Posts Tagged ‘Helen Pylypow’
The Grayson Chronicles: The Journey Begins
Sneak Preview
of the Book Cover
Photo (2012): Grayson gazes out over the North Thompson River and the
mountains beyond: “Grandpa, we need to go see what’s beyond those mountains.”
(Cover Photo Arrangement by Alysha McNeill)
Dear Reader,
The following chronicles were written during the magical summer of 2012 when five-year old Grayson Edward Walker, along with his Grandpa, Harold David McNeill, his Uncle, Jay Wesley McNeill and a family friend, Bjorn Oscar Simonsen, completed an exploratory expedition through British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. While the trip through British Columbia was relatively peaceful, once they hit the Alberta border, they entered a new and perilous world.
The story is now in now being updated in book and will become available on available on Amazon Books by early December 2024.
Cheers,
Harold McNeill
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF BEAVER BOARDWALK: LINK HERE
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF AUNT PAT’S BIRTHDAY: LINK HERE
COMMENTS ON THE STORY CAN BE MADE ON THE MCNEILL LIFE STORIES FACEBOOK PAGE
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Birch Lake: A New Begining – Chapter 2 of 4
Photo (Collage of Mom’s Photos): Family and friends in Saskatchewan provided a strong draw, but earning a living on the farm was becoming increasingly difficult.
Link to Next Post: A Place in the Sun
Link to Last Post: Blizzard of Forty-One
Link to Family Stories Index
Community Dance: March 1941
It would be the first time since Harold was born that the new mom and her husband had attended a dance at the Meadstead Community Hall. In those days almost everyone in the family attended the dance including kids and babies. Because their were no carriages or baby baskets, makeshift items were used to carry the baby, diapers, bottles, etc. Laura used an old suitcase for this purpose. She would just pop open the top and she had a ready made bed for her little boy.
Arriving at the hall after a few months of being absent at the dances there were many people to greet who had not yet seen her baby and proud mom she was, took him around to meet everyone. When the dance began, Laura tucked him in his bed in the cloakroom and like the good little boy he was, promptly fell asleep so mom could go our and dance. Fifteen or twenty minutes later when she went to check on him, the suitcase now had the lid closed and it was covered in coats and scarves.
Frantically Laura began fling coats, hats, scarves, mitts and gloves about the cloak room of the Medstead dance hall as she uncovered the suitcase. From outside appearances she had gone stark, raving mad.
“How could I have been so stupid? My baby boy is probably dead and it is my fault – how could this have happened? Please God, please, please let him be OK.” These dire thoughts swirled through her mind as she searched for her baby boy.
(2043)