Conclusion

This his­tory has dealt with chiefly with the very grass roots era of our pio­neer­ing age. It was a daily bat­tle for exis­tence for our sturdy fore­fa­thers, but at times they could fur­ther their ideals. Town and city peo­ple had more mod­ern con­ve­niences much ear­lier than farmer folk, but as late as 1920 pilot lights were being sold on new gas stoves as great inno­va­tions. The farmer size cream sep­a­ra­tor was first sold about 1900 and has prac­ti­cally gone out now.

The oxen spans served their pur­poses and gave way to the faster, more eas­ily han­dled horse teams, which have in turn had their day and have almost dis­ap­peared in favor of inter­nal com­bus­tion engines. So-called soft tires replaced higher inflated “hard” tires about 1925, biplanes and tri­planes are now museum pieces but when we were mar­ried the biplane was used as much as the sin­gle winged one. Every week-long Fair had its daily bal­loon ascen­sion, aero­planes barn­stormed through the coun­try and did acro­bat­ics for com­par­a­tively lit­tle pay.

Har­ness horses had to win three heats before win­ning the race and $150 for afternoon’s pac­ing, while start­ing chutes for run­ners were unknown. There were peo­ple who went to bed at dark to save their light­ing facil­i­ties, which con­sisted of a few tal­low can­dles. They could not get up before day­light as they wouldn’t be able to see unless they were extrav­a­gant and lighted a candle.

Now dear read­ers, lit­tle Moms and I are tired from the many hours we have spent delv­ing into let­ters and trans­fer­ring their ideas to a sin­gle story. We want to rest, but we can­not for the Chi­nook arches of Alberta are show­ing more and more often. Some day soon a robin will be chirp­ing in our back­yard. The lit­tle green­ing things will cease their sleep in Mother Earth and thrust them­selves into view. We, too, have been pio­neers in that we took a vil­lage lot with native grass grow­ing on it and have built our lit­tle empire on it. Work­ing side by side we have cre­ated our home, and know we can fin­ish it.

To those of ours who left here, sound in mid, ideas and bod­ies we have only to say, “ Carry on, you have it, develop it.” You are grow­ing away from us, day by day, as you fol­low your dif­fer­ent pur­suits, we glory in your tri­umphs, although we can­not join in them, bod­ily. W know we cre­ated, devel­oped and sent six of the finest chil­dren Air­drie has ever sent into the mael­stroms of mod­ern busi­ness and not one gave up nor will you as you were not made that way. Those of our town who have never left except­ing for short vaca­tions can­not real­ize the extreme dif­fer­ences in your out­looks as in com­par­i­son to theirs. They have reached their ulti­mate ends at 35 or 40 years of age, but there is no end to your pos­si­ble futures. We haven’t the least indi­ca­tion of a tremor but that you each will do more with the remain­ing 25 years of your life than you have done with the past 25.

Now after two years of writ­ing, search­ing, receiv­ing, com­pos­ing, re-reading and re-correcting, we have fin­ished. There are mis­takes in names, dates, phrase­ol­ogy, etc., but we ask you to read this for the infor­ma­tion herein, not to seek out errors. This is our gift for the many favors we have received through the years. We hope it may help you, our chil­dren, to add more as the years roll on so the Switzer and Mer­rill his­to­ries’ will not be so dif­fi­cult to write in the years to come.

Moms and Dad Switzer March 4th, 1967
Signed 46th Anniversary