“The Evans Family Looking Back from 1926”

By Agnes (Evans) Sutherland

As a family, Dad, Mother, Tom, Esther, Evelyn and myself, Agnes, we arrived in the Okanagan in early July 1926. Our first impressions of the valley were blue lakes, brown hills and various blues of the higher mountains receding from dark ultramarine to light. Rough, rough mountains sliding down into the blue lakes. Open-looking after the greens of the coast of B.C. with high mountains, snow-covered ranges, misty or saturated with rain so glorious to see on a clear sunny day. We came into the valley by train and Dad met us at the depot in the City of Penticton centered between two lakes. We were told the upper lake was Okanagan and the lower lake was Skaha. Very Indian names.

The car was a seven-passenger Westlock sedan, a neat car with jump seats facing into the car back and fastened to the back of the front seats. I once asked brother Tom if he had ever seen such a car and he said “yes, in a car show in Reno, Nevada”. As we drove south high over Skaha Lake we passed Kaleden hardly a hick on the road and these roads were gravel. By the way kale, is Greek for garden and therefore the Garden of Eden. Beautiful, as looking down onto the rolling hills to the lovely blue lake such as we had not seen before. The road took us down a long hill into the Town of Okanagan Falls and the falls that now is a dam site. The beginnings of the system for the irrigation that has opened up the south end of the valley into a wonderful oasis. Dad was wanting us to feel interested in our new homeland.

Okanagan Falls this tiny village was wedged between Skaha Lake and to the south Vaseaux Lake. So we rode on this gravel road that took us around the lake under a great overhanging rock that could make one very nervous if inclined this way. The rock, Dad said, could hang there for centuries. I expect it made people too nervous and eventually it was blasted away, to me, an unnecessary destruction. The river a winding not unlike a snake undulating, swathed in cottonwood and poplar trees with the great Ponderosa pine, such beautiful trees. McIntyre Bluff came next, that great sentinel at the entrance to the southern valley. We stopped to see the dam site under the bluff and the canal that carried the life-giving water to enrich the valley floor below.

Of course we were four years late as pioneers go. The planned opening of the land was for the returning soldiers of the 1914-18 Great War. After they chose their land, the remaining acreages were open to the Public. Our Grandfather and foster brother, Alfred Ackerman came and chose our new home site. With the surveying done, roads and designated water routes ready, it was not difficult to find a chosen site.

My first impressions of Oliver at the age of nine were funny, flat-faced buildings facing east and west across a rough roadway. Dad drove us through and up past the United Church (yes it was there) on the first street west of the Main Street. The church to this day is in use. Dad pointed out the two-room red schoolhouse that Tom and I would attend in September. On up Fairview Road we stopped for a full view of the water siphon that crosses the valley over the river just east of the town and goes up the hill west to pour water into the network of cement canals. We could see the beginnings of a packinghouse, a cannery, and near the river, a sawmill. In such a capsule of time-space, crops had already begun the valley’s progress. Buildings mentioned were in preparation for the produce and wherever possible orchards had been planted.

How many pioneers lived their first summer in tents? We did! It became one big picnic and we loved the experience. We had an outside makeshift kitchen under a huge Ponderosa pine. The “Chic” Sale latrine was well away from the living quarters. Family members even now have tremendous love for outdoor picnics. Haphazard as the summer was, I remember helping Mother preserving for the winter ahead. The men had built wooden flumes to carry water to the parched land. When we arrived plantings were near to producing. Tom and I were soon helping with the water and the picking. We enjoyed looking for the mature tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and running along the water trenches being sure the water carried through to the end of the rows. The water came on seven days and off six or the other way around. Being desert country, the tail-end of the great desert extending from Arizona and Mexico, there were many cactus. Ugh! We were warned, “No bare feet or those spines will get you”. Well the spines did and Dad worked them out with the biggest pliers he had. “No wading in the water troughs”. No, well as surmised Tom got stuck in the water flume near the gate. Dad did not spare either Tom or I as neither was ever far from the other. Ouch! The two younger girls were not quite able to follow in our footsteps and stayed put out of trouble.

The yapping of coyotes was a nightly chorus for the first years. Occasionally even a great mountain cat was heard. One would find traces of coyote tracks around the farm and to the west of us. On one of our prowls up the hill towards the Fairview townsite we came upon carcasses of nine coyotes. The animal was fair game those days, now it is good to see one. The nearest we ever got to the great cat was the smell: believe me unmistakable and an eerie feeling the animal was not too far away.

By autumn the men had begun the house. At that time many of the settlers bought old buildings from the Fairview townsite and rebuilt in the valley. Such was our house, a building that once was a store. By Winter we were cosy, the firewood gathered. Anyone using the “Chic” Sale always returned with an armload of firewood and the wood-box was never empty.

Dad was a hunter and a fisherman, providing us with a venison or two and fish. I never remember Mother complaining about being the pioneer woman she was. Whatever Dad or the others brought in Mother would use and preserve one way or another.

When I look back at those trying days of the 20s and 30s known as the post-war and Ten Lost Years, people in this valley survived. We had fruit, vegetables, usually chickens and a cow. Horses were a must in the fields with ground cropping prevalent until the orchards began to produce, a much longer process than now. Some families were eased a bit if pensions were coming in. Many like my Father had to rely on the crop yield and possibly a bit of work on the side. The first three years were not too difficult. After the infamous crash of ‘29 began ten miserable years for humanity, perseverance and diligence were what held us together.

Even so our family increased. In August of 1928 the oldest children were sent to spend a day at the neighbours, the McDougalls. When we returned home we found we had a blue-eyed baby sister. She was a baby doll and Mother named her Olive. Three years later came David and lastly Clark whom we lost in 2003.

People entertained themselves. If you were a musician you were in great demand. When Alfred’s friends discovered Mother owned a   piano and could play it there would be five or six men to help load the instrument onto a truck platform. With Mom and babe in the front they would drive this precious luggage up to the last remaining large building in Fairview for an evening of dancing. Mother on the piano and Bruce Skelton on the fiddle, the floor would bounce with reels, two steps, polka, waltzes and squares. The children would sit around and watch. A room was prepared for the children to sleep when over-tired. You could possibly find a Mother nursing. Families were part of the evening. The women would bring cakes etc. No one could bake a chocolate cake to compare with Mrs. Bruce Skelton. The older children were allowed to pass the goodies during the lunch hour, it was their turn to shine. They were great evenings for the families.

Fortunately the town planners had foresight enough to build the Community Park and the Community Center Hall. These became the focal point of entertainment during those trying years. For instance, the district had a flourishing Drama Club under the direction of a Mrs. Russell. Now this lady lived two orchards south of our land on 7th Road.

Another person who enjoyed directing drama was a Mr. P.O. Smithers. Three act plays were usually the goal. I remember taking part in “The Man Who Came To Dinner.” J.O. Steeves acted the part of the Man. Another event I remember was vaudeville, being put on with Mr. Tasker step dancing across the stage, unable to stop, fell into the props off stage. The poor man limped for some time after. More and more people found themselves unable to afford gasoline, so they walked to the Community Center. Today you see people walking for exercise, back then it was a necessity.

The first three years the children were bussed to school. The bus was an enclosed addition on the back of a truck with hard benches along each side if the truck behind the driver’s wall. Little ones often needed help into the improvised van. As it seemed, the prettiest girls lived on Highway 97, the bus route joined at Road 7 and the highway. The favored one was allowed the seat by the driver, also the warmest place in the cab. Since children do adapt the hard benches were not that uncomfortable. On corners there was usually much jostling. After 1930 it was shanks mare that took us to school, often in winter up to our knees in snow. Tom and I used to jog a pole and walk a pole. The spaces in between the poles gave us a measure of the distance to the school. To relieve us the tedious walking we would count the number of the poles. I wonder if anyone other than us did that? Children walked from 7th and 97 south and others from Gallagher Lake. The little red school house had a pot-bellied stove in each of the two rooms, where we would gather around to warm our hands. The outside latrines had cold, cold seats in the winter. No wonder spring was welcomed. The United Church basement became a schoolroom and a house just below also served as a classroom. In 1929 the new school above the canal west of the town became a reality.

At the impressive age of 13 Mother and I attended a recital in the United Church. The proceeds were to go to build an Anglican Church that is now the Church Hall. This was my first awareness of classical music and it won my heart. As I had been playing since I was ten, I had no problem reading music, classics was from then on, piano, violin and cello. Years later I was writing up a paper on early music in Oliver and phoned a lady pianist for information about the evening, “Forgotten! Never, never!” The lady told me she had made a very special dress for the recital and while walking up the steps caught the hem with a shoe and fell flat on her face.

Our Mother’s schooling was a day convent. Besides the academics the girls were taught music and art. Though never becoming a known artist she always painted, watercolors, oils, on whatever material was on hand. Many of the little paintings she would frame with salt frames and give these as awards for the games at our teenage parties, weddings, etc. Mother was a natural musician with a lovely mezzo voice. Any instrument was her joy and she taught herself on the cello so that she could play in Albert Miller’s little string orchestra.

Our evenings at home became a party, two and three nights a week with Mother at the piano and Dad with his happy feet. As sister Evie said,” Dad taught all of the girls to dance, even the babies he would whirl away with them dancing. Because of our Mother and Dad we came through the trying 30s a happy family. To this day we are not a morbid group even though some of our family did their part in WWII.

Tom joined the Army in 1941, got as far as Halifax and no farther as the medical turned him down for overseas. He spent the balance of his time in Victoria at Work Point. Evie joined the Army in 1942, and spent three years at Headquarters in Vancouver. Wheeler New, Evie’s  husband and Harold Dawson, Esther’s husband were both overseas the length of the War years. Both men were with the Unit that landed on the toe of Italy and right through to Belgium.

To end this part of looking back, until this year of 2003, we were still a  family of four sisters and three brothers. With the loss of Clark we are six. To carry on this story would take us into another chapter of our lives.

Postscript by Sally Franks

It is now 2021 and the only man left standing in the family is David. The others all lived into their nineties and each one had wonderful stories to tell. There are many family members still living in Oliver and the area, grandchildren and their families.  We do enjoy the fact that we have come from notable heritage and to this day enjoy the stories of the past.