Visiting Hay Lakes, My Old Home Town

My first home town was a quiet village of 300 inhabitants thirty miles east of Edmonton.

On my last trip to Alberta, my cousin Elizabeth drove me back for a quick visit. I don't know anyone who lives there anymore.

But I remember the church we attended. It has been renovated with a new front entry since we lived there. My brother and I were both baptized here.

My first home was across the street. (It, too, has been renovated.)

It only had two or three rooms when my parents lived there - and probably no indoor plumbing.

A few years later, we moved to an apartment on the top floor of a garage my father owned. The garage burned down a few years after we moved away, but nothing has been built in its place... I wonder if they fear finding toxins, like oil, in the soil.

I'm standing on an old cement slab - a part of the original garage floor - with my aunt Evelyn (my mother's youngest sister). She remembers coming to visit and staying with us above the garage when she was thirteen years old.

The two-room school where my mother taught is no longer there.

The only buildings that I remember that remain the same are an insurance office that hasn't been used in years It looked the same when I was last here five years ago.

Also a boarded-up dairy, the Hay Lakes Creamery, where I remember watching workers separate the cream from the milk. I don't know if they ever made cheese or ice cream...

Also an old farm at the edge of town, where I used  to play with a little girl about my age.

Going back brings back childhood memories... I'm glad not everything I knew is gone!