Les Ewart

Dear friends, acquaintances and relatives.

My name is Leslie Alexander Ewart.  I was born on August 14, 1941 in Wetaskiwin hospital.  I spent the first 18 years of my life living, working and playing on a farm near Falun, Alberta.  I attended Falun school for grades 1 to 11.  Falun school was not big enough to accommodate us for grade 12 so the school board decided that we should attend grade 12 at the composite school in Wetaskiwin.  Since there were no buses going from Falun to Wetaskiwin, the school board bought a little sign that said SCOOL BUS and strapped it on to Clifford Meyers old ‘52 Chev car and called it a SCHOOL BUS.  Clifford would pick 5 of us up every school morning in 1969 and drive us to Brightview.  Then we would board the regular school bus and ride the rest of the way to Wetaskiwin composite high school. Reversing the procedure at the end of every school day of 1959 - 1960.

I remember the names of a few of the teachers.  Mr. Smith taught biology.  Mr Cockatello taught ???.  We were taught German as a second language.  But the teacher didn’t know or understand German so we had to pretty much learn it from the textbook.  Somehow we made it through to graduation though.  I still remember a half a dozen German words though.  I remember an older substitute teacher that would come in once in awhile.  She had grey hair.  She would wash it and then colour it light blue.  That was always good for a good laugh.

After graduation I told my Dad that I wanted to go to university.  He said “that is fine son, but I have no money.  (We grew up on a 1/4 section farm with Mom and Dad and 5 kids.). I really wanted to become an RCMP.  In those years you had to be 6 ft. tall, male, and weight 120 lbs.  i qualified in every way but I would have had to go to Regina for training.  There was no way my family could afford that.  So what else to do.  At that time every school district in Alberta was screaming for school teachers.  The provincial government was even paying your tuition at university.  So it was a no brainer.
I worked for the Department of Highways for one year counting cars on the highways all over the Province.  I slept in the back of my highways van and saved every nickel I could.  I went to university for 1961, ‘62, ‘63.  In the summers I worked whatever odd jobs came along.  Most were in the oil patch.

In those years you could start teaching with 1,2,or 3 years of training. You did not need a degree.  After 3 years I had used up all my savings so I decided to go teaching.  The county of Wetaskiwin had given me a $250 bursary but I had to sign a contract that I would teach for the county for 2 years.  My first teaching job was all subjects in grade 7 in Winfield.  Walden Smith was the principal.  I almost guit when I got my first pay cheque of $250 after paying $75 rent on a teacher age. (Previous to this I had been working in the oil fields and my take home pay was $900 a month.). The next year the school board moved me to the brand new Falun High School where I taught grade twelve biology.  After that my 2 years of servitude were up and I decided to see the rest of the province.  I thought Red Deer sounded good so I made a phone call and got a job teaching math and science in junior high.  Next I went to Calgary and taught math and science in junior high for three years.  Next I moved to St. Paul where I settled down.  I bought a 1/4 section farm and taught math and science in the junior high for 26 years until I retired.  I married Beatrice Pratch from St. Paul.  We raised a family of three, 1 girl (Audrey - (now a Speech Language Pathologist) , a boy Jason (a directional driller on large oil rigs.) and Kevin (who is a professional Architect in Sydney, Australia.

We had a wonderful life in St. Paul on the farm.  However everything changes.  The kids moved away—- so we decided to move also.  We now have a beautiful place on the north shore of Hubbles Lake about 3 miles west and 2 miles north of Stony Plain.  Our daughter Audrey and her husband Kory lives with our 2 grand boys only 3/4 of a mile across the lake from us.
Our son Jason lives on a small 17 acre farm with his German bride and our 2 grand boys only 3 miles north of us.  Our youngest son Kevin lives in Sydney, Australia.  We don’t see him as much but he comes home when ever he can or we visit him.

Well, that’s about it.  It has been a VERY good life.  I am beginning to slow down now that I am 82 years young but I guess that is to be expected.

I hope to meet many of you at the reunion.  I hope we can recognize each other.

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