Target Practice

It had been my husband's dream to own a farm of his own. When his father died in 1943, my husband dropped out of school at age 13 to help on the farm. The farm consisted of one section of rented land worked with horse machinery. The six children in the family left the farm over the years to get jobs and marry, leaving my husband to look after his mother on the farm. In 1961, the farm came up for sale but my husband was unable to get a loan to purchase the farm, so he purchased a house in town and invested in a mobile feed mill with a friend.

When living together with my mother-in-law turned out to not be a viable option, we purchased a house in Nokomis and my husband left his mother in his house, telling her it was her home for the rest of her life and he would look after the property taxes and repairs for the house. By the following year, her son and two of her daughters had convinced her that she needed to get the house into her own name in case her son dropped dead and I would inherit the house and evict her. In response, my husband and I drew up a detailed life lease agreement with a lawyer, detailing the promises he had made to her. Her daughter advised her not to sign the document because there would be nothing for her other children to inherit in this case and persuaded her instead to pursue a court case against her son.

Four months after my surgery and after the death of my husband's oldest sister's husband, my husband informed me that he had signed a document giving his mother joint title to his house. I asked him if he wished to give his mother joint title to his house. When his answer was no, I said that in that case I wouldn't sign the homestead rights. His mother then decided to pursue a court case against my husband on the basis that he had used her money to buy the house in Lanigan. Since it had taken my husband and his brothers two years to pay off the hospital bills after his father's death, the horse machinery on the farm had been discarded and replaced with tractor operated machinery, the mother never took an active part in farming as she didn't have a driver's license and her education had ended at Grade Six in Scotland and the proceeds from the furniture sold at the final farm auction in 1961 as well as grain proceeds on a regular basis had gone into her bank account, this was totally untrue. Her daughter and her son-in-law hired a lawyer who took the case to Family Court where the normal rules of evidence were not followed. When the lawyer, after my mother-in-law had perjured herself by claiming her son never gave her any money, asked my husband if his mother was a liar and he unwisely replied, "I suppose so." the judge called an end to the hearing and ordered me to sign the homestead rights away.

I had received a summons to appear in court but as soon as court began, the lawyer admitted there was no reason for me to be there so the summons was dismissed. The purpose of the summons was of course to compel me to sign the homestead rights paper eventually. When I received the summons the previous spring, I wrote a lenthy letter to my husband's sister who he considered to be his friend and whom he trusted. I explained that farming was not going well with a ten bushel quota in three years, we were struggling financially and I was going to have to find a permanent job to support my young family and my husband. I suspected that without her help, the court case against my husband could not be proceeding but the family was pretending that the mother was doing this alone. I put a sentence into my seven page letter that referred to my mother-in-law by a derogatory name and said I was not willing to go to work to support her. I expected the bait would be irresistible to the family members who were actively involved in this court case and who wanted nothing more than to find fault with me. That was precisely what occurred and so we were able to determine that two of my husband's sisters and one brother were the instigators of the court case. As we left the court room that September day of 1969, we had lost the battle but won the war. It was the first time my husband had ever stood up to his mother, who had already cost him three long term relationships and a chance at the RCMP career that had been his dream.

What do you do with half a house, shared with someone who has no money? We had emptied my husband's bank account to pay off machinery bills, anticipating an attempt by his mother to garnishee his bank account. We moved the car into my name since I needed it for the travelling job I had obtained with the Davidson School Unit as a Unit Librarian. After my mother-in-law's unsuccessful attempts to have my husband pay for her lawyer bills, she had the lawyer garnishee his bank account, taking the whole twenty-five dollars that was in it. She then sent the sheriff out to get our car, but being warned by the Unit Secretary, I left town to do some work in the neighbouring town of Viscount and the sheriff didn't make another attempt. My mother-in-law wanted my husband to put a new furnace in the house for her but he had no motivation to do this. Finally, a lawyer in Davidson made arrangements for her to pay my husband $1200 for the house which had cost him $4800 and which his sisters thought was worth $10,000. She then owned the house outright and was responsible for the rest of her life for all the expenses which she had thought she shouldn't have to look after. The son and daughter who had promised over the years to take her in if ever her youngest son should marry, were also off the hook as they had no desire to live with her or provide any support for her. Culture shock indeed for someone who came from an environment where no one would go to court and it was assumed that children would lovingly care for their parents throughout their lives.

My husband enrolled in University as a mature student and graduated with a Diploma in Vocational Agriculture. His dream of owning his own farm had been shattered but he farmed for the rest of his life and was adequately paid for his work. As his confidence grew and he became successful, his mother and oldest sister renewed association with him, after not speaking to him for ten years, but I became the guilty one who had caused all the dissension and family problems since before I appeared on the scene, everyone, except my husband, was happy with the way the family was operating. On the other hand, none of my husband's family members ever again tried to tell him what to do or to take advantage of him in any way. He became their golden boy and I became the kicking post, a position I held firmly until all of them were deceased.

I sometimes wonder. What happens when we meet on the other side, or do we? Shall we all be transformed into something better than we were on earth, or do we have to come back to earth to work through our shortcomings until we reach some stage of perfection? And yet, when we look into the past of each of the people who made our lives hell on earth for a while, you can understand why they did what they did. The only thing you cannot do is agree with it.