Heading West - Glimpses of the Past with Karen Webster

In time, when the earliest settlers had converted their 100-acre plots from bush land into cultivated acres, a new problem arose. In those days, families were typically large and there were just so many people that a farm could sustain. Many young men turned to trades, training as teachers and doctors, opening their own businesses or moving on. 

 

This was the case for William Henry Burrows (1865-1944), born just east of Sheppardton in Ashfield Township, who went to work on the railroad in the northern United States. He returned to the area in 1894 to marry a neighbourhood girl: Orah Vrooman. Plagued by asthma, William found the climate in western Canada more conducive to his health and worked on ranches there, returning to Ontario periodically until his health would worsen then heading back out west to earn a living. 

 

By 1911, he had acquired a homestead in central Alberta and had built a sod house for his family. Orah and their five children, aged 15 years to nine months, sold their belongings and headed west by rail.  William met them at Kindersley, Saskatchewan, and they all rode to the end of the line at Alsask, near the Saskatchewan/Alberta border. From there, the family rode in a Democrat, which was a buggy with seats in it, all day, until William stopped at a shack and said “This is it.” According to son George Vrooman Burrows, “Mother burst into tears and cried for three days and, if it had been possible, would have gone back east. 

 

“(Sod buildings were common on the prairies during the times of early settlement. Since there were few trees suitable from which to make lumber, pioneers cut sods from the ground and stacked them in the fashion of building blocks. Usually, the house would be dug into a slope so that one or more walls would be formed by the earth. Boards or metal were used for a roof. This would be quite a contrast to the stately two-storey brick and frame homes that were being built in Ontario in that era.) 
“However, as it was time for supper, Mother asked Dad to get some wood, start a fire and she would prepare supper. When Dad came in with an armload of buffalo chips, it was the payoff. Not knowing what they were, she asked. When told, she just about fainted, so between smoke from the buffalo chips and tears we ate our first meal at the homestead.” 

 

The family decided to make the best of it. The ground was burnt black from a big fire, so there was not a sound of a bird, but there were plenty of mosquitoes. The children ran around in bare feet to save their shoes for Sunday, which was tough at first, but they got used to it. Cactus plants were a real problem.  

 

In time, more families settled nearby. First there was a post office, then the stage coach started going through. When a Salvation Army man came from Ontario, he held church services in his house and everyone attended, regardless of their religion. When enough families had settled in the area, a school, called Glenavon, was built on the corner of one farm. 

 

When the railroad came through, a tremendous boost was given to the community both with work and as a means to market produce. A town site was laid out on the Burrows farm and it was called Lanfine. Progress brought a grain elevator and a general store. Next came a train station, two more grain elevators, a rooming house, restaurant, hardware store, bank, lumber company, dray line and a general meeting hall. 

 

George continued his narrative, “Crops were good and business brisk, the elevators were full and scores of granaries were all over the place. It was nothing to see 100 farmers in town at one time. They were hauling wheat 30 miles and many stayed overnight. 

 

“At one time, Lanfine had a skating rink, hockey team, baseball team, golf course, poker game, and had the honour of some good fighting men and some good looking girls.

 

“Things changed fast when the Hungry Thirties came along. The lumber yard, banks and hardware store were all gone. There was very little rain and the dust was terrible. There was nothing for the stock to eat and a good steer was only worth two or three dollars.

 

“The whole country was deader than last year’s bird nest. People were moving out like flies and it was hard to take a last look at years’ worth of work and a cherished thing.”

 

(In 2010, my husband and I visited the site that once was Lanfine. There was only one house, a trailer home and a building that may have been the meeting hall at one time. Two metal signs announced that a school and a post office had once existed there.)
This story was preserved by the forward thinking of the local Alberta Women’s Institutes, which instigated the gathering of local histories in 1967, Canada’s Centennial year. Likewise, a committee in the Village of Blyth is embarking on a history of the years 1977-2027. To help preserve your family’s stories, contact the Blyth Repository of History by phone at 519-523-4792 or by e-mail: info@northhuron.on.ca