Ernestly ?!Ernestly ?!By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
If there is nothing even hauntingly familiar about the heading of this column, you particularly owe it to yourself to read on, since you have missed or forgotten an important chapter of your community's history. If it does ring a bell, continue anyway, because your memory may need refreshing on things you were sure you knew and remembered. Jogging your memory may also help your shopping plans in the days and weeks ahead.
What froze in the oven was a cat, and it was immortalized in the heading of a Weyburn history book, "The Night the Cat Froze in the Oven," written by Isabelle Eaglesham to commemorate our city's 50th anniversary as a city in 1963. I typeset every word of the book on the old Linotype and Intertype typecasting machines, then the state-of-the-art instruments for converting manuscript into the lines of type which the printing press would transfer to the pages of a book. My connection with this book neither began nor ended with the typesetting, proofreading and insertion of corrections, but despite this intimacy with the publication, I am surprised at how much I had forgotten in the 32 years that have passed since that important anniversary and the book's publication.
Several months ago I decided to read the book again to reacquaint myself with the amusing, entertaining and enlightening items which comprise the whole. This time I did it a page at a time, pausing for a day or more whenever the volume of information exceeded my brain's ability to absorb. I have found this a prudent technique when ingesting interesting intelligence that lacks the urgency of a train rushing toward a beautiful woman who has been tied to the tracks by the ubiquitous villain.
If you have forgotten (or never known) the origin of the name of the book, it draws on an incident passed along to the author by district pioneer Steve McMurdo, and which was deemed to exemplify the hardships that attended life of early settlers scratching survival from the harsh and often hostile Saskatchewan prairie.
According to the book, McMurdo was wont to tell the story of a family which "lived in a shack which had only one layer of shiplap for siding and the winter was so cold that the whole family lived in the cellar for two solid weeks to keep from freezing That winter the poor cat froze to death in the oven." This is represented as gospel truth and I for one believe it. I grew up in a house with little or no insulation, and sometimes when we got up on the coldest winter mornings, the water in the reservoir of the kitchen stove was frozen. (I believe I told my kids this happened on every winter morning.) Our cats, I must confess, were smart enough to jump into my bed against all the rules.
A happier story that tickled me was about the daughter of Zion Lutheran Church minister A.P. Salemka, who was 12 when the family moved here. Already a talented singer, young Irene performed for her friends in the manse garage, charging them five cents apiece. As you know, she went on to bigger things, singing for years as lyric soprano with foremost opera houses in Germany. She returned to Weyburn on several occasions to share her gift with local audiences, and for the benefit of local organizations. She now lives in Ontario, married to the son of a Weyburn pioneer family.
One may not expect to find exciting items in the chapter of church histories, but don't give up on them. The Weyburn Gospel Assembly, which at that time had a membership of about 60, augmented, led or challenged congregational singing with a little orchestra. In contrast to this, the Airport Church of Christ, as it was known in those days, did not use any musical instruments at church services.
Of particular interest to me was the fact that Gerald Wright was an organizing member of the church built in 1953 by Grace Chapel, Associated Gospel Church. A prodigious writer, Gerald, who worked at the Saskatchewan Hospital in Weyburn for several years, moved to Manitoba to become a reporter and feature writer at the Carillon News in Steinbach, where I worked with him for about a year. He went on to write several books, countless newspaper and magazine articles, and I believe he served in India as a missionary as well. He has dropped in at the Review once or twice to say "hello" while visiting Weyburn folks whose friendship is still important to him. At last contact, he was living in St. Marys, Ontario.
There is much, much more, but obviously, what occupied about 160 printed pages cannot be confined to one (or even two) columns, but I mention a few as a reminder or enticement, with the implied suggestion that the book would make an excellent stocking stuffer that Saint Nick himself could not beat. I hope I'm not suggesting the impossible, but I'm assuming that the Soo Line Historical Society, which undertook second, third and fourth printings in 1970, 1976 and 1982, might still have a few copies available. Come to think of it, "Hey, Seeds!" and Dr. R.M. Mitchell's "History of Early Weyburn," could be added as a desirable and interesting set.
Correction: A well-intentioned gremlin did a mean job a few weeks ago on my explanation of wild fruits of Newfoundland. What I wrote was that bakeapple berries are yellow when ripe and red when green (meaning red when unripe), and so confused the little beasties that they "corrected" my version to read "green when green," which would be as newsworthy as a dog biting a man. I believe I also added that partridgeberries, on the other hand, are red when ripe and green when green. Okay?
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