, stooked, pitch forked into a wagon then hauled to the barn or hayshed. It was very labour intensive and had to be done for the two farm locations, maybe a third if the Dempsey Lake property was hayed at the same time. Dad hired a couple of fellows each summer in the old days to help put up the hay, paying a top wage. Some of those who helped out over the years were locals like Gordon Tubbs, George Rhodes, Alonzo Judson, Daymond Morris, Walter Van de Camp, and Alan Holden (or Holder). Uncle Jack always lent a hand if he happened to be around.
As kids it was fun (if not forking hay) to watch the big horses haul a huge load of hay up the sloping ramp into the loft. It was even more fun to jump from the rafters into the new hay, which was frowned upon by Dad, but then he couldn’t be watching all the time. Horses were the mainstay until the mid 1940’s when tractors arrived. Roy enjoyed farming and haying and in his ever-inventive way figured out you didn’t have to fork hay into a wagon to get it into a barn. He just made very large stooks in the field, threw a rope around the bottom and simply towed the whole stook along the ground. It seemed to slide along very well and didn’t fall apart. About this time hay bailers came to the fore and put an end to the old way of storing loose hay.
Cattle Feeding
The grazing land was not fenced but some control was maintained by putting out strategically placed salt blocks. In the early years Jack can remember driving about 25 head out to Exeter station (about 20 miles), enough for one boxcar load on the train. They probably brought just pennies a pound on the hoof – not a great amount. The remaining cattle were driven over to the Bradley Creek place for feeding through the first part of the winter. Initially the whole family would be there, which is why Jack was home schooled in grade 1. After that Dad was at Bradley Creek on his own doing the feeding, getting home for the odd weekend and for Christmas. Josie can remember riding over to deliver fresh bread to Dad. Later in the winter when the hay ran out the cows would be moved back to the home place for the remaining winter. Frozen fingers were a normal a part of for winter-feeding. Jack remembers April 19 being some kind of magic date when the cows were turned out to range (government leased grazing area). Jack and Roy were the only boys involved in winter-feeding. Over the summer the cattle were out on rangeland but come fall they had to be gathered, calves were branded and some 2 year old steers selected for sale. The fall roundup involved anyone that could ride.
Other Daily and Ongoing Jobs
There were two milk cows to be tracked down (usually the kids job) for the twice daily milking. We always had fresh milk and for some reason rather liked ‘warm’ fresh milk. Mom usually did the cream separation, which included the tedious task of cleaning the separator discs. Mom and/or kids would also churn the butter. During haying season Sheila and Bernice would often have the milking chore. Sheila can recall Dad giving them each a calf for doing this work, which they sold at a Williams Lake auction for about $40. Big money!
Mom was chief cook and tended to the kids, the latter sometimes amounting to just an occasional headcount. The girls usually got tasked with washing dishes, which often took hours when Mom was cooking for the mill hands. In earlier days she used to card and spin wool, to be used for knitting socks and sweaters. The saddle horses had to be cared for, usually the domain of the girls, as they tended to take ownership of their rides. The barn had to be mucked out daily, onto the pile that eventually made it back to the garden.
Laying in a supply of firewood was another essential task, usually done in the winter between the other chores. There was almost no hardwood to speak of in this area (other than birch, maybe) but plenty of poplar, a soft, low heat wood which required immense stacks to get through a winter. It also produced lots of ash. When the older boys got into saw milling fir sawdust became readily available so the old wood stove was converted to a sawdust burner. Pure luxury – you could almost get through a night with one hopper full.
There were fences to be built or to be kept in repair, especially along the creeks. Another regular job was walking the creeks to see if a cow had bogged. That was always pretty interesting, trying to get the cow out. It usually meant a rope around the neck and a tractor or team hauling away until the cow’s eyes bulged. I recall one time one of the bulls went in. It had horns and when they hauled away the horns would dig into the willow roots of the creek bank. The tractor (the bigger heavier one we had) was spinning its tires while the poor bull’s eyes rolled back in its head. I always wondered why their neck didn’t break. Josie recalls Dad once hauling a cow out of the creek near the house with the horses, the cow then going berserk and charging everyone. Dad got the rope around a post in the yard and tried to keep up as the steer charged in circles. Mom was in circle range and barely escaped being nailed by rolling out of the way.
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The focus of activities changed over the decades. In the 1920’s clearing land and putting up buildings were the first priorities (plus winter trapping). Some of this would continue into the 30’s but building the herd became the main focus and dependence on trapping of less importance. By 1940 everything was fairly stable and the last major build was a new house in 1942. Dad had about 100 head of cattle, at the most 150. They were sold off by 1950 when tuberculosis was found in a bull. This meant he had to sell and the rangeland could not be used for 5 years. He got beef price plus so much per head from the government. In any case, by then he was ready to retire from ranching. Retiring meant a bit of worked with the logging, maybe some millwork and helping several of the family to build houses. Of course he continued with the big vegetable and potato garden, some of which Mom used when she cooked for the mill crew. Maybe he remembered being hungry as a child as Mom had stated (most likely overstated) that some of his family starved to death in the 1890’s. The 1950’s was our saw-milling era and Mom helped the older sons along in their ventures by doing the books and providing room and board for the mill crews.
Before the sons got into their own business they hired out. Jack’s first job away from the farm was canting at Auld’s, who ran a steam-operated sawmill. Roy also worked there for a few months doing odd jobs, one of which was assisting Albert Carnegie (who was a ticketed steam engineer) in firing wood into the boiler. Jack and Mac MacLeod (future father-in-law) fell and bucked timber on the Auld place around 1943/44. In the fall of 1944 Roy and Jack bought a chainsaw from Paul Graham, one of the first in the country, a 2-man IEL beast weighing about 136 lbs. Terry was attracted to the trucking side. He started working at 16 and did a lot of hauling for Gordon Graham and also for the Auld’s sawmill (lost his friend, Billy Hunter, there) before starting his own hauling business.
Transportation
In the early years horse and buggy were the only way around, unless you chose to walk, and in the winter it would be horse drawn sleigh or cutter. The country was more open in those early years, you could ride quite unhindered anywhere. This might have had something to do with the natives doing fall burns2 to clear out underbrush and make it easier for hunting as well as more open space for wild berries. By the 1950’s and 60’s trying to ride across country would be a challenge. The farm work was all done with horses, at least up until the mid 1940’s when tractors started to make an appearance (an old Fordson, something called a Pony and later a bigger Massey Harris were used). Two big old draft horses, Belle and Maud, were the main power and there were always several saddle horses, required for moving cattle and otherwise owned and ridden everywhere by the children.
Dad’s earliest attempt at a motor vehicle was a 1917-18 Overland touring car, with the wooden spoke wheels. We are not sure it ever went anywhere as the oldest of the family (Jack) only ever remembered it sitting in a shed and being something to play on. Their second car was a 1928 Durant, probably black coloured, which they bought from a local named Bill Tubbs. As he had only one eye Dad was not keen on driving and apparently Walter McQueen, when he was around there, did the driving for him.
Their third vehicle was a new 1939 International pickup, red with black fenders. It served up until they bought another International pickup, about 1952, which was flipped and wrecked on a trip from Williams Lake (or Lac La Hache?). Next came a 1953-54 model, the peculiar pastel coloured one in the next farmhouse picture. This pickup lasted, remarkably, the rest of Dad’s life. It suffered a lot of hard miles, put on by the youngest two of the family.
When the oldest boys were into their teens they accumulated all sorts of old jalopies, including a Roy homebuilt. Around 1948 Mom, wanting independence from the cranky old 1939 pickup, bought her own vehicle, a new 1948 Austin. She was an active member of the Forest Grove Women’s institute and with her little Austin could more reliably get around to do the things she wanted. We are not sure how that was paid for; best guess it came out of selling the herd. She may also have been saving all those family allowance cheques. Later on Mom earned some cash by providing crew room and board and also doing the bookkeeping for the mill business.
Farm Life
Beyond the chores there was life on the farm, what you might call the social whirl of the day. A steady flow of relatives, friends and local characters passed through the farm, knowing they could rely on the hospitality of Mom and Dad. This section, for the most part, is farm life as seen through the eyes of the children and, as it turned out, really a multigenerational set of eyes.
The family of nine was spread out over 19 years. Due to the rapidly changing times it was almost like three separate little families in terms of what they experienced and the opportunities available to them. The oldest three (Jack, Roy, Terry) were all born before 1930 and they were the first to be pulled into farm work and the first to be out of school and working. Then four sisters (Sheila, Bernice, Josie, Janet) were born between 1931 and 1937. They got tagged with some of the farm work, but more likely pulled kitchen duty and looking after their favourite horses. There was a bit more emphasis on education and a few more opportunities available (a career in the forestry industry was not considered one of them). The last two to come along were Phil and Pete, 1942-45, and by the time they could remember anything it was the logging and saw milling era; the farm operations were just a faint memory. They had it easy, as chores were largely nonexistent. And, there was even more emphasis on education plus much more opportunity in this regard.
A Few Local Characters
A frequent visitor to the farm was a bent little old man by the name of Paul Blaze. He lived on the upper Bradley creek in a little log cabin. Rumour had it that he may have been in hiding from someone or something. He was never seen on a horse and must have walked everywhere with just a sturdy walking stick. He admittedly ate ants and would sometimes take off and live in the bush for a week or two. He made the best cookies, even winning 1’st place at the Fall Fair, and on occasion would bring some for the Wilcox clan. He was a hermit like fellow who one day started acting strange at the local store, someone reported this to the RCMP and they picked him up at our home as he was hiking through. He was taken to Essondale, never to be heard from again. Josie thought he got tired of sleeping under trees and it was his way of a warm bed. Another regular visitor from up Bradley Creek was an American named (Old Man) Jack Pogue. He liked to drink and shared a few with Dad when he came by.
Native groups traveled through as well and were often by in hunting season, guiding and the like. The Archies (Indian family) and English Decker did the most guiding around home. Mom always thought English Decker just sat in camp and ate and drank etc. One hunter under his keep died – who knows why – exposure, heart attack, got lost, etc. Janet remembers Mom not wanting them watching when they brought the body out. At the time Janet wondered why just the body and not the arms and legs. Needless to say they all watched and were happy to see legs. The ideas kids get! No one in our family ever did any guiding but they did hunt when we needed game. Roy always had the most interesting tales. He always saw game, was always stalking, circling etc. He wasn’t such a great shot we guess as Jack and Terry wouldn’t see anything but when they did they usually hit it. On the other hand Roy liked to hunt so was out more and in the end brought home more game.
Not in the ‘character’ category but there were of course the various people that came by for haying. June (Wilcox) and Jack Johnson rode through often, going from Dempsey Lake into Forest Grove. Our nearest neighbours were about 2 miles (the Wolf’s and an old hermit named Humpage), then the Buckleys, and at 3 miles were Gene and Opal Bourgeois. The metropolis of Forest Grove was about 4 miles distant. The Bourgeois were good friends and when the families were small and manageable Mom and Dad would alternate Christmas’s with the Bourgeois.
Things We Did
Our first movies were in the late 1940’s, in a pasture at the Sandback’s place in Forest Grove. Engar Sandback got a projector and Friday was movie night. Later on the movies moved to the hall. Eventually a few Indians came and always sat in the left or back section – for some reason not very integrated. I often wondered what they thought of the standard Cowboy and Indian fare that was presented. The community hall was also used for dances and other events, sometimes music and a stage show by small traveling bands (e.g. Evan Kemp and his Trail Riders!). Jack, Roy, Terry, Sheila, Bernice, Josie all loved to dance and had a lot of fun. Roy was the best dancer of the boys and seemed to really enjoy it.
Dances and getting out usually meant getting cleaned up (usually, not always). This was a challenge if many were in line as there was never any power or running water on the farm. Coal oil lamps and pressure gas lanterns gave us light, wood gave us heat and a trip to the well gave us water. Understandably, washing was not quite the priority it is today. I can’t remember baths being a weekly thing, so it might well have been only biweekly or monthly. The stove was wood with one of those little tanks on the end to warm some water but that was not very big so water had to be heated on the stovetop for the galvanized tub that would be set up in the pantry. The water was very hard, soapsuds were scarce, and if you were fourth in line for the water in the tub it is not obvious how much cleaning was accomplished. But, everyone smelled the same so perhaps no one noticed.
On the plus side, the well was cold spring water that tasted just great, the likes of which I’ve never had since.
Related to looking after horses, Josie mentioned, “We always had wet feet – heavy dew in mornings. Don’t remember any comment from the teachers but we were really small hillbillies”.
Speaking of hillbillies, the following was written by Henry Green sometime between 1942 and 1946.
["An amusing incident occurred while we were still at Cyprus Park. One of Ruth's uncles, I think Harry, with two of his teen-age sons stayed overnight with us, and one of them asked what I did for a living; when I told him that I was a clerical worker, he put his thumb and forefinger together in the motion of writing, and - I can still hear the scorn in his voice - said; "What, you push a pen?" With my usual 'esprit d'escalier', I omitted to mention that an old white bearded German expatriate (Marx?) did more, for good or ill, to change the course of human history, than battalions of 'practical men.']
Henry was the wife of Ruth Green (of Ruth Lake name), who was daughter of Mary Williamson, Dad’s sister. Henry was a pedantic sort, well educated, and kept diaries7 throughout his life. We wonder to which Wilcox teenager he referred! [Jack has admitted to remembering a visit with Roy and Dad to the Greens. They were on trip to Lillooet for fruit, using precious gas rations, and for some reason hopped a train for a week visit in Vancouver. He also remembers them tearing up and down escalators and elevators in a department store until they were tossed out.]
Continuing on the washing theme; Mom did all the laundry, which did progress from a tub and wash board to an old hand operated machine, to be followed by a motorized contraption with a Brigs and Stratton motor that would never start easily and have Mom cursing mightily. In the winter the laundry was hung out to freeze dry. I’m sure it was just a tale about those who put their Stanfields on in the fall and peeled them off in the spring.
We all remember another farm pleasure, the outdoor biffy. A mighty cold place in the winter considering it was suspended over a small creek (spring runoff was the only big flushing) and the wind could blow through underneath. However it did come with an Eaton’s catalogue.
Entertainment was home made. In the long winters card games were popular (rummy, canasta, cribbage) and board games when they were available (Monopoly). Dad was always ready for a game of cards though Mom never seemed to participate in these. They read a lot and Mom would knit or embroider and Sheila, Bernice and Mom kept the old Singer sewing machine busy. Music was a big part of our lives. There was a big old organ in the living room (pumped by two treadles) that a few could bang away on, though fiddle and guitar were the chosen instruments. A small trio was even formed by Jack (fiddle), Terry (guitar) and an accordion played by a Bourgeois son, Bobby. [Bobby always came with the best local gossip as he had access to a party-line phone.]
Everyone tuned in Friday night to the Grand Old Opry, broadcast from Nashville. The radio was an old tube job that required an expensive and short-lived big dry cell battery to run it. In this part of B.C., AM radio was a little erratic as we could never receive a Vancouver station but California (Bakersfield) would often be quite clear. Another radio show was Inner Sanctum (very scary according to Janet – couldn’t go upstairs to bed by yourself after that one). An old 78RPM record player [with mostly worn out needles] filled in the music gaps.
Jack got a few fiddle lessons from a fellow called Albert Carnegie who lived way up Bradley Creek (his place referred to as Carnegie Hall by the kids). It was about a 15 mile hike and he would stay several days so Mom would load him down with potatoes and canned goods, preserves, all kinds of stuff, a big enough load to almost ensure he didn’t get there.
Roy was also pretty accomplished on the guitar. He was the engineer of the family and built a guitar using only the crude tools found on the typical farm. He played that for quite some time and it sounded pretty good even though, after several years of drying, it developed a crack.
Sports were also a big part of our entertainment. Softball was a core activity for young and old alike and we were always playing catch or practicing. Many games were played between Forest Grove and other communities such as Lone Butte, 100 Mile, Lac La Hache etc. Jack always played 1’st base and I think Terry was an outfielder. Josie and Janet were also big on the game, beyond just the usual school games. Janet had a wicked pitch that I sure hated to catch. School track meets were also a big annual event and Josie and Janet, the real athletes of the family, usually cleaned up.
Christmas was always very special – going out and getting the tree, hanging the tinsel perfectly. Mom’s stuffing and steamed pudding were the best. The gifts were not elaborate, small things usually, but it was fun. When we had cattle Dad had to trek over from Bradley Creek. Josie recalls one Christmas when it just did not stop snowing and it took Dad 3 days to get home. It was too much for the horses and he had to break trail a little at a time until he could make it through. “Us kids were so happy Dad would be home for Xmas.” In the early years the Bourgeois’ would come for Christmas and Gene and Dad would start to drink Rum Toddy’s. They would sing and dance and get quite drunk. The kids would usually play outside, skating or tobogganing. Mom used to bake Christmas cakes, shortbread and candy and send to her family in Scotland. It probably took 6 wks to get there but they would write and say it would arrive just fine. I can personally vouch for the taste of Mom’s shortbread – maybe it was that real butter. By the mid or late 1950’s only Pete and I were around the farm and finding and decorating a tree was a somewhat lonely exercise. There would be a get together Christmas day but the season was no longer as much fun.
In Janet’s words, “school was fun, much better than staying home and the Christmas concerts were a hoot. As little kids we really looked forward to these.” The Women’s Institute made sure everyone got a little gift and a bag of candy. After the concert there would be a dance. I can remember practicing for the concert took up a great deal of classroom time in the fall. We had no complaints, much more fun than the English grammar we didn’t get.
Mom was very active in the Women’s Institute and also served on the school board. She was a great little organizer and loved to get out. When the hall burned down she took charge of organizing work bees, obtaining donations from businesses and people and getting Tom Auld’s Mill to donate lumber and the very generous use of their trucks (Josie was with Mom while she was doing this). The Women’s Institute also put on school picnics with lots of races and goodies for everyone. During the war years and after Mom was very involved with Forest Grove dances and supplied coffee and sugar from her ration coupons (9 kids, lots of coupons). The Institute meetings would occasionally be at our house. The good china with the peacock pattern would come out and goodies of course. All the members took turns hosting the meetings. Dad did not have any similar activities and other than picnics and the like did not seem to get out very much.
In the midst of all her work Mom found the time to hammer together some flower boxes (on the new house, plus out front of the old house) so there were always nasturtiums, pansies, marigolds and the like adding a bit of colour. I don’t remember the house getting much spiffing up, though I imagine a bit of paint did get splashed around. If the house was not tidy and clean it wasn’t because Janet (self described neatness freak) didn’t try hard enough, just that two small boys were more successful.
Mom was a superstitious sort; apparently she wouldn’t paint anything green when they lost livestock to a cougar after painting the kitchen green. As kids she used to read our fortunes in the tealeaf patterns - we believed every word (at least for awhile). And there was something about throwing salt over your left shoulder?
I can’t remember any birthday cakes and the only party I can remember was Jack’s 21’st birthday in 1947. Lack of cakes might have had something to do with eleven people in the family and a birthday in every month but one. Jack’s 21’st was a surprise party and Roy had the job of getting Jack home from a mill camp for the event. It must have been quite the bash.
We were probably much better off than most of the other scratch farmers in the country and I can remember kids in school who had a lot less. The basics were covered, food, clothing, but spending money was scarce unless you found a way to earn it. Trapping seemed to be a way to do that. Dad did very well early on and Roy ran a good-sized trap line. Roy made good money on red squirrel, with weasel bringing a few extra bucks and the odd mink even more. [ Roy made some skis one year, perhaps to tend a trap line or just get around in the bush. He steamed the wood to get the curve and cut up leather to make the harness.] Roy showed Bernice (12 yrs old) how to set up a little trap line, how to skin then stretch them on a board to dry the hide. She did this for one winter, with Janet there as well, and made $25. The girls thought it was quite a sight (no doubt influenced them to go into Nursing). As a 12-year-old Dad showed me how to set up a trap line and in the mid 1950’s I could get 50 cents for a squirrel and 2 dollars for weasel. He also bought be a new 22 rifle at that time, which I had to find as Mom made him hide it away.
Our own idle time entertainment on the farm was outdoors and pretty simple. Josie and Janet loved to run and would spend hours playing horsy with sticks. They would run for miles all over the many cattle and horse trails. None of the others were quite that keen or competent at running. Trying to walk the split rail fences was always a skill test at which Josie was good and the rest of us found it better in winter when you could land in soft snow. Josie for sure, and maybe Janet, spent lots of time teaching Peter and I, preschool age, to read and write. Probably an extension of their playing house games, as I didn’t see how their pin curling my hair had any educational benefits.
Sheila and Bernice were more into sewing, knitting etc. though they were involved with all the usual school sports. Sheila, when 13, can remember knitting her Mom a sweater. We all probably wandered a lot, the sisters would ride off to visit school friends, and Mom and Dad often had no clue where anyone was. We were probably pretty lucky to have no serious accidents out in the bush. Mail was a weekly thing and the kids would sometimes ride out to get it, and of course maybe get a candy bar or one of those huge BB bat suckers for 1 cent.
Pete and I were small when the mill crew bunked out in the old house behind our main house. Some tended to be a bit rough and crude, perfect company for and quite fascinating to a 10-12 year old. The better one, of course, became an in-law. Actually, they were all okay people to us. The fields near our house were solid dandelions and I can recall these guys realizing they could make dandelion wine. Who knows what recipe they followed, or if they had one, but this stuff stewed away in a big crock for a while. In an image that still stands out, they filtered the brew through a greasy grimy pillowcase and proceeded to get quite sick when they drank it. Maybe the teaching habit was passed on from Josie and Janet as I recall one guy, physically huge, who was illiterate and I kept trying to teach him how to read. Never really got anywhere and probably annoyed him to no end.
(Mis)adventures
The farm geese and big roosters could be scary when you were small. Big cows even more so. One of our milk cows, Jenny, was a bit flighty at the best of times and downright ornery when she had a new calf. Bernice and Josie were in the corral for some reason when the cow decided to charge. You never saw two kids move so fast. Bernice went over the big log fence and Josie went between the buildings with the cow hot on her heels. Josie cleared a high fence without as much as a scratch. Later, of course, they all thought it was such a laugh.
Janet recalls she used to walk out the road (preschool) to meet the other kids coming home from school. Sometimes she would have a little nap off the road and miss them. They would then start looking around for her. No one seemed to have any concern or fear of wildlife. There seemed to be no major accidents, other than Roy trying to cut off his foot with an axe and Phil falling on his head on the rocks once too often.
There were more serious misadventures but all in all the Wilcox were a pretty fortunate bunch. As a teenager Jack enjoyed going hunting with his friend Cache Bourgeois. It was a sad day for all when Cache was reported missing in action in 1944. He was a year or so older than Jack so Jack was not called up, though he did get a letter in 1944 saying there was no more conscription. In his very early trucking days Terry worked with a good buddy Billy Hunter hauling logs for the Auld’s mill. Billy got on the wrong side of some logs coming off their truck and was killed in 1949, age 19. Clint and Mabel Hunter were devastated at the loss of their only child. And Roy, died at age 42 when he got careless and crawled under a poorly supported farm vehicle.
Late summer was preparation time for school – the T. Eaton catalogue. It was quite a big deal picking out clothes, usually a size too large of course. Every fall meant a new pair of ankle high leather boots (just for the boys, it should be mentioned), no matter how much we desired and argued for the “pretty” shoes.
The schools were certainly one-room affairs in the early years, if they existed at all. The family did get an education, Mom made very sure of that. Anything beyond grade 8 was usually done by or supplemented by correspondence courses, even into the 1950’s when there was a 3-room school. Getting there (4 miles) meant walking or horse back. Jack, the oldest was home schooled in grade 1 and started grade 2 in 1934, along with Roy in grade 1. By some coincidence Jack was the sole student in his grade throughout his 8 years there. They often rode a gentle old swaybacked nag with a long neck called Loppy (part donkey maybe) and in the winter Loppy pulled a cutter for them. Loppy always seemed to have about 3 kids on her back. Josie can recall Jack driving the cutter, filled with hay and blankets, to school in winter. By 1941 Jack was working, helping Dad, then he went into the logging business, closely followed by Roy and Terry.
The 4 girls did their grade 8 then followed various paths beyond that. This detail is included in the section on the individuals. Like the older boys, the sisters made their way to school by horseback or walking. Sheila rode a horse called Ginger, which was later passed along to Josie. Josie and Bernice doubled on an uncontrollable horse called Tony. He was big, strong, liked to run and tended to terrify the kids. Janet started out behind either Bernice or Josie then rode Tex (described as another sharp backboned horse).
There was a second Ginger that Bernice also rode. All riding was of course bareback – saddles were used only when the horses were “working”. Janet and Josie thought they walked as much as they rode and in fact would often run the whole distance from school. Not surprising they cleaned up on trophies at the school track meets.
I can remember riding to school in grade 1 (1948, behind Josie) but cannot remember beyond grade 1. There is still a vivid memory of a day with freezing rain, and the horse’s feet going out from under one way and one small rider being tossed a good distance the other way. By 1950 Forest Grove School had combined with Bradley Creek and Canim Lake schools and there was now a bus service that cut our walking distance from 4 miles down to 3, so the two youngest boys had it really soft. I don’t even remember walking all that much, though I guess we did. By the early 1950’s there were lumber trucks trundling by the house most days and we would hitch a ride. That usually meant arriving at school a little late, more often a lot late, and catching hell from the teacher.
It was curious but almost none of the local natives went to the Forest Grove School. If they moved from the reserve apparently they could go to school there but otherwise they usually went to school in Williams Lake, to be taught by catholic priests and nuns. This was no doubt rough on them; Janet can recall a trip to Williams Lake and some of the native kids riding in the back of the pick-up with them. They just sort of huddled, not saying much and looking scared to death.
Fading of the Faith
Up until the 1950’s there was a flow of clergy through the farm, trying to keep the catholic faith alive and well. In the early days Dad’s mother Alice was there to keep an eye on things. She was opposed to Dad’s marriage to Irica2 as Irica was not catholic and probably had no intention of converting. I guess this did not bother Dad too much as he went ahead anyway. The same could be said about Mom as her background was Scotch United and you can be sure no one was going to tell her what to do. This all must have disappointed Alice but she seemed not to hold any resentment as June (daughter of Dad and Irica) said she was always kind, not necessarily warm, but kind, and always sending pamphlets in the hope they might influence. June also mentioned that a female relative of Dad visited, stayed quite awhile and also tried to make June a good Catholic.
Father Henry, Dad’s uncle also spent time on the farm when he visited from England. It is said the cane he sported in later years resulted from an unfortunate incident with a saddle horn on Dad’s place. Through the late 1930’s and into the 1940’s, Josie recalls a Father Redmond (from Williams Lake) and sisters Bernadette and Alicia visiting the farm. They would set up a confessional in the living room and do the catechism, in which Dad participated (maybe he was the only one?). In the late 1940’s, perhaps into the 1950’s I can remember nuns and even a priest visiting who, as I recall, got a very rough ride at the hands of the mill crew boarding on the farm. They showed the poor sermonizing priest no kindness whatsoever.
That was the end of any religious influence, as they never showed again. By then, Dad may well have been going his own way; there was no longer the mother pressure (Alice died in 1947) and there were other external influences building over time. Another early pioneer, Gene Bourgeois, had a farm nearby and was a family friend. Gene was from a French family in eastern Ontario (from St. Albert’s of cheese fame), fourteen kids, devout Catholics, and when Gene was able he got as far away from there as he could. From his childhood he perceived how badly their local clergy treated people, even the poor, and thereafter he was vitriolic in his disdain5. This would probably have some influence on Dad, as he and Gene shared many a drink. Gene’s daughter Burla5 recalls nuns getting off the mail truck and heading off to the Wilcox farm, with Gene not too thrilled about letting her visit while they were there. By then Dad had also seen enough discrepancy between professed belief and behaviour, which offended his own very clear ideas of right and wrong, to be turned off. Always the tolerant type, his more faithful brothers only had to put up with his acerbic wit. Such as his comment2 on John A “John would every day walk 3 miles to church. He didn’t think the church did him any good, but the walk sure did”, or “he doesn’t seem to do anything that is fun, but then he is too old to have much fun anyways, so why take any chances”. Honesty and fairness was his credo and I think all the kids picked that up.
Closing Notes
Mom and Dad moved off the farm in 1960 to a house in Forest Grove (which was moved from the farm, the same house son Jack and wife Bev had built). Finally, after nearly 50 years, running water, indoors plumbing and electric lights. And weekly bingo games at the community center. Unfortunately Mom got to enjoy these for only a few years. Around 1950 Mom’s health started getting bad, not helped by the fact she started smoking. It turns out she had Cushing’s disease, which wasn’t diagnosed for quite a few years. In 1962 Mom got quite ill (flu or something similar) and went to a small-town hospital in Ashcroft. Probably not a good choice, given her fragile medical condition. The night before she was to be released she was found dead in her ward bed. Cause was not determined. She was buried in the Forest Grove cemetery, December 1962, age 56.
Dad soldered on for another 20 years, getting into various things he never had time or opportunity to do on the farm, such as golf and bowling. Golf must have been a challenge with just one eye. He had a garden of course and more strawberries than he had ever had in his life. He looked after his brother John A in John’s last few years of life, 1974-75. By 1980 his resilience was waning. He had been a pipe smoker most of his life and had migrated to cigar like things (cigarillos?), which he wouldn’t give up. He dealt with his bronchial problems with massive concentrations of some medicate like Vick’s Vapour Rub which he boiled on the stove. It permeated the house! His amusements were the TV, crossword, jigsaw puzzles and reading. As his eyesight started to make these more difficult, and the internal aches and pains were getting harder to ignore (doctors were out of the question – they were all quacks), and having seen three brothers suffer ignoble mental declines, this proud, independent old guy passed on. June 1981.
REFERENCES and NOTES:
Janet, Josie and Bev/Jack provided extensive notes on family memories. That plus notes collected from conversations with family members form the basis of this chapter. Raids were made on everyone’s picture albums for the pictures included here.
2) June and Jack Johnson – notes from discussions, 2007
3) Eva Doyle Diary - R. White1 obtained this document (MS-2470) from the British Columbia Archives and the text transcription is borrowed from Robert. Eva Doyle married Oliver Phillips in 1917. When this diary segment was written in 1916 she may have been traveling to Forest Grove with members of the Phillips family. Ulva Phillips, her daughter, later transcribed the original handwritten diary. The Phillips family gave us the name Forest Grove.
4) Harry Wilcox – always claimed a lake just a few miles east of his farm was named after his niece Ruth, daughter of Mary and Arthur Williamson.
5) Burla Bourgeois – notes from discussions, 2008
6) Peter McQueen (son of Walter), June Johnson – essentially similar tales.
7) The Henry Green diaries are in the hands of his family (Chris, Jill, Arthur).