Interviewee: Myron Eaves
Interviewer: Jon Duncan
 
Jon Duncan: Alright, today is August the 15^th 1997, my name is Jon Duncan. I am here with Myron Eaves, Myron why don’t you introduce yourself. Say your name, your Birth date and your parents.

Myron Eaves: I am Myron Eaves; my birth date is April the 14^th 1940. My dad was William Andrew Eves and my mother was Mildred June
Selk.

Jon Duncan: Where were you born?

Myron Eaves: I was born in Lethbridge at the Regional Hospital.

Jon Duncan: Let’s start with your dad, what was his occupation?

Myron Eves: He was a farmer most of his life.

Jon Duncan:  Where was the farm?

Myron Eaves: The farm was down by New Dayton, south east of New Dayton.

Jon Duncan: Did you live on the farm?

Myron Eaves: No, I never did, when I was born in 1940 we were living in the brick house, the Ogden house. My dad was born in Minnesota and he and his one brother and one sister came with his mother. It just turned out that Brother Ogden had built that brick
house and he had lost his wife and he had a bunch of children. My dad’s mother ended up marrying W. T. Ogden and they were all living together in the brick house there.

Jon Duncan: Alright, how long did you live there?

Myron Eaves: I think that I lived there until I was about seven years old.

Jon Duncan: Then where?

Myron Eaves: Then we moved down to the gillet house which is just down on the north east corner of Stirling here. We lived there for, I was still there when I was in my forties, and my mother had gone out to brother Hartley’s farm then.

Jon Duncan: Let me ask you about your mom as well. What was her occupation?

Myron Eaves: She was just a house wife, raising my brothers and sisters. I had one brother and two sisters.

Jon Duncan: What were there names?

Myron Eaves: Brian is my brother, Maria was and she has changed her name to Alisha now, she was next closest to me. There was four
years between each of us. Judy was the young one and she lives in Caresholm.

Jon Duncan: Okay, four children in the family. Did you spend much time together with the brothers and sisters?

Myron Eaves: Yes, we certainly did

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

Myron Eaves: We would go on little camp outs and things like that. Once or twice a week we used to go to Lethbridge that used to be the
big thing.
Jon Duncan:What would you do in Lethbridge?

Myron Eaves: I remember we would go to Kreskee’s and that is where they had the hot dog stand with the orange Julius. My aunt and
uncle would usually meet us there and my aunt would always by a hot dog and an orange Julius for us kids. We only had one son so we
were just like her family. That would be the McKee family.

Jon Duncan: Tell me, what chores did you have?

Myron Eaves: I helped for cows and we had I imagine somewhere between ten and fifteen pigs all the time. At the time that we were
down at the gillet place my dad had about ten to fifteen head of sheep there. So we had plenty to do.

Jon Duncan: Did the boy do most of the outside work?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who did the cooking and cleaning?

Myron Eaves: My mom and the girls helped her.

Jon Duncan: Alright, now you were a Selk.

Myron Eaves: Yes, my mom was a Selk.

Jon Duncan: You had quite a few aunts and uncles around?

Myron Eaves: Yes, there were ten in my mother’s family.

Jon Duncan: Did you spend much time with them?

Myron Eaves: Yes, we had reunions. We liked to have them for sure about every two years; sometimes we would have them every year.
Now we are down to just two members of the Selk family left, the original Selk’s, Virgil Selk and Beatrice Nelson, Darryl’s mom.

Jon Duncan: Does the family still get together now?

Myron Eaves: Yes, we had a big reunion here last year.

Jon Duncan: How much time did you spend out at your Aunts and Uncles when you were growing up?

Myron Eaves: I spent an awful amount of time over at my Grandmothers place because two of the uncles live right close to her. The children were the same as I was.

Jon Duncan: What would you do when you went to Grandmas place?

Myron Eaves: They had a big barn and they put the hay up in the straw and we would play up in the rafters of the barn and slide down
through the hay. They had a horse; everybody had a horse at that time.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now let me ask you, with growing up with your brother Brian, did you get into any mischief?

Myron Eaves: Plenty

Jon Duncan: What were some of the things?

Myron Eaves: I can remember the one time when we first started hauling bales and he was big enough to haul bales at that time we got
the old truck and we had a bale loader that we would pull along side of the truck. It was called a Ferris wheel loader. You could load a
bale with one string and it would just bring it right up to the truck box level and then one would be driving and one would be in the back. It
was done at Hogenson and there was a culvert out there and it goes up the slope on both sides so I let him drive the truck. I told him you
have to drive slow going over there. I was standing in the back and he hit that bump going about twenty miles an hour. I lost the grip on
the box and came back. There was a chain across the box to hold the sides together because there was no gate in the truck. The chain
caught is right behind both legs right in the knees and flipped me. I lay on the back of the box on my back and shoulders and flipped down
and landed on my feet and I was running along behind the truck. I caught up to him and I drug him out of the truck and gave him a little bit
of a message. He was something else that guy.

Jon Duncan: Alright, something else that I wanted to ask you about. Who were your friends growing up?

Myron Eaves: Well we had cousins; there were four of us that were the same age. Meata Ogden, Richard Nelson, and Rudon Selk and
Sheldon Selk, we all lived here in Stirling together. We were all first cousins.

Jon Duncan: Those are the kids that you hung out with?

Myron Eaves: Most of the time

Jon Duncan: Okay, what were your usual activities with your friends?

Myron Eaves: Well we played Sports most of the time. Basketball and Softball, we had outdoor baskets. So we played there during the
summer and then we played at the old church hall when I first started playing we played in the church hall.

Jon Duncan: How old were you when you first started playing?

Myron Eaves: I started playing when I was fifteen, in high school ball. We only had at that time forty kids or so in the High school so
everybody played.

Jon Duncan: Okay, a couple more questions that I have about the farm. What kind of farm land was it?

Myron Eaves: Just a dry land farm at that time. After when my dad sold that farm down in New Dayton and he worked in partnership with
Nels Hogenson. We had that Hogenson farm down there for must have been about ten years. At that time, I think that I was only about
fourteen or fifteen then so that would have been in 1954 to 1955. We had a hundred acres of sugar beets and they were done by hand at
that time.

Jon Duncan: Did you work on the sugar beets?

Myron Eaves: I was a little to young to do most of the stuff but I trimmed sugar beets and then as I grew older I hauled the beets to the
beet dump on Adamson place right here on the corner there where the highway is. My dad worked there after he had quit farming and he
was at the sugar beet dump. The beets were put in male cars and then taken to Raymond.

Jon Duncan: You were the one that watched over the dump then?

Myron Eaves: Well not at that time, Farrell Oler was Forman of the dump because he had worked at the sugar factory. My dad worked
upstairs and he would carry beets and clean beets and I would go with him all of the time there to the beet dump.

Jon Duncan: There was a building out there?

Myron Eaves: Yes, similar to those silver pilers that they have out on the highway. It was a wooden structure and it was a steel house.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you thinned beets a little bit, who taught you to thin?

Myron Eaves: My dad

Jon Duncan: Alright, the next thing that I wanted to ask you Myron. Do you remember anything about the war?

Myron Eaves: No, I really don’t, just what I have been told by the older people and read in the Stirling book about the Gedrasik’s and
Adamson’s they were all in it. I noticed that there were four or five Erickson’s in the war. Most of them didn’t go overseas, there were very
few that did. I remember that I was told the most about them through boxing is how I learned this. Mark Gedrasik and Glenn Adamson’s
brother Ray, the word was that they were two of the best boxers in Sothern Alberta and they went overseas and they were both killed in
battle.

Jon Duncan: Where did you box?

Myron Eaves: I boxed here in Stirling for a few years until I got big enough so that it started hurting when they were hitting you.

Jon Duncan: Who was your coach?

Myron Eaves: There was Dloy Clark, Stan little, and his brother. We boxed in the old Stirling gym over here. There used to be the big
brick school house and then there was a little gym. One basket was over the stage and the other was down by the door. You could walk
up the door frame and dunk it because it wasn’t very high. I think that it was only about eight and a half or nine feet.

Jon Duncan: That was in the old white building beside the school.

Myron Eaves: Yes, just on the south side. The Gedrasik’s were great for boxing. I think there were five brothers, like I say I didn’t know
the oldest one and then there was Johnny and Steve and Chris, Larry. Larry was a year older than I was and I participated in Sports with
him quite a bit over the years.

Jon Duncan: How good were you at Boxing?

Myron Eaves: Not very good, I didn’t really box that much. I started out boxing I think when I was about eight five or ninety pounds and by
the time that you hit a hundred and twenty pounds. I was never knocked down but I went to the Golden Gloves a couple of times in
Edmonton and I fought kids that went on to fight in the Olympics. There was Ready Boyson from Taber and a couple of other ones that
were really good boxers.

Jon Duncan: You were quite involved in sports when you were growing up, why we don’t talk about basketball first. How did you get
involved in Basketball?

Myron Eaves: We got involved in basketball with our church program, back in those days sports were used to bring people into the
church. Anybody that would come to Stirling or any of the other smaller towns was invited to come and participate in sports. Of course
basketball, softball, and volleyball were the three main sports that the church had. We were in the Canadian division and we went to Salt
Lake for to North American church playoffs in both volleyball and softball. I remember the first time that we went; I was only fifteen years
old then. It was in 1955 and we went down and there were thirty some teams involved. We finished up I think it was either fourth or fifth out
of that many teams. Jay Earl was our pitcher, he was a terrific pitcher, and he was really good.

Jon Duncan: How come you didn’t go down for basketball?

Myron Eaves: Well basketball it seems like we were involved in the provincial playoffs and at that time you couldn’t participate in both due to the time and the limits. We won the basketball playoffs up there and then the second team would go because we were involved in the Alberta playoffs.

Jon Duncan: Was this for high school?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who was your coach for high school basketball?

Myron Eaves: Our coach was Mr. Wilf Vantruka, he was the principal here, he coached us for one year. Then David Michelson coached us for one year. Then Doug Christenson was at Utah State and he came back and he coached us for the next two or three years. We won the Alberta in 1957, we got beat out in 1958, in 1959 we were second in the province.

Jon Duncan: So it was a very good team.

Myron Eaves: Ya, it was a good team.

Jon Duncan: Which position did you play?

Myron Eaves: I played guard; I was only five foot seven

Jon Duncan: Who were your rivals?

Myron Eaves: When Doug came to Stirling we didn’t only play in our high school B leagues, there was an A division and a B division. We
played teams in the A division as well. We beat most of the A division teams that we played. We were even invited to two or three senior
tournaments. We finished second in a senior tournament that year and then in 1957. In 1957 it seems to me that we played somewhere
between somewhere between thirty and thirty five games that year and we lost one in 1957, that was to that senior team. We were 1957 B
boy champions and LCI Rams were 1958 A boy champs. We were suppose to play a game at LCI and then one hit here in Stirling and we
beat them up there so they didn’t come to Stirling then. 

Jon Duncan: Let’s talk about softball. Who was your coach there?

Myron Eaves: David Michelson again was our coach. Ron Stevenson, they called him brim, he coached with David Michelson. We went
to Salt Lake three years in a row and played down there.

Jon Duncan: This was the church league that you were in?

Myron Eaves: Yes, that was the church division.

Jon Duncan: Did the school have softball at all.

Myron Eaves: No, at that time we played just for entertainment and on our sports day but the church team was the team at that time.

Jon Duncan: It sounds like the church was really involved in the community.

Myron Eaves: Yes they were, like I say we played volleyball in the spring and Volleyball in the fall and Softball in between.

Jon Duncan: Did the non-members participate?

Myron Eaves: Yes they did, we had two nights a week where juniors would go one night and the seniors would go another night, and
everybody was involved. In fact when we went down to Salt Lake in 1957 we had two non-members that went down to Salt Lake with us.

Jon Duncan: Alright, were you ever involved in the stampede?

Myron Eaves: The stampede we had down here, the kids, we would race our ponies. That was about the extent of it. We would ride the
sheep, they always had a couple of sheep that you could ride, and mostly we were involved in track and field at that time. They would
have races, if you wanted to race you would get fifteen cents or a dime or a nickel. We had some real good runners; there was a young
fellow that had a track and field program, Doug Hirschie. He would come over here and he runner’s bikes and the uniform and everything.
We would just take our shirts off. I would always run barefoot, I had the fifteen cents and he had to ride. It was fun.

Jon Duncan: Was this on the 24^th of July?

Myron Eaves: Yes it was.

Jon Duncan: we talked about sports some, who were some of the teachers that you remember?

Myron Eaves: Well I remember Mr. Young was our principal when I just went into high school. He was here I think for about three years
and Mr. Lanchuka was principal after that. Then Mr. Christenson was as I graduated from high school and he was principal for quite a few
years.

Jon Duncan: Who were your favourite teachers?

Myron Eaves: Well most of them were all good teachers, the library that is here on the corner, that used to be a teacherage and I
remember we had two lady teachers that were single that lived there together, Miss. Safelee and Miss, Jackson. They were, I think from
grade seven up to nine they taught us and it was really nice to have them teach. They were good teachers, I remember them.

Jon Duncan: Why were they?

Myron Eaves: They were just really nice to us and they were good teachers.

Jon Duncan: What were you favourite subjects in school?

Myron Eaves: Phyzed of course and social studies, I enjoyed social studies. The math and the other stuff were a little bit tough for me,
the science.

Jon Duncan: What kind of student were you?

Myron Eaves: If I put my mind to it I was a fairly decent student. Sports was a little bit more involved but we had one teacher that always
used to tell us that if we didn’t want to do school we should either go over town to the pool hall or help our dad on the farm at that time.
The pool hall was closer so that is where I ended up most of the time.

Jon Duncan: Did you ever get up to mischief in school?

Myron Eaves: Yes, the old brick school house, I don’t know if you remember that or not but it sat right on the corner over here and it had a big fire escape down the back. We had one teacher, Mr. Thieara and he would come in and I think about that time we must have been sixteen or seventeen years old, we were getting into our last years. He would go up on the board and most of our class we were just suppose to copy it down. Well he was up at the board four or five of us would get a ball and some gloves and play catch. Mr. Lanchucka caught wind of that one day and he came around the corner of the school one day and he just stood there looking at us. So we got our stuff back together and we were about to go back up the fire escape and he said do you know what that is for. We said ya it is a fire escape. He said ya and that all it is used for, you go around the front and I will see you in my office after school. So that was the end of that. 

Jon Duncan: How were students disciplined?

Myron Eaves: At that time they could strap you, I never did get the strap but this teacher I was talking about, she was quite a big woman and she would put you over her lap and spank you. The spanking didn’t hurt as much as the strap but you would get smacked with a ruler or hit with a book. Mr. Young he liked the book method, he would sneak up behind you if you weren’t paying attention and give you a little whack on the head with the book.

Jon Duncan: Did you have any further education after your grade twelve year?

Myron Eaves: Yes, I went to the Lethbridge junior collage in 1966 and took automotive school there and played basketball.

Jon Duncan: Did you graduate with a certificate? 

Myron Eaves: No, I just did the one year, I was working for the department of public in Waterton at the time and I could have either
stayed in Waterton or go to school so I went to school at that time. They wanted me to play basketball, we won in the Alberta collage
league that year and then just about the same team won the senior B championship of Alberta.

Jon Duncan: You were involved in quite a few good teams.

Myron Eaves: Yes, most of the kids on the team at the collage here were LDS kids. There was Bruce Hirschie from Stirling here and
Robert Herget and myself, Wes Balderson from Magrath, Brian Leviett and there was a couple other ones, Vern Summerfield from
Cardston. There were ten kids on the team and eight of them were LDS.

Jon Duncan: All throughout Sothern Alberta.

Myron Eaves: If you placed two on the first all star team and two on the second all star team that year.

Jon Duncan: Was there a graduation when you finished school?

Myron Eaves: Yes there was.

Jon Duncan: What did they do?

Myron Eaves: They were pretty well the same as the do now, the classes weren’t near as big as they are now, and there were three of
us boys and four girls in my graduating class. That was in 1958.

Jon Duncan: I want to ask you about some of the special occasions in Stirling, what was Christmas like for the Eaves family.

Myron Eaves: Christmas was more than just the Eaves family because the Selks were all in Stirling and the Nelsons. With the Ogden’s
my mother and Tom Ogden’s wife were sisters and my dad and Tom Ogden were half brothers the way that it turned out. My dad came with his mother from Minnesota. We would get up early Christmas morning and open the gifts and before the day was over we would go to
each others relative’s houses and visit and enjoy the snacks and share the fun of having what you got for Christmas.

Jon Duncan: So it was a really big family then.

Myron Eaves: Yes

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

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Who decorated it?

Myron Eaves: Dad did and we helped him. Mom was more in charge of making the chocolates and stuff for Christmas. She was a good
chocolate maker.

Jon Duncan: How many gifts would you get?

Myron Eaves: We would get usually one gift that we really wanted. We would have just an ordinary chair and that chair would be
designated to each of us kids. Then we would get two or three other things. Maybe a couple articles of clothing and some candy. The one
time I wanted a hockey game and I got that for Christmas so that was a good one. The one year that I wanted a football I got a real nice
football for Christmas. On Christmas day there were twenty of us playing here in the school with no sweaters on or anything, it was just
that nice.

Jon Duncan: Alright, when did you figure out that there wasn’t a Santa Clause?

Myron Eaves: It didn’t take to long because I was kind of snoopy and I would look around and find gifts. We had an attic in the house, in
the closets and under the beds were looking places.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now there was always a Christmas dance that day.

Myron Eaves: Yes there was, there was a two year dance during the afternoon and then there was a senior dance at night.

Jon Duncan: Did you go to the children’s dance?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: What was it like?

Myron Eaves: It was really nice, they would play the records at the junior dance and then they would have an orchestra. We had some
really nice musicians here in Stirling, the played some real good orchestras. I just liked to sit and listen to them play.

Jon Duncan: Were you much for the dancing?

Myron Eaves: No, not really, if there was a basketball around we were playing basketball.

Jon Duncan: At the dance?

Myron Eaves: At the dance.

Jon Duncan: Alright, what about Easter?

Myron Eaves: Easter we used to go, you know where highway 52 is now.

Jon Duncan: Ya

Myron Eaves: There is a coulee that runs down through there and we used to pack a lunch and there would probably be a dozen of us
that would walk out there or ride our bikes out there take our Easter eggs and roll them down those grass slopes. Go down through that
valley and climb the walls and coulees and that.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you played in the coulees a bit. Did you ever play in the irrigation canal?

Myron Eaves: Yes, we swam in the irrigation canal, as a matter of fact the one right up by the old Brandley place, the big yellow place up
there. There was a big canal that run right there with a lock in it and just down below, it was probably five or six feet deep. We would swim
in there. Down at the coulee at the other end of town, down on the south west corner, which is where I learned how to swim. The Jensen
boys threw me in and I learned how to swim right there.

Jon Duncan: Alright, another big occasion was Halloween.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: What would happen on Halloween?

Myron Eaves: There were so many stories with Halloween, we were a little older at the time, I wont give any names on this, I don’t know if
you have ever heard this or not. There were eight or ten of us and there was one family that didn’t believe in Halloween so they wouldn’t
let their kids go Halloween and nobody would go to their house. So we went there and we went down to their barn and there were a
couple of cows in the carrel and a couple of horses. Some of the kids got up on the bale stack and started throwing bales. The one other
young guy and I were standing out by the carrel just watching what was going on, somebody broke the outside light. Everybody had a
small light at the barn and that is how if they had to go down there they would see what was going on. I noticed this fellow coming down
the fence line I said look here he comes, what is going on. The other kid said to me what we are going to do. I said I don’t know about you
but I am getting out of here. I turned and run. Carrel fences were made out of slabs and then there was a big ditch there. The other guys
had already left and this gentleman knelt down and I heard the first shot fire. I heard the buck shot rattle off this fence. By that time I was
over the fence and just turning right but he was behind me and he ended up with fourteen buck shot in the back of his leg.

Jon Duncan: That was the friend of yours?

Myron Eaves: Yes, so we had to take him over to Raymond and there was quite a little to do about that for a while. Then this same
young guy two years later I went down to his place and I hear this shotgun firing and low and behold he had his cousin there and he was
taking the buck shot out of the shotgun shell and he had put paper in it and he had two or three sweaters on and then a back leather
coat. He would have his cousin shoot him in the back with this. He put several different things in it, he tried rice and paper and he groaned
up some rubber and put in it. He went in the house and he came out with a dill pickle. I said what you are going to do with that. That dill pickle just sat right in that shell he put that pickle in there I said don’t do it. I told his cousin don’t shoot him. He shot him with that pickle
and it hit him in the back and just knocked him right down on his face put a big hole in that leather jacket and he had a big bruise. He
didn’t learn his lesson that good; he was the same one that had the buck shot in the back of his leg. That was a couple of the Halloween
things. He decided that he wouldn’t be doing any shooting that Halloween.

Jon Duncan: That brings me to another question; did you have your own gun?

Myron Eaves: At that time I had a BB gun that was another little story too. My uncle lived in Rosemary at that time and they came to visit
us and we had a coal shed out behind the house where we kept our coal and there was a little light like I was talking about. He took that
BB gun out and shot that bulb out and I got blamed for it. My dad took my gun away for a week.

Jon Duncan: Alright, would you go hunting around town?

Myron Eaves: Ya, we would shoot birds, sparrows and at that time there was just pidgins all over in Stirling here, crows and hawks and
magpies.

Jon Duncan: So it was just the birds.

Myron Eaves: Ya, we didn’t start shooting gophers until we got 22s.

Jon Duncan: Alright, there is something that I would like to ask you. When did you get your first job?

Myron Eaves: I worked for my dad until I was, like with the sugar beets and the cattle and he had a bunch of cattle and I worked with him
until I was probably seventeen or eighteen then I went to the experimental station in Lethbridge and I got on there with the department of
public works.

Tape 1 Side 2
 
Jon Duncan: Alright, we were just talking about getting your first job when we turned the tape over. What did you do for the Lethbridge public works?

Myron Eaves: I was with the experimental station as I was saying and I was on a survey crew to begin with for about three or four days. The engineer was Mr. Dechecko and he was involved with Waterton parks, he was the head engineer in Waterton at that time. He was involved with experimental stations and custom and then he was involved with the experimental stations and customs areas. He came over one day and he asked me, he said I haven’t seen you before, who you are. I told him who I was. He says where you were before you come to this job. I told him I had been working with my dad on the farm. He said can you drive a half ton truck. I said you bet. He said can you take pictures with a camera, well I suppose that I could. Well he said I am going to make you materials inspector. So I got a promotion after three days and I worked in with the department of public works. We put in the underground irrigation at the station there in Lethbridge. He came one day and he said pack your little back. I said why. He said well we are going to Calgary; we are going to do the customs area at Coutts. So they did some construction down there and repaved the area and everything. We took the pictures and put the white lines on and we went to Waterston from there and we paved up the chief mountain customs. It was that day that I was the materials inspector for them.

Jon Duncan: You were seventeen years old at the time?

Myron Eaves: Ya, just turning eighteen.

Jon Duncan: How much were you paid?

Myron Eaves: I can’t even remember back that far, I think it was about three or four dollars an hour. Then I had the truck so I didn’t have
to have a vehicle or anything. We would go on holidays in the winter time and I didn’t like to work in the winter because there wasn’t really
anything to do in Waterston. We had a camp there and he would go on holidays and so I would two times a week go and pick up the mail
and take it to Waterston and put it in his office.

Jon Duncan: So when you were working for your dad all of the time were you paid as well.

Myron Eaves: Yes, he did pay me a wage but I had what I needed and I was able to drive my drivers licence until I was about eighteen.
At that time you would have a cult. We had an old 1951 Cheve and I was hauling sugar beets when I was fifteen and sixteen in a three ton
truck. He wouldn’t let me take the car to often but he would let me take it to Raymond, I would go over and pick up this girlfriend of mine
and we would go to the show just for one instance we came out of the show and here is the policeman sitting on the bumper of the car
and he says you don’t have a drivers licence do you. I said no, I haven’t gotten in to get it yet. He said well from now on until you get it you
park down at your girlfriends place and you walk up here.

Jon Duncan: This was in Stirling?

Myron Eaves: That was in Raymond, we used to have in the church hall they used to bring in a movie maybe once a week or something
like that. They didn’t do that anymore so then we had to go to Raymond. I remember several times when we were going to go to Raymond
we would phone over there to find out what the show was and if there was going to be a cartoon. He would say well we are just going to
start in ten minutes and we said well it will take us fifteen minutes to get over there. How many is there coming? I said about five or six of
us and he said we will hold it for you. So we would drive over there and get our popcorn and pop and then they would start the show. That
was really fun.

Jon Duncan: You say that you got your licence when you were eighteen, who taught you to drive?

Myron Eaves: I just kind of learned from my dad on the farm. I started driving tractor when I was twelve or thirteen.

Jon Duncan: Your dad farmed with tractors then.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: What type of tractor did he have?

Myron Eaves: We had a little Farmall, they had a steel wheel one at that time but I never did drive that one. That one was parked. Then
we had an international WD9 and an international W6 then a small Farmall tractor that we used in the beets. 

Jon Duncan: Those are the tractors that you drive then.

Myron Eaves: Yes, no cabs or anything, steel seats on them.

Jon Duncan: A little more uncomfortable then.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, you mentioned the pool hall already, let’s talk about that. When did you start to go to the pool hall?

Myron Eaves: Well I was trying to get in there when I was thirteen and fourteen years old but we had our little police man, Mr. Barton was
our town magistrate and he was the one who watched you for driving around town without your licence or at that time you had to be fifteen
to go into the pool hall. You could go in with your dad who I was a little fortunate because my dad would go in once and a while and he
would play a game of pool once and a while with me. This family had the pool hall and the café at that time. They didn’t know me that well
because I had just come in so I got to go in when I was fourteen. They asked my dad and he didn’t say one way or the other but anyway
they let me go in. I was educated pretty quick in there was some pretty good pool players. Albert Hartley for instance I bought him a lot of
sandwiches, he was the main one who taught me how to play pool. 

Jon Duncan: That is what you played for, a sandwich.

Myron Eaves: He always wanted sandwiches, at that time you could have a bacon and tomato sandwich for twenty cents. Or you could
have a toasted and fried ham sandwich for fifteen cents. Pop at that time I think was about seven or eight cents. We would play for a pop
and a sandwich and my dad used to get mad at me because I had to quit feeding him. Albert Hartley was probably one of the best pool
players that have ever been in Stirling. I learned my lesson well and when I started beating him once and a while then we didn’t play for
sandwiches anymore.

Jon Duncan: Alright Myron, we talked about Albert but who were some of the other characters that you remember in the pool hall?

Myron Eaves: Well there was Joe Hartley, there was Ray Finley, Stan Little, Leo Seely, Hard Fife, Harold Christenson, we used to play
cards in there too, we played for chocolate bars. I named Albert, Joe, and Ray as the buffalos we called them, that was just their
nicknames and we had some fun times in there. During the winter they had wet beet pulp at the sugar factory in Raymond. Several of us
would go over in the morning and load up. We would unload half in the morning and then the other half in the evening. So in-between
time we would spend that in the pool.

Jon Duncan: Did you feed the cattle?

Myron Eaves: Ya, the sugar factory workers of course there were three shifts so the pool hall was open from seven o’clock in the
morning to one or two the next morning. So you could go up there just about any time. There were only two tables so the younger group,
we didn’t get to play that much unless we got over there right after school. Then I played with Albert quite a bit so I kind of fit in with him
and I got to play quite a bit of pool then.

Jon Duncan: Why did you nickname them the four buffalo’s?

Myron Eaves: Just some of the things that they would do. For instance with Joe Hartley he wasn’t really that friendly with other people
and it go so that I bought him a pop and a sandwich and then the next time he would buy me a pop and a sandwich. One day he came
over to the pool hall and he had a big sweater on and he had his walked in his pocket on the outside so I bumped into him and just took
his wallet and put it in my pocket. It was his turn to buy that day and we just went around. Finally he said well we might as well have our
sandwiches now, it is my turn to buy. So they brought the sandwich and the pop and then he started looking for his wallet and he couldn’t
find it. He was wondering if he dropped it on his way to the pool hall and finally I just took his wallet out and set it on the counter and said
here I will buy today. Oh he says, you have got a wallet just like mine. That was one of the instances. I used to play tricks on him. Stan
little had a swayed jacket and they were playing late one night and we were sitting up there watching them. I took his jacket and just put it
on overtop and I was sitting there and he started looking for his jacket and he couldn’t find it, he came up to me and get a hold of me and
pull on his jacket. The other guys were just laughing, finally he said well you have got a jacket just like the one that I had. There were a
few instances like that and that is why I called him the buffalo.

Jon Duncan: What was the card game that you played?

Myron Eaves: Slopper Solo it was called. Drew Oler was one of the other fellows that was at the pool hall quite a bit, he wouldn’t play
maybe for a month or two and then he would stat playing. If you won the game the loser would buy the other three chocolate bars or a
pop. I remember one Saturday when Drew Oler started playing you had to play every minute that he was there. We played fourteen
games at one sitting and I never lost a game that day. Usually you would win about the same amount as you would loose so you would
have to buy just about your own treats but that day I won fourteen treats. When the games were going on there were some really
interesting things that happened. Somebody would make a mistake and they would get all upset and then you would have to talk and call
them down. It was fun.

Jon Duncan: Got serious at times did it.

Myron Eaves: Ya

Jon Duncan: Alright, Myron lets changed directions now a little bit. When did you get married?

Myron Eaves: I have been married eighteen years; I was thirty nine when I got married.

Jon Duncan: Now this was Janet Peterson.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: How did you meet her?

Myron Eaves: Well I worked at the seed plant right out by their house and I had known them for years and I would golf with her brother
and played cards with her dad. Her dad drove the school bus so he was in playing cards quite a bit; he really loved to play Sloppy Solo.
So I met him there and I have known him for years. Then I met her.

Jon Duncan: Where were you married?

Myron Eaves: We were married in the temple in Cardston.

Jon Duncan: How long did you date Janet?

Myron Eaves: For two years.

Jon Duncan: What did you do for a date usually?

Myron Eaves: Usually we would go to a show or at that time her dad coached us in slow pitch and she would always be there at the
tournaments, we would go all over Sothern Alberta and play. We had fourteen kids on the team and they were all from Stirling.

Jon Duncan: How did you propose to her?

Myron Eaves: She kind of knew that I was going to, it was Christmas Eve. I had the ring and she knew. I propose to her on Christmas
Eve.

Jon Duncan: You gave her a diamond ring?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Was the wedding a big wedding?

Myron Eaves: Yes it was, her dad and my mother said that if we didn’t want to have a dance or that that they would have given us quite
a bit of money at that time. She wanted a wedding so we had the wedding and it was nice.

Jon Duncan: Where was the reception?

Myron Eaves: In the Stirling School.

Jon Duncan: Okay, where did you live after you were married?

Myron Eaves: We lived down in the trailer court just down on the other side of town.

Jon Duncan: Did you buy a house there or rent?

Myron Eaves:We bought it.

Jon Duncan: Okay, how long did you live there?

Myron Eaves: We lived there about ten years.

Jon Duncan: Where did you go after that?

Myron Eaves: We went out to her mother and dads house on the farm.

Jon Duncan: Okay, how many children.

Myron Eaves: Three boys

Jon Duncan: Just the three boys, what are their names

Myron Eaves: Billy-Ken, Mitchell, and Bryce.

Jon Duncan: What was it like to be a father?

Myron Eaves: Well the said that I was the same way that my kids were when I was a little fellow, I guess what goes around comes around.
It has been alright. We probably would have been better off if we had a girl between the two boys, which is what my wife would have liked.

Jon Duncan: What would you do with your boys?

Myron Eaves: I would golf with them, fish with them, I haven’t ever taken them hunting, and I stopped hunting a few years ago. We do a
lot of things together.

Jon Duncan: Why did you stop hunting?

Myron Eaves: I got to the point where it was costing to much for shells and for licences. The licences have gone up so much over the
last ten years or so but it has got to be kind of a hassle.

Jon Duncan: Where do you golf?

Myron Eaves: Golf at Raymond.

Jon Duncan: You and the boys have memberships.

Myron Eaves: Right now I was at the seed plant and we have a membership through the seed plant. We buy one every year and we can
play four eighteens a day.

Jon Duncan: That’s a pretty good membership.

Myron Eaves: Yes it is

Jon Duncan: Now the boys have all come to school here in Stirling, did they participate in sports?

Myron Eaves: Yes, all of them.

Jon Duncan: What are they involved in?

Myron Eaves: The oldest ones sport is mostly basketball but he did run some track and field. Mitchell the middle one he run track and
field and he plays basketball and he is going to play on junior football team in Raymond this year. He has never played football before.
You youngest one is just in track and field and just getting started his last year and basketball. 

Jon Duncan: Do you have chores for them around the house?

Myron Eaves: Yes, they help with the dishes and that, the youngest one does the lawns, the other one helps with the lawns and cleans
up and that.

Jon Duncan: So you keep them busy.

Myron Eaves: Yes, pretty good.

Jon Duncan: Now in your home, who does the cooking and cleaning?

Myron Eaves: My wife does most of the cooking and cleaning, my oldest boy is quite a good cook and he doesn’t mind cooking. I cook
when the need arises, hopefully that is not too often.

Jon Duncan:What is a typical breakfast in the Eaves home?

Myron Eaves: It depends on what is happening, when the kids go on the school bus and that they just get up and have cereal. Usually I
will have an ego or my wife will make French toast and a couple of slices of bacon or sausage.

Jon Duncan: So a bigger breakfast for you.

Myron Eaves: Ya

Jon Duncan: What do you have for lunch?

Myron Eaves: Well for lunch, I have diabetes and I don’t take insulin so I have to have something just about every two hours, a cookie or
a snack or something like that I will usually have a hamburger or a hot dog or a sandwich and a pickle or something like that.

Jon Duncan: What about the evening meal then?

Myron Eaves: The eavening meal for me is our bigger meal and we usually have hamburgers some of the time but usually we have pork
chops. Not steak very often the way that the prices are now.

Jon Duncan: It is a time for the family to get together.

Myron Eaves: Yes, except for when they are involved in their sports, Janet and I usually just have supper together because they are

usually at practices.

Jon Duncan: The family is on the go.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Alright, something else, I hadn’t asked you before, did you, in the home that you lived in in Stirling was there electricity?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Did you have a radio?

Myron Eaves: Yes we did.

Jon Duncan: What would you listen to?

Myron Eaves: Well I remember listening to, it was funny because when I was seven years old my aunt had given me a cap gun and my
buddy Jacobs lived just back over here and he was the same age as I was. He had a radio, a Rogers and it didn’t work. One day he
wanted this cap gun that I had so he said I will trade you that radio for that cap gun because I though I could probably get it. At that time,
that was 1947 or 1948 I took that radio home and I took a pencil and tapped that tube and the radio came on and it is still working today.

Jon Duncan: That is all you had to do was tap the tube.

Myron Eaves: Ya, and they had a game of the week on baseball, I think they had it on Monday and Thursday and that was the two
afternoons when I was usually sick. Because I could listen to those baseball games, they were big on hip raids. They had country and
western and different kinds of music and I would like to listen to those, they would have the top ten every night of the three different
stations. That is what I really liked.
Jon Duncan: Okay, so you owned your own radio.

Myron Eaves: Ya, at that time in 1958 were the first time that we had a TV, a black and white TV and it had a radio in it too.

Jon Duncan: What was it like to get a TV?

Myron Eaves: There were a couple of years; they came out two years before we got our first TV. There was wrestling from Toronto, we
would go down to brother or sister Spackmans and they would stay right up and watch that wrestling with us. It came on Friday nights from
eleven to midnight. That was something else, there were five or six of us that would just go over there with Blaine Spackman and watch
wrestling. When we finally got our own then it wasn’t very big.

Jon Duncan: How many channels?

Myron Eaves: It started with one in the test pattern and we even watched the test pattern for a while. The TV would come on at I think it
was eleven or eleven thirty there would be test patterns in the morning and then that channel would come on at seven thirty then it would
go off at midnight.

Jon Duncan: You would even watch the test patterns then.

Myron Eaves: Ya made sure that they were alright. It was something else, black and white. The queen, they would get up and play the
national anthem and my youngest sister would pop up at attention and I would push her, she would get mad at me.

Jon Duncan: When did you get your first color TV?

Myron Eaves: I can’t even remember when the first color TV came out, that must have been in the late seventies or something like that.

Jon Duncan: Did your family have a refrigerator?

Myron Eaves: We got an upright refrigerator in 1957 and I still have it and it still works well. I have gone through four of the ones that
they make now.

Jon Duncan: Alright, what did you use before you had a refrigerator?

Myron Eaves: We had an ice box, my uncle used to have an ice house and they used to go down in the wintertime by the coulee and it
would freeze up and they would cut ice out. Sheridan Jacobs had an ice house and you would go and get ice from him during the winter
they would put this ice in the shed and put sawdust on it.

Jon Duncan: What other electrical appliances did your parents have?

Myron Eaves:Well at that time we had one of the old electric ringer washers. We had that and the radio. I think that we had a couple of little electric heaters for in the winter time. When we first had coal, we burned coal first and then we had diesel fuel. I remember when it got forty below the house had two bedrooms and a kitchen and a living room and a hall at the back. We would put blankets over the two bedrooms during the day so that we could keep the rest of the house heated. Just before we went to sleep we took the blankets down and let the bedrooms heat. That was with the diesel fuel. Then we got natural gas. Half the stove was natural gas and half was coal so we would bank it at night with the coal. 

Jon Duncan: You still use it to heat the house?

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Okay, Myron did you have a typewriter at home?

Myron Eaves: Yes we did, when we moved down to the little house on the northeast corner of Stirling. You would dial your number would
be, I remember it was a short and two longs. If it was three longs you would go two times, two times, two times with it and then you would
push the button on the phone, they would answer it first. Then you would push the button in and you would talk. Then you would let the
button out and they would push their button in and then they were able talk and you were able to hear them. You both couldn’t speak at
the same time.

Jon Duncan: Were you able to use the phone much?

Myron Eaves: Yes, phone weren’t very high; we never made that many long distance calls because most of our family was right here.
We used it quite a bit. It was on a party line and you had to but in once and a while.

Jon Duncan: Did anyone listen in?

Myron Eaves: I would imagine ya, we did a little bit too so. Everybody knew everybody and that was the joy of being in a small town like this.

Jon Duncan: Okay, now did the house that you lived in have a bathroom?

Myron Eaves: No it didn’t, it was outside.

Jon Duncan: Where would you take a bath?

Myron Eaves: We had a bath tub and the same time that we had a coal stove we would put water in the tub and one person could just sit
in it and you would put it up on the stove and heat it and you would take it in through the bedroom and set it in there.

Jon Duncan: When was bath night?

Myron Eaves: Bath night was usually Saturday nights.

Jon Duncan: Just before Sunday at church.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: Okay, now one of the last questions that I wanted to ask you. What type of community has Stirling been?

Myron Eaves: Stirling has been an excellent community, which is why we are still here with our boys. Over the years now things have
changed a little bit but, I think it goes hand in hand with our relation but we try and stay away from violence. At the time that I was a boy
like we were talking about going to Lethbridge once a week we would close the outside screen door and it wouldn’t even be latched and
the inside doors would all be open and that was every house in Stirling. You never worried about anybody going into your house and
taking anything. Still today you will have a lot of those same things and its really good.

Jon Duncan: I guess something else that I should ask you. When you worked for the seed plant, how did you get that job?

Myron Eaves: My wife’s dad was on the board for quite a few years there and he was always after me to go up and apply. I always
thought that it would be like an elevator and it would be too dusty and dirty there. One day he came and he said, my brother was actually
manager there before I started there. I didn’t think that they would hire because we were brothers and there was a conflict of interest.
There was no problem with that and I was there with him for fifteen years and then I was there five more years, I was there twenty years. It
was a real good job.

Jon Duncan: Where did you work before then?

Myron Eaves: I was with the department of public works and working on the highways.

Jon Duncan: Okay, so you came from that department.

Myron Eaves: And I worked at tomorrow’s furniture. Gordy Bob married my cousin and my brother and I delivered furniture there for
three years before I came into the seed plant.

Jon Duncan: What were your responsibilities at the seed plant?

Myron Eaves: Well we cleaned grain for seed for the farmers; you just had to go and check the machines and make sure that everything
was clean.

Jon Duncan: So you are retired now.

Myron Eaves: Yes

Jon Duncan: What have you been doing during your retirement?

Myron Eaves: Golfing, being with the family a little more, that is about it.

Jon Duncan: Alright, well my last question is that you have seen a lot of changes in this community over the years; you have lived here
since you were born basically. What are the big changes in your mind?

Myron Eaves: Well I think it is the upgrading of everything. We used to have ditches that would run full of water all through the summer
now we have the sewer system and the water system and everything and we even got the paved road and that sure makes a difference,
that sure makes it nice. The faculties that we have now like with the church and with the schools have been really upgraded. They are top
notch. It is a nice place to live.

Jon Duncan: Alright, well I would like to thank you for your time Myron.

Myron Eaves: Thank you

Jon Duncan: We have had a good visit and I think it is time to shut it off.

Myron Eaves:Thank you very much.
 
Transcribed by Clinton Dovell