Fifty Years Together: Living in Hay Lakes - Part 2

 Margaret's story about the early Hay Lakes years continues:

At that time - living in Hay Lakes in September, 1946 - I was happy to be a stay-at-
home Mom, taking care of our baby, Marlene; helping my husband with the bookkeeping; and sometimes serving gas when the men were busy doing other things. I did not intend to go back to teaching, but at that time there was a shortage of school teachers. So in September, when my baby was about 6 months old, the school trustee asked if I would return to teach at the Hay Lakes School again.

"Who will take care of our baby?"

It was agreed that the trustee's wife would come to our home every school day until they found a suitable baby-sitter for us. Reluctantly we accepted the offer, and I went back to teaching again.

[This is a school picture taken in 1947. My mother is the teacher on the left.]

[The school must have grown from its two classes around that time. Among my mother's photos I found this one of the Hay Lakes teachers in 1947-8. My mother is in the middle.]

Three years later, when our son was born, I stayed home for about a year. We had many baby-sitters and nannies over the years, until both our children attended school.

At times Marlene and Ted stayed for brief periods in Edmonton with Grandma and Grandpa Bartz or with Dick's sister, Elsie and her husband, Rudolph Missel.

[This old photo shows my mother and me standing outside my father's garage, next to my brother's carriage, my aunt Elsie in the center and my mother's mother on the right.]






We lived in Hay Lakes for 9 years. Then Dick sold the garage and we moved to Red Deer.

(Continued... tomorrow)