|
a.
|
Note: g away from Amber Valley Purvis was the mail carrier for several years.Twice a week Purvis drove a team of horses from Amber Valley to Athabasca a distance of twenty miles (40)miles round trip.Often the other Bowen boys performed this task when Purvis was unavailable.During this period and for many years before and after Grand Pa Bowen was the Postmaster for the Amber Valley Community.Mail was taken into the Bowen Log home sorted and held for pick up by the local area residents.Hauling the mail was often a difficult and demanding task particularily in the winter when temperatures were often 40 degrees below or colder.In the wet spring months the roads were difficult to travel and often a trip to Athabasca and back was a two day Journey.Purvis eventually moved to Calgary and was employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company from 1932 until retirement in the late 1970's.Purvis moved from Calgary to Vancouver in 1961 where he lived until passing in December 1984.Purvis was never married and as he and Jean Bowen were the two yougest Bowen children and both lived in Vancouver they had a very close personal relationship.He was always there to provide what ever assistance required to Jean and her family if there was need.Purvis Bowen was the person who submitted the name Amber Valley which was chosen when Donaville was renamed to Amber Valley in 1931.Purvis apparently had read a book which told of a place called Amber Valley,he submitted the name which was chosen by the selection commitee and Donavile wa formally and legally renamed Amber Valley Alberta.I remember Purvis coming back regularily to Amber Valley to visit and I specifically remember a trip back in the fall of 1954.We were cutting grain(Obadiah and I (Vernon)and I remember Purvis listening to a World Series baseball game on a small portable trasistor radio.This event is so vivid in my mind for two reasons.First it was the first time I had ever seen or heard a trasistor radio,and the second reason is that ever since then I have been an avid Major League Baseball fan.Purvis told me about Jakie Robinson and Roy Campanella and that they were the first black ball players to play in the Major Leagues.He explained that since the color barrier was broken other black players which had been excluded strickly because of color would now be allowed into the league.Purvis would drive to Athabasca dailly to pick up a copy of the Edmonton Journal newspaper and when he returned to Calgary he paid the subscription costs for the Edmonton Journal and had it delivered to the farm for years there after. Since then reading the newspaper dailly and keeping abreast of current events,sports,etc. has been an habit of mine.I can now better appreciate what a generous, thoughtful, gesture this was.What better thing could he have done?Purvis was interested,concerned, and generous, enough to become envolved and he was instumental in the better education,learning, and mental develoment of the young minds of his nieces and nephews.I am almost,if not, a compulsive reader,reading worth while material in my opinion is a superb way to self educate,it broadens the perspective of the mind, it enables one to learn,better understand and be knowledgable concerning major isues of society and the world we live in, be they Political,Economic or Social.Purvis provided me the opportunity to learn and the means to be more knowledgable and because there was no television and most of the time no radio to occupy my time,I began to thoroughly read the newspaper.I am convinced this was the start of my facination and love for reading.Although I recall thanking Purvis at some later date for what he had done I think now I did not adequately tell him how much I benefited from,nor how much I so gratefully appreciate what he had done.
Note: Purvis Kitchner Bowen was the yougest Willis Bowen son.Prior to movin
|
