3. Francis Graham was born 1901 and died 1922.

4. Ellen Louise (1904-1973) left home at Image
Creek about 1926 and started working as Head
Cook at the Agricultural College in south
Winnipeg. Around 1930 Ellen married Charles
Harper, Head Holstein Herdsman at the College.
After their wedding Charles was appointed Farm
Manager at the Selkirk Mental Hospital and they
moved to Selkirk. Charles held his job at the
Selkirk Hospital until his sudden death near
Christmas, 1965. He and Ellen had two children,
Barbara, living at Regina and George in Calgary.
Ellen remained in Selkirk until her death in 1973.

5. Edwin J. (1907-1992) left home around 1927 and
worked on farms in the Portage-MacDonald area
for a year or two. He then worked for Charles
Harper at Selkirk for a couple of years and then
homesteaded at Hylo, AB. north east of Edmonton
until the mid 1930’s. He married Ruth Racher and
they moved to Williams Lake, BC where Ed
worked as a hunting and fishing guide.

In 1940 Ed enlisted in the Canadian Army
Engineers and served overseas for the next five
years. He received training as a carpenter in the
army and continued that trade around Chilliwack
on discharge. Ed was a violinist and used to win
trophies at the old time fiddlers contests. Ed and
Ruth had two children, Lois, now living at
Almonte, ON and Frank of Kelowna, BC.

6. Myrtle A.B. was born in 1913 and moved to
Winnipeg with her parents in 1928. She learned to
type and was in the employ of her uncle Fred for
a few years. Myrtle married Les Giles, a CNR
employee. They lived and Les worked in
Winnipeg and Melville, retiring to Enderby, BC.
Les passed away around 1975. Myrtle remarried
and when her second husband died, moved to
Drumheller, AB. Myrtle and Les had five
children; Ross, Philip, Bret, Elizabeth and Linda.

THE CYCLONE OF 1922

E. Keiley Cox related these life experiences to
Archives staff a few years before his death in 1993.

“We lived 24 miles west of Portage and 4 miles
north of Bagot. On June 22, 1922, four of us went to
the Portage Plowing Match being held a few miles
north of the city. It turned into an extremely hot
humid day and by 5:00 pm. my father had had
enough. He had had a sunstroke previously so was
afraid of the heat. We came home by suppertime. In
the evening I worked in the garden and later we all
went off to bed, trying to get some sleep. By then the
crops, gardens and hay were well advanced. Wheat
was in the "shot blade" and hay ready to cut. We had
2 lovely fields of rye just starting to color. It had
been an early spring.

118

“By 1:00 am. the morning of the 23rd, one of the
worst wind-hail storms that we had ever seen, swept
in from the north west. Our father had seen some bad
hail storms before so he had us all holding pillows up
against the window panes. We lost no glass at all.
The storm was travelling at such a speed, it was all
past us in thirty or so minutes. Everything seemed
back to normal. The air cooled off so went back to
bed - and slept.

“I was 22 years of age at the time and an early
riser so was up at 5:30 am. got the fire going as
usual and took a look eastward toward the garden. I
was never so shocked in my whole life. All I could
see was black ground. On looking up a little farther,
I couldn’t see any rye at all on the 40 acre field east
of our home. I just couldn’t believe what damage had
occurred in so few minutes. A few days earlier we
had mowed around these fields to improve their
looks. The field to the west had been sowed on
sumrnerfallow, so was a wonderful crop - to an
average height of 5 feet.

“I thought to myself, surely not that field too. Out
I went and made a fast trip to see it. What a horrible
mess. Ruined. So was our wheat. A bad year for us
and our neighbors. In those days news travelled
slowly. We didn’t really know what kind of swath it
cut across the prairie.

“We now know that it started north west of us,
swept over Katrime, Beaver, Youill, MacDonald and
Portage to High Bluff. The Stanger family of Portage
had a hip roof barn under construction - it was
demolished. Jim McKenzie south of Beaver lost his
barn. Our shelter belt of 18-20 foot cottonwoods had
to be replaced. The trees along Saskatchewan Avenue
in Portage were destroyed.

“As the storm struck Beaver it blew a string of 6
or 7 box cars out of the siding and took them 2 miles
east, north of where Mort Thompson used to live.
Shortly after a train consisting of an engine, 6 or 7
cars and a caboose, heading west, collided with these
renegade cars. The engine went into the ditch and the
cars just piled up. Fortunately no one was hurt.”

Keiley also recalled the "Quinn" blizzard that
occurred on March 15, 1920, the day of the Quinn
family sale. It was in his mind the worst storm of this
century. Keiley should have known because he lived
most of this century having been born in 1900. He
said, and this has been corroborated by others, that it
stormed for 3 days.

LIFE IN THE SOUTHEND DISTRICT -
1920’s AND 30’S

Excerpts from life experiences related to Archives
staff in 1990—1991 by Keiley Cox. They are quoted
here because we believe they typify life in the first
eighty years of our Municipality.