October 23, 2016. Memories....photos and food

LOCATION:  With my aunt and uncle in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada WEATHER: Cold and overcast.  Highs in upper 20s F   We spent some time going through old photos of my mother and her family.  My grandfather was quite a cool chap.  

 

He married my grandmother about 1919 and they traveled from Iowa to rural Alberta, Canada to homestead land.  

 

They had a very rugged life.  My grandmother was a teacher.  Here she is riding her horse to a school to teach, carrying my uncle as a baby.

 

The winters were long and cold, so they had lots of wood to get them through.  My mother was born near Edmonton, and is a little girl in this photo.

 

 

Their house was pretty primitive.  They lived on a farm, quite modestly. This was taken of my mother and uncle in the 1920s. 

 

Their neighbors were all immigrants.  Many were Ukrainian.  My mother always talked abut the Ukrainian families and the unique foods they ate.  This photo is a Ukrainian family neighbor family visiting my grandparents.    

 

My mother was quite attractive.  In this photo taken in the 1940s, she reminds me of one of the characters in "Call the Midwife".  My grandmother and grandfather are on the ends of the photo, with my mother and her brothers in the middle.  In this occasion, they were on a train platform saying goodbye to one of the brothers leaving to go to high school back in Iowa.    

Finally, my grandparents lived into their 90s.  This was one of their last photos.

After all this reminiscing, we drove to Sprit River, a small town about one hour north of here, accompanying my aunt who is very instrumental in the governance of the United Church, to a special minister appointment ceremony.    After the church service, we partook in a traditional church potluck supper.  In the spirit of the memories here, I tasted three different kinds of traditional Ukrainian cabbage rolls.  

 

We drove through ice fog with poor visibility.  The trees are beautiful with their ice crystals.   At one point, we slowed way down as we thought we saw a moose crossing the road!