 1913 - 2007 (93 years)
-
| Name |
Edna Yvonne McKenzie |
| Birth |
12 Aug 1913 |
Miseracordia Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Death |
14 Mar 2007 |
Penticton, British Columbia, Canada |
| Notes |
- McKenzie, PATRICK, JOE AND FAMILIES
Yvonne McKenzie
History of Yvonne McKenzie's parents and my family
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors. You say you want me to write the history of my family! Well then, pull up a chair, take off your shoes, and put your feet up, 'cause this is going to take some time.
I didn't know too much about the history of my grandparents in the States, so I asked my brother Ira about it, and this is his memories. -
Our grandparents on my dad's side were Zacharia and Emeline McKenzie of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Their son, (my dad) Patrick Dominick McKenzie - Born October 9, 1869 in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. He married (my mother) Martha Lucine Krisher - born, June 5, 1876 in Koscivsko, Indiana. Her father was German, Mother's nationality unknown. Her maiden name was Burket (Burkhard). The town of Burket was named after our grandfather.
Dad and Mother went to Arkansas, where Dad taught school. In 1898 they moved to Enid, Oklahoma. 1900 they homesteaded in Dewey County Territory and started farming because Dad was having trouble with his lungs and needed to be in the fresh air. Their farm was near the old Chisholm Trail, the famous cattle trail, and from that trail they got their fuel - dried cow manure, as that was the source of heat in the early days. In Oklahoma during this period, the government opened the Cherokee Strip for homesteading. Three McKenzies were in that famous
race. It seems everyone lined up as in a foot race. Someone fired a gun off, and away they went. If you got there before the land was gone, you staked out your land. I don't know what late arrivals got - maybe just an In- dian. I guess Dad was too tired to run as they had eight kids by then, and mother was too short and fat.
By 1913 the drought and depression had left most of the land in the hands of the banks. By then my parents had nine kids.
Would all the McKenzies move to New Mexico or Canada? They flipped a coin - heads - Canada, Tails - New Mexico. Heads came up, so eight McKenzie families came to Canada on the same train in April, 1913, Dad and three brothers and four cousins - Vince, Clarence, Floyd, Sam and their families. This is where I come into the picture. On August 12, 1913 I was born in the old Misericorda Hospital in Edmonton, Mother's only child to be born in a hospital. I probably wouldn't have been, had mother not been so tired out. All the McKenzie families had contacted scarlet-fever and measles. Poor mother had been up day and night with all the sickness.
We were all living in tents at this time at Immigrations, as we were immigrants, and as such were handled through the Immigration Board, mainly staffed by people from England who knew nothing about soil. That is why all the McKenzies were given grants of land at Peers, Alberta, west of the McLeod River. All the MeKenzies bought a team of oxen, some horses, a wagon, a cow with a calf, pigs and a few chickens and headed for their new homes in the wilderness where they built log houses and barns. The soil was very poor and as a result we had to live on rabbits, fish, wildberries and what vegetables we could grow. They built a little log schoolhouse and called it "Shining Bank School." My dad taught school for $300.00 a year - a grant from the government to teach school for six months of the year, usually from April till September.
In winter most of the men would go to lumber camps or hew railroad ties in a camp near Edson, Alberta. My dad was skilled at hewing and helped hew logs for houses in the settlement as well as for the school.
My older sisters had all gone away to work. The oldest sister, Elsie married Tom Jenkins in Bon Accord where she worked. Tom had a Model T car. One time they came out to the homestead. WeIll didn't know what a car was! Ira and I were playing outside when they drove up and we took for the bush like scared rabbits. It took some time for our parents to find us and drag us out.
In 1919 the McKenzies gave up trying to make a living there. My dad hadn't been well for sometime. They now had twelve children. We loaded all our belongings on the wagon and moved to Bon Accord. We rented land there until we found there was land available for homesteads 120 miles north of Edmonton.
April 4, 1924 my dad died of Brights Disease, but mother and my brothers were not to be deterred from their plan. In 1925 they filed on the homestead and my older brothers went to build a house.
1926 - Once again we loaded our belongings on the train and went to Boyle. From there we drove the team to our homestead. I'll never forget that muskeg-corduroy trail. We kids walked most of the way behind the team.
Once again we were in the wilderness with a log house only partly built. Everyone spent the next few years trying to clear a little land to live on.
1930 - The depression struck. We had a few acres of land to grow grain. My brother Ira hauled the grain twenty-miles to Boyle with horses and wagon - a round trip of 40 miles (a two day trip) and sold the grain for nineteen cents a bushel.
When we first moved to the homestead a little log schoolhouse was built close to our place. It was named "Forrest Grove". The trouble was keeping a teacher as it was a lonely place for them and they would get homesick and leave. It would be some time before another one would come.
I went to work when I was sixteen, as it made one less mouth to feed. Housework was the only thing I could do as I only had about six years of schooling. I made five dollars a month, and sent three home to Mother.
Most of the homestead houses and school were heated by big old oil barrels made into a wood stove.
I remember most of the horses died from what they called swamp-fever, from eating the swamp grass.
At that time we had to go to "Sarrail Post Office" to get our mail. There was also a little grocery store here.
Some of the men went to a logging camp in 1934 to haul ties. It took three days to get there, as it was one hundred miles north. They worked from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night with their teams of horses. This job lasted three months. The total earnings they returned with was thirty-nine dollars each.
We finally got a Post Office near by in our cousin's house, Alf and Opal Corse. It was named "Grassland Post Office".
1935 - I married Joe McKenzie (third cousin removed). Joe's folks were Floyd and Bernice (nee Peterman). They had moved to Canada in 1913 with the other McKenzies but only stayed a couple of years and returned to the States. Then in 1923 they bought a Model T truck and loaded what they could on it with their family of eight, and a dog. They started for Canada, got as far as Oregon, and spent the winter there in the logging camp. In 1924 they were on their way again. The mountain roads were narrow, not paved and very treacherous at that time. Joe was only nineteen and the only one that knew how to drive. When they came to the border, the officials wouldn't let them take the dog acrosS. The guy said to Joe "I'll untie him tonight", so they drove across the line and stopped. As soon as it was dark Joe sneaked back as close as he could and whistled, and old 'Shep' came a running. They loaded him in the truck and took off. They stopped in Calgary for the winter. Joe hauled coal with his truck to keep the family. They arrived five miles from Grassland in 1925. They moved into a trapper's log house on the homestead. As the trapper was going further north to trap, Joe's dad gave him a few dollars for the homestead, and had the papers transferred to his name. There were a few acres cleared and plowed on the place. I think in those days one was supposed to give part of the crop money to the government as payments for the land. His dad also got a team of mares from a fellow in Athabasca and was supposed to give him the colts as payments.
Joe had been hauling grain with his truck around Edmonton and Bon Accord for several years and was saving a little money, as well as keeping his folks. His truck was in demand as it was one of the first in the district. He finally traded the truck for a team of horses, a colt, a plow, and returned to the homestead.
Now back to the winter of 1935 when Joe and I were married. We left for Athabasca, thirty-five miles away. It was forty degrees below zero, wrapped in blankets in a cutter - more or less closed in. My sister Hazel was with us as she was going to the hospital to have her second baby. She and Bill Barnes had been married a couple of years before when I was working in Bon Accord. Joe's dad was also with us. So there we were, at one thirty P.M. still half frozen, making our wedding vows. Ar- chdeacon Little married us in the Anglican Church there. Joe's dad and Hazel -large with child - stood up with us. We then delivered Hazel to the hospital, gave the horses time to eat and rest, and then started for home. The roads were full of snow and it was bitterly cold. We arrived home late at night. We would stay with Joe's folks as they were leaving in early spring for B.C.
Here is a good one for you, something like one of "Ripleys - Believe It or Not". On our wedding night we slept on the floor in the same bedroom with Joe's two brothers and two sisters, with only a blanket hung for a partition. The log house had only three rooms - kitchen and living room in one, and two bedrooms. How was that for a start. I'm sure we had to be crazy to go through an ordeal like that, but we were gullible and in love and you know what that can do to you. A couple nights after, we had a dance in the little log schoolhouse. We danced to the music of our talented friends, who played violins, guitars and an accordian, in the dim lights of coal-oil lamps.
~olks left in the spring for British Columbia, and later moved to Yakima, Washington. Joe filed on a homestead cornering his dad's original homestead, and I took one down a ways across the road. The land had big trees and thick bush on it. We had the few head of stock. Joe's folks left with, Joe's team, colt and breaking plow. The old house was crawling with bedbugs, so I whitewashed it inside and outside, washed the beds (which were made of poles and boards) with lye water, burnt sulpher, washed and scalded the (tick we called them) a heavy material filled with dry grass - later with straw, these were our mattresses. I finally did get rid of the bedbugs.
The government reclaimed the place we were living on as Joe's dad had not. kept up the payments, so Joe paid back dues and had papers for the title made in his name, and we had to give a yearly portion of the crops, and were required to break so many acres of land a year. The man his dad bought the mares from also came to take the mares back as he had not given him the colts for payments. We gave him the colts - by now they were grown horses - and paid him some cash to complete the payments.
Those were hard times. Joe would walk behind the plow from early morning until late at night. There was lots of wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, saskatoons, and chokecherries that I would pick and can for the winter. Joe usually would get a deer or moose for i meat. We were selling cream in five gallon cans for $5 a J can and eggs at twenty-five cents per dozen. In summer , everything perishable was hung down in the water wells.
When our well was short of water we would haul it from Pine Creek in a barrel on the stone-boat. In the winter we melted snow.
1937 my neighbor - Helen Fleming and I had to deliver my sister, Velma's baby. I had helped Mother deliver a baby at one time as she was the mid-wife and had to deliver many babies in the community.
August 30, 1937 we were blessed with our first child - a son Ervin Joseph, five years after a daughter - Connie Iris, then a son - Max Floyd and another daughter - Donna Rose.
Joe now had a small tractor, and a buzz-saw for sawing firewood for ourselves and neighbors. It sure beat sawing by hand.
1945 - My mother and brother Kenneth came to live with us as they had sold their place. They had six milk cows and we had six, so there was a lot of milking to be done. There were thousands of little black flies and mosquitos in those days and everyone had to keep a smudge going so they would not eat the stock up. We would rub axle grease on the cows teats and udders to help soothe the bites. Mother and Ken only stayed six months. They sold their cows, and moved to British Columbia.
The country was developing fast. Big bulldozers came in and cleared the trees and bush off. After they had gone over the land there was still a lot of work to be done before the land was ready to plant to grain.
In June, 1947, we went to visit Joe's folks in Yakima, Washington. We hired a homemade trailer. The trailer hitch broke near Fields, B.C. and we stayed in a old boxcar a couple nights until it was repaired and we were on our way again.
That fall, f 94', our old log house burned down. I was
washing clothes and had a fire going in the cook-stove to heat the wash water. The stove just had a tin stove pipe that went up through a hole in the roof. It must have got too hot and started the fire. The children were playing outside and I was hanging clothes on the line, when Connie said "Look Mamma, smoke is coming out of the window", and it was just billowing out of the roof and window. I ran around to the only door in the house. There was no way to get in as smoke was pouring out of the door. Neighbors passing by stopped to help but there was nothing anyone could do. Joe was in the field and heard me screaming. Our good neighbors, the Flemings, took us in for the night. Next morning Joe and George Fleming pulled two granaries together, one for cooking and one for sleeping. We went to Boyle and bought some blankets, pots, pans, dishes, some clothes, and groceries. One of the neighbors loaned us an old cookstove. Those granaries were our home for two months. I cooked for the threshing crew in them. It wasn't easy, but the crew were happy, good-natured neighbors, so that helped. Joe had a little threshing machine. He would thresh for the neighbors around and they would help him when we threshed our grain. After threshing, the neighbors helped put up a shell of a house as it was getting cold and starting to snow. That was a sad time. Losing ones personal things is as hard as losing the essentials.
We had our ups and downs, and our share of sickness, especially Max. He was close to death so many times.
1948 - We dug a basement with a cement foundation. With big jacks they jacked the house onto the foun- dation. We built more onto the house. I got plans from Simpson-Sears on how to put in plumbing and electric wiring. We put it in by ourselves with some help from the neighbors. We bought four large glass batteries and a second hand windmill to charge the batteries for an electric light system. Later we bought a little engine and generator to charge the batteries, so we didn't use the windmill any longer.
1950 - We bought our first new car - a Dodge. Next
year we went to visit Joe's folks again. We stopped at Langley Prairie, B.C. where Joe's Aunt and Uncle lived. Joe liked it there, so in 1952, we sold our livestock and moved to Langley Prairie. We only stayed a little over a year as it was too hard for Joe to go back to Alberta to put the crop in, and again to harvest in the fall. So back to Alberta we went. We built a big red barn and bought more animals. We also bought a fan-mill to fan the seed grain. By this time there was a large school built in Grassland. Our children had been going to a little school called "Deer Run". Now they were bused to Grassland School.
1955 - Joe decided he wanted to go back to the States to live. We had to get passports which took about six months. Again we sold our stock and went to Yakima, Washington. We spent one winter there and moved to Colville, Washington. But it was the same problem of Joe's running back and forth to put in the crop and harvest.
Ervin graduated that fall in Colville in 1956.
1957 - We returned to Canada and decided to stay. Ervin left home to work in the oil fields.
Joe bought a combine and a hay baler that made farming a little easier.
1959 - Connie graduated and went to work in the bank at Peace River, Alberta. By this time the electricity had come through the country, we sold our glass batteries and generator. Connie bought our first television (black and white); only two stations. We thought we were in heaven.
1960 - Ervin married a lovely girl - Elsie Schaber. He worked as a male nurse at the Ponoka Penitentiary in Ponoka, and drove a taxi at night. He also took a course in engineering.
1962 - Joe bought a big hay-fork, a great piece of machinery. It saved us from the back breaking job of lifting heavy bales of hay every fall.
1963 - Donna graduated and went to Calgary to Art School. Connie also went to Calgary to work in the bank and help Donna through Art School. At this time we were raising a lot of pigs, growing clover seed: alsike, alfalfa, and rape seed. The pigs got a disease known as Erysypilis and had to be innoculated. Joe became an expert at giving needles and carried one with him most of the time. Max was still helping on the farm; doing chores, treating grain, and looking after the stock. It kept him busy.
In the fall of 1965, we sold all the livestock and went to work for Trimble Rig No.1 in the oil wells on the Little
Smokey River. I was the cook, Joe was bull cook or my assistant, and Max was janitor. We cooked for eighteen to twenty men. When we finished that hole we moved farther north to 'Meander River'. It was rugged country. We were taken in by jeep. We went back to the farm in the spring and put the crop in.
1966 - Max was sick in the hospital in Edmonton most of the winter so we went to Edmonton. Joe went to work in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
1967 - We sold our farm to our good neighbors, the Flemings. In the fall we had an auction sale and sold everything and said "Good-bye" to friends and neighbors.
We went to Edmonton and bought a truck and camper and went on a trip to Mexico, visited relatives in the States, and came back as far as Penticton and have lived around here ever since.
Our children and grandchildren are the following - Ervin Joseph McKenzie married to Elsie Schaber. They had three daughters and one son. 1966 or 1967 Ervin went to work in Fort McMurray as engineer for Great Canadian Tar Sands. They were there ten years or more when they decideded to try something different. They sold their house and moved to Spruce Grove, Alberta. He then got a job with Daon Developments in Vancouver so they moved there. They were not there too long and Daon went bankrupt. Ervin got a job within a week at Calgary in building management and is still there. Ervin and Elsie's oldest daughter is (Debbie) Deborah Gail. She is going to Douglas College and works at the Steak and Lobster House in the evenings in Vancouver where she lives. Their second daughter is Cyrstal Dawn, she is manager of a Ricky's Store in Red Deer, Alberta. Bradley David - only son, is taking a course to become a chef, and works part time at McDonalds. The youngest daughter is Rhonda Denice. She is going to Univeristy. Our oldest daughter is Connie Iris - married to John Laufman. They live in Burlington, Ontario. They have a daughter, Roanne Yvonne, twelve years old, going to school, and they have one son, Derek John, eight years old, going to school. Connie still works part-time at the bank.
Our second son, Max Floyd, is living in Calgary and works with McKenzie Janitorial Custodian.
The youngest daughter is Donna Rose. She married Mac Thorp; they were divorced in three years. She is now married to Lynn Leavens, and they live in Port Coquitlam, B.C. They have two daughters; Terra Shannon, seven years old, going to school, and Robyn Linsay, nine months old. Donna is still doing Com- mercial Art.
My dear Joe died November 22, 1980. I still live alone in our home. I look after my flowers and lawn. Guess I'm still an old dirt farmer at heart as I have a garden and always grow too many vegetables and give them away. I help with the "Wheelchair Patients" from extended care at the hospital, twice a week on their outings.
Was it a bad life our families had? Not really. One must have a dream or a goal and strive to accomplish it, for life without courage and purpose has no meaning. Kim, Ray, Hannah, Perry
McKenzie, Ray AND HANNAH
Ray is the youngest child of Samuel and Kathryn McKenzie. He was born and raised in Grassland.
At a very early age Ray's main interest was farming, so it was not surprising that he chose to help his dad farm the land.
In 1949 Ray married Hannah Sernecky of Thorhild, Alberta, and together they helped his dad on the farm.
In 1955 Samuel McKenzie decided to retire from farming, and offered the sale of the family farm and machinery to Ray. The transaction went through, and Samuel continued to live on the farm with Ray and Hannah until 1961.
Ray and Hannah were blessed with two children, Perry Lee, born on May 27, 1955, and Kim Rae, born on May 8,1957.
In 1960 Ray began construction of a new house. It was completed in November, 1961. The old house was demolished and hauled away. Ray built a steel clad machine shed, and repaired and painted existing buildings.
Also, in 1960, Ray and Hannah welcomed two foster children into their home - Wesley Schultz aged four and Glen Schultz age two. The children got along very nicely; however, two years later the boys were returned to their natural mother. They were greatly missed by all of us.
Ray sold the family farm in 1970 to Paul and Diana Ponich, and moved the family to Edmonton. Since then there have been several moves. Finally they chose Penticton, B.C., as the place to retire.
Ray and Hannah have two grandchildren, Perry's daughter Katrina Marie, born March 16, 1983, and Kim's son, Brandon Lee born, March 31, 1986.
THE SAM McKenzie FAMILY HISTORY
P 1.l;J;;- submitted by Lucille Melnyk
Sam McKenzie came from Okeene, Oklahoma, U.S.A. along with his brother Floyd in 1914. He settled in Edson area with his wife, Katherine Margaret (Weber) and five children; Bernard Ralph (born in 1903), Opal Esther (1906), Mary Inez (1908) and Laura Elnora (1913). Two older brothers, Vince and Clarence (Buck) and two cousins, Pat and Hugh, had arrived in Canada the previous year.
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| Person ID |
I02571 |
McKenzie Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
29 Oct 2021 |
| Father |
Patrick Dominick McKenzie, b. 9 Oct 1869, Meyersdale, Somerset, Pennsylvania d. 9 Apr 1924, Bon Accord, Alberta, Canada (Age 54 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Mother |
Martha Lucine Krisher, b. 5 Jun 1876, Burket, Koscivsko, Indiana d. 17 Sep 1954, Coquitlam, British Columbia (Age 78 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Marriage |
12 Jul 1896 |
Perry, Arkansas |
| Family ID |
F01544 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
Joseph Richard Mckenzie, b. 10 Feb 1904, Grady, Chickasaw, Oklahoma d. 22 Nov 1980, Penticton, British Columbia (Age 76 years) |
| Marriage |
8 Feb 1935 |
Athabasca, Alberta, Canada |
| Children |
|
| Family ID |
F01562 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
29 Oct 2021 |
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