THE RING THAT BINDS US

  The wedding ring has been an important symbol in many cultures throughout time and change.  My mother and father were married in 1915.  Her wedding ring was a wide solid gold band, the kind in use at that time.  A dozen years later three sons and two daughters had joined them and three more children would complete their family in which one of their sons would serve overseas for 5 years in World War II.  Back at the farm, droughts and storms had brought difficult years for southern Alberta and some immigrants abandoned their homesteads and sought jobs elsewhere.  Mother sewed most of our clothing, usually made from hundred pound flour sacks.  The well in our yard usually dried up by mid June and water from our house eaves was not enough for our growing family.  The infrequent rains and hot summer sun made it necessary to carry buckets of water to the garden.  When the water barrels were empty my oldest brother loaded them in our horse drawn wagon and hauled water from other wells situated near Manyberries Creek, a mile from our home.  Water in these wells usually lasted all summer.

 At this point you may be wondering why our parents didn’t pawn our mother’s gold wedding ring for more urgent needs, for example, seeds for our garden that supplied most of our groceries.  Mother raised chickens and traded extra eggs and butter at the closest store – a 10 mile wagon trip to Orion, when we picked up our mail once a week.  When we heard the distant train whistle blow it was time to hitch up the two horses to the wagon since that told the train was close to Orion.  If there were no other supplies to unload at the stores, the train didn’t bother stopping and tossed the package of mail to the platform near the two grain elevators.

   You may wonder where Mother’s wedding ring was at this time.  Her mind and hands were so busy with her multiplicity duties, carrying water in for the laundry and seldom wore her ring.  I asked her if my sister and I could take turns wearing it sometimes.  She lifted it from her sewing machine drawer and told us to be sure to put it back.  She took us to the garden where she assigned the rows to each of us to begin weeding..  She told us that every time we found a wireworm in our row we had to pull it apart.  I felt so upset watching it struggle and would make “deals” with my braver sister.  “I’ll wash the dishes that have kettles to clean because they are the hardest to do.”  She took pity on me and the deal was done. You’ve likely guessed what happened.  The ring must have slipped from my small finger and was not seen again for many years. More on the ring tomorrow.