ETHEL YEO PICKERING

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We also had to attend Bible School in the summer. As a young farm boy I could never understand how my parents could make me go to Bible School when I could have been home making hay and driving the tractor. Bible School always happened during hay making.

There was always a man who stood in the church entry and winde at me every Sunday — that man was Clarence Carr. That was a highlight of the service for me.

A lot of my memories are of work on the outside of the church building. My father and grandfather both looked after the cemetery so I was often called upon to help. My Dad would simply call and say ‘Douglas, do you know we’re digging a grave today?’ or ‘Douglas, do you know that it is cemetery clean-up day?’ He never really asked me or told me to go. I just knew it was expected. Digging graves wasn’t as hard as you would have expected because all the men in the community would come and help. I remember a bitterly cold day. Banny Craig went and got a propane heater to warm us up while we dug the grave.

At the time the church basement was being dug out, my parents came home from a church meeting where this church improvement had been planned. My grandfather, who lived with us, said that ‘They wouldn’t have to worry about help because Hal (Harold MacLean) would come with his boys and Clarence Carr would come with his two boys also.’

I can also remember walking to church over the snow banks (the roads were blocked) with my Dad to get to church on a Sunday afternoon.

I also remember, a few years ago, a little girl whom I fre— quently carried around the church; later I would tease her by tugging at her hair. Today Bethany Clark is nearly all

grown up and still looks for me to tease. Reflections on my grandparents, Samuel Yeo and Nancy Prowse. Samuel Yeo (1812) of Devonshire, England, married Nancy

Prowse (1814) in 1834. Four children were born to them in England, the oldest dying as an infant. Hearing many won—

CHURCH REFLECTIONS