Ruth married Edgar Davies in 1927 and I rented a room from them while I worked for Mrs. Allan. Then Percy Copithorne asked me to go with him to a dance in upping PoundHall one day and we continued to go steady for over two years.
Percy and I were married in November 1931 in Know United Church in Calgary. Jean Russell was my bridesmaid and Frank Copithorne, Percy’s brother, was his best man. We went to the west coast for our honeymoon. And so a whole new chapter of my life was started.
Frank and Percy dug the basement of our cottage, then Mr. Frank Fletcher from Cochrane helped Percy build the cottage. We were fortunate to have natural gas in it right from the start. It was quite a change after my busy life in the store. The cottage seemed quiet and empty but I had wonderful neighbours who made up for that. First they schivereed us one evening. There must have been at least fifty people crowded into our small wooden house and they brought music and lunch and we danced until the small hours of the morning. Fortunately we hadn’t finished the floors or walls. There were heel marks halfway up the wall where they swung the ladies in the square dances. It was all great fun. Someone even kicked the middle leg off our new chesterfield but we put it back on and that chesterfield is still in constant use 44 years later. Then the community had a dance in the hall as they did in those days, honouring every bride and groom of the district. They presented us with a lovely silver carving set and cake server.
Percy was secretary for the hall for many, many years. Margie, his sister, got married later in the year to Jack C. Buckley of Springbank. I was immediately put on the sandwich making committee for the hall dances. We would order 12 or 14 sandwich loaves unsliced and slice them very thin. Two pounds of butter warmed to soft consistency to spread easy. Ham bought, then sliced very thin at the butcher shop and about four large tins of salmon mixed with a little home made salad dressing. The sandwiches were really good but the cakes everyone brought to the dances were just scrumptious. A favourite was one Nan Copithorne used to make – a big plain white cake with white icing covered with toasted almonds. Everyone seemed to be such good cooks, what a goal I had set to myself!
It wasn’t easy, but before long I had mastered a few good recipes too. It was so nice having Archie McLean taking full charge of the kitchen and making such delicious coffee in the two big copper boilers. He also cleaned the hall and all for only five dollars a night. Aunt Ada (Mrs. Jimmie Nicoll) always wore a million dollar smile and she had the art of meeting everyone at the dances and making them feel especially welcome. It was nice always having a floor manager – announcing each dance etc. They always had one moonlight waltz and when the evening was over they would dance to the song “Home Sweet Home” and everyone sang it. Usually the ladies wore long ball gowns even though it was the dirty 30s. Our hall was beautiful with dozens of Japanese lanterns and balloons hung from the ceiling. We had a pretty good local orchestra too, but Percy played the violin and that meant I had to sit out a lot of dances, likely I was clumsy and ugly too.
Not only was Grandma beautiful, but she taught me what it was like to be a lady who carried herself with dignity and grace.
One Saturday, George Camden decided to be generous and let his sister Elise and me go fishing with him. We walked the two miles down to Big Hill Creek and got quite bored standing there, quiet, watching George fish. Suddenly he caught one. Much to his surprise too, I think. He yanked it out and hit Elise across the face and she fell off the bank into the muskegie edge of the creek. She got all wet and muddy and so did I helping her and we got heck from George for being so noisy and clumsy, so we went home and left him there.
I sold Gold Cross garden seeds to the neighbours and got a beautiful violin from the company. The seeds were really good and grew well but I have my doubts about the violin. Anyway, I took lessons form Mrs. Easton in Cochrane and conned Ruth into playing those horrible scales on the piano so that I could follow in tune. I loved the violin and still do. Alex Beadle took violin lessons from Mrs. Easton too and once we had to play a duet at a concert in Cochrane. I shudder yet when I think of the awful squeaks I got out of that instrument. But the Chautauqua that used to come to Cochrane was wonderful. They really were an inspiration. Then came the radio. And Oh My! It was wonderful. We got Philip Aries to make us a crystal set and we would sit there just enthralled. And dare help anyone who walked across the floor and jiggled the needle off the crystal. I still think it’s magic that a thin delicate little thread of wire touching a piece of crystal rock could connect us to the world. Cochrane had an active minstrel show every winter for many years. We always looked forward to that. They used local talent and were popular in all the neighbouring towns too.
Once when I was riding home from school there must have been a wagonload of household furniture far ahead of me and they lost a stuffed bird off their load. I picked it up and took it home, it was quite nice. But later I got the bright idea of playing a joke on my Dad. So when he came home for supper, I put the bird up on a post and ran into the house all excited and showed him the bird. He got his gun out and sneaked around the corner of the house and shot it. His eyes sure popped out to see the stuffing all flying out and I sort of regretted losing the bird.
Riding to school all winter was quite a challenge. The horse would stand in the cold barn all day and could hardly wait for me to get on at night. By now I had two or three lively horses to ride. Sometimes it seemed we would hardly touch the ground, but just sailed out of town until we climbed the hill north of the creek. I often drove a cutter to school when the sleighing was good. A kind neighbour gave me a set of sleigh bells and the pony I drove tried her best to run away from those bells but the harder she raced the more music they made. It was exciting.
One very foggy morning while riding along the little path over the hills to school, I heard what seemed like a whole pack of coyotes howling quite close to me and he had his head thrown back and was halfway through a shuddering howl when he saw me and shot straight up in the air then hit the ground and disappeared in a flash. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen a coyote howl.
High school was fun but hard work too. We had a young people’s group called the “Rustler’s Club”. At that time the Russell Hotel had no bar, a lovely dining room, and very nice people named “Dickensons” running it. They allowed our group to meet and dance to their big gramophone on Friday evenings. The dining room was closed to the public and made a grand club room for us. The teacher joined too. It was very enjoyable, it gave us a chanced to learn to dance. We also had a high school orchestra about that time and that was great fun.
Those were dry years and poor crops and I worked in Brought’s Cafe one summer holiday. Then later Mrs. Allan asked me if I would help her in the busy summer months and it’s was like a home to me to be with her. It was like home to many people to stop into her store for a visit. I took my grade eleven in South Calgary High school and decided to work steady with Mrs. Allan before completing my grade twelve and going to Normal School.
I find it really interesting to read about Grandma’s take on pigs here – this was not what I got from her at all as a kid. She used to tell me stories about how pigs are like something like one generation away from becoming feral, and how they would bulldoze through whatever fences were built to keep them in, become wild and super aggressive.
My Dad owned a farm north of Cochrane and sometimes when he would go up there to plough he would take me with him for a few days. We batched in the big house and I remember thinking he was a grand cook. He would fry potatoes mixed with bread and onions somehow and I just loved them. There were plenty of prairie chickens around and his fried chicken was delicious. I would sit on the plough with him and watch the willow roots turn up and to me they looked like people, some dancing, some family groups, some bent to the storm. Years and years later I was so thrilled to see someone else (an artist) had the same fantasy about roots – only used cypress roots and I only wish I’d bought one of his sculptures while they were still in my price range.
We had a piano which my mother played and later Ruth took lessons. Alice Andison and Dolly Mortimer used to come and play with me occasionally and all Alice ever wanted to do was play the piano. That wasn’t much fun to my way of thinking but I liked to play at Alice’s place, she had a really cute playhouse built for her in their yard.
There was a big high board fence around our barn. That corral would hold a couple hundred heads of horses I think and often it was full. I loved to sit on the fence and watch them halter-break colts around the snubbing-post in the centre.
Burnhams lived down near the racetrack, where the Burnham-Quigley brick yard once was, and I chummed with Annie and Vella Burnham. They had a lovely cool milk house with a sod roof covered with lush green grass and yellow dandelions. We used to go in there on a hot day and drink buttermilk or fresh milk. Mr. Burnham and my Dad hayed land opposite Midford. We loved going out in the hayfield with them.
When we moved out of Cochrane (sold our home to Bob Armstead) I at last got a pony of my own. But what a horse! You just couldn’t make him move off a slow walk. We bought him from Mrs. Ripley who lived up Big Hill Creek. I had to ride him to school but always felt I’d be just as well off walking. Finally my Dad got me a lovely little Welsh pony called “Polly” and I began to enjoy the ride to and back from school in Cochrane. It was a lovely path I followed down a ravine where once there was a stone quarry. Then along the Big Hill Creek. I still think it is one of the most beautiful spots in the country. Jean Russell spent all school holidays with me at our place or sometimes at her home in Didsbury. When at our place we rode over every foot of that Big Hill creek country. We would pack a frying pan, a tin of beans, and some bread and sausages and would build a campfire and cook our lunch up at the Big Hill Springs. How natural and beautiful it was then, with the petrified rock ridge at the head of it. That rock wall is gone now, the rock was taken to Calgary due to the distinctive red rock.
When we first moved to the farm we bought a heard of milk cows from Sid Chester who then moved into Cochrane to live. There is no way I could ever work up a love for even the nicest milk cow, but I did have to help with the milking now and then. We also had a small flock of sheep and I loved the lambs, but the whole flock was such a nuisance, always getting into a field where they weren’t supposed to be. I am sorry to say that any affection I had for them was worn pretty thin. Bob Hogarth used to come and help my Dad shear them and we always enjoyed his visit. To me, the pigs had more character and personality than either the cows or sheep. One old sow must have been a great grandmother many, many times over and she was very wise. The darling little ones almost talked to you – yes I learned to talk Pig Latin at an early age. That old granny sow could smell a storm coming days before it came. She would fill her huge jaws with hay or straw and build up her nest. Incidentally, their nest was kept spotlessly clean, they always just used one area for a toilet. Recently when I was in Africa quietly stalking some wild rhinoceros, our guide said “They are quite near, over there is their community toilet”. Some folks thought he was joking, but anyone who knows anything about the pig family knew he was in earnest.
Pigs have such huge families there is nearly always one little runt in the bunch. Once I made a pet of a runt just to give it extra feed. The clock in its tummy kept better time than any old CPR dollar watch. It would come over the hill, down to the house squeaking every foot of the way until it reached the kitchen door and got fed promptly at the same time daily. One day when we were away and didn’t get home until long past his feeding time he was gone, and gone for days. About a week later a neighbour, “Mrs Adams”, about three miles distant, met my dad in Cochrane and said “You know, an funny thing happened the other day. We were sitting in the kitchen with the door open and a tiny little pig with a can stuck on hits head came running in as if he owned the place.”
Here’s another remarkable story about a pig too. My Dad must have liked pigs quite well too and once when we were shipping cream to the creamer he had an excellent crop of rye. He got the bright idea of buying buttermilk from the creamer, mixing it with rye chop, etc and feeding what looked like marvellous gruel to the pits. They died. He was so upset he just couldn’t believe all that good food had killed them. So he got a team and dragged a huge big dead pig out behind the barn, sharpened a butcher knife and went to the swollen carcass to preform an autopsy. He put his foot on it and there followed such an explosion as has never been seen before nor since. My Dad claimed it lifted him off his feet, hit him square in the face! My mother heard him calling and went out to see him coming towards the house. He would walk a few feet then, stop and vomit, then swear like you couldn’t imagine, then walk a few feet more. Mom didn’t know what was the matter with him but she knew he stunk awful and was heading for the house. She wouldn’t let him in but threw some clean clothes out for him and made him bath and change outside and bury his dirty clothes. He never experimented feeding pigs fancy feed again.
My mother was a lovely, frail little lady. One day when she went out to gather the eggs she accidentally put both feet in a binder-twine off a sheaf where we had fed the livestock and neglected to cut the twine. She fell down hitting her nose on the edge of the egg pail; it left a slight scar for the rest of her life, but she often laughed about it. Once someone gave me a beautiful little bantam rooster. He had a marvellous arched silky tail, brightly coloured. I called him “Andy” because he reminded me of Andy Chapman, our postmaster. I had two beautiful snow-white pigeons too; they would light on my hand for feed. Our neighbours, Camden gave them to me.
Our mother had taken a tailoring course when she was a girl and she used to make nearly all our clothes. I remember one Christmas she made us each a beautiful navy blue velvet dress, the neck piped with pale blue satin. I also remember white lace stockings I loved and a white fur muff and cape.
When the 1918 flu epidemic was raging I had to wear a mask when out playing with other kids. My mother fumigated our house every morning by putting sulphur on the stove. We had to go out for an hour or so and it was a very cold winter but we didn’t catch the flu. Mrs. E.C. Johnson, a nurse, was a very dear friend of Mom’s and she certainly was busy. She just opened her home to any victims that needed care. Every room in her house was full of beds and her husband Dad Johnson did the cooking and laundry. They were both extremely kind people. I think you could write a book about the service Mrs. Johnson did for the whole Cochrane district through her years there; but she would scoff at the thought of it. To me, she was beautiful. One memory I have of her, she was all dressed up to go to town. Her hair was always shiny black, even when she was ninety years old. This day it was done beautifully as usual, piled up high on her head. She was always very kind to me and I loved to visit in her home. For a while Dad Johnson ran the butcher shop in Cochrane. I was too young to know but I wonder if he didn’t run himself out of business, he was so generous. Just about everyone and his dog got a big plump turkey from him as a Christmas present. They had the restaurant for a while. They were both excellent cooks. Copithornes always shipped cattle from Cochrane then and one day when Percy, Claude, and Charlie all walked through the door to the restaurant, Dad bellered out to the kitchen “Ma put the soup pot on now, here comes eighteen feet of Copithorne to feed.” (Donna Butters is her granddaughter).
My uncle Robbie Brown built and lived in the house R. E. Moore lived in for years. He had to move to Cochrane from his homestead that was later signed over to the Crawford’s so his children could attend school. His daughter Jessie was my age and we had a great time together as children. She had a buckskin mare called “Fairy”, it was just a darling, so intelligent and gentle. One day Fairy nearly cut her hind foot off. I remember the men packing her foot in a sack of flour to stop the blood flowing. She got better and raised a magnificent palomino colt called “Monkey”. Later Jessie and I had a lot of rivalry over “Monkey” and my horse “Kit”. She was trained for a show horse and loved to be ridden in the ring. She was Ruth’s horse but the apple of my eye and a few years after we moved to the farm I persuaded Ruth to trade her to me for my Welsh pony “Polly”. I rode Kit in the Cochrane Exhibition Ladies Saddle Horse Class several times and although there was usually a large entry she always won first prize. But she was always a very flighty craggy nature.
I remember when Grandpa took out the stairs to the hay loft at the barn here because too many people were coming in off the highway and sleeping in the loft. As a kid I spent a great deal of time being blissfully unaware that people (not always good ones either) would wander in looking for food, shelter, and very often gas (which I always found bizarre since were just three miles past a gas station). Playing in the loft was one of my favourite things to do and I’m awfully glad I never encountered anyone else in there. Random highway traffic pretty much continued until we got our security gate a few years ago – what a game changer.
Every so often the Indians would ride down from Morley and camp up on top of the hill, sometimes a couple dozen tents and teepees. Now – not then – I wonder why there? And where did they get their water? We were a bit afraid of them and their children were shy of us too. Our house had a nice big dining room window. One day when Mom had baked a big scrumptious layer cake for dessert, we looked out and there were a couple of families of Indians just sitting down to a meal beside their Democrat which was parked in an open lot outside our fence. My Dad persuaded me to take a plate full of cake out for them. It took all my courage and when they snatched it off without saying thanks, I ran home plenty fast. Most of them spoke little English in those days.
When I was quite young, three or four years old, we had a French lady, Mrs. Moses, working for us and she taught me how to count in French, also the alphabet, and a few sentences. I loved her. She gave me a little fox terrier pup called “Teddy”, my constant companion. Tempanies lived next door for a year or two and there was a gate in the fence between our yards. Louise and I played together. She had a lovely gentle saddle-horse called “Merrylegs”. We always had a couple of pigs and butchered one every time the salt barrel got empty. One time someone who helped my Dad butcher, cleaned out the pigs bladder, put some beans in it, and blew it up like a balloon or large rattle. It survived for ages and was fun to kick around.
In the winter sometimes our yard would jut be a moving mass of snowbirds, especially those little red-caps. I used to put feed out for them and loved to watch them from the kitchen window. One time my Dad put our bird cage out and caught one but it didn’t live very long. He also had a pet magpie for a while, it wasn’t a very nice pet.
Ruth found owning a pony quite a responsibility. Putting it out on new grass all summer, then putting in the the barn and feeding it hay at night. She had a bad habit of putting it off until it got so dark that the hay loft was spooky (tramps used to sleep there) and she coaxed me to go up with her for moral support. One night she stuck the fork into a cat sleeping in the hay. What a roar that was! She nearly ran over me getting out of there, but I don’t think I touched the ladder coming down and hit the floor running.
So, I was in the basement this morning looking for my winter boots because eventually winter will show up and I know I shoved them in a mouse proof (haha) container in the basement sometime last spring. I didn’t find the boots, but I did find another random box filled with Grandma’s memories. It’s got old newspaper clippings, photos from the 1920s to the 1970s, photos of her 80th birthday, a gorgeous painting that she must have done, and the complete version of her life story!
I know I shared the abridged version earlier – I had given up on finding the complete story. But now that I have it I’m going to share it in its entirety. So there will be parts that repeat what was shared before- but I think sharing the whole thing again will make the story flow better than trying to chop it up.
Enjoy!
“Ouch”, that was me when Dr. Park spanked my bottom when I was born in our house in Cochrane. What a difference to the soft touch the babies have now when born. No wonder we’re a hardy race, it was survival of the fittest. Then I remember my mother trying to talk to me into an afternoon nap a few years later. My father rocking me in his arms in the rocking chair and singing to me to ease the pain of an earache with a bag of warm salt pressed to it. The rocking chair had a coyote skin draped over it, a big hide tanned and lined with red felt with scalloped edges.
These dear old hills of Cochrane provided endless fun and adventure for a child living in the village. Picking flowers in the spring, building playhouses out of stones just a laid on the ground in a pattern, etc. And galloping around on my stick horse. Then when the winter snows came there was nowhere could compare with the marvellous speed of a bobsleigh coming down the Cochrane hill, then hitting the road and flying on down nearly to the front street. The only traffic was horse-drawn and they panicked from us, not us from them.
It was awful having only one sister and she was six and a half years older than me. I just couldn’t keep up to her, hard as I’d try, and she tried equally as hard to leave me behind. So I amused myself with whatever was handy and nearly always was a horse. My dad had an old black race horse loose in the yard and I would often crawl up on his back from the fence or the back porch or a pile of boxes placed on top of the other and I could ride him around the yard when I was three or four years old. One day when I was playing quietly in the shade of the house, Father Hermes rode by on a spirited horse which suddenly dumped him off on the dusty road and jumped the fence into our yard, racing around with dad’s old horse.
We milked a cow. I remember her well, she was mostly black with a bit of white and we called her “Sloppie”. Bought her from Bobbie Butler. My mother churned and I used to take a pail of fresh buttermilk over to Mini Bailey (Now Mrs. Allan). She loved it and I loved to visit her mother “Granny Bailey”, the dearest Scottish lady anyone could ever wish to know. Jean Russell, Granny’s granddaughter used to spend much of her time with them and she and I have been the closest friends ever since we were five years old. Jack Bailey was the baker in Cochrane and he had a confectionary store and ice cream parlour. Jena and I spent many, many happy hours down in the store with Uncle Jack.
Ruth and her friends used to spend hours racing around with a stick, letting a small wheel roll down the stick then controlling it with the cross bar of the stick and racing as hard as they could go. I don’t remember ever doing that much myself. Ruth walked around on stilts a lot more than I did too. Our father built us a marvellous swing in the yard. The poles seemed like telephone ones to me they were so high, and then he put a long pole across the rope with handles to hang on and you sure could swing high. One day when Ruth and Dot Johnson were swinging, a man came up behind Ruth and spoke rather harshly to her while she was down and Dot up. Ruth jumped off, raced to the house, and let poor Dot down with a plunk.
All the girls Ruth’s age had lovely ponies to ride so our Dad bought quite a beautiful colt from an Indian. It was extremely quiet but also extremely thin. She called him “Spider”. Of course I rode it around the yard every chance I got, but my… it became mean! The fatter it got, the meaner it was and even Ruth couldn’t handle it finally. There is nothing much meaner than a mean horse! It always ran under the clothes line and got rid of me quite easily and my neck had quite a scar on it. Then it would charge us with its mouth open. How I envied Ruth going out riding with her friends, Amy Cook on her lovely pony “Snowball”, Dot riding old “Pod” etc. My favourite dream when a child was me riding an extremely beautiful big white horse, and I’ve never owned a white horse.
I’m adding what has to be the weirdest photos – but goodness they look like they’re having fun. And also the actual meanest pony that ever existed.
I love this photo. Massive weirdness. I think Grandma is the one ‘riding’At the front on the left is me on Tango – the actual meanest pony to ever exist. Don’t let his chubby cuteness fool you.
I wish mom had written about her time in the hospital, but I think the whole thing was so traumatic for her that she didn’t even want to talk about her experiences. It certainly was a taboo subject in our house, so much so that it took 70 years – including 3 after mom passed away before these experiences could be discussed. I’m assuming Aunt Annie baked mom dog shaped cookies, not that she had some poor pup whose ears she would chomp on during challenging emotional times, but one never knows haha…
DeWinton, Alta
6th Nov. 1952
My dear Margie,
I do hope you’ll feel like eating these cookies and that it is all right for you to have them. I thought you could at least chew the dog’s ear off when you feel a little blue and let down. It might give you great satisfaction. I am sure the pup won’t mind.
I hear you have Mrs. Brown for a nurse. I think she would be very lovely to have around when a fellow isn’t just up to scratch. Please give her my kindest regards. We used to bowl in the same league but she could bowl just about twice as good as I could.
Wee Clarence David is creeping all over the place. You’ll see a big change in him from the time you saw him last spring. He likes getting into my cupboards and he just loves tearing up the papers and magazines around the place.
You’ll be able to write a book about your experience in the hospital when you get home. I am sure you’ll be having lots of different experiences and meeting new people. Nobody will be able to tell you anything you don’t know about the hospital. I am looking forward to hearing all about it.
Everything about this letter cracks me up. I love that they had a meeting and made a motion to write a thank you letter, I love even more that this appears to actually be the thank you letter. I’ve never heard of the Woodland Club, and this is the first time it has come up in these letters. Anyone?
RR#2 Calgary
Alberta, Canada
March 25/55
Dear Margie,
At a meeting of the Woodland Club on March 21st, the following motion was unanimously passed: moved by Lynn, seconded by Raymond, that we send a note of thanks to Margie Copithorne for the lovely box of chocolates sent to use on Valentine’s Day. The motion was carried with hearty applause.
I really wish we had mom’s letter back to this man, and kind of wish that he’d sent more letters – he sounds like quite the character. The first letter was more of a note, written on a torn green piece of paper. For perspective on time, 1908 was the year my grandma was born, and my grandpa would have been 9 at the time.
Correspondence Branch
Feb 18
Dear Margaret
I wonder if you are related to a Copithorne family who I knew in 1908-1910.
They lived in the Jumping Pound just north of Bateman’s Post Office. I was working for Mr. Byron at the time. He lived just south of the Post Office. I drove the mail occasionally between Jumping Pound and Calgary.
I expect since oil came the ranching country has changed.
Let me know re the family.
Cheerio
Very truly yours
Leo L Piercy
I was in Holy Cross Hospital Calgary about 1911
This is his second letter, presumably in response to the one mom wrote to him.
March 31
My dear Margaret
It was nice of you to answer my letter in such an interesting manner. Jumping Pound indeed must have changed sine I knew it. I drove the mail at times for Bateman – with horses of course. One day he gave me a team of broncs. Try as I would, I reached Calgary ahead of schedule. The Post Office refused to accept the mail. My horses wouldn’t stand. I drove to the Pacific livery barn on 8th ave and 4th (?), could attract no one’s attention so had to unhitch myself and put the horses in. I did not take long, but on my return my precious mail bags were gone. I was distraught, in panic, expecting to be sent across the line.
Just before mail time, a man sauntered up with “are you looking for mail bags? They are under the pile of hay.” The joke was on me. Best wishes for a speedy recovery
I continue to be impressed with the kindness shown by the people mom encountered on her travels. Was it a safer, kinder time? Was she just incredibly lucky (her guardian angels always worked overtime)? Whatever the case, she encountered some pretty remarkable people.
Part two
Pat and I remembered a marvellous restaurant there which served excellent meals for about 60 cents. We spent 3/4 of an hour searching for the youth hostel where we could stay for 50 cents (I’m sure we burned up more gas looking for it) and finally discovered it beyond the railroad track which we had been crossing all the time. It was a charming and picturesque little building, lacking only one thing – a stove. There was only one other person staying there and the lady was quite shocked to see so many people descending on her this time of the year. I don’t think any of us took very many clothes off that night and we were very speedy in getting out to the nice warm car the next morning. The drive through Switzerland was very pleasant in the morning when we could see the sun shining on the snowy mountains and the little villages which looked like Christmas cards but it clouded over in the afternoon so we were unable to see much of the Alps. We got lost at one point so we decided to stop and have a bowl of soup for lunch at a charming little hotel which was along the road while we found out where we were. It was a warm friendly little dining room with several people in there gossiping over cups of tea and glasses of wine. We were somewhat of an oddity and got several curious stares while eating. As we were leaving a man and his wife asked if they could buy us a cup of coffee. They were so very nice we couldn’t refuse and sat down again. No one spoke either French or English so we stammered out our few phrases of German and hoped that our smiles and nods conveyed some of our appreciation for this gesture. They were very concerned about us and stood waving at the door until we were out of sight.
We climbed through may mountains that afternoon getting into more and more snow. We could see the skiers returning to their lodges and I envied Gail who was spending her vacation with some French students learning how to ski. We stopped for the night at a little village near the boarder. Pat and I had a lovely room with a balcony. There was a lighted Christmas tree on it and we could see the snow falling on it all night. It really gave one the feeling of Christmas.
The next morning, after the usual continental breakfast of rolls and cafe au lait, we set out to find Liechtenstein. Since this country has a treaty with Switzerland, there is no regular border between the two and before we knew it we found ourselves in the tiny capital city with the Prince’s castle overlooking it. Liechtenstein’s main industry is postage stamps and we aided the economy by each sending off two or three post cards. Since the country is so small it was only a few minutes to the Austrian border. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we would be travelling on a big wide “autobahn” ie. a freeway. Needless to say it took no time at all to zip over to the German border. We did no shopping as we knew we would be returning in a few days. Germany is loved by us all as the land of the ‘Milk bars” and we stopped at the first one we found in a little town not too far from the border. There was a great big jolly German sitting in there who watched us with an amused and kindly expression on his face as we tried to ask the waitress if we could get a lunch there. Imagine our joy when we found out he spoke French and was able to translate for us. He ran out and bought the cheese for our sandwiches and made sure that we all got what we wanted. This was just one of the many times our limited French was a big help to us. We decided that Jeannie would drive for a while in the afternoon. Since she is very short it was necessary to push the seat of the VW up. It is rather sticky and we all got behind to shove it forward. To our consternation we pushed so hard it came completely out of the car and we were left in the middle of the street with a loose seat in our hands! We tried valiantly for several minutes to put it back but were unable to repeat our past performance of strength. Finally the waitress saw our trouble and sent out three big boys who soon had us all put together and ready to race off towards Munich again.
Love
Have to go to classes now, will continue at a later date
