Remembering our roots – Joyce (Woodliffe) Wise

Times Contributor

 

Joyce was born in Strathmore on Dec. 11, 1927. Her father was Bill Woodliffe, the town barber, and her mother was Arie Woodliffe (Downey), the town hairdresser.

Joyce attended school in Strathmore where she learned to swim in the dugout swimming pond, south of what is now Sacred Heart Academy. Ice skating was on the rink just up the road from The Strathmore Hotel location. She took piano lessons, and learned to play the coronet. On two occasions the Strathmore Band played in the Calgary Stampede Parade. She attended Western Canada High School in Calgary, then decided to follow her mother’s footsteps and attended hairdressing school before working in Brooks and Bassano.

In 1949, she married Charles Wise of Rockyford, and moved to the Wise Homestead just north of town. A few weeks later, there was a terrible accident when power lines fell on the telephone lines, charging these lines with over 169,000 volts of electricity and setting the house on fire. Charles’ brother, Owen, tried to put out the fire with his hands and was electrocuted and died. Charles’ Dad put on a pair of rubber boots, and also tried to put out the fire. The power went through his body, before exiting through his big toe. He was badly injured, and spent over two years recovering in hospital in Calgary. All the power circuits and transformers were blown out in Rockyford. Following this, Charles and Joyce took over running the Wise farm. She says they always had three or four hired men working for them as well as a cook. At this time there were 5,000 sheep and a sheep herder, on pasture 12 miles from the farm. The sheep herder lived in a granary, and every two weeks Charles and Joyce would take him groceries. At this time they also had a lot of pigs. They took about eight pigs to Calgary every couple of weeks to be slaughtered, and Joyce would get about $45, the price of one pig, for herself and at that time, their three children – Wendy, Lon and Gordon. After six years they sold this farm and bought another farm two miles south of Rockyford. Their fourth child, Russel was born here. They raised around 270 cows and 300 pigs, at this farm.

She remembers that the years 1960/1961 were very poor farming years, as they were hailed out. So, they went to the auction at Brooks, where they purchased 2,000 sheep. She got to bid on all the lots of sheep, which she found very exciting. Back home, there were no fences around their land, so they had to herd them by day, until the children came home from school. Then, it was their turn to herd the sheep into the corrals for the night. These sheep were sold before Christmas. They also bought 2,000 chicks, fed them, until they were between five to seven lbs, then killed and cleaned them, and sold them as dressed chickens, around Rockyford, Rosedale and Drumheller for a $1 per chicken! Joyce remembers that the day they moved into their new house in 1963 was the same day President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.

In July 1975, Charles passed away from cancer, leaving Joyce and their 16-year-old son Russel to take over the farm. By then Wendy was a teacher in Calgary, Lon was a pilot with Pacific Western Airlines, and Gordon was an industrial engineer in Lethbridge. That fall, the neighbours helped Russel harvest the crop. His cousin Kenneth Wise helped Russel to learn all the ins and outs of farming. As Russel was still in school, they sold all the cattle and pigs, and concentrated on growing grain. After she was widowed, Joyce spent 16 years on the farm. In 1978, Joyce and her friend Jean Kirby went on a six week trip to Asia, seeing many different places and had a wonderful time.

In 1991, she met and married Jim Spring from Vancouver, and moved out to the coast. By this time, Joyce owned a house in Mesa, Ariz. which she sold and purchased a house in Yuma, Ariz. Jim bought a dune buggy, and they spent days traveling through the sand dunes and desert. It was here that they became interested in panning for gold. They would pan rock in dried out creek beds, and she says they always found grains of gold. Jim sold his house in Vancouver, and they bought a house in Sechelt along with two Honda trail bikes. They used these to travel on logging roads in the mountains, through bear country, mainly black bears but they did have one encounter with a grizzly bear! Jim also owned a cabin on Keats Island in the Strait of Georgia. 

They really loved it there, because there were no roads or vehicles, and everything had to be brought by boat. 

After Jim passed away in March 2011, Joyce decided to move back to the Prairies and moved into Wheatland Lodge in Strathmore. She says this was a wonderful decision, as she knows so many of the residents. 

There have been many changes in Strathmore – the old population was 500 and now it’s over 12,000. It’s still a great place to live, and is near her old homes. Every spring and fall, she spends two days at the farm with Russel.

She makes sure he’s seeding correctly, and still operates a combine!