He was born in Cardiff, Wales and married Ellen O'Leary.
They had a market garden business there. In 1901, he
came to Canada, first stopping to look around for a place
in Ontario, and then on to Lethbridge, Northwest Territories
where he bought a quarter section from the C.P.R.
(south and east of Lethbridge). He later added
another quarter of dryland bordering on what is now
the Coutts highway and 43rd street. There were no
roads then; just prairie trails, one of which cut through
this quarter and was so deep that in many places we
had to make a new trail. Some said it was the trail to
the U.S. border, (the Fort Whoop-Up Trail). Mr. Parry
kept this trail intact and unbroken until the farm was
sold many years later.

Mrs. Parry stayed for a time in Cardiff where she and Mr.
Windsor Viney took care of the family business until
Charles Sr. had a place for them to settle.

The first house was a small log structure. Mrs. Parry with
children Nell, Agnes, Charles, Lillian, and John came in
1902. Kathleen (Dolly), and Wilfrid were born in Canada.
Wilfrid died as an infant on November 13, 1908, his first
birthday. Agnes also died in May of 1908 from a raptured
appendix at age thirteen. Medical help was far away and
in it's infancy in that part of the country. Out of 13
children born to the Parry's, including two sets of twins,
only five grew up.

Once the Parry house was built (the year of the World Farm
Congress, 1912), Mr. Parry set to constructing the other
necessary farm buildings, mostly of concrete. The lake
bottom, pump house cistern, floors, partitions and manger
in the horse barn, and floors in the cow barn, were all concrete.
The cow barn was the first in the country to be sided and
roofed with corrugated tin sheets (it was struck by lightning
in the 1950's and most of it was destroyed). This barn was
also one of the first in the country to have an indoor water
system with drinking bowls for the cattle. It also had a
sewer system from the gutters. He had the first herd of
registered Holstein cows south of Okotoks.

Since Mr. Parry was a gardener by trade, his landscaping
soon attracted people from far and wide. He was also
commissioned to plant hundreds of trees around Henderson
lake. Mrs. Parry died about 1926, and Mr. Parry in 1930.

Ellen (Nell), attended White School for some years and later
became a teacher. She married Sidney Johnson and raised
three children. A fourth child Wilbur, died as a young child.
Ellen passed away in 1973.

Charles was born in Cardiff, Wales in April, 1898 and came to
Canada when he was four years old. He attended White
School when it was in it's first location and later went
to Central School in Lethbridge.

Lillian was born in Wales in 1900 and immigrated with her
family to Canada in 1902. The Parry children first went to
White School but later, as their dad delivered milk in
Lethbridge, they attended school there; Central School,
Fleetwood School, and High School in what is now the
Bowman Art Centre. Lillian took home economics and
secretarial courses, as well as the academic courses.
She graduated in 1922, going on to take three years of
nurses training in the Vancouver General Hospital.

After graduation, she returned to Lethbridge and joined
the Nursing Mission under Miss Tilley. Doctors would
contact the Nursing Mission to send nurses to patients
homes to deliver babies, assist new mothers, and help
older sick people.

They were also expected to do such charitable work as
delivering hampers at Christmas to those in need.

Later she left the Mission to become the only nurse in the
Campbell Clinic. Besides nurse, she was secretary,
bookkeeper and receptionist for the three doctors,
Campbell, Bryans, and Shillington. She was with them
for 33 years.

When war broke out in 1939, she joined the C.A.T.S.
(Canadian Auxiliary Territorial Services). She became one
of many instructors in the St. John's Ambulance First Aid
and Home Nursing Courses. She was among the first to
volunteer for overseas service, was commissioned as a
Second Lieutenant, then was posted to military hospitals
and prisoner of war camps in Lethbridge, Red Deer, and
Jasper.

She then took a short training period at St. Anne's Quebec,
and was posted to the Hospital ship Letitia which made
many trips across the Atlantic carrying the wounded from
Britain to Montreal. They were never fired upon, even
though they were followed, more than once, by German
U-boats.

Lillian was in London for all the excitement of Armistice Day
in 1945. She was posted back to P.O.W. Camp 133 in
Lethbridge before she was demobilized. She then rejoined
the Campbell Clinic, until her retirement in 1959. Retirement
didn't last long as she was asked to relieve for six weeks
at the Magrath Hospital, but stayed nine years.

She kept involved in community work as a member of the
Board of Auxilliary Hospital for 17 years. She belonged
to the Quota Club, the Lethbridge Citizen's Association,
and became the City of Lethbridge's very first woman
alderman in 1951. She died November 10, 1990.

John (Jack) was also born in Cardiff, Wales and came to
Canada at the age of six months. At the age of nine he
became the first case of infantile paralysis (Poliomyelitis)
in Alberta. In 1929 he married Georgena Rorabeck, also of
the White School district. They had three children, Arthur,
(who died before his teens), and two daughters. Jack farmed
the home Parry farm until he moved to Lethbridge about 1952.

Kathleen (Dolly) Parry (Sherwood) was the youngest child of
Charles and Ellen Parry, and was the only member of the
family not born in Wales. (Born April 21, 1904 - Died April 7,
1934). She along with the other children took the milk to
the dairy in Lethbridge on their way to Fleetwood School.

Dolly married Ivin Roberts Sherwood of New Bnmswick. For
a time they worked for her father, C. E. Parry Sr., then moved
to Lethbridge when the children started school. They had
six children. Dolly passed away giving birth to her son.
Her brother, Charles, and his wife, Wandah Parry, raised him.

Charlie married Wandah Kenney. Wandah was born in
Cardston in 1902, the year Lees Creek flooded for
forty days and nights.

Her father Bert, was born in Holden Utah in 1875 and
died at Olds in 1956. He came to Canada prior to 1900
and settled in Cardston, later moving to Welling and
Lethbridge. His wife Bertha Textorious was born in
Leamington, Utah in 1881, married at age sixteen
and died at Lethbridge in 1941.

Wandah took her schooling at Raymond, Alberta. The
family later moved to Lethbridge where she worked
at the Capitol Theatre for Mr. A.W. Shackleford until
her marriage to Charles Parry in 1922. Harold
Hudson was the best man.

Wandah and Charles raised three children. Another
daughter, Margaret died at birth. After leaving the
farm in the later 1940's, they moved to Lethbridge
where Wandah passed away in 1958.
Wandah was a homemaker, gifted in the skills of knitting,
tatting, crocheting, sewing, cooking, canning, and rug
hooking. Her great hobby was her flowers. She grew
them everywhere and no visitor ever went home without
a bouquet if there were blooms in her garden. She was
also a humanitarian, finding good in everyone. She
dearly loved children, her own and everyone else's.
Because of her sister Myrtle's ill health she made a home
for her nephew Bob Patterson for two years. Bob
attended White School from the ages of twelve to
fourteen years. Bob passed away in 1993.

I,Dena Lorraine was born September, 1924 in the old
hospital on seventh avenue south. This hospital later
became known as the Isolation Hospital because it
housed the polio patients after the second world war.
It seems that 1924 was a year that winter came early and
the crops all froze in the stooks. They had to be chopped
out of the ice in the spring of 1925 and threshed.

My understanding is that the first farm we were on was
southeast of White School near the Oxland farm; the
second and last, was a mile west and a mile north of
White School. To the west was Gwatkin land (also
some to the north). To the south was the farm occupied
by Kate and Bill Andrews.

Our farm cornered to the original Parry farm; owned after
my grandfathers death by my uncle, Jack Parry

Our farm was a quarter section. The original two story
house on the farm was burned down before we lived
there and a smaller house was moved out from town.
That is the one we grew up in.

One of the first things I remember Dad doing was planting
trees, hundreds of trees, all of which had to be cultivated
with a one horse walk-behind cultivator for the first few years.
The land was apparently in poor condition as dad grew
sweet clover and then ploughed it under to improve the soil.
If I remember correctly, our earliest crops were oats and
potatoes. We had two very large root cellars that served us
well in many ways, not only for potatoes and garden vegetables
but for eggs that were put in crocks of ashes to be used for
winter cooking. Salt pork and bacon were hung or stored
there. In later years there were great bins of mangles which
were chopped and fed to the pigs and cows.

The place also had a very large dairy barn. On the roof was
written Superior Dairies. Dad went into the dairy business.
The sheep we had earlier were discontinued but we kept
a few pigs and mother always had her chickens. Because
of the dairy the crops changed also, Most of the land
was put into alfalfa, pasture and sugar beets. Beet tops
made excellent fodder for the cattle and beet pulp (from
the Raymond Sugar Factory) was available to growers.

Most of the labour for the beets was done by Hungarian
people at that time. It was back breaking work, all hoeing
and topping was done by hand. I still remember their
great spirit, for every night about dusk, in spite of the
hard day's work, they came in from the fields singing,
singing all the way home. We loved to listen.

Because of the dairy and the increase of livestock,
the pond was not adequate, so dad dug a new one using
a team and slip scraper. It took a very long time and
must have been exhausting work, but most jobs on the
farm were strictly physical. All machinery was basic
and horse powered. Some had seats and some had to
be walked behind. Weeds on the ditches had to be cut
with a scythe, hay was hand piled and hand loaded,
cows were hand milked, grain, coal and beets were
hand loaded, and rocks were picked and hauled
with stone boats to the pile.

As there was no refrigeration, ice was the answer.
It was cut from the jail lake and big blocks hauled
home with a team and wagon and stored in the ice
house. Each layer of ice was covered either with
coal slack or sawdust.

People took a lot of pride in their work and there was
always more than enough to go around. Even though
we had hired men, we kids had our jobs too. We
called them 'Joe' jobs because they were not very
exciting. We brought in kindling, kept the coal buckets
full, took out the ashes, cleaned the lamp chimneys,
rounded up the chore team in the mornings, fed and
watered our school ponies and sometimes got to
chum or help turn the ice cream freezer. As we
got older we moved up to more important jobs.
Mowing, raking, piling hay, ploughing, etc. These
jobs we liked, but milking and herding cows we hated.
There is a well known song called "You don't know what
lonesome is, till you get to herdin' cows", how true that is.!

We rode horseback to school, by this time in its second
location. Along the way we joined with other riders and
drivers. The Sniders and Berrys who drove a buggy,
the Andrews, the Webbs, Lucos, Tiffins, Handsaemes,
Williams, Hamptons and Mosers to mention a few, all
headed for school.

Bert and I rode double to school on our first school
pony "Polly". She was cream coloured with pale blue eyes.
We were told she had been a circus pony and knew all
kinds of tricks. The problem was, we didn't know how
to push her buttons, but she did seem to know how to
untie herself, "especially if we were the architects of the
knots". She soon graduated to "how to open the oat box"
course. We could pile kids on her from her neck to her tail
without damaging her placid personality. Too placid when
we wanted a little speed; so much so that dad decided that
we needed a newer model.

At Jim Hyssops' he found a little sorrel pony, a thoroughbred
and Shetland cross, that was unbroken and wild as a March
hare, but he moved like quicksilver. We named him Silver.
He shied at EVERYTHING! He dumped us just about
every day. Speed he had; cooperation was another matter,
but he was great at pony races so we loved him. Bert
soon got another mount and Silver was mine.

We knew all our neighbours then and the kids got together
as often as possible. We played games, swam, rode horses,
and got into mischief together. That old African saying
of "It takes a whole village to raise a child ", applied.
We were nurtured and disciplined as was necessary no
matter whose place we were at.

Money was scarce. To help make ends meet, Dad graded
roads with a horse drawn grader and either broke or
retrained horses. We loved to sit and watch him.
Horses became my passion. I believe both my brothers
felt the same way, for as we progressed to lives of our
own, we all had horses around whenever possible.

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