A Woman's Perspective

Keefers 1974.  

I have to say I just loved the history session on Saturday evening at the Keefers 50 Year Reunion. It was great to get the different perspectives. However, I heard a bit of murmuring that there should have been a woman’s point of view.  

Had I known beforehand that Uncle Red was going to drag me up to the mic to talk about collecting photos, I may just have squeezed in a small speech on behalf of women. But speaking off-the-cuff with no preparation just ain’t in my wheelhouse. (Frankly, I don’t even know what a wheelhouse is, but speaking isn’t in mine) 

Writing, on the other hand, is something I do. And here’s what I would have written that evening, had I taken the time:

My name is Liana and I am the eldest daughter of Ed (you may have known him as Ted) & Jean deBalinhard. I don’t really qualify for giving a “woman’s perspective” of Keefers, since I was only 3 years old when our family arrived in that first group coming from Barkley Valley in 1968. Yeah, yeah, I’ll do the math for you – I’m 53 today :) 

We actually lived in Keefers at three different times and in 6 different houses which included: the Front of the Trading Post, Ed’s Cabin (I think this may be known as Harry Lafferty’s place) The cabin Davey, Chris Adams and my Dad built, which is in the yard where Ted and Elaine live, the main house of the Trading Post, a short time at “Lures” place down by the river, and finally in Brook’s House (aka the ‘red house’) We left for the final time in 1974. I was 9 years old. So I don’t really have a woman’s perspective.  

While many things have changed over the 50 years, enough remains the same that I am flooded with childhood memories anytime I visit. 

I really feel like I had a great childhood where every day was an adventure. 

I remember our first winter in Ed’s cabin, dad had made a sleigh from the hood of an old car and our pony would pull us down the trail along the flume whenever Mom and Dad decided to venture out with 4-snotty nosed toddlers. (Our youngest sister was yet to be born)

We loved playing in the old vehicles that were left parked wherever they had died in years previous to us arriving. The smell of rotten oil and old rubber to this day takes me back to Keefers in my mind.  

One day my brother Ted and I were playing with our pet chicken, Henny Penny, and pretending to give her a haircut with a large butcher knife. Cuz don’t all 4 and 5 year olds play with butcher knives?? Anyway, we literally scared the poor chicken to death. She had a heart attack right there in our hands. We ate her for dinner. 

When we were about 7 and 8, Ted and I were tasked with sending a batch of kittens off to kitty heaven by way of the Fraser River. “Be sure to tie the bag shut after adding a large rock,” we were instructed. And off we went to the river packing 3 kittens and a gunny sack. 

We somehow neglected to heed the “tie the bag shut” portion of the instructions. The burlap bag hit the water and the rock took it to the bottom of the river. The kitties floated to the top. I like to think they managed to make it to shore and some kind soul downstream gave them a good life. 

These things were all just a part of our lives. I honestly had no idea that the rest of the world didn’t live like this, without electricity, phones or running water. No idea that .22 rifles weren’t toys. No idea that most people got their chickens from a grocery store, they didn’t select one from the coop and chop its head off. No idea that other 6 year olds didn’t light the wood stove in the morning using kerosene as fire starter. 

Visiting Keefers fills my head with amazing childhood memories. But being there as an adult causes me to imagine the situation through a mama’s heart. And Oh.Em.Gee…

At first glance at our lifestyle one would think the women were meek, weak, submissive and even oppressed. And certainly religious legalism played into that, however, I have come to realize that my mother, and the other women, were anything but weak. 

I cannot even begin to imagine the hours of back breaking labour it took just to cook and clean for a large family using wood heat, even if it was 30 degrees. Hauling water. Pooping in outhouses that were NOTHING like Elaine’s. Cloth diapering babies. Canning everything because there was no refrigeration. That was after you planted, watered and weeded it for months. And all while trying to homeschool your large brood, hoping they’d turn out smart enough to forge out a better life for themselves. 

Yes, the women were anything but weak. 

I can totally envision myself in my mother’s position, handing the kids a .22 rifle and saying, “Here, go play in the Fraser River.”