WE ARE HISTORY

It all started with a request from a grandson in Grade 4 asking if his ancestors were homesteaders.  My automatic answer was “Yes they were.” I even went farther and told him that he was a fifth generation Canadian, but after the phone call ended I did some more calculating and realized that his generation was in fact the sixth.  This prompted me to go get the local history books and do a little more research where I discovered that, strictly speaking, I was incorrect about the homesteader thing too.

On a quick run through of the names on homesteader titles in two of the local history books I found no mention of either of my grandparents.  The claims for the land that they farmed were made a few years before either the Purvis or Nixon families arrived in the neighbourhood.  They were pioneers for sure, but actual homesteaders they were not.  My Great Grandfather Purvis bought his home quarter from a Mr. Heasman and it was someone named Mr. Randall who shows up on the claim for Great-grandpa Nixon’s farm.  In both cases my ancestors arrived looking for land about five to seven years after the homesteading rush.

In researching these names though, it struck me that except for a very few the names that I’ve always considered the foundation stones of our district, they aren’t there at the very beginning.  The names of the brave men and women who got here before the railroad, lived in sod houses, and broke ground – both figuratively and literally – are not the dominant names of the busy and booming years of my parents’ generation.

Since I had those history books out anyway, and wanted to be prepared for any other Grade 4 questions, I did some more reading.  A person should really travel back in time more often, partly because the stories are awe-inspiring, and partly in homage of the work that went into assembling all that information and organizing it into book form.  I played a very small part in the process and remember the feeling of urgency to record those stories before the people who knew them were no longer able to tell them.

From my perspective as a child of the 1950s, I had been enthralled with this ‘ancient history’ but the reality was that even my grandparents were second generation.  I had to reset my perception of where my family fit in my community timeline.

Those history book pages are full of the stories I grew up hearing: the prairie fires, the blizzards, the closest supply of firewood being the Moose Mountains, the walking to school (uphill, both ways) and the importance of the railway for everything from building materials to mail.  Some of the settler’s names remain but many more you are only going to find recorded in the history book or written in stone in local cemeteries.  The families who persevered automatically get recognition for their hard work and tenacity but after thinking about it, I decided whether they managed five years or five generations, they were all a part of our collective history.  And, whether their contribution was of the dreamer/big picture/builder variety, or the backbone/physical labour/builder variety, both are necessary and equally valuable.

The most constant thing about history is that it is constant motion.  It is past, present, and future.  We are our own history every bit as much as our ancestors were before us and our descendants will be after us.  And it’s important to remember that what we consider ‘our’ history is merely a miniscule blink in time in an expanse so wide we can neither see the beginning or the end.  Others came before us and we will not be the last.

On the other hand, this is our blink in time, and it is something to celebrate.  It just so happens that our Grade 4 grandson and his siblings will be spending July1st weekend with us.  His name will not be found in the pages of our local history book, but his lineage is there.  No matter how many generations there are in between, he has homesteader blood running through his veins.