Remembering our roosts – Mike & Mary Slemko

Times Contributor

 

Mike’s parents moved from the Ukraine to Medicine Hat in 1911. There his Dad worked in the Iron Foundry section of the CPR, building rails. In 1921, they started farming at Iddesleigh. Mike was born in 1919, and the family moved to Hussar in 1925 where they started mixed farming, just north of town. 

Hussar itself was only founded in 1913, just 12 years earlier. He attended the country school, travelling by horse thru’ Grade 12, then farmed for the rest of his working years, including during the Second World War.

Mary’s parents moved from the Ukraine to Saskatchewan, where she was born in 1923. She moved to Hussar at the age of 17, to assist an uncle with a very large family. Mike and Mary met as neighbours, and they were married on January 13, 1941 in Drumheller. Warm congratulations are due, on their recent 72nd Wedding Anniversary. This marriage produced a son and a daughter, followed by four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Their son, Bill, took over the mixed farm in 1972, and Mike and Mary moved into a house in Hussar, where they still live today. They were members of 4-H, the Farmers Union, Unifarm, TOPS, Hussar Ladies Aid and the Hussar Lions Club. 

In 1944, they remember using barbed wire as telephone lines, before the telephone company installed/erected proper wires on poles, and party lines where one person’s news was everybody’s news! Electric power was installed in the early 1950’s, with running water and indoor plumbing coming sometime later. Propane took over from wood to heat the house.

Morning on their farm meant harnessing the horses to pull the equipment, and take the kids to school. The cows had to be fed and milked, while chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs also had to be fed. The cream was separated and taken to the CPR Station in Hussar. The remaining milk was given to the pigs, and often the house was used to warm those baby pigs, and then taken back to their mother, when they were squealing too loud, to eat! 

All these animals brought extra money for the farm. Throughout their farming career Mike and Mary worked side by side. Mary learned to run farm machinery, including tractors for seeding and combines at harvest time. They both ran the combines well into their 70’s, and were quick to point out they had no cabs, air conditioning, monitors, auto-steer or GPS. They comment on how easy life is for farmers nowadays, and yet they still don’t have time for anything!

Mike and Mary recall having time for social events, visiting neighbours, summer picnics and ball games, and travelling miles and miles, to visit on the coldest day of the winter, by horse and sleigh. They commented that they didn’t have those time-consuming TV’s, computers, or kids’ electronic games!

They still live in their own home, and can’t wait for spring to come so both can get back into their large garden, where Mary plants lots of flowers, watched by Mike.

They have seen many changes in their lifetime, but comment on the changes in technology, and how the small towns have become more of a convenience than a necessity.