The Brenton Family:
Dad..... John Charles, born in Edmonton in 1889.
Mother..... Minnie Ollwen Roberts, born in London,
England in 1890, died 1954.
Brother . . . David John, born 1914 and died in 1959.

Sister . . . Edith Gwedoline, born 1915 died in 1977.
Two other living daughters.

Dad was working for inadequate wages in Edmonton
when he was offered the job as engineer at the Coal
Producers mine at Coalhurst. He arrived by train only
to find that the Union was on strike and if he worked
he would be looked upon as a scab. However, he had
no money, so had no choice but to work. As soon as
a company house was available, Mom brought us down
on the train, along with her brother, in May of 1922.

Early Memories:
The first four room house; the smell of homemade bread,
clothes being scrubbed on a board in the wash tub;
bath taken in same; coal and wood burning in the cook
stove and heater; the wind up gramophone; uncles
playing their mouth organs; John pulling my sister and I
in a wagon, or apple box on a sleigh, up to the post
office for the mail; spending our Saturday nickel for
candy at Willis's; or, ice cream cones and sandwiches
as a treat; paddling in the slough of water that gathered
between the houses and the outhouses. Later, a
ditch was dug to drain the water away east of the dump.
When a three bedroom house was available, we moved
into it. At one time there was a skating rink between us
and the dump and a change room.

The school was east of us and the west wind blew fumes
and smoke from the dump in through the windows often
making people sick. The old school was cut in half and
moved west and north of the last row of houses. They
built a school east of it when it started in 1926. The
teachers were dedicated and hard working. There were
parties in each room at Christmas, Valentine's, etc. and
sports day on July 1. There were weeks of work after
school hours preparing for the Christmas concerts in the
Community Hall. (This hall was also used for 'movies'
brought out on Monday nights by A. W. Shackleford and
"D" the tailor from Lethbridge.) Our school years were
happy ones for us, but one awful day we had a blinding,
whiteout blizzard. The blizzard was so severe that one
of the high school boys lost his life trying to get to school.
That was a sad day for us.

We were fortunate that Dad always had work as the
machines were kept working to make electricity for the
town whether coal was being mined or not. He bought
a model T ford and took us to Victoria in it in 1925.
The roads and bridges were primitive because the car
couldn't quite make the hill without help. The trip took
six days with the car in a garage for repairs every night.
Later we had an open Buick and went to Portland,
Oregon in 1928. We had a 'closed in' Buick when we
went to Seattle in 1930. We visited every power house
on the way! Dad loved fishing and picnic's; we went to
river bottoms or mountains nearly every Sunday that it
didn't rain or snow. Our good friends, the Mellings, often
came with us, as did the Langstons and others. Dr.
lnkrote was the town doctor and a wonderful person.
John contracted scarlet fever and the rest of us four
followed, one at a time. Dr. Inkrote quarantined us;
groceries were ordered and left on the front step. Dad
and our uncles had to move in with the neighbours,
the Pikes. The doctor was more than relieved that no
one else caught the disease. Later, John had rheumatic
fever with all its aches and pains. Dr. Inkrote later
married and I remember the chivaree when all the
kids would gather outside the home beating pans with
sticks until the bridegroom would come out and give
everyone a nickel to go away! He had no children.
He lived across the street from us and kept bloodhounds.
When the mine whistle blew at twelve noon, one P.M.
and even P.M. etc. these dogs would howl and our
cat would scurry under the couch.

There were large wooden boxes in the back lanes where
the water pipes came up out of the ground. Inside the
box was straw to keep the pipes from freezing in the
cold weather. The tap came out on the south side and
you could reach through a hole in the box and push
down a lever to get water. When you attached the
garden hose, you would put a stick up against the top
of the box to hold down the lever and keep the water
running. With this arrangement, we could fill a large
wooden barrel in the house. The barrel was kept in
John's room as it was the only place available for it.
John developed an awful cough, the doctor figured it
was caused from the dampness and prescribed that
John sleep in the tent outside from spring until autumn.
I think we had water piped into the house then.

John was a born engineer, always taking things apart.
He worked hard, delivering morning and evening papers,
selling magazines and Gold medal Seeds, etc. He
chopped wood for the lady teachers, greased and
washed cars for the doctor and policeman. He cleaned
and recharged car batteries, using the motor from our
mother's washing machine and not always replacing it for
the Monday morning wash. He took pictures and developed
and printed them. He collected stamps and Mr. Percival at
the hotel used to save stamps for him. It was his job to
clean out the cow barn and chicken house. We had a cow,
Violet, who was let loose in the morning and usually walked
around to the pastures east and south of the dump.
Sometimes she wandered elsewhere and we'd have to
climb the dump to look over the area for her. People placed
their ashes and other garbage at the base of the dump and
sometimes Violet would come home with her hoof stuck in
a tin can. If Dad wasn't home we'd ask Mr. Kendrick to cut
the can off for us. Violet had a long sticky tongue and
learned how to lick at a gate lock until she opened it, ours
and other people's. After she got into too many gardens,
a law was made banning cows in town; so Dad sold her to
the milk man. We kept chickens and a constant supply of
kittens.

Mom had a 'green thumb' and kept a large garden. She
belonged to a Ladies Sewing club which became a Bridge
Club when husbands were invited. We had house parties
and many socials and concerts at the Presbyterian Church
Hall. As the depression set in, people stopped going to
church until finally they could no longer support the minister.
There were also a Pentecostal Church and a Catholic Church.
The Penticostal was run by Mr. Kendrick and his daughter,
played for the singing. I think they held some meetings in
the Presbyterian.

We had to make our own fun. Wesselman's had a farm north
of the town and were kind enough to let us swim in their
reservoir. We played scrub with the neighbours, and had
long and short ropes for skipping, played hop-scotch, kick
the can, hide and seek and anti-l-over when we could
find a free-standing garage. We played house in the
remnants of the old school basement, visited friends
in Wigan, or the Langstons up near the station after it
had been moved from Kipp. Mr. Cook had a girls softball
team. His daughter and our Gwen were good friends and
played on it. They wore red bloomers and were called the
'Red Aces'. At one game Gwen got sun stroke which, I
think, affected her nerves for the rest of her life. She
was a gifted artist and writer with hands that could do
anything she wished. She loved animals and horse back
riding. Dad, Gwen and John and the Mellings were good
skaters and mountain climbers. My weak lungs held me
back so that I became the baby sitter and had time to
study plant life, flowers, trees and rocks. I liked sewing
and dolls but my youngest sister loved to dress up in Mom's
clothes and go visiting people, even when they didn't have
children. Always the actress entertainer sales lady and
hostess, she still loves to be on a stage as much as I loathe
it. John bought a Model T Ford and completely over-hauled
and painted it. On a Friday night he would load us girls and
friends in the back seat, boys in front, and take us to a show
in Lethbridge. One night we took eighteen in and brought
twenty-one home. Needless to say, those on the running
boards and fenders had to get off and walk up the coulee
hill! We learned songs from records, and later from the radio,
and we sang! On Saturdays, I was allowed to take Dad's
lunch over to the mine and to play in those buildings, tagging
after Dad. I loved watching as he sat in a large chair, moving
big levers and switches to bring the cages, one full of coal up
and another empty down at the same time.