Interviewee: Dianne Barton
Interviewer: Jon Duncan 
 
Jon Duncan: Today is August 7^th1996, my name is Jon Duncan, and I am here with Dianne Barton, Dianne why don’t you introduce yourself.

Dianne Barton: Okay my name is Cheryl Dianne Barton and I am the daughter of Charles Edward Perrett and Elise May Perrett.

Jon Duncan: When were you born?

Dianne Barton: I was born November the 8^th1948

Jon Duncan: And you have lived here all of your life in Stirling.

Dianne Barton: Basically

Jon Duncan: Alright, let’s get started then, let me ask you about your father Charles first, what do you remember about him?

Dianne Barton: As I was growing up my dad was the ditch writer for the Raymond Irrigation District and he also had a farm just about two miles south of Stirling and at that time he did basically sheep. He rose sheep out there was the main thing and he did have a certain acreage that he did farm as well. As growing up this is partially what I remember.  Another sideline that he did in my younger years was he was a truck driver for Eulachon Transport over in Raymond.

Jon Duncan: You say that he was a ditch writer that was for water messaging.

Dianne Barton: Right.

Jon Duncan: And that was used for irrigation.

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you ever go out with him on the farm?

Dianne Barton: Ya, that used to be kind of something that at night time we would get to do with dad, he would go to check the canals and maybe shut down water levels and open the bid drain levers for stuff like that. That was kind of a pleasure thing for us where we maybe go and get a treat a night or something. It was a fun time.

Jon Duncan: Okay, did you help him clean these ditches?

Dianne Barton: No, basically anything that was in regards to that was, I remember uncle hennery was one of his men that worked on the irrigation ditch and he did a lot with him and stuff. Basically he just went along for the company and to be able to do stuff with dad is what it was for.

Jon Duncan: How far did he travel around in Sothern Alberta?

Dianne Barton: He went as far up as on the ridge and he went onto the other side of Welling. He had some ditches over there that he checked. And just out here towards the highway there heading down to Coutts was his area.

Jon Duncan: Was that an every night thing?

Dianne Barton: Yes, it was, the only time that he wasn’t basically involved with that that it involved every morning and during the day and at night. I think that they turned the water out usually about October 20^this the day that they usually got shut down and then cam in usually about April sometime, it was kind of a forgone conclusion that if there was anything that we had to do it was going to be done in the winter months.

Jon Duncan: Did his duties involve the Stirling irrigation system. 

Dianne Barton: Ya. He was responsible for the formers on the outlining area. Those were the ones that he correlated with to get them more water, or to shut things down. He just had to make sure that that was all taken care of and the water that people had, he correlated with it. The board over in Raymond, there was a board that he was responsible to and that. It was a good job for him and he did, as I recall from hearing everybody talk he was a very diplomatic person, tried to please and be fair to people and stuff like that. It wasn’t easy, you know when farmers needed water you know they needed it and they wanted it now. It was tough but he tried his best to be fair.

Jon Duncan: You say that he rode tractor machines?

Dianne Barton: Ya, he was a car hauler is what he would do. He would go down to Oshawa and down in that area and bring new vehicles back.

Jon Duncan: Was this something that he did before.

Dianne Barton: Yes, he did that before; I would imagine that was probably, I would have been fairly young, he may have done that probably up until I was eight or ten. Because I can remember him going on trips and mom and I would be there but of course in a small town you had lots of relatives around so you know you never had to worry about someone helping you out if you were gone for four or five days or something like that.

Jon Duncan: About when did he switch over to the Raymond irrigation district?

Dianne Barton: Oh, Jon you have got me on a time element, I know that in the Stirling book we have got it right down.

Jon Duncan: Were you very young still?

Dianne Barton: I think that I would have been about ten or so when he went over into that.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you were still a young girl. Now the farm was on the side?

Dianne Barton: As far as I know he just continued that his whole life. That was the main place out there, where the home place was and so he just always had land out there and I think that was always part of the inheritance. There was different pieces of land right there and there were different pieces of land that went to the brother or the sister. I think that he just farmed it out there and just continued to do that

Jon Duncan: Were his parents settled when they came up?

Dianne Barton: As far as I know that is where the main place was, where the barn and his name, now the house that they brought in to Stirling and then they just added on to it.

Jon Duncan: So he raised sheep mostly?

Dianne Barton:Ya, that was the main thing was, he had the sheep and like I said we had some harvesting of crops and stuff like that. I think that he had three sections of land that he did.

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

Dianne Barton: Ya, we did, we were involved a lot with going out and a lot with the sheep, and it was a lot like a big deal for us to bring
all of the bum lambs into town. We had this little carrel that we made at the side of the house. We had rigged up a thing where we would just poke seven or eight holes in it and fell all of them at the same time. Mom and I, we didn’t ever really farm, dad was a real firm believer that he really didn’t like mom or me to be out there doing stuff like that though we would help with the land. We would take the meals out to him when he was harvesting and stuff like that. Physical stuff he wasn’t really keen on us doing.

Jon Duncan: Did you have any special lambs at the house?

Dianne Barton: I did, I had Reuben and mom had one and its name was Longfellow. I had that lamb so trained that I could bring it in the house and I could put a blanket on one end of the couch and it would get up on the couch and sit on this blanket so that it would never get anything dirty and sit by me. I mean I did bathe it and keep it clean, it was very clean and when it got to be to big dad had talked me into the fact that it had to go out to the farm but it would never go out, we would keep it. About a year after we took it out to the farm it got pneumonia on winter and died. As young kids we would play ball in the lot that is right next to where the library is now. It was called the old teacherage and we would play ball in there and the lamb would be there. All the kids that were my age and it would run around the bases with me. The lambs were really an important part of my growing up because it was a sense of responsibility that I had to take care of, and that was my job. I am really partial to lambs and sheep, as stupid as they are.

Jon Duncan: What about sheep dogs did you have any sheep dogs?

Dianne Barton: Yes, his name was Tippy; it was a little miniature sheltie. We had that dog for years and it was really a special pet. We went to Texas for a visit to see mom’s family and while we were down there some other dogs got it and killed it. We had a family member watching it and it was kind of sad. We came home and it was killed. But we had her for years and years.

Jon Duncan: We talked a little bit about your dad, why don’t we talk about your mom for a little bit. What do you remember about her?

Dianne Barton: Well basically mom, I can remember being in the home for the biggest part of my growing up years. I think it wasn’t probably until I was maybe about seventeen or eighteen that she went to Lethbridge and got a job working at Kreskee’s. Might have been a little bit sooner than that but she worked in a lady’s store. But as I remember as I was growing up she was always in the home, very involved in the church callings and just really a neat mom but not so much that. It was just a really that she was a nice lady is how I remember her. Always with her friends, treated them very well, a very avid garden and rose grower, her yard meant everything to her. It showed, she had a beautiful yard, took great pride in her house and kept it real nice and just tried to make it a special place for all of us.

Jon Duncan: She always seemed to have a smile as I remember.

Dianne Barton:Ya, she had a lot of sicknesses and a lot of and she got this rumatard arthritis and it really played havoc with her able to go out in the yard. I can always remember that she crochet and knitted and he hands would be so hurting that you would do these wax treatments where you melt the wax and put it around her hand and it would take some of the pain away and as soon as you would do that she would get the crochet hook out and she would just crochet for all she was worth until it starting hurting. But she never complained, I don’t ever really recall her being negative or saying I can’t stand this it was just always I am uncomfortable. She would just go on, she was really kind of an inspiration to me to kind of help me in my years when you think and you remember that.

Jon Duncan: Was she in charge of the house work?

Dianne Barton: Ya, there was always a philosophy with them and I think that it has really helped me to see thing clearer, she did think that my dad was not afraid to help her out. There was no understanding that he just did what she was suppose to do and she did hers. There was nothing like that he was willing to help her and vice versa. He just treated her like she was just, and he didn’t think that it was fitting that she be out there doing a mans work but he also gave her a lot of his time in and around the yard to help out with rubbing rocks and flowerbeds and stuff like that. It wasn’t just a one thing; it was quite a shared thing at the house.

Jon Duncan: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Dianne Barton: I have two brothers and one sister.

Jon Duncan: What are their names?

Dianne Barton: Robert Dale and Charles Floyd and Velma Gwenden.

Jon Duncan: Were they much older than you?

Dianne Barton: Let’s see, Gwen was the youngest and I believe that Gwen was twelve years older than me and I thin that there was two
years between the two of them so it would have went twelve years, fourteen years, sixteen years.

Jon Duncan: So Chuck was your oldest brother.

Dianne Barton: Right I think Charles was born in 1931.

Jon Duncan: Before we move on to them I wanted to ask you how did your parents meet? How did they get married?

Dianne Barton: As far as my recollection of them telling their stories, Dad was on a mission down in Nebraska and that is where Mom was. She was from Enders Nebraska. Evidently her parents were very well known for taking in the missionaries and helping them out and feeding them like they ask a lot of people to do now days. I guess that Dad and his companion Moms parents quite often and of course Mom and her other two sisters and their brother. They would have a real good time going over and teasing these but as far as I understood that these three girls they would just have a ball with them. It just seemed that at the time Mom was engaged to a Catholic fellow. She always tells the story of how they would hang their stockings over the rod in the bathroom to dry their nylons and how expensive they were back in those days. It was a real treat to actually have them and she came home one night and he had knotted her nylons in the bathroom to play a joke on her and I guess it got her quite railed up. He joked with her and said to go to her catholic boyfriend and just have a good time about it. I guess that they kind of had a shine and an eye for each other. So he told her when he went back home that he was going to come back date her and win her over. Sure enough he did, he went back there and I guess that is all it took and ended up proposing to her.

Jon Duncan: Do you know the date that they were married?

Dianne Barton: They were married January the 15^th1930

Jon Duncan: They would socialize in Stirling.

Dianne Barton: Ya, there was a group of them back then that as I recall it was probably a lot that they, it seems to me that it was a Bishop thing and then they were in the Sunday school and it always seemed that they always got together and couples of five or six and they would play rook and they had it seemed that every year someone was having a new years eve party at their place. It was either one year they would be at ones and then the next year they would take turns. It was the thing back then, that is what they did for entertainment, was you got together and you brought the friends over and you stayed home and played games. Went to the church and do the church dances and so as I remember it was always lots of fun, people coming over and people coming over to their place. It was kind of neat.

Jon Duncan: These engagement parties continued, you remember them.

Dianne Barton: Ya, as I was growing up it would have been in the area that we were in it would have been Boyd and Grace Nelson and there was Ken and Virginia Peterson and dad was in the Bishop Prick so then that put that put Farrell and Ella Nelson, Ruth and Ferris Zaugg, then you had the Secretary. It was always Zelda and Boyd Hirschie. Clifford and Dorthy and it kind of mushroomed. My mom belonged to a club to, it was a women’s club and so those women were all still getting together. They would have Christmas parties with their husbands and that. I just remember as growing up that it wasn’t an uncommon thing to at least once a week be at someone’s house with you parents playing cards and you doing something with their children. It was picnic or barbecue. Christmas, I think that especially that time was a lot of visiting and going to one another’s homes.

Jon Duncan: Christmas was big

Dianne Barton: Ya, real big.

Jon Duncan: Tell me about Velma and the ice cube.

Dianne Barton: This is kind of fun, they had a new years ever party and my dad was always one for practical jokes and I remember this very vividly and he had a plastic ice cube that had a fly in the middle of it. It was a gag ice cube that he bought at some place and they had poured all of these drinks and made sure that they gave Velva the one that had the ice cube with the fly in it. These men were sitting around fully aware of what my dad had done and just waiting for her to drink her drink and get to the bottom of it. I remember as a kid being there you know, it was later on at night and it was getting time for the screaming and hollering and Velma was drinking this drink and got to the bottom. All of the sudden she flipped out and started screaming and jumped around showing everyone what was in her ice cube. These men were all just absolutely loving it but that was just the kind of fun that they had that I remember making me envious of the good times that we really don’t have anymore that they did.

Jon Duncan: Alright, I want to change direction here a little bit, who were your childhood friends?

Dianne Barton: Let’s see here, I hung around an awful lot with Coleen Hardy, Bev Shaufert were some of my real close friends. Right next door to me was Colleen Hogenson who was my cousin. But we did an awful lot together because of course we were right next door. For friends I did awful lot with Tommy Nilsson and Roger Schnor who were both neighbours and then Brain Eaves and Bruce Hirschie. We did lots together.

Jon Duncan: What were some of the games that you played?

Dianne Barton: We did a lot of baseball playing and of course the school was right across the field from me and so we used the school ground a lot for doing stuff. Roger had a horse named Sparky and so we rode his horse and then swimming was a real big thing when I was little, that is just when I had the older pool that was down there and it was brand new. Summer was swim day and night the minute that it opened until it closed. Winter was skating over at Maggie’s lake, they would have a pond over there and Dad would usually take over a tractor and scrape it off and get it ready. We did a lot of that over there.

Jon Duncan: Did you skate down in the coulee?

Dianne Barton: No, basically what we did was skated on Maggie’s lake because it was right close to us and they had that and then they also had another skating rink for another couple of years that was down kind of where the Lunns live now, it was right next to them. They tore that down some years after but we u8sed to skate over there too.

Jon Duncan: Where was this Maggie’s lake then?

Dianne Barton: Maggie’s lake was right across the street and down on the corner from the Lions community center.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Second Street.

Dianne Barton: It was over kitty corner from Velma Perrett.

Jon Duncan: Yes

Dianne Barton: Ya, that’s right where it was, that is Maggie’s lake.

Jon Duncan: So that is where kids skate.
Dianne Barton: It held enough water there that it froze and Parrett’s would be responsible for coming and scraping it off with a tractor or shovels and that.

Jon Duncan: Did the girls and the guy’s just play together all of the time?

Dianne Barton: Basically, I don’t remember too much of, I wasn’t much of a doll, sit down and play with dolls. I wasn’t really into that very much and as I recall the kids did an awful lot of chumming together and stuff like that. It would be in comparison to you and the Bickman kids on your block, how you did. Little Brothers, and Little Sisters, I didn’t have any so I just kind of rooted around with everyone is how it was.

Jon Duncan: Let me ask you this too, when you were young, did you have to work around the house at all?

Dianne Barton: Ya, there were chores. I would say that when I was growing up when I would have been twelve when they started taking care of me and there would have been around, say about six, eighteen nineteen. So we are talking about six or seven when she is leaving. I believe that by that time Chuck and Bob were getting ready to go on the mission and I thin that Bob was married so it was basically me by myself. You know as I got up, I am sure that as I was little I didn’t have to do much of anything. As time went on you know Mom tried to teach me lots of things. She tried to teach me with cooking and that wasn’t really a great success because I wasn’t really into it but I wasn’t at all unobservant of what she was trying to teach me. I could tell that as I got older it wasn’t hard to remember and pick up on stuff that I had seen her do.

Jon Duncan: When we talked earlier she seemed to me to be like a second mother to you.

Dianne Barton: Ya Jon I think that what happened was Gwen got married and because of what Frank did he was involved with Kreskee’s and so it meant transfers and they went out further out into Alberta and then they went out further east. She was gone for some time, and then she came back to Alberta in this area and that’s when Gwen and I got to be really, really close and so I was older then. By that time Mom was on in her years and that. She was there for me and of course as It came on and they came back to Stirling that is when Mom was not real well and that. So in fact I think that when they did make it back to Stirling I think that Mom had passed on my then. So Gwen took on a real mother figure to me.

Jon Duncan: What do you remember most about her?

Dianne Barton: Ill tell ya, that was a sister like no other sister. She was a sweet, kind-hearted lady; she was always willing to give up her time. I can remember when I was in Medicine Hat, anything that she could come down and help do when I married and when we had different special occasions. They were always right here for it and helping out and bringing food and making things for me and coming to do stuff. She was a good lady, hard working lady. 

Jon Duncan: Chuck was your oldest Brother, by the time that you were old enough to remember him, he would have been getting ready to go on a mission.

Dianne Barton: Ya, it seems to me that’s about time point of it, I can remember us going out to the highway and seeing that there was a bus that stopped and this is where you would put the missionary on and you would go from there. We went out there and put him on this bus to send him off. I can remember Mom having missionary books of Charles that she had. So that was kind of exciting.

Jon Duncan: What was Chuck like?

Dianne Barton: Charles was a little like a male Gwen, he was kind hearted and anybody in town that knew Chuck knew that. That had anything to do with him in regards to school bus driving or anything else. He was just the kind of guy that you couldn’t stand to see anybody not having fun or going without something like that. He showed that kindness all through the years. He made sure that there was never a kid that went without. If anybody went in to eat, everybody went in to eat. He was fun; you know Charles was a lot of fun. He also during his life time there are things that we all go through and struggle with but I don’t think that he made that aware to people. He just handled that real well and like a lot of other people do. He just tried not to burden other people with his problems. He always tried to be happy when he was around them. That is a nice thing to remember about your family.

Jon Duncan: He worked at Marquardson’s garage.

Dianne Barton: Right, he worked for Hubert Marquardson, it was a messy Ferguson dealership I think is what it was. He worked there for years. 

Jon Duncan: Did you ever go over there?

Dianne Barton: Yes, we would go over all of the time and visit with him. In fact the pool hall that I was mentioning there, the first time that I was ever really wanting to go in there and Charles took me over there just to see what it was like and it was just a discussing place I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to be there so much. That was just his feeling to let me know that it was just a discussing place, Men playing cards, playing pool and the language would just be terrible. I wanted to see what it was like and so he took me and showed to me and let me play around the pool table a little bit. It wasn’t a big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. You know, you are always curious about that.

Jon Duncan: Was this the only time that you ever went into there.

Dianne Barton: Basically as young girls we had to walk by it a thousand times and when the guys your age were in there you had to let them know that you were alive and kicking. I am sure that we were by it constantly. 

Jon Duncan: Okay, so this was the only time that you were ever in the pool hall was when he took you in there to see what it was like.

Dianne Barton: No, I am sure that I was in there other times; I am just trying to forget that I ever was. As I recall I don’t think that the girls really did go in there very much.

Jon Duncan: Dale was your, this was your bob, what do you remember about him?

Dianne Barton: Lets se, what do I remember about him, he also was a truck driver, like my dad. He lived in Stirling for a few years; he lived where Erick Gocksly lives. Probably not a lot that I can tell you about bob because him and I didn’t really get along all that great, it hasn’t been the greatest kingship over the years to be perfectly honest with you.

Jon Duncan: So Chuck and Gwen were the ones that you were closest to.

Dianne Barton: Basically and it is really unfortunate because as you go through the years and you get a little bit older, I guess that when you are younger you don’t see things quite as plainly and as clearly as you do when you get older. It is too bad because families are important but sometimes, some members just don’t get along and that is the way that it is with Bob and me. I had more to do with Chuck and Gwen, I think that is a big part, with them both being here in Stirling.

Jon Duncan: Okay and you actually did have quite a few family members in Stirling

Dianne Barton: Yes because Chuck had a couple of his lived here and Scott is in Coaldale. Gwen had a daughter that was close by and Stuff like that. You have got your aunts and you uncles; I had them and my cousins so it was quite a few people around.

Jon Duncan: So your neighbours were Bill and Louie Hogenson.

Dianne Barton: And that is my Uncle and Aunt

Jon Duncan: So what do you remember about Louie?

Dianne Barton: Aunt Louie, she was a really soft spoken, nice lady. She was kind of
 
Tape 1 Side 2 
 
Jon Duncan: Okay we were talking about your Aunt Louie, why don’t we just continue from there.

Dianne Barton: Okay, see Jon I was just going to say that she was the kind of lady that won the attention, kind of a grabber type of a person. She wasn’t always looking for praise of something like that. She was always a part of everything and was always a big help or very much involved but never sought out recognition or anything like that. She was a good mother and I remember her in many positions in the Church and always supportive of Uncle Bill and he was a busy man. He had positions to that took him away quite a bit with the church. She was just a nice aunt to have as a neighbour.

Jon Duncan: Were you over at the Hogenson house much?

Dianne Barton: Yes, constantly, their daughter and I were a year apart in age. So we played together an awful lot. We had a walkie talkie that runs from my mom and dads bedroom window to their bathroom window and we used that constantly to communicate whether one should come or the other should come or if we were fighting. We used it also to have out little temper tantrums on that. It was fun years growing up in that neighbourhood.

Jon Duncan: Okay, well why don’t we talk about your school years. How many grades did you attend?

Dianne Barton: I took up through grade twelve and then I took a second year to get some extra courses to be able to go on, In case I wanted to take some university.

Jon Duncan: Did you go to university?

Dianne Barton: I went to the Lethbridge Community Collage and took a medical Secretary course.

Jon Duncan: Okay so you went through high school and then went to Collage. How did you feel about school?

Dianne Barton: I liked it, I enjoyed the teachers, I had lots of fun I can remember, it sticks out vividly in my mind when Scott and I were looking through report cards he even chuckled about it, and Ellen Nelson had to write little comments on them for each report card. On this report card she put generally speaking, she put Dianne is generally speaking. Scott and I kind of looked at that and laughed, I don’t think that she meant it to be mean I was always visiting and socializing and seeing what everybody else was doing. My school years aren’t ones that I look back at with regret, in enjoyed it.

Jon Duncan: What kinds of subjects did you study?

Dianne Barton: Just the basics like your English, Math, Social; you had you phyzed of course. We didn’t really have back then near the courses that the kids are taking now. No options or anything like that it was al pretty basic, Chemistry, Biology and things like that. 

Jon Duncan: Who were your favourite teachers?

Dianne Barton: I had three real favourites, I liked, and Doug Christenson was the principal at the time when I was going to the school. Jack Hicken and a fella’s name was Duncan Galesbie. He came when I believe that I was in Grade Nine or ten and taught for a while. Those were probably my favourites. Good teachers fun men and treated you really good.

Jon Duncan: What was Jack Hicken like?

Dianne Barton: He was great, he was funny, and he was colourful. I don’t know how many people you will interview in town that had Jack for a teacher but I don’t think that many of them would come and say much different than me. He could take the English class and turn in into the most colourful thing I had ever experienced. The stories that he could tell ya, the cowboy stories, and all kinds of other stories, basketball stories and he was an interesting teacher and he made English a lot easier for me. It’s not a real gripping subject that you can, but he just made it a lot of fun for me. 

Jon Duncan: He was just starting out.

Dianne Barton: He was, he came I believe when he came him and Fern were newly weds. As I recall I think that I was in grade then when jack came. So I got him for the best part of my high school years. He was a basketball coach when I was cheerleading at the time. So we got to know Jack really well because we got to do many more away trips then they are allowed to do now.

Jon Duncan: Traveled for?

Dianne Barton: We went for tournaments, we went on overnighters, to Medicine Hat and they had provincials in Edmonton and that sort of thing. It was lots of fun.

Jon Duncan: Who would drive you to these?

Dianne Barton: Chuck

Jon Duncan: Really, he was going back then too.

Dianne Barton: Ya, so good old Charles, he was there during all of my quoting years. I would get on the buss I would take four steps and he would say excuse me, you know where your seat is. And of course it was right by Charles. Every once and a while o got treated and got to go closer to the back but basically I was pinned right up there at the front with him and Jack. It was a real experience.

Jon Duncan: Let me ask you this, what was discipline like back then?

Dianne Barton: I don’t even remember a physical aspect to discipline when I was back in school. Maybe I just wasn’t in, but I don’t remember in a big deal strapping’s, I just didn’t seem like there was a real need. When Doug was the principle, the kids really respected him, I think that there were some real good course teachers then, it just doesn’t seem like there was a whole lot of to the principals office or stuff like that at all. 

Jon Duncan: Were there any trouble makers?

Dianne Barton: Lets see, trouble makers, I think that you always have a certain amount of students that add a little bit of a spark you your school but even back them before I think that when we were talking the biggest thing in my school year was somebody drinking or smoking and I don’t think that it was anything more than that.

Jon Duncan: Now, you mentioned that you were a cheerleader, how long were you a cheerleader?

Dianne Barton: I cheerleader for five years, started in grade nine and went right through into that grade twelve year.

Jon Duncan: Were there any other girls in this activity?

Dianne Barton: We had a volleyball team for a while that Joe Stevenson coached, I think that we played the one year and then I think that the following year if I am not mistaken, I graduated and then they started a girls basketball team. Now we played lots of intermarries badminton and different things like that but they never competed with other schools. We had our own track and field day at Stirling school but basically it was just the boy’s basketball team and the cheerleading squad and the volleyball that was just I think within the county that we played teams. 

Jon Duncan: What was it like for you to be a cheerleader?

Dianne Barton: Fun, I had a lot of fun, that was probably a lot of exposure to think back then we were playing with like Magrath, Raymond, and Cardston that was my years of playing. Then we did the Lethbridge teams, Lethbridge Churchill, Emanuel Christen and stuff like that and so cheerleading was a big thing back then. It wasn’t the odd squad, it were an odd school if you didn’t have a squad. So you know that was great because you had your tournaments and you had your cheerleading competitions you got to meat lots of kids from other schools, it was almost like that was a social thing if you really wanted to be going and doing stuff, you had to be a part of something like that.

Jon Duncan: How good was Stirling’s team?

Dianne Barton: We won competitions a couple of times; I think that we won over in Raymond more than one year. I believe that we won in Cardston one year. There were some trophies up, I think they pulled a lot of the trophies down up at the school now but we had some trophies up there. I have got a couple of pictures of out squad up there holding trophies. I was cheer captain for a couple of years and that is you know, it a lot different from what the kids do now, I look at what the kids do now and I kind of think do we ever look weird and week compared to what they do. But back then it was a lot of physical work, we would go to school an hour and a half before school and practice. We took it real serious.

Jon Duncan: As a cheerleader did you have a few pep rallies in Stirling

Dianne Barton: It seemed like we had before our tournaments we had some, before provincials and before playoffs we had pep rallies. I can remember one in particular that stands out in my mind. It was when the beetles were really big. I believe that it was about four or five of us that got together that were on the cheer squad. We worked up this pep rally as if we were the Beatles and did it to that song ‘She Loves You’. And we incorporated it into the ball team. As a school we loved it. We had the whole thing, we had the drums set up and everybody had guitars and we were dressed up like the Beatles. It seems like not that I think we were more into a lot of things now than the kids are. They did more things back there, I don’t now if it was the teachers were younger and had a little bit more free time or that but I can remember we must have Averaged at least six dances a year at the school for every holiday that came up, weather it be Valentines, Christmas, Halloween, Spring Prom, Sadie Hawkins’ dance, Graduation, it was ever occasion that gym was just decorated to the night. We had lots of fun.
Jon Duncan: You did this for a lot of occasions.
Dianne Barton: Every one of them, good school back then, executives back then, presidencies, committees and that. I think that it is because we weren’t on the road to Letbridge as much, we made our own fun, and it was here in Stirling. The parents really participated well in it too. They were a big help.

Jon Duncan: In these small communities you didn’t travel to Lethbridge as much.

Dianne Barton: I can remember back then, it was kind of a treat that you did that kind of thing. We basically did ninety percent of our fun was we stayed right here at Stirling. 

Jon Duncan: What did you do when you went to Lethbridge?

Dianne Barton: I guess basically it would have been a show. I don’t remember hardly going to many things in Lethbridge. Maybe there was the odd dance that was up there or something like that. But I basically remember that everything that I did in my growing up years were right here in Stirling.

Jon Duncan: Let me just ask you before I forget, what was the Sadie Hawkins Dance?

Dianne Barton: Sadie Hawkins Dance is where the girls pursued the boy. So what you did there was every body came dressed like back in the day of Sadie Hawkins and stuff like that. What would happen is they would start this race and it would be in the School grounds and every boy would have a thing coming out of the back of his pocket and it was like a ripped off piece of material and if you grabbed that out of that boys pocket. That is who you took to the Sadie Hawkins dance that night. It was a fun event you know and they tried to have some guidelines like the boys couldn’t be to terribly mean to a girl but a lot of guys went to great lengths like throwing water balloons at girls to try and stop them from getting close to them. They would go on trees and they would go on top of buildings and there was a time limit, you only had this much time to catch a boy. If they would come back and you didn’t have one, but it was fun, most boys liked to be caught I think.

Jon Duncan: Did you do much dating back then?

Dianne Barton: Ya I did, yes, I loved dating, and I had fun. I was just as normal as anybody else, I liked boys and liked having boyfriends and stuff like that and so I had quite a few boyfriends during my high school years.

Jon Duncan: By boyfriends do you mean steady boyfriends?

Dianne Barton: Ya, I had steady boyfriends; I went steady with two or three different boys.

Jon Duncan: What would a date be?

Dianne Barton: A date sometimes would be as simple as a school party or them coming over to your place or, we really didn’t do a lot of different things. I guess that we did go into Lethbridge and get. I can remember Tom’s house of pizza was a big place when I was growing up. I guess that we would go in and they would do a pizza and stuff like that but I don’t remember that as being an all of the time thing. Nothing like it is now, we didn’t get the Tuesday night movies, you just went in on a Friday and maybe you didn’t do that again for three Fridays or so.

Jon Duncan: Did the boys have to come in and meet dad?

Dianne Barton: Well pretty well, the boys that I went with were all from here, dad probably new more than he wanted to know.

Jon Duncan: You actually weren’t in the school during the Hippie era, what effect did that have in Stirling?

Dianne Barton: I guess that you would have picked up on the trend of the clothes a little bit. I guess the hairstyles; I can remember the long hair with the part down the middle. Some times you wore the little band that went around your head and that. I really don’t think, other than that sort of thing and maybe some of the phrases at that time that people were using, I don’t think it really had a big effect on out school, I don’t think that any of the trends, even back then, as far as I can remember, I was just not aware of it. I still don’t think that back then you had to drug problem at all; I think that you had kind. I don’t think that it had come into Stirling at all at that time. In the regards to the kids getting caught up in it and that, I don’t think that it was strong enough in my period of time to have even got a hold. Our whole age group of guys and that, I think that a couple of years younger than men kind of got caught up in it but I don’t think that it really did much. I just don’t think that it was here yet, I think we were still, as simple as this may sound, I think that we were still too country type of a bumpkin type of thing. We just weren’t all up in the city and into that type of thing yet.

Jon Duncan: When you finished school, when you graduated school in Grade twelve you were at a point in your life where you had to make some major decisions. Where you were going to go to collage, those kinds of decisions, what were some of these decisions that you feel you had to make?

Dianne Barton: I think for me it was all of your friends, your caught up in the excitement of it, who is going where and what are you going to do, are you going to live at home or are you going to. For me it wasn’t really a big deal if I was going to go to the community collage. I was quite content to stay here in Stirling and I think part of it was that a fella I was going with was going to go the same collage that I was. So we could commute back and forth from school together. I kind of knew that I wanted to stay at the collage and I wanted to stay close, I had no desire to get out of Stirling or get away from my family, I was quite content staying around here and being with him for a year or two more. My decisions were easy to come by.

Jon Duncan: So basically choosing a collage was a major decision.

Dianne Barton: Ya, you had to decide where you would go and what you would take.

Jon Duncan: What about marriage?

Dianne Barton: At that time I don’t think that it was really something that I was thinking about. As I say I could have stayed that extra year because my birthday was late in the year. Me staying an extra year I was only eighteen when I left to go to collage. That wasn’t even a decision for me at that time; I wasn’t even ready to get married.

Jon Duncan: It was a few years

Dianne Barton: Ya, I didn’t get married until I was twenty one.

Jon Duncan: That was to Darryl

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you meet him in collage?

Dianne Barton: I met him in Lethbridge, I was living in a house where they had, and it was like a wide WCA it was a couple that ran it for all of these girls. I lived there while I worked at Automatic electric and he was dating a girl at the house where I was living and that is how I met him. Well the broke up and he would have always come over and play cards. We would play cards all of us every night. He just continued to come over and play cards and we just got to be friends and stuff like that. That is kind of how that developed.

Jon Duncan: Let move on a little bit here, the house that you grew up in was you always living there?

Dianne Barton: Yes that is when mom and dad started taking care of me up until the point that they adopted me until I got married that was the house that I had lived in all of my life.

Jon Duncan: And that was the house that you moved into.

Dianne Barton: Right

Jon Duncan: What was that house like?

Dianne Barton: When it first started off it had a way different from what it is now, it had a tiny porch on the south side and you know just your basic, a lot of the houses that I understand were starting from granaries. They were granaries that people had out at the farm and added to and stuff like that. This is basically a portion of the shape that it was then, years down the road mom and dad changed the whole from of it, changed the roof line of it. Had a fella come in from Raymond within the dead of winter and I can remember the fella had promised them that he could have that roof off and on and it would not be at any inconvenience to us in a matter of about a week’s time. Dad, knowing the fella and knowing his work and speed and knew that Caser would not tell some thing. I think it was November when they did it. You can see today that it is a house that would never suspect at that time was just kind of a box like thing that was brought in. Pictures from what it was and what it is today, it just looks like two totally different houses.

Jon Duncan: Did you have your own room in this house

Dianne Barton: Ya, I had my own bedroom and even that over the course of the years, you see additions and, add-ons and stuff like that. They added a big storage room of to the side of my house so you would walk through into my bedroom and off into this great big storage room that mom and dad had built on.

Jon Duncan: Let me ask you this, why did they live where they lived in town?

Dianne Barton: I don’t really know the reasoning behind that, why it was brought where it was unless back at that time it was just a matter of being up close to town. They couldn’t have gotten much closer if they had tried, they are right at the heart of everything.

Jon Duncan: Did you have an irrigati9on ditch running in front?

Dianne Barton: You bet ya, we had one right in front of our house that went right the length of the block, little tiny ditch. You had the pump that was right beside it and the hose that was right by it. That is where mom would always go out and pry this pump up and get it going. This is what we used to irrigate the lawn with and the garden with I can remember going out and making these little nets and trying to catch these little minnows in them. Walking in these ditches and soaking your feet in them. It was the kind of thing that you can honestly say it would be kind of neat; you would like to for your grandkids to be able to play in. It was just kind of fun.

Jon Duncan: So you remember the ditches as a young girl, you were also talking about last time they year that they put they put the water system in. What do you remember about that?

Dianne Barton: There were a couple of things that when we were talking about it. I can remember having our big end of the year party that we did. I was down there and had borrowed Calvin Metskers Motorcycle to come back up to my place to get something and he had just got it, it was brand new, I think that he had only got it about three or four days. As I was coming down the side of course they had Douglas trenching for the water and sewer so it was fairly deep and had piled the dirt up on the one side. A gentle man that wasn’t from Stirling was coming down the road and I don’t think that he realized that he was pushing me closer over, I don’t think that he realized what was on the other side of the dirt and I was kind of going up and had no choice. All of the sudden I was over the mound and down into the hole that they had dug and it had busted the mirrors as it went down and it cut the front of my leg up. I had about a hundred and something stitches in the front of my leg. It was interesting because Charles was on the corner working at that Marquardson’s at the time and heard this scream and came out. It was me who had gone down in there and here he was, he was the one who was suppose to be and he got so sick to his stomach because it had pealed everything back. All of the skin was lying there. He was supposed to be consulting me and I was the one telling him not to worry about it, everything was going to be okay. I kind of look back at that and chuckle and think of how cute that was but that will always be vivid to me and the fact that I had gotten these great big red boots for that following winter and they cam right up to me and how concerned my parents were that I was going to get them wreaked. Of course it was going to be mucky and gross right up into the winter months and I would get these boots and come up to school and wash them up and get them clean and then trudge back through it again. It was just fun, that was something that you correlate with that when you think of water and sewer.
Jon Duncan: What was it like to get this new water system?
Dianne Barton: It was neat, I think that was probably one of the first real steps in Stirling that I can honestly say that things were starting to get improved or get more modern or things like that. It was a big plus for Stirling.

Jon Duncan: Your parents had a cistern before then?

Dianne Barton: Yes, they had a cistern

Jon Duncan: Where were they getting their water before then?

Dianne Barton: I am not sure how we did that, come to think of it. I know that my dad would bring a truck with water and we would fill the cistern up.

Jon Duncan: So they had to haul it.

Dianne Barton: Ya, they had to haul it and I am not sure where they would get that from

Jon Duncan: So he wasn’t using the ditch water for a cistern?

Dianne Barton: I don’t think so; I think that we brought it in from somewhere.

Jon Duncan: Okay, let me ask you this, what was juvenile delinquency like in Stirling?

Dianne Barton: Well basically the thing that I can remember by dad probably being most upset about my time was gas stealing. With having tanks in your back yard and having kinds coming and getting gas from it. They would even siphon it out of your vehicles. That bothered dad probably more as an adult than as a kid I dint think much about it. I just don’t think that eve back then that we had very much stealing going on, that wasn’t really a concern; you would go to Lethbridge and leave doors wide open. It wasn’t so much that you were worried about someone coming in other than the once a year Halloween trickery that was going on, toilet tipping, toilet papering peoples houses. Just varied things like that, probably lots of egg and tomato throwing and a few street lights knocked out with rocks. I do as a general rule I do think that we didn’t have a very big problem with that b back then.
Jon Duncan: Was Perry Barton still the town constable back then.
Dianne Barton: I don’t think that he did it very much of the time. I think that he was there for maybe a little bit but not much while I was growing up. I don’t recall him being very involved in my growing up years. I heard lots of them and knew that but I don’t think that he was in place when I was a teenager.

Jon Duncan: Did they have somebody to enforce the law?

Dianne Barton: I think back then it was the RCMP that did their thing,

Jon Duncan: Okay, well I want to move on then, sports have always been a major part of your life

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: When did it become so big?

Dianne Barton: I think probably it Started off with basketball. In the early elementary going to all of the tournaments for our boy’s basketball team and you know of course back then we had some really good teams and also basketball was really big with the church. We had lots of teams that went down to Salt Lake for play offs and volleyball teams that went to Salt Lake. My brother was on one of them and I just think that you know going to it and it was a good day out, a good nigh out and I enjoyed watching it. As I got older, whether it be to participate or just for fun, as a cheerleader and that it was such an important part of what we did. It was such an important thing, it was part for families to go together and watch and do. We just pursued it right up until mason left on his mission. It was very important to us.
 
Tape 2 Side 1 
 
Jon Duncan: Okay, we were talking about basketball there and I had to switch the tape. Who was the best basketball player that you remember?

Dianne Barton: I probably remember back the era when it was Myron Eves, Richard Nelson and that whole group of boys and really become aware of what I thought was a good ball player. That is when I think that it instilled within me that I couldn’t wait to be a part of this and I couldn’t wait until I got older so it was basically at that age group of boys.

Jon Duncan: Did Stirling have some good basketball teams?

Dianne Barton: Really good, I can remember Doug Christenson taking them to the provincials, if I am not mistaken about four years in a row. Jack had some good teams while I was cheerleading, we went to Provincials. Went to a lot of tournaments, it has been, over all of the years, we have always have had some that have stood put and that has been good. That is fun to know that we have had talent in Stirling. 

Jon Duncan: Did Stirling have any tournaments?

Dianne Barton: As I recall in my years we hosted a tournament every year and at our tournaments that stand out for me more than the kids have now days it was a big thing. We had a room in the school where the mothers were provided with roast beef dinners, apple pie and ice cream desert. Any member of a team could come in and get a dinner there. On the Saturday night after the tournament that we had after the tournament was over. Trophies were giving just before the dance for most valuable player and all stars and if there was cheer squads we had a competition. It seemed to be a little bit bigger deal the tournaments were. There was defiantly more time and preparation put into it. Maybe because of all of the things that we’re involved in now days it is difficult to do that but back then it just seemed like the thing to do.
Jon Duncan: Who was Stirling’s big rival team?
Dianne Barton: I think that our big competition was always Raymond and Magrath and between the three of them there were always cheering really hard with Magrath. It was. We were in a different league back then than we are now. Status because of the size of your school, everything changed.

Jon Duncan: You have been involved in basketball for quite a few years with your children for quite a few years, what are some of the other sports that you have been involved in.

Dianne Barton: Well Scott and I coached baseball in Stirling, I coached Tina’s team for a couple of years and switched over and let somebody else do it, sometimes it seems like it is better. You can tell what would be better and it seemed that it would be better for Tina to have somebody else so we took her into Lethbridge; it was a little bit more competitive up there and not so much down here. Scott and I with Larry Nelson followed mason right through to his grade twelve year.

Jon Duncan: Did you play on Labels yourself?

Dianne Barton: Ya, I played on Stirling Women’s slow pitch team for probably about fifteen years.

Jon Duncan: How popular was that?

Dianne Barton: It was good, we really enjoyed it, again we did tournaments where I don’t think that the girls do that anymore and we did a tournament in the states and we would do a couple down here. It was more family oriented back then than it is now. Scott and I would take the kids no matter where we went. If I played ball they were always at the ball games. If you had practices you got to take the kids down with you and they played with all of the other kids as well. It was a real big family thing back then. I think that it is a little different now. 

Jon Duncan: So this was a time for you to socialize then.

Dianne Barton: Ya, it was when you got a night out with a whole bunch of people. Back then it was after the game you would all go to the Dairy Queen and was just a form of being with people.

Jon Duncan: Who were some of the friends on the team?

Dianne Barton: Vivian Metsker, Cheryl Walker, Barb Bazo, back then it was Oxy girls played, none of them were married at the time so the Oxy girls, Marge Gesbrick, Marge Anderson, it was just lots of fun.

Jon Duncan: So you just had a pretty good time.

Dianne Barton: We did, we did really well back then, we got into the finals just about every year.

Jon Duncan: Okay, I think what I want to talk about next are some of the clubs and organizations that you belong to after you were married and then we will go back and talk about Tina, Mason, and Scott. Now you were a member of the Amistad Club for a while there, what was that all about?

Dianne Barton: That was a friend ship club, that was a service an friends ship club that you would try to befriend people in the town that were maybe new here or didn’t know as many people and that was a way of getting them to know, then a service club where you would try to get them to provide service in areas, there might be a need for it in town so you would try to seek out these things and find out what needed to be done. At the time that I was in it that was basically what we were doing and then it just got to be that I was involved in so many other things that I had to decide and that was one of them that I let go. 

Jon Duncan: Were there a lot of people in this Amistad Club?

Dianne Barton: As far as I can remember when I was in it we had a member ship of about twenty five or around the neighbourhood of that.

Jon Duncan: Mormon and Non-Mormon?

Dianne Barton: Both yes,

Jon Duncan: Did religion matter

Dianne Barton: Not at all.

Jon Duncan: Okay so what were some of the other organizations that you belonged to?

Dianne Barton: I was on the Stirling Recreation board at one time; I have been involved in the committees for the Stirling Days. We started the Stirling Baseball Association. Scott and I and a couple of other couples here started it all so we could get something going here that would be organized here. We have been involved in various coaching positions here in Stirling. I think that was about all that we mentioned before.

Jon Duncan: Ya, the Athletic association

Dianne Barton: Oh yes right and then we started the athletic association up at the school about four years ago when I was president of that. Started that off and stuck with that for a couple of years.

Jon Duncan: Tell me what this recreation ward was?

Dianne Barton: Back years and years ago we had a fellow that got it going, Mike Hastings; I was going so that we could access money so we could get different things going. We had different things, we had a winter carnival as I remember was a real big success story and we had that forever. We did some summer things and we helped out with the Stirling days and helped them with different things and organizations and clubs that needed money to work in that week. We worked to aid them and basically that is what it was, it was a start of that. Years down the road the needs were met by somebody on the council, they changed things a little and the money was developed under there heading. 

Jon Duncan: I wanted to ask you actually, how has Stirling days changed over the years.

Dianne Barton: It is kind of on a different scale, it is a smaller scale kind of a thing whereas before it was kind of a little country fair type of a thing, there again in order to make something like this happen again it takes a lot of people and a lot of hands. I think that is with the different generation, back when I can remember when I was younger we were back to the group of people like my parents that were running it. Now days we kind of sit back and wait to be entertained, whereas back then everybody pitched in so that every body could be entertained.

Jon Duncan: Was there something called pioneer days, or has it always been Stirling Days?

Dianne Barton: I think there was a transitional period in there when it went from that in Stirling Days and being the 24^thof July celebration and then it gradually got to be the July 1^stin Raymond and then it got to be Stirling days.

Jon Duncan: On weekends as well. Talking about Stirling days let me ask you about the pool, you ran it for several years.

Dianne Barton: Ya, I ran it for two or three years when it was down at the old Lions Hall.

Jon Duncan: What did that entail?

Dianne Barton: What we did was we did the scheduling you know, when we were going to open the pool and swimming lessons and the hours that it was going to be operated. We kind of worked together with the council that was over the pool on the hurrying of the guards and the staff that you were going to have.

Jon Duncan: Were you a life guard to?

Dianne Barton: No, they just called upon somebody in Stirling that would be willing to go down there and work with people that had some swimming experience. I had taken as far as you could go without being a life guard.

Jon Duncan: Who were the life guards then?

Dianne Barton: As I recall Ward Hicken, a young lady from Lethbridge, Yvonne Simmons was her name. We had the number of guards that they have now, I thin that we had about three guards.

Jon Duncan: Was the pool a very active place?

Dianne Barton: Yes, the pool, back then it is like I told you when I was a kid, the minute that the pool was open in the summer until it ended in September that is what everybody did. We had a waiting pool back then so there were lots of parents there that came with little toddlers while their little ones were in the little pool. It was a place where a lot was happening during the day.

Jon Duncan: So you were busy then?

Dianne Barton: Ya, I would be there every day probably from about eight o’clock until about nine o’clock at night.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever work with Jenna Bee Barton?

Dianne Barton: Yes, she was the money taker, she took the money inside and I think probably just as a young kid I would go over there and help her out but as an adult when I was running Jenna Bee wasn’t there it was just I was swimming when she was there. UI quite enjoyed Jenna Bee.

Jon Duncan: Alright, well I think where we will go now is your family, you have two children, Tina and Mason, Mason is serving his mission right now. Let me just ask you about them first. What was it like raising these two kids?

Dianne Barton: Every mother would say just a delight right. It was, we had lots of fun, raising Tina and Mason was lots of on the road with baseball tournaments and basketball tournaments and taking there friends here and there, Lots of kids at our house. Just like everybody else sleep over’s and video parties. It was fun, Scott and I; it was a good time for all four of us.

Jon Duncan: So you were actively involved in there.

Dianne Barton: Very much so.

Jon Duncan: They were both big into sports. 

Dianne Barton: Tina was more so into women’s fastball, at about age twelve we moved her to the league in Lethbridge. She played there right up until she was probably about twenty years old. She went to several provincials in Edmonton, Lloydminster, and different places, she got picked up by several teams to go and she has gotten all stars and she ahs won awards at, we went to a tournament in Calgary once, it was kind of interesting they had different competitions, who could through the farthest, who could hit the farthest. Who could do different things? Tina got up and entered the ‘who could throw the farthest’ and won that award. It was really good quality time that we did with the kids, it certainly did hut anything. It was money well spent.

Jon Duncan: Did you feel that this was investing in your Children.

Dianne Barton: Ya, I think that both Scott and I when we look back on it right now that we realize that there is just certain things for all of these things. We just kind of did what was important to the kids at that time and did what was important to the kids at that time. There was a good chance that they would return this to their children in their parenting years.  

Jon Duncan: Did they have chores around the house that they had to do.

Dianne Barton: Yes, there was probably nothing that we couldn’t have done that Tina couldn’t have done. She was just that kind of a kid, she didn’t really have to be asked much to do things, and she could see it and do it. Mason on the other hand would have to be designated to do these things. He could certainly do it; it was just a boy kind of thing that that was unnecessary. We had things that we asked them to do and expected them to do. It doesn’t sound like much but if there were things that needed to be washed and they wanted it washed it was a fact that they could go and do it themselves. We taught them to be independent.

Jon Duncan: Was there girls tasks and boy tasks?

Dianne Barton: No, I am not really into that, there were things that needed to be done, everybody could pitch in and do it.

Jon Duncan: Now you married Scott in 1981

Dianne Barton: Right, December the 18^th

Jon Duncan: Now what was it like to have been married to him?

Dianne Barton: It has been really nice. It was really I have to word this right; it was really a blessing to come into our life for the children and for myself. Dale had his good points and certainly there are divorces that goes without saying and me remarrying Scott was probably a very positive move for both me and the children. He has brought nothing but stability to our lives and love and that but it is important to children when they are growing up. They need that in a home and they need to feel important and loved and respected and we got that from Scott.

Jon Duncan: He has been Very busy; he is the village administrator here in Stirling and also the Town illustrator here in Stirling and also in Raymond. What is it like for you to have to deal with all of the time that he has to spend?

Dianne Barton: It is probably not all that difficult because of the way that he accepts his responsibilities. And how he always makes me feel like I come first, I have never felt like I have been chirped or that I am really spending a lot of time alone because I keep busy and I have friends that come over and I have, building a house, I have plenty of yard work to do. If he is going to take a job and do it I would expect nothing less than he gives it his best. That is the same way that he does is being a husband and a father, he has done that to his best to.

Jon Duncan: Are there certain pressures that you have to deal with as the wife of the administrator?

Dianne Barton: Let’s see, the pressure is that I am not supposed to say anything because that’s an absolute no-no. I am just joking, there really isn’t because basically there isn’t, you could say that your not suppose to say anything but I mean he doesn’t come home and say anything that the people in town don’t already know. It is just that you are on such a small level that there is really not anything that is really, I let him tend to his work. I am the post master so I tend to my work and it is just a community that we have both really enjoyed so I don’t feel any pressure.

Jon Duncan: You remember your parent’s marriage and your marriage to Scott. What are some of the differences in marriage between now and then?

Dianne Barton: I think probably the only thing that I can see is the time element again. Basically what you are saying with Scott in my dad life he had his busy season and basically my husband does to. There is a few times in the months that it is a little slower than others. I just think that we are a different kind of busy than what they were back then. Like I say they were into doing things with there friends and stuff like that where right now we kind of look at evenings that you are not committed to either meetings or to a church function, you kind of cherish those nights that you can kind of just stay at home and be with each other. Where back then they probably had lots of those so they look forward to the socializing more to what we do now because we are so busy with other stuff.

Jon Duncan: Another question that I have, what is the role of women in the home today?

Dianne Barton: Well it has defiantly changed, before I don’t think that you had a lot of women that were working out of the home, they were working in the home. It is no less of a job or a time commitment then it is for us to go out of the home. It is just that now with the expenses and the lifestyle that we do, lots of times it misstates that a women assisting a source of income with her husband. I don’t really the roles of women, in the home, we are still doing the same thing, still doing the house keep, and if you have got children you’re looking after their needs. I don’t think that that part has changed it is just that probably have spent eight hours out of the home already before you get to attend to you home things.

Jon Duncan: What is your most important role?

Dianne Barton: I think that the needs of your family are what we should be focusing on; I know that now it is really changed for Scott and I because both of our children are gone. Our focus is totally different. I guess that we have each other to look after. Being an adult you don’t really have to worry a lot about the other needs but you still need the communication lines. That is kind of an already instilled thing.

Jon Duncan: Lastly concerning your family, what are some of the social activities that you get up to now?

Dianne Barton: Well Scott and I we enjoy an evening out together. We like to take rides and drive around. We enjoy going to shows together and camping together would be a good thing. We don’t get to do it as often as we want but we really like to get out on a weekend and go out camping places and that. Another thing is that Scott kind of tolerates it with me but I like sports, I like to go and watch sports.

Jon Duncan: Okay, something that has been a fact in Stirling for so many years is the relationship between Mormons and Non-Mormons here. How do you feel about people that are not members of the LDS church?

Dianne Barton: There has never been a thing of how do I feel about them, they have always been there and friends and neighbours, I have never thought of it in regards to a religion.

Jon Duncan: Has there been this tension that you feel?

Dianne Barton: No, I know that people will bring it up every once and a while in regards to why they can do this, is it because of that. I have never really had an awful lot of problem with it. I think that that is probably because we associated wit everybody in Stirling. Growing up my parents had several friends that were not members of the church and so that has been my whole life. 

Jon Duncan: Mormon community or did it matter.

Dianne Barton: We defiantly had a bigger population of Mormons as I was growing up religious wise then it is now. Not it is anywhere like it used to be. There are several other religions that have come into town. The balance in town is nothing like it used to be. It is a good thing I think actually.

Jon Duncan: Tolerance is an important value to you.

Dianne Barton: I think that that is probably is an important part of the community; you have to have the different elements and the different nationalities and everything. I think that is what makes a community.

Jon Duncan: Did you go to school with many Non-members?

Dianne Barton: There were some in my class and we also had the Mennonites that were going to school while I was going through high school. A couple of my best friends, a boy and a girl were both Mennonites. That to me was neat; I had a lady that made me my graduation dress was a Mennonite lady.

Jon Duncan: To you, were they any different?

Dianne Barton: Well the way that they dress, they were as different to me as I was to them. The things that I believe in were very strange to them and the things that the believed in were very strange to them, and I found really intriguing.

Jon Duncan: Did they participate in the school activities.

Dianne Barton: You bet ya, the dances they couldn’t but I mean the girl that I knew very well was Becky Wolman. She was the first person to get picked at a baseball game, we divided up and she got picked before any boy. She could throw and hit better than any guy in that whole school. They were athletic they like to ride horses. They fished they had a good time. There were just certain things that they couldn’t participate in just as we couldn’t be a part of some of there things.

Jon Duncan: So they were part of the community.

Dianne Barton: Very much so.

Jon Duncan: Were there many immigrants in the community?

Dianne Barton: As I recall I remember my dad being very good friend with a Mr. Besler, he worked with him in the Raymond irrigation, Ewald Besler. There was a boy in my class that was, I know that he was from a foreign country but I can’t remember where. That was kind of interesting too because they were able to tell stories. In some of the classes they would bring in different foods and some of the clothes that they wore. That was kind of interesting as well.

Jon Duncan: Tell me this, what are your impressions or feelings toward Native Americans?

Dianne Barton: Lets see, I don’t think that we had as I recall any as I was growing up. I thin that the only time that you were aware of their presence in our community was at beet harvest time. It seems like there used to be quite a few that would come in and try to work during that time. There just wasn’t that many around here. The next thing that I would have was just when you went to Lethbridge. That was an element that you knew just around the Gault Gardens. You couldn’t make much of an impression off those kinds of people. 

Jon Duncan: Alright, why don’t we move on, you served as the post master in Stirling?

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: And for times a librarian.

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: And there have been some others but why don’t we talk about your time as a post master first. How did you get this job?

Dianne Barton: Let’s see they needed somebody do be a part time worker when Grace Fletcher was the postal master and so I applied for it. I was working in Lethbridge at the time for Linda Seely at her hobby store. I applied for it and, that was back in 1977 and then I got it.

Jon Duncan: So you have been an assistant there.

Dianne Barton: Yes, I was an assistant for I think that it was about eight or nine years and then Grace retired and they put the position as post master up again and I had to reapply and go into a competition with some other people that had applied for it around. I got that then and have been with them ever sense. Just about twenty years.

Jon Duncan: So what changes have you seen then in Canada post over the years?

Dianne Barton: We went to crown cooperation, I look at it from Canada post point of view, and I have seen an improvement in services. Of course that goes along with an increase in price. I seen so many new products come out in the twenty years that I have been there than it has been staggering the things that they can come up with. To enhance and to quicker communication over seas, to the states and speeder, the packaging, it has been kind of neat to watch. Of course Canada post has struggled, they have been under the fire many times with the public but it seems that they are always able to keep the people using their services.
 
Tape 2 Side 2
 
Jon Duncan: Okay, we were talking about Canada Post there. What were some of the other jobs that you have held over the years?

Dianne Barton: When I first started off I worked for a credit borough that is the job that I came out of when I left collage. I have worked in the food services of both the Lethbridge community Collage and The U of L; I had done waitressing at the Beef eater and El’rachl. I have worked for Linda Seely at the Craft Store in Lethbridge. I worked for Gerry Solstice when he owned the little confectionary store that they first opened in Stirling. I worked like I say down at the Stirling Swimming pool and with the post office.

Jon Duncan: Was the library a voluntary position?

Dianne Barton: No, I did that for a while, it was just a few hours a week is all it was. I worked at automatic electric in Lethbridge, it was a company, and years ago are what they called it. I think that basically that has been about it.

Jon Duncan: So you have had many professions. I wanted to ask you a little something about the Library, Was that in the old building.

Dianne Barton: When I did it, it was in two different buildings. It was in the little teacherage as they called it and it was a little tiny building that sits where the library sits right now. Then they moved it over to another building that was part of the school system at one time where they had some classes. It was on the main floor of that and I did it also when it was there. It is now Mona Sams home.

Jon Duncan: The old Kindergarten, what could you tell me about the old teacherage. 

Dianne Barton: Well lets se, it was a little two building, house. It didn’t have anything in it except for those two little rooms and a front entry way, a rear entry way. I don’t know what they really used that for but it was just this two little room place that they used for a library.

Jon Duncan: Okay, let me ask you about the sonority that you were born to in Lethbridge

Dianne Barton: How that all transpired is one of my friends that is in school Bruce Hirschie had a cousin in Lethbridge in that he went to visit all of the time. And she would talk about the sorority that these girls at the LCI belonged to. I was curious and just kind of wondered what it would be like to be in one. I asked my parents if I could, they went and found out what it was all about and that, it was called the Sikleye Kappa so it was SXK. I just went in and talked to them and asked them what they did and found out if I could join when I wasn’t from Lethbridge or didn’t attend their school. It wasn’t anything to do with that so I asked my parents and I joined this sorority. This is probably how come I started my association with a lot of Non-LDS kids. Getting to know their parents very well which meant them getting to know my parents. It really broadened what I saw and give me a better appreciation for friends and stuff like that with Non-LDS people. I had a different outlook on some of the other kids growing up then. It was a fun experience for me.
Jon Duncan: Did any other girls from Stirling go out there.
Dianne Barton: None at all, I guess that it is a matter of, I like to really be involved and they did a lot of other things. They did lots of fund raisers, bake sales; they were at lots of football games having bake sales. Of course there again, being a young girl, what does that do. That put you around a lot of young kids, mainly boys at athletic events. I like that kind of stuff.

Jon Duncan: Have these friendships continued.

Dianne Barton: Constantly, we get together at least twice every year; we have a summer dinner where we get together and a winter one. We all meet and pick a restaurant in Lethbridge and go out for the evening or very often we will have a barbecue over at one of the girl’s places. These are probably friendships that I will have my while life.

Jon Duncan: So who were some of these girls?

Dianne Barton: Sandy Spackman was the cousin that was a relative of the Hirschie family. Another girls name was Linda Hunt; one was Bev Green, Shar Askland. What was interesting about a lot of these girls was that their parents got to be really good friends of mine so I keep in touch with them. I so them on the street and visit with them, I just has really been nice.

Jon Duncan: Has been a good association.

Dianne Barton: Yes, really good, I am really glad that it happened. 

Jon Duncan: Why don’t I ask a different group of questions, your family always had a car?

Dianne Barton: Yes, we had this little blue Pontiac is what we started off with. I think that it was a 55 as I recall it was something like that. Of course you ask because you know that there is a story behind it. We would get in this little car and if we were going to make a trip to Lethbridge was always had to swing by Raymond and up by welling to check these two irrigation ditches that dad would have to check. As we finished checking them we were coming down the welling highway. As a child it was always intriguing to me that dad had absolutely no control over this little blue Pontiac because it would pull off the road there by the Welling store or veer off the road. He just couldn’t keep it on the road. It would have to stop so that we could get an ice cream cone. You look at it now and you think how much fun that was back then and the things that your parents did that humoured you and were really a big part of my growing years. Those were the sweet things that made him being a dad fun for me.

Jon Duncan: How did this work, did he just drive in?

Dianne Barton: Well he would just go down the road and put on a big show like the car, I just can’t keep it going this way. He would be holding on to it and then it would just want to turn this way. Pretty soon there was a little approach that you would take, it would just be, and I can’t hold it. Down it would go and it must want an ice cream cone we have got to get one. He made such a game out of it that I am sure he could have pulled it one me until I was sixteen and I still would have loved it.

Jon Duncan: Did you always have the car and a truck.

Dianne Barton: Dad had, it was part of his contract with the Raymond irrigation that they would pay part of a truck payment because it was his vehicle and he had to have that for all of the time. He had this little car and it was kind of interesting because mother didn’t know how to drive. Of course I was to young so it sat unless dad took it until I got old enough to have a drivers licence and I proceeded to try and teach my mom how to drive. In the time of her life and my life we tried that about three or four times and decided that that was not a good thing, I drove and she was a passenger.

Jon Duncan: So she never learned to drive then?

Dianne Barton: Well she did a little bit around town but she was not a seasonal drive to Lethbridge. I think that it was years and years down the road until she actually learned how to drive.

Jon Duncan: When was it that you started driving?

Dianne Barton: I probably drove out at the farm from about the time that I was ten. Dad would teach me out there and park to barrels up and try to teach me how to pull in parallel between these two barrels and stuff like that. I did a little bit of driving out there but in town it wasn’t until I was fourteen and I got learners permit that he would let me do that.

Jon Duncan: Once you got your drivers licence, when was this, at sixteen?

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: Were you able to take the car as much as you wanted?

Dianne Barton: No, I would be able to take it to do things for mom and stuff like that but I really didn’t get freedom of the car. Back then you just didn’t take it and go into Lethbridge whenever you wanted to. You maybe got it around town every once and a while or maybe for a trip over to Raymond. I don’t recall taking it and going into Lethbridge very often.

Jon Duncan: You told me before that your dad earlier that when he and your mom were married that they had a motorcycle.

Dianne Barton: Yes, as I recall hearing his stories and that he had this motorcycle that had a side car on it and he would pile the kids and mom into the side cart. I think that is they way that he told it, he took great pride in anything that he owned. His first car and this motorcycle and I guess the horses that he had; I guess that he was just a very proud man in how things looked and how he took care of things.

Jon Duncan: He would drive the whole family.

Dianne Barton: Ya, it was a fairly big side cart, the way that the picture shows it that he would be able to put the two boys and I think that mom held Gwen on her lap.

Jon Duncan: Switching to some of the other amenities of life, your house has always had electricity.

Dianne Barton: I don’t ever remember it having lanterns or anything like that. I remember it as having lights. We had a chemical toilet, I remember that. We had a cistern at the side; there for a while we had the old stove that you had the coals for that had the water reservoir at the side and that. As I recall we always had lights.

Jon Duncan: Was this stove converted to gas?

Dianne Barton: No, they took that right out and put it to a gas stove after.

Jon Duncan: So for the sewer system you used a chemical toilet.

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: You had a cistern for water.

Dianne Barton: Yes

Jon Duncan: And natural gas to the house.

Dianne Barton: I wonder if it would have been natural gas though, it wouldn’t have been in the beginning when we had that stove would it because we used coals. So it wouldn’t have been gas at first we would have had that brought in after.

Jon Duncan: Okay, probably the biggest changes that have gone on in the last fifty years have been the computer, has that affected your life at all?

Dianne Barton: Well for me in high school that wasn’t a thing. We didn’t have computers in the classrooms; we didn’t have a computer room. Then later on as the kids were in school they did have the computer classes to take and that. I wasn’t into that, I didn’t understand what they were talking about and then Scott when he was in collage and that he was doing computer programs and so there again that put me around it but not into it. Everybody else in the family is computer smart, they use them but I have never. It has not been a part of anything that I have done. I don’t need it wherever I have worked or whatever I do.

Jon Duncan: What about things like banking; do you use an auto bank?

Dianne Barton: Yes, I do that.

Jon Duncan: Cash registers have you ever worked with a registered computer system.

Dianne Barton: Even when I worked at the post office we don’t have that because we are not big enough, but even at the restaurants that I worked at, that just wasn’t, they weren’t into that yet. It was just the regular old cash registers that they had. Everything else now, like you say is much computerized.

Jon Duncan: You saw the computer age develop.

Dianne Barton: Yes, but I was never a part of it.

Jon Duncan: Well, a few last questions, let me ask you about church service what kinds of callings have you had over the years?

Dianne Barton: Let see, I have been in the Sunday school, presidency, I was the secretary when my dad was the president. I have been in young women’s; I am in the primary presidency right now. I served in capacity as Sunday school teachers and primary school teachers. Basically I think about the only organization that I haven’t been involved in is the relief society.

Jon Duncan: Okay so Dianne you have served in many callings, what is your perception of these callings that you have had.

Dianne Barton: Sometimes they have been a little bit overwhelming; they defiantly give you that sense that you can accomplish something.  There is a certain amount of organization that you have to be able to develop to be able to carry off some of these things. I know that with young women’s, it is a big responsibility. When you are there because a lot of these girls are watching you and you are there kind of as a leadership role so that carries kind of a weight responsibility. I would say that it helps you to grow up and to mature to a certain extent. It kind of helps you be a part of your church group and set your responsibility and your role.

Jon Duncan: Now you were in young women’s when you were young. Now you are in the young women’s as a leader. What are some of the differences? 

Dianne Barton: Let see it has been about since I have been in the young women’s. I guess when you are in it as a young teenager yourself you are kind of always looking for something. You are not sure what you are looking for but you are always just testing the waters a little bit. You are searching and are eager about different things. When you are the leader you are kind of cautious on the other end of the stake. You are really watching them and are watching their reaction to what you have just taught them or you are feeling vibes about how they are feeling that day and so it is almost reverse role where before you are more flamboyant as a teenager and you are outspoken and that. As a leader you are kind of observing, you are watching the girls and trying to pick up on what is going through their heads.

Jon Duncan: Have the activities changed?

Dianne Barton: I am not to sure that they really have. It seems to me that the girls and the guys still like to do basically the same things that we used to like to do. They like the sports, the tubing. I guess the tubing in the summer as well. Swimming activities, the camp outs, I can remember that was a real big deal, going to Waterton at that time, we had a real big campsite. It was buildings where you would stay in but I think that the kids are basically still you know. We had the baseball games down at the park and the corn bus and all that. I think that kind of activity. I don’t think that the kids now days have the ward dances that we used to have. We used to have lots of those and I know that we don’t have those anymore. We had those and quite enjoyed them. That would probably be the only difference.

Jon Duncan: Something that comes to mind, did they still have the children’s Christmas dance.

Dianne Barton: When dad was in the Sunday school presidency and I was the secretary at the time, I think it was about three or four years in a row that I was able to help my dad put that on and so let me tell ya. Christmas day and the Christmas dance over at the hall. Wear your new little outfit, twirl around and they had this little march that they did before and the handed out the cracker jacks and the mandarin oranges and Santa Clause was there. That was a big day. You would go and dance the Virginia Real and the Bunny Hop, you would teach the kids to do the different stuff and that was a lot of fun. I can remember as a little girl going to it and then as an older teenage girl helping my dad and the different people in the organization. I absolutely loved it. That is something that you see our kids today miss out on.

Jon Duncan: When did they stop having these?

Dianne Barton: I can’t remember when or why, it just seemed like the whole format of all of the church, a lot of things changed. When we changed from the three different times of the day into the one three hour block, I think that when a lot of that changed a lot of the activities went by the ways side.

Jon Duncan: There is something that I did forget to ask a while ago, that is, when you got together with your girlfriends what kinds of things would you do together.

Dianne Barton: Okay, are now the girls friends that you are talking about is this the girlfriends here in Stirling. Basically we did the listened to the records in the bedroom and not so much of the curl the hair and I think that we were more involved with the school activities and you went back at night if there was something going on. Basically I remember at our place we just did a lot of that where the kids play the ball out beside the house and you played run Sheepie run and those kinds of games in the summer. In the winter in don’t think other than school you just stayed at home, you didn’t do a whole lot.

Jon Duncan: Okay Dianne yo9u have lived in Stirling all of your life.

Dianne Barton: Give or take a couple of years.
Jon Duncan: You have seen a lot of changes, why don’t we talk a little about those changes. What are some of the major changes that you have seen in Stirling?

Dianne Barton: Well I think probably starting back with the water and sewer coming in, that was a big change for Stirling especially when you had the running ditches and that. I think that over the course of all of the years you have got the appearance of the different buildings in Stirling. You have seen the old church go down, the old School go down. Have seen some new buildings come up. Defiantly you have seen the step of the one big paved road coming down the main street. I honestly did not think that there would ever come a time when we would ever see any paving in Stirling at all. It was just never a big concern and I just never though that it would be here. That again is nice progression. You have got your, probably over the course of about the eight or so years you have got a great deal of new houses coming into Stirling and that’s been nice. It has kind of changed the looks and the appearance. I think that you have got all the different people coming to Stirling. When I say different I mean all of the different religions and nationalities and that has been good for Stirling. That has given us a whole new slant of things. Different things that have popped up, different clubs that have formed, that is important to our community to have that new growth.

Jon Duncan: One thing that made some difference is when they split the wards. What did that do to Stirling?

Dianne Barton: Well I guess that for me, I am very fortunate in my occupation. You can have changes like that and people really and truly, it sounds almost silly to say that you don’t see each other anymore or you don’t do things anymore. But it is a fact. Now for me that hasn’t been as, as some people called it, devastating because I am at the post office every day, out of 336 boxes in any given day, I probably see 250 people in a days time that come in and either talk to me through the box or just to say hello. So I have not really lost touch with the people in the first ward because I see them every day. Five out of the seven days that I see them, I have constant contact with them. Even though we haven’t had kids at school for some years we continue to go to all of the ball games and we continue to have that association with all of those different people from the ward so it hasn’t affected me as much as it has done some of my other friends.

Jon Duncan: Another change that just came to mind was the closing of the sugar factory. What did that do to Stirling?

Dianne Barton: Well I think there again, you had a certain amount of people in Stirling that were employed with the sugar factory. I know that several went from Raymond that was from Stirling that went to Taber or Picture Butte and worked at those sugar factories. I know that my dad worked at the sugar factory on a night shift for years and years. I can’t remember but there was a term that they called it, but he did it and he had of course moved on to something else while it was still going. It was a big factory and I think that a lot of people life’s. I think that there was a great deal of association there with the community. That was part of their social life and when that closed down, I think that it went through a lot of money out of Raymond as well as Stirling.

Jon Duncan: Did many people move away?

Dianne Barton: I don’t think so. I really think that what happened was a lot of people just finding different jobs, like I say there were the odd few people that worked at the other places and commuted for years and then eventually did. Our friends moved to Taber because of the sugar factory. We had another couple of people that moved to Picture Butte because of it. But other than those two I can’t remember any body else doing it.

Jon Duncan: My last question con concerns your feelings toward Canada and towards Alberta. What are your feelings about Canada and Alberta? Are they stronger toward one or the other?

Dianne Barton: Well it was on July first of this year that I had the opportunity to give a presentation to our primary kids and of course it fell right around Canada first. I myself and very patriotic and I have a really hard time with people that cant see the importance of being proud of your country and so I gave this presentation and I thin that it was really we received by the kids. When I go to the different functions they have O’Canada and that. I am very proud to be able to sing it and to be patriotic to the flag and to whom I am and as far as Alberta goes I don’t think that there is a better province in Canada that I would rather live in. I think that we have lots to be thankful for and where we live and the freedoms that we have to enjoy here in Canada and Alberta. Being married to an American his patriotism has really helped me out to be more appreciative of also what we have here and have had for a long time. I have no problem acknowledging both the province and the country that I live in and the province I live in.

Jon Duncan: If you were to choose one or the other, Alberta or Canadian. What would you indentify with more?

Dianne Barton: I think Canadian, I think so.

Jon Duncan: Well that is it then, I want to thank you for your time and I am going to shut off the tape.

Dianne Barton: Okay thank you

Transcribed By Clinton Dovell