The Story of Tom and Donald and the Manitoba Agricultural Museum #monologue #canadianhistory

KelvinBueckert

A monologue about the true story of the founding of the museum. www.kelvinbueckert.com

Transcript

00:30Which direction should I go? East? West? North? South? Decisions, decisions. What to do? Where

00:53to go? How to get there? All I know is sometimes a man's got to move. Oh, right now I feel

01:00like I should sit down. I'm back to what I used to be. I'm sure you're wondering who

01:05I am. I know who I am. That was a joke. My name is Tom Carruthers. I was born in Park

01:12Hill, Ontario in 1880. My mother, Isabella, died in 1885. So I stayed with my aunt and

01:22uncle William and Elizabeth Carruthers. Well, that arrangement went on until I received

01:28a summons from my father. Come out here to Austin, Manitoba. Let's see now, this was

01:35back in 1896. I homesteaded with my father Ephraim and my stepmother, Jenny Reed McQuarrie.

01:46Well, we sure worked hard in those days, but despite all that hard work, I did find time

01:53for love. Yeah, in 1909, I married Etta May Giles. Yes, life was good. I was a beekeeper

02:04and I sold honey locally for years. I still remember, I still remember how May and I set

02:11up the honey extractor in the kitchen. It was a large aluminum barrel set in frames.

02:18It was hand-cranked with a drain at the bottom. They sure don't make them like that anymore,

02:25which might be for the best. You know, I loved gardening and grafting trees, growing fruit

02:32trees. I had oodles of raspberries, black raspberries. I can still taste their sweet

02:44juices on my tongue. I was a member of the Canadian Seed Growers Association in the 1920s

02:52and an elite seed producer. I was also a Robertson associate member, one of the first 60 to be

02:59so honored. I was a pioneer in the development of power farming, and I was one of the first

03:06in the district to use gas for farm work. It was a bit unusual for the time, but my

03:13wife May had an entire corner section in her own name. It was just east of my son Don's

03:20corner. We called it the ranch. In 1954, May and I donated land for the development of

03:28the Manitoba Agricultural Museum. Perhaps you've heard of it. That's the thing about

03:35being retired. You're tired. I'm older than I thought. I thought I was 70, but the government

03:44told me I was 73. That's the thing about the government. They know you better than you

03:50know yourself. It's hard to be without them. I know I'll be three years younger. The good

03:58thing about being old is having grandchildren. I raised shorthorn cattle and sheep, so every

04:05grandchild got a wool baby blanket at their birth. You know, I planted the evergreen trees

04:13and caragannas around the cemetery. Of course, I didn't do all that work myself. No, no.

04:20I had seven sons, and they were the ones who did most of the actual work, although I did

04:25help out sometimes. Speaking of trees, the trees are there at the Three Creeks Campground.

04:33They're there through an arrangement I made with the government. It was a large swath

04:38of trees that were to be left to grow. If you pass by the campground these days, it

04:45sure looks like they grew pretty well. As the years went on, I donated the home site

04:51to the museum as well, on the condition that Mae and I be allowed to live here. Just between

04:58us, I don't think they thought we would live that long. Yeah, that's the thing about being

05:06retired. You spend a lot of time wondering what to do, which way you should go. East,

05:14West, North, and South. The day after you come up with all them ideas, you just find

05:22out you run out of energy, and you hang up all asleep. Tom Crothers kept busy looking

05:29after his animals and working in the field until the age of 80, when he had a stroke.

05:33He had gone to pull someone out of a snowbank with his tractor, and he always said that

05:37was what caused it. After his stroke, Tom lived to the age of 87, and died shortly before

05:43Christmas. Well, for all them unfortunate folks out there who don't know my name, my

05:48name's Don, or Ronald Ephraim Crothers, to be precise. That's the name my parents, Thomas

05:55and Mae, gave to me. You know, I love engines. You know, I could spend hours watching an

06:02engine move. When I got a little older, someone else caught my fancy. You're your own tattersall,

06:10Ernie. Well, I did what a self-respecting man should do, and a fine woman caught his

06:15fancy. I married her. We started farming. Not gonna lie to you, farming in the 1930s

06:22was hard. Almost unbearable. But with a little help of family and friends and neighbors,

06:28you managed to wrestle through it. And I'll tell you the truth, we sure needed help sometimes.

06:35We weren't exactly rich, no sir. We heard of trouble coming. Remember sitting down at the

06:42radio? It sounded something like this. Good evening, this is a news bulletin for September

06:513rd, 1939. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany today, as German panzer divisions

06:56continue to pour into Poland. An anxious world awaits to see what German Chancellor Adolf Hitler

07:01has planned next. Yeah, Canada declared war on Germany on September 10th, and for a while there

07:07it seemed like nothing more was going to happen. We hoped and we prayed that nothing would, but

07:12next May, word came. Under heavy German bombardment, all available British vessels

07:18began a desperate effort today to rescue Allied forces surrounded near the French port of Dunkirk.

07:23Stay tuned for a special statement by Prime Minister Winston Churchill following this program

07:27as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance.

07:33Things started to change real quick after that. There were posters of the armistice

07:37calling on all eligible young men to volunteer for service in the armed forces. The war office

07:42even began sending men out to collect old farm machinery to melt down for the war effort.

07:47They needed guns and bombs more than old steam engines. Our heritage was being lost.

07:53I needed to warn everyone about that danger. Which direction should I go? East? West? North?

08:04South? I just knew a man's gotta move, but to be honest, my wife and eldest daughter sure

08:14felt neglected because I was gone all the time, so maybe I got a little too obsessed with it all.

08:21I'm a toss. I think I blurt it out now.

08:26The reason we managed to pull it off, I guess it's the little talk and a whole lot of elbow grease

08:32that managed to get a lot of that old farm machinery over here on the fifty acres of land

08:38that Thomas and my mother made, don't they? Of course, I didn't do all that work myself. No,

08:45even though it felt like it, that's for sure. No, I formed a committee of friends and neighbors

08:52to help me out. Without their help, I can honestly say the museum wouldn't have ended up

08:58where it has. Who could have guessed the Manitoba Agricultural Museum would end up where it has

09:05today? I hoped, and I worked, but I could have never imagined it. I couldn't imagine that a war

09:13that caused so much destruction could cause something so good. Why, one day they even gave

09:22me a Manitoba Historical Society commemorative medal. I don't know why. I didn't do nothing

09:30I did to get a medal. No, sir, when I look out at all them engines in motion,

09:38those wonderful engines, and I look out at the homesteaders' village,

09:44those are the only monuments that should catch anyone's attention.

09:48And I already provoke people to ask themselves the same question I often ask myself.

09:53If we ain't gonna preserve our heritage, who's gonna do it? Well, I guess, uh, you know,

10:00I sure feel like sitting down. My back ain't worth it, you see.

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