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Swinging on the Gate
by Rosie Peirson
$12.00
Chapter One - Early Childhood
I was born Rosa Helen Wall on February 7, 1924 in the little town of Herbert, Saskatchewan. Herbert is located on the Trans Canada Highway approximately eighty miles west of Moose Jaw and 25 miles east of Swift Current. I was named for my grandmothers, both of whom were named Helen, but I have always been called Rosie. In both my mother’s and my father’s family the men folk were tall. My father’s two sisters, Susan and Helen, were both tall. My mother’s sisters were mostly short. My maternal grandfather, Henry Unger, owned the livery stables in Herbert. People would come in from their farms to do their shopping in town and put their horses in my grandfather’s livery stables. My grandfather would feed and look after the horses while their owners did their shopping.
My paternal grandfather, Gerhard Wall, farmed in the Herbert area. I really have no memories of him at all as he died before I was two years old. Dad told me he died of kidney failure.
My mother’s maiden name was Tina Unger. She died on January 4, 1925. My paternal grandmother died later in January, 1925.
Mother died of eclampsia. My father always made sure I wouldn’t forget that and often reminded me of what had actually taken her life. Later in life, when I was pregnant, the doctors would always check to see that I didn’t have this condition, which is hereditary. My father explained to me that when I was eleven months old my mother was seven months pregnant. Unfortunately, she suffered a fall and eleven days later went into convulsions. At the time he and my mother planned to help my uncle with butchering. My mother had a terrible headache. She insisted that she would at least open the doors to let them in and out. Later in the afternoon she went into seizures. She came out of the seizures only once, recognizing me. She wanted to pick me up but exclaimed that she couldn’t and went back into the seizures. She died later that night. Editor’s note - the gravestone of Tina Wall (nee Unger) in Herbert cemetery. The German inscription is translated as "My life was short and full of pain towards the end. In Christ’s kingdom there will be peace.” I was her only child.
I found out later that mother had baked some cookies just before her death. My father saved them in a tin can, which he kept in a trunk that was carried around with us for many years. He gave these things to me when I was in my teens.
At the time of mother’s death they were expecting my grandmother, Helena Wall (nee Theissen) to go any day. She had a condition called dropsy that affected her heart. In those days doctors were not able to treat it successfully as they can now. I don’t have a picture of her but was told that she was a very heavy person and weighed as much as four hundred twenty five pounds. She died January, 1925.
Shortly before my mother and grandmother died, my mother had a dream. In her dream, two women were going up a steep hill. The younger woman, a cripple, wouldn’t make it up the hill. Jesus was standing at the top of the hill. He came down the hill and picked her up and carried her to the top of the hill. Meanwhile, the other woman continued climbing the hill.
It seemed a strange dream and mother had a hump on her back caused by scoliosis. Thus she and Pop (we always called father "Pop" because we spoke Dutch. Pop in Dutch was like papa in English) tried to figure it out. When mother died, followed a few days later by grandma, the dream became very clear to my father. The younger woman must have been his wife who had scoliosis and a hump on her back and the older woman must be his mother who died shortly after that.
Mother was buried in the Herbert, Saskatchewan graveyard near the highway. In 1996, my son, Wayne, and I visited her grave. We could still read the inscription on the tombstone.
After my mother’s death, my father made arrangements for me to stay with his sister, Helen, who lived on a farm nine or ten miles out of Herbert. I was eleven months old at the time. Sometimes when my father didn’t have to work I would go to stay with him.
My father remarried a few months later to a lady he had dated before he married the first time. Her name was also Tina, in full Tina Bergen. She was a sister to my uncle George’s wife, my aunt Margaret. She came from Manitoba. She saw the obituary of my mother in the newspaper and decided that my father needed someone to look after me. So she came to Saskatchewan and they were married soon afterwards.
The following year, in March, my father’s second wife died in childbirth. She had a leaking heart valve and was given chloroform while the twins were being born. My dad said that she died immediately after the chloroform was administered. She had twin boys. One of the twins died right away. The other twin, Peter, lived till he was seven or eight months old. Tina Wall (nee Bergen) was buried in the Herbert cemetery beside by mother.
My father’s oldest sister, Aunt Susie, lived with her husband, John, not far from Aunt Helen’s. Aunt Susie’s farm used to belong to my paternal grandparents. My father had a place where he batched and whenever he didn’t have to work he would pick me up at Aunt Helen’s and we would go to stay either at Aunt Susie’s or at his place.
One winter my father took me to Aunt Susie’s in his Model-T Ford. There was a storm and it was night. We got stuck in a snowdrift at the gate and he had to carry me the rest of the way down the long driveway. There was no way I could get through the snow as I was too short!
Chapter Two - My Maternal Grandparents Henry & Helena
My middle name was taken from my maternal grandmother, Helena Weibe (born 2 March, 1880; died 11 July 1955). My maternal grandfather, Henry Unger (born 14 May, 1876; died 21 January, 1951), owned the livery stables in Herbert, Saskatchewan. The farmers would put their horses in grandpa’s livery stable so they could do their shopping in town.
The school wasn’t far from their place, so I would go to play in the schoolyard when I visited them. When I didn’t go there I would swing on my grandpa’s gate. I remember I just loved swinging on that metal gate. Their whole yard was fenced with page wire. I remember I liked being there.
Sometimes my grandfather would bring some meat and a piece of cheese home at lunchtime. He would pick these items up at the store on the way home. It was at their house that I first ate Cornflakes. We would sometimes have them for breakfast when I was at their place. I often think of that when I have a bowl of cornflakes.
I can see the whole kitchen as I write this. I can see the doorway from the kitchen into the living room. I can see my grandmother standing by the stove cooking her homemade macaroni.
In the living room there were coloured glass windows at the top on the south side of the room. There were two large grandfather clocks. One was from Russia and had large weights that were used to wind it.
The other clock was wound nce a month. It had Roman Numerals and showed the days of the month.
My grandmother wore plain cotton dresses and usually her hair was done in a bun. I don’t remember her not wearing an apron. She was a very short lady.
The cupboards were made especially for her. Due to the cupboards, they thought that it would be difficult to sell the house. But when the time came to sell, they found that the opposite was true. A short lady, who just loved the cupboards, bought the place from them.
Grandpa had a dark red moustache and smoked a pipe. I liked smelling the tobacco. I sometimes slept on a cot in my grandparent’s bedroom. This happened if the girls were all at home and I could not sleep in the girl’s room. I remember him wearing a long flannelette nightgown when he got up to check on things.
The whole house had linoleum flooring. Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom was through a door to the right as you went into the living room from the kitchen. The table in the kitchen was in the right hand corner right next to the door to the girls’ room. The big cellar door leads to the basement where, in the hot summer time, we would go to eat. In those days buildings were not insulated very well and got very hot in the summer time. To the left as you came in the door, there was a sink and a pump to pump water from the cistern.
My grandparents had an outhouse. A chemical toilet located on the front porch was used in the winter when it was bitterly cold. The temperatures could be as low as minus thirty degrees with a very strong wind blowing at the same time.