Most mothers raised in Cariboo country who remained as residents in this rural region of British Columbia, have very different experiences bringing up their children in this millennium than their own mothers had several decades ago.
Today, Becky Lewis brings her young grandson, James Rosendale, to enjoy fun activities like KinderGym every week, with Thursdays reserved as Grandma’s Day in their household.
However, her life in the Cariboo was not as cozy as most are here today. At the time, this was a shock to her as a teenager from Stanwood, Washington arriving with her family in 1963 to a house at Hawkins Lake with no electricity and -45C winters, she says.
“We’d lived walking distance from school – here we lived 30 miles from school. The school bus would come pick us up at 7:30 a.m., but we had to walk a mile to get to the bus.
“The house was the first frame house built in the Cariboo with a flush toilet. It was built in 1946.”
Becky says along with their parents, Scotty and Dorothy Secotti, all four children had plenty of farm work to do.
Their life on a 160-acre family farm primarily revolved around running a market garden that supplied produce to many of the residents of the South Cariboo, she explains.
“We supplied Overwaitea at the time … in 100 Mile, Williams Lake and Quesnel [and even Alberta].”
When she met her first husband, Brian Rosendale, who lived at the other end of the lake, they stayed there in a little cabin on his family’s property to raise their son, Chris and daughter, Jennifer – and still without power, Becky adds.
“Diapers were cloth, I had a clothesline, in the winter I had to heat the water on the stove, and I had to get the water from the creek, chop the ice and carry it up.”
With four dairy cows, several dozen beef cattle, pigs, more than 100 chickens and more, it was a busy life of hard work raising small children along with all their livestock and “no babysitters,” she notes.
“When I went to do the milking in the barn, I would put them in grain barrels to keep them safe from the cows, so they’d be in a 45-gallon barrel [playing] with their trucks and [dolls]”
She used a wringer-washer for all the family’s laundry - hand-cranked - as was the Victrola-style gramophone her family used for music for generations (both growing up and later gifted to her family by her parents).
Becky says despite depending on other activities before television or even telephone service arrived in Hawkins Lake, “nighttimes were fun.” “The Skip” radio programs from Alberta and Washington was their primary entertainment.
Fast-forwarding about four decades, her grandchildren have quite a different life, but shades of this upbringing remain in her family legacy.
“I think my kids are grateful for having what they had because, without any power or anything, it’s not something that the usual kid at that time would have. They learned things that they are now teaching their kids, my grandkids.”
An example of this family legacy is laying down outside to “just listen to what they could hear,” and all the children say at first they can’t hear anything, and then all of a sudden they hear something – the wind in the trees, the birds, or other sounds of nature.
Becky says her two children stayed in the Cariboo to raise their own families, Chris (Rosendale) in 100 Mile House and Jennifer (Lahey) in Quesnel.
Chris and his wife, Tia, both lived at Hawkins Lake, and even attended the same school for a time, but never met until they joined an online dating service, she explains.
Tia was also raised in the South Cariboo, and was raising two children alone from previous relationships on a low income when she married Chris.
Now, her daughters Taylor, 20, and Sarah, 16, have a little brother, James, 4, who also loves his fun days with “Grandma Becky.”
Today, Tia is happy to have things she didn’t have in her early years of motherhood – when she’d had no parenting handbooks and powdered milk was all she could afford for her little ones – especially the warmer, safer heaters than electric baseboards.
Tia also credits her own mother for supporting her in motherhood tips, supplying expensive disposable diapers, and letting her bring all her laundry there for washing in the years she couldn’t afford to pay for machines (and her father, who drove her both ways every week to do this).
With their support, she was also able to complete her degree in Early Childhood Education, and today, works in the child care field bringing her young son with her every day – except on Grandma’s Day, of course.
