Interviewee: Donald Christensen
Interviewer: Jon Duncan
 
Jon Duncan: Alright, today is the 31^stof July 1997, my name is Jon Duncan. I am here with Don Christensen, Don why don’t you introduce yourself.

Donald Christensen: My full name is Donald L. Christensen and I was born on the 12^thof December 1925 to Harold Christensen and
Myrtle Freeman.

Jon Duncan: Alright, where were you born?

Donald Christensen: I was born in the old Van Holen Hospital before it became the St. Michael’s hospital.

Jon Duncan: Your parents were living in Stirling at the time?

Donald Christensen: Yes, they were living in Stirling and they were running a confectionary.

Jon Duncan: Where was this confectionary?

Donald Christensen: It was right in the middle of town, it is an old abandoned building that sits here now behind the Canadian grocery
just north of the Canadian grocery.

Jon Duncan: Alright, your dad ran that place.

Donald Christensen: He owned it and ran it.

Jon Duncan: Was it just a confectionary or was it a barber shop then too.

Donald Christensen: My father had a little room on the north that he opened a Barber shop two or three evenings a week.

Jon Duncan: So he cut hair.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: Alright, well let’s start with your dad. What was his occupation?

Donald Christensen: Kind of the jack of all trades but he made the bulk of his living from farming and agriculture; he did barbering as a
sideline for years as I was growing up. He moved from the confectionary about nineteen twenty eight and he made his living farming after
that.

Jon Duncan: Okay, he sold the store to someone else and moved on?

Donald Christensen: Well we rented it for a good many years. Money was tight; nobody could afford to buy it so they rented it.

Jon Duncan: Who did they rent it to?

Donald Christensen: There were different people, there was Roy Finley and his wife lived there for several years and there was John
Monzer. I don’t recall too many after that, there were others there.

Jon Duncan: Where was the farm?

Donald Christensen: The farm was about seven miles east of Stirling.

Jon Duncan: What type of farm was it?

Donald Christensen: My father along with Ralph Christensen, they were partners for a good many years. They milked cows, raised
grain and barley. They were mixed farmers.

Jon Duncan: Okay so your dad worked for Ralph Christensen. What types of grains?

Donald Christensen: Wheat, barley, oats in those days. Most crops were unheard of at that time.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so was this irrigated?

Donald Christensen: It was all dry land.

Jon Duncan: Did your father raise livestock to sell?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you work much with your father when you were growing up?

Donald Christensen: All the time, as children there we had to hear the cattle and milk, feed the pigs.

Jon Duncan: Okay so you took care of the livestock quite a bit. Alright, now did you help with the farming at all, like planting or
harvesting.

Donald Christensen: Oh no, at that time I as starting grade one. From the age of thirteen on I took an active part in harvest.

Jon Duncan: Okay, I want to talk a bit about your father’s methods of farming that you remember. When we plating season?

Donald Christensen: Spring, we used to have a code, when you couldn’t see anymore snow on the ridge it was time to start planting
seed. That is what I remember on that.

Jon Duncan: So that is when you began when the snow was gone.

Donald Christensen: Well when you couldn’t see snow on the ridge, which was kind of a gauge that they used.

Jon Duncan: So how long did it take to seed the whole farm?

Donald Christensen: It seemed to me like it took a month, it took a long time.

Jon Duncan: How many acres were there?

Donald Christensen: At that time we rented a half section where we lived and then rented another half section two miles north. So
between two farms we farmed about a section.

Jon Duncan: You did this with horses?

Donald Christensen: Did this with horses yes.

Jon Duncan: How long was it before they had a tractor?

Donald Christensen: Probably about three years and then they got a John Deer D tractor.

Jon Duncan: This was in the early thirties?

Donald Christensen: It would have been about 1930.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what types of wheels?

Donald Christensen: Lug, lug wheels

Jon Duncan: Okay, so once the seeding was done, what was the next task on the farm?

Donald Christensen: In those years you farmed half and half, half crop and half summer follow and it seemed like between haying,
summer follow and picking rock it took care of every day during the summer.

Jon Duncan: Okay so your dad strip farmed?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: He rose over hay is that what you are saying?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: This was just dry land?

Donald Christensen: It was dry land at the time. He would always plant oats and he would bind the oats and put them in a sack.

Jon Duncan: So the oats so far were for the cattle.

Donald Christensen: Ya that was what they used for the hay.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now when harvest time came along, what did your dad use for harvesting?

Donald Christensen: Well when they had horses I remember them using binders. After a couple of years they graduated to what is
called a header. It would cut the grain and the canvas would carry it up into a wagon and they would fall in stacks. Whenever they could
get a thresh machine of threshing crew they would putt the threshing machine in-between the stacks. You would have your spike pitchers
and they would pitch all of the stacks into the thresh machine. This might be anywhere from September to December.

Jon Duncan: Just whenever the threshing crew could get there.

Donald Christensen: Whenever they get there, once it was in the stack weather conditions didn’t bother it then.

Jon Duncan: The heads were sitting in the stack.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: So, who did the threshing for your dad?

Donald Christensen: Ed Reno is one that I remember. I think that one year an Atkins thresh machine came in.

Jon Duncan: Where did your dad store the grain once it was threshed?

Donald Christensen: We had granaries, wooden bins. We would haul it in there, haul it to the elevator.

Jon Duncan: How did he haul the grain?

Donald Christensen: With a grain tank and four good horses.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever drive the grain tank?

Donald Christensen: A little, I wasn’t old enough to take on the responsibility but I made sure that I was on the wagon and riding with
whoever was responsible. 

Jon Duncan: Okay, you were just a kid then.

Donald Christensen: Ya, I would be about six years old then.

Jon Duncan: When was it that your dad got his first combine?

Donald Christensen: I think about 1935 of 1936 they got a used combine. That was the end of the thresh machines then.

Jon Duncan: What difference did it make to have a combine?

Donald Christensen: Well your method of harvesting was totally different then. You went out with your combine and cut the grain and
threshed all in one operation. There was no such thing as stacking it or anything like that.

Jon Duncan: So it cut down on the work load.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: Did you have a swather as well?

Donald Christensen: No, it was years later before the pick ups and the swaths came in. It was basically just straight combine. You cut
the grain and it was thrashed immediately.

Jon Duncan: Where was the hay stack?

Donald Christensen: In the fields, usually if you had a forty acre piece of grain you would put it just about middle so it was closer to the
stacks in the field.

Jon Duncan: How did they stack the hay?

Donald Christensen: With the pitchfork.

Jon Duncan: You just pitched the hay onto the stack with the pitchfork.

Donald Christensen: We had one man called the stacker and he kept the top square and the side square.

Jon Duncan: Did the kids help with the hay?

Donald Christensen: Always

Jon Duncan: What was your job?

Donald Christensen: Packing it down.

Jon Duncan: On top of the stack.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: So they hay stack was kept out in the field and then the cows were turned out to it?

Donald Christensen: No, the cows were turned in and they put a fence around it.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so how did you feed the cattle in the winter?

Donald Christensen: We would have the oat stack of course; the hay stack would be right in the barn yard, right next to the barn. We
would fork the bundles of oat hay into the cattle each day.

Jon Duncan: So the straw stack was out in the field?

Donald Christensen: The straw stack was out in the field ya. The wheat stack, that was out in the field, the hay we always had that in by
the barn.

Jon Duncan: So you could just throw it into the cattle. Now how did you water the cattle?

Donald Christensen: We lived about two blocks from the coulee and there was a little dam to maintain water five to six feet deep. We
would just chop a hole and the water would come down the coulee. IN 1935 it was an extremely cold winter and the coulee froze solid. We
had boilers and tubs sitting on the stove day and night and we would melt the snow for our own family and for the cattle.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so were you using coulee water for drinking water as well then?

Donald Christensen: Right

Jon Duncan: Did you have a cistern?

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: How would your dad fill that?

Donald Christensen: We had an old wooden water tank they called it and we would fill that water tank and haul it up to where the house
was, to where the cistern was and put a hose in the cistern. We would just keep doing that until we got the cistern full.

Jon Duncan: How did you clean the water?

Donald Christensen: I don’t know how we survived by today’s standards. We thought it was good water, just pumped it out of the
cistern.

Jon Duncan: Okay, was your pump in the kitchen itself?

Donald Christensen: No, outside pump.

Jon Duncan: It was on top of the cistern

Donald Christensen:Yes, and then we carried it into the house.

Jon Duncan: So who carried the water in?

Donald Christensen: That was usually my job, after school I was suppose to carry the water in the house. Fill the water pales and fill the
coal pales and make sure there was wood in the wood box, starting a fire in the morning. Those were my early childhood chores.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so your dad basically farmed his whole life then.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Let’s talk about your mom then, what was her occupation?

Donald Christensen: She came to Stirling as a school teacher. She taught there I think for two years and then they got married in June
and she helped in the confectionary, baked pies and stuff for confectionary. The children started coming along about then. She had her
hands full; she was busy all of the time.

Jon Duncan: Who cleaned the house?

Donald Christensen: She did, after we got a little older my sister would help.

Jon Duncan: Did you have to clean the house up?

Donald Christensen: No, very little.

Jon Duncan: Your work was outside.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who did the cooking?

Donald Christensen: My mother did most of the cooking. At an early age she taught me how to make pancakes. In the winter time when
things weren’t to busy my dad and I had a kind of agreement he would go out and take care of the livestock and I would make the
porridge or the pancakes or whatever. Breakfast seemed to be my job while I was going to school.

Jon Duncan: Alright, so it sounds like pancakes, eggs were a typical breakfast.

Donald Christensen: Yes, pancakes, bacon, eggs, porridge, oatmeal, germaid.

Jon Duncan: What about lunch, what was a typical lunch?

Donald Christensen: Sandwiches, for thirteen years I ate sandwiches for dinner.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what about the dinner in the evening?

Donald Christensen: During the depression they were very simple; we had a lot of suppers with bread and milk which I still enjoy today.
We would have rice. We always had meat at least once a day, either beef or pork or mutton. Our basics were meat and potatoes.

Jon Duncan: Alright, where did you get the meat?

Donald Christensen: We would butcher a cow or a steer. We would butcher pigs. We did all of our own butchering.

Jon Duncan: So you raised all of your meat yourself.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: How was the meat preserved?

Donald Christensen: With pork we would salt it down in barrels. Add salt or beef. If I remember we didn’t kill beef in the summertime. In
the winter time we would kill a beef and hang it and split it between two or three families. The excess you would let the weather freeze it.
The next time you would run out and whoever you sheared with before they would kill a beef. That seems to be the way. We had no other
refrigeration other than the weather.

Jon Duncan: Did you have a nice house?

Donald Christensen: Yes we did. You couldn’t preserve meat in it to long, it helped. We put ice up and preserve it either in a wood chips
or sawdust; sometimes we would even put some straw around it. We could keep that pretty well into August.

Jon Duncan: What was the ice used for?

Donald Christensen: It was used to keep the cream cool and the milk. We would have ice cream on weekends and special days.

Jon Duncan: Okay, did your parents have a garden?

Donald Christensen: Yes, we always had a garden.

Jon Duncan: How was it watered?

Donald Christensen: Mother Nature.

Jon Duncan: So it was a dry land garden too.

Donald Christensen: Yes,

Jon Duncan: What types of vegetables did they grow?

Donald Christensen: Potatoes, tomatoes, radishes, peas, they same as people raise today. Being dry land you didn’t have small rows
you had two or three big rows.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so how were the vegetables preserved in the fall?

Donald Christensen: Usually through canning.

Jon Duncan: Your mom did a lot of canning.

Donald Christensen: Yes, she did a lot of canning.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what about the root vegetables?

Donald Christensen: We had a root cellar. We would store them in the root cellar.

Jon Duncan: Where were the bottles stored?

Donald Christensen: They were in a storage room in the house or in the basement.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so the house had a basement.

Donald Christensen: It had a dirt basement, dirt walls and dirt floor.

Jon Duncan: Did you play in there as a kid?

Donald Christensen: It wasn’t a very good place to play.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now before we move on, there is something else I want to ask you. How did your mom compensate the family
income?

Donald Christensen: We milked cows and she made cheese and butter. We had chickens so she would sell eggs. She did a lot of
sewing for neighbours and other people in town.

Jon Duncan: So she would sell the goods that were made on the farm.

Donald Christensen: Yes, eggs I think were ten cents a dozen. It seems to me about twenty cents a pound for butter. We got by. We
never went hungry.

Jon Duncan: Okay, you grew up during the depression. Did you ever have spending money of your own?

Donald Christensen: Rarely, I might get twenty five cents or something like that for the 24^thof July. Twenty five cents went quite a ways. I
could get a slice of watermelon, a box of pop.

Jon Duncan: Did you earn this quarter or was that just given to you?

Donald Christensen: Well looking back I guess that I earned it, but I did get a special treat for that day. We had no such thing as an
income.

Jon Duncan: Okay, I want to talk about the house for a few minutes. How many rooms were in your house?

Donald Christensen: We had three rooms. 

Jon Duncan: Which rooms were these?

Donald Christensen: A front room a kitchen and a bedroom, and a bedroom upstairs, which is where I slept.

Jon Duncan: So there were two floors.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: Okay, now in the kitchen what types of appliances did your mother have?

Donald Christensen: Had an old coal stove, an ice box, a small cupboard, and table and chairs.

Jon Duncan: Did she have a sink?

Donald Christensen: No, there was no sink, no indoor water, no indoor plumbing.

Jon Duncan: Where did you take your bathes?

Donald Christensen: Middle of the kitchen floor. We had a tub and that was filled with warm water and the children bathed first and then
the parents. After everybody was thrown with their bathing the water was stored and my mother mopped the floor with it the next morning.
We didn’t waste it; we had to carry it by the pale.

Jon Duncan: When was bath night?

Donald Christensen: Saturday night

Jon Duncan: How many heaters were in the house?

Donald Christensen: We just had the kitchen stove and one heater.

Jon Duncan: Where was this heater?

Donald Christensen: In the front room. The bedrooms were very cold.

Jon Duncan: What types of furniture did your parents have in the front room?

Donald Christensen: We had a Winnipeg cot, a big dining room table and a few chairs. We got a radio about 1936.

Jon Duncan: What was it like to have a radio?

Donald Christensen: It was a luxury.

Jon Duncan: What did you listen to?

Donald Christensen: Amus and Andy, hockey games, those are the most exciting things that I can think of.

Jon Duncan: What was your favourite hockey team?

Donald Christensen: Lethbridge Maple Leafs.

Jon Duncan: It was the Lethbridge games that you listened to on the radio.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you have a telephone in the house?

Donald Christensen: Not until close to 1940, Northern Mutual Telephone Company, we had to build our own line, we were on our own
repair crew. If your telephone didn’t work you got a hold of your neighbour and seen if he knew anything about it.

Jon Duncan: Who acted as the operator for this company?

Donald Christensen: A Mrs. King, she was a widow lady that lived in New Dayton. She was the operator for five or six mutual telephone
companies.

Jon Duncan: The line actually went into New Dayton then. Okay, was this a party system?

Donald Christensen: Yes, each one had a special ring. I remember ours was two shorts. You answered according to your ring that
came threw.

Jon Duncan: How often did you use the phone?

Donald Christensen: It would vary of course, be the same as today.

Jon Duncan: Did you phone your friends with the telephone?

Donald Christensen: Most parents didn’t allow their kids to talk to their friends or anything like that. On a party line it was reserved as
pretty well emergencies or important things. If somebody abused it they would be told about it. 

Jon Duncan: Okay, did this party line have people listen in.

Donald Christensen: I don’t think anybody was concerned, it was rude and certain people that made a habit of it were let know. I don’t
think that it was abused that much.

Jon Duncan: Did you have any pets on the farm? 

Donald Christensen: The fellow that lived just a mile, mile and a half east of Stirling had a lot of sheep. Bob Patterson, some how he
seemed to think that I was his real pal and it was mutual; I thought a lot of him. He would take ma around to see the different sheep herds;
he had several herds of sheep. Every spring he made sure that I had half a dozen, the called them bum lambs. I guess they would be the
pets. We always had a dog.

Jon Duncan: What did you do with the lambs?

Donald Christensen: We fed them up and they were real good eating.

Jon Duncan: What was your dog’s name?

Donald Christensen: Spot was one, they were just normal dogs.

Jon Duncan: Did you play with your dogs?

Donald Christensen: Oh yes, they were my pal, I only had once sister so who else did you play with, your dog.

Jon Duncan: What would you get up to with the dog?

Donald Christensen: We would go hunting gophers; I could never get him to retrieve a stick. My dog weighed more than I did I guess, I
could never get him to do it.

Jon Duncan: Alright, how would you hunt gophers?

Donald Christensen: I would go out with a snare, I would snare a gopher and he would get all excited. I would let him go and grab the
thing and shake it.

Jon Duncan: So you snared them then. Did you sell them at all?

Donald Christensen :We got something for the tail, in not sure what it was a cent a tail or half a cent a tail the municipal district paid a
certain amount for tails and if we if we saved up fifty, sixty tails we would get a little bit of spending money. I can’t remember just how
much. 

Tape 1 Side 2
 
Jon Duncan: Alright, we were just talking about the hunting gophers when the tape ran out. Let me ask you this now, did you have any saddle horses?

Donald Christensen: My dad had a saddle horse that his father had given him when he was twelve years of age. Old Rowdy, by the time
that I was old enough to go to school I rode Old Rowdy. He was getting old at that time. It was a toss up who would fall asleep first, me or
the horse. I would fall off and wake up; he would stop and wait for me.

Jon Duncan: You fell off the horse riding into school.

Donald Christensen: Every now and then sure. You come home from school you can’t stay awake all of the time.

Jon Duncan: Alright, you didn’t take a wagon or a bus into school then. 

Donald Christensen: Yes, our neighbour had one girl that went to school and he had a horse and buggy. After my sister started school
we all rode together in this buggy then.

Jon Duncan: When you took Old Rowdy into school, where would you put him during the school hours?

Donald Christensen: The school had a horse barn. I would put him in there with a little bit of hay. Get out of school and water him and
then after school you were ready to go home.

Jon Duncan: Did you have Rowdy all of the years that you were growing up.

Donald Christensen: Yes, he lived until I was in the Navy, he would have been thirty six or thirty seven years old when he died.

Jon Duncan: Alright, something that I want to talk to you about as well is your sister. You just had one sister in the family as you had
said. What was her name?

Donald Christensen: Grace

Jon Duncan: Okay, how often did you play with her?

Donald Christensen: Daily, I didn’t have any other brothers and she was the only sister. So we would play games, checkers and stuff
like that in the evening. Mom and dad would join in.

Jon Duncan: What types of card games?

Donald Christensen: Rummy, Snap I guess, I can’t remember all of the names I guess there. We had to make our own entertainment

Jon Duncan: Alright, did you ever play in the coulee?

Donald Christensen: Oh yes, we had a swimming hole down there. We would sleigh down the hills in the winter time. We even got our
parents going down there to see who could ride the sleigh all the way to the bottom. It was a family affair.

Jon Duncan: What about skating?

Donald Christensen: We skated some; we would have rinks, shovel all of the snow off the coulee or the pond and skate.

Jon Duncan: Did your farm have a water pond in there?

Donald Christensen: When you have got a real quick Chinook or thaw then there would be a little pond not to far from the house,
maybe half a block. Sometimes we would get to skate on that.

Jon Duncan: This was just in the depression so far.

Donald Christensen: We just called it the slough.

Jon Duncan: Now you had an uncle in Stirling.

Donald Christensen: Well I had two uncles actually there. Allen and Rene, when I was quite young Rene moved to rosemary and. My
uncle Allen lived in Stirling until the sixties.

Jon Duncan: How often did you get to your uncles homes?

Donald Christensen: Well my grandmother lived in Stirling and we went in pretty well every Sunday at church.

Jon Duncan: So you attended Church in Stirling?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: So what would you do when you got together with the family?

Donald Christensen: Visit, we always had a lot to eat. I guess that was most of it.

Jon Duncan: This was just between church meetings?

Donald Christensen: Yes, or in the evening.

Jon Duncan: Alright, there was something that I wanted to ask you about your sister Grace were involved with Bathing Beauty Contest.
What do you remember about that?

Donald Christensen: Well my father was one of the instigators of the Lions Club in Stirling and the Lions decided that as a project they
wanted to build a swimming pool. My sister was one of the ones that ran as a bathing queen. They sold tickets or votes or whatever you
want to call it then for the bathing queen. My dad was pretty serious about it and he signed a lot of tickets and I guess that some of the
others did to. Anyway she happened to have the most tickets so she won the bathing beauty.

Jon Duncan: This was to raise money for the pool.

Donald Christensen: This helped raise money for the first Stirling swimming pool.
Jon Duncan: Okay, now was grace younger than you or older than you.

Donald Christensen: Two years younger.

Jon Duncan: Alright, you’re fairly close in age. Where did you both go to school?

Donald Christensen:I n New Dayton, we took all of our Elementary and high school in New Dayton.

Jon Duncan: Why was it that you went to New Dayton?

Donald Christensen: Well New Dayton was four miles to go in and Stirling was about seven. During the depression and riding horse that
three miles made quite a difference. So we took the shortest rout.

Jon Duncan: Alright, how many grades did you take?

Donald Christensen :Twelve  

Jon Duncan: Alright, now did your parents ever have a car?

Donald Christensen: When we first moved out to the farm they bought a Plymouth and then the depression hit. We ran that about a
year, maybe a year and a half. We couldn’t afford to run it any more so it was stored in the garage for several years. It was 1935 or 1936
before we got it out of storage I think.

Jon Duncan: Alright, they just couldn’t afford the gas and stuff.

Donald Christensen: That’s right.

Jon Duncan: Alright, when did you learn to drive?

Donald Christensen:During harvest it was my job to take lunch and that out for my dad in the field. Actually I started taking the car out
on my own about ten years of age our in the field.

Jon Duncan: To drive the lunch out. Where did you get a licence?

Donald Christensen: I was I think fourteen years of age and there were three families that had to have a way into school and my father
got a special permit for me to drive the car. I would drive all of these kids into school. I took that as a sign of faith in my ability and I took it
very seriously and I drove that car as careful as I could. I was the taxi driver or the school driver, whatever you want to call it.

Jon Duncan: Was this in the Plymouth car?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, what type of transmission did it have?

Donald Christensen: Manual, there was no such thing as automatic in those days.

Jon Duncan: How many gears?

Donald Christensen: It was four gears and reverse.

Jon Duncan: Alright, Was there a heater in the car.

Donald Christensen: No, no way, the only way we had heat is if we heated a brick up in the oven and put a blanket over our legs with
the brick at the bottom. You could call that a heater but that’s what we had. In 1938 we got a Nash, a big improvement that had a heater in
it. 

Jon Duncan: That was your car with a heater then.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, now as a teenager did you get to drive the car much just for fun.

Donald Christensen: Never

Jon Duncan: It was just to school and back

Donald Christensen: Yes, to school and back or out to the field and back.

Jon Duncan: Alright, I am curious you say that your parents put the car away during the depression. What about the tractors, did they
keep the tractors going?

Donald Christensen: They had to do that.

Jon Duncan: The still farmed with tractors.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did your dad own a truck at all?

Donald Christensen: Yes, I can’t remember just when he got a truck; it must have been in the mid thirties we got an old international
one ton. We put the grain tank on the back of that for the grain box.

Jon Duncan: So this was used to haul grain then.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you dad ever work in the sugar beet campaign?

Donald Christensen: No, never

Jon Duncan: He only farmed.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: How often did your parents go to the store?

Donald Christensen: Usually Saturday night was a big shopping night. On average about once a month we would come to Lethbridge
on a Saturday night and shop, the stores stayed open until nine o’clock.

Jon Duncan: What types of things would you buy?

Donald Christensen: Clothing and a certain amount of groceries. The groceries were purchased in New Dayton. We always had to get
repairs for machinery and things like that.

Jon Duncan: When you would go into Lethbridge did you go to the show or anything?

Donald Christensen: Once and I while, I think it was thirty cents to go to the show, that was a lot of money. We didn’t make a practice of
it.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever get over to Raymond to the show.

Donald Christensen: No

Jon Duncan: There just wasn’t money for that. Okay, how often did you get new clothes? 

Donald Christensen: Just before school started. You would get a pair of shoes, two pair of bib and coveralls. We didn’t buy underwear,
mother always made those out of flower sacks and things like that. And she made our shirts.

Jon Duncan: So you went to school in overalls.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: How many pairs of shoes did you have?

Donald Christensen: You had one if you were lucky. Sometime in the summer you just went bear foot.

Jon Duncan: Now something that I wanted to ask you about is Christmas. Now what was Christmas like in the Christensen home?

Donald Christensen: We usually had a tree and we always had lots to eat. Present wise there was one present per person.

Jon Duncan: That was it then.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did your family have any traditions?

Donald Christensen: Other than there was no family decorating of the tree or anything like that, Santa Clause did that after the kids
were in bed. Christmas morning when we were awake we weren’t allowed to go to the Christmas tree, we had to holler and let the folks know that we were awake and ready to open our presents. My dad would get up and light the candles. When we came in the candles would be burning on the tree. As far as we knew we were off to bed and Santa Clause brought the tree and decorated it. I guess that is a tradition.

Jon Duncan: Did the house ever have electricity?

Donald Christensen: No, I was married and we had one child before we ever got electricity.

Jon Duncan: So all the years growing up you use candles on the tree and gas lights.

Donald Christensen: That’s right.

Jon Duncan: Alright, what did you do for Easter? 

Donald Christensen: For Easter, I never did figure out the reason for this but we used to roll hard boiled eggs down the hills. When they
got broke up so bad that you couldn’t eat them we quit, I never did figure out the reason for that but it was sure fun.

Jon Duncan: Alright, so you would roll eggs then. As a teenager were you involved much with sports?

Donald Christensen: I played some basketball. I played quite a bit of baseball. The odd time you would get a hockey puck and think that
we were playing hockey but we never got into real games or a team or anything like that.

Jon Duncan: Okay, who did you play baseball for?

Donald Christensen: New Dayton

Jon Duncan: Was it a school team?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who did you play?

Donald Christensen: We played Stirling, Raymond, Warner, I think that we played Milk River a time or two.

Jon Duncan: How good was the team?

Donald Christensen: I don’t honestly remember any scores. We won a few games; I don’t know just the figures. The high school team in
particular used to beat Stirling quite regularly. They never figured out how we beat them. I don’t either really.

Jon Duncan: So did you play on the high school team ever?

Donald Christensen: Not very much, just a little bit.

Jon Duncan: You played when you were younger then.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: What position did you play?

Donald Christensen: Pitch and field

Jon Duncan: You were a pitcher then. How good was the basketball team?

Donald Christensen: New Dayton always had a real good basketball team. I never was big enough or good enough to be on the main
line-up or anything, I was quite more or less in it for the fun. I don’t ever remember playing for competition.

Jon Duncan: Were you involved at all in scouting?

Donald Christensen: I spent many years in scouting. I was a scout as a young boy, I spent eighteen years of active scouting and then I
don’t know how many years. I was on the national training team for years and years. I think that it was four or five years as a district
scouted.

Jon Duncan: So there were no scouts in New Dayton?

Donald Christensen: When I was a boy there wasn’t. One of the ministers had a group of boys called trail rangers and I was in that for
two or three years.

Jon Duncan: What did you do as a train ranger?

Donald Christensen: Just exactly the same thing a scouts. We went on camps, we had badges to earn. It was very similar to Scouting.

Jon Duncan: Okay, for several years then you were a leader in the scouting program.

Donald Christensen: Yes, for eighteen years.

Jon Duncan: Now how did you become involved in scouting?

Donald Christensen: After I was married there was a bunch of people in New Dayton that required something to do. A bunch of the
parents got together and they asked me and people ho I went to school with if we would do something on the scout line. They came up to
Lethbridge here and got a few instructions from different leaders here and we started a troop in New Dayton. Then we ended up having
boys from Wrentham as well. After they phoned sunshine scout district, the district commissioner then for several years and that came
from Coutts, Milk River, New Dayton, and Wrentham.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what has been your most memorable experience in the scouting program?

Donald Christensen: I had a lot of them but I guess the most of all must have been the Canadian jamboree outside of Ottawa and
Ontario. I was responsible for trooper boys in Sothern Alberta, Boyson, Magrath, Raymond, Coutts, we had them all. I even had one boy
from Medicine Hat; I guess that would be the highlight.

Jon Duncan: Alright, I wanted to ask you a few things about the depression now. Did your father have a problem with the soil blowing?

Donald Christensen: Oh yes, that was just a common problem during some of those years. They called the black wizards and they
would come in from the north and literally black out the sun. Being in school we had no electricity in the school building and the teacher
turned the slips to go home because we couldn’t see. Some of the parents got upset, they thought that was a little big drastic for us to try
and get home in that. We all made it.

Jon Duncan: What did you dad do to solve the problem of soil blowing?

Donald Christensen: We got into summer follow, instead of making it black like we did in the early years we finally got to what they
called trash farming. We used implements and that to leave as much residue on top of the soil. It didn’t look as good but the dirt didn’t
blow. When they were strip farming they had to narrow their strips. You didn’t farm a quarter sections anymore, you farmed narrow strips.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what was the worst dust storm that you remember?

Donald Christensen: The worst dust storm is when we black Blizzard again and I was just a young guy working in the field and it was
summer fall and I was on the John Deer tractor. When that thing hit I had no idea of what direction to go. I just had to shut things down
and sit on the inside of the tractor, wait until it would ease up enough so I could tell what direction to go. It was kind of scary as a young
guy. Couldn’t see anything, didn’t know what was coming.

Jon Duncan: Did your dad have many crop failures during this period?

Donald Christensen: We had some very scarce crops but I don’t ever remember of a total failure. Maybe by today’s standards they
would call it a failure but the always managed to get a few bushels out

Jon Duncan: So you did always manage to have a harvest. Were there problems with insects?

Donald Christensen: There were a lot of problems, grasshoppers and in particular there was what they call them anti-cut worms. We
used to mix poison with sawdust and then they would put that out to the farmers depending on how much land they had that needed to be
treated. Our jobs as kids was to go in there with little shovels and scatter this stuff on the ground, the called it grasshopper bait.

Jon Duncan: That was your job, to spread the bait.

Donald Christensen: If you could get a little bridge there about six inches high that had nothing in it and they would have difficulty
climbing that and sometimes you could blo0ck the process that way.

Jon Duncan: Were there many Hobos that came out to the farm?

Donald Christensen: We had several. We lived about a half mile from the railroad. The hobos would be riding the rails and they saw the
farm. They were real hungry, they would jump off and come up to the house, asked if they could get a meal. I don’t remember one ever
coming up and not asking to help do something. If you have got some little job I would sure like to earn enough to get a meal. My mother
and dad would feed them and they would get a job splitting wood or cleaning up the big barn. They were willing to work their way through.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now where did you graduate from high school?

Donald Christensen: I don’t know anything about graduation. We didn’t have graduation in those days, if you did it fast you got a flip
kick in the rear. I was in the midst of grade twelve when I joined the navy and after I got my discharge I came back and completed my
twelve. That would have been 1946. If there was graduation I guess that that would have been it. We never had graduations in those
days.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so when was it that you joined the navy?

Donald Christensen: 1942

Jon Duncan: How old were you?

Donald Christensen: Seventeen and a half, I joined at Easter time.

Jon Duncan: Why did you choose the navy?

Donald Christensen: Well we just heard so many horror stories of the army being in the trenches, wading through mud and what not. I
always hated the necktie and the navy didn’t have neckties. I thought well that is what I want to do. 

Jon Duncan: So this was in 1944

Donald Christensen: 1944 yes

Jon Duncan: Now weren’t you a little young at seventeen and a half?

Donald Christensen: Well at eighteen they gave you a call and you had to have a medical and they would put you wherever they
wanted you. If you wanted your choice you had to beet them to it so I went at seventeen and a half. Most of the people that went in the air
force and the navy had to join like that otherwise you were in the army.

Jon Duncan: What rank were you in the navy?

Donald Christensen: I ended up as AB, Able Bodied Seaman.

Jon Duncan: Where did you serve?

Donald Christensen: I took my basic training in Vancouver at the HMCS Discovery they called it. Then for my advanced training I went
to Cornwallis Nova Scotia. Then I was shipped to HMCS dock yard in Halifax. I did some time on a corvette and most of my time on NCSO,
the Naval Control Service Office. I was boarding party of the NCSO, basically carried out many of the final sailing orders and that on the
convoys. The time I spent on Corvette, never did go to overseas. I escorted a convoy half way across the Atlantic and then the British
Navy would come and pick up our ships and we would take theirs and take them back to Halifax and New York.

Jon Duncan: Did you have any close calls with German Submarine?

Donald Christensen: Not as such no, being a boarding party when German was capitulated, one German submarine was right inside
Halifax Harbour. Because I was on boarding party I got to board that and told them to dock it, if you call that a close call. Then I joined for
pacific duty when Japan was still fighting.

Tape 2 Side 1

Jon Duncan: Alright Don we were just talking about the war and your transfer over to the pacific when the tape ran out so why don’t we
Start there.

Donald Christensen:I  was shipped into Victoria; I was only there for a few months. When Japan capitulated I spent I spent VJ day in
Butchart gardens. I came back to Vancouver then to await my discharge and I got my discharge out of Vancouver.

Jon Duncan: When were you discharged?

Donald Christensen: Early January, I don’t know the exact date; it was early January in 1946.

Jon Duncan: What would you do for VE day?

DonaldChristensen:  For VE day I was in Halifax, in fact I was in the middle of the Halifax Riot at that time. That Halifax Riot is something
that I don’t imagine to many Canadians are proud of. It serves no purpose, it gained nothing and about twenty seven killed from it I think. It
showed me what humanity can do when they are not thinking.

Jon Duncan: Were you on the street or in your barrack. 

Donald Christensen:  When it started I wasn’t in barracks but I was on a ship and they got orders that three of us were to stay and man the gangway and we were told to not allow anybody on board. This was the Ile de France it was a troop carrier, so three of us stayed there until we were released the next day at noon. I am proud to say that nobody got aboard. We had some very unhappy people that couldn’t board their own ship. Then we got downtown and you don’t want to walk into something like that alone. So my buddy and I stuck together. There were no restaurants open; there were no stores, a lot of looting on Main Street. Broken windows and we literally had nothing to eat, for going on the second day. We stayed together and until about four o’clock in the afternoon a big gunner came down Main Street with speakers on it and it said that troops were in from Montreal and we had exactly one hour to clear the streets, our orders were to shoot to kill if we weren’t. We had no place to go but we disappeared off the street. It was my own personal belief that even if they hadn’t brought a troop in there it would have quit because everybody was finished anyway. A far as I am concerned it was a horrible mess with mass hysteria.

Jon Duncan: Okay, sounds pretty wild. You joined the navy in 1944, so the war had been around for about five years already. Were
there many POW’s around the area?

Donald Christensen: Oh yes, there were a lot here in Lethbridge. There was a huge POW camp in Lethbridge. They had a work camp
out by highway feeders south of Stirling and they were all pretty trustworthy, after all they did escape where they would go.

Jon Duncan: Did your dad use any on the farm?

Donald Christensen: Yes, we hadfour at a time come out in a group and then one was a guard. They came out and picked rocks for
quite a while

Jon Duncan: Did you work with these POW’s?

Donald Christensen: I worked with them a little bit there and worked with them. They seemed to be quite a happy bunch to be over
here. The guard left his rifle on the tractor then he laid down in the shade of the rock pile and went to sleep and I just took off sweat and blood there worrying about this rifle being on the tractor. So the first load that I came in I talked to him about it and said that is pretty dangerous isn’t it. He said I have never had a shell in that yet, don’t worry about it.

Jon Duncan: Did you get along with these POW’s?

Donald Christensen: When I was around them I did, they were people.

Jon Duncan: How did you feel toward Nazi Germany?

Donald Christensen: There was a time when I was very bitter. One of my School buddies reported that he was killed. It hit pretty hard. I
guess maybe it even helped to teach prisoners of war because I found out that they are just people the same as the rest of us. They have
feelings and they are human. I have got no hard feelings against Nazis. Hitler, no doubt about it he was absolutely evil but the people that
were under him was only obeying orders and I hold no feelings against them at all.

Jon Duncan: Did you know that there was a holocaust going on?

Donald Christensen: We heard about it yes. We didn’t know to what extent at that time.

Jon Duncan: That came out later.

Donald Christensen: To an extent ya, it was just coming out.

Jon Duncan: How did you feel when they built the atomic bomb?

Donald Christensen: Well I don’t remember having that much feeling one way or the other on it. Looking back on it I think that it saved a
lot of lives, I know that it saved a lot of lives. Japanese submarines were right close to Vancouver. There was one oil refinery that had
been fired on by a submarine which isn’t to much general knowledge. There was desperation there and I know that there were lives saved
by the atomic bomb. There were a lot of Japanese lives lost on it but the overall picture that were that battle allowed to continue you can
use your imagination of what the end would have been.

Jon Duncan: Alright, how long after your discharge did you come back to Sothern Alberta?

Donald Christensen:I mmediately

Jon Duncan: So it was 1946 that you came back.

Donald Christensen: Came back to school and finished my grade twelve.

Jon Duncan: How long after that did you marry Kay?

Donald Christensen: In 1948

Jon Duncan: How did you meet her?

Donald Christensen: Well when I Started School in first grade there was a new girl who came into grade three. That was Kay, so I have
known her since she was in grade three and I was in grade one. We were just friends and we ran in the same group all through high
school. She went in the army a year ahead of me. When we both got our discharges, as Kay puts in all of our friends were married and we
were the last in the barrel so we ended up together. After forty nine years we have for no regrets.

Jon Duncan: When were you married?

Donald Christensen: 1948, June 16^th

Jon Duncan: How long did you go out together?

Donald Christensen: Just under a year. We had our first date in Waterton lakes in July. We were together all that winter. We played a
lot of badminton; we went around to different places playing badminton. June we got married.

Jon Duncan: Now tell me about bridge?

Donald Christensen: What I was going to say, her folks love bridge and when I showed up at the door they were more than glad to see
me because I made the fourth of a foursome for bridge. I learned to play bridge and I learned to enjoy it. A short while after I was married
they said you know what, I just hate bridge. I don’t know what that is trying to tell me here. I still like bridge.

Jon Duncan: You decide that you want to play it and she decided that she doesn’t want to play it anymore. Where were you married?

Donald Christensen: We were married in New Dayton in the United Church.

Jon Duncan: Why the United Church?

Donald Christensen: Kay was a member of the United Church at the time. That is where her folks lived and in those days you got
married before the bride lived and that was just the way that it went.

Jon Duncan: Was it a big wedding?

Donald Christensen: Yes, quite large. My folks and her folks had a lot of friends, the church was full.

Jon Duncan:Was there a reception after?

Donald Christensen:Yes, we had a reception in our New Dayton Community hall and Kay was kidnapped from there. She had a couple
of friends that decided that she had to leave for a while so they took her for a little car ride and it left me wondering what do I do. They
brought her back and just continued on. We went on our Honeymoon.

Jon Duncan: Where did you go?

Donald Christensen: We went all the way to Calgary. It was a terrific rainy season in 1948. In fact I think that there was seven inches of
rain that week. They were rebuilding the road through the Claresholm and we had to get pulled through the main street to Claresholm by
caterpillar would hook a chain to your bumper and pull you through. When we got through there we didn’t have a muffler left, had to pull
that off. That was the start of our married life.

Jon Duncan: Alright, after your honeymoon, where did you live?

Donald Christensen: On the farm, we have lived on there farm ever since.

Jon Duncan: Did you build a second house there for you and Kay?

Donald Christensen: Yes, we had a fire in 1972 and it totally destroyed the house. So we rebuilt and lived there until July of 1996.

Jon Duncan: When you moved out in 1948 were your parents still on the farm?

Donald Christensen: No, they had moved to Stirling by then.

Jon Duncan: So it was just you and Kay on the farm.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Then in 1972 that same house burnt down.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: Okay, after you were married now, did you have a TV?

Donald Christensen: We were married several years; I think it was 1953 or 1954 somewhere in there that we got a TV.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what was it like to get a television?

Donald Christensen: That was almost like a miracle; you could sit in your front room and watch a show. In those days it was a miracle.
Nobody had an idea of how they worked or anything, they either worked or they didn’t and you had to take it to a technician if it had
problems.

Jon Duncan: How many channels were on it?

Donald Christensen: I think that there was only one then, channel seven.

Jon Duncan: What types of programs did you watch?

Donald Christensen: In the evenings literally everything that was on there. We used to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs play on Saturday
nights, Foster Hewit.

Jon Duncan: Did you still have a radio then?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you still listen to it?

Donald Christensen: We still do ya.

Jon Duncan: So the TV didn’t replace the radio then.

Donald Christensen: No

Jon Duncan: Okay, now how many children did you have out there?

Donald Christensen: We had three children. We were unable to have any of our own so we adopted three children, two boys and a girl.
John, the eldest born in 1952, Ron, you will have to get these dates from my wife. I think Ron was 1955 and then Donna was a few years
after that. We had to wait quite a while to adopt our daughter Donna.

Jon Duncan: What type of process did you have to go through to adopt your children?

Donald Christensen: We had to make an application first of all. On the application we had to give our religion, our race, language. We
had to put down what our income was, it was quite a lengthy process. We had problems with the income part, we weren’t quite up to what
they considered was a proper income for adopting children. However we argued through it and the man that came to interview us came to
look at the home to see if it was a proper home to let children come into. He said you are under that financial line that we draw. I must
have made the right statement because he approved it. I said what is more valuable to a child, a pair of shoes or a good home. He said
you do have a point there. That was the procedure pretty well on both boys and then with the girl there was a tricky waiting list.
Evidentially most adoptive parents wanted to adopt girls. We waited it seems to me like it was close to four years. I can’t remember those
dates.

Jon Duncan: It was a lengthy wait. Donna was it?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Now what was it like for you to become a father?

Donald Christensen: Highlight of my life, Kay and I had always wanted a large family and by the time that we got Donna they had I think
forty was the line that they drew, you couldn’t adopt any more after that. The time clock ran out and three was our family. But we always
wanted a large family. We appreciated all of our children.

Jon Duncan: How often did you spend time with your children?

Donald Christensen: All that we could.

Jon Duncan: What kinds of activities would you get up to with them?

Donald Christensen: We took them to the baseball and went swimming with them, went fishing with them, camping with them. We tried to
do everything as a family.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so did you ever go on vacation?

Donald Christensen: Usually to Waterton, we went down to Salt Lake City with them one year.

Jon Duncan: Where did they go to school?

Donald Christensen: They went to school in New Dayton. Donna was in grade two or three when we went to New Dayton. New Dayton
was scheduled to be closed so it was kind of an open ended agreement; students from New Dayton got to go to whatever school they
wanted to. I had one that wanted to go to Warner. We ended up in a three way split, one of them wanted to go to Stirling, Kay and I
decided that we are going to go to school as a family. We decided that since the church was in Stirling we were going to go to School in
Stirling. We changed our post box to Stirling and Stirling has been our center ever since.

Jon Duncan: Alright so that was when Donna was in Grade two, she went over to Stirling, moved over there. Alright, how did you
discipline your children?

Donald Christensen: I think that mainly we tried to set an example for them. Maybe sometimes we were a little bit rough but we paid the
point that there had to be a hard tap on the back, a little hard and a little low sometimes. We tried not to let them get away with to much
and yet not loose their own ventures. They all figured that we were two strict and that is up to interpretation I guess.

Jon Duncan: How did your parents discipline you?

Donald Christensen: In about the same manner. I think that I only got one paddling in my life from my dad. Paddlings were very rare. A
last resort I guess.

Jon Duncan: Did your children have chores to do around the house?

Donald Christensen: Yes, we would go around the house. On the farm to, we had a lot of chickens, turkeys, hogs, and milk cows, the all
helped.

Jon Duncan: Did they boys and girls both help in the farm?

Donald Christensen: Yes, Donna didn’t ever help milk a cow I don’t think.

Jon Duncan: The boys milked the cows. Alright, now something that I wanted to ask you, what have been your hobbies over the years?

Donald Christensen: Well I always loved to fish, I like wood working. I like building furniture and finer carpentry if I can. I suppose my
number one would have to be history, developed into my number one now. I like writing, I like writing history. I like reading about history,
studying it. My wife and I both work in a lounge at the library. I enjoy watching sports; go to the odd ball game here, a hockey game in
Lethbridge.

Jon Duncan: Where did you learn to fish?

Donald Christensen: I don’t know, my dad always fished.

Jon Duncan: Did you fish with your dad?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Where?

Donald Christensen: At chin mostly, my father in law he lived for fishing. He got me into trout fishing. I have always liked fishing.

Jon Duncan: What type of fishing did you do before trout fishing?

Donald Christensen: Mostly pike fishing.

Jon Duncan: That was at chin?

Donald Christensen: Yes, as a kid we always fished for suckers at the coulee. Then I would like to mention I commercial fished for, it
must have been close to forty years. Andy Koopats and I fished for the last twenty five years.

Jon Duncan: Where was this?

Donald Christensen: We would fish out of ridge reservoir and chin coulee. Where we happened to get our permit that is where we would
go commercial fishing.

Jon Duncan: What would you fish for?

Donald Christensen: Whitefish mostly, well that is what we were after was whitefish. With a net, you sure don’t want to get pike in a net,
they wreck the net. You catch the odd one but you don’t do it on purpose.

Jon Duncan: Where would you sell your fish?

Donald Christensen: Usually on the lake, sometimes we would get orders at home, people would, and the Hutterite colony would want
fish. There was a fishing association with a truck on the ice; it was kind of a co-op.

Jon Duncan: So you would commercial fish in the winter time.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, now we said this before, you basically spent your life farming. Was this on the same farm?

Donald Christensen: Yes, I kind of grew up on a farm two miles north of where I live now. My father and Ralph Christenson were
partners. Ralph acquired the land where we originally lived. So we moved south, we moved there in 1938.

Jon Duncan: So you worked with your dad over the years?

Donald Christensen: I did until 1962.

Jon Duncan: What happened in 1962?

Donald Christensen: He signed an agreement of sale and I started farming on my own then.

Jon Duncan: Why did he sell out?

Donald Christensen: He got a blood clot in his leg and had lost his leg so he had an artificial leg, it was hard to get around and then his
age. In 1962 he would have been sixty two at that time.

Jon Duncan: So it was time.

Donald Christensen: It was time

Jon Duncan: How much did it cost you to buy that farm?

Donald Christensen: A hundred a four dollars an acre I think it was.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now after 1962 did you still farm the same types of things.

Donald Christensen: I changed my own methods shortly after that. I farmed for years on a 2/3 – 1/3 bases. Two years then and summer
fall one. The last few years that I farmed I was continual farming

Jon Duncan: Alright

Tape 2 Side 2

Jon Duncan: Alright, we were just talking farming when we turned over the tape there. Why was it that you changed your methods from 2/3s farming to full time?

Donald Christensen: Mostly the salinity problem. Summer fall, Tyler Schneider found out that it causes your salinity to increase as you
raise your water table. So now they found that a continual crop can keep that water table so that your salinity doest take over.

Jon Duncan: Did you try to keep up with the new developments in Agriculture?

Donald Christensen: Always, I don’t thing think there was when I didn’t take a winter course or two on farm management, animal
nutrition, housing, whatever, we were always taking courses.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now did you continue to raise much livestock?

Donald Christensen: We made most of our living, most of our life with hogs. We milked cows in early years; we raised a lot of poultry
and what not. Hogs were our main thing.

JonDuncan:  Where did you sell your hogs?

Donald Christensen: In Lethbridge. 

Jon Duncan: Okay, the rest of the farm then was that where you were growing feed for the hogs then?

Donald Christensen: The last few years I tried to raise my own feed.

Jon Duncan: What would you grow?

Donald Christensen: Barley

Jon Duncan: Okay, were there other crops that you grew on the farm?

Donald Christensen: Canola, we tried mustard, didn’t work very good but we tried mustard two or three years. Durham raised a lot of
Durham. Flax, wheat, we were quite varied.

Jon Duncan: These were all market crops though?

Donald Christensen: Yes, all but the barley. I rented more land so that, I eventually got to the point where I didn’t have to buy feed for
the hogs, I had some for market. Okay, now did you have your own implements?

Jon Duncan: Yes, what types of implements did you use?

Donald Christensen:I  wasn’t varied any one company, I got implements to suit my own needs I ended up with an international tractor.
We started with a John Deer; I guess that is all the tractors that I had. Like I said, I wasn’t married to any one company; I went to get my
needs.

Jon Duncan: What did you use to work the soil?

Donald Christensen: Well, clay diggers mostly, in the early years that is what they called a one way disc. It didn’t help the erosion
problem any.

Jon Duncan: How often did you use fertilizer?

Donald Christensen: Every year

Jon Duncan: Did you use your own hog manure?

Donald Christensen: I used that as far as it would go. I put on a lot of fertilizer. 

Jon Duncan: What about herbicides?

Donald Christensen: Yes, I used a lot of herbicides.

Jon Duncan: Where there any particular wheat problems that you had?

Donald Christensen :Wild oats, the last few years I got soil put on, Avadex, there was no putting seed in without Avadex.

Jon Duncan: The oats got pretty bad at times then.

Donald Christensen: Ya

Jon Duncan: Alright, now as a farmer, what was your standard of living would you say?

Donald Christensen: I think that the same as the average farmer. You live in poverty and retire fairly well off.

Jon Duncan: Why retire fairly well off?

Donald Christensen: Well you didn’t have any expenses. Before that it all went back into the farm. You had to buy a new truck, you had
to buy a new tractor, had to buy a new combine. Now all of the sudden if I sell a thousand bushels of wheat I could live on it.

Jon Duncan: So farming is Capital Intensive.

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Why did you move away in 1966?

Donald Christensen: Age mostly, just getting to the point where there were miles between Stirling and the farm and if we got in the
middle of a blizzard or a real cold day and had car trouble, if we got caught in the middle we didn’t know if either one of us could make it.
We thought well the time has come where maybe we had better move in a little closer. We started looking at Stirling, Raymond,
Lethbridge, and we found this home here in Lethbridge that we liked and we knew a lot of people in the third ward and we thought well
maybe this where we had better be.

Jon Duncan: Something that I want to ask you about, you lived fairly close to the Hutterites over the years. How often did you interact
with them?

Donald Christensen: Daily, it seemed like there would be someone down every day to visit or I would be up there.

Jon Duncan: You would go and visit them.

Donald Christensen: Oh yes

Jon Duncan: Just for social visit?

Donald Christensen: All the time sure, they are good people.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever farm with them?

Donald Christensen: We exchanged machinery once and a while and in the early years my father and mother didn’t have trucks so if
they had to make a emergency call to the hospital, or if a lady was having a baby or anything like that we would run up to the colony and
run back to the taxi.

Jon Duncan:Okay, Did you play with their children at all?

Donald Christensen: There were a couple of boys there that were my age and they were close and I almost considered them as
brothers, we would play together and we were quite close, we still are close.

Jon Duncan: Which colony was this?

Donald Christensen: New Rockport

Jon Duncan: There are a few other things that I want to talk about. First of all you have been a member of the lions club for several
years, why did you become a member?

Donald Christensen: First of all my father was one of the people that instigated the forming of the Stirling Lions club. He kind of wanted
me to belong to it but I was to busy in scouting and with the county of Warner. It was about ten years later when I joined. I like helping people and I like the atmosphere. I like what they were doing and I wanted to be part of it so I joined the lions. 

Jon Duncan: What position did you have in the lions club?

Donald Christensen :I help pretty well all of the positions in the local club and I was in what they call the summit. I was the assistant
district commissioner and requested the one time if I would be district commissioner. I didn’t really want to do that I just don’t flourish being
the center of everything so I declined.

Jon Duncan: What types of projects were you involved in?

Donald Christensen: Even before I was a lion I was involved in that first swimming pool. I was right in the middle of it there when they
built the lion’s hall in Stirling. It would take a whole book to tell you all the projects that we had been on.  Student exchanges, in school we
sort of took a personal interest in the handicapped and tried to help in on them. We have done a lot; the lions usually have at least one or
two projects going on at one time, all of the time. We support the diabetic association and of course the blind that is where I started was
helping the blind. We raised a lot of money for those, star ambulance.

Jon Duncan: How has the lions club raised money?

Donald Christensen: Well various methods, the put on dances they put on benefits, dances, raffles, auctions.

Jon Duncan: Okay, another thing that you have been involved with over the years is county council. How long did you sit on the county
council?

Donald Christensen: Fifteen years

Jon Duncan: Was there a special office there?

Donald Christensen: There were a lot of different committees and whatnot. One of the main ones I guess or the longest ones is the old
man river regional planning commission for thirteen years. In my experiences there the county board of education for all the time that I
was there. I was involved in the school board before that; I don’t know how many years I was involved in education.

Jon Duncan: Is this the New Dayton school board?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: Okay, what was your major responsibility in the county council?

Donald Christensen: Actually regional planning commissioner is one of my main ones.

Jon Duncan: That was with the county council?

Donald Christensen: Yes, and the agriculture service board, the building of roads, I was always involved somewhere out there.

Jon Duncan: Okay, what was the most important decision that council had to make when you were a member?

Donald Christensen: We made important decisions every day actually. We built several schools and each one of those was a real
important decision. We had the usually day to day, the department of education negotiating wages, buying machinery, most of us were
just ordinary people and when we had a repetition going in for several million dollars worth of equipment it was hard to realize that you are
going to sign your name to that. One fellow in particular was very emotional about it and nobody really wanted to say yes or no on it and
finally he put up his had and said yes I will move it. That we buy the machinery that is necessary for road construction. We took the vote
and looked around; he had fainted and slipped under the table. The general public may not realize it but they take this very seriously.

Jon Duncan: So you felt very strongly about your position?

Donald Christensen: I did, I felt very strongly about it and I tried to carry out my obligations the very best of my ability. I can’t think of
anything that I am ashamed of. 

Jon Duncan: Alright, how did you become a member of the board?

Donald Christensen: That is a long story too. There were a group of us, there were five farmers I guess it was, the season was getting
late and the grain was lying out in the field. We all banded together and two or three of us were beyond harvest so we got together and
helped the other fellows. I was the last one in for dinner this one day and there was one fellow there. I said where the rest all go so fast
did. He said they went to Warner to nominate you for county council. They had never breathed a word of it to me. I said to him and I don’t
have anything to say in it. I don’t think so; we all decided that you are going to be a councillor. I went through dinner with all kind of
thought going through my mind. Finally they walked in and they said quickly forget your dinner we have got to take you down there. You
have got to sign that nomination paper before they will accept it. I said well I thought I had to know something about it before I accepted.
So I went down and I signed the papers and I told the people at the time that I am just singing this to let the other councillors know that we
are concerned, there are some things that we need to be concerned about. I said I will withdrawal my name tomorrow morning. The next
morning before I could get to the phone the phone rang and they said you are it. Nobody else ran so there was no election or anything, I
was just automatically in there. That is how I got started and then I had an awful time getting out.

Jon Duncan: Alright, Something that I want to ask you about, because you were involved with the hogs for many years. There was a hard
marketing board in Alberta?

Donald Christensen: Yes

Jon Duncan: What affect did that have?

Donald Christensen: Well at the time it got to be a necessity. There were various buyers and you couldn’t prove it but you knew they
had their heads together. They said this is the price for this day and nobody would offer you higher. We got the marketing board
developed then so that we could go on a form of auction. We would sell our hogs to the marketing board and they would have an auction
and the highest bidder gets it. This improved the price immensely. In competition, I got involved to the extent that I was on the advisory
board for one director. It was an education in itself. It is through management, at the time it was necessary.

Jon Duncan: Did it serve a purpose?

Donald Christensen: It served a purpose

Jon Duncan: Sounds like you have had many years of public service.

Donald Christensen: Ya, all my life I guess

Jon Duncan: What was your attitude towards public service?

Donald Christensen: I think that everybody should feel an obligation to take their place in society and not let the other fellow do it. I
guess that is it in a nutshell, I have had a good life and my country has treated me right. I have an obligation to give some of that back.

Jon Duncan: Have you always voted?

Donald Christensen: Always

Jon Duncan: Do you have a political party?

Donald Christensen: It changes quite often

Jon Duncan: So you haven’t kept one over the years.

Donald Christensen: No, the first party that I belonged to was the social credit party. I have changed twice since. I am not as party
minded now as I used to be, I go for the best man. I don’t care if he is Liberal, NDP, or what he is, if he is the best man than that is who I
am going to go for because it is the men that make the party. If you put a part in without good leaders you have a good party then. This is
the way that I have done it all my life.

Jon Duncan: What Canadian Prime minister do you remember the most?

Donald Christensen: There are two of them really Mackenzie King and Trudeau.

Jon Duncan: Why Mackenzie King?

Donald Christensen: Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister when I was in the services. He has made a big impression and some of it
wasn’t good. I wouldn’t want to mention on here on that but I wasn’t impressed with him. When Mr. Trudeau got in he started coming in
with some insane ideas and I disapproved of them. I suppose that you are supposed to remember the good ones but I don’t have good
memories of either one of them.

Jon Duncan: Were you involved at all with the separatist movement in the west, The WCC party? 

Donald Christensen: No, I am pretty much against separation, period.

Jon Duncan: Another issue that I wanted to ask you about involving federal politics because you have been a farmer. What is your stand
on the wheat board?

Donald Christensen: To me the wheat board was similar to the Hog marketing board. It was absolutely necessary at one time. I think
that it could still be good at the present time. I think anything like that should be elected and represented of people who they think that
they are standing up for. The Canadian board at the present time is appointees. I don’t for the life of me see how they can carry out a job
with appointees. Their loyalty belongs to the one who appoints them. The farmer is supposed to be serving cant serve two masters.

Jon Duncan: You would prefer to see the directors elected then?

Donald Christensen: Defiantly, I don’t want to see the wheat board die out but I think that they could do better, a lot better.

Jon Duncan: Alright, Don I think that we are done here, I would like to thank you for your visit today. I have learned a lot and I think it is
time that we can shut this off.

Donald Christensen: I want to thank you too, how often do I get to express myself and don’t have to stand behind it. Thank you.

Jon Duncan: Alright

Transcribed by Clinton Dovell