In the winter of 1903, when I was fifteen years old, my future brother-in-law and I went hunting for rabbits. While in the bush we stopped for a rest. I place the butt of my gun on a log covered with snow while holding it by its barrel. Without noticing it, the gun was gradually slipping off the log into the snow. The hammer struck the log and the gun fired into the wrist of my left arm. When I got home, which was about a mile away, my father, using a team of oxen, drove me to a doctor in Gilbert Plains. The village had no hospital so after the doctor administered first aid, he sent me by the first train to the Dauphin Hospital where my arm was amputated just below the elbow.
Illustration: Two hunters resting in the snow.
After the accident, I was forced to leave school. I got a job with an implement dealer in Gilbert Plains selling and setting up machinery, mostly binders. I was paid $15.00 a month, plus my board and room. At that time this was fairly good pay.
Many immigrants continued to arrive in Gilbert Plains and settle on the farms north and west of it. Knowing the English language, I became very useful to them as interpreter. I was also able to direct them to the homesteads of their former Old Country neighbours.
Our Youth Club organized a credit union with a membership fee of five cents a month. Loans were made to needy members, at a high interest rate, and in a matter of a few years we had a capital of $80.00. The last loan was made to an unreliable member. He left the district with our funds and our financial structure collapsed.
My father continued to farm with the help of the oxen and while I tried my best to persuade him to trade them for a team of horses, he refused to do so.
Some farmers already had enough wheat enabling them to take it into Dauphin to the flour mill and so discontinued using the hand stone grinders to make their own flour. A power flour mill was built in Ethelbert by Syrotuik, the first Ukrainian settler in the district. For some time farms in Venlaw went to the mill in Ethelbert, which was closer than Dauphin to have their wheat ground into whole wheat flour. This mill served the district for a few years until many families began switching to white flour which they preferred.
Illustrated online edition. The memoir text follows the 2011 copy compiled by Rene Nicholas Bilodeau.
