My father was invited to move to Edmonton to go into business with his father after the end of the Second World War.  So, in 1947, he sold the farm at Stonewall, bought a 1946 Dodge with the proceeds and we drove to Edmonton via Saskatoon. We lived with my grandparents for the first winter of 47-48 and then my parents bought this old house in Beverley in the fall of 1948 with the proceeds of the Dodge that he sold.  It had no running water and no gas but it did have electricity.  All the time we lived there (1948 to 1952) we had no running water but, in 1949, the gas lines reached Beverley and Dad had gas jets installed in the kitchen wood stove which made cooking easier for Mother.  For heat, we had a coal furnace in the dugout basement underneath.  The outhouse in the back was our only toilet all the time we lived here.  Coal was delivered by a horse drawn wagon.








This is Dad on the backsteps of our Beverley home about 1949.  He was 36 years old in this picture.

















This is Bob, Glenn (me) and Alex (next door neighbour's kid) at Alex's
home, holding his mother's chickens.  The year is about 1949.










This is Dad on the porch with me as the six year old skier
in the winter of 1949.



















The is the United Church in Beverley where I started school in September of 1949.  The teacher's name was Miss S. J. Hackwell.

I am the kid third from the left on the second row who is biting his lower lip and squinting into the camera.  I was very myopic but this wasn't diagnosed until we moved to West Edmonton in 1952.

















This is Mother and me iin front of the new school that I switched to in January, 1950 from the church in central Beverley that I started school Grade 1 in.












This is brother Bob with his air rifle.  Bob was always interested
in guns when he was young.










This a picture of Bob's Grade 1 class.
He is the one who is shading his eyes
on the far right of the second row.







This is me at 6 years with my Aunt Peggy (Dad's older sister born in 1911),
my Uncle Bill Jessiman (born in 1913) and Bob at 5 years.  Uncle Bill and
Aunt Peggy took me down to Calgary in this car.  In those days, the Edmonton Calgary Trail was a 1930's aligned narrow two lane highway that meandered south through every village and town between the two cities.  My recollection was it took 13 hours to make the trip.  Uncle Bill was a Flight Sergeant in the RCAF during the war but a Sergeant after so we travelled to their home at an airforce base in Calgary.  Uncle Bill's car, by the way, was a 1949 Vanguard.  You can read an interesting history of the Vanguard by clicking on this link:  Vanguard





This is the Atlas Book Bindery that my Grandfather had started during the early part of the Second World War and which my father joined after the war.  The business was on 95th Street and about 105th Avenue.















This is Dad standing in front of the Atlas Book Bindery about 1949 I think.













This me about the same time at the south side door of the Atlas building.
I am about 6 years old here.














In the summer of 1951, Dad and Mom took Bob and I to the BC Coast in their 1943 Plyimouth which Dad bought in the summer of 1950 after a 3 year periiod in which he didn't own a car.  He used to either take the bus or ride his bicyle to get to the Atlas Book Bindery.








This was taken at the Big Bend Highway which was the route of the Trans Canada Highway between Golden and Revelstoke before the new highway was opened through the Rogers Pass in the early Sixties.  I always thought this was a neat picture!  It shows a side view of Dad, Mother, me and Bob with the Columbia River in the background.







This shows the car top tent that Dad made himself which he and Mother slept in during the trip while Bob and I slept in the car.  Dad was always concerned about bears, having had a close call with a grizzley near Golden where he was working during the 1930s, so he decided on this solution.  He and Mother were high up on top of the car while we kids were safe inside.  He had waterproofed the tent by applying melted bees wax to the canvas covering.