It was provincial election day in Alberta in the late spring of 1962 or ’63—I’m not sure.
Dad, Mom, Ben and I had been back on the farm for a few years after living ten years in Chilliwack, B.C.
It was going to be the first time I would be casting my ballot.
The election outcome was not in doubt. The premier, Rev. Ernest C. Manning and his Social Credit Party would very likely be elected again with a large majority. He was an honest and popular, though boring, politician.
The polling station or voting place (I’m not sure what it was called back then) was at Hugh Currie’s farm, only two-and-a-half miles from our farm. It had been the farm home of my Uncle Joe and Aunty Tillie Muik. Aunty Tillie was Dad’s older sister. They had sold their quarter-section farm to the WWII return soldier and moved to a 40-acre dairy farm near Aldergrove, B.C. in the Fraser Valley.
So in the early afternoon, with Dad and Mother in the front seat of the 1957 two-tone blue Oldsmobile that Dad had driven back from B.C., we drove to the Currie farm to vote.
I noticed that Dad and Mother had dressed surprisingly well for the occasion. Dad was wearing dress pants, shirt and tie. Mother was wearing a Sunday dress. It was like we were going to Church.
It was a nice, sunny day.
Hugh Currie was a bachelor and lived by himself. The farmyard had a small, white house, a small, reddish-coloured barn, and a small reddish pump house. It had a white, Venetian blind kind of windmill head on a wooden tower that protruded through the roof of the pump house about 10 or 12 feet. It also had a small, reddish garage not far from the house. Everything about the farm was small. There was even a small flock of sheep in a pasture behind the pump house, ewes with lambs frolicking around. Hugh Currie was of Scottish descent so maybe that’s why he had sheep. No one else in our area had sheep.
The yard was neat and tidy: the area around the house looked recently mowed. There was a car or two and a half-ton truck from the ’50s parked near the house. We parked there too.
Hugh met us at the door, smiling warmly.
“Come in, Reinhold and Hilda, come in. And this is your son, right?”
Dad said yes and told him my name.
I saw that Hugh was dressed up too—a dress shirt and tie. Hugh was wearing some shiny armbands just above the elbows, on the sleeves of his white shirt.
He pointed us to the small kitchen where his table had become the election registry desk. On one end was a larger, square, wooden egg-crate kind of box with a slot on the top, a hasp and small padlock on the side, for the ballots, I presumed.
Sitting on two kitchen chairs behind the table were the Deputy Returning Officer and his assistant, George and Phyllis McVige. I’m not sure who was the DRO and who was the assistant. The McViges were our neighbours.
They greeted Mother and Dad warmly too.
It didn’t take long to register us three. Then we voted, one at a time, in a very small bedroom, I believe, off the kitchen. We marked our ballots on a little card table and returned them to the DRO, as I recall, who put them in the slot in the locked wooden box.
The kitchen opened into the living room. Several other people who had already voted were sitting on the sofa or on kitchen chairs, visiting.
There was a wood and coal heater in the middle of the room, a wooden rocking chair with a folded blanket over the seat and back, and a small, really old-looking pump organ on one side of the room, pushed into a corner. Everything about the house—the rooms, the furniture, was all small, just like the buildings outside.
We sat down with the others. Dad and Mother seemed to know them all, even after being gone from the area for over ten years. The conversation was the same as at all rural events: the weather, the crops, the pastures, recent deaths or major mishaps.
I noticed everyone else was dressed well. It was obviously a special event in this rural part of east-central Alberta.
Some folks left, others arrived, voted, sat down, visited. I recognized some members of the Bablitz family as they came in.
Dad walked over to the little pump organ and sat down on the stool. He looked really big in front of the little organ. He started looking at a book on the shelf above the keyboard. I could see it was an old hymn book.
He was slowly paging through it. He stopped, studied the song, hummed a little. Then Dad put his feet on the pedals and pumped up the organ. He tried a few keys with one hand. Pleasant organ sounds came out.
Dad put his other big farmer hand on the keyboard, tried a few chords and sang the hymn. I don’t think Dad could read music, but he could follow the notes and he could play a few chords.
“Phyllis,” called Dad, “Come over and play the organ for a while. Maybe we’ll have a sing-song.”
Phyllis came over, sat down and pumped up the organ while she looked at the song. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
She put her hands on the keyboard and really nice gentle organ music filled the room. People stopped visiting, Dad and Phyllis started singing. Soon Dad, while he was singing, was motioning for Mother and me to join him and Phyllis. Then George came over and joined in. Did I say there was a lull in the voting?
Mother had a nice soprano voice, Phyllis sang alto, Dad preferred singing tenor, while George had a booming, powerful bass voice. I sang a very meek bass, an almost inaudible bass, standing between Dad and George.
The song ended. Dad immediately found another. The organ was pumped up again and the singing started over.
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine O what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long.”
Soon Dad was trying to get the other voters to join us; only one or two ever did, briefly. Others said they just wanted to listen and enjoy the music.
“I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. And the joy I share as I tarry there, the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other, has ever known.”
Hugh interrupted as we finished the verse, “There’s more voters here,” he said.
Phyllis and George returned to their chairs in the kitchen and processed the new arrivals. Mother and I sat down. Visiting had resumed.
Dad had stayed at the organ, sitting on the stool. I could see him slowly turning the pages, stopping, studying, then occasionally he carefully folded down the corner of the page before he turned it over.
The new voters were soon done voting and sitting with the rest of us in the living room. It was casual, friendly visiting. There wasn’t a word about the election or politics.
Dad got up and looked out the window.
“George, Phyllis,” he called, “There’s no one coming right now. I found some more good songs for us to sing! Let’s have another sing-song!”
Soon we were singing again, singing the songs that Dad had chosen, the folded pages in the old hymn book.
“Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river. Gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God.”
Dad turned a few pages, “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.”
And so it carried on until Hugh announced that another vehicle had arrived, and the organist and the booming bass put on their other hats and returned to their paid positions at the table.
The visiting resumed, the new voters had voted, were seated and had joined the conversation.
Hugh interrupted again. This time he asked if anyone would like a cup of tea. “I think it’s time for a cup of tea,” he said.
People nodded and said, “Yes.”
Hugh went back to the kitchen, plugged in his electric kettle and got out his teapot.
Electricity had come to our rural part of Alberta about 12 year earlier. Now everyone had an electric tea kettle!
Hugh had a supply of store-bought cookies as well. Soon the people seated around the living room were having tea and cookies. Phyllis had brought some of her cookies too; they were passed around.
People left, thanking Hugh for his hospitality, the tea and cookies. Hugh was beaming, enjoying a new role as a congenial host. More neighbours straggled in. Hugh made more tea and washed some cups.
Between visiting, Dad was still studying the hymn book.
“George,” he called. “Let’s sing one more, at least one more. George, I found ‘Church in the Wildwood.’ It’s got a real good bass part in it. It’s perfect for you, George!”
The singing began again.
“There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood, a little brown church in the vale. No spot is so dear to my childhood as the little brown church in the vale.”
Then came the bass part in the chorus that Dad had mentioned to George. Now his booming bass vice sang out alone, “Oh come, come, come, come” (here the rest of us joined in) “Come to the church by the wildwood, come to the church in the vale” (here George and Dad kept singing “come, come, come, come”) while the rest of us sang, “No spot is so dear to my childhood, as the little brown church in the vale.”
The afternoon was wearing on. Most people had cows to milk, hogs to feed, chores to do. We did too.
George told Dad as we were leaving that he would stay a little longer, then go home to help Floyd finish the milking and return to help Phyllis close the poll and count the votes.
We said goodbye to Hugh and thanked him for the tea and the cookies. He thanked us for coming, thanked Dad for the singing.
We got home. Dad parked the car in front of the garage. We were walking back to the house.
Dad said, “That was a really nice election day we had!”
Ernest C. Manning and his Social Credit Party were re-elected.