My father, Thomas Stratton Lanier, was born in 1886 and
raised in south east Kentucky. When he came of
university age, the family moved to Danville in central
Kentucky. He graduated from Centre College there in 1907.

As a result of the land boom in Southern Alberta, he and
friends came to Lethbridge in 1908 on the Spokane Flyer,
(which travelled on the Soo line from Minneapolis to
Winnipeg, and then to Lethbridge on the C.P.R. line).
They bought land in the Wilson Siding area.

My mother, whose maiden name was Allene Hunter Hanna,
was born in 1890 in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in an area long
settled by Irish and Scots. She graduated from
"Kentucky College for Women" which was affiliated with
Centre College in Danville. After finishing her post-graduate
studies in New York, she then taught in a mission school in
the Kentucky mountains of south east Kentucky at a place
called Buckhorn, which was on Squabble Creek and not far
from places named Hazard and Sassafrass.

My parents were married in 1917 and made their home in a
two room shack just across the road from Wilson School.
My brother Tom was born in 1918.

In the fall of 1919 Dad bought Sec. 9-8-20-W4 from Herman
Corry, and they moved into their new home which, according
to my mother had been built in 1909 or 1910. The house
and semi-attached bunkhouse and nearby barn were
painted in C.P.R. grey - which colour she hated.
Sometime in the 20's these buildings became
yellow with black roofs, which brightened up the
place considerably.

Iwas born in 1920. By that time we were settled in our
new home where I still reside in 1995. It was a great
place to grow up with lots of space and animals, and
even a convenient rock pile where I honed my throwing
skills. At some point I dreamed of becoming a baseball
pitcher, but my mother spoiled that by having me take
piano lessons and later violin. She should have left
me with the rocks and baseball because my piano
teacher committed suicide and no one begged me
to play the violin

A daughter, born in 1921 died in infancy, and then
Louis arrived in 1926. Ike followed in 1930, but his
twin didn't survive a week. The great tragedy for my
parents was the loss of Tom (Tombo) who drowned in
1928.

In the early 1920's a shelterbelt of poplars and maples
and caraganas was started around the buildings, with
protective barbed wire fences much in evidence and
close to the house. We had ample water for livestock
which was supplied by a couple of shallow wells with
hand-pumps and windmill power, but the quality was
too hard for plants and humans, so we hauled water
(by horse-drawn tank), from the canal for both the
home and the shelterbelt. Later we hauled water by
truck from Lethbridge - a practice that lasted until about
1996. By then we had found a good well, producing
20 g.p.m, in addition to having a pipeline to the canal
for irrigation.

For a time, early on, there was the wide spread adoption
both here and in the U.S. of the "dust-mulch" theory to
preserve moisture, where the surface of the land is
well-worked and "clean". It led to devastation with
the anival of a drought and high winds. Another
practice that contributed to erosion and still used to
some degree in Alberta - was that of burning the stubble
where it was particularly heavy. My father adopted the
practice of strip farming in the 20's, soon after its
effectiveness in controlling erosion had been demonstrated
in the Monarch area.

Our early tillage equipment certainly included the plough,
but its use was discontinued or diminished early in the 20's.
The disk harrow or double disk, spring-toothed harrow,
and duck foot cultivator were some of the earliest equipment
used. Later on, more reliance was placed on the one-way disk,
the rod weeder and the Noble blade cultivator.

Dad's love of horses and reluctance to turn to tractors persisted
until 1930. Until then he concentrated on the Percheron breed
and enhanced the quality of his string with the purchase of a
pure bred Percheron Stud as well as several registered mares.

It wasn't until about 1930 that he bought his first tractor a
gasoline Caterpillar "30" from salesman Curly Tuff at Union
Tractor. In a few years he owned three diesel "Cats" - a D-6,
a D-4, and a D-2. Although they certainly were ideal at the
time because of their superior traction and durability, I
wasn't sorry to see the last of them and turn to the much
improved wheel tractor. But that change didn't occur until
the end of the '50's.

Dad!s first crop was in 1909, so the wheat he seeded was
most likely Red Fife. He later switched to Marquis for a
number of years. At some point - probably in the 1930's,
he began using Red Bob which he stayed with until it
was downgraded in 1950. Then we grew Thatcher,
Saunders, Chinook as well as varieties of Durum and
Winter Wheat.

The earliest seeders I remember were high-wheeled
pantype with chain links as furrow fillers. Improved
disk seeders evolved and about 1950 we started
using Noble hoe drills.

Binders and threshing outfits (first powered by steam
engines) took care of harvesting until the 30's. Six
binders on a field were the most that I remember but
there may have been more. Stookers always seemed
available (my mother first understood the term to be
'Stoopers' which may have better described them).
The threshing outfit was always exciting to me as a
youngster with its special activity and aroma and of
course, refreshments in the afternoon straight from
the cook car. As a teenager, I even enjoyed hauling
bundles to the outfit. Claude Duncan did a lot of the
early threshing as did Hugh O'Neil later, and the
Frank and George Neidermier and finally Louie and
John Skiba.

In the early 30's, Dad bought his first Holt Combine and
soon had two of them which took care of most of the
harvesting until we made the transition to self-propelled
combines.

By the end of the 1940's we were at the threshold of
major changes in agriculture. Not only were new crops
and varieties becoming available, but great advancements
were being made and accelerated the development of
farming tools, i.e. new and better tillage and seeding
machinery, bigger and more powerful tractors, chemical
weapons for weed control, etc., and much, much
improved, harvesting equipment.

Change, which has always been part of the "ag" process has
simply accelerated. But what has remained a constant is
the need to not only limit but to eliminate soil erosion.
It is something that we as farmers and a nation cannot
afford to ignore or allow.

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