Looking Back: Fire destroyed the Brooks elevator
100 years ago - Nov. 12, 1925
Fire destroyed the Brooks elevator containing 15,000 bushels of wheat on the evening of Nov. 11. Fire brigade members acquainted with starting of the engine were out of town. The delay made no difference for the elevator; “it was doomed.” The light wind carried embers northwesterly. People got on roofs to prevent the spread. The roof of the Grain Growers building ignited three times. A Canadian National Railway ice house was also lost. What wheat was saved was only feed.
80 years ago - Nov. 8, 1945
Visiting people in St. Paul, Minn., was a Rosetown resident who had only learned to walk seven years before, said a St. Paul Dispatch article. Allan Down, 23, had paralyzed legs from polio-myelitis contracted at age three. Until he was 16, he travelled in a wagon pulled by someone. Down, originally from Flaxcombe, then learned to walk by placing his hands on his feet and moving them. At 18, he bought and modified a car so he could operate the clutch and brake by hand. Most recently, he was taking a Radio College of Canada with the aim of being a radio technician.
Dr. Abram B. Handelman intended to practise dentistry here. Handelman had gone to Saskatoon schools and the University of Saskatchewan prior to studying dentistry at McGill University. He was on staff at the Guggenheim Dental Clinic in New York City when the war began. Handelman enlisted in the Canadian army dental corps. Prior to induction, he practised for six months in Eston. After training as an captain, Handelman was attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force and practised in Canada and Great Britain for almost 18 months before a 63-day ocean voyage to serve in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India.
70 years ago - Nov. 10, 1955
About 600 people attended the Nov. 9 opening of Rosetown Composite High School. Education Minister Woodrow Lloyd cut the ribbon held by Kent Javens and Neil McCulloch.
Teachers Glen Amy, shop; Netta Buchanan, French; Scott McLeod, social studies; Olive Staffen, commercial; Ralph Ritcey, shop; Phyllis Hudson, girls physical education and health; Ray Russell, mathematics; Colleen Clunie, science; Will Toombs, English; and Peg Warner, home ecomomics; and principal Ed Brenne comprised the staff.
50 years ago - Nov. 12, 1975
Photos showed people laying irrigation pipe for the new golf course three miles west of the Rosetown Cemetery.
Cst. Robert “Bob” Barrie graduated from the RCMP training depot on Oct. 20. Barrie and wife Mary (née Burt) would be living in Prince Albert, where he’d been posted.
30 years ago - Nov. 6, 1995
People put on a potluck supper for proprietors Murray and Jean Millar on the 80th anniversary of Millar’s Store in Fiske. When Murray took over from father George in 1948, the horse was still a popular means of transportation. Jean remembered selling hair rollers. A photo showed them waiting on long-time customer Harvey Capnerhurst.
20 years ago - Nov. 7, 2005
It was the Year of the Veteran in Canada. A photo showed veterans Fred Harrison and Bud Forrest by the cenotaph. Articles told of others: Morley Aseltine, a sailor on the destroyer HMCS Saskatchewan; Bill Scott maintaining East Coast submarine patrol aircraft; Eve Dumas in navy supply work; Norma (née Britton) Bell, a pay writer, mainly on loan to the British navy; Marg Bent, an air force wireless operator in Dartmouth, N.S; Beatrice (née Klug) Poland, rigging parachutes in Winnipeg; and English-born Margaret Henderson, later wife of bomber pilot Lloyd Henderson of Herschel, transporting air crew and supplies in Jeeps.