Phyllisproutmemories

"My Portage Memories "
By Phyllis Prout

Paige Tamlin

You are the angel in my tree,
You are my pot of gold.
You are my greatest treasure,
You are my dreams untold.
You are my sheet of music
That plays songs just for me
You are my sun upon this earth
"Darlin' your my cup of tea!"

Love Great Grandmother
February 12, 2005

On the day that you were born
An angel said to me:
"I'm sending you a baby girl
To keep you company.
Her cries will be your music,
Her smiles will be your sun,
Her tiny face will be your grace
That you may look upon."

"Her little hands to wipe away your tears.
Her tiny toes to dance upon.
The strings that bring music to your heart
That only you can hear.
Your years will never be lonely.
Your weather will always be mild.
For this is the child you've been waiting for.
She is your first great-grandchild.

Great-Grandma
March, 2005

Some day when I have lots of time,
I'll bring my memories to mind.
Of times gone by, I will recall,
If I can remember any at all.
As you get older you sometimes forget

The things that were important and yet,
The pictures fade and pass out of sight.
Oh if I can remember?
I find a photo, taken one day,
Was it a year or back aways?
Oh memory do not fail me yet -
I have a ways to go!

Phyllis Prout
2005

By the time I was born most of my sisters and brothers had moved away or were married. As I remember back, most of my memories are of Mable, Johnny, Ernie and Flossie (Florence). I was born in the old log house on the Prout farm and it was the night of the worst snow storm Portage had ever seen. My brother Johnny hitched up his buckskins to the sleigh and went into town to pick up the doctor. The doctor (Doctor Rennie) was three and a half miles away from the Prout farm so by the time they arrived back the snow was so deep that the doctor had to walk to the house from the roadway. My dad would call me "Daddy's little poopy shitty and I was the the apple of his eye and momma's baby!

                We only had coal oil lamps (no hydro) and two wood burning
                stoves. One in the living/dining room (a pot bellied) and a
                 McLeary in the kitchen. This stove had a reservoir at one end.
                This contained water which was heated by the
                wood stove. In the winter we would bathe with
                this water and it was also used for laundry. We
had a rain barrel to catch rain in so we would have soft
water to wash our hair. The boys would chop the wood and
split it into burning size and the girls would haul it into the
house always making sure the woodbox was full. The stove
in the kitchen would burn 24 hours a day. At night it would
be banked for morning. We all had jobs and do them we did!

As a child we lived away from town. Our farm was a working farm and our main crop was Great Northern Beans. I can remember us kids with hoes over our shoulders and sining all the way out to the fields. Ernie would yodel daily for us! We had a huge veggie garden and we would stop and
pull up carrots, wipe them off on our coveralls and eat them. Remember
there was no such thing as "Fall Out". We sold all the beans to the stores and recieved credit. This is how we bought our food staples and clothing.
Threshing time started at 4:30 A.M. and if it looked like rain you worked by
lantern until it was finished. We had horses to ride or to work the fields, a
cow named Caroline to milk, all kinds of fowl and animals - dogs, cats, a goat and a big huge turtle to try and ride! It was a good life! Us kids would go to the raspberry patch, pick a bowl full and then walk back down to the creek and call our cow Caroline over to us. Then we would squirt some mild in our bowls and proceed to eat the raspberrys! That sure was the good life! One day (I'm not sure how old I was) the indian chief and his wife came to the farm to do some trading with Dad. He asked Dad to trade the papoose (me) for a puppy he had and Dad said "NO WAY!" The chief said "We will take good care of her!" Dad got the puppy named Jip and also kept me!

My dad was a seedsman and had a seed store on Saskatchewan Avenue in Portage La Prairie - "Prouts Seed Store". I think the city just took the sign down about five or ten years ago? During the war 1939 - 1945 Dad drove delivery truck for Eatons. He was also the gardner at the Boys Home for many years. When any of the boys ran away they would sometimes come over to our farm and climb up in our trees. Our dogs would always sniff
them out and the guards would come and gather the boys up and take them back to the Home.

My momma was the best cook ever. I can remember her homemade bread and cookies. Homemade butter and peppermint candies! Mom made me a birthday dinner one year of turkey and goose and white gravy because I didn't like dark gravy. I had a good life and so spoiled as a child!

Our recreation was great! In the summer we went swimming in our creek which my dad had screened off at both ends to make us a swimming hole. We also had a tree over our swimming hole from which we jumped into the water! My brother Ernie tied a rope to the branch and we played Tarzan. Ernie was Tarzan, Florence was Jane and I was their child. Memories are made of these! As I am writing this I can still hear my brother Ernie holler "ARMANGANEE!" and we would then all yell and beat our chests like Tarzan. I can remember us stealing butter from momma and taking it down to the bonfire and eating taters and corn and the smothered in the butter with the Dudka? kids, Rapustin? kids. I can remember a young fellow coming over to us and wanting to borrow ciggys off the boys. The boys got so sick of giving this boy smokes that they decided to make one up for him. They used straw and horse manure! That was the last ciggy he ever tried to borrow! In the winter we would get pieces of tin and roll the edges up rounded, hitch up the dogs and the dogs would pull us through the snow! We would hang a white sheet up on the wall. Then we would get a cardboard box, cut a square out of the front and a round hole in the pack and two round holes on either side ot it. We would get momms's rolling pin and stick it through the holes
in the side and put a lantern behind the box. Turning out all the lights
we would watch slides of "Betty Boop" and "Rex The Wonder Dog"
spinning them around the rolling pin! I would sit and turn that rolling
pin around and around as we watched our silent movie! Those were
the days!

At the age of five I started grade one in Portage La Prairie Public School. The principal was Mrs. Holstead who went to school with my mom and dad. I wore long brown stockings, a blue velvet dress and black patten shoes. Who could forget my Buster Brown haircut! (Momma put a bowl on our heads and cut around it!) We had to walk to school but my brother Johnny would put Flossie on the handle bars of his bike and me in the basket and take us to school that way when the weather was good. In the winter he would hitch up his buckskins and take us to school by sleigh. In school we played skip rope, dodge ball and baseball.

In high school we wore navy tunics, white shirts, black ties, long black stockings and black bloomers in the winter. In the summer we wore light weight tunics, short sleeved white blouses, bobby socks, penny loafers or white and navy saddle shoes. I did wear moccasins one winter and nearly froze my feet off so I ended up wearing gum rubber boots with bright red soles! I can remember Flossie and I wore long black stockings to school and when we had a hole in the heel of our stockings we would put black stove or shoe polish on our heels until momma got around to darning them. In those days you were lucky to have two pairs of stocking! My first bought dress cost $1.95 and was ordered from the Eaton's Catalogue. It was blue plaid and had a big white collar. Our underclothes back then were made out of sugar sacks with toteing around our petticoats and underpants. During the Second World War underpants had buttons (no elastic) and even had a pocket on the bloomers to keep your hanky in. IMAGINE!!! having to reach for your hanky!? When Queen Mary and King George came through Portage La Prairie Flossie and I had new plaid dresses. Red, White and blue in celebration of the occasion. We all trooped into town to wave our flags at them and had a wonderful time!

In July every year the Ringling Brothers Circus came to Portage and we were allowed to go. Momma would pack a big lunch and cold lemonade and we would all pile into our pick up truck (no roof on it mind you!) and get to sit on the tailgate all the way. One year we were leaving the fields to go and get ready to go to the circus and Mable swung her hoe and caught her
leg splitting it wide open! We got to go to the circus the next day but Mable and momma had to miss it that year.

Later on in years I remember at the start of the war my brother Roy came home and joined the Princess Patricia Light Infantry. Ernie ran away
from home and also joined. They were both sent to Italy and darn if they didn't meet up there! Ernie was missing in action for awhile but they finally found him in a hospital somewhere. When he was in Italy he had sent momma a bed spread. Recieved after he had gone missing Eatons show cased it in their store with a picture of Ernie.

Momma died a year before the boys came home. Flossie and I picked out her coffin and everything else. We were glad Dad gave us that task. We picked out the very best as she didn't get much out of life. Momma appeared to be happy with her lot in life thought - her kids and her dogs and never complained about anything. Every night in the warm weather she and her dogs would walk down the lane and back. I loved to sit on momma's lap and nuzzle into her. I really was a lucky child.

After she died dad, Florence and I moved into an apartment over Uncle Norman's store uptown. Florence was working at the #7 A.O.S. Airport and I got a job at the Metropolitan Store. Anything from 5 cents to twenty dollars or more. My first boss was a man named Mr. Deveraux and he was a great man! I left home at 16 right after and went to Vancouver to live with my sister Emmaline and her family. I got a job at the Woolworth's Store!

When the war was over and the boys started coming home the government of Vancouver was trying to get the public to go back to their hometown so the boys would have jobs to come back to. I was engaged and travelled with the fellow back to Ontario. We were given our rail fare plus meal tickets and two berths. He stayed with the single men and I with the ladies as was proper to do back then. I remember running off the train in Calgary and onto a wooden sidewalk to find a store that sold toothbrushes! When we stopped in Winnipeg my sisters Iola and Ellen and niece Beth visited me on the train for half an hour! Those were the days!

I stayed in St. Catherines for about six months and found out my fiancee was a momma's boy so I pack up and left him moving to Hamilton. I stayed with my brother Johnny and his family and then moved in with Eleanor and Hugh Lennox. I worked at Jackson's Bakery. I met this good looking, blonde haired, blue eyed guy who became the love of my life.

I had the love of this wonderful man for 53 years until his death. We raised a beautiful family and it continues to grow. I was very lucky in my lifetime. What more could anyone ask for?

                                                    Phyllis Prout
                                                           2005