Yesterday I was in the basement of the cottage getting ready for the furnace guy and as I was leaving I glanced on a shelf – one that I’ve passed countless times (as seems to be the case with these discoveries). There was a box full of “congratulations on having your first baby” cards. Me, being the first baby, grabbed the cards curious to see what they were. Tons of congratulations cards for mom and dad on my spectacular arrival and some letters. I swear these letters just find me. So here’s one from Grandma to my parents while they were living in Toronto (they were married in August of 1967 ..read more

There was an envelope with some photos of my great-grandfather (Grandma’s Dad) in the booklet with these most recent memories. Grandma’s handwriting for her stories was exceptional, these photos she must have labeled as her eyesight was going. Finding photos, I’ve been so grateful how Grandma has labeled so many of them – and for the ones that she didn’t my uncle was a huge help recognizing faces and places. I love discovering photos to go along with some of the stories. Frank Brown, my father, who was Forman of the crew to survey the road in the Ghost River districtFrank BrownFrank and Martha ..read more

Here’s a newspaper article that was stuck in with Grandma’s memories. For those of you who may not know, her maiden name was Brown. I’ll include a photo of the whole article, but just write out the part that is about her father (Frank). This article ties us back to where Grandma was talking about the Fire in Cochrane when she was a child. I knew about the fire bit (only from what Grandma wrote), but I’d never heard of his involvement with the roads or the ranger station. They’re quite something those Browns. Not content with filling almost three pages of the Calgary telephone directory with ab ..read more

I was so incredibly happy to discover that I have Grandma’s story of the fire. I heard her tell this story often when I was a kid and it always fascinated me. How brave she was!!! And as I read this account I had to ask myself “was this were Grandma’s intense need for a cup of tea in a crisis came from??” At Christmastime I was sharing stories with my cousin about all the times Grandma needed to stop and have a cup of tea when things went wrong. My story was from when she broke her arm. The doctor was trying to get an X-ray done and was having trouble. Grandma also was having trouble as 4pm ha ..read more

Cochrane had a very famous race track a mile and half west of town. A turn track which means it was grass and easy for the horses to run on. And it was a mile around it, and it was very level. The big ranches all over the country brought their fastest horses to race on it and the big horse ranches brought in horse from all over Canada and England. The Cochrane races would last two or more weeks. Special trains came in loaded with people for the races and the trains parked down near the track. The Indians camped all around the hills near Cochrane and they had special Indian horse races too. It ..read more

When I was 10 years old, our grade 5 class was supposed to spend the week skiing at what was then Paskapoo for a week (it later became Canada Olympic Park or COP, later Winsport). Unfortunately for me I got sick, and not just a little sick – fever so bad I remember getting delirious and I couldn’t eat or drink anything for days. I remember mom feeling so bad for me because she knew how much I had wanted to go skiing, and now that I’m a parent I’m guessing she was a little concerned as well. On one of my super sick bed days Mom came into my room with a box I’d never seen before. She had a gleam ..read more

I love this letter – such a typical teenage letter. I like Janet. And although we don’t get to hear about who “the one” was at that moment for 16 year old mom – I’m glad she had a great social life, and even gladder that she waited and found “the actual one” later on in life. 1230 5th Ave South Lethbridge, Alta March 23/57 Dear Margie: At last you’re hearing from that long lost pal of yours way up in the North – that foreign land of Canada! Gee, it’s so long since “I’ve writ” that I don’t know what to say! I’ve really been living a very dull life of late- nothing but study and more study! This ..read more

Most of these letters are a lot of fun for me to share, as I’ve said some of them make me a bit more emotional than others, but in general this has been such a great experience for me as I’ve been learning more about who mom was – and as a fortunate and unexpected byproduct more about my grandparents, extended family and community (not to mention more about myself). The last newspaper clipping here though was really hard for me to post. As I’ve said, I typically just reach my hand in and grab a letter and share it, reading it for the first time as I type it out. That clipping, however, which i ..read more

This girl’s dream reminds me of a really funny/weird encounter I had while grocery shopping at Kroger while we were living in Roanoke. This older woman – I had never seen her before and never saw here again- walked up to me and said: “let me tell you about a dream I had last night. I was standing inside a weird building and I was getting so hot. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing until suddenly I realized that I was watching my own cremation. I didn’t know what to think of that.” I also didn’t know what to think of that. I can’t remember what I said in response – but it certainly was one o ..read more

As far as I can tell this is mom’s valedictorian speech when she graduated from high school in Florida. Personally, I found it really interesting to hear her perspective on private schools since, as I’ve mentioned, I always thought I was sent to one because they just didn’t want me around. One thing I found extremely stressful about that school was the fact that we were divided into “sets” – it was either 1-4 or 1-5 I can’t remember which. Set 1 was the “smart kids” and we got progressively stupider as the sets went down. This wasn’t something that was hidden or suspected – it was just a fact ..read more