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Note: Written by Ralph Leroy Tigner, November 1980
I was born on a farm two miles north of Blackie, Alberta on May 12, 1910. My parents were Richard Alexander Tigner and Dora Maude Garlinghouse Tigner, and I had six brothers (Clarence, John Henry who died as an infant, Vern, Arthur, Alfred and Russell), and three sisters (Bertha, Amy and Eleanor). Clarence, my eldest brother who was 14 years older than I, joined the Army in 1914 and returned from overseas in 1918. A year later he and Rose Gordon went to Portland, Oregon, and I only saw him once before he died in 1961 in Los Angeles. Bertha, who was 12 years older, took a business course and worked as a steno until she married Art Lincoln when she was 20. Vern was 9 years older than I, and joined the Army in Calgary in 1915 but was discharged when they discovered he was only 15. He tried a few months later in Winnipeg but was unsuccessful there too. Vern was born in 1901, Amy in 1903, Art in 1905, Alf in 1908, I was born in 1910, Russ in 1912 and Eleanor in 1916.
My early memories are vague, but I do remember Dad putting me on his foot, singing songs to me, and playing Run Sheep Run and Hide and Seek. I can also remember how nice and soft the dirt felt with bare feet when Mother and Dad ploughed the garden. Dad took me to school the first day to assure me that all was well even though I had brothers and sisters going to the same school.
There were two special events during the year -- Christmas and Halloween. At Christmas I remember helping pick the turkey and goose for Christmas and New Year's dinners, and making popcorn balls. We very seldom got toys for Christmas. Mostly things to wear, and they always fit. We learned later that Mother and Dad spent hours going through the Simpson's and Eaton's catalogues. Our presents were never put around the tree, but were stacked at our place at the table. Boy, was it nice to get a new pair of shiny shoes -- especially the ones that squeaked! Shoes usually lasted about a year since Dad could half-sole and mend so well.
Halloween was another highlight, when we went in droves to trick and treat and then spent part of the next day straightening out things other kids did to our farm. I remember one night in Blackie when we went to a Chinese laundry and plugged his chimney to try to smoke him out. He came flying out the front door all right -- with a butcher knife -- and would have cut up someone if a neighbor hadn't stopped him! Trick and treating was out of bounds in Blackie after that night!
Another memory is when I was in Grade four or five, and I saw our teacher take off a pair of red flannels one cold morning. That night I mentioned it to Vern, who was about the same age as the teacher. The next day he offered to drive us to school in the sleigh, which he had never done before. He told me to run in and get the red flannels, and I sure wish I hadn't! Later, after a dance in Blackie, the teacher and her boyfriend came out to get in their car and found the red flannels covering the steering wheel. My brothers and sisters thought it was quite a joke and I didn't hear anything more until the teacher asked my sister and I to stay in after school one day. When questioned about the red flannels, I admitted I was the guilty one, but when I saw her coming towards me with a pointer (if you know what I mean!) I knew things were going to happen. She had locked the doors, so I ran around the room until she was exhausted and sat down at her desk. I apologized to her, but until she left the school, I often stayed in after school She even had me studying English history, which to me was a waste of time. I couldn't understand why we had to learn the names of kings and queens for hundreds of years -- and I learned to read half a page and quote it back, word for word.
At this time the kids at school were my brothers and sisters, three Wallace kids, three Parkers, three Farrils, Harrises galore (8 or 9), Dora Elliott, Lyle Bailey, one Rockerfellow and one Leadbetter. Although we worked hard at school, we had lots of fun. During Stampede week, Mother and Dad gave us enough money to go to Calgary. We either stayed at Uncle Oscar's or, as we got older, at the Carlton Hotel. Sometimes we would take a weekend off and go fishing at Carseland Dam with Dad, who was a great fisherman even as a child. He could eat fish three times a day, but I got so sick of it I couldn't eat it at all. We used to play Prisoner's Base, Shinney, (which was a real rough game), baseball in the summertime and hockey in Blackie in the winter. The chinooks made some winters very mild, but I remember in May 1919 having a horrible blizzard when most of the cattle left outside froze to death. Our hockey team got to the provincial finals against Belov one year, but we lost the game. I made some very good friends playing hockey -- Raymond Anderson, who died suddenly one winter of infantile paralysis, Ven Risk, who was an epileptic, and Lyle Bailey.
In later years, Blackie had a professional baseball team which was recognized as the best in Canada, although the population could not afford it very long. Alfred, Russ and I had to take turns going to the games, since one always had to stay home to do the extra chores. One evening we all had chores, and mine was to stack wood in the coal shed. Russ had finished his work first, and it was pretty close between Alf and me. When Alf though I was getting ahead, he pulled all the wood down and the fight was on! Mother tried to talk to us but soon decided a broom was the only way to split us up, and we both missed the game!
Another experience I remember was cleaning out the corral with Art one spring, with four horses and a scraper. Art held the scraper while I filled it, and then walked to the field to dump the load and return for more. We worked all morning, and my arms and legs were tired, so after lunch I wanted him to drive the horses. He kept promising to take the next turn but didn't, so I handed him the reins and he let go. The horses ran away and he and I wrestled in the manure! When we returned home, Mother made us take off our clothes and wash in the water trough before we were allowed in the house. After thinking about some of the fights I had with my brothers, I think a boy could easily kill his brother at times and enjoy it, but fortunately the anger doesn't last long.
There was lots of work to be done on the farm. As a young boy in the winter, my job was to take in two armfuls of wood and enough coal to last until the next night. An older brother would empty the ashes. As we got older, after school each day we all had chores to do, as Dad had one and one-quarter sections of land, and all was under cultivation. It was either disking, harrowing, plowing, seeding, harvesting such as running a binder, driving four horses and stooking. Running a binder was actually the easiest work, but somehow the older boys did that and we younger ones stooked. In the spring, we were kept out of school for 2-3 weeks for seeding. The first operation was to harrow the land, and after finishing at home, I'd move to the homestead 4 miles away. When I was 14 or 15, I batched at the homestead and looked after my own horses, and when the drills were working it kept me going to keep ahead. I remember starting a fire in the morning, putting on a steak and some bread, then getting the horses ready. When I returned, breakfast was just like I still love it -- black steak, black toast, and boiled coffee. One summer, Dad hired Deafy Thorne to help me, and one night when I was in the barn looking after the horses, he came up behind me, put one hand over my eyes, and squeezed me real hard. That scared me so much that I never went to the barn after dark again!
We stayed home from school for a month in the fall to harvest. Dad had a Stearns outfit with a crew of an engineer, separater men, three spike pitches, a coal hauler for the steam engineer, a man to haul water, 16 teams to pick up bundles, one cook and cookcar and two bunk cars. Dad did most of the threshing for our neighbors until combines came into operation. At that time he had had a number of heart attacks, and although my older brothers tried threshing, they were not as successful as Dad, partly because it was difficult to hire help with unions being organized.
I remember the last day of the Tigner's threshing history. We had a full crew of Indians, and since the forecast was snow, they agreed to thresh until they finished, if we'd supply two kegs of beer, which we did. When we got up in the morning, we heard the Indians. They hadn't gone to bed and were getting pretty high. On the way home with the bunk car, I heard voices shrieking behind me, and looked back to see two Indians with their bundle racks going through a regular gate with fences flying. They were coming up behind me, neck and neck. I stayed in the middle of the road, and by some miracle they passed me on both sides and then forced a neighbor, who was driving his new Durant car, into a small gully. When I returned to the farm, I noticed there wasn't enough lumber on those bundle racks to start a fire!! Mother, who was the paymaster for all extra help, and who did most of the banking, (with help from Art), paid the Indians and they went on their way.
On the farm, there were things I liked to do, like driving horses and repairing cars, harnesses, machinery, and tractors, but other things I did not enjoy doing, like milking cows. I'd rather haul wheat all day than milk a bunch of cows. I also didn't like training calves to drink from a bucket either. It seemed I didn't have the knack to put my finger in their mouths without being bitten, and they almost starved to death before I could train them to drink. I also remember being chased up on top of the barn by the new bulls.
We had some interesting experiences with horses on the farm. One black horse, Tex, was with us for years, but was always doing something that Dad didn't like, so he was sold many times, but always came home. Dad tried one last time and sold Tex to a man who lived west of Turner Valley. A month later Tex came back, and Dad had to return the money to the buyer. Tex lived a full life and died at the home place.
I remember losing faith in horses one summer. Dad had traded his 50 herd for a new tractor which lasted only one summer, so we had to buy more horses. Dad had kept a few of his older horses but had little money to buy more. We then heard you could buy wild horses near Brooks for one dollar, so we got 20 head. Every spare minute that spring was spent trying to break these horses, and I remember the first time we hooked them to a plow. I drove them the first round which sure did not take much time! At quitting time, each wild horse was tied to a tame one to keep them in tow. It was a nightmare all summer. I even dreamed about these horses and I don't know how someone wasn't killed! In the fall, a horse buyer from Montreal was looking for horses for milk wagons, so we worked on these horses night and day, and he bought all but two. I have often shut my eyes and imagined milk wagons and milk bottles strewn all over the streets! Dad used the money to buy a couple of two-piston John Deere tractors but, best of all, everyone slept at nights!
We had some interesting experiences with cars too. One night I borrowed an old car from Vern and four of us went to a dance in Vulcan. On the way home, my friend wanted to take a short cut but took a wrong turn and we landed on top of a rock pile in a slough. After rolling up my good pants, carrying rocks from the road, and pushing the car out of the mud, I arrived home just in time to change my clothes and go to work.
Another time I borrowed Dad's car to drive two girls to Calgary to catch the train. On the way home, Lloyd Monkman took the wrong bend and we wound up in a gravel pit in Aldersyde, upside down. My savings were used to repair the car and I was never allowed to use the good car again -- just the Model T Ford trucks.
One other experience we had could have been disastrous. One night Alf, Art, Russ and I went to Blackie in a Model T Ford, with a wide flat box on the back. I was driving, with Alf in the front seat and Art and Russell on the back with their feet hanging over. I was driving at a fast clip -- about 30 miles an hour, and because the headlights were very dim, I didn't see a neighbor's broken-down wagon on the side of the road. When we collided, the hood cover flew off to the right -- I thought it was Alf, but he had jumped to safety. Russ hit his head and was out cold, and after the police took him to town, we found out he had a concussion. The truck was a total wreck, but the owner of the wagon bought Dad another Model T Ford, which was better than the one we had!
In March, 1927 at the age of 16 1/2, I decided to leave home as there didn't seem to be any opportunity for me on the farm with three brothers. I remember Mother gave me some extra money and both she and Dad told me if I ever got into a bind to phone them, but I never did. I left with the clothes I had on, and caught a ride to High River. I stayed with Lloyd Monkman that night and he decided to go to Stettler with me the next day. We were a couple of greenhorn travellers! We hitched rides from town to town, mostly in wagons as there were not many cars and trucks then. After sleeping overnight in an old shed in Lacombe, we caught the freight train for Stettler and managed to stay clear of the railroad men until we were coming into town.
I worked at various jobs in Stettler -- as a hired hand, night man at a garage, gardener, and occasionally for Crown Lumber (the firm I later was with for 39 years). I also worked for Art Lincoln, my brother-in-law, hauling wheat from the farmers to Three Hills, and in the winter I went back to Stettler to haul coal.
Before I met Mary, I only had one girlfriend who lived on a homestead joining ours. I spent all my extra money on her, even after she went to college in Calgary. I never spent a dime on a girl after that, and in fact, I didn't take one out until I met Mary.
After Mary McNally and I were married on November 24, 1932, I continued to haul wheat for a farmer named Fringer and we moved to Acme, Stettler and Blackie. Later we moved back to Stetller when I worked with a local trucker for a short time, then was hired as Manager of Crown Lumber. We were there for 19 years and it was there that our four children (Marlene, Jim, Noelle and Ron) were born. I was transferred to Calgary as manager in 1954, to Edmonton as manager, and area manager in 1956, to Saskatoon in 1962, to Red Deer as manager and area manager in 1965, and to Calgary head office as marketing manager in 1970. I retired on May 12, 1975. After I started with Crown Lumber, it was purchased by Crown Zellerbach. I was one of the original Crown Lumber employees, attending meetings in Banff to start the Home Town stores -- three in Calgary and three in B.C.
We are currently living at #22, 528 Cedar Crescent S.W., Calgary. Marlene married Rudy Lieskosky. They have four boys (Stephen, David, Randy, Michael) and a daughter-in-law, Louise (Stephen's wife) and live in Calgary. Jim married Iris Berezah. They have three girls (Andrea, Sandria, and Maureen) and one boy (Ralph) and live in Edmonton. Noelle married Wally Kopinsky. They have two girls (Susan and Karen) and two boys (Kelly and Douglas) and also live in Edmonton. Ron married Mary Feist. They have one daughter (April) and live in Vancouver.
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Note: RI199
Note: (Research):Written by Ralph Leroy Tigner November 1980
I was born on a farm two miles north of Blackie, Alberta on May 12, 1910. My parents were Richard AlexanderTigner and Dora Maude Garlinghouse Tigner and I had six brothers (Clarence, John Henry who died as an infant, Vern, Arthur, Alfred and Russell) and three sisters (Bertha, Amy and Eleanor). Clarence, my eldest brother who was 14 years older than I, joined the army in 1914 and returned from overseas in 1918. a year later he and Rose Gordon went to Portland , Oregon and I only saw him once before he died in 1961 in Los Angeles. Bertha, who was 12 years older, took a business course and worked as a steno until she married Art Lincoln when she was 20. Vern was 9 years older than I and joined the army in Calgary in 1915 but was discharged when they discovered he was only 15. He tried a few months later in Winnepeg but was unsuccessful too. Vern was born in 1901, Amy in 1903, Art in 1905, Alf in 1908. I was born in 1910, Russ in 1912 and Eleanor in 1916.
My early memories are vague but I do remember Dad putting me on his foot, singing songs to me, and playing Run Sheep Run and Hide and Seek. I can also remember how nice and soft the dirt felt with bare feet when Mother and Dad ploughed the garden. Dad took me to school the first day to assure me that all was well even though I had brothers and sisters going to the same school.
There were two special events during the year---Christmas and Halloween. At Christmas I rememder helping pick the turkey and goose for Christmas and New Year's dinners and making popcorn balls. We seldom got toys for Christmas---mostly things to wear and they always fit. We learned later that Mother and Dad spent hours going through the Simpson's and Eaton's catalogues. Our presentswere never put around the tree but were stacked at our place at the table. Boy, was it nice to get a new pair of shiny shoes---especially the ones that squeaked ! Shoes usually lasted about a year since Dad could half sole and mend so well.
Halloween was another highlight when we went in droves to trick and treat and then spend part of the next day straightening out things other kids did to our farm. I remember one night in Blackie when we went to a Chinese laundry and plugged his chimney to try to smoke him out. He came flying out the front door all right---with a butcher knife and would have cut up someone if a neighbor hadn't stopped him! Trick and treating was out of bounds in Blackie after that night !
Another memory is when I was in Grade four and I saw our teacher take off a pair of red flannels one cold morning. That night I mentioned it to Vern, who was about the same age as the teacher. The next day he offered to drive us to school in the sleigh which he had never done before. He told me to run in and get the red flannels and I sure wish he hadn't! Later, after a dance in Blackie the teacher and her boyfriend came out to get in their car and found the red flannels covering the steering wheel. My brothers and sisters thought it was quite a joke and I didn't hear anything more until the teacher asked my sister and I to stay in after school one day. When questioned about the red flannels, I admitted I was the guilty one but, when I saw her coming towards me with a pointer (if you know what I mean!), I knew things were going to happen. She had locked the doors so I ran around the room until she was exhausted and sat down at her desk. I apologized to her but, until she left the school, I often stayed in after school ! She even had me studying English history which to me was a waste of time---I couldn't understand why we had to learn the names of kings and queens for hundreds of years---and I learned to read half a page and quote it back word for word.
At this time the kids at school were my brothers and sisters, the Wallace kids, three Parkers, three Farrils, Harrrises galore (8or9) , Dora Elliott, Lyle Bailey, one Rockerfellow, and one Leadbetter. Although we worked hard at school we had lots of fun. During Stampede week, Mother and Dad gave us enough money to go to Calgary. We either stayed at Uncle Oscar's or, as we got older, at the Carlton Hotel. Sometimes we would take the weekend off and go fishing at Carseland Dam with Dad who was a great fisherman even as a child. He could eat fish three times a day but I got so sick of it I couldn't eat it at all. We used to play Prisoner's Base, Shinney (which was a real rough game), baseball in the summertime and hockey in Blackie in the winter. The chinooks made some winters very mild but I remember in May 1919 having a terrible blizzard when most of the cattle left outside froze to death. Our hockey team got to the provincial finals against Belov one year but we lost the game. I made some good friends playing hockey---Raymond Anderson who died suddenly one winter of infantile paralysis, Ven Risk who was epileptic, and Lyle Bailey.
In later years , Blackie had a professional baseball team which was recognized as the best in Canada although the population could not afford it very long. Alfred, Russ and I had to take turns going to the games since one always had to stay home to do the extra chores. One evening we all had chores and mine was to stack wood in the coal shed. Russ had finished his work first and it was pretty close between Alf and me. When Alf thought I was getting ahead, he pulled all the wood down and the fight was on! Mother tried to talk to us but soon decided a broom was the only way to split us up and we both missed the game!
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