by Linda Flury
As many of you already know, in February of this year, our dad passed away just shy of his 95th birthday. Thank you to all the people that have stopped and asked about our dad and thank you for all your kind comments and the stories you have shared. He meant a great deal to us, but from people’s reactions to the news of his passing he meant a lot to all of you as well.
Each and every one of you, your children, and your dogs, that stopped to say hello and chat about his garden or just the weather, were important to him. You made sure he was never lonely. He had a great sense of humour and enjoyed talking to people and sharing stories of his life. Thank you to his amazing neighbours, Dave Husar, Connor and Erin Curran, and Russ and Cheryl Burke for checking in on him, mowing, and shovelling when he needed help.
Our dad loved Rosscarrock. In 1953 he built the house at 1141 43 St. He lived here for 72 years and in all that time we can only remember one time that he thought about leaving. The house was becoming too small for his growing family, and he briefly considered moving outside the city. In the early 1970s, rather than move, he added an addition that extended the kitchen and added a new master bedroom with an en-suite. Rosscarrock was a great neighbourhood to grow up in.
We would like to share some of his history and hopefully some things that you did not know about him.
Rollin was born in 1930 at the old Calgary General Hospital on 10 St and 6 Ave W. He was the sixth of seven children, one brother and five sisters. At the time of his birth the family lived on a farm at Lyalta, approximately 40 km NE of Calgary. His father was a farmer, and his mother was a schoolteacher. At one time all seven children went 3.5 miles to the Cheadle Butte one room schoolhouse. One teacher taught grades one to nine. Rollin was the only pupil in grade one. If they were lucky, they went to school by horseback, wagon, or sleigh, depending on if the horses were working.
It was the Depression and life on the farm was tough, but he said they always had fun and that he had had a good life. His only brother was ten years older. The two of them slept in a tar paper shack outside that had no heat. It had a pot belly stove but most of the time there was nothing to burn. While the stove offered no heat, dad told us it was comforting to look at, the same way we watch the fireplace on TV today. The old shack had several luxuries including the enamel pot, complete with handle, under the bed! The tar paper had rips so they had a year-round supply of fresh air and sometimes they could see the northern lights through the rips! Dad loved to tell us that he got a new mattress every year. It was a canvas sack that after the fall harvest you stuffed full of straw. The first night it was about three feet thick and by the next year it was three inches.
During Christmas of 1937, his family left the farm and moved to Calgary to 3605 10 Ave SW. This later became Spruce Cliff. It was an old sandstone house that had been built by a banker with stone from the local quarry. Rollin attended Sunalta School until grade nine. In 1940, prior to the widespread use of penicillin being used to treat infections, his father passed away from Septicemia. Around the end of grade four, Rollin spent 28 days in the hospital with Scarlet Fever. The treatment of the day as he remembered it was to starve a fever. He said he received nothing but milk for 21 days. His entire life he loved a daily glass of milk! “Good old milk, the best drink in the world!” he used to say as he smacked his lips together. The house was surrounded by a tall Caragana bush that blocked most of the house from the view of passersby. When we were children our school friends used to call it the “haunted house” until we would tell them our cousin’s lived there. The city annexed the land in the 1950s but Rollin’s oldest sister maintained the property until the late 1960s. The city later built public housing, a library, and Community Health Centre on the land. In the 1960s Bow Trail was developed from the dirt trail known as Banff Coach Road, the former route to Banff.
As a young teen he delivered newspapers on his bike. One of his deliveries was to a business on Banff Coach Road. This is where he met our mother, Jeanette Wilson. Her parents ran the store and garage. Later he attended Western Canada High School and after high school the electrical program at SAIT. He completed his apprenticeship in April 1954 and wrote and qualified as a Master Electrician in 1969. In March 1953 he purchased the lot at 1141 43 St from the Municipality of Springbank. In 1953 the west limit of the city was 37 Street. The lot had no running water and a partial cinder block basement on it. In those days people did not have money and could not and did not borrow money. People lived off what they earned. It was not uncommon to buy the land, put a basement on it, and then roof the basement until you could save more cash to continue building. All the land west of the house was pasture. The lot north of where our parents were building was vacant until the late 1960s. The next property was owned by Jeanette’s parents. In the early 1980s the Wilson house was torn down and two infills were built. Next to the Wilson’s on a large parcel of land lived a family named Zeer. At the north end of 43 Street a bachelor of the name Lotson had a sheep farm and some cattle. The land east of 43 Street to 37 Street was prairie. At one time there was outdoor hockey rinks on it. The land between 45 Street to 37 Street between 17 Avenue, south to approximately 20 Ave was the West Calgary Jersey Dairy.
Our parents were married in August 1953 and raised their family of five children, John, Deborah, Linda, David, and Michael in Rosscarrock. We all attended Rosscarrock Elementary, Vincent Massey Junior High, and Ernest Manning High School. Our dad loved the outdoors, and we spent any free time he had camping and fishing at Jumping Pound, Spray Lakes, and Kananaskis. Our dad was involved with the Rosscarrock Community, coaching community hockey and nightly flooding the hockey and skating rinks that used to be located outside the old community hall.
As an apprentice he had to work Saturday mornings to clear $20 per week. After he finished his apprenticeship, he worked in the private sector for Comstock International on construction projects like the Belcher Hospital, the Main Post Office, Calgary House, the General Hospital Service Wing, SAIT Power House, the Stampede Grandstand, the Glenbow/Convention Centre, John J. Bowlen Building, and the Sam Livingston Fish Hatchery. The last ten years with Comstock he was the Electrical Superintendent. He very much enjoyed working with apprentices to mentor them and see how they progressed in their chosen careers.
In 1964 Rollin was President of the Calgary and District Square Dance Association. In December of that year our parents travelled to Nassau and Jamaica on Air Canada’s inaugural flight to the West Indies with a troupe of dancers from across Canada to showcase square dancing. Over the years he coached and managed all levels of AA hockey. He was the President of the Calgary Buffalo Hockey Association and in March 1976 travelled to Czechoslovakia with the Canadian Midget Champion Calgary Spurs for a three-day tournament as well as other exhibition games. When he came back from Europe he acted as the chairman for the Bell Memorial Society who were building the Max Bell Arena, and then for the next three years he committed to running the arena. In 1980 he embarked on what he felt was “the best job he ever had” with the Government of Alberta, first as a Maintenance Superintendent at the Bowness Shops. He did this job for ten years and was then moved to the John J. Bowlen Building as a Property Manager where he served nearly every department in the government. He had many portfolios, the last being the construction of the new Court of Queens Bench which was awarded a Silver Premier’s Award of Excellence. He retired at age 81 after 31 years of service.
Rollin loved hunting ducks and pheasants. It was an activity that he enjoyed every weekend he could with his sons and later his grandsons. He started hunting at an early age with his brother. On one occasion they had gone out hunting on his brother’s motorcycle. On the way home the two shotguns were between them on the motorcycle with two grain sacks containing 62 ducks strapped over the back of the bike. As they stopped at an intersection his brother stalled the bike in front of a police officer but managed to get it going before the officer could ask what they had in the bags! Rollin played baseball, hockey into his late 70s, golfed regularly, and on two occasions he achieved a hole in one, one at the Radium Golf Course and one at Coy’s south of Fairmont. He curled, skied, and taught many of his grandchildren to ski. Our dad loved a good party and over the years organized many parties and events for family, friends, and co-workers.
Rollin had a travel bucket list and managed to complete most of it. Some of his trips included an Alaskan cruise; the Panama Canal; the Grand Canyon and Arizona; Churchill Manitoba to watch polar bears; a weeklong raft trip down the South Nahanni with his wife, daughters, two of his grandchildren, and a family friend; two trips to Mount Assiniboine; and many yearly camping trips to various destinations in his motor home. On his 86th birthday he travelled to the Antarctic with his daughter Linda and their friend Doreen for a 12-day voyage on a research vessel where he was able to walk among different species of penguins, seals, birds, and whales. It was the trip of a lifetime.
He said the secret to a long life was to do something everyday. He could fix anything and was the go-to guy for many of our family members, friends, and neighbours to bring cars and other items to that required repairing. He loved to figure things out. He said a day without laughter was a day wasted, and he did not waste any days.
Sadly, the house will likely be torn down to make way for new development. We can only hope that the people that live here will love it and the Rosscarrock community as much as our family did.
He said he had a lot of privileges in his life and one of those was the privilege of growing old. Our parents had 12 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
On an afternoon in February, as he often did, our dad had a nap and quietly slipped away from us. The last of his generation.
Thank you, Rosscarrock.
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