left the clipping of our finger or toe nails until the Sabbath. “On Sunday morning the horses were fed, the cows milked, and all were put out to pasture for the day. They thoroughly enjoyed their day of rest. “Mother brushed Dad’s old navy blue serge suit (purchased at Eatou’s for sixteen dollars) and rubbed the shiny sports with gasoline. It‘s a wonder she didn’t blow up the place! I would get to wear my only “store-bought” dress, and off we would go to Tan bolton Church in the old “tin Lizzie” smelling of mothballs and gasoline fumes. On the way we would see the crows lined up on the barbed-wire fence having a conference. “The service, led by a pulpit-thumping minister, didn’t exactly grab me and my mind would muse over the method the minister employed to get into that clerical collar. I did enjoy the hymns played on a wheezing old organ with one key missing and sung lustily by everyone, mostly off key. “Mother was startled to hear the words ‘Jesus, save your pic for me’ and leaning down quickly whispered, That’s ‘Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me’l” (Source: Eileen M. Scott: “Porridge and Old Clothes” manuscript, p. 3940) 5k ’24 =5! * dc Halfway River It was in March of 1946 that Jessie and Art Mac- Lean struck off from the area around Fort St. John into an isolated pioneer frontier on Halfway River. They had about eighty miles to trek and there were not yet roads cleared into the area. A good part of the way they would have to travel on the river ice, so the journey had to be made before the beginning of spring break—up. Altogether there were thirteen load- ed sleighs to be taken in, four of which belonged to the Macleans; others belonged to their new neigh- burs. It would be almost twenty years before they would have read access into their new property, so cousin Bill Cochrane and his wife could drive into the ranch for a visit. Summer access until then would be by plane or pack-saddle. A sleigh carried supplies in winter. That first winter journey required seven days’ travel from Fort St. John. Jessie went in on the last trip, driving one team and leading or “jerk-necking ” a second team. Since Art was a good ice tester he led the way on foot, the others following. For thirty some years, Jessie lived a real pioneer life on the frontier of civilization, isolated from town and city life, teaching school when there were school age children, preparing her own books for Indian 288 children she taught on Halfway Reserve. Jessie to ports her first love is the Indian children, acres of whom she is still teaching in Fort St. John. ——— Arthur James ‘MacLean, 1915 « (Source: Jessie Irene (Rutherford) MacLean, 1907 - ) =3 #6 in $ * “Six months after the defeat of Germany, and the same day the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike began, life began for me on a blustery day in May. I arrived promptly at 12 o’clock just in time for lunch. Jean had told everyone I was to anive on the fifteenth, so I could not lather down and arrived right on time. “The night before my. debut Andrew and Jean cleaned and sacked seed grain for the spring field- work was in full swing. Next morning, while Andrew drove the horse and buggy seven miles to the village of Bradwardine from which he could telephone the doctor in Rivers, Jeannie milked the cows. “Dr. Tisdale arrived at the house well before me. I was duly ushered into the world where my Great Aunt Beanie gave me my first bath. Later that day, Agabella, my Grandma Thomson, came to the house and washed me again because she did not think Aunt Beanie had reached all the nooks and crannies. “Sol started life ‘squeaky clean’. l” ~— Eileen May Scott, 1919 - (Source: Eileen M Scott: “Porridge and Old Clothes" manuscript, p. 29) *- * tit >31 * We knew for a certainty that autumn had arrived when the maple trees and sumach garbed themselves in wild flamboyant colours and the mornings held a slight nip in the air. Autumn meant threshing gangs, and Mother ris~ ing with the dawn to bake a dozen loaves of bread and l an equal number of pies, though she was still desper- ately tired from the day before. A threshing gang of a dozen or more men devoured food faster than a plague of grasshoppers could strip a wheatfield. There were three meals to cook, fresh scones to be baked for the afternoon snack, and the kitchen floor to scrub. That blessed kitchen floor looked like half an acre to Mother and it had to he scrubbed daily with so many tramping in from barn to house. By evening Mother‘s nerves would be strained to the limit; she was exhausted almost to tears. But after all, harvest time would not last forever. She would have the winter to relax, Whereas Dad and his hired man would be kept out in the frosty air day after, day hauling grain to the elevator in town. (Source: Eileen M. Scott: “Porridge and 01d Clothes” manuscript, p. 70)