Canada — Through the Eyes of a Prairie Farm Kid

For Christmas 1958, Santa brought me an O-Gauge Lionel Train Set.

It was Christmas 1958. I was 9 years old. The Sears Christmas Catalogue had arrived months earlier, and there they were, towards the back of the book: The Lionel O Gauge Train Sets. I loved the old-fashioned black steam locomotives, but the new-fangled diesels were kinda neat too.

My mom and dad earned their modest living from our small farm in Southern Saskatchewan. The words “don’t get your hopes up” were never heard from Mom & Dad, but I think we were attuned to understand the same reality when appropriate.

Something was different on Christmas Eve 1958. I went to bed and dreamed of a toy train about three times the size of anything I had seen in the catalogue. A big black steam-era locomotive going round and round the Christmas tree.

“Christmas Morning get-up time” is a part of every Santa Claus-believing family. Mom & Dad loved Christmas morning and always sent us to bed with the delightful expectation the we had to stay in bed only until at least 6! O’clock (and in 1958 I think we were allowed up as early as 5!).

I came downstairs. There it was. Under the tree all set up and ready. A locomotive, a flat car and a caboose on an oval of track. The disappointment at the ”modern” diesel locomotive was very short lived! As Christmas Day progressed, I opened gifts from my grandparents and aunts & uncles, and I kept getting more train cars and layout gear. How did they know what Santa was going to give me?! Over the past few weeks my parent’s gift had been conspicuous by its absence from under the tree. Now it materialized, unwrapped, from behind the couch-–two 30-inch segments of track.

That’s my memory from 1958 … but wait … there’s more …

That train set has been with me on my full journey of life. When I was ten this train was on a platform that rolled out from under my bed. Now it sits on a windowsill above my bed!

When we moved across the yard and into my grandparent’s house when I was 14 … the train was set up in the basement.

When I met Bev she only wanted to see how fast it would go … and it always derailed on the curve …

When we had our own kids we got them their own train set. I set it up under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve until midnight. (Dang, I just realized that is what my Dad must have done in 1958!) The Train set always moved with us on several cross-country moves. Once every several years, I would dig it out and set it up, usually during Christmas holidays.

In 2008, the 50^th anniversary of the train, I set it up and played trains with grandsons!

I was constrained by the oval setup design until 2013 when I set up a single track around the outside walls of the living room with a reversing loop on each end.

1977

2008

2013

I’m really proud of this arrangement which went around three walls of our living room and had an auto-reverse at each end. The reversing was enabled by a loop of track which had one switch. The switch auto-switched to accept the correct direction of the train. This video shows the train making two transits of the route so that you can see it go opposite directions on the end loops. Note also the 1920 Toronto Street Car sitting on a siding.

The Layout in Motion!

Take a ride!

Toronto 1921 Peter Witt Streetcar (in Motion)

2022

Once again on the living room carpet. Different layout. Different Grandkids.

2025

In the 1960s, the train was on a piece of plywood under my bed. Now it sits on the windowsill above our bed!

Click Here to see some of my research on the Lionel Trains Historic Websites

Exercise. Imagination. Adventure.

Today’s families have a playroom, a neighborhood play structure and school gymnasiums …

We had a barn!!

Having a barn was like having your own personal gymnasium!

We jumped from 10-foot high platforms into the haystack.

We climbed 20 feet up the slings and then through the open hole into the cupola. After one of the cupolas blew off during a storm, we could climb right onto the roof, and enjoy the view from 30 feet in the air!

The barn had curiosities:

• a rope maker;
• a “caboose” which, in reality, was the enclosed box that sat on a horse drawn sleigh in the winter so that my grandparents could travel in some level of comfort!

There were also secret passageways. There was a small 2^nd story on the lean-to. Some of the area was used by the equipment used to chop oats. However, most was used for ancient storage, or not used at all. A great place to pretend — such as pretending a “great escape” from a German POW camp!

As I got older, I attached a long rope to the track that ran along the peak of the roof. This made a fabulous Tarzan swing. You could take off from a platform 10 feet above the loft floor and swing in a long arc. This swing provided many weeks of enjoyment when I was a teenager. However, unrealized by me, the track was slowly cutting through the rope with each ride. One day in early spring, the rope broke when I was on my back swing. I hit the East wall of the loft about six inches from an open door! The open door was about 10 feet above the ground ….

The outside picture (top) was taken in early spring 2001, a few months after my Dad died. That’s my friend, Barry Senyk with me. I could not find an inside picture of our loft. So I snaffled one that was posted on the Mainprize: The Documentary page. This is the Max White barn and is within a few miles of our farm.

Kids provided a great deal of the work required on the farm.

Life growing up on a farm was a mixture of work and play. Often the two would blur together.

As we got older, my sister and I had to take turns helping Mom clean up in the kitchen or helping Dad work in the barn. We preferred the cold, smelly environment of the barn, hands down! We got to fork hay from the loft into the alley way. Then we forked it again, into the mangers. We hauled oat chop from the little bin below the chopper. (The chopper was in a small upper area of the lean-to).

Cows were milked, although I was never very good at that. Dad sold the cows just after Grandpa retired and moved to Weyburn. The 365 days attention that milk cows require was just not worth what they provided.

Manure was moved; by fork; by shovel … the best way was with the bucket on the back of the Allis-Chalmers D17.

Hay was put up into the loft. We used loose hay which was loaded onto a wagon with a hay-loader. There was a rope and slat sling at the bottom of the wagon. When the wagon was loaded it would be pulled to the barn. The sling would be attached to ropes and pulleys. Then the entire bundle of loose hay, about the size of a modern-day big bale, would be hauled up in through the open 1916 doors at the top of the loft. The whole sling/bale unit would then move down a track attached to the peak of the roof. When it got to the right spot the sling was tripped and the load dropped.

The video (click here) was filmed in 1965 by George Davis, who was visiting the farm with his family. The girls in the video include my sister, Sally Boyle, and George’s daughters. My dad was forking the hay on top of the load while I was driving the tractors. Even Rover puts in a cameo. The Allis-Chalmers pulling the hay loading equipment was the one I mentioned earlier in this post. I mentioned the John Deere in another post. (This video ends moments before the trolley released and rolled down the track in the loft. I had to find footage from someone else to commemorate that moment.)

Notice how The Barn keeps showing up in the George Davis video. There is no question that The Barn was the dominant feature on the farm that I grew up on!

Sally Boyle comments, March 26, 2024: “I would add that Heather Johnson repeatedly reminds me that she and I did 32 loads with the Allis-Chalmers’ bucket! For me it was undoubtedly a normal day but clearly it left an impression on her!!”

This iconic barn is a symbol of “home.”

For decades, this barn proudly proclaimed the year that it had been built.

This would have been 11 years after Charles J. Boyle filed his homestead in 1905. It was four years after he married Mossie Kitson in 1912. Two years after Graham was born in 1914 and the same year Robert Bruce was born, and died, in 1916. World War 1 was raging.

This picture was taken in 1923/24. My Uncles Graham and Stuart are in the picture. I notice that “1916” was not painted on the barn at that time. But it occurs to me, why would it? It was only seven or eight years old! Not significant … at that time.

The barn was constructed as a classic hip-roofed barn with lean-to. The main livestock access was four massive rolling doors, two on the west and two on the east. The doors were hung so well that even a little kid like me could move them. The main access for people was a standard sized door on the west, between the big doors, with a funky handle in the centre that moved a wooden 2×4 dead bolt.

The barn featured a massive hayloft on the 2^nd story, ventilated by two cupolas. The cupolas were topped with lightning rods which were grounded by long woven cables. The west cupola had a copper weathervane with a horse on the tail of the vane.

The main support beams were solid timbers (probably 10×12).

When both of the big doors on the main part of the barn were open, you could see the Russell Ledingham farm, one mile away. They had a big red barn too! The area between the doors was a large livestock area, with no floor.

Looking in from the west, the pig pen was on the right and it extended about ¾ of the length of the barn. The pig pen had a raised wooden floor. Next was the concrete water trough that was filled from the windmill that stood at the south-east corner of the barn. Finally, there was an enclosed calf pen.

Continuing to look in from the west, there was a calf stall on the left and then a two-horse stall. Then there was an access alley. This alley ran crosswise and lined up with the stairs to the hayloft in the centre of the pig pen. Next was another two-horse stall and finally another enclosed calf pen. These stalls and pens all had wooden floors.

The horse stalls had the names of their last occupants chalked onto the timbers above their hay mangers. (Hey Sally and cousins, do any of you remember the names?)

In the lean-to, there were two milking stalls, with wooden floors, on the right. These would accommodate two cows each. The east section of the lean-to was a large cattle pen, with mangers, but no floor.

A work alley ran the full length of the barn, going west to east, between the hip-roof and lean-to sections.

The barn stood proudly for 91 years until it was demolished to make way for an oil well …

Comment from Edrie (Boyle) Smandych, March 12, 2024:

“I really enjoyed the Barn story today.  Very descriptive and I could visualize it in my memories again. Lots of time spent there watching Grandpa milking the cows, being sprayed with milk, pigs being fed and watching the pigs eat. Swinging into the hay loft was not my favourite, but I would do it. After being diagnosed with allergies, many years later, I know why now.”

Have you heard the one about the two pregnant women walked into a maternity ward?

This picture is the last, and perhaps only, picture that I took of Larry and Connie Boyle. It was taken at Larry’s Mom’s 90^th Birthday in 2006.

Larry’s memorial service was Saturday, February 25, 2017, in Regina.

Although I perhaps don’t have a lot of pictures, I do have a story!

During the summer of 1974 Connie Boyle and Beverly Boyle were both pregnant. Connie was expecting Angela Boyle and Beverly was expecting Michael Boyle.

Connie went into labour first, just two weeks before Beverly. Larry Boyle was at work when Connie realized it was time to go to the hospital. Larry was working his first truck driving job as a milkman. If you are less than 40 years old, I recommend that you google the profession called “milkman”!

This was in the days before cell phones and pagers, so Larry was not reachable. Therefore, Connie called Bev and the two of them arrived at the maternity ward of the hospital. The admitting clerk took both of the ladies’ names and then asked “so … which Mrs Boyle is admitting which Mrs Boyle?”

For those of you who like math, when you subtract 1974 from 2026 you find out the number of trips around the sun that both Angela and Michael have celebrated this August!

In 1977 we drove to Newfoundland. This is a memorable part of the trip.

I truly have few regrets in life … but I do regret that we did not accept the invitation to stay for “The Birthday Party in Newfoundland.”

During the summer of 1977 we did a 3-week camping trip to Newfoundland. Amongst many memorable experiences, the most memorable was an 18-hour party at Bishops Falls.

Bishops Falls is in the middle of the island, half way between the East Coast and the West Coast (remember that to a Newfoundlander the West Coast is the Cornerbrook area!). The pictures are from Cape Spear on the East Coast and Gros Mourne on the West Coast. I don’t actually have a picture of the great party!

Bishops Falls is just down the road from Grand Falls, the home of the actor Gordon Pinsent! Bishops Falls is where Donna and her family lived. Donna is the sister of Wayne who was my boss. When Wayne learned that we were going to Newfoundland he said, “You must stop and visit my sister, she lives right on the TCH!” (TCH is the abbreviation for Trans Canada Highway in Newfoundland.)

So, much to everyone’s surprise, we stopped. I shyly approached this strange door, and knocked. Donna answered and seemed rather reserved. After a few moments, I suggested that I had my family in the car, and she suggested that I should go and get them. I assured Bev that “yes” Donna was expecting us, and then we nervously approached the door again. Suddenly the door swung open and a transformed Donna appeared. “Come on it!” she exclaimed.

Once we settled in the living room I heard her on the telephone. Then after a bit of discussion she hung up and exclaimed: “I can’t believe it, he’s coming home!” Her husband, who had a reputation as a workaholic, was knocking off at 1:30 in the afternoon! Then the phone rang again and I heard Donna say “I dunno” then she turns to me and says “Does ya drinks beers?” Without thinking I answered “ ’course I drinks beers!” (I felt a little embarrassed that I had unthinkingly mimicked her accent, but she didn’t seem to notice). In any case, I learned that it was the right answer since beer was available locally but he would have had to drive to Grand Falls for something stronger!

Soon he came home and we dranks a beers. During this time, he told me a story about a “howl” at the end of a field. When he read the baffled look on my face he proceeded to explain “You know oot, oot, howl …” I had previously heard of dropping your “H’s” but this was my first experience where they were trans-placed!

Then nine of us (they had 3 kids) piled into a tiny car and we headed out of town. Suddenly the car slowed and we drove down through the ditch and followed two tracks across a pasture. Very soon we arrived at gorgeous resort area with a stream and rapids running through it. This was where Donna’s parents had a cottage.

We soon learned that Donna’s Dad was celebrating his birthday tomorrow. Everyone we saw was inviting us to stay for the party! We were also assured that someone had already been to Grand Falls to acquire the supplies for the party. It also became clear that the supplies were already being rapidly consumed!

The party atmosphere continued into the evening – and this was the day before the party! Our 3 and 5-year old kids were not seen by us for hours. However, the environment was such that you just knew that someone was always keeping an eye on them.

Each time we were invited to stay for tomorrow’s party, we begged off saying that we were wanting to get the Gros Morne the next day. So at midnight we went back to Bishops Falls, at which time Donna cooked us a full supper.

We stayed at their house overnight and then continued on our way the next morning.

We did get to Gros Morne on our schedule and spent five rain filled days …

My first job after university was as a computer operator on the mainframe computer at SaskTel.

In September 1970 I began my career in computers and my career at SaskTel.

I had graduated from the U of S, Regina Campus (now known as U of R) the previous May. In the absence of any job offers, I worked that summer as a farm hand. When September arrived, I still had no job offers so I registered in the Education Faculty and attended classes for 1½ days before I received the SaskTel offer.

I started my I.T. as a computer operator for SaskTel’s IBM 360-30 with TOS! For you computer geeks, TOS stood for Tape Operating System – it didn’t even have a disk drive! For you non-geeks, if you are reading this on-line you have in your hand, or at your fingertips, a computer that is far more powerful than that was!

In the picture above, I am sitting at the console – a keyboard that is probably the only component still existing in the computers of 2017. I am looking towards the CPU. Under my feet is a raised floor to allow for air conditioning to cool all of the components.

Behind me you can see one of the tape drive units, there were five altogether. The tape reels had 2400 feet of tape and the vacuum columns to allow the tape to move smoothly across the read-write heads. The tape drive that is visible (which is on the left of the bank of five) was the one with the system software. The one at the other end of the five had the application software (the apps, as they are called these days) and in the middle were three data drives.

Not in the picture is the card reader/punch. But I have included a picture of a punch card. The punch cards would be in trays with a capacity of 3000 cards. It was a source of pride for us computer operator types to be able to lift all 3000 out of the tray, at the same time, and set them in the hopper of the reader – without them fanning all over the floor!

Also not in the picture is a high speed printer with print characters spinning on a high speed chain. That printer could create 100’s of pages per minute of fanfold printout.

All of this equipment created a great deal of noise, particularly if the hoods were open. One of the greatest frights I ever experienced was one day at 2 AM when everything was running, and open, and there was a power failure. Instantly my world became pitch black and dead quiet! I slowly backed up, sat down on the chair and concentrated at getting my heart rate down while awaiting the emergency lighting to come on 20 seconds later.

One other vignette. Sometimes I would bring Beverly Boyle in with me and we would do rolling chair races around this million dollars’ worth of equipment!!

In 2025 a version of this story was published on the Historic Saskatchewan facebook page:

The short answer: Beverly Seafoot and I lived together BEFORE WE MET!

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That happened because we both lived at the Wascana Student Housing Co-op when we went to university. This housing co-op occupied a number of renovated old houses on 15^th Ave in Regina. I began living there in the fall of 1967 and Bev moved in in the fall of 1968.

We were kind of aware of each others presence during the fall of 1968. However, after our last day of school before Christmas, Bev’s dad, Bud Seafoot, arrived to take her home for the holiday.

Bev and her dad were having lunch at the cafeteria which was in the “main house” of the co-op. I lived in a different house, but showed up for a late lunch and Bev introduced me to her dad! This was the first time that she had indicated that she even knew my name!

We began dating as soon as we returned from the Christmas break. Oh that was a cold, snowy winter. We walked everywhere for dates. We went mostly to the movie theatre attached to the Regina Inn. We went there because you lined up indoors – just like theatres today.

We started “going steady” on Valentines Day 1969. “Going steady” was the term for an exclusive relationship, as is implied by changing your Facebook status to “in a relationship” in the past decade or so! (Well, I actually suspect that “in a relationship” means a step further than “going steady”).

I believe that this is the first photo of us taken together.

(By the way, granddaughters, grammy says that fashion standards were a little different then and that you should “dress as I say, not as I did!”)

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!

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In the summer of 1968 I hitchhiked from Regina to Windermere, B.C.

In the late 1960’s hitchhiking became a popular way to get around, particularly for people that had no money (much like hopping a freight train in the 1930’s).

I had done some short trips, from Regina to Weyburn. However, in the summer of 1968 I set out to visit my cousin, David Boyle, who was at his family’s summer home on Lake Windermere, BC.

It was a bus & hitchin’ combo! I successfully hitchhiked to Calgary. I stayed the night with a former minister, Munro Frampton. The next morning, I took the bus to Skookum Inn, the stop nearest Lake Windermere.

After a delightful week of water, sun and mountains (see picture) it was time to reverse the trip.

I deliberately arrived a Skookum Inn ahead of the scheduled bus, and did hitch a ride heading East. I remember that my first ride dropped me off of the highway through Banff. A beautiful location for thumbing, but actually quite quiet that day. I remember being all alone on the highway when I wolf decided to cross about a hundred yards from me. I judiciously ignored him and he thankfully ignored me!

I soon got a ride to Calgary and after another night at the Framptons, I somehow got to the east end of Calgary on Highway #1. There were eleven hitchhikers awaiting rides that morning. However, I was soon on my way.

I arrived at the Maple Creek Junction in Saskatchewan on a hot July afternoon. After waiting 90 minutes, I saw the Greyhound (hey kids, you can ask your parents what a Greyhound is!) coming up the hill. I ran back to the Bus Stop and rode the rest of the way to Regina in Air Conditioned Comfort!

It was a year and a half later that the song Hitchin’ A Ride by Vanity Fare reached #5 on the charts in the USA.

(Grandkids, don’t hitchhike. Once again, “Do as I say, not as I did!”)