Glenwood

As often as we have been back to visit Alberta since we moved, we have never visited Glenwood. In fact Lisa told me that she has never been to Glenwood. That is one reason that we asked my cousin Janet Ewards if we could stay with her family while we were in the Cardston area. We really wanted to tour Glenwood while we were there.

Now if you know Glenwood you wouldn't think that a tour would take very long but we spent an entire afternoon checking the place out. One of the things I really wanted to learn was where my mom lived. As a kid growing up we went to see Uncle Dan many times but I never saw where mom lived. Apparently one of the reasons for that might be because it now looks like this.

In case you're wondering where this is located, as best as I can figure it is in the circle on the map below. 

I wandered around the foundation trying to picture what the house must have looked like so you can imagine how happy I was a couple of days later to come across this picture of moms family in front of the house. 

It was pretty cool, do you notice the fake brick in the foundation of the house? The impression of that brick is still in the foundation. I took a small stone from the foundation as a keep sake. 

Carol, Ken and Janette walked us around town and showed us where Waldemar Lybbert lived and where his blacksmith shop was. The foundation for the blacksmith shop is still on main street. 

It was also cool to see the old milk barn. I clearly remember hanging out in there when I was a kid. In fact it was in that barn when I saw uncle Dan weigh a bucket of milk and he taught me that an imperial gallon weighed ten pounds. I've never forgotten that. 

I suppose that he wasn't technically right since milk must weigh marginally more than water but it was close enough for what he was doing. 

It was also pretty cool to go into Van-Dans store again. One of my memories from the store was an old wooden barrel that used to always be full of peanuts. Imagine my surprise to learn that the barrel is still there but it is no longer full of peanuts. I was kind of sad to see that it is now used as a garbage can. 

The funny thing is that I remember the barrel as being much larger. It at least came up to my waist. Since the barrel probably hasn't changed much in size I guess my waist used to be closer to the ground. 

On Saturday after the picnic we went back to Glenwood with Sarah, Kira, and her kids. As it turns out, one of Kira's very good friends in Calgary is the daughter of my cousin Barton. We went to spend the afternoon with Bartons family. 

Barton has a couple of horses that the kids love to play with. One of them is a little pony that he has hooked up to a buggy. The other is an older horse. I decided to take a ride on the horse but since the horse wasn't saddled I went bareback. It has been a long time since I rode a horse and while I would have no problem with a saddle I wasn't prepared for bareback. That horse started trotting and I darned near fell off. Scared the daylights out of me. Fortunately I didn't embarrass myself.

We stayed with Janet and Darrel but we happened to show up while Ken and Carol were visiting from St George. They decided that while we were in town they would plan a potluck dinner for all of our relatives to come and see us. We were very honored and quite surprised to see more than thirty people show up. Some of them came from as far away as Raymond. It was wonderful. 

That last picture is of Uncle Dan and Aunt Graces house. I have many fond memories of that place. What I didn't know until this trip is that Dad actually built the house. How cool is that?