Family Memories: Life in Bienfait

Bienfait Grain Elevator

When we lived there Bienfait was a thriving community of about 1,000 people. It had two grocery stores, Bradley's (where we shopped), and Fred Liskowich's (Sheps) and a general store, a hardware store, cafe, hairdresser, credit union, bank, bakery, two pool rooms, post office, 3 churches, hotel and bar, and two garages. Movies were shown on Saturday Nights at the Legion Hall. They cost 25 cents to get in. The stores were open late on Saturdays and main street was packed with cars. The kids would all go to the movie, and a lot of the parents congregated at the bars. Dad was often busy on Saturday nights patching people up after things got a little rowdy.

All the businesses closed down at 9:30 and everyone would congregate at the cafe for coffee and gossip. The stores and doctors office closed on Wednesday afternoons and Mom and Dad would head into Estevan to shop at the co-op grocery store. We often went for supper at the Canada Cafe on Wednesdays.

Bienfait main street

Mom was rather shocked and dismayed by the bar. It had two entrances, and the bar was divided into two sections. There was a "ladies and escorts" entrance, and a men's entrance. Women did not go into the bar unescorted. Women and girls also were not allowed into the pool room (Gubs), which had several pool tables and a barber shop chair. Pool was played for money, and there was always a crib game where large amounts of money were gambled and lost in the back room and bottles passed around. All quite illegal of course, but the town cop, Joe Pryznik, turned a blind eye to the goings on at Gubs.

The Hotel and Bar.

In Bienfait Dad did all kinds of medicine. He worked with two other doctors, Brian Bowers, who practiced in Lampman, 17 miles north, and Eddie Miller, who practiced in Estevan, a larger community 8 miles west. They assisted each other for operations, and became friends. Often there were “social appendectomies” for example, when Brian or Eddie would come down in an evening to assist at an emergency appendectomy, and stay for supper and drinks afterwards.

Olive, Eddie Miller and baby.

I can't remember the baby's name, but I remember he was an absolute wiz at taking things apart. I remember he took the stove apart once. Eddie was not handy at all, and Olive often asked Dad to help with fixing the things the lad took apart.

Dad loved to be able to practice “real medicine” again. He particularly enjoyed delivering babies, and delivered hundreds while he lived in Bienfait. He was disappointed though that few mothers chose to breastfeed their babies. He also commented that no children over the age of 6 had their tonsils and no women over the age of forty still had their uterus when he came there. When we traveled to Bienfait for the reunion in 2005 and toured the museum he saw the obstetrical table from the hospital where he had delivered so many babies on display.

The Doctor's office

He did a bit of everything, obstetrics, surgery, general medicine, orthopedics, veterinary medicine, he did it all. He told about a dog whose owner brought him in with several hundred porcupine quills stuck in his face. Dad had to anesthetize the dog to get them out. He had to guess how much anesthetic, but must have done OK because the operation was successful. Unfortunately the dog did not learn because he was back a few weeks later again full of porcupine quills. The dog put up his paw for Dad to insert the needle.

Bienfait Hospital

Darlene Walliser was a little girl when Dad was practicing in Bienfait. She was Darlene Krupka then. She remembers Dr. Rennie as being somewhat on a level with Jesus in her life. She tells of being a rather shy and quiet little girl. She had to be hospitalized a few times, for tonsillitis, an ear infection, a fractured arm. She remembers whenever she got hospitalized, her grandmother always seemed to need hospitalization as well, and would end up in the hospital so Darlene could cuddle up with her and feel comforted. Then when Darlene was discharged, Gramma would be discharged as well!

Dad was not much interested in appearances. His most comfortable attire in the summer was an old maroon coloured nylon bathing suit. It was old and falling apart. Mom tried valiantly to keep it together, and tried to throw it out, but Dad would not hear of it. He used to wear it to the hospital on weekends, usually putting an old shirt over top. He used to comment that he would not have been able to dress like that in England, where even to go on emergencies in the middle of the night he had to wear a suit and tie! He much preferred the informality of Canada.

Dad had to travel back and forth to Lampman, and sometimes out to outlying farms in all kinds of weather, including winter storms. He bought a snowmobile and used it to make house calls when the roads were impassable. He used to pull it behind the car on a trailer, and when the road was blocked in; he unloaded the snowmobile and continued on.

The first snowmobile

For the first little while Mom worked in the office with Dad. It was a great way for her to get to know people. One day a woman came into the office with her hand wrapped in a towel. She unwrapped it and several fingers dropped out! She had been slicing bread with a very sharp knife.

Mom and Dad soon got to know everyone, and they loved the town and the people. Mom joined the Legion Auxiliary and was “Madam Secretary”, a job she took very seriously. In the Bienfait museum there is a commemerative quilt with all the names of past executive members on it. Mom's name is there.

Legion Badge

She soon had many friends. Bienfait was just 9 miles north of the US border, and people often went “across the line” to shop. They didn’t like paying duty on their purchases though. One day Mom and a bunch of other women went shopping in Minot, and came back wrapped in bed sheets under their clothes and all manner of other tricks.

A favourite pastime in Bienfait was hunting. Dad tried it a few times, but one day he was out hunting deer and through the scope of the rifle he saw the deer's eyes. He put down the rifle and never hunted again. He was happy to eat the game others caught though, and especially the fresh fish people brought us. We really missed fresh fish as it was not available so far from the ocean. Brian Bowers was an avid hunter, and not always particular about hunting season. I remember one day coming home from school to find a deer hung in the basement. Apparently Joe Pryznik, the local town police officer happened by and saw the deer, but said nothing.

Hunting.

That's Graham and John hunting. We had a near thing with the guns. John was cleaning the rifle, and thought the chamber was empty. It wasn't and the gun went off in the kitchen, narrowly missing Graham and putting a hole in the kitchen floor.

Mom was visited by the local Anglican Priest, Father Duncan Pasterfield. Mom really liked him, and enrolled us in Sunday School. We enjoyed it. Kathryn learned to sing such songs as "Climb Climb up Sunshine Mountain", complete with hand movements, and I was enrolled in confirmation classes. Then Rev. Pasterfield left and Mom didn't like his replacement, considering him rather arrogant, and our church attendance stopped.

St Peter and St Pauls Anglican Church

In Bienfait we learned about wood ticks. Dad was fascinated when Mom got one. He had to get his camera and set it up on the tripod, and adjust the lighting. Mom was less than amused as the wood tick feasted on her and grew larger and larger while Dad saved the event for posterity.

Mom’s wood tick.

Dad could never go to the local legion, because everyone wanted to buy him drinks. Once when Uncle George was visiting he decided to show him the Legion. Well, they rolled home a few hours later, calling to Mom and Grandma “Come an Sheee ze Norzern Lightsh”. Mom never let him forget the Norzern Lightsh.

Uncle George and Mom on a visit to Bienfait

Kathryn and the little girl across the street “myfendonna” (My friend Donna) became inseparable best friends. They did everything together. They both had older siblings, and both emulated the older kids.

Mom could not get over the mud in spring time in Bienfait. The streets were not paved, and in some cases sidewalks were wooden boardwalks. Every spring the town turned into a muddy morass, with water overflowing the ditches and low lying areas. The older kids used to go rafting on home made rafts in the sloughs and ditches.

One spring day in Bienfait Mom and Donna’s mother could not find the girls. They searched everywhere frantically for them. Mom was terrified that the girls had decided to go rafting like the big kids and fallen in the water and drowned. Everybody in that end of town became involved in searching. It was close to noon, and I was walking downtown from school at lunchtime. I saw Kathryn and Donna just about to cross the highway, and ran and grabbed them. I called home and asked Mom what Kathryn and Donna were doing downtown by themselves. Turns out they had found a couple of pop bottles, and were taking them to the café to turn them in for pennies to buy bubble gum like the big kids do.

Later on in the year, Kathryn and Donna decided to take part in another activity the big kids did. They decided to go garden raiding. They crept into Mrs. Katrusik’s garden, in the middle of the day, whispering and giggling, and took a couple of peas from the vine and ran off. Little did they know Mrs. Katrusik was watching them from her kitchen window, laughing merrily at their antics.

Kathryn and Donna

Graham was friends with Donna’s brother, Melvin. Graham and Melvin, as many little boys did, liked to catch frogs and garter snakes from the nearby sloughs. They would keep them in an old metal wash tub in the yard beside the house. Mom had a phobia about snakes. One day, Dad came home from work and took a snake from the washtub and chased Mom all over the yard with it. Many years later, when Graham and Marsha married, Dad told the story of the snake, but said it was Graham that chased Mom with the snake. Mom never let on, just rolled her eyes. Graham protested his innocence vehemently, but Marsha did not know who to believe. It wasn’t until their visit to Dad in the care home in April 2010 that Dad finally ‘fessed up that it was him that chased Mom with the snake.

Garter Snake

Graham and Melvin with Kathryn and Donna

In the background of this picture is my horse, Flicka. That's Katrusik's new house across the street.

Our first car in Canada was a 1956 Buick, but the next car was Dad’s favourite. It was a 1964 Oldsmobile 88 convertible. He bought it new with all the bells and whistles that were possible back then. He loved it and drove it until he left the country in 1982. By then it was rusting out, and needed new engine rings, but still lovingly kept running. One time Dad repaired the upholstery with sutures.

On a family trip to the mountains in the Olds.

Back in the days of Prohibition in the US, Bienfait had been a pretty wild place, with some of the men engaged in running liquor across the border into the US, only 9 miles south. There were many back roads and prairie trails leading to the states, even when we lived there. There were of moonshine stills in the hills south of town as well.

Roche Percee

Roche Percee was a pretty spot south of town. It was fun to climb around and explore this rock formation. There was a small village nearby and a park where we went for picnics. At one time there were pictographs in these rocks, but they are no longer there. It was in these hills that the whiskey runners hid and made their moonshine.

After a few months in the apartments on top of the doctor’s office we moved to our first house. This was an older two story house at the edge of town. It had formerly been owned by Metro Katrusik, then mayor of Bienfait. He had built a new house across the street. It was rumoured that Metro had been one of the whiskey runners. Dad hired a fellow to help with the renovations, and he showed us a secret cubby hole that he told us had been used to hide liquor. I think he was having us on, liquor wouldn’t have been hidden in the house, but it’s a good story.

The first house, with Kathryn on the roof of the car

The second house

After a couple of years we moved to this house. It was larger and more modern.

Mom used to like a glass of sherry or two while making Christmas dinner. She used sherry for the trifle, and the mince tarts, and so would have a glass or so while cooking. After a glass or two of sherry she used to say she had "rooozy sheeks"

Rosy Cheeks

Playing cards in the Kitchen

For a while we had a jackrabbit for a pet, named predictably Peter.

Susan, Graham and I started school in the elementary school at the end of town. It was a new experience for us. There were no uniforms, and the school seemed very informal. In Britain, the students were referred to by their last name, and when speaking to the teacher, we stood up. The school in Bienfait was coeducational. For me it was the first time attending school with boys. It took some getting used to.

Bienfait Public School

John went to the High School as he was 15 when we came to Bienfait. He graduated from there. Mom found the concept of graduation rather odd. She couldn't understand the big fuss, especially as it was in May, and school was not over until the end of June.

John's Graduation. I sang in the Glee Club, and am standing behind John.