MARY'S GENEALOGY TREASURES
James Arthur Potts was born at Eccleshall, Staffordshire. England.
Young James worked as a farm laborer and assistant veterinarian until
The young couple were starting to make a little progress on the farm,
Early in 1923 the family moved to the Lethbridge Northern, near
He accumulated a few horses and an I. H.C. Titan tractor.
After the harvest of 1926 Jim hitched his horses to the cook
They were still living at the Hill farm when a son was born
Jim had a real knack for horticulture and before many
Like the rest of the district the Potts family struggled
After the girls were married and their son was grown
The Potts' were increasing their cattle feeding
Jim's son stayed on the farm until the early fifties,
During their thirty odd years in the Coalhurst area they
Jim and Ethel lived on this earth long enought to see
April 5. 1893, the oldest son and second child of Mark and Harriet
(Thompson) Potts.
early in 1912. Then he decided to come to Canada, and he booked
a third class passage on a big new ship to leave England in April, but
he had to stay another month to collect some of his back wages, so
he came on another ship in May. He often recalled how lucky he
was to miss the first ship, the Titanic which sank on its maiden voyage.
He was 19 years old when he landed in Canada, and he worked as a
farm laborer and teamster for a while. He then rented a dairy farm
and shipped milk by train to Toronto every morning in 8 gallon milk
cans. His fiancee of 4 years, Ethel Owen born August 5, 1890, came
from Staffordshire, aboard the Metagama. They were married in Toronto
on May 27, 1916.
when their first son was born April 13, 1917. Unfortunately the child
died a few weeks later. Soon afterwards a serious cattle disease hit
that area, and most of his heard had to be destroyed with very little
compensation. After these two tragedies, they came west and found
work at New Dayton working on a farm. They rented a farm near
Masinasin for a few years. Their two daughters were born while
they lived there. Masinasin Country suffered severe drought in those
years and the family income came mostly from butchering hogs and
cattle in the farm and selling the meat in the small villages in the area.
where Park Lake is now. Jim worked for Mr. John James for
some time on Sec. 16-10-22 and for someone on SE 34-9-22.
He later bought a farm of 100 acres, part of SE 27-9-22, and
moved on with a cook car and some machinery about 1925 or 26.
Apparently, he walked to work at the Coalhurst mine from Mr.
James' place for a few years, and later from the farm at Coalhurst.
He worked mostly as a teamster around the surface, and hauled
the coal to the pumphouse on the riverbottom to operate the
steam powered pump. He often told of some very rough,
cold trips down the coulee road. Mr. Dickie and his family
lived in the residence at the pumphouse at that time and they
always supplied him with hot water to make his tea at lunch time.
He used to wear burlap sacks wrapped up over his shoes and
tied with binder twine to ward off the cold. He also wore the
same footwear to walk to work and they left a good trail for
his girls to follow to school later in the morning. The young
people of today could hardly imagine the hardships of the
farm families of that period.
car, and moved to Hill's Piggery where he worked for the
winter.
on March 14, 1927. He was only about six weeks old
and all three children were in bed with scarlet fever,
when Jim hooked up to the cook cars and headed back
to the farm at Coalhurst. They removed the gear from
under the cook car, and set it on the ground for
permanent living quarters. A small kitchen was added
to the east end, but it was still very small for a family.
After the Coalhurst mine closed in 1936, Jim bought
one of the many company houses that were put up for sale.
He paid about sixty dollars for it, as did some of the other
farmers. It was a common sight to see these houses going
down the road with about a dozen or more horses pulling
them. This was the farm home for the remainder of the
time they lived there.
years he had the place looking like a typical English
farm, with its spacious lawn sloping down to the
highway, all the bushes manicured to perfection and
the weeds all kept out along the front. Most of this
was destroyed however, when the highway was
widened in 1949. The screen of shrubs and bushes
were taken out and the Coalhurst company house
stood out in plain view of highway 25.
through the depression always hoping that things had
to get better. as they couldn't get much worse. Jim
was one of the early sugar beet growers in the area,
and was later recognized for his many years of service
to the Southern Alberta Beet Growers Association.
Most of the labor at that time was manual and when
it came to harvest time Jim's daughters were out there
in the field, forking beets with him.
up, they concentrated on feeding cattle and hauling
wet beet pulp for other farmers. This was one
experience that no red-blooded farmer should miss.
You would rise at 4 or 5 on a winter morning, when
it may be snowing, or forty below zero, put on all the
clothes you could carry, start up an old war surplus
truck, and drive a dozen miles to the sugar factory
for a load of sloppy, smelly (not like roses) beet pulp.
With lots of luck, hard work, and no flat tires, you
may make three trips a day but you must go regardless
of the weather. A common sight along the road was
Pete Zmurchyk hauling pulp and wearing a large fur coat
because the left window was missing from his truck.
Pete seemed to thrive on fresh air. By the time the
cattle were ready for market the spring chinooks,
messy corrals, swampy roads and spring seeding had
drifted into the past, along with the high cattle prices.
endeavour, and had built quite a herd. An outbreak
of hoof and mouth disease hit Saskatchewan
causing a closure of meat exports to the U.S.A.
and the price dropped about 40%, which
knocked the props out of the beef business in
the west for several years.
and then went to work for Trapp Farms of Barons.
- Jim and Ethel lived on the farm until 1957 and
moved into a small house on Charlie Watmough's farm.
In 1971 Jim's health was failing and he could no
longer drive, so they moved into the Golden Acres
cottages in Lethbridge, and he passed away on August 4,
1973. Ethel moved into the Golden Acres Lodge
until late in 1979, when she moved into the Parkland
Nursing Home, now Extendicare. She passed away
December 27, 1982.
acquired many life long friends through their constant
attendance of the Penticostal Church. As well they
were members of the Beet Growers, and Cattle
Feeding Associations. No matter how busy Jim was,
he always had time to help his neighbors with their
veterinary problems.
the hand plow replaced by the gang plow, and those
replaced by the massive modern machinery. They saw
the horse drawn carriages and steampowered trains
give way to the automobies, and high speed aircrraft of
today. They saw more progress in their lifespan than
had ever been recorded before them. They had more
poverty and adversity than the average, yet they were
happy to be part of our world. They now lay side by
side in Archmount Memorial Gardens.
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