|
Gertrude recalls that the young nurses would ride horses out
to Dragon Lake and on Two Mile Flat. Olive Lunn, a close friend
and another nurse, was a good horsewoman and joined Gertrude for
rides. Two Mile Flat was a large hill in those years. It has since
been flattened out. At that time there were no sawmills on that
road, and a trail went through the Cottonwood Ranch and joined the
highway to Barkerville. Wingdam was a thriving community in the
late 1930s.
 |
| Pan Phillips,
Alex Fraser, Ed (no last name provided,) Art Mickey, Helen Mickey,
Gertrude Fraser leaving the Rempel's, on the way to Pan Phillips'
ranch, 1981. |
To get to Dragon Lake, south of town, "We would
ride our horses up the hill behind where the Recreation Centre is
now and follow the trail to Dragon Lake", Gertrude remembers.
She said that there were few houses out at Dragon Lake at the time.
Jimmy Donnelly had a cabin on the north end of the lake, and always
had a children's picnic in the summer. The friends would visit
the
Lunn family, who had a cabin there as well and stayed for the summer.
Gertrude recalls that Highway 97 between downtown Quesnel and Dragon
Lake was a country road at the time, and the road ran through trees
that had not yet been cleared away from the roadside.
Mrs. Fraser has seen many changes in
her more than 60 years in Quesnel. For example, she says, "There was an auto
court in West Quesnel, which was made up of rundown little old shanties.
Johnston Subdivision didn't exist. The Johnston family owned the
lots, and were hoping to sell 25 of them." Gertrude wanted
to buy one, but said that her husband thought that they would just
be increasing their taxes if they did that, so they didn't make
the purchase.
She reflects, "It was quite interesting
to see the town grow, because we got cement sidewalks, and they
started
paving the streets. When Governor General Massett visited, before
the streets were paved, they were oiled to prevent everything
from
being dusty."
 |
| Some of the trucks
owned by Alex Fraser and George Wood. Fraser and Wood had a
truck line from Prince George to Vancouver. |
The Frasers' first home was on the corner
of Kinchant and McNaughton. Their second home was on the present
Legion site,
and was purchased from H.J. Gardner for $1,600. During the war,
Gertrude and Alex rented out this house, completely furnished,
for
$25 a month. This fee was the same amount as their mortgage payment.
Gertrude remembers that she didn't take inventory of the items
in
the house before renting it, because at that time "You just
trusted people." The house was paid for by the end of the
war.
She also noted, "I remember enjoying
the change from watching hockey games outside to watching them
in an indoor
skating rink. It also made a large difference to the community
to have our pool built."
Appliances and vehicles
Gertrude well remembers the old model machinery that everyone used
in the middle of the 1900s. She stated,
When we were first married, we had a washer that
I thought was wonderful. It had a wringer, and I had to bring
my two tubs inside. We had no dryer until 1952. We had to put
our clothes outside, and they would freeze and had to be brought
inside. After being married a few years, we bought a sawdust stove,
which we though was great after having a wood stove. The sawdust
hopper kept enough sawdust in it that it would burn all night.
The house was warm in the morning.
Where I came from, we didn't use wood heat, but
coal.
One winter in Quesnel, it was so cold, there was
only one car running in town. It was Ceal Tingley's taxi. I don't
believe he turned it off during that cold spell. The temperatures
got down to 50 or 60 below Celsius.
We didn't have television service
here until about 1963 or so. We had television before Prince
George, because some
of our friends from there came down to watch the Grey Cup. We
didn't see very much because it was all so snowy … do
you remember how it used to be?
Other comments
Gertrude reflected, "Another observation I have is that
young people call everyone by their first names today. I don't
object
to it, but it seems to me that people were more polite back when
I was a younger person. Young people are more outgoing now, and
are into more things."
The Frasers moved to Walkem Street in
1952. Kids at that time played with their toys on the road, because "you
didn't worry about them then, there weren't many cars." Gertrude
also remembers a cow grazing on Walkem Street before it was paved.
At that time, it was part of an area called The Flat. The Commons's
house, at 666 Walkem (now 670), was the first house built on the
street.
|
