Janette Oke

by Laurel Oke Logan

  Even with the shared enjoyment, there were tradeoffs that Janette knew she must endure for their times spent together. Embarrassing moments of crazy actions and teasing—like pretending to be drunk in a Chinese cafe. Everyone in the area knew full well that the family were not drinkers, so no harm had been done, but Janette blushed with embarrassment.

  She was also aware that the boys had come by their sense of humor honestly. Janette’s uncles had been known to embarrass her completely in public, as well. They once placed an ugly rubber finger into a plate of restaurant food and then grinned while the distraught waitress tried to remain composed enough to resolve the problem.

  When Janette was in her late teens, Uncle Jack had a hired man from Eastern Canada who could play almost any instrument, and Janette soon began blending her alto voice with his, as they sang almost every western hit of the day.

  Vic, the young singer, thought they sounded especially good together, so he suggested that they cut a record, and at first it sounded like fun. But Janette got nervous and took the first opportunity to escape the scene by fleeing home to her folks in Hoadley.

  A letter from Vic soon followed. He was sorry she had left and hoped that they could still cut the record, and in the meantime, he had already made arrangements for backup with a western group touring in the area. Janette shared the letter with June and was teased about it. Though June did seem serious when she urged Janette to go ahead and do it. It seemed like harmless fun but Janette still could not feel comfortable with the recording venture.

  She knew she didn’t want to be part of a failed album, but she was also increasingly certain that she didn’t want success. Vic was a talented musician, and though she did not consider herself to be exceptionally gifted, she could harmonize well. So there was a chance—just a small chance—that the venture might succeed. She had watched the traveling western groups close enough to know that theirs was not a lifestyle she was interested in, and believed that it didn’t fit with her Christian commitment.

  Vic soon slipped away to play backup guitar for a group that sometimes appeared on local TV, and Janette finally lost track of him altogether. Apparently, the opportunity had passed, though she continued to enjoy singing country music.

  Uncle Ralph and the cousins had another friend who was a steel guitarist. At that time, a steel guitarist was as close to a hero as Janette was willing to allow, and she could have swooned over the man—if she had been the type.

  One evening he visited and, of course, hauled out his steel guitar. Janette was still shy but very much enthralled with the music. There were many requests for various songs as the night went on, but the cousins hooted when Janette asked, without much thought as to how it could be interpreted, “Do you know ’I’ll Hold You in My Heart’?” The singer was familiar with the song and he played it—in spite of the howling of the male cousins and Janette’s searing red face.

  During the time when Janette lived with her Uncle Jack and Aunt Laurine and attended the Champion school, it was expected that she would come directly home each day to help with the housework. One night, she strayed.

  It was the spring of the year and she was walking with a couple of her girlfriends when they noticed that the spring thaw had made a sizable pond in a low area of town down by the railroad tracks. They also noticed a small raft sitting along the edge.

  With a little persuasion, Janette decided to give it a try. She managed to get herself onto the raft and out into the pond, but it turned out to be much more difficult to maneuver the thing back to the edge again. She was stranded, and the friends on the shore could offer her nothing in the way of assistance. After many moments of coaching and struggle, she finally managed to get herself back to shore where she knew she should have stayed in the first place. By then it was late and Janette was both anxious and wet.

  Aunt Laurine had been fretting, not knowing what might have happened to Janette. Her niece didn’t have a habit of fooling around after school. And they both were well aware of the week’s wash water waiting to be emptied and the back porch needing to be scrubbed. By the time the tardy Janette had finished her chores, she was also late helping with supper. After that experience, she was careful not to dally on her way home.

  Just before Christmas, Aunt Laurine sent Janette downtown to the ladies’ wear store to pick out a new dress. There were few opportunities and little money for new dresses then, and the occasion was a special treat.

  Janette found a beautiful green dress with a full skirt of shimmering material that changed colors with the light. It was lovely, and she couldn’t believe it might actually be hers. She brought it home on approval and to her delight was given permission to keep it.

  The first opportunity to wear the dress was to a school party. School parties usually involved dancing, which Janette did not participate in, but on this night the dance was to follow a fellowship time. With the convenient break in events Janette did go. She and her new dress made quite a hit.

  As she sat with her friends early in the evening, a young fellow, rather red-faced, delivered a soft drink to her and grinned broadly. Later, more than one fellow asked to take her home and she shyly accepted one of the offers.

  The night’s success made her feel a little heady. No small wonder her girlfriends enjoyed an evening “out” when there was such nice attention to be had. She was amazed at what a pretty dress could do and grateful for Aunt Laurine’s kindness in giving it to her.

  Other outings followed, one after another. In an area known as Wolf Coulee, a birthday party was planned. The deep valley was filled with interesting rock formations, and the group of cousins and friends from church thought a birthday party held at the coulee would be very exciting and a chance to do some exploring.

  They packed the lunch and birthday cake, then set out for a hike. The triumphant moment when the birthday cake was to be unveiled arrived, and Dorothy Brett reached for it ceremoniously. Everyone howled their protest as it was discovered that sometime during the trip out from town the birthday cake had been sat upon. They ate it anyway, laughing at their own folly.

  Then came other trips into the foothills toward the west. Lunches were packed and various groups headed out for a day of exploring streams and trails. On one trip, they came across some backcountry cowboys who had just shot a bear. The animal was stretched up in a tree and looked rather large to the group of wide-eyed prairie kids. One of the fellows was boasting about how he had shot the bear while it was running.

  “Where was he going?” one of the young people asked in wonder.

  The storyteller’s eyes grew large, and he answered dramatically, “Toward me!”

  After leaving the cowboys to their bear, the group continued on their way, laughing about the storyteller and his scare. Janette laughed, too, adding her own quip about the man “Lee.”

  The hiker beside her stopped short. “How do you know his name?”

  It was really quite simple, she explained. It was stamped on a little leather patch on his pants. Everyone laughed at Janette’s introduction to brand name jeans.

  After the school year ended, Janette spent the latter part of the summer helping a woman who was experiencing trouble with her pregnancy. It was harvest time, and as the woman had been sent to bed, she needed someone to do housework and cook for the crew of harvesters. The couple had no other children, so it was a lonely place to work and carried a lot of responsibility.

  Before the housekeeping job had been completed, Janette heard of a job offer in the Bank of Commerce at Champion. She was interested in it immediately but also very uncertain. In the first place, she had not graduated from high school. She was only seventeen, but because of transfers back and forth between schools she had lost precious school days. She would need two more years of schooling to get her senior matric, equivalent to grade thirteen in some provinces or first-year college in some states. Accepting the bank job would mean she would likely never complete the courses. Secondly, harvest was not yet finished and the
woman she was helping was still bedridden.

  So Janette took the difficult question to her daddy for his opinion and was surprised at his answer. “Sis, you need to be the one to decide.”

  It was the first she had been left on her own for such a major decision, and it was a little frightening. Her father was “cutting the cord,” turning her loose to make her own choices. Though it frightened her, it was also an honor. He trusted her. He had told her so in those few words. In the end she took the bank job, and Margie, still a very young girl for such a big task, filled in as housekeeper and cook for the harvesters.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Working Girls

  Janette soon learned to love her job as a bank clerk. She enjoyed working with numbers, and it was fun to have things “prove up” and know that there had been no mistakes. The work was done manually, except for one adding machine for month-end balancing. The big ledgers were all hand-posted. With all the work done by hand—or rather, by head—it was especially fulfilling to get a “sight balance.” That meant that all the entries for the entire month and the month-end listing had been done perfectly. For Janette a sight balance only happened on one occasion, but when it did there was a small stir. It was an unusual occurrence for any of the employees. An error or two managed to sneak into one’s figuring on most months. Janette was soon promoted to teller, and she enjoyed that position even more.

  It was nice to be known in the small town as one of the “bank girls.” Sometimes Janette would go with her co-workers for a soft drink if they were off work early, and it felt good to be independent and out with the older girls. While working at the Champion bank, Janette was joined by sixteen-year-old Margie, who found work at Allan’s General Store for the summer and then attended Champion High School. The two sisters got together with a friend, Vivien Deal, who also worked at the bank, and rented a small three-room suite just two houses down the street from Grandpa and Grandma Ruggles.

  Independence, though pleasant, also brought weighty responsibilities. And for Janette there was the added challenge of supervising and providing for her younger sister, so she appreciated the support from the family. Grandma Ruggles kept an eye out for them, and Grandpa Ruggles waited for their daily visit when they passed his house returning from work.

  On one occasion after Janette had missed a couple days’ visits, Grandpa growled in his somewhat gruff way, “Thought you had died.” But now Janette knew him well enough to know that it was all a front. She gave Archie a big hug and said that she had just stopped in to see her “favorite boyfriend.” He laughed, and they enjoyed their visit together.

  The cousins still came around often. One of them had an extra reason for his visits now. Cousin Don was engaged to Janette’s roommate, Vivien, but when he arrived he didn’t stay for long. It was usually just to pick her up for a date. Richard, Tom, and Larry dropped by often—at times bringing Uncle Ralph with them as well.

  Visits home to Hoadley were infrequent, but on the occasions when it was possible, Janette found her way back for a short stay. Just as she had expected, the family continued to grow up and change, especially “baby” Sharon, now five. Janette felt it was her duty during one of these visits to explain some of the facts of life to little Sharon.

  She was such a cute young thing, and sharp as a tack, but she was growing up as almost an only child—being the last sibling of the group and seven years younger than the next in line. Not being raised in the middle of the “litter”—especially in Janette’s way of thinking—Sharon was given little opportunity to discover the need to compromise. There were few family members with whom she must learn to share, especially since easy-going Joyce was a number of years older. The family doted on their youngest, so among other things, Janette spent time trying to explain the dangers and perils of being a person who was spoiled and selfish.

  After returning to Champion, Janette wrote home and encouraged Sharon to remember “their little talk.” Amy was curious about the note and asked the little girl what the talk had been about.

  “She said when I grow up, if I’m spoiled, no one will want to marry me,” came Sharon’s answer. When Janette heard the response, she could only laugh at the young child’s version of the chat. Of all of the things they had talked about, Sharon had chosen to remember only that one.

  Janette worked for two years at the Champion bank before deciding it was time to look for a Bible college. Both June and Jack had gone to Mountain View Bible College in Didsbury, Alberta, but Janette was not certain that God wanted her there. Uncle Harry and some of the cousins had gone to Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, where Betty had attended. Perhaps she should apply there.

  For some time Janette wrestled with the decision. And in the end it came down to funds. True, she had been working for two years, but the bank salary had been only $100 per month, and she had been paying her own living expenses. So she knew that she would have to choose her school according to her finances. P.B.I. was unable to allow her to attend classes on credit, as Mountain View had offered. This weighed heavily in the decision.

  Then Uncle Royal paid a visit to Champion. He and Aunt Bea had been working at a little mission in the Yukon Territory at the time, and it seemed to be a good chance to hear some wise counsel. He and Janette discussed her desire for Bible college training and the two schools in question. His final comment before he left was, “Janette, remember. It’s not the school. It’s you.”

  She knew he was right. God could work in her life only if she was open to Him. The school, no matter how good it was, could only bring about as much maturity and spiritual growth as she was openhearted enough to allow.

  In the end she sent applications to both institutions, thereby putting out her own “fleece” to the Lord. She had prayed and promised that whichever college she heard from first, she would take as the college to which God was leading her.

  By a twist of circumstance, Janette did not receive the mail-stalled letter from Prairie Bible Institute when she should have, offering her a spot in the freshman class. Instead, she received the reply from Mountain View, which was dated and mailed shortly after. So she accepted the offer from Mountain View, delighted that not only would they accept her as a student, they were also offering several days of cleaning work that would be credited to her student account as payment. So Amy and Janette spent time working on her college wardrobe. Although it was simple and inexpensive, it looked very nice to the two ladies, and they were proud of what they had managed.

  Summer came to an end and Janette headed for college, while Margie moved on to another job. More than once over the year, Margie helped out by sending a little needed money. Janette always felt grateful, for she knew the money came through some sacrifice on her sister’s part.

  Several days were spent cleaning in readiness for the fall classes to begin. When school started, first-year euphoria set in and it took months for the feeling to wear off. Janette felt so blessed to be at Bible College and to be sharing so many things with other young people. She was very thankful to have been accepted and responded to many opportunities to testify in the chapel services. Soon she learned that other students had come to expect her to be one of those who jumped up each time an invitation for testimonies was given. From then on, Janette checked herself, allowing the privilege of sharing only when something really “special” had happened in her life.

  Among her many fine teachers was Professor Peter Waldin, the same gentleman who had offered her money for summer Bible camp when she had been a child of ten. Janette enjoyed his classes and also became a part of the dramas presented by his yearly speech class. She enjoyed the experience and the creativity of acting out the part of a biblical character. Janette’s roles included Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the young girl, Rhoda. With skill, Mr. Waldin wrote the plays himself. Janette learned to love and appreciate him as a fine teacher and the true English gentleman he was.

  Each of the students was assigned a job “detail” at college. Janette had
learned about the necessity of work early in her life and did not mind the tasks, giving the work her best efforts. For that reason, she was often assigned to clean the front hall, the offices, and the chapel. The dean seemed to be impressed with her work, and although she appreciated the compliment of sorts, it did seem that she got more than her share of the bigger jobs.

  Dish crew, table setting, and other such chores were more enjoyable because there were others with whom to share the work. Janette enjoyed these details and took the opportunity it gave her to get to know other students better. Some of the best times at college seemed to happen during “detail.”

  One day as Janette was cleaning the front hall, a fellow student came along and began to help her work. He had not been assigned the task, and Janette was a bit puzzled about his help.

  She knew him slightly, their paths having crossed a few times over the years even before they were fellow students. Edward Oke was a junior and rather hard to miss on campus. The student body was small, and he was a visible and vocal part of it.

  In the girls’ dorm she had already heard some reports about Edward. One of the girls had been his “steady” during the previous year. The relationship had, for reasons that Janette did not know nor ask, been terminated. But the girl had declared quite frankly that she intended to “hate whomever he starts dating.”

  Now, Janette wondered why he chose to help with her assignment, knowing that he had chores of his own. They chatted and became better acquainted. One of his off-handed remarks amused her somewhat.

  “The fellows in the dorm have been trying to guess your age. They have you all the way from nineteen to twenty-three.”

  She didn’t know why there should be interest in her age, but she admitted rather shyly that she was nineteen. He seemed a bit smug about the information. She judged that he must have been the one guessing her at age nineteen and felt good about being right. She didn’t know that he had decided that if she were as old as twenty-three he would be reluctant to ask her out. Edward was also nineteen.