I was digging through our archives (aka long abandoned boxes) and found an article written about the 1936 fire Grandma spoke of (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about you can find her-story about the fire here, and photos of the fire here). Grandma makes a cameo appearance in this account of the fire.
This is an article written in Grainews from June of 1995, written by Ronald Wallace:
The Prairie fire that drove us from school
It was Nov. 20, 1936, when the Brushy Ridge School house burned down. It was in the path of a Prairie fire.
I was nine years old at the time. My two sisters were 11. We were party f a group of a dozen kids who had braved the wind, the smoke and the smell of fire to attend classes at this school.
The fire got its start away to the West, in what is now known as Kananaskis Country. Probably the day before. Sometime during the night, the wind picked up.
Coming home from cousin Kass’s birthday party that night, the air was full of the smell of smoke. We kids paid scant attention to it, however. We were too full of cake and ice cream and the fun of the party.
The next morning, the wind had become strong enough to blow the soil off summerfallow, as it had done off and on all fall – ‘36 was a dry year. A lot of crops didn’t make it that year. The Depression was working its hardships on many people.
The acrid stench of the smoke was even stronger than last night, I thought as I bridled and saddled Queenie for school. The wind and the dirt had us ribbing our eyes already. We weren’t looking forward to the five minute ride. In fact, it was so dark we were a bit scared.
As we pulled into the school yard, the wind gusts ripped and tore at us with an awful frenzy. It took two of us to wrestle the barn door open enough for the third to get Queenie in.
We ran for the school. The giddiness I felt as the wind snatched my breath and smoke and dirt swirled around was scary.
About 10 o’clock the schoolroom got so dark we couldn’t see the blackboard. No electricity in those days.
Miss Davis was the teacher. The school sat directly across the road from the Callaway farm.
The school vacated
At 11 o’clock, Mr. Callaway came over to the school to talk to Miss Davis – out in the cloak room. When she came back in she asked Carl Wilson, who would have been 13 or 14 at the time, to run up the road about half a mile to the Messer place to warn them of the approaching fire. She told the rest of us to get our coats and run across the road to the Callaways. The noise of the wind had me totally spooked. Once we cleared the school, the same giddiness and panic took hold of me as I gulped and sucked for air.
My sister Doreen had hold of my hand, and if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know how I would have got across the road and into the Callaway’s house.
Their house was protected on the west by Spruce trees. The smoke and the wind billowed and screamed through the branches. The front and the back doors of the house were open as people rushed in and out.
It was dark in the kitchen. Mrs. Callaway was heating up porridge for Evelyn, the baby. It was burning. It took her a while to realize it. The smell of things burning was everywhere.
Some live coals blew in the back door. Joe, the hired man, stamped them out and tried to shut the door. The wind was such it forced him to put his shoulder to it.
I can still see his neck bulging with the effort. My sister Eileen told me afterward that Joe had helped get us kids across the road. I often think of this because, at the time, most of us were a bit afraid of Joe. He was Czechoslovakian and had a strong foreign accent. He seemed to us to be a big boy with a gruff voice.
Rushed out of area
Ted Callaway had a big blue car – a Nash I think it was. He put as much of their belongings as he could in the front seat along with his wife Mamie, his young son Bob and Evelyn. In the back seat were nine of us, ranging from seven to 16.
The wind hit us broadside as we haded north to Cochrane. It did its best to upset us. The car would lift and settle as the gusts took hold of it.
Miss Davis, Carmen Barkley, Vernice Towers, and Carl Wilson were left behind. They ended up at hte Edges’ house, which was almost a mile east of the school. I can;t remember how they got there, but I think one of the Edge boys picked them up. For a period of time, they were reported missing.
Once we crossed the river coming into Cochrane, the visibility cleared some, the smell of smoke was not as overpowering and the wind-driven dirt didn’t hurt as much.
We went to the Cochrane Hotel and waited. After a while, a reporter from Calgary came along. He asked us a lot of questions and then lined us up and took some pictures. We were a sorry-looking lot! He asked us some more questions and then took us over to the cafe for doughnuts and hot chocolate.
People started to drift into town. Haggard, worried, desperate people. The Coelens milked cows a few miles west of the school. They lost everything.
The Arnell’s, also to the west, had pigs and chickens roasted as their buildings went up in flames. Their house and everything in it quickly burned. They escaped with little more than the clothes they wore.
Mrs. Towers came in looking for her daughter. When she found she wasn’t with the rest of us, tears ran down her face. I remember being somewhat sobered at this. I hadn’t seen too many adults cry. I remember saying “I wonder what our folks are thinking.”
School’s on fire
George Wilson lived a mile east and a mile south of the school. His oldest daughter, Muriel, was at home. She was a slim girl about 18 or 19 at the time. Somehow, through the smoke and dirt she saw the school on fire.
Although she wouldn’t have weighed 100 lbs, she ran with the wind a mile east to our place to sound the alarm. Then she turned around and ran back home again! Into the teeth of the gale that was later reported to have gusted up to 90 miles an hour.
Dad threw a shovel, an axe, an 8-gallon can of water and some sacks in to the old Ford car, picked up hose brother Bill and headed for the school. They went through the back pasture, got out on the road and had only gone a little way when they ran into a large obstacle across the road. It was on fire.
Through the smoke and dirt they saw it was a “slide” or hay stacker, commonly used in those days to build hay stacks in the field. They were big wooden structures made out of logs and planks. It took four horses to move them any distance.
The wind had blown this thing uphill, out of George Wilson’s hay field, through the fence, across the ditch, and onto the road. Imagine their dismay when they circled the thing and there, on the other side, was a car half in and half out of the stacker.
Mrs. Percy Copithorne had been driving back to their ranch from Cochrane. At the school, she had swung a mile east to avoid the oncoming fire. In the near-zero visibility, she didn’t see the stacker in time and before she could get stopped, the front wheels went over the log skid. She was stuck. She was a young woman. She had a young child with her and she was expecting another one.
Dad and uncle Bill beat out the fire and chopped her free. They took her back to our place and then made another run for the school. When they got there, the school was gone and so was the barn where we had put our horse. Harry Edge came along and told them us children were all in Cochrane, but that Queenie was in a bad way. Smoke inhalation. He said when he got to her, the barn was on fire but he got her out before it collapsed. We had to shoot her the next day.
About 5:00 pm., Mr. Wellington Barkley came into Cochrane and took us all home. The wind had died down and a light rain started to fall.
It was an eerie sight driving home through a blackened and smouldering countryside. Hay stacks were still burning and so were telephone poles. Downed wires were strewn along the sides of the road.
Many stories have been told over the years by those who were caught in this fire. Stories of danger and courage and heartbreak. This one is written through the eyes of a schoolboy.
Fifty-eight years later, I can still smell the smoke, hear the shriek of the wind and feel the sting of the dirt in the air. It was quite an adventure.
There was no loss of human life, although a considerable number of animals died. It’s amazing took how the resourcefulness and ingenuity of people who are faced with disaster can still muster the will to rebuild and overcome their losses. In the ‘30s this was no mean feat!
Written by Ronald Wallace
