Herbert Eugene Kelley was born in St. Paul,
Nebraska, on December 16, 1879. He moved to
Alberta about 1902. I believe he had a machine
agency in Raymond at the time he and mother were
married. My brother Frank Herbert was born in
Raymond on Oct. 2, 1905.

Mother was born in Westville, Nova Scotia on June
8, 1881. William Stafford, her father was sent west
in 1881 to prospect for coal and moved his family to
Lethbridge in 1883. The letter appointing him
Superintendent of the Galt Mines is in the Museum
at Lethbridge.

The obituary in the Lethbridge Herald states that
mother moved to Spring Coulee in 1905, so that must
be when the Spring Coulee Trading Company was born.
They sold groceries, confections, hardware, dry goods,
lumber, machinery, gas and oil and the long distance
switch board was located in the store.

Jean and Bert Kelley were involved in most everything
that went on in the community. Dad was on the school
board, the Cardston Hospital Board and the l.O.O.F.
and Masonic Lodges. He umpired baseball games, and
played tennis.

Mother played the organ in church and Sunday School,
played the piano for the dances and for all the concerts
and had a stream of children marching in and out of the
house preparing for them. Before leaving Spring Coulee
she arranged for a music teacher to spend one day a
week at our house and lined up pupils to fill her time.
The school teacher sent the youngsters from class for
their lesson and the rest of the week for practice sessions.

Mother submitted many items of interest to the Lethbridge
Herald that concerned the community and I know she
sent information on the early days of Lethbridge for the
city's 60th year.

Mother died here in Calgary in 1941 where we had lived
since leaving Spring Coulee in 1927. Dad remarried in
1942 and moved to Haney B .C. in 1944 or 45. Dad
passed away in November 1972. He had almost reached
his 93rd birthday and had never lost his interest in
people, travel or bridge games.

My brother Frank left Spring Coulee to attend the
Electrical School of Engineering in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin and from there joined the family here
in Calgary. He worked for Bruce Robinson Electric
until joining the army artillery. He had two sons.
Frank was working in Jasper Park at the time of his
death in 1952.

I had a sister, Grace Margaret, born in Lethbridge,
February 22, 1908 and died October 3 1909.

I remember a tale from my childhood that has always
amused me. A friend was on a train through the Crow's
Nest Pass en route to visit us in Spring Coulee. The
conductor was asking the usual questions of tourists.
"Where are you from and where are you headed?"
My friend replied she was going to a wee tiny place
he'd probably never heard or called Spring Coulee to
which he replied. "Of course I know of it. It you want
groceries for your family, you call Kelley. If you want
machinery, you call Kelley. If you want lumber for a
house or gas for your car, you call Kelley. If your wife
is going to have a baby you still call Kelley, for you'll
need him for something."

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