The Western Producer has been a significant part of my whole life.
My parents were hitched as a result of the personal column, as were my husband and I. And his parents got hitched from the Winnipeg Free Press personal column.
Growing up, The Western Producer was an anticipated part of the mail each week, as has it been in our home all these years for the articles, markets, weather forecasts, recipes but most of all the classified ads for both buying and selling, and of course, getting hitched.
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I still have the original ad my friend and I put in.
My girlfriend and I had just finished college and had spent the summer working in Banff with no particular plans for the future. When the people we worked for asked us to stay on for the winter, it seemed like a good plan.
By November of 1975, life was getting rather boring and we didn’t fancy hanging out at the bars so with my history of gleaning the personal column of The Western Producer, we came up with a plan. We placed an ad in the Producer.
Over the next couple of months we had great fun responding to lonely Saskatchewan and Manitoba hopefuls.
Because she was shorter than me, my friend answered all the ads of the guys under six feet and I wrote to the ones over. That kept us occupied for a lot of evenings, but then after Christmas some of the guys wanted to come visit. What to do?
The people we worked for owned a motel, and were kind of in on what we were doing so when a guy showed up to visit, they got a good deal at the motel: $10 a night. For most of the guys, it was their first time to see the mountains so it was a wonderful place to entertain.
One fellow who came stayed on and got a job in Banff for the rest of the winter. Some were good experiences. Others, well, we hid out at the library.
When we placed the ad I had no intentions of looking for a husband. I was just out of school and had my whole life ahead of me. It was just for fun. But I believe God had a different plan.
One of the replies was from George, now my husband of 35 years. His visit was different than the others. He came to Banff to ski as well as meet me.
By the spring of 1976, my friend and I were tired of writing letters and moved on with our lives. She moved to British Columbia and I went to Europe for the summer, but I always kept in contact with George.
We became very good friends and three years later in April 1978, we got married.
I moved to Stockholm, Sask., to his farm and we are still farming today with our two sons. It’s been a wonderful and fulfilling life.
