MARY'S GENEALOGY TREASURES
Theodore Arthur Thompson was born the youngest of three
Arthur, as he was called throughout his life, was christened
The first house that he can remember was a big rambling
His father was a business man and in 1895 he built a flour mill
As a child of 9, an old farmer near his home invited Arthur to
In 1900 the family moved to Edinburg,Walsh County, North
In 1902 at the age of 12 Art got sunstroke. He lost all memory
One time, as a teenager he went to a masquerade dance dressed
He was 18 years old when the family moved to Alberta,Canada
Art was sent to Grassy Lake with a team and wagon to get
Art worked with his brother, Ed and his dad and his cousin
One day about noon Art could see a covered wagon
When the surveyors came to survey southern Alberta, they
Thompson's made the first trail from the Fourty-Mile Coulee
Arthur homesteaded south of Bow Island on the south half of
When Art had been in Canada for three years his headaches
Art and his brothers hauled supplies to build the new house for
Art spent 40 years farming. He and Amanda had two girls.
The girls grew up and married. Grand children were born
Grand children remember a Grandpa who was a small man
In 1955 Arthur and Alice moved into the town of Bow Island.
In 1980 he moved into the Lodge in Bow Island. The day he
On July 7,1884 he and Alice celebrated their 72nd wedding
children on the 12th of March 1890 on a farm 3 miles south
of St. Thomas,Pembina County, North Dakota. His father
was Torvale Thompson who was born in Norway. His
father changed his name to Thomas Christopher when
the family moved to Canada to homestead. He was
usually known as T.C. Thompson. His mother was Signid
Peterson but when she came to the United States she
changed her name to Sarrah. She came from Norway in
1870 as a child of 7.
in the Lutheran Church on May 18, 1890. He had an
older sister,Alma and an older brother,Ed.
house with a big porch and a railing. There was a road in
front of the house and a railroad at the side of the property.
There was a special barn for the cows and horses and trees
were all around. One time,when he was still a little boy, during
a blizzard, he went to check on the animals and he was lost in
the storm.
and put down a flowing well and got salt water, The mill
put out 300 barrels of flour every 24 hours! He also had
the first steam traction tractor in North Dakota, built in the
Stillwater Penitentiary.
try to discover water with the crook of a willow tree. His
success led him to develop his own techniques and he is
said to have "witched" more than 180 wells over a period of
40 years!
Dakota and traded the farm for a hotel. Art was aged 10.
His father owned and operated the Merchant's Hotel, a
lumber yard and a delivery service. Art would be sent to
Fargo, North Dakota for supplies with a team of horses.
It was a trip of 40 miles and had to be made in one day
because he had no money for meals or to spend on over-night
lodging. When Art was 12 years old most of the town burned
down. A high wind spread the fire through the town. His
family always fed the bachelors!
and could not go to school after that time. The doctors said
that he would not live past the age of 16! He had serious
headaches from that time onward. His eyes were bad and
there was no one to fit glasses. The temperature got up to
110 degrees F. and people and animals were dying from the heat.
in a Japanese costume. He asked his sister to dance, It was the
only dance that he ever went to! He met Amanda Elizabeth
Soder when he was 18. The young people of the area would
sit on the church steps and sing. He was a good singer when
he was young. One time when he was not feeling well h
e was given some horse medicine by mistake and he was
poisoned. He went into convulsions and broke some teeth
before he lost consciousness.
to homestead. He was very thin and weighed less than 130
pounds at this time. The land was well settled around Edinburg,
N.D. and T.C. could see no future for his boys. Free land was
a big attraction in Canada! The Thompson's brought one steam
engine out-fit as well as cattle and horses with them on the
seven day train trip to Alberta. The steam outfit was the first
between Medicine Hat and Taber. The equipment was unloaded
at Grassy Lake which was the end of the rail line at that time.
With only a general map of the area as a guide the family set ou
for the Pakowki Lake district. They imagined the area to be richly
wooded with a beautiful setting for their new home. Instead they
found a six-inch deep alkali slough. The Thompson's moved on.
They camped for the night along the Fourty-Mile Coulee and
T.C. went into the town of Bow Island. He found that the surveyors
were there. They became squatters and built a shack.
lumber. It was March and on the way home it began to snow
and blow. For miles and miles the horses led the way and
finally he could feel the horses going down a steep coulee.
When they reached the bottom the horses and Art were
cold, hungry and exhausted. He sat down beside the wagon
and fell asleep. When he awoke at day break his coat collar
was frozen to his head. He got on a horse and rode for the
camp. When he arrived he fell into the door and fainted.
His brothers and father found the wagon load of lumber
near Stroms in the coulee near where the town of Burdett
is now located.
Charlie on the first steam threshing outfit in the Bow Island
area. Many homesteaders and travelers, lost or otherwise,
stopped at the Thompson house for food and rest. They
had a cookcar used for the threshing outfit and this was
used to accommodate the travelers.
drawn by four oxen approaching. Then he saw a big roan
range bull running full speed toward the travelers. He
grabbed a pitchfork, jumped on a horse and chased the
bull away. When he went back to the wagon the people
were scared and the woman was crying. They wanted to
cross the coulee where they had a homestead. There were
no brakes on the wagon and they didn't even have a chain
. He found out they didn't know a thing about farming or
oxen! He helped them lock the wheels on the wagon and
slid it down the coulee. They camped by a spring on
his homestead but he told them that they must always
be wary of range cattle.
surveyed two townships at a time. About 40 men camped
in the coulee. They hired the Thompson boys to move their
supplies.
to Bow Island. When the municipal council was put in they
hired them to plow eight furrows on each side of the road
as a fire-break and to mark the road because people were
always getting lost. They plowed from the Fourty-Mile coulee
to the rail-way tracks at Bow Island.
section 13 in township 8 range 11 west of the 4th meridian.
T.C. homesteaded just north of Arthur. Ed was to the west
of T.C. and to the north of T.C. was Charlie's homestead.
stopped! At the age of 22 he returned to North Dakota and
brought Amanda Elizabeth Soder back to Canada as his wife.
She was beautiful and preferred to be called Alice. They
were married on July 7,1912 in Great Falls,Montana. They
lived with T.C. and Sarrah and the boys for the first year.
Then they built their own one-roomed house at the bottom
of the hill. In 1916 they built the big house. It had 4 rooms
and a pantry. About this time they bought their first car.
It was a model T Ford.
T.C. It was the first two story house in the area and was
known as the "Big House".
Arthur learned from his mother to tell fortunes by reading cards.
Alice disapproved as she felt cards were the tools of the devil.
He also learned to wish off warts. The charm could only be
given to a person of the opposite sex. They had a root cellar
on the farm where the milk was always kept. Butter was kept
in a pail which hung down the well on the north side of the house.
Arthur butchered pigs in the fall and made good sausage. Ice
was kept under straw in the ice pit and ice-cream was made
in the ice-cream churn. Butter was churned. Clothes were
washed by hand over a wash board which hung in the coat
room off the kitchen. Coffee was ground in a grinder which
was attached to the wall near the dining room door. The eggs
were gathered, the flowers watered by hand, and chickens
were killed plucked and roasted for Sunday dinner.
and they enjoyed visits to the farm. They were chased by
the goose and protected by Bing, the old collie.
about 5 foot 8 inches tall. He had beautiful blue eyes and
wore glasses. He had thinning gray hair and he always
wore suspenders. He often wore a silver arm band.
He wore a straw hat in the summer and a brown felt hat
in the winter. He liked picnics in the summer, and pictures
of the family. He always ate oatmeal porridge for breakfast
and loved Alice's sugar cookies and donuts. He ate a lot
of cabbage, ham and fried potatoes.
He continued to farm until 1960 when the farm was sold.
During his retirement years Arthur liked to work with wood.
He built chests of all sizes, swings, replicas of "Old Glory",
Bow Island's first gas well, boats, covered wagons and steam
engines. He worked for hours in a cluttered workshop in
the backyard. He enjoyed his daily walk uptown to have
coffee and visit with people. He loved to tell stories about
threshing crews, life-threatening blizzards and claimed that
he had a real life experience with "Billy the Kid" in his youth.
He took good care of his vehicles. He had an old 1948
Ford truck that still ran in the 1980's! He sold it to his great
grandson as money was important to him. He was careful
but fair with his money. If he gave his daughter some money
he always gave the same amount to his daughter Doris. He
often loaned Harry Chuen money to run his grocery store
but he was always paid back.
had the auction to sell his household effects was a sad one.
Alice had been moved to the Auxiliary Wing of the Bow
Island Hospital and he was no longer able to care for himself.
His daughter had been preparing meals, cleaning the house
and doing his laundry for a number of years before he moved
into the Lodge. When he lived in the Lodge he didn't like to
share his company with anyone else and he always took
his visitors to his room. One of his favorite expressions was
"Oh,Boy". In his later years he seemed to get frustrated
over little things. We can recall him his daughter on the
phone at 5:30 A.M. when he was worried about some
small matter. He loved to drive to Taber almost daily for
Kentucky Fried Chicken and a piece of apple pie. He
loved sweets but he was limited because he was diabetic.
He had a valid Alberta driver's license until he was 96
years old. He was really upset when he was no longer
able to drive!
anniversary! Alice died on February 24,1985 at the age of
97. Arthur died on July 2,1988 at the age of 98. They
are buried in the Bow Island Cemetery after having lived
a long and useful life.
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