Interviewee: Chloe Boyden
Interviewer: Jon Duncan
 

Jon Duncan: Okay, today is August 14^th1996. My name is Jon Duncan; I am here with Chloe Boyden, Chloe why don’t you introduce yourself.

Chloe Boyden: My name is Chloe Boyden and I live at 1210 13^thstreet southLethbridge Alberta. 

Jon Duncan: When were you born?

Chloe Boyden: I was born on July the 10^th, 1910

Jon Duncan: In Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: In Stirling Alberta.

Jon Duncan: Alright, why don’t we get Started, I would like to talk to you about your parents. What were your parent’s names?

Chloe Boyden: Olive Elizabeth Katina Peterson and Niels Christian Peterson.

Jon Duncan: Now when did they come to Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: They came to Stirling in 1902.

Jon Duncan: Why did they come?

Chloe Boyden: They came because the church asked them to come out to work on the Canal from Cardston to Stirling. So my father had a very good job in Elsinore Utah. He left it to come out here because the church wanted him to work on the Canal. So they came up here, my mother came up with two children, Elgin and Elodia. Dad went out came up in a wagon with horses and he brought with him a plough, a wagon, two horses, and when he landed here he had twelve dollar in his pocket. So then they rented a house in Stirling from Marquardson’s, Elmer Marquardson. They lived in this little house for a while and then finally mother and father bought a tent and they went out and lived in Magrath. Mother went there with two children while dad worked on the canal. After the canal was finished they said that they could buy land for four dollars an acre. So they bought eighty acres. After he got his wages they bought eighty acres with this, where my uncle Jim used to live. Then after that he rented a farm from the Rosk’s. Then finally he got the old homestead, what we call the old homestead. He lived there south of Stirling for three or four years. We went to the school in Troy.

Jon Duncan: Why don’t we come back to the Troy school in a second, now this old homestead was that south of Stirling? 

Chloe Boyden: South of Stirling?

Jon Duncan: When did you live there?

Chloe Boyden: I lived there from the time that I went to school about five years old. Then we lived there and I went to school there.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you were five years old when you moved there.

Chloe Boyden: I was five years old, but first we lived in a home in Stirling. Now it was situated, you know where the old Spackman house used to be, there is no house there now.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you lived where the old Spackman house was.

Chloe Boyden: Just kitty corner from where the old Spackman house was. That is where we lived at first.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now you were actually born when your family was living in the town of Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: In Stirling yes

Jon Duncan: That is when your father moved back from Magrath. Okay, let me ask you this. What do you remember the most about your father?

Chloe Boyden: My father was the best father that ever lived. But he thought so much of his children. Everything that he did was situated around his children.

Jon Duncan: What are some of the things that he would do with the children?

Chloe Boyden: Well we used to play tennis, dad would play tennis with us and he just loved to go out and play tennis with us children. He used to take us on trips, to the ball game or around Stirling. He would take us to the ball game. We would go on hikes, yet my dad would always go with us because he didn’t want anything to happen to us. He was marvellous.

Jon Duncan: Where were these hikes?

Chloe Boyden: We went to Waterton and we would hike up there mountain on the paths. One of them was behind the falls.

Jon Duncan: Now where would you play tennis with your father?

Chloe Boyden: In Waterton and in Stirling. Stirling used to have a, right on the school grounds they had a tennis court. In the old school grounds they had a tennis court. My dad and I, my brother Edward and I used to go up and play tennis all of the time.

Jon Duncan: Now your father was a farmer.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, he farmed

Jon Duncan: Did you ever help him on the farm?

Chloe Boyden: No I didn’t. My father got a couple from Denmark Mr and Mrs. Neutson, took them out and farmed. She cooked and he did the chores.

Jon Duncan: They were working for your father?

Chloe Boyden: They were working for my father yes.

Jon Duncan: The woman worked for your mother?

Chloe Boyden: Ya, she did the cooking on the farm. He had moved us all to town and she did the cooking on the farm.

Jon Duncan: So they were hired men at the time. Now did your father only have one hired man?

Chloe Boyden: Well he had another hired man but I don’t remember his name. He came and just helped during the harvest time.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so your family must have had a fairly big operation.

Chloe Boyden: Yes he did, he had rented all of this land. He and bishop Fawns had a threshing machine together. They would go out and thresh the wheat for different people.

Jon Duncan: So he also would have had a threshing crew.

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, the oldest daughter and my oldest sister, Elodia used to cook on the threshing crew and Jimmie Fawns, Eudora Fawns’s sister and Elodia cooked on the threshing machine.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever cook on the machine?

Chloe Boyden: No, I was too young for that.

Jon Duncan: Do you remember going out and seeing the threshing machine?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, I used to go out there and have dinner with them quite often. My dad would take us out to the farm and I would go and have dinner with them, which was a highlight of my life.

Jon Duncan: Why was it the highlight?

Chloe Boyden: Well because I just loved to go and have dinner on the cook car.

Jon Duncan: You got to come in with your dad. Alright, now tell me about your mom then, what do you remember about her.

Chloe Boyden: I remember her; she would make so many things, different things. Like she would make her own bread, she would make her own cheese, she did everything like that. She used to sing. She had a beautiful voice. She and Cal Brandley’s mother used to sing together. Then there was a fellow by the name of Jake Manser, I don’t know here he was from. Anyway they used to sing together. Then it was lovely to hear them sing, they sang all over. 

Jon Duncan: Did she do most of the work around the house?

Chloe Boyden: She did all of the work around the house. We helped her; we had different things that we had to do. We had to keep our bedrooms clean and we had to change the beds when it was time to change them so that mother wouldn’t have to. Things like that.

Jon Duncan: Now did you have a special chore that was yours to do?

Chloe Boyden: I can’t remember a chore that I had to do but I knew that I had to help my mother. Like keeping the place clean and things like that, gathering up the laundry and putting it in the washing machine. Now we had a machine that you had to pull it back and forth. It took fifteen minutes for a washer. There were so many suds with such a big family. I used to have to pull that wash machine thing, had to pull the handle for it to clean the clothes.

Jon Duncan: Would you heat the water on the oven.

Chloe Boyden: No, we heated the water in a big, tub and put it on top of the stove. Then we would pour it in the wash machine.

Jon Duncan: To dry you would hang g them up.

Chloe Boyden: To dry I would hang it on the line. We had two or three big lines that we used to hang up.

Jon Duncan: Now let me ask you this, what did you learn from you mother?

Chloe Boyden: What did I learn from my mother? I learned how to cook, I learned to keep the house clean, and I learned that obedience was better that sacrifice.

Jon Duncan: Now how many children did they have together?

Chloe Boyden: They had eleven Children, My father and mother.

Jon Duncan: How many brothers and sisters?

Chloe Boyden: Well I had four five brothers and six sisters. But one of our families Lloyd he died a birth so we didn’t have anything to do with him, he was there, we knew that he was there but he was dead.

Jon Duncan: Where did you sit in the family?

Chloe Boyden: I am the eighth

Jon Duncan: Now where did Lloyd sit?

Chloe Boyden: Lloyd was up, fourth.

Jon Duncan: So you don’t remember him, you just know that he was born

Chloe Boyden: He was born after they came back from living in a tent in Magrath.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so then the oldest sister would have been Elodia?

Chloe Boyden: Elodia

Jon Duncan: And your oldest brother?

Chloe Boyden: Eldon

Jon Duncan: Who was your youngest brother?

Chloe Boyden: My youngest brother was Kenneth.

Jon Duncan: Were you the youngest girl?

Chloe Boyden: No, there are two younger than I am, Anita and Alta.

Jon Duncan: So now when you were growing up, who were the brothers and sisters that you played with the most?

Chloe Boyden: My older ones were practically at the time that I was born they were gone. Not really gone but they were too old for me to play with. I played with my Sister Alta and my brother Kenneth and my sister Geneva more.

Jon Duncan: So what did you do with them?

Chloe Boyden: We used to try to ride bicycles, I could never ride one. Edward and I used to play tennis so many times. We played volleyball and we just played around the house with different things.

Jon Duncan: Now what about the irrigation canals?

Chloe Boyden: The irrigation there was ditches in Stirling that is how we got our irrigation. Dad took a pump and put it in the ditch and pumped onto the lawn.

Jon Duncan: Did you as kids play in those canals?

Chloe Boyden: I didn’t play too much; we never did play too much in those ditches.

Jon Duncan: Didn’t want to get wet, okay. Now you told me before that you remember the house burning down.

Chloe Boyden: Well we lived in that house by Spackman first. Then it got to small so dad bought the Holman Hotel. It was a big place, a huge place, and just a little bit east of the school house. We lived in there for, there were four bedrooms upstairs, three bedrooms downstairs and a huge big living room and a kitchen and a bathroom and a pantry and one of these stairs that wind down. We used to get on those stairs and slide down. Then dad built a big room on the back of that house and built shelves in it for mother to put all of her canning goods and everything in. She had canned goods and she canned 700 quarts of fruit and vegetables every year. So we never went hungry. 

Jon Duncan: Was this the house that burnt down?

Chloe Boyden: That is the house that burnt down. My brother and I went to Raymond to a dance and while we were dancing a fellow had come to Stirling to take his girlfriend home and came back to the dance. He said there is a house on fire in Stirling. I was dancing with him at the time. I said well whose was it. He said just the house east of the school house. I said that is my house. So we hurried and drove home, by the time that we had gotten there it had gone. My dad was away to a convention in Banff and when my mother had my youngest sister Alta in bed with her. When she looked up the fire was coming down the wall. She hurried and got out but they saved nothing. My grandfather, he had just passed away and my grandmother. So we moved over into their home, just kitty corner from us. Just across the intersection.

Jon Duncan: How long were you living in your grandfather’s home?

Chloe Boyden: We lived in my grandfather’s house for until I was married at 24 years old.

Jon Duncan: What was that house like?

Chloe Boyden: That house had three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and then a room on the back with the beds and things in. We had a cistern; you had to bring the water into the cistern and haul it into the cistern and dump it. That is the way that we got our water.

Jon Duncan: Did all of these homes that you had have indoor bathrooms.

Chloe Boyden: No, our first one didn’t have a bathroom; it had a toilet you had to go up to it.

Jon Duncan: It had an outhouse then.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: What about ice houses?

Chloe Boyden: Dad had a beautiful ice house on the homestead. He would go down in the river and cut ice, big chucks of ice and bring it back and put it in the ice house. We had ice all winter long. We always made ice cream, every Saturday. Dad made ice cream every Saturday. We had an ice cream freezer about that high.

Jon Duncan: About four feet high

Chloe Boyden: Yes, it held twenty four quarts or something, a little ice chest that you could store the ice cream in.

Jon Duncan: The ice house was actually out on the homestead.

Chloe Boyden: On the homestead yes.

Jon Duncan: So you would go from Stirling to the homestead to get the ice.

Chloe Boyden: No, that was when we lived on the homestead that we used the ice.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now did you have an ice house in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: No, we didn’t.

Jon Duncan: Now, with the homestead, how many miles was it from Stirling. 

Chloe Boyden: It was about I would say, maybe seven or eight miles south of Stirling.

Jon Duncan: About what age were you then?

Chloe Boyden: I was only about five or six. After I had got six that is when we went to the Troy school.

Jon Duncan: What do you remember about that school?

Chloe Boyden: Well I remember quite a few things, I remember all of my teachers and I remember one teachers name was Mrs. Carr. She had a daughter by the name of Margaret. She would pet her, she would let her do everything but she wouldn’t let us. So we didn’t like that very well. Then when we went to school we went to school in a buggy that my dad had put wheels on. We had an old horse by the name of Betty. We were to travel two miles up to that Troy school. A lot of it was uphill. He had a colt and we had to phone dad to come back up and get us at the try school because we couldn’t bring the little colt home.

Jon Duncan: Who was this old Betty?

Chloe Boyden: Old Betty was out horse

Jon Duncan: So the horse had a colt.

Chloe Boyden: We drove her to school.

Jon Duncan: You had to have your dad come and get the horse and bring it back with the colt. Okay, now who were some of the teachers at this school?

Chloe Boyden: Mrs. Carr and we had a fellow by the name of Johnson; he was a great big fat man. But he used o tell us terrible stories. My dad was on the school board and when we would come home and tell my dad about these terrible stories that he would tell us, they fired him.

Jon Duncan: What were these stories?

Chloe Boyden: He was a great big fat man and his stomach hung way over. He said this is the way that I mix my bread. I just take a hold of it like this and I throw it up at the wall and let it run down. Then I pick it up and throw it up at the wall that is how I mix my bread. That is what he used to tell us.

Jon Duncan: So he would make you guys sick.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, it was terrible. We didn’t like him, but dad was on the school board and he fired him. My next teacher when was my brother in law. Elvin Reed, my brother in law, my sisters Hilda’s husband. They weren’t married then but he was the teacher there. He taught us, he was a good teacher and he was good teacher. He taught us a lot of things that we didn’t know.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you spent just a few years at the Troy school. 

Chloe Boyden: Yes, just a few years because my dad used to worry so much about us going up there in the winter. He would heat these rocks and put them at our feet so that we wouldn’t get cold. It worried him so much that he moved us into Stirling.

Jon Duncan: So that is when the family moved back into Stirling. Then you started attending the school in Stirling.

Chloe Boyden:T hat great big brick school.

Jon Duncan: Now who were some of the teachers that you remember there.

Chloe Boyden: Well there was Theresa Blackmore and one was a Spackman and Elmer Spackman.

Jon Duncan: Was he the principal?

Chloe Boyden: He was the principal.

Jon Duncan: What was he like as a principal?

Chloe Boyden: I like him very much, but a lot of people didn’t. Elmer Spackman and then I had Theresa Blackmore; I can’t remember who they are now. But anyway Verda Spackman, she wasn’t really a teacher. She just was filling in. But old Elmer Spackman, My very dear friend Ruth Nelson Gibb, she, and I used to talk so much in line. At that time you had to march into the school. You couldn’t just come and go to school. You had to stay out there and march into the school. They made you march into the school. Ruth and I would always talk. We couldn’t help it. So we always had to say in after school for talking. So one day we decided we were not going to talk so we didn’t and that was it. We didn’t talk a bit. So when we got in there our name was on the board to stay in after school. So we went to Elmer Spackman, we said we did not talk. We made sure that we did not talk.  He said well I am so used to putting your name down there that is why it is there.

Jon Duncan: What was discipline like back then?

Chloe Boyden: Well they were Strict with you, very Strict with you.

Jon Duncan: Did they use the strap?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, you bet, I got a strap from Verna Michelson for talking in line, there were four of us that used to talk in line, two boys and then Ruth Gibb and I. One time she said, we always had to get up and write ‘obedience is better than sacrifice, Speech is Silver but Silence is Golden’ on the board. So we did this while she was out marching the people out we got up and we had it all finished so we thought that we could go home now. She came in and she said rub it all off so we rubbed it all of and she said okay now Ruth come up here. She strapped her but she had an arm that she couldn’t raise. So she had to keep it down like this so she would strap like this. Ruth would turn around and wink at us kids. Then she said Okay Chloe your turn next. So I went up and it didn’t hurt one bit when she couldn’t hit. So when the boys came down there she strapped them and it was the same thing. She says oh go home.

Jon Duncan: Because she couldn’t strap them hard enough. You say that was Verda Michelson.

Chloe Boyden: Verda Michelson

Jon Duncan: Alright, Chole, let me ask you this, now how many grades did you attend.

Chloe Boyden: I attended to Grade ten in Stirling and then when I went out and got married and went out to, I attended two more. Then I went to business collage in California.

Jon Duncan: So you had some collage experience through your life. How many years was that?

Chloe Boyden: Just the one year.

Jon Duncan: Just the one year and this was after you married Russell.

Chloe Boyden: I had my collage experience before I was married because mother and I went to California but after I was married I attended two more years at Fort Macleod. 

Jon Duncan: Now why did your mother and you go to California?

Chloe Boyden: We went down to visit with my mother’s father and mother. They lived in California.

Jon Duncan: You stayed a whole year there for collage.

Chloe Boyden:I  stayed there a whole year for collage yes.

Jon Duncan: How did you travel down?

Chloe Boyden: We were right close to the collage I just could walk.

Jon Duncan: From Stirling, did you take the train?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, we took the train, mother and I. We took the train to California.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now did you travel by train very often.

Chloe Boyden: Not too much but I loved to hear the train whistle. It came right to Stirling you know, it used to go from Stirling to Lethbridge once a day.

Jon Duncan: So that was your favourite part of the train was the whistle.

Chloe Boyden: Loved to hear it whistle.

Jon Duncan: How often were these whistles going off?

Chloe Boyden: Well it was when I was home and I could hear the train whistling. I would go upstairs and lie on the bed and hear that old train whistle. I just loved it, to hear that train whistle. Just the other day, I heard the train whistle down here and it brought back all of those memories.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now what subjects did you study in School.

Chloe Boyden: Everything, at that time you had no special subjects. You had to take Reading Writing and Arithmetic.

Jon Duncan: What were your favourites?

Chloe Boyden: Reading actually
 
Tape 1 Side 2
 
Jon Duncan: Okay, we were talking about the subjects that you studied in school and you were telling me which we re your favourites.

Chloe Boyden: My favourite was reading. I still like reading. Well I will tell you what I liked was American history. Canadian history or whatever it was. I loved that. I got my old history book made into a thing in here.

Jon Duncan: You kept that book all of those years.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, now I want to go back a little bit and ask you a different question. What were your earliest memories?

Chloe Boyden: I can remember that my dad built a great big swing and I don’t think that I was over five years old then but he built this great big swing for the children to swing on. Everybody in town would gather there after school and swing on that swing. It was the first swing that was in Stirling. Dad would push them, so many kids.

Jon Duncan: All the kids from all over.

Chloe Boyden: All over, now also you ask me about my mother. Everybody in Stirling called my mother grandma. All of the young girls would, we would come home from school and stand outside by the gate and call can we come in grandma. She says yes sure you can come in. They would come in and she would give those cookies and milk. Two or three did that first, Joyce Jacobs and those girls. Pretty soon she had the whole school coming there for cookies and milk.

Jon Duncan: She must have baked a lot of cookies.

Chloe Boyden: Oh she did, she baked cookies, cookies, cookies. She always kept the cookie jar full so that when they came they could have them. They always would come to the gate and say can we come in Grandma. They would never come in until they were told they could.

Jon Duncan: Now were you young then?

Chloe Boyden: Well I was around the same age as then. I was about seven maybe, something like that.

Jon Duncan:Let me ask you this, when you got to be a little older, when you were a teenager. Who were some of the friends that you had.

Chloe Boyden: Well I had not too many boys but I did have a lot of girl friends. There was Ruth Nelson, Louie Perrett, that’s Hogeson’s wife, Maye Perrett, Aida Nelson, and there was Mary Hardy and used to be mostly together all of the time.

Jon Duncan: What did you do as palls, as friends?

Chloe Boyden: We would just play volleyball for one thing. We played a lot of volleyball. Tennis, we played a lot of tennis. One year at Christmas time there was no snow so we challenged our fathers, all of our fathers to play baseball with us. We won, the fathers because we were so much faster runners than they were.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now did you do much skating?

Chloe Boyden: We didn’t do much skating, we used to go skating on the Tyrell Lake, Bakers Lake in Stirling, We used to go and we used to have the barbecues there beside the lake we would build a fire and roast wieners and then go skating. They had quite a few skating parties. I wasn’t a good skater, I was always falling down.

Jon Duncan: What about swimming, where would the kids go swimming?

Chloe Boyden: We didn’t swim too much, we had a big dam south of Stirling that we used to go Swimming in but my dad would never let us go. He said if we go swimming we will take you to Waterton and let you go swimming there where I can watch you.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so he didn’t really want you going swimming. Okay, so he didn’t really want you swimming. Now your family was quite musical, and talented in many respects, now was this something that you would do at night with your family.

Chloe Boyden: My dad used to get us up in the morning, we had an organ. My dad used to get us up to that organ and there would be my brother would play the horn, my dad would play the violin, and Elodia, and my sister would play the organ. He would get us up there, we would sing, we would do every song in the song book. We knew every song that there was to sing. Even right now I am hearing songs in the radio that we used to sing, on television I mean.

Jon Duncan: Now did this happen often?

Chloe Boyden: Oh twice a week.

Jon Duncan: Did they play for others as well?

Chloe Boyden: No, they didn’t just ourselves.

Jon Duncan: Just for the family, tell me what dinners were like?

Chloe Boyden: Dinners, we always had plenty to eat because my mother used to can everything, we had our own pigs, we had our own chickens, we had our own eggs, we had our own milk and butter, everything. My mother used to make her own bread and dad would bring a load of wheat up here to Ellison mills here and have it ground into flower and bring it home. But we would keep it in that big store house.

Jon Duncan: So now was this dinner time the big meal of the day?

Chloe Boyden:We had one big meal a day. Now in the mornings we would have maybe pancakes and some bacon. For lunch we would just have a slight lunch with sandwiches and stuff like that. Mother always had plenty of meat and everything to use. So that is one thing about it being there. Our family never went hungry, we had plenty of food. We had a garden as big as this whole lot.

Jon Duncan: The lot that you are living on now.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, and it was a whole garden and we used to grow everything in that garden, everything. There was hardly anything that we didn’t grow. 

Jon Duncan: What were some of the crops that you started?

Chloe Boyden: We had tomatoes; we had everything, corn, a lot of corn. Potatoes, we had a lot of potatoes, we had peas and beans and corn and everything, cabbage, a lot of cabbage. 

Jon Duncan: Anything that would grow you would plant it. Did you have to work in the garden?

Chloe Boyden: I didn’t have to no because dad planted it so that it was in rows. It would be one row here and one row here. You could take a plough and plough through it, each row, which is the way that he used to.

Jon Duncan: Okay, well you say that your family always had enough to eat. Now I want to talk about the depression for a bit. What was the depression like for your family?

Chloe Boyden: We the depression was fin because we had our own food you see. Now a lot of people in Stirling didn’t have that. So dad had a farm so he used to keep half of the people in Stirling, the poor people, he would come to Lethbridge, and he would get a load of coal. Half of it went to the poor people in Stirling. He would get a load of flower and half of it would go to the poor people. Mother would make cheese, he would kill six pigs at a time and half of it went to the poor people.

Jon Duncan: Did he butcher it as well?

Chloe Boyden: He butchered them and cleaned them and cut them out himself. He and this fellow that was on the farm that he got from Denmark.

Jon Duncan: Were there many hobos in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: The hobos used to come up the road, not in Stirling but out in the country. They would come waling up the road but they weren’t dangerous like they are nowadays.  They were hungry. So dad would say come on in and I will fix you something to eat. So they would never go hungry when they came to our place.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so there were a lot of people who did struggle during the depression. But your family was alright.

Chloe Boyden: Yes it was, now the only thing that was a depression. We were out of sugar, we didn’t have much sugar. But the Hutterite colony south of Stirling he used to deal with them I the store. So he always saved sugar for mother, always brought her in her sugar.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now do you remember the hutterites coming in to settle in Sothern Alberta.

Chloe Boyden: No I don’t remember when they came but I remember dad taking us out to the hutterites to get our teeth fixed there was a fellow out there by the name of Darius. He took us out there to get our teeth fixed.

Jon Duncan: He was the dentist.

Chloe Boyden: He was the dentist.

Jon Duncan: He was a Hutterite and he worked out in the colony. Okay, now another big event that was of affect in Stirling was the flu epidemic.

Chloe Boyden: The flu, my brothers, we all had the 1918 flu. We all went down with the flu in Stirling. Except My dad and my brother, I still think that they should have been to bed, they had it. I think that is what gave dad his bad heart. He looked after us and we had a man by the name of Dr. McNally came from Raymond to take care of us and he had come by at least once a week to see us. We were all in bed at the same time.  I can remember that well.

Jon Duncan: Did many people die?

Chloe Boyden: Lots of people died from the flu in 1918 but I don’t know of anybody in Stirling that did but we had heard of a lot of people that died. They called it the 1918 flu. I remember when my Sister Elodia’s husband went to war. It was in 1918 when he was called to the 1918 war. He went over seas. I don’t think that they were married then, they might not have been but he had to go over seas and I remember crying, I didn’t want him to go.

Jon Duncan: This was Harold?

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Okay, that was WWI, what you remember about WWII, what do you remember about that?

Chloe Boyden: WWII I don’t remember too much about WWII.

Jon Duncan: You were in Lethbridge by that time.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Were you rationed?

Chloe Boyden: Things were rationed but not that much.

Jon Duncan: Alright, I want to talk now about your experience in the young women’s mutual improvement association.

Chloe Boyden: Well I did a lot in the Mutual, I loved the mutual, I loved going to mutual but the main thing that I liked was the dancing. In the church they used to have competitions of dancing. You had to win here in Alberta. Then you had to go down to Big Horn Wyoming and win there. Then you got to go to Salt Lake and dance at the Salt Air.

Jon Duncan: At the Salt Air resort

Chloe Boyden: A big, huge resort but a huge big dance hall there. That is where we used to go. Eudora Oler was my first dance instructor, she is the one that taught Edward and I. Our first dance that we went to Salt Lake with Eudora Oler; she was a good dance instructor, we liked her very much. We went to Salt Air. There were seventy five couples that danced at Salt Air. They just picked so many people out after we had just finished dancing. Edward and I were the second ones that they picked up off. There were a couple from Hollywood and Edward and myself. We had to dance for fifteen minutes before they could decide which the best dancer was. The couple from Hollywood won over us. I still have got a big piece in the paper, it came out in the Desert New and I still got the big piece of paper with our pictures telling us that we had won second place.

Jon Duncan: You were there two different years?

Chloe Boyden: I went down three different years, we went down once with the show. My sister Elodia put on a show, a dance competition. We had to go to Salt Lake with that. We didn’t win the show but we got special mention. I won the best actress in the show.

Jon Duncan: For this shows that you preformed in Salt Lake. Okay, for these awards, you received pins.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, I got a gold pin for that and I got a silver pin for dancing and my brother and I made up a original dance and then went down to Salt Lake and we won the Silver for that.

Jon Duncan: So you were quite a dancer then. 

Chloe Boyden: I talked to Eudora Oler on the phone the other day she says, Chloe you are one of the people that were made for dancing.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now if I may, I wanted to ask you about Elodia for a minute. She was quite involved with theatre groups.

Chloe Boyden: She was marvellous, it couldn’t be any better. That is what I think that you should have Doug Tell you.

Jon Duncan: Okay I am going to talk to Doug in the future, her son. Now you told me about Sturndale Bennit

Chloe Boyden: Yes, my sister Elodia, when Sterndale Bennits came over from England they took Elodia with them because they knew what a good director she was. So they took her with them, all across Canada to start these little theatre groups. Each place had their little theatre group, Also to Vancouver. Once she had got home, here in Lethbridge if there was ever a book that was to be written about grandma Elodia’s name would be on the first page.

Jon Duncan: So she traveled throughout Canada to start these groups. She was also a judge you said.

Chloe Boyden: She judged whenever they would put on any of the plays, even when they went to Quebec. She loved judging in Quebec because she could speak French she used to judge these little theatre groups thought Canada, clear to Vancouver. I will bet you that Doug doesn’t know this. So I am glad I am telling you.

Jon Duncan: Now you said that she could speak French, could you speak French?

Chloe Boyden: No I cant, I speak Danish.

Jon Duncan: Where did you learn to speak Danish?

Chloe Boyden: From my mother and my father.

Jon Duncan: So they can speak it, how did she learn French?

Chloe Boyden: Well, I don’t know how she learned French. I think she had to learn something about it when she was in the Post Office.

Jon Duncan: Okay, because she worked in the Post Office for several years. Okay, Chloe, I want to ask you about the first car that your dad had.

Chloe Boyden: The first car that my dad had was a Model T Ford. It had no top on it, just a little thing over the top. Then the next car that he got, Elgin wreaked that when he was driving that.

Jon Duncan: How did he wreak it?

Chloe Boyden: He went to the neighbours and he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and he went over the coulee bank.

Jon Duncan: Was he okay?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, he is okay, just wreaked the car. So the next car they had was an Oakland. It just had those tops on it you know. So one day it started to hail and it went right threw the top of it.

Jon Duncan: With a cloth top and it went right threw it and you used to take trips to Waterton in this car.

Chloe Boyden: Dad would take us to Waterton twice a year. He didn’t know whether he liked camping. So one day we said to dad can’t we, cant we please just camp this time, because he always rented cottages. He said yes, we will camp this time. So they brought two tents, we went up to Waterton, we no more than got there and we lost dad. So dad was gone, he came back to the tent and he said I have rented a cottage. We just thought that was terrible, he told us that we could camp. He said well I don’t think your mother could sleep out in a tent, he says that is why we have to get a cabin for her.

Jon Duncan: What was it like to drive to Waterton in these old cars?

Chloe Boyden: Well, it would take us a long time but we made it. It was a long ways; we thought we were going to the end of the earth.

Jon Duncan: Was it pretty bumpy?

Chloe Boyden: It was bumpy because there was no good highway you know, like there is now. We didn’t notice it to much; we had a lot of flat tires on the way out.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now Chloe dad you dad ever get a tractor?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, he had an old Harpbar. He used to kick and everything but he finally got it started, it was an old Harpbar.

Jon Duncan: Was it one that you had to crank the motor?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, you had to crank the motor.

Jon Duncan: He used this for most of his farming did he?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, for farming, for everything we did. 

Jon Duncan: Before he had the tractor he would have had horses. Did he get rid of his horses?

Chloe Boyden: Well some of them he did. He always liked his horses and especially the saddle horses; he wouldn’t get rid of the saddle horses.

Jon Duncan: Did you do much horse riding yourself?

Chloe Boyden: I wasn’t very much of a horse rider. But the other children were. They would get on this old wildfire and she would run away.

Jon Duncan: Did you dad keep the wagons after he got the cars and the tractor?

Chloe Boyden: He had a few but I don’t know what happened to them. We had to haul wheat in the wagons to the elevators; he had a few of those with the horses. You had to use horses on your wagons to go to the elevators then.

Jon Duncan: Most of your travels were mostly in a car then?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes

Jon Duncan: Now let me ask you this, what do you remember about your first TV?

Chloe Boyden: The first TV, we got our first TV, it was a radio I am sorry. My first TV was after I was married.

Jon Duncan: What were you going to say about the radio?

Chloe Boyden: We used to have a majestic radio. It was a huge one, it stood up quite high. We used to turn that on and they used to put on shows on the radio. Different shows would come over the radio.

Jon Duncan: What were some of your favourites? 

Chloe Boyden: Well I don’t know for sure but I can remember the old dance bands you know, like the rhythm kings and that. I liked those.

Jon Duncan: Did they come over the radio?

Chloe Boyden: Mark Kenny would come over the radio yes.

Jon Duncan: Was it common for your family to listen to the radio?

Chloe Boyden: Not to much, we didn’t too much to the radio. Not that I remember anyway.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now electricity came to Stirling I think was 1928. Do you remember you family getting electricity?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes

Jon Duncan: What difference did it make to get electricity?

Chloe Boyden: It was a lot different because we used to have to use candles when we went up to bed and things like that. But after the electricity came it was wonderful.

Jon Duncan: Now what kinds of lights did you used before, just the candles?

Chloe Boyden: Well we used to have a big, what do they call them, lantern and it is through a good light. We had two or three of those lanterns that we used to carry around with us.

Jon Duncan: What about appliances did you mother get some electric appliances?

Chloe Boyden: No, she got nothing electric?

Jon Duncan: So electricity was basically for the lights?

Chloe Boyden: Until she moved to Lethbridge, then she got electric appliances but that was after my father passed away.

Jon Duncan: So she kept the hand pump and the washing machine?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes

Jon Duncan: What did she use for an iron?

Chloe Boyden: Well we used to have these flat Irons you know, they used to heat on the stove. You put a handle on them and then you could iron.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so now this was a coal stove?

Chloe Boyden: A coal stove yes.

Jon Duncan: Now was this coal stove also used to heat the house?

Chloe Boyden:Y es

Jon Duncan: Now how cold were the winters?

Chloe Boyden: The winters were quite cold. But I don’t think as cold as they care now, I really don’t.

Jon Duncan: Was the house insulated?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, It was all insulated.

Jon Duncan: What I am getting at is, did the stove heat the house fairly well?

Chloe Boyden: Well the stove heated the house but in our place in the back we had another stove, potbelly stove they call them, and then in our living room we had a potbelly stove.

Jon Duncan: So you had a few stoves around the house.

Chloe Boyden: That house was quite warm yes.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now I want to go back a little bit and talk to you about some of the different dances that they would have had in Stirling. Did they have the Green and Gold ball back then?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, they had a Green and Gold ball and I was queen of the Green and Gold ball.
 
Tape 2 Side 1
 
Jon Duncan: Okay, we were talking about the Green and Gold Ball and I had to change the tape. You were elected queen?

Chloe Boyden: In 1911 she was honoured by being clothed ward carnival Queen from many other contestants.

Jon Duncan: This was you and this was in 1931

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Is this what you meant by being the Queen of the Green and Gold ball?

Chloe Boyden: Queen of the Green and Gold Ball yes.

Jon Duncan: Now who were you chosen by?

Chloe Boyden: I was chosen by judges that came from Lethbridge and different places. We had two or three judges come down and they I was chosen from that.

Jon Duncan: So who was the king?

Chloe Boyden: Well, I had to choose my own king. When I was crowned Queen of the Green and Gold ball upon the stand I had to say which one of the folks I wanted for my king. So I chose my boyfriend which was Rulon Litch from Magrath.

Jon Duncan: So you were going with Rulon Litch at the time.

Chloe Boyden: Rulon Litch from Magrath.

Jon Duncan: Now tell me what were these balls like?

Chloe Boyden: They were marvellous, they had such wonderful orchestras. They just didn’t have some old band. I was talking about the rhythm kings. They would bring those up from down there for those dances. Mark Kenny played many times in Stirling for the dances. There would be so many people from Lethbridge come down to the dances in Stirling because they were such good dances.

Jon Duncan: Okay interesting, now besides the green and gold ball, that was run by the ward?

Chloe Boyden: It was a church activity yes, now besides that dance what were some of the other big dances, we had all kinds of different dances, and I don’t know that they were named anything.

Jon Duncan: But there were dances always?

Chloe Boyden: Almost every Saturday night.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now what were some of the other big social events in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: Well one was the old timer’s party.

Jon Duncan: Your dad ran that, is that right?

Chloe Boyden: Ya, that is right, my dad was president of that thing.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever serve in that?

Chloe Boyden: No

Jon Duncan: What about July 24^th?

Chloe Boyden: July the 24^this very nice; they used to have lots of entertainment on July the 24^th. They used to have ball games, horse races, running. I was a good runner.

Jon Duncan: Did you compete in some of the races?

Chloe Boyden: Oh I competed in the races. My uncle Louis, my dad brother, he used to come down and he would always bet on me or bet on Edward for winning the race. He would bet five dollars. Then afterwards if we won he would give us the five dollars to spend for the day.

Jon Duncan: So he had an incentive to win.

Chloe Boyden: But I will tell you who used to run against me. It was Emily Zaugg. Do you know Emily? She had such great big long legs. She and I were always racing against each other.

Jon Duncan: Who usually won?

Chloe Boyden: Well I was smaller than she was and I could go a little faster than she did. She was quite heavy you know.

Jon Duncan: So sometimes she won and sometimes you won?

Chloe Boyden: That’s right

Jon Duncan: Okay, now you know, on these Stirling days, what kind of things would you spend your money on?

Chloe Boyden: Well they always had ice cream. I used to like these little gum drops so I would always go and hunt for the gum drops.

Jon Duncan: Did thy have a rodeo during these celebrations?

Chloe Boyden: No, I don’t thing so.

Jon Duncan: So there was no rodeo, do you remember ball games?

Chloe Boyden: Well they had a ball game, Farrell, Lilly’s husband; he used to pitch the ball. He would be the pitcher for Stirling ball team.

Jon Duncan: Now would all of Stirling come out to watch these games?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, they used to play against New Dayton. They used to play against Spring Coulee. They used to play against Magrath. Those are the ones that dad used to take us to the ball
game. They used to have a beautiful ball team in New Dayton.

Jon Duncan: Now were basketball teams as big back then?

Chloe Boyden: I don’t remember about basketball but I do remember going to see the basketball games. But I don’t know too much about them.

Jon Duncan: Alright, what about July 1^st?

Chloe Boyden: July the 1^st, well I don’t know. I don’t remember July the 1^stbut I do remember July the 24^th.

Jon Duncan: That was the bigger celebration?

Chloe Boyden: Much bigger.

Jon Duncan: Now I have also been told that Christmas was a big time.

Chloe Boyden: Christmas was a lovely time. They used to have Christmas dances, the Christmas dances were gorgeous. So many people used to come from Stirling or Lethbridge down to Stirling to the dances but they used to put on a children’s dance. We would go there and dance. I remember people coming and dancing with me when I was at the children dance; they taught me how to dance.

Jon Duncan: They taught you how to dance.

Chloe Boyden: They taught me at the children’s dance yes.

Jon Duncan: Describe these children dances, what would happen?

Chloe Boyden: Well they would have square dances, they would have Virginia Reels, and they would have different types of dancing. The Prize Waltz, they used to have a prize waltz and
everybody tried for the prize waltz.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so this was a bog occasion. Now on Christmas day, the kids went all around town looking at everyone’s presents.

Chloe Boyden: No, they come just to the dance hall and then after the dance, after they were danced all out then Santa Clause would come and he would give them their presents. They would all march up in front of Santa Claus and he would give them their presents, he would take them on their lap and talk to them. But that was the main thing was Santa Clause would come. After we had danced all we wanted and had something to eat, that is when Santa Clause would come.

Jon Duncan: Sounds like it was a big occasion then.

Chloe Boyden: It was, a lovely occasion.

Jon Duncan: Now were the Chautauqua still in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: Oh, the Chautauqua’s were there, my dad was the instigator in getting the Chautauqua’s there. I think that they were wonderful. I remember once when they were on the school yard and set up their tents on the school yard. I remember I was in one of Elodia’s plays, I was a little blind girl and a man came to the door and he had been in a plane accident and wanted help. Wanted me to call the doctor, so I knew where to doctor was but I couldn’t see. So I went over to, this was in the show, I went over and I knocked on the door and I told him that there was a man there than had been in a plane accident and then I fainted on the floor. I was supposed to faint on the floor. So the Chautauqua man was there, watching all of this going on when Elodia was putting on the show. He said that is not the way that she is suppose to faint. If she has got to faint, make people know that she is fainting. So he comes up and he showed me. The old stage had slivers in it you know. He came up and he showed me. He made me faint about twenty times until I got it right. By the time that I had got up there was slivers in my arm from that old floor. He got me to know how to faint.

Jon Duncan: You had to get all of the slivers in you arm to know how to do it. Now would the Chautauqua’s come every year.

Chloe Boyden: I don’t think that they came every year. They could have done but I don’t remember them coming every year.

Jon Duncan: Were they quite popular?

Chloe Boyden: Yes they were, they sold ticket after ticket after ticket. Some of that stuff in that Chautauqua was far better than the stuff that they put on now. There were acrobats swinging from one person to another. You just couldn’t believe it.

Jon Duncan: So it was like a circus with acrobats?

Chloe Boyden: It was a lot like a circus yes. They would have horses and the people would ride on these horses all the way around the tent just standing up on the horses.

Jon Duncan: Okay, traveling theatre groups came through Stirling also.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Were they part of the Chautauqua or were they separate?

Chloe Boyden: I think that they were separate.

Jon Duncan: Do you remember any of these groups?

Chloe Boyden: No I don’t

Jon Duncan: Just remember them coming through okay. Well I would like to talk then a little bit about the Church in Stirling. Stirling has always been a Mormon town.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: What was it like growing up in a Mormon town?

Chloe Boyden: I loved it in fact I wish hat I was back.

Jon Duncan: Why is that?

Chloe Boyden: Well it is a lot different here but you know if I went back I would find it different because there is no one living in Stirling that lived there when I did.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so it has changed then. Okay now you say, last time that I talked to you, you spoke about building the brick church. The young women had to paint the benches.

Chloe Boyden: Well it was our mutual and when they had that church they had to have them varnished. I guess that it was varnished or stained. The mutual girls went over and painted all of those benches in the Church.

Jon Duncan: That was your contribution.

Chloe Boyden: That is my contribution to the church yes.

Jon Duncan: Talking about the church now were there many non members in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: Very few.

Jon Duncan: How were they treated?

Chloe Boyden: I think that they were treated well; I know there was one family by the name of Bessam, Henry Bessam. He would come out to everything. Then there were some Japanese that lived there and they would come to everything. In fact when they old folks party was on he was the oldest man there and they honoured him highly. They were treated well. This is, he lives out of Stirling a ways, they house is still there on the way to Lethbridge. They are not there now but anyway when he husband died she wasn’t a Mormon but she wanted to go to Stirling and live in Stirling instead of staying in that big house alone. So the people in Stirling paid for her rent to go and live in Stirling. She died in Stirling and she wanted to be buried in Stirling so that is where she was.

Jon Duncan: So Mormons and Non-Mormons got along fairly well then.

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, I think they do with everybody, don’t you. For instance in Lethbridge here the Mormons have a canning group and they go and can 900 cans of stuff to go and give to the Salvation Army. Salvation Army isn’t Mormons.

Jon Duncan: You told my before you dad had a choir.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, my dad had a choir long before George Oler ever had one. I was only five years old when my dad had a choir. He only had it for a few years but George Oler used to be the choir leader and this was long before George Oler. He had a choir and I remember going, they would take me, I was only five years old over to the church to listen to him practice the choir. He and mother would take me over there.

Jon Duncan: Now you wrote a poem about that choir?

Chloe Boyden: I wrote a poem about my dad’s choir. Should I say it?

Jon Duncan: Sure

Chloe Boyden: On earth my dad had a choir, of thirty voices in all. How that lovely singing echoed through the church house. I love my dad’s choir with their many voices ringing. And how I wish I was old enough to be among them singing. I sometimes feel that I can hear dad’s heavenly choir singing. I hear my mother’s lovely Alta voice so melodiously ringing. I hear Alta’s horn so loud and clear and Elodia at the keyboard. How proud my dad seems to be to be singing for the lord. Hildon, Alta, Mont, Ken, Ettle and Ed are joining in with glee. When I arrive I will sing with my family.

Jon Duncan: That is a beautiful poem, it really is. What kinds of things did your dad have to do in the church?

Chloe Boyden: He had a choir, he had a band. When my father died Gilmore Oslam, a lawyer here in Lethbridge spoke at his funeral. He said I have never heard nor ever had a Sunday school teacher that taught as good as Neil’s Peterson.

Jon Duncan: So your dad taught Sunday school then.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, sometimes he would play for our mutual. If somebody didn’t show up they would get dad to play for the mutual.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now your dad also served as the mayor.

Chloe Boyden: He was mayor of Stirling, he was the municipality. He is the instigator of having that road from Coutts to Lethbridge grated and gravelled.

Jon Duncan: Highway four

Chloe Boyden: Yes, highway four. He is the one that did it, he made many trips up to Edmonton and Calgary before they got that road started.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now do you remember him as the Mayor.

Chloe Boyden: Oh sure, I remember him as the mayor.
Jon Duncan: What was it like to have your dad as the mayor?

Chloe Boyden: It was fine but I was married then. After my dad was mayor then Elton my brother, became mayor of Stirling.

Jon Duncan: Elton lived in Stirling for quite a few years.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, he had a store there.

Jon Duncan: And Elodia Lived there also. Did most of the other kids leave, did they move to other places in Alberta?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes, Geneva, my sister Geneva, moved to Provo Utah. Elodia and Elton and Mont and Kenneth and Alta stayed here.

Jon Duncan: So there were some kids that moved away and some stayed. Okay, now I guess I want to go on to talk about your dating and your meeting Russell and getting married. As a teenager did you date often?

Chloe Boyden: I did quite often.

Jon Duncan: What would you do for a date?

Chloe Boyden: Well we would always have something to do around Stirling. They used to have shows in the old schoolhouse.

Jon Duncan: The brick schoolhouse

Chloe Boyden: No, not the brick one, the other church, the very old one.

Jon Duncan: The white church.

Chloe Boyden: Yes, they used to have shows there. So we would go to the shows and a lot of people would put on shows. We did a lot of things; we would go to dances in Raymond and different places.

Jon Duncan: Are you talking about the silent films?

Chloe Boyden: These were like Albert Candy, the Mout near Craddok; he was good at putting on different shows. So he used to put on a lot of these shows and get a lot of people from Stirling to
act in them. He wasn’t a good director but it was some place for us to go.

Jon Duncan: So these were live productions. Okay, so you had a few boyfriends before Russell. How did you meet him?

Chloe Boyden: We were up here in Lethbridge; he went to collage with my bother Edward. We were out here in Lethbridge one day and Edward saw him riding down the Sidewalk so he said, there is Russell. So he called to him, Russell came back and Edward said, listen, why don’t you come down for the weekend and stay at our place. He said well maybe I will. So then he looked at me and he said I am coming down to Stirling this weekend and I said well, Ed will be glad to have you here. He said no, I am telling you I am coming down to Stirling. I knew what he meant. That is how I met him.

Jon Duncan: Now he was from Wilson Siding?

Chloe Boyden: Wilson siding yes.

Jon Duncan: Now after you had met him and he visited you in Stirling, how did you two keep in contact?

Chloe Boyden: Well he was in Wilson Siding; he was in the elevator there. Then he kept coming down to Stirling to see me. Then Elodia got into some of her plays.

Jon Duncan: So he gradually had more contact with you.

Chloe Boyden: More contact all the time.

Jon Duncan: Now how long did you two go together?

Chloe Boyden: We went together before we were married for two or three years before we were married.

Jon Duncan: So how did he propose?

Chloe Boyden: He said I would love to have a little Mormon girl to live with, to be my wife. I said well there sure are a lot of Mormon girls around here. He said yes, but I want someone something like you. I said well you could find a lot of them like I am so he said would you be my wife. I said yes.

Jon Duncan: So after that you went together and were engaged for a little while. Where did you marry him?

Chloe Boyden: We were married in Stirling at my Sisters place at Elodia’s place. She decorated up here lawn real beautiful. Put all of the tables and everything out there and that is where we were married.

Jon Duncan: Now who married you then?

Chloe Boyden: President Walker from Raymond.

Jon Duncan: He was the stake president.

Chloe Boyden:Stake president yes

Jon Duncan: Now was Russell a Mormon?

Chloe Boyden: No, he wasn’t then but I knew that he was going to be because before I married him he said he wanted to join the church.

Jon Duncan: You were married and now when did he join the Church.

Chloe Boyden: He Joined the Church about, well we moved from Stirling out to Wilson Siding because he was elevator agent there. Then we moved from there up to Orton, just a little place out of Fort Macleod. Then our Church was in Orton and we had a bishop there by the name of Leor and he got Russell to join the church. He baptised Russell in Cardston about four or five years after that.

Jon Duncan: Now were you married in the temple later than?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, we were married in the Manti Temple. We were married in the Cardston Temple first and then for the story about our family. When my mother and father came out here from Denmark they settled in Eleanor Utah. My mother and my father, grandma and grandpa Nelson came up here. When they came up here they wanted to join the church. They wanted to be in the temple and go to the temple. So my grandma and my grandpa, my mother and my father traveled by horse and buggy to Eleanor Utah and were married in the Manti Temple. After that Russell and I were married in the Manti Temple. After me, my daughter and her husband were married in the Manti Temple. Then Russell’s father and mother were married in the Manti Temple. Russell was sealed to his parents in the Manti Temple.

Jon Duncan: So the Manti Temple is special to your family.

Chloe Boyden: Yes it sure is because all of those marriages took place because two missionaries came on a mission to Denmark and converted them.

Jon Duncan: Now let me ask you this. How did your parents feel about you marrying a non-member?

Chloe Boyden: They loved Russell, just loved him. Russell told them at the time that we were engaged that he was going to join the church and they were just so happy and mother thought that there was just nobody quite like Russell.

Jon Duncan: Well tell me about your marriage ceremony. You say that Elodia decorated up the yard. Was there a big party?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, there was probably about fifty

Jon Duncan: Was there a big reception like there is today?

Chloe Boyden:Yes, we had everything to eat, fried chicken and everything.

Jon Duncan: You were married 1934.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: This was during the depression, was money tight?

Chloe Boyden: Not too much of a depression, of course I didn’t know too much about the depression because we never worried about the depression. Maybe my father and mother did but not me. So the wedding was actually very big and beautiful.

Jon Duncan: What did you wear?

Chloe Boyden: I wore a big long gown; I wish I had it here, Great big long dress with a beautiful hat.  Russell’s twin sister was my Brides made and Elodia was one of my Maid of honour and then Edward, my brother Edward went to school with Russell and he was the best man and then his brother was in the party too. It was all a great big thing.

Jon Duncan: Now who made the dress?

Chloe Boyden: I bought it

Jon Duncan: Where did you buy it from?

Chloe Boyden: I bought it from a store called Macarthur’s in Lethbridge. Mother and I came up and bought it.

Jon Duncan: Okay, you just came shopping one day in Lethbridge and picked out the dress. Alright, I wanted to ask you about some of the merchants and some of the stores around, now you say that your parents bought clothes from the Eaton’s Catalogue.

Chloe Boyden: That is when us girls were young, going to school he would bring the Eaton’s Catalogue and he would say now you pick out what you want for the winter. We would go through the Catalogue, we would pick out everything that we wanted and they would send and get it.
 
Tape 2 Side 2
 
Jon Duncan: Okay, so your father would just order what you wanted as clothes.

Chloe Boyden: Whatever we wanted we could have.

Jon Duncan: Now how did these materials come, on the train?

Chloe Boyden: They would come in at the Post Office.

Jon Duncan: Okay so you would order through the Catalogue and it would take a few weeks to come back. Alright, what about the Neal Brothers?

Chloe Boyden: The Neal brother used to be a company that used to come around and take odours for different like raisins or currants or dried fruit and everything. They used to come around and take your order. When they would come they would come in a great big wooden box. Everything, we had dried peaches, we had dried apricots, and we had dried everything.

Jon Duncan: So is that how your mother got her cooking supplies?

Chloe Boyden: Yes, that is her cooking supplies.

Jon Duncan: How often would these Neal Brothers come around?

Chloe Boyden: Well they would only come once a year because they would be so much in the box when they would come. They weren’t just little boxes they were great big boxes like this.

Jon Duncan: The Rawley man also came around?

Chloe Boyden: The Rawley man used to come around with medicines and stuff like that. We never bought much from the Rawley man.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now that reminds me of a question. When people got sick, was there a doctor in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: No there wasn’t, there was no doctor. We had do get our doctor from Raymond, Mr. McNally.

Jon Duncan: So people would either get the Doctor from Raymond or Go to Raymond.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who delivered the babies?

Chloe Boyden: Well we had a midwife there, which was Farrell’s mother. Farrell Christenson’s mother was the Midwife.

Jon Duncan: Do you know who delivered you?

Chloe Boyden: I was delivered in Lethbridge here.

Jon Duncan: In the hospital?

Chloe Boyden: No, not in the hospital, A Doctor from Lethbridge here.

Jon Duncan: Delivered you as a baby.

Chloe Boyden: But Farrell’s mother used to deliver a lot of Mothers Babies.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now what about health care? You know how health care is today. What was it like back then?

Chloe Boyden: Well there was no Health Care, not that I remember. I don’t remember anything about a health care business.

Jon Duncan: So there was no health care system. How did people deal with health issues?

Chloe Boyden: There was a Doctor, McNally, from New Dayton. Now he didn’t do much doctoring but he could take care of things. My mother had Gal Stones Quite badly and he gave her a prescription to buy. Eudora Oler’s Sister also had Gal Stones. First he gave it to Eudora Oler’s sister and then she gave it to Mother. It is called Marlotts Treatment. So mother took this medicine and she had to go to bed and stay for three or four days. She passed a lot of Gal Stones, They dissolved and she passed a lot of Green Gal Stones from that Medicine. She never had Gal Stones again. It is called the Marlotts Treatment I can remember the name so plain.

Jon Duncan: Who sold the drugs and the Pharmaceuticals in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: There was no drug store.

Jon Duncan: So where would you get your medicines

Chloe Boyden: You would have to come to Lethbridge and get it.

Jon Duncan: Alright, I just have a few more questions Chloe. You came back to Stirling for the designation ceremony. What changes have taken place since?

Chloe Boyden: So much, even my sister’s home was different and our home was different. There are so many beautiful homes in Stirling now but they weren’t there before, when we lived in Stirling. Every body has added on to their house. Now as far as the graveyard is concerned, the Graveyard used to be just a hole. But since then we went to see my Fathers and Mothers grave, and my grandmothers and grandfathers grave In Stirling. The graveyard is kept up so nicely, whoever did that I don’t know. Whoever was the instigator of getting water and things in there.

Jon Duncan: Well what about the lot sizes?

Chloe Boyden: They looked about the same to me.

Jon Duncan: The houses were more spread out back then?

Chloe Boyden: Oh yes they were more spread out but they made another lot there. When are they going to start that Museum?

Jon Duncan: I am not sure exactly when they will work on the Michelson home. Now I wanted to ask you also how do you feel about being a Canadian.

Chloe Boyden: I am very proud of being a Canadian. When those people got up and gave those speeches and when the Olympics were on and that Canadian flag went down there. It is the most beautiful flag of all of the flags in the world. I was so proud to think that I was a Canadian.

Jon Duncan: So you have deep feelings toward your Country. 

Chloe Boyden: Very much

Jon Duncan: What about the province of Alberta?

Chloe Boyden: Well the province of Alberta is fine, I like it. Atleast we are getting out of debt. That is the main thing.

Jon Duncan: So you support these policies to get out of debt. Okay, now have you always been politically active?

Chloe Boyden: I have always liked politics. Like my uncle Jim, he used to be the barber.

Jon Duncan: In Stirling

Chloe Boyden: You know where Rawl Davis is, there used to be a Barber shop there. That was my Uncle Jims barber shop.

Jon Duncan: Did he cut your hair?

Chloe Boyden: No, he cut the other peoples hair but he was so politically minded that he was so new politics so much that he would cut their hair and cut almost all of it off while he was arguing about politics.

Jon Duncan: What political parties do you support?

Chloe Boyden: I would support Cline again.

Jon Duncan: So provincially it is the Conservatives, what about nationally?

Chloe Boyden: Well I am not so fussy about Cretan. But at least he is trying to do his best.

Jon Duncan: How do you feel about the liberals?

Chloe Boyden: The liberals, well my dad have always been a liberal or a social credit. Elodia was a liberal, but as far as I am concerned they are okay but I would rather have another party.

Jon Duncan: Now your dad you say was social credit. Do you remember when William Aberheart became premier?

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: What was that like?

Chloe Boyden: William Aberheart, he was a good primer, a real good primer. My dad loved him. He did money back, so he took a lot on his plate which seemed to be the thing.

Jon Duncan :Now is that a poem that you wrote?

Chloe Boyden: No

Jon Duncan: You just remember that

Chloe Boyden: That was one that people put on the shows in Stirling, Albert Candy that is what he did.

Jon Duncan: He wrote that, what did you think of William Aberheart?

Chloe Boyden: Well I didn’t know too much about him and at that time I didn’t care too much but at that time but he was okay. He was a good primer.

Jon Duncan: Did you vote back then?

Chloe Boyden: No

Jon Duncan: Did you care about voting? Do you vote now?

Chloe Boyden: Oh sure

Jon Duncan: So later on in your live the vote became more important.

Chloe Boyden: Yes

Jon Duncan: Why did the vote become more important to you later?

Chloe Boyden: Because I though more of my country then. That was the time that I started thinking about my Country.

Jon Duncan: You began to think more about Canada and that and you began to express your political views.

Chloe Boyden: Ya

Jon Duncan: Well I think that is about it. I want to ask you about how women were treated in Stirling?

Chloe Boyden: I think that they were treated well, we were all treated well, I don’t know of anybody that wasn’t. There were a few of them. A few of them got a divorce you know but their husbands
weren’t too good to them.

Jon Duncan: Other than that it was okay.

Chloe Boyden: That is my daughter; do you want to take anything about my daughter?

Jon Duncan: Ya, why don’t you tell me about your daughter?

Chloe Boyden: My daughter is the one who graduated from the Cardston high school in 1952. She got a scholarship in high school. So she got to go to the university when she was sixteen years old. She attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton Alberta and we received her teacher’s certificate in 1953. She taught school in Barnwell Alberta. In 1956 she entered the Brigham young University and graduated with a degree in Education in 1958. Then she also went to school she got her teachers degree, she taught ere and she got her degree in child physiology and then she wanted to go back to school again. So she went to school and took a business administration and then she got to be the administrator of the big hospital in Seattle. 

Jon Duncan: So she was a very successful woman. Was she your only child?

Chloe Boyden: She is my only daughter. She married William Brown Beach on June the 8^th1970. They had two children Nicky Knee Beach and then Michael Beach. Nicky her daughter now is a nurse at the hospital at Sitka Alaska.

Jon Duncan: How do you feel towards your family?

Chloe Boyden: He loves it, he is the best guy, and he is worth his wheat and gold.

Jon Duncan: This is your son in law. You must be a proud mother to see your daughter

Chloe Boyden: Not only does she do this, she goes to the temple once a week. She teaches music, she is music director for the state in LaConner where they live. She is also Music Director for the ward. 

Jon Duncan: So she us busy

Chloe Boyden: She hardly has time to breath.

Jon Duncan: Okay, well Chloe I think that we are done. I think that we have got a lot of things and I have enjoyed my time here. Why don’t I just shut this off and we will call it a day.

Chloe Boyden: Okay

Jon Duncan: Thank you

Chloe Boyden: You bet
 
Transcribed by Clinton Dovell