Growing up in Eston during the 1930s and 1940s

By Joan Janzen

A resident at Evergreens in Kindersley shared her memories of growing up in Eston, Saskatchewan, in the 1930s and 1940s. Linnea Black (nee Hierlmeier) turned 96 on April 15 of this year. Her birth in the Eston Hospital in 1928 was followed by a happy childhood in the small prairie town.

She comes from healthy stock, as her gramma lived to be 100. “She never went to a hospital,” Linnea said. Her husband passed away during a flu epidemic, and she raised her five kids by herself.” She has fond memories of her gramma in Regina sending boxes of clothes that she had sewed for Linnea and her younger brother and sister. Linnea’s mom also lived to be in her mid-90s.

Linnea treasures this old photo of her as a baby with her mother, which was taken in 1928.

Linnea Black from Kindersley shared her memories of growing up in Eston during the 1930s and 1940s.

Linnea’s father owned a garage on Main Street in Eston, where he sold cars, and her mom was a homemaker. While selling cars during the Dirty 30s, her dad would travel across the river. “He would meet people who had daughters who were 18 or 19 and looking for work. So he would hire a girl to help my mom,” she recalled. There wasn’t a spare bedroom, so Linnea had to share her bed with the hired girl.

The “hired help” would earn $10 monthly, including room and board. After several years, the rate increased to $15 a month. “But after three or four years, there was no more of that, and us girls had to do the housework,” she said. Her mother would give her daughters chores to do: polish the hardwood floors, get groceries, or wash and dry the dishes.

But it wasn’t all work for Linnea and her brother and sister. They enjoyed many activities at St. Andrew’s United Church where they participated in kids clubs, choir and all sorts of fun activities.

“There were seven or eight of us kids who played games on the street every night,” she said. Even though there wasn’t much money, the children made their own fun, but sometimes they had help.

For example, in the winter, all the kids who lived on her street would hook up their sleighs into one long line, and Linnea’s dad would pull them around town behind his car. “That was our entertainment,” she said.

“I had a playhouse behind our house where I played all by myself. My mom got strawberries and raspberries in wooden crates and I made cupboards out of those boxes.”

Linnea said she didn’t even mind when she got the measles or the chicken pox and had to stay home from school. “I liked staying home because I could listen to the soap operas on the radio and I loved that. In the morning the Happy Gang was on, which was Canadian famous,” she explained. On Saturday evenings she would listen to music on the radio.

Music and dancing were big deals. During school days, some students would go downstairs, where one of them would play a little tune, and the rest of the students would dance during a 15-minute break.

During the war years, the family would gather around the radio every night and listen to the news at 8:15. “We found out what was going on. We were still quite young, but we knew a war was going on,” she recalled. “A lot of my friends who were 18, 19 or 20 went to war. Some never came back.”

She attended school in Eston from grade 1 to 12. After graduating she went to teacher’s college in Moose Jaw. At that time, there was a shortage of teachers, so after three months, she received a temporary certificate and began teaching at a country school near Maple Creek.

She boarded with a family and rode to school on a horse with one of the kids. Her salary was $100 a month, and she paid the family $35 a month for room and board.

“The wife would go out in the morning and kill a chicken, pluck and clean it, and we’d have it for dinner that night. I never got over that,” she said.

After a while she chose to move closer to home, and taught at two different schools north of Eston for several years in one and then the other. Her last teaching job was in Biggar in 1950.

At that time Linnea married and had a family of three boys and two girls. Her children live in the Eston area, except for one son who lives in Canmore. She enjoys spending time with her kids, grandkids and great grandkids.

“I enjoy life here (at the Evergreen apartments). I make all the floral arrangements because I had a flower shop at one time when the kids were growing up,” the 96-year-old said. “I don’t like a fuss made on my birthdays, but it never works that way. They always have something.”

Thanks, Linnea, for sharing your memories and taking us on a journey back in time.