By Elli Kohnert
Many years have gone by since John Walles, now 65 years old, spent many of his school holidays on John Uppenborns farm in Darfield, B.C.
John Uppenborn came from Germany to B.C. in the early 1920’s, sponsored by Ernest Schmidt and worked on the Schmidt farm for some time. His future wife, Gertrude, arrived in 1924 also from Germany. She got off the boat in Halifax and crossed Canada on the train. Gertrude was sponsored by the Rosen family who had a farm in Chinook Cove which adjoins Darfield.
Gertrude and John had met in Germany, and it did not take long before the two became attached to each other and were married in 1926. They took up residence on another farm for some time, and in 1931 their son Fred was born , then daughter Margaret, and they all settled on their own farm in Darfield. The children grew up and the family had a good life as farmers. The children went to the Darfield School, a little one-room building with one teacher for all the grades.
John joined the army during WW2 and went overseas to England where he became a cook. During this time he met and befriended Dr. Walles who had a home his practice in Kamloops, B.C. The two men remained friends when they came home after the war. Dr. Walles had three children, the twins Susan and Sally and John. The Wallaces brought Nannies in from different countries and that is how I, Elli Kohnert, came to Canada from Germany. My English was hard to understand, but the children taught me in a hurry, and I had to pick it up fast out of sheer necessity, otherwise they were having a good time teasing me.
The following article is written by John Walles remembering what happened what happened at the Uppenborn farm in the “Good Old Days”.
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By John Walles
I think I started to go to Uppenborn’s for most of my holidays starting about when I was eight years old – so that would be 1950. It probably corresponded with when Margaret Uppenborn started staying with us in Kamloops while she was going to high school.
At this time the Uppenborns had no transportation of their own, other than horses and a bicycle. The house was the original log cabin that Johnny Uppenborn built. There was a gravity feed cold water tap in the kitchen, and the loo was outside. I recall spending some time in it reading The Simpson Sears Catalogue; i.e. the paper supply.
Heat in the house was from the sawdust burning cook stove in the kitchen and a tin “airtight” heater in the living room. There was no electricity; light was coal oil lamps and gas lanterns, and the very beautiful Christmas tree decorated very carefully with little candles.
The main floor had the kitchen, living room/dining room and the master bedroom. Above in the loft area were two bedrooms; Fred’s and Margaret’s. I slept in Margaret’s room and remember the bed having a thick feather comforter that was toasty warm.
I remember a gas motor powered wringer washer, and before that, the round washtub and glass riffle board. The heavy flat irons heated on the stove and later a gasoline burning one. I remember bathing in a large galvanized tub similar in size to a conventional bath tub.
I remember one incident when Johnny had to do some blasting along the creek that was the water supply. There were several charges in a line along the bank and he wanted me to light the fuse for one of them. I remember the fuse being very hard to light and taking a long time, and I was very worried that one of the ones he had lit would go off before I got mine lit and could get away. I didn’t realize how slowly a blasting fuse burned, and in reality there was lots of time.
I usually got to Uppenborn’s from Kamloops on the bus. I’d be handed off to the driver in Kamloops and he would look after me along the way and during the stop in Barriere, and then see that I got off at the right place. I remember the passengers on the bus were mostly regulars, and there would be lots of conversation going on, and one person who had brought along a guitar played and sang en-route.
When I first started going to the Uppenborn’s I wasn’t much help. I wasn’t strong enough even to crank the cream separator and keep it up to speed. Soon after I started there, Johnny got a Farmall A tractor. He would take me along with him sitting in front between his legs. The tractor was also used (once a week I think) to go to Darfield post office for the mail.
I can’t remember the sequence of acquisitions for the Austin A40 and the first baler, I think the pickup came first. Riding in the pickup, I used to sit on ‘Mom’ Uppenborn’s lap. She complained I had a bony behind. On one cattle drive bringing the cattle back from summer range, I followed the herd driving the Austin. I was too small to reach the cluch and had to stand up to step on it to shift gears.
With the hay being baled, I was slowly working into driving the tractor; at first just to pull the sloop ahead while it was being unloaded at the elevator, and later in the field picking up bales. Shortly after this I was deemed competent to drive the tractor pulling the rake in the field. The Farmall A had insufficient power to pull the baler, so the significantly larger C model was acquired. It had the narrow front tire setup, with the known stability problems and I believe that was why I was only allowed to drive it for raking and not mowing or pulling the baler. The Austin A40 became too small, and was replaced with a three-quarter ton International.
When I was able to contribute, I was paid a small amount for my help. My recollection is $25 a month, but it was enough to by my own .22 ammunition and a few things. One of the things I bought by mail order was a “German Officer’s Dagger”. Whether this was real or not I have no idea; but it was a large very heavy made knife. Fred and Mickey took it from me and were throwing it at the barn door and broke the tip off the blade. I was most upset, and I remember Johnny spending a long time at the grinder re-shaping the blade.
Somewhere about this time Johnny built the “new” house and tore down the old one. What luxury; hot and cold running water, a bathroom, and electricity. The hot water was heated off the stove, so wasn’t always available. The new house was beautiful. Not only did it look nice, but it had a gorgeous view and was nice and warm in the winter.
With both the old and the new house, everyone was very aware of the potential for fire and very mindful of what they did that could cause one.
I remember shortly after the new house was built Johnny hired someone with a small bulldozer to do some work. It was a long weekend, and when the man got back, he discovered he had broken the water line and the bulldozer was up to the tops of the tracks in mud. I was very impressed when without much fuss, he just cabled a couple of blocks of firewood on top of each tread and then drove it out of the mud. I was also riding with him on the bulldozer along a side hill when it started to tip over, which was a very close call.
The ‘new’ house didn’t start with electricity because I can remember having a coal oil lamp in the bedroom I slept in.
There was a low roofed shed called the “tool shed”, that had a huge collection of old miscellaneous bits of machinery and hardware. I was fascinated by it and would spend hours in there puttering around – despite the black flies.
In the early days, there was a bear hide hung on the gate to the highway. This prevented horses that were running free from getting into the yard and eating the vegetable produce that came from a large vegetable garden that supplied most requirements.
There was an underground root cellar. Among other things stored in it was homemade root beer. I remember one time when the pressure in the bottles was causing them to burst, and one had to be very careful picking one up so as not to shake it.
There was a very large crab apple tree adjacent to the barn closest to the house. The crab apples were sweet, and I’ve never found another like it.
I eventually bought my own .22 and spent a lot of time out shooting gophers and plinking targets. Eventually the gophers got smart and I had to switch to trapping them.
Once I shot a hole in the aluminum sprinkler pipe. The gopher I was shooting at was in front of the pipe, and I either missed the gopher or it went down it’s hole. I heard the bullet hit the pipe, but could find no hole so ignored it. Johnny found it when he turned on the water: right in the middle of a long section. He somehow managed to get a couple of bolts down the pipe and into the holes to plug them.
There was a short steep dip in the highway just south of Uppenborn’s, and when it was very icy, Johnny would go out with the tractor and pull the bus up the hill.
One fall I went hunting with Johnny. We were some distance apart and he spotted a moose. He only had military ammunition for his rifle and was shooting at the moose, and the bullets were going right through it. I could hear them whistling in the bush around me and quickly lay down behind a log until the shooting was over.