BERNADETTE MICHELLE (ALAIN) ADRIAN
I was given my name by my godmother, Yvonne (Veillard) Alain. My mother wanted to call me Michelle but my dad refused so she used it as a middle name. Later she got her way - when her sixth daughter arrived, she named her Michelle.
I was born June 5, 1948, in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. I lived on the farm in Veillardville which was a great place. I don't remember many things from my childhood. Aside from the regular play and farm life, my life as a youngster never held much more excitement.
I went to White Poplar School till grade seven. My grade one teacher was Mrs. Lee, of whom I was very fond. My recollection in grade one was her asking if I could print my name and I said, "Yes." She asked me to then print it and I wouldn't because I knew she was a teacher and teachers knew everything, so she didn't need me to show her the spelling.
Grades two to six, I had Mrs. Marion Smith. She was a good teacher. Being in a one-room country school, we always seemed to be more interested in the other grades than the one we were in. I remember thinking how I couldn't wait to get big enough to take that Algebra. I used to see Marcella and Simone Alain, plus others, go to the blackboard and, out loud, would say, "Draw a line any length and mark it A and B" and continue on. I thought doing that was real important and it impressed me. We also had public speaking contests and I usually came out of our country school doing well and then always lost out in Hudson Bay when competing against all the rural areas. It really was an exciting thing! Another big highlight was our Christmas concerts. They were so well rehearsed and we patiently waited till the end of the evening for Santa's arrival. What a thrill! We got our orange, a few candies and a gift. We sometimes got to pick out of the Sears catalogue a first and second choice for a particular priced gift.
We rode to school in the winter on a toboggan pulled by our dogs, Pup and Rusty. We were two and a quarter miles away so we mainly took them; other times we'd walk, making little games along the way. We would either walk the railroad tracks, testing our balance on the rails, or seeing who could go the furthest without breaking through the crust of snow. In the spring came the excitement of walking along the highway to school because it would be dry for the last mile so we'd walk through the mud to what we referred to as "Menzies Corner." We had a pair of shoes hidden in the Anglican Church there so we would then get out of our boots and into shoes. Boy! After walking one and a quarter miles in gumbo, your boots were so heavy and our shoes felt like feathers. Needless to say, we were not supposed to be wearing shoes as the school yard was wet and we played out all the time.
In grade seven our little country school closed down, putting an end to a part of our heritage which today my children and many others have never experienced and never will. It was a school system in a sort of family atmosphere - all eight grades in one room.
The first day of school in Hudson Bay was a real eye opener! We rode a school bus driven by my Uncle Rolland Alain, my father's brother. He picked us up at the driveway and took us to a school consisting of many classrooms, teachers, etc. I attended my first day and on the second day I ended up being admitted into the hospital with Polio. That was in 1960, the year Saskatchewan had quite an outbreak of it. While in the hospital my younger sister, Michelle, came in with a broken leg. How she cried when they went to put her in the children's ward. Of course, that meant she was going to have to sleep in a crib. Well, she was a distance from my room but all I could hear was "I won't sleep in a crib because only babies do." They ended up pushing the crib in my room when I was out of isolation. Well, that settled a lot of crying. My grandfather, Henry Alain, had had a very severe stroke earlier in the year and was left in a wheelchair and under the hospital's care. I had not seen Grandpa since his stroke but loved him so. One day a nurse said we'd have a reunion with the three of us. Being only twelve years old, I was more than shocked when he'd call me by other people's names, and most definitely was not with us. It hurt me so much but I guess we learn much from all these experiences. I wasn't aware what strokes really were like.
I took grade nine at Zenon Park at the convent as a boarder. That seemed to have become a real tradition in our family. We went there for our high school. I wasn't fond of living in that type of surroundings and just at the age when a girl starts to get interested in "BOYS." Gee, stuck in a female dorm - well the Sisters just weren't going to give in to my reasoning. I really don't know who won those battles. If those walls could talk, we'd all laugh. We had lots of good times though, and I met some lovely friends. I spent the year there and then moved out to B.C. as my folks moved to Vernon in April of '63. So in June I left Saskatchewan for Vernon. This was the beginning of my many moves: I took grade ten in Vernon and grade eleven in Golden, B.C. and then decided, enough of school.
During my childhood we were raised on a farm. We had a lot of cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. The chores of feeding and cleaning pens never seemed too bad but we couldn't see why rock picking was never over. There were times when I'm sure I truly believed they grew from year to year. We had a stone boat which we loaded them on. Of course, we always fought to see who could drive the tractor because it sure was less work. We all got our share of it though. We hated picking rocks so much and one day we came across a groundhog. Boy, we unloaded the whole works throwing them at him! Needless to say, we had to reload it and probably never even hit the groundhog.
One day Bruce decided he was going to have a motor bike, so off a washing machine came a motor and gee, if the stupid thing wouldn't start half the time. We would push him, running as fast as we could, down a slight hill and once it started, of course, he'd wave and carry on his way as we'd walk back home cursing never to help him again. All that for the love of a brother!
In the winter time we used the dogs as our transportation to go everywhere. Sometimes we'd get them ready in the harness at the store or wherever we were and just as we'd go to step on the toboggan, they'd take off and go right home making us walk. Well, to say we'd be upset would be mild but we never gave up. We did become wiser, though, when preparing to leave with them.
Some of our favorite games in the spring were marbles and, of course, Hop Scotch - we always had lots of rubber bands from jars to use as our markers. In summer time we'd play in the creek behind the farm. Gee, we'd spend endless hours swimming in a hole or exploring a beaver's dam. I lost a couple pairs of boots in that creek and this one year I was warned it had best be the last time. Well, gee, if one didn't get stuck in the mud and I lost it. Mom made me wear two black rubbers to school, one with red around the top and across the toes and the other with white and, besides, they were different sizes. I was pretty embarrassed so I'd try to keep as much mud on them as possible. We never had phones in our homes but we had big gas tanks which were high on a stand;
we would climb on top and holler to our neighbors, "Theresa and Bobby Nicholls." Well, our voices carried loud and clear, probably even without the gas tank being high. They would mount theirs and we'd holler back and forth. They lived the closest to us, being only one quarter mile across a field.
We went to town Saturday afternoons in the winter and Saturday evenings in the summer after supper. We'd get our allowance and, boy, we were gone! We'd all have to meet, usually at Grandma Strasser's, after the stores closed. Mom and Dad and others would stop there for a coffee and a visit and we'd play during that time. Country living was just so very different from living in town. Kids from town used to love to come to the farm and we'd always want to trade them places. We never had television until late 1962, mainly because the reception was pretty poor. But I remember Uncle Smokey had a TV so I went and watched Princess Margaret's wedding on it. What a big event it was.
We had a skating rink on the farm so there was always things to do. We learned to skate pushing an old wooden kitchen chair.
Rachelle and I went to Lynn Lake, Manitoba, by train for Christmas 1960 to see my oldest sister, Marlyne, and her husband, Adolf, and family. I went alone the following year also. What a trip! I loved it! It sure was a cold place to live. One afternoon my dear nephew, Rob, and my niece, Geraldine, were supposedly having an afternoon nap but instead, they were biting my suitcase up! They were still pretty special to me even had they eaten it all up.
Well, in April of 1963 our farm was sold, bringing to an end a very special part of my life. My memories are so fond of those years and our many Christmas celebrations on the farm. We had a big auction sale and what was to be kept and what wasn't sold was loaded into a pickup truck to be driven by a neighbor and friend, Raymond Smith, to B.C. Dad, Mom, Joey and Michelle were taking the car and off they went. Rachelle stayed behind with me at the convent to finish her grade six before we joined them at the end of June. I stayed with Paulette Lamontagne that night as our place was "no more ours." My father believed our dogs would be better off left behind with the new people. They knew their surroundings and were now old dogs. Well, I forgot a skirt in the clothes chute at the house so, the next day, I went back to get it. While walking away, Pup started to follow and he would not stop. I will always see him with his tail between his legs as I had to get real mad to make him go back to an empty farm. He knew full well what happened and, oh, did I cry. He was a best friend to all us kids. Rachelle and I left Saskatchewan by Greyhound Bus at the end of June after a visit with Maxine, my sister, and her husband, Elliott, and baby, Loren. We were off to join up with our family who bought a place in Vernon and were building a new house. Rachelle and I fought so hard to stay awake so we could see the mountains. Well, my first opinion of B.C. was it was so pretty. The mountains were just great but after I saw the first weeping willow tree, I decided right there that it was like a plant that needed watering. To me, it was ugly and it took years of living around them to get to like them. It never took me long to decide B.C. was going to be special. I loved it there. I lived in Vernon one year and then Dad decided he'd go to work for awhile so he got a job in Golden at a sawmill and off we went. Our lifestyle changed again. We lived in a small trailer in the town which was right in the valley on the Rogers Pass. Golden was in very pretty country.
I met my future husband, Don Adrian, while living there and that was for the best. He was a welder by trade and in the construction field. In the fall of 1965, I moved to Kamloops so I could take a Hair Dressing course. I was engaged to be married by then and we commuted between the two places. I got my course and married Don in the spring of 1966. We then moved to Port Moody, B.C., and Don worked as a welder on and off Vancouver Island. We lived in Coquitlam for awhile, then in Burnaby, New Westminster, and finally bought a house in Coquitlam. During our coastal years, I tried my hand at many jobs. I practiced my hair dressing for a short time, then we bought a bakery. I worked in many factories: a food plant making Tang Juice Crystals, cake mixes, Freezees, Popsicles; a factory manufacturing chainsaw bars; a factory making plastic bags of every description; and I also worked in a welding shop in Vernon welding wrought iron railings. I enjoyed it all. We lived in Fort McMurray for two years where I babysat three- and four-year olds. I did not need to go outside the home to work for a change. We went back to Vernon, then for a couple of years Don worked at his trade as the work warranted. He worked with French Signs in Vernon while I worked in Housekeeping in the hospital. Well, as lovely as B.C. is, we couldn't get steady work so it was back to welding for Don and we moved to Alberta. We settled in Edmonton and have been here seven years. The construction has really dried up so two years ago we broke into the fast food industry. We are still at it and it's quite likely we will be for a long while. We definitely have moved lots and have been on the brunt end of many gypsy and vagabond jokes but, when you marry a construction worker, you better be prepared to move around as best as possible. We have truly enjoyed our moves and met people from all over. We've so very many friends in all these places. I soon learned that getting attached to a house was very silly. A house is only a shelter but a home is where your love is and what you make of it. We do hope to eventually return and make our home somewhere in B.C. We believe working at the various jobs and our liing in many places was an educational experience in itself. We have no regrets and would choose to do it all over again.
We were blessed with two lovely daughters, both were born in New Westminster, B.C. Our eldest is Kendall Louise. She was born in 1966 and recently she has been attending college in Toronto. Our other daughter, Shantell Monique, came along seven years later. She is attending Junior High here in Edmonton and longs for B.C. Both girls enjoy meeting new people and seeing so many places. They have much the same adventurous spirit in them as we have. I hope their addresses don't wreck everyone's book quite as much as ours did.
