Bill Wardill shares an excerpt from his last book, Muskat Ramble
By T. William Wardill
For your further information: When I had hip joint surgery, the surgeon did not note that tetanus anti-toxin injection would kill me. It didn’t, but it did shred my memories and destroyed my mobility. I have recovered my memories, but not my mobility. I am trying to recover that, too.
I am sending you an excerpt from my current work in progress, A Continuum: I Lived To-morrow Yesterday.
I have no books to sell personally, but I have donated copies of my last book Muskrat Ramble to Eatonia Oasis Living. They are available by mail order.
Yours truly, Bill Wardill
Obituary of Joan Snyder 1934-2012
I am grieving today for the little girl who once threw stones at me when playing with her cousin Roy Clark. Her best playmate was Patricia Hendricks, daughter of Hank Hendricks and Evelyn Ballsrud. Hank was active in helping to settle Norse settlers and teach them English language skills. Hank received the Medal of Saint Olaf for his work directly from the King of Norway. Later, he became the agent at the Saskatchewan Pool Elevator in Eyre, Saskatchewan. They were a busy couple. But, unfortunately, Patricia couldn’t always be there for lonely little Joan.
The sweet water spring, which the Canadian Northern Railway found on the farm of George Root, was why there is a place called Eatonia. It was called Eaton after the son of Timothy Eaton at first, but the Post Office disapproved. The name was too easily confused with the established community of Eston. (Socialized Medicine began for Canada and elsewhere when local governments signed contracts with physicians and surgeons in Eston).
George Root’s son, Cleve, weighed me. I weighed 48 pounds. The younger boy who was with me weighed 64. Being puny is not easy to bear. However, my First Grade teacher, Kathleen (Kelly) Moore, restored my self-esteem by encouraging me to be a wordsmith and an artist.
Calvin Snyder was not universally admired in Eatonia. He appeared to have too much money and was involved in hidden practices. Indeed he was. He was buying up land and re-selling it after detaching the mineral rights to his company, Saskatoon Leaseholds. His initial success was the Leduc oilfield. When Joan left high school, he sent her out to work on the rigs.
I remember painting a room for him and installing outdoor wall plugs. When it came time to pay, he drove a hard bargain, but his hardest bargain was with his only daughter. When Calvin died in 1961, he left Joan a thriving estate in oil-bearing properties and agricultural land. She became an outstanding and much-honoured philanthropist.
If I could stand by her grave now, I would remember, through a mist of tears, the little girl who was so lonely for her playmate Patricia. I would whisper, “Forgive me for not understanding. You knew it is better to give than to get and you had no child of your own. “Then, if I could, I would conjure up a blanket of prairie crocuses for her.”
Copyright: T.W. Wardill 2021
My Personal Manifesto:
Lethal Gases.
During the Second World War, Canada had the unenviable task of testing lethal gases, but the American military was forbidden from doing the same. Canadians at Suffield, Alberta, could make the same virulent gases that the Nazis used as sarin and tabun. Still, if they did, they could never use Canadians in uniform as their test animals. Perhaps they used cattle. What is still a secret is whether or not they were in the form of aerosols dropped from an aircraft.
I knew a man, no longer living, who was scarred by mustard gas in aerosol form. That the Allied high command was prepared to use it occurred in Italy when German dive bombers sunk the ship that was carrying it.
I know another man, an Air Force veteran, still living, who ran into a rock pile in a panic when sprayed with an unidentifiable crowd-control gas.
Should the very high incidence in people living downwind from Suffield be blamed entirely on agricultural chemicals?
