Naming the West : Stories Melrose Family

Melrose Family Senior Story 1:
Family

We used to go hunting just to get hides off of various things, like rabbits.
Coyotes
Weasels. You d get a few dollars out of them, not much.
Who did you used to go hunting with?
With? You just put the shotgun over your shoulder and away you went. All you had to do was just walk. You know, we did have to go out and look for things like pheasants and partridge and things like that, but not very often. There was one fellow in the district that did quite a bit of hunting and trapping. Trapping, like I said weasels and things like that.
There was some value to the fur. Only one fellow I know did that.
How much money was there?
How much money was there? Not much, I ll tell you, not much. I worked for a dollar and a half a day. My day started at quarter after five and would end at nine o clock at night.
So he would work for about twelve- sixteen hours. This is a math exercise for you. A little under ten cents an hour was what he got paid. And for doing that, that wasn t easy work. That would be working out in the field, driving horses, working with the fork, perhaps putting up hay or sheaves of grain into a thrashing machine. And about ten cents an hour. So you know how much money there was around.
During that time would they get their high school degrees?
Yeah, we could get our Senior (Matrick?)
But did they typically?
Oh., I did. I think quite often, most of them did. Some didn t. Some of them would stop and went to the Old s for the Old s agricultural school you know. By about the time they got to grade eleven they would say well this is enough of this  and away they d go.
And learn about farming.
Mhmm.
But even at that time people realized the value of getting an education and wanted to finish school?  
Oh, we thought that was the way to go. I was going to go on and do things but ah it was in-during the war, about 1943 when I graduated grade twelve and you couldn t, you had to stay on the farm.
So because you were needed so much on the farm, did the school year start later in the fall?
No, but we, some of us stayed out of school for one month and then started about the first of October instead of the first of September just to get the work done.
And then you d have to catch up on your schoolwork.  
And then you were behind. And then that s what happened to me when I landed into Mount Royal, I was way behind the class, and totally lost. So I just went to the phones, phoned my dad to come and get me, I was going home.
And he was on the farm ever after.
Yeah.