Although the children now felt that their Uncle Percy was their father and called him Dad, they hadn’t forgotten the father they’d known first. Edna Fern wrote, “Mother used to sing while she worked, and I know that she had fond memories of Papa because the song that she sang most often was, ‘School days, school days/Good old golden rule days/Reading and writing and ‘rithmatic/Taught to the tune of the hickory stick/I wrote on my slate, “I love you Joe”/When we were a couple of kids’.” Edna Fern was convinced, because her mother chose a song with her papa’s name in it, that she missed him even though years had passed and she was happy with her new husband Percy.

Lela recalled an incident that illustrates Pluma and Percy’s marriage: “Mother and Dad had a true partnership in their marriage, but Mother’s independent spirit stayed with her. When women started getting their hair cut into bobs, Dad warned her that if she ever did that he would quit shaving. She’d always kept her hair wavy with a curling iron heated on the stove, and since she was thinking about how a bob would be so much easier it’s likely that Dad’s warning just egged her on.

“She cut her hair, and he let his whiskers grow. Three weeks later, Dad spotted an outfit [horse-drawn wagon] coming north on the main road in front of our house, and he wasted no time in getting into the house and shaving off his growth before the company arrived. It was experiences like that that made life constantly interesting for us. Mother wasn’t timid; she made the most of her life, and Dad went along with it so we had a very rich life.”

The children’s Haverfield grandparents Alexander and Elizabeth remained a constant presence in their lives while they lived at Rock Creek. Edna Fern and Lela shared positive memories of their grandma Elizabeth, but not so of their grandpa Alexander. The older children had lived with their grandparents for over a year when they first arrived in Canada, but they felt uneasy with Alexander: his moods were unpredictable and he had little patience. The life of a homesteader had likely taken its toll on him.

Lela remembered a time when she was about six when she stayed with her grandparents while Pluma and Percy traveled overnight to Glasgow to buy supplies. She and her cousins Donnie and Lucille played with the kittens in the barn, and they slept together on a pallet on the floor. When her parents returned from their trip and came to pick her up, Pluma questioned Lela about whether her grandpa had bothered her. She said no, but she had been glad that her grandmother was always close by during their visits.

What children don’t get into mischief? Being raised with Christian teachings and “wise sayings,” Pluma and Percy’s four children knew right from wrong according to these teachings, but as with all children that did not always prevent them from going against their parents’ rules. Each parent had their own way of disciplining, and they did not interfere with one another.

Edna Fern wrote, “Mother was tolerant of our squabbles and accidents, but if we disobeyed her she would have us go out in the woods to break off a twig and bring it back for her to switch our bare legs. The switching was meant to remind us not to repeat whatever we had done that was against her rules, like not getting our chores done. I never found a twig that didn’t sting a little but I was never severely punished at any time. My main concern was that I had disappointed my mother—I longed for her praise rather than her reprimand and I spent a great deal of time and effort crying over imagined slights.

“Dad never spanked us in the orthodox way, bending us over his lap and swatting our bums, but if he was annoyed he might hit us with his hand. Our biggest punishment was when he refused to let us kiss him goodnight at bedtime if we had displeased him in some way. When this happened, we knew that we had really transgressed the family rules and the lesson sunk in.

“My grandparents never punished me, yet a small incident demonstrates how fearful I was of doing the wrong thing and losing someone’s approval. I stayed at their place all night many times, and on this particular occasion, a year after we’d moved away to our own place, I was about ten. It was the custom to have a quilt folded at the bottom of the bed, and in the morning I woke up feeling chilly so pulled the quilt up over me and snuggled down for a warm nap. When I awoke again, I could hear the rustling of my grandparents getting up so I hastily folded the quilt as it had been and put it at the bottom of the bed again. I was huddled up, feeling cold, when Grandma came in and asked, “Why didn’t you use your quilt? That’s what it is there for.

“Only once did I dare to deliberately hurt my mother’s feelings. We had visited the Olson family and mother had teased handsome Gordon about some girl. I was embarrassed for him, so when we got home I asked her, ‘Were you trying to make Gordon feel like a fool?’ The hurt look in her eyes, not answering me, tore me apart. I hastened back in the trees to my old playhouse in the woods, though I was now a young lady, and I wept before God, asking for the strength to never hurt my mother again. I hope I never did.

“No one else knew about my special place in the woods where I had built a rough-and-tumble playhouse. For many years of my childhood, I would crawl back into it if I knew that I had hurt or disappointed my parents in some way. I would turn my special place into a chapel where I would cry and tell God that I was sorry. Sometimes I spent too much time crying, feeling sorry for myself. For some reason I didn’t feel like I measured up to my brothers and sisters.

“I don’t know why I felt that way because Mother accepted us as individuals and did not expect us to be the same. Because I wasn’t interested in cooking or sewing, she did not insist that I cook or sew. One time Ruth was making fun of my lack of cooking ability, saying ‘I feel sorry for your future husband. You won’t be able to make any meals for him.’ Dad spoke up for me with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘She can feed him oatmeal!’ As it turned out, Ruth’s good cooking resulted in a slim husband while mine always looked well fed.”