Fifty Years Together: New Serepta and Hay Lakes - Part 1

Yesterday marked 70 years since my parents were married. Twenty years ago, the year my father died, they planned to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary - 50 years. I recently found the guest list for that event, together with the speech my mother planned to make. Here it is, a summary of their life together...

Dick and I met in 1942. Dick had just rented the Julius Drebert farm in New Sarepta. I was the school teacher at the New Sarepta Rural School, which was located on the Drebert farm. I lived on the school yard in the "teacherage" - a one-room shack with a fairly large porch.

Dick was a very helpful neighbor and we soon became good friends.

Dick was always buying and selling used cars and other machinery. He even bought a gas-motor washing machine, which were hard to get during the War Years. He asked if he could store the washing machine in my home - with his permission for me to use it. Dick says, "Margaret would not part with that washing machine. That's why she married me - so she wouldn't have to give it up!"

We were married August 26, 1944, in Edmonton, where my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Bartz, lived. The Rev. Luitkeheolter performed the marriage ceremony at Trinity Lutheran Church. The wedding reception was at my parents' home.

After our memorable honeymoon in Banff, we settled into our first home in Hay Lakes, where Dick worked as a mechanic and I taught grades 1 to 5 in the two-classroom school in Hay Lakes.

We had a nice little house with a big kitchen and living room and a bedroom. We even had a crab apple tree and some berries in our back yard. Friends and relatives were always welcome. Dick had a lot of friends in Hay Lakes. That was his home town from the time he first arrived in Canada in 1929.






Life was quite different in a small town 50 years ago. We had no indoor plumbing or electrical appliances. Dick was always very creative. Before I met him, he had built the light plant for the village of Hay Lakes. So we did enjoy the convenience of a few electrical lights in our house.

[To elaborate on that - I remember my father saying that when Saskatchewan Power came to Saskatchewan, local power generators were no longer needed. The village of Hay Lakes purchased a used generator, but it arrived in pieces - with no instructions for its assembly. My father was very mechanical and succeeded in putting it together.]

Water was hand-pumped from a well in the back yard. Wood and coal, stored in a shed, was carried into the house for the kitchen stove, and also for the heater. The heater was usually in the center of the living room. How happy we were when, a few years later, we were able to buy a propane gas kitchen range! No more ashes to carry out every day.

About 2 years after we were married, Dick bought the Esso Service Station and Garage in Hay Lakes - "Dick's Repair Shop" - with living quarters upstairs.

Marlene was about 2 months old when we moved into this upstairs home. There was still no indoor plumbing and the stairs were very high!

Dick always had a very long work day - often 16-20 hours. He says, "The only pastime we had in Hay Lakes was work and more work." If you were there you served your customers - sometimes very early in the morning, even before breakfast. You might also have customers late at night. Dick hired a few men to help him - working in the garage and trucking, since he also had the bulk dealership for Esso.

(Continued... tomorrow)