By Colleen Palumbo
The following article was written by Emily Jorimann Collins. Mrs. Collins, with her very distinctive style, relates her memories in a comfortable manner that brings warmth to her memories. This will be part one of three.
“I wonder if anyone who attended Moberly School remembers what used to happen on Halloween with the boys and girls outhouses and what the boys did to the chimney, causing the schoolroom to fill with smoke as soon as the teacher lit the heater the next morning.
When Axel Lindberg or the two Edlund boys drove past the school in their old Model A Fords or whatever make they were, the whole school would run out from their classes to watch them drive by in their vehicles, whichever it happened to be at the time.
One could hear them coming for a long distance away, as cars were a novelty in those days and very rare in that part of the country. The motors were very noisy. The classes, all running out of the school in curious and exciting anticipation, must have been a very provoking time for the teacher who usually happened to be in the middle of teaching one or more classes. In Moberly School there was only one teacher for all the classes.
The hill by the school was a great source of fun, especially in the winter, for it was great for tobogganing and sleigh riding. There were lots of games such as pump pump pull away, blue nose, run sheep run, hide and seek, and others which I don’t remember the names of.
Spring was a very muddy time, when ice and snow melted and the road became ankle-deep in mud and slush. Before that time of the season, some days, depending on the temperature, we could walk to school on top of the snow which had a very hard crust if the weather turned very cold, such as [-10 Celcius]. On other days one would sink waist-deep every so often because of temperature changes and sunny locations on the way to school, which was a mile for the Jorimann family and many more miles for other families.
I can remember some days walking to town with some of my brothers and my oldest sister and being picked up by someone or other who was driving to town with their team of horses with wagon or sleigh, depending on the season, and how glad we were to get a ride, for it was a long 10 miles to Golden from our place to walk. And when a team of horses could be afforded, we darn near froze before getting to Golden and also on the long way home.
I remember stopping at some kind people’s place on the top road and thawing out in front of their kitchen range. Then, that kind lady sat me in front of her oven with my feet on the oven door, where she placed them while rubbing my feet to make the feeling come back, I can’t remember her name, but I do remember she had a lovely kind face. She also fed us a delicious stew.
There was another couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Miller who used to give us hot chocolate when we visited them in Golden before heading back home on that long walk. Sometimes we were lucky enough to have a nickel to purchase a package of Wrigley’s gum, which was shared between all of us and was considered a big treat.
Mrs. Hautala was also a person of goodwill who used to live in Moberly Station House while her husband was section foreman, before he was killed by a slide while on duty for the CP Rail. She used to give us lunch sometimes, both while living in Moberly and when she lived in Golden after the loss of her husband.”
