Remembering our past – Don & Margie McArthur

John Godsman

Times Contributor

 

Don’s parents were born in Iowa, and prior to meeting each other, lived 40 miles apart. Both, with their respective families, moved to California, where Don’s mother attended Stanford University. She was the youngest in a family of nine, whereas his father was the oldest of a family of six. His father joined Bank of America. 

In 1907, they answered the advertisement by CPR to come to Alberta to make their fortunes on 160 acres of free irrigated land. Don’s grandfather and father purchased land four miles east of Gleichen, plus another piece of land, Sec 1-23-22 west of 4th Meridian (or four miles east and four miles north of Gleichen).

Don was an only child, and was born in the Calgary General Hospital on April, 23, 1919. Margie’s mother was born in Germany, and her father was born in Idaho. They were married in Strathmore in 1912. Margie was born on the family farm NW of Cluny on 17th April 1923. 

After leaving school, Don owned and ran a trucking company, until the start of WW2, when he joined the Canadian Navy. After being discharged, he sold the business to his partner, so that he could concentrate on his farm near Gleichen. In the meantime, Margie spent the war years at Bowden Flight Training School. 

This was one of hundreds of Canada-wide Commonwealth Training Schools, where rookie prospective aircrew from all parts of the Commonwealth came to be trained. Pilots commenced learning to fly in small two seater Cornell planes. Margie’s job was to keep track of total number of flying hours on each plane, as well as recording aircraft parts, and testing instruments. She found this to be very interesting work, and made many life-long friends here. After the war, Margie worked at the Shoprite store in Gleichen, and this was where she and Don met, as he became a regular customer. They were married in 1947, and have one son, two daughters, five grandchildren and five great-grand-children, and two more on the way!

Don advised they were very involved in the Gleichen-Cluny 4-H Club, and that he was part of a group that established Wheatland Co-op Farm Supply at the Chancellor Corner in the early 60’s. He’s a Life Member of UFA, and helped promote Weather Modification, otherwise known as Cloud Seeding. In the old days, this was used to suppress hail storms which caused substantial damage to crops. Nowadays, insurance companies are promoting the cloud seeding, following huge insurance claims across our province.

Margie was very involved with The Red Cross in her younger days, and spent over 30 years working in the local library. It wasn’t always called The Marigold Library system. To this day, she still spends two hours per week repairing books.

Since retiring they have travelled extensively by RV, bus, plane and cruise ship.

In 2009, the McArthur Farm was acknowledged by the Province of Alberta for having been in operation for 100 years. In actual fact, it celebrated its centennial in 2007. Today, there are still members of the McArthur family working on the farm. 

(“Remembering our Past” is a bi-weekly special column to The Strathmore Times which features a local senior or couple, and their lives in and around Strathmore and Wheatland County. If you know someone who should be featured in this article, please call the Strathmore Times at (403) 934-5589 and leave your request.)