Christmas 1955

Christmas 1955

Our travel adventure over seventy years ago.

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We spent Christmas 1955 in Uncle Al and Aunt Wilma’s house on Jessie Avenue in Winnipeg.

My Grandpa Butters, Mom’s Dad, had passed away the previous March so this was a very significant Christmas for the family.

We got to Winnipeg by taking a passenger train travelling east out of Weyburn. We left at 6:00 A.M. The weather was soooo cooold that the crew was under “slow orders” due to a concern about cracking the rails. So we didn’t arrive in Winnipeg until 10:00 P.M. (We now make the same trip by car in about 6 hours.) I remember when we got to Winnipeg there was an old locomotive covered with Christmas lights and the ones on the wheels made it look like they were going round and round. It was the Countess of Dufferin, the first locomotive to operate in Western Canada in the 1870’s (When we moved to Winnipeg in the 1990’s, I looked for the location that was in my memory from age six– the Union Station just didn’t fit. After several years, I stumbled across the old CPR Station on Higgins – that fits!)

During the train trip I remember my Dad pulling a big duffel bag from between the train seats. I didn’t know it at the time – but I have since concluded that that was Santa’s Sack!

The adventure actually started the day before we boarded the train in Weyburn. The 20-mile car trip took all day. I remember that my sister, Sally Boyle, crashed into the back of the front seat when the car hit a hard snow drift. Sally injured her mouth. This was in the days before seat belts. (Comment from Sally: “I learned years later that what I cracked my head on was actually my Christmas gift…a kids table and chairs”)

After a few more miles, the car got stuck and Dad had to walk back to Colgate and get Mac Kitson and his team of horses to pull us out.

That night we stayed at Aunt Isabelle’s small suite on the third floor of the Coop Store. She had a murphy bed that folded down from the wall. These beds were quite unheard-of in the 60’s/70’s/80’s/90’s, but have since regained popularity. Aunt Isabelle also had a rather unique situation of being able to live where she worked!