LUCKY LAKE, Sask. – Herb Nelson gazes out over the prairie where another growing season is starting.
A heavily lined face and muscled hands
attest to a lifetime of work on the farm for the 90 year old, who moved to a care centre here this year from his longtime home at Davidson, Sask.
He, with his siblings George and Doris, started farming in the 1930s, operating farms at Dinsmore, Moose Jaw, Milden, Hudson Bay and Davidson, all in Saskatchewan.
Nelson said his family was always seeking new areas with better soil or rainfall to minimize the losses from crop failures.
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His parents, Gerda and Nels Nelson, met and married in Canada after emigrating from Sweden around 1912. They established their farm near Anerley, Sask. Gerda continued to farm with her adult children after Nels headed for a life in Saskatoon.
Farming seemed an obvious choice for the siblings, who all ended their formal education by Grade 8 and worked at a host of odd jobs from picking rocks and herding sheep to shearing sheep for 30 cents a head.
“We did it to make money and we figured making a living was easier in farming,” said Herb.
“We travelled around to make money. We
always kept busy.”
Farming by contrast offered them the chance to be their own boss, work at home and be successful with a good crop.
“You do what you want to do on the farm and can work outside too,” he said.
The Nelsons rode many highs and lows in their farming life. During the Depression, the family had to grind grain to preserve their pennies and poor crop years produced only feed for the cattle. There were periods of great affluence delivered by healthy commodity prices in the 1970s and the downward spiral of declining incomes during the last decade.
Jan Manz, who grew up near the Nelson farm, recalled Doris having “a real way with animals.”
Doris would don clothes similar to those of her brothers and ride in the back of the truck to settle the cattle. The Nelson’s sheep herd once numbered 15,000.
Doris could sit in the tractor for hours and often slept in the truck at harvest.
“I don’t remember seeing them when they weren’t working,” said Manz.
Paul McLachlan, the family’s accountant at Outlook, Sask., said the Nelsons operated numerous businesses hauling gravel and grain. Attending auctions to pick up equipment for the business was a favourite pastime. McLachlan said the Nelsons liked having the gear around in case they ever needed it.
“Material things meant a lot to them,” he said.
Neighbours recall Herb and Doris pulling up with two three-ton trucks and loading up their auction buys.
Buying took them as far away as Ontario for a hay loader, said Herb.
“I like to look for bargains,” he said.
Herb bought lots but sold little, instead storing the thousands of acquisitions on the farm and occasionally lending equipment
to others.
While the Nelsons were a fixture at auctions, they mostly stayed close to home, said Manz. The siblings led a quiet life working on the farm, never drinking, smoking, taking holidays or marrying.
“We were so busy working,” Herb said simply.
They developed a keen interest in religion, inspired in part by a travelling evangelical show that came to the community.
While they minded their own business, they were generous with their time, made numerous charitable contributions and were always willing to help others and lend their machines, said Manz.
Neighbours remembered Gerda’s cooking and her expertise in singing and playing the pump organ. She often entertained those who gathered at the farm.
McLachlan said the Nelsons’ farm was one of the largest area farms in its heyday, operating four sections when the average farm size was one section. The Nelsons pulled several discers behind the tractor when others were just pulling one.
“We like to keep up with the modern times,” explained Herb, recalling his farming days.
He recalled an accident from his teens in the family’s Model T. He and George were en route to hunt geese when the truck rolled
after an axle fell off and a wheel went underneath it. A neighbour found George with a bad cut and Herb with an injured hip.
Most of their equipment was modern but rarely new, with most of it picked up at sales in the community.
“It didn’t matter if they were new or used, as long as they’re good,” said Herb.
Herb’s own farm dispersal auction, managed by Manz Auctioneering Service last month, was among the largest in the Davidson area.
There were more than 150 trucks and newer and older models of farm equipment. A four-storey farm home, seven Quonsets, outbuildings and a huge heated shop in the 30-acre yard site yielded a bounty of tools, implements and farm artifacts.
McLachlan said the auction signalled the end of a piece of Saskatchewan farming history. The farm, like an aging Herb, had seen better days. His siblings had died in the 1990s and farm income was too poor to justify hiring others to run it.
The time had come to sell it off, said McLachlan.
The three-day auction attracted a host of people, some curious to see what the Nelsons had collected, and others seeking bargains or a piece of farming memorabilia.
“It’s a part of Saskatchewan that’s gone,” McLachlan said. “It’s the end of the Nelson era in Saskatchewan.”
