| Patches!
They were often seen in one form or another in the earlier times around
Ardrossan.
We slept under patchwork quilts, ate from summer garden patches, wore patched trousers. Patched screen doors, patched binder canvas, and of course, always, there was the little patch of blue sky just when things were looking their worst. The story which will be told here will also be patches, memories of our own, and those of relatives and friends. For Hamilton and Lottie Lackey, moving to a distant place was not a new experience. Lottie had come from England to Ontario while in her teens, had married "Hamie", moved with him and their four young children to Omaha, Nebraska in the early 1890's. In 1899, in response to an appeal for homesteaders, the Lackeys journeyed by train to Edmonton, and then, by wagon, east to their new land. The troupe included a little pet rooster twelve year old Hamilton had brought all the way from the States. More than seventy years ago, where the divided highway now passes Roger and Dot Parker's comfortable home, there was a dirt road through the trees along side our grandfather's homestead. As did their neighbors, the Lackeys first constructed a sod roofed house. Our cousin, Lorne Storms, tells us a story which tells us what sod roofs were like; also what the Lackeys were like. During a very bad spell of rainy weather, Clyde Storms went over to Hamie's to see how they were faring. Their roof was leaking in a dozen places, and there in a big chair sat Papa Lackey and his girls, under a black umbrella, loudly singing their psalms! Dad Storms later remarked to his family, "Now, there is real devotion". |
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The settlement in 1900 was made up of courageous
and hard working folk. The area, then scarred by a fire, frequently mud
underfoot, and clouds of mosquitoes overhead must have seemed not promising
at times.
Roots, nourished with hard work and faith took hold and held firmly. In the early 1900's the Lackey family, we believe, was well established. Our grandfather, a carpenter, helped to build the church and later the
schoolhouse. He also worked at a sawmill near Bremner.
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| Grandmother, not in good health, and with rheumatism, had five children
by that time.
They were: - Elizabeth,
Agnes,
Hamilton and Mary were next, and baby Dorothy was born in Ardrossan in 1901. The dog in the family was called "You Know", the horses were Halley and Pinkie. |
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The family took part in whatever social events there were. Grandpa
was fond of singing, he loved hymns, Irish and Scottish songs. He was a
school trustee and an officer in the Orange Lodge.
Over the next twenty years or so, the Lackeys grew and there were changes,
good and not good.
Agnes married Jim Peck and farmed beside what is now the Gasline Road. Their children were Arthur, Dorwin, Rollin, Elizabeth, William (died age 2), and Pauline. |
| Elizabeth Lackey married Duncan Cameron, a minister who had come to
live in the area in 1909, and boarded at Reynold's (where Bell's now live).
The Camerons had two daughters, Mary and Ruth.
Hamilton, a teacher and later pharmacist, married a Baker School teacher, Flossie Henderson, who boarded at Storms. She obtained her B.A. Degree from the University of Alberta. Mary became a teacher and taught at Garden and Brookville Schools. She also had a B.A. Degree. She later became Mrs. Robson and had one son, Michael. Grandmother died in 1923, Elizabeth in 1928. Dorothy, following a Lackey tradition, became a teacher and taught at Uncas for a year 1930-31. |
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Not far from Lackey's lived Alex Allan, a Scots immigrant, who had
quite a history of moving around. He'd been on his way to Peace River to
farm, stopped in Edmonton to pick up his title for land, and met someone
who offered him a job around Ardrossan. He took it, hoping to save up a
little money. He stayed on, and worked in the 1920's for Tom Dagg, Dick
Huggard, and Will Garbe. In Winters he worked at the Ottewell Coal mine
at Clover Bar. Alex eventually settled on a quarter section of soldier
settlement land. It was to be an endless struggle and hardship for him,
but not without happy times.
In 1931, he and Dorothy Lackey were married and settled down to raising a brood in a granary. The brood was kids, not chickens! Three girls - Betty, Barbara, Agnes, but there had to be a son; Alex Hamilton came to fill the position and a few years later Mary, and then James just for an added bonus. Before the youngest two, Grandpa Lackey had lived in the Allan yard,
in a little house built by Bill Peters.
Grandpa passed on in 1940. |
