My grandmother was born Helena Ens and later became Helena Loewen. She was born in a farmhouse near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1920, with nothing but a midwife to tend to her and her mother. Her father was born in the Ukraine and came to Canada with his family when he was 7. Her mother was born in Manitoba.

During the 'hungry 30s,' her family had to start from scratch when they moved to a homestead in what was then known as North Saskatchewan. There were trees and bushes everywhere to be cleaned up, and they had to build a log cabin. This was unlike the prairies where they made sod houses to begin. The homesteads were around 165 acres, split up into sections of four. Her cousins lived across the road on a homestead of their own. Her brother, Peter, lived beside her as well. The two families put their houses in the corners closest to each other so that they were closer together.

She grew up with and became quite close to her cousins, as there were many females. She was quite close to her cousin Frank. Together they would search for the cows. Frank was a very good shot. He then went off to war where he was killed.

Growing up in the 30s, technology was scarce. There were no radios in her house nor televisions or stereos. She didn't hear much of what was going on at the time, but it wasn't soon after that Canada entered World War II. People were already hard up, with no money and no work. Families who lived off their farms didn't really need much money to survive. The girls even made their own dresses out of old flour bags, which they then washed and dyed bright colors.

At first their schooling was by correspondence, but eventually a school was built about three miles away and they attended that instead. On a typical weekday Helen woke at about 7:00 or 8:00 am. She had three sisters, Susan, Sarah, and Anne, but Susan had already left home, and she had seven brothers, most of whom had also left home. Helen would go out and milk the cows and feed the chickens. It wasn't always easy milking the cows because they ran free. Some mornings she would have to go find them, which could take several minutes. The cows would have to be milked morning and night. Sarah would start cooking breakfast and Anne would just help out where she could as she was still young and didn't have too much responsibility.

Meals were arranged differently then than they are now. Back then there was breakfast which was in the morning around 9am, then dinner around 12 noon; lunch was next at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and supper was last at about 7 pm. Typical meals were grouse, eggs, potatoes, vegetables, and/or chicken. They didn't have a fridge to store food, so butchering chickens was fair game for anyone in the household. My grandmother was able to go into great detail on how to butcher a chicken as she had done it many times back on the homestead.

Between meals was a hard workday. They had no sewing machines, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, electric irons, and did all their gardening themselves. Needless to say there was always something to do. Helen and her sister Sarah split up the work. Helen did most of the milking and feeding of the cows and chickens, and Sarah did most of the baking, cooking and cleaning. In the winter, chores basically stayed the same.
Her brothers actually helped carve the track for the railroad that was being built.

On weekends baseball games were organized. They chose nine players for each team. They did this by putting one hand over the other all the way up the bat till the last person chooses someone. Her brother was a very good ball player, he played back catcher, and her cousins were also very good. Helen herself wasn't. Her cousins would get together and play games and activities. They also did tons of singing, playing mouth organs and guitars, and danced.

The dating scene was quite different then. If two people liked each other, they picked each other as partners for games and dances and stayed close together during group outings, which were frequent. You mostly just hung out with about thirty people at a time. As there were no cars, you did a lot of walking. When you needed to go to town for groceries, which was about once a month, sometimes more, you just hitched up your horses to a carriage and went. She had two big black horses whose names were Bill and Ted.

When Helen was younger, she had a tooth go bad. Back then you couldn't just get in your car and go to the dentist; you simply got it pulled out with a pair of pliers. There was a man who had a pair of dental pliers and you would go there and sit in his chair. Someone would then hold your head so you couldn't move.

Discipline at home and at school was very strict and kids knew it. Kids basically just behaved, and for the most part there was more respect. As all ages were together in one classroom; the older students provided the younger ones with a role model for maturity and responsibility, and the younger ones grew up with the right attitude. If the younger kids were having trouble with some of their schoolwork, an older student would help out and give them a hand.

Eventually technology started to become more like today. The automobile became more common as roads were becoming better to drive on. People were starting to be seen in the old Model T Fords. However, there was still no electricity and no microwaves, and people used wood burning stoves to do everything that involved heat, and they still used outhouses.

I asked my grandmother what she thought about teenagers and how much freedom they had today. She said if teenagers still had work to do at home, then they wouldn't have so much time on their hands. Teenagers now and teenagers then are just simply the same, just in different circumstances. Her mother died when she was 13, and it quite obviously is an event you don't get over. Helen didn't really know why she died as no doctor came to see her mother, but she was buried on the homestead.

I asked my grandma what she missed the most about living back then. She responded by saying that people just enjoyed life more. She doesn't mean the kind of life where you live to watch your favorite television show; she means the kind of life where you spend your time with your family or your friends and just have genuine fun, not material fun.