Janette Oke

by Laurel Oke Logan

  At last, feeling that she could not stand her grief any longer, she climbed the loft ladder of the farmyard barn and threw herself down onto the hay. The weight of her enormous grief had finally taken her to the end of her strength, and, in her desperation, she cried out to God, whom she had always believed existed but did not personally know.

  “Oh, God,” she prayed, “if you’re really there—do something for me.”

  God did hear Amy’s prayer, and though perhaps she could not have explained her experience at the time, she left the barn loft a new person. The God of creation was now her God, and with His help she was ready to go on—and to begin her growth in the Christian faith.

  Two years after this monumental experience, Amy found herself again faced with the possibility of losing a child. Baby Janette brought back to Amy all the trauma and pain she had faced with the loss of Kenneth. As the sun began its morning glow over the snowy fields of the Canadian prairie, Amy wept alone. This time she was certain that the God she had chosen to serve would hear her plea, but she fought with her desire to insist that He save this baby.

  Over and over in her mind she wrestled with how to pray. She wanted to demand, but she knew this was not what her Lord wanted from her. Finally she realized that she did not need to be afraid of letting go. Through her sobs she placed herself and then the fragile life of her infant daughter into the hands of a loving God. At last she felt peace and understood afresh that her heavenly Father was in control of the situation and that she could rest and allow Him to accomplish His purposes, whatever they might be.

  “Not my will, but thine be done,” she whispered in the stillness.

  Gradually the condition of the tiny baby improved. With the advice of those around her, Amy took Janette off breast milk and placed her on condensed milk, an expensive commodity and difficult to obtain in those days. But the baby continued to gain in health and strength, and was duly fussed over by three older sisters and a brother.

  Amy found herself often murmuring prayers of thankfulness as she watched the cheeks grow round and the little arms and legs fill out. She had learned much about the love of God through these difficult times, and her own desire to continue to grow in faith strengthened. In many ways she felt that she, too, was a child, just beginning life under the watchful eye of her heavenly Father.

  Fred and Amy Steeves were now raising five children and busy with the activities of farm life. Though it was the mid-thirties and there was never any extra money, they were always able to provide in some way for their family’s needs. The youngsters grew quickly, but not without the occasional near-catastrophe that accompanies childhood. Amy found herself again thanking God for being near her children when she could not. And with the comforting distance of time, the family had many good times of laughter in reminiscing over some of those events.

  While Janette was a toddler the Steeves family lived along a winding prairie river. It was normally neither a deep nor wide stream. In fact, during times of drought it was all that the little river could manage just to keep on flowing. But in spring flood time it could be a different story.

  During one of these periods, the older children were sent to bring in the milk cows. Unknown to them, their little sister Janette decided that she would go too and toddled along after them, carrying a small red ball.

  She hadn’t gone far when the ball slipped from her hands and went rolling down the riverbank into the swollen stream. Crying out over her lost toy, she ran after it, sliding down the bank, anxious to retrieve the ball that now bobbed along in the current.

  Perhaps there would have been no one to tell what really happened had someone not come upon her shortly after, her clothes hooked securely on a prairie cactus, still crying for the ball that had floated downstream.

  Another favorite childhood story involved the farm windmill. Every prairie farm had a windmill—a tall, open structure with a ladder hung precariously on one side. Many mothers worried about those windmills, for farm youngsters couldn’t seem to stay away from them.

  Bill Meikle, a neighbor, enjoyed repeating the story of a very young Janette coming into the house and imploring the adults, “You come turn Margie ’wound?” When they went to see what she meant, there was baby sister, Margie, barely able to walk, dangerously high on the windmill ladder—unable to go on up or come back down.

  On the many occasions when the children were bundled into the farm wagon and taken to visit cousins, aunts and uncles, they could hardly contain their excitement. Equally thrilling was the sound of someone else’s wagon pulling into the Steeves’ yard. The older children would tumble out of the house or race from the farmyard to find out who had arrived and whether or not anyone young enough to play with had come along.

  Family meals at Grandma and Grandpa Ruggles’ house were “affairs.” The men filled the long table in the “cook car”—a once-portable kitchen that had been attached to the house to give extra room. Children were given plates of food and then lined up on the floor along the wall, where they balanced dinner on their laps. It was a little hard to tell if the women were ever able to sit down with the men or if they ate their dinner after the rest were fed, but no one complained. It was so good to be with family, and the adults mostly smiled indulgently at all the happy commotion from the youngsters.

  But Grandpa Archie Ruggles seemed a bit gruff to the young ones. They were careful not to cross him, though they were still drawn to him by his obvious love and dry sense of humor. Staying in his home at the time of the birth of younger sister Margie, Janette had just turned two and jabbered and prattled constantly, trying to get her grandpa’s attention.

  At last he exclaimed in his wry-humor way, “Awe, go dry up.”

  In a moment she returned with a towel, busily rubbing it against herself, and declared, “There, Grandpa. Me all dried up.” The adults roared with laughter, and Grandpa Ruggles figured he’d been bested by a two-year-old.

  On another visit when the day was hot and dusty on the prairie, Janette and a cousin close in age decided the best place to be was in the icehouse. There, large blocks of ice were buried in coal slack to keep them frozen through summer days. Since the black dust was damp and dirty, the two children decided they would be better off setting their clothes aside. They carefully removed the garments and then proceeded to dig in the cool playroom.

  When they had tired of their little game, they emerged—much to the shock and consternation of their mothers. Blue eyes shone out from little black bodies covered from head to foot with coal dust.

  On another occasion, Janette and cousin Richard Steeves decided to explore his father’s newly acquired automobile. Jack went into the house, leaving the toddlers bouncing in the backseat.

  As it happened, eggs in cartons were also left on the backseat where they were playing. When the excitement of bouncing wore off, they discovered the eggs and set about cooking up some further fun. By the time they were discovered, they had scrambled eggs all over the seat and couldn’t understand why Uncle Jack was so upset.

  One of the most ordinary creatures on the prairie is the Richardson ground squirrel—usually called gophers locally. Since they were a plague to all farmers, every attempt was made to preserve the few crops that did grow by controlling these animals whenever possible. Farmers shot them, some were poisoned, but even the children were allowed to help when it was time to drown the gophers. The youngsters ran through the fields carrying pails of water to dump down innumerable holes.

  Too young to carry water, Janette hurried to follow her older siblings as they rushed into the dry fields. A hot wind blew across her small face and swept on across the bare brown prairie, snatching the sounds of the children’s voices and carrying the words off toward the endless horizon to be lost among the drifting clouds. Amid the hustle and confusion of the moment, one small child hurried after the others, trying to share in their excitement, taking it all in. This gopher hunt is Janette’s earliest memory of prairie life.

  She does not rem
ember the dust, the need, or the difficulty at times in putting a meal on the table. In her childhood memories she does not see her father struggling to make a farm produce when the wind blew the prairie soil across his path in clouds of dust so thick the ears of the horses he was driving were hidden, nor does she recall her mother feeding the family another meal of cottontail-rabbit stew. She has only heard about her father being reluctant to stand in food lines and, instead, setting off to work on a government project building an irrigation ditch, or her mother shaking the dust from the bed covers before tucking the little ones in at night.

  She knew nothing at the time of all those hardships. It was her parents who shouldered the burden to worry and struggle for the family. And Fred and Amy soon realized that something had to be done. The stubborn skies refused to give up moisture. The forlorn fields were unable to sustain growth. Because of those conditions, the government urged farmers to move their families farther north, where it had not forgotten how to rain.

  Fred and Amy realized they must make a decision, but it would not be easy. So many members of their family lived nearby on the prairie. On both sides their families had roots that reached deep into the prairie soil.

  Chapter Four

  Moving North

  When it came time for Amy Steeves to register her kids for school in the fall of 1938, the county school inspector sent a note asking the number of students who would be attending from the Steeves’ household. Amy wrote back, “If we can find a place up north, none.”

  Inspector McCullough, who himself was from the north, quickly replied with an offer for Fred to work on the northern farm that the inspector and his father owned. Fred went first—alone. When he was certain that he liked what he found, he sent word for his family to join him near the little town of Hoadley, Alberta.

  After loading a boxcar at government expense with household goods, six horses, four cows, and Fred’s younger brother Ralph as supervisor, they bid tearful good-bye to their prairie family, packed themselves into Grandpa Ruggles’ truck, and headed north. Grandma and Grandpa, Amy, six children, the girl who helped Amy with the children, and Inspector McCullough’s wife and small son all made the trip together.

  Because the Steeves children were still recovering from whooping cough, it was necessary to separate them from the others. Ronny McCullough rode in the cab of the truck and Amy’s children rode in the back, under a hand-built protective covering. It was a long drive, lasting until well after dark.

  One-quarter mile away from their destination, their truck became stuck in the mud so they were forced to abandon the vehicle and walk the rest of the way. The children were amazed at the mud—since the prairie had been dry for so long they could not recall what it was like.

  Because of their whooping cough, the Steeves children were not allowed to go inside the farmhouse, so they waited outside until they were shown where they would sleep. Meantime, they played in the yard, running up and down the slanted wooden door of the root cellar in the darkness and having a wonderful time.

  Amy was very disappointed to discover that they would not be with Fred immediately. He was working at another farm, and the family was to stay on in a bunkhouse at McCulloughs’ place. After being away from her husband so long and traveling so far, the news was difficult to bear. The next morning, Amy’s father took her over to the field where Fred was haying, and she was grateful to be able to see her husband at last.

  The entire family together again, they began adjusting to their new lifestyle and a measure of routine returned. It was the time of year for wild blueberries, and Amy and the girls spent many hours in the berry patches. On one such excursion she and the older children picked while some of the younger ones baby-sat Margie, not yet two, who was still having spells of coughing whenever something provoked it.

  As the morning wore on, Margie became hungry. They had brought a simple lunch with them to the berry patch, and Margie had decided that it was time to eat and that she wanted the fried liver from the sandwiches. The baby-sitters had learned that crying would send their little sister into a bout of coughing and did all they could to keep it from happening. So they complied, and when the toddler had finished her piece of meat and decided that she wanted more, they obliged, taking it from the other sandwiches. By the time the berry pickers came for their lunch, there was nothing left but bread and butter.

  On a trip to the Hoadley Post Office to mail some blueberries back to their family on the prairie, Fred and Amy spotted a farm that had apparently been for sale for a while. With hopeful hearts they considered the possibility of making the purchase and decided it could be done. Fred stopped to see the man, and arrangements were soon made.

  Amy was thrilled. The home on the new farm was a real house, and “almost new” in her thinking. While many neighboring families were living in simpler accommodations, her new house seemed so spacious, and she thanked God many times for providing it.

  Fred purchased both the adjoining Hoggarth and Robakowskie quarters. Later he purchased another quarter of land, which he logged and then resold, and then a quarter known to the family as the Nelson quarter, across the road from the Hoggarth place. It was unbroken land and used for running cattle and horses.

  The farm purchase took some time to be worked through, so the family unloaded their household belongings at the much smaller Robakowskie house while waiting to take possession of the Hoggarth farm. The family was forced to crowd themselves in, sharing beds with rows of children and often feeling they were stumbling over one another. For some of the children, there was also the eerie feel of dark shadows thrown against the windows by the trees and the sound of wind passing through the branches at night. On the prairie there had been none of these sensations.

  Soon the time came for the move to the Hoggarth farm, and the house hummed with activity. Amy called out directions to the older children and Ruth, the family’s hired girl, about what to pack and whom to chase out of the way. Finally they were ready to leave.

  The Hoggarth house was built of sturdy logs and covered with siding. It had once been the Haverigg Post Office before being moved to its present farm site, and the front door still bore a letter-drop slot. The main floor consisted of five small rooms—a kitchen with eating area and pantry, a living room, and three bedrooms, plus a double porch known as the “shed” because of its slanting roof.

  Around the yard young spruce trees had been planted, and a caragana hedge lined a path that led north from the front of the house to the road. There was a picket fence around the front yard and a gate at the front entrance. In the years that the family lived in the house, no one used either the gate or the front door. Family and guests alike entered through the farmyard and came directly to the back door in the shed.

  The garden, toward the west, had a row of saskatoon bushes and red currants. For several years, the girls were sent out to pick the saskatoons for pies or canning and the currants for jelly. Unfortunately, the currants were known to be loved by worms as well, and finally Amy had the bushes pulled out. Perhaps it had something to do with Amy’s brother Bob who, on one visit, helped himself to the lovely red berries. He enjoyed them tremendously until someone opened a berry and showed him the wiggly worm inside. Uncle Bob looked a little sick—and didn’t touch the currants again.

  The house also had a second story, an unfinished open room. It became the bedroom for some of the children, though it was not insulated. Summer days were hot and stuffy, while winter nights very cold. The stove chimney ran up through the middle of the room, bringing whatever warmth there was in the winter. But under the heavy quilts the warmth of the other bodies sharing one bed soon made the attic room cozy and secure. Even the dark shadows thrown across the open rafters where the roof hung low were not nearly as frightening when the soft breathing of sisters could be heard nearby.

  In the mornings, the children had to slip from the warmth, scurry across the cold floor and rush down the stairs to stand by the heater to get dressed. Even the main fl
oor got very cold at night in spite of the banked fires. Janette can remember her father warming socks and shoes over the stove before they were passed to her to put on.

  There was one dormer window upstairs, looking north from the front of the house toward the road. Because the roof sloped away in every direction from the chimney, a very careful child could ease out through the window and onto the roof. Some of the more adventurous members of the house tried this test of skill, but it was discouraged by those who were older and wiser.

  The kitchen was an odd narrow room with the cooking stove near the entrance to the living room and the table tucked in along the north wall. It was very crowded for such a large family, but they made do until changes could be made. Fred was busy farming two quarters of land and logging another. Home improvements would have to wait.

  At the end of Fred’s workday in the field, little Janette would often run to meet her daddy. He was tired, dusty, and hot from the beating sun, but her little legs still had difficulty keeping pace with him through the tall jungle-like grasses. He would hoist her up onto his shoulders and carry her back to the house.

  For Janette, the sensations of this memory still live on—the gentle up and down motion with each step that her daddy took; the feeling of being high above all of the world, her small hands wrapped around his sweaty forehead; the heady feeling of being borne homeward by her big, powerful daddy.

  When Fred arrived in the evening after a busy day of farm duties, he was met with enthusiasm. As soon as he lowered his tired body into his usual chair, his lap was considered available. There was only one condition: no wet pants. It was great motivation for the young family members to become potty trained. Janette never stopped to consider if he wanted her on his knee or not. She felt the place was rightfully hers and was never turned away.

  When Fred’s big arms wrapped solidly around Janette as she snuggled up against his chest, she felt loved and protected. He was a quiet man, but there was never a doubt in Janette’s mind that her daddy loved her. Though he was stern and unyielding to any child who chose to disobey, he seldom raised his voice. He simply did not need to.