Interviewee: Beulah Manser
Interviewer: Mark Durtschi
 
Mark Durtschi: My name is Mark Durtschi

Beulah Manser: Is what?

Mark Durtschi: Mark Durtschi, I am glen and Rose Adamson’s son in law.

Beulah Manser: Who’s?

Mark Durtschi: Glen and Rose Adamson.

Beulah Manser: Oh ya I know them.

Mark Durtschi: I am sitting in Beulah Manser’s apartment. Here in Lethbridge, it is the 1^stof August in 1996 and Beulah has graciously to tell all of us just a little bit about her confectionary store that they used to have.

Beulah Manser: Well I can’t remember very much about it but I know that we had tables and chairs in there and guys used to come in there and play cards. Most of the time they would just order chocolate bars and things like that, candy.

Mark Durtschi: Now you were telling me that your husband helped you with it a little but he was out driving truck a little bit.

Beulah Manser: Most of the time but he took over at night; I didn’t do anything at night.

Mark Durtschi: How late did it stay open?

Beulah Manser: I don’t know, I think around twelve o’clock at night.

Mark Durtschi: So it stayed open very late at night.

Beulah Manser: Ya as long as there were guys in there to play cards I would stay open.

Mark Durtschi: You sold candy you mentioned and you sold soda pop I guess.

Beulah Manser: I think so, I can’t remember that much but we must have had a cabinet of something that held ice, I know they we had to go and get ice all the time to keep the drinks cold.

Mark Durtschi: Now was that before the days of refrigeration?

Beulah Manser: Well not before refrigerators but before the deepfreeze I guess.

Mark Durtschi: Did you have to go to Lethbridge to get your ice.

Beulah Manser: No he put up ice, in the fall you know you put it up. We had a little ice house out in the back there and you put, I think that it is sawdust that you put in then put your box of ice in there to and cover them up with the sawdust.

Mark Durtschi: So he went out and got his ice like everybody else did.

Beulah Manser: Well you had to, I don’t know if he went and cut it himself or somebody else cut it out of the coulee down there when it was frozen over. Then he would bring it back and put it in his ice house and cover it up with sawdust. We had ice nearly all summer.

Mark Durtschi: You put those in your sodas that you sold. Do you remember what time in the morning that your confectionary opened?

Beulah Manser: Oh, I don’t think that we opened before eight o’clock.

Mark Durtschi: Well if it stayed open until midnight eight o’clock was early wasn’t it.

Beulah Manser: Ya well not midnight every night, about eleven o’clock. Put a limit on it you know so that you had to go buy eleven o’clock.

Mark Durtschi: How many people were in there playing cards?

Beulah Manser: Oh I don’t know I think that we had about four tables and there were four chairs to each table so.

Mark Durtschi: Were there lots of times that it was filled up, that there were that many people playing cards.

Beulah Manser: Ya as far as I can remember, that was a long time ago.

Mark Durtschi: Did those guys ever start playing for pennies or beans or anything.

Beulah Manser: I think that they played for pennies; I am not sure about that, some of them you know. But I don’t think that they started out playing like that. They started out just playing for the fun of it.

Mark Durtschi: Did you and your husband start the confectionary.

Beulah Manser: I don’t know, it was there before we started up, I don’t know who owned it before that. Yes I do to, there was a guy by the name of Raul Davis and he rented from Frank Coffin. I don’t know what happed to him, why he went but John decided to go and see Brother Coffin and se if he would have it and he did. So we had it for a few years.

Mark Durtschi: Did you buy it or did you just rent it yourself?

Beulah Manser: No we rented it.

Mark Durtschi: From Frank Coffin all those years. Do you remember how long you ran it? Several years’ right.

Beulah Manser: I don’t remember how many years it was.

Mark Durtschi: Well I seen in the Stirling history book that you guys moved out to Lethbridge in 1940.

Beulah Manser: Yes, 1941.

Mark Durtschi: So you ran it up until then.

Beulah Manser: I think so, well no not exactly because we went farming, I think that it was 1939 when he went down to Foremost. He rented a farm down there for a while. I stayed up in Stirling for a while. Then finally he gave up the confectionary and the family and I went on to farm two. We had a farm at Foremost.

Mark Durtschi: But you didn’t stay there very long, then you came here.

Beulah Manser: Well we stayed there for quite a while.

Mark Durtschi: Oh did you. Okay and he trucked also while he was doing that.

Beulah Manser: I can’t remember how long it was but it seemed like we were there for quite a while. I think that it was fifty one when we moved back and we went down in thirty nine so it must have been about twelve years.

Mark Durtschi: Now you mentioned that Joe Brandley let your mom have the house for nothing and this was after your dad passed away.

Beulah Manser: Grandpa Brandley ran the store but he didn’t live there, you probably know where that old Brandley house was that he lived in on the edge of town there.

Mark Durtschi: How did you mom make ends meet?

Beulah Manser: well that is about the only way, I told you the other day that Joe Brandley let her have that house to live in there. I guess that she got a pension from the government when my dad died. My dad died in Michelle B.C.

Mark Durtschi: Now you mentioned, going back to that confectionery, that right next door there was a barbershop.

Beulah Manser: Yes, Old Jim Peterson run that for a while.

Mark Durtschi: It didn’t last very long though?

Beulah Manser: Oh ya I think that he lasted a few years.

Mark Durtschi: Then when he shut down that barbershop what happed.

Beulah Manser: I think that John put a store in there and sold some groceries.

Mark Durtschi: John your husband.

Beulah Manser: I am not positive about that but it seems that that is what he did.

Mark Durtschi: Do you remember ever looking in that barbershop? Did it just have the one chair in there, a small barber shop?

Beulah Manser: I think so but I am not positive. I know that he was the only one that was cutting hair or anything like that so he must have only had one chair.

Mark Durtschi: Well sister Manser, I am very appreciative that you let me come and visit with you for at least a
couple of minutes today. I am really grateful that you had talked to me a little about the confectionary because probably no one else can really talk to me about it like you can. I am really grateful.

Beulah Manser: Well that is why I say when we quit he went farming so he went down to Foremost to farm and I had to stay there and run the confectionary for a while until he got things established down on the farm and then I went down to.

Mark Durtschi: That was probably just a little while

Beulah Manser: I don’t know how many years it was.

Mark Durtschi: So that means that it was a little while from when he went to go get the farm to when you closed down the confectionary and went with him.

Beulah Manser: Well I don’t know how long it was.

Mark Durtschi: It could have been a little while then. That must have been difficult having to running the store and looking after your children too.

Beulah Manser: Yes it was.

Mark Durtschi: Okay, well again I would like to thank you

Beulah Manser: Well I haven’t told you very much but

Mark Durtschi: You have told me some good stuff. I appreciate it.

Transcribed By Clinton Dovell