As Neerlandia’s 100th birthday draws nearer, six individuals who have known Neerlandia longer than most took a trip down memory lane. Sitting around a table on a quiet Thursday afternoon, the small group reminisced on their early years in the hamlet. How long had they lived there? What was it like? How different of a world did they live in? They remembered the good times and the bad, growing up and growing old, Neerlandia in a time that was new and full of discovery. These are two of their stories.
Rulie’s family came to Neerlandia in 1915. Ninety-four years ago she was born in a sod-covered house where her family lived. Although she doesn’t remember that home, she does recall the log house she and her family lived in later on.
After she got married, Rulie moved to a farm in Vega, where she and her husband lived for 32 years. After that the two moved to an acreage in Meadowdale, where they lived for another 21 years. Rulie now resides in Jubilee manor, where she has been for the past 17 years.
Thinking back to her younger years, Rulie recalls being one of the lucky children who didn’t have a long journey to and from school each day. She and her family lived on one of Neerlandia’s four main corners.
“It was only half a mile to school,” she says. “So I wasn’t one of these kids that had to walk three miles every day to school.”
Empty was something Rulie could never say about her home. Her house was often filled with many people, as her parents boarded teachers, as well as the truck driver in town.
“Our place was a stopping place where a lot of people came,” she says. “Nobody had cars, so to get to Edmonton they’d go with the truck driver.”
Although there were no cars at the time, the community did have other ways of getting themselves around. Rulie can recall her family’s method, and imagining these transportation methods in Neerlandia today would be an odd sight indeed.
“I remember that my dad had oxen to start with,” she says. “That was our first mode of transportation, two oxen.”
Her parents did eventually own a car, but they never learned how to drive it. Her only brother and youngest sibling Albert was the only one who drove the car.
For six years, Rulie worked as a store clerk in the Co-op. However the shopping system then was also something that differs from today. Rather than customers coming in and shopping for what they wanted, clerks such as Rulie were responsible for collecting the groceries for customers themselves.
“There was no self serve,” says Rulie. “People would come in with a grocery list, hand it to you, and you would do all the running.”
The grocery store shared a building with the post office, and this was a time when mail was not so convenient. Rulie says there were times when the staff had to stay quite late because they had to wait for customers awaiting their post to leave.
In 1920, Bert Nanninga was born into the world in Neerlandia as one of nine children. He and his family lived in a log home, and although it wasn’t a sod-covered house like original Neerlandia houses, it was still different than houses there today.
“Now they have good homes,” he says. “The homes there are like the homes they have in Barrhead.”
The housing is but one of an infinite number of changes Bert has seen over the 91 years of his life. Other than the four years Bert spent in the army, and the past six years he has resided in Jubilee Manor, Bert lived in Neerlandia for all his days.
“That difference is so great, I really can’t explain,” says Bert. “It was from having nothing, to what we are now.”
Some of the times in Neerlandia were tough on all the families. But, as a child, Bert says that wasn’t something that crossed his mind. He didn’t have toys, but he and the other children made their own fun by playing hide-and-seek, and other sports like football.
“We didn’t know that our parents didn’t have money. Kids just don’t notice that,” he says. “We get food on the table, but how hard it is to get that food on the table, we don’t know that.”
Bert says he didn’t get to Edmonton until he was about 16 years old. Even today’s short trip to Barrhead was something Bert didn’t experience until age six or seven. The first trip he took into town is something Bert remembers well. His father was bringing a load of wheat into town, and said Bert was allowed to come along.
“You didn’t sleep that night you were so excited about going to Barrhead,” he laughs. “That was before the train went to Barrhead.”
Although he says he is indifferent to the celebration of the hamlet’s 100th birthday, Bert says he knows other people are excited, and Neerlandia was a good place to live.
