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The Brussels Post, 1960-07-07, Page 5Death Warrant! She Moved 15 Times In Just 13 Years, *11214,ifili IV *PIONIEgti 'V Mash VI, 1960— --......., 1 4e.tri, NA4T04 tAntLITOSt liAtirwo. 0,04 „4,,,,-*11XP‘OltOR. V0-44. 7, loss „,,Ate, ono o. ,,,,,—* VANGU ARD I-44°6 "f .19/11-..k.„100, 1 '''''',., "-Ir;.6 vAlt,AGUARD Ml,—s$0,, is, 19.59.. 4,.... i,090 ,nt..., '' 50 „‘p4VANGLIARO'll--F4. Ill 190 ,i.e. 4°-40),,.4,..... 1261 0,‘,,,,. EXPLORER. 1,10a. 31, 148 , 4,11., J 0 Ps,, kr:416: 0:71_40.....Ek1;;;DERXAusPl-msOmITI:IR:AY::11:1 jocApt.:1,,,i73344,:ey:9:960157)::.-:,.., „,-:::7...,..4. 01:miRIODSA ls*--4:1:mamy l:41,961096-021:16 "'0,,a?, ..... see0,100 e'er .316 "4' 1,.... 3'4 '4 4•01, Stray ,Pagcaot vvo • Nearina( .ferty, -reinfortably off, with. no thought of romance 41, bar life, and eVer less of mar- riage; Margaret •lvl o o r u was. placidly wieteethe at Miami, rleriale, resort of aubstropical unahltna b t ue 40S, golden beeehee. enedeltSSturY hotels, when the postcard that was to seal her fate, arrived, ELBOW ELOOW ROOM—Births of new satellites and deaths of oh1 ones in recent weeks leave a space population situation am ohown in chart above. April and May yaw the addition of three, new American satellites, making a total of nine still in prbit, They are: TIROS. I, still taking weather photographat TRAikterr pa, the navigational satellite, and MIWS r4 the infrared "spy in the sky." Russia's first shot since Lunils (which tools pictures of back of the moon, later burned up in earth's aianosphere) was the capsule with a dummy astronaut inside. Originally launched.into an orbit of about 230 miles,, something went wrong when Russians tried.to bring it down and it 'went into higher orbit. One Russian. and two LT.fi epees probes following the sun are permanent fixtures. It was addressed to,lior from— of all a prisoner in tint rlerertee penitentiary, Arizona: 4esepit Perryman. It recalled happy times before the prison deep clanged on hint and hoped for future ones when his time was up. -"There Mot. be another alai.- Oaret Moore in Miaini„" she told herself, and handed it hack to the. pestman. The: next day she re- turned to her bone at Bellevue, but owing to 44 oversight the, Post office re-delivered it at her Miami address, from which It was. forwarded to her with other cor- respondence, She was a tender-hearted man ' so 'sent the card back to Rerryman, explaining the er, ror and wishing him well, It was, a kindly Impulse. Joseph. Perryman was -in jail. for passing dud' chequee. He had previeasly 0040 time in Triscoba .Alcatraz as an army deserter. When he received the letter ho wrote to Bellevue. thanking Mar- garet Moore for returning his. card,. In a mood of self-pity he confided that he'd fallen into trouble because he'd never known the influence of a good woman who might have kept him straight, and. had nothing, no One, to turn to when time time oame for his release. Margaret did her. best to give him hope, Somewheee; she wrote back, there must be a good wo- man who would be his guiding star. More letters followed; and - when he was released, in 1923, she said she would try to get him stayed through the day, stld attit* etompanieci him home. He oettid only got out, of it i sight lay waiting hie phew*, at sneaking off when .she 'wean_ looking. All Margaret wan*, was: Ae. keep her eye oat hine in *ale 11$ lIti‘t Into mischief. Thant/Oa ..c/ettblie less jealousy eame into it - th.... peaaesaiVnese of the, otOr Ns0,!.• leen for .the• younger, wayward Meet. They had, money,. Pealtlen, 4 well.-to-do, h9rne 44.9,44 IteoP14 who mattered. She wanted te, 'Safeguard these. and her marriage' V. at ail costs, but sadly overdid Of The price she paid was grim unit tragic. ., Pert of her caMP,aign Was. to Jake him into.. the country to share her love of nature. .Ono day he took her insteao..--to look ; over a fart he baciatnea ..ed down for estate development,. They paused at a wayside shrine, where she offered up a prayer, then stopped at a thicket to ad- mire a pair of birds cooing on a branch, "Oh, leek! Bluebirds," she murmured, "They're as much lat• love as we are, aren't they?" "Yes, Yea, indeed," he said — then pulled a gun from his poc- ket and shot her through the back of the head, blinding for, ever the watchful eyes that were the bane of his life, Be picked up his girl friend, and made for Columbus: There lee passed a dud cheque for ready cash,: got drunk on it, and, parted from her in 'Tiffin, Ohio. Then he went on a /mg sprees cashing mere dud Chequ,ee •—e until the police caught up with him and lie was back, full circle, in jail, `TIoved my .wife, but I killed • her to be free," he eprifeseedi. - "She had made herself my jailer .... , She meant all right, 1 know', but her dogging me the way she, did Itinda got me, and the first thing I knew, I was going, place* and doing things that I'd promise ed her and myself, when we were married, I never would do." It was. marriage that made Joseph Perryman a killer — mar- riage to• an over-jealous; over- possessive woman, who thought it her mission to watch over hints ai she would a delinquent. child. — not without cause, for it tran- spired that nearly all her bal- ance at the )eIle.vite, Bank had, gone to, cover the dud cheques he passed from time to time. She had honoured them. out of hoe own funds, What would have happened it the other Margaret had received: the card intended fox her . , .? But that Is overriding the freak twists of fate that bring turmoil, to unsuspecting lives. crippled children can receive care and, treatment. It now has 12 western chapters with ap- proximately 100 members, The Club's source of funds is the Next-to-New Shop in Regina which sells used clothes, athoes and jewelry mostly donated by club members and supported by voluntary effort. ' Naturally oil wives don't spend all their time fund-raising, For instance, Arlene Hannah start- ed a Slimerama in her basement in Estevan, not only to improve girls' figures but to improve neighborly relations. Although Arlene had no gymnasium ex- perience, she received a lot of help from oil wife Noel Robert- son who was once a member of the Edmonton "Grads" world- famous girls' basketball team. The transient wives' main so- cial organization is the 2,000- member Oil Wives International with 17 branches in western Can- ada, two in South America and four in the United States, The idea started with Dean Hunter Who set up the first group in 1951 in Edmonton. After spend- ing weeks alone in a strange place "while, your husband sits on a well", she knew only too well that women of the oil in- dustry need an occasional even- ing away from home. The object of the Oil Wives International is "to be strictly social, to foster good fellowship and understanding among the womenfolk of the oil industry and afford them an opportunity to dress up, attend a dinner meeting, meet old friends and make new ones without a care in the world." And so we do. And at times like those -- some of the best times in the life of a wandering oil wife — we can even see the humor in "frozen sewer pipes. a job in. fiellerne and .404 hins„. money for an outfit and .his: fare. .She Wanted her brothers, employ him in the; Mooee Mille *d; but they Were net Men, alp in$ Company, which they ,ftwnr. Oa, got him eeken on by another firm. Joe had not .oely work; but in the :onaning months he realized ,;t he bad, hie g idingstanmag:t. On hey Side,: why sheuldn't. she, a spinster facing the forties, marry the much younger man she bad saved and given new hope hi life? Hadn't she predict- ed that he would find his guid- ing star? Why ,should i t be some: fooItl.letti iewor;01114eT probably less fitted By the end of the year they had married at Detroit,. and the. brothers were willing to give,. him his chance. They took him into the mill, where he did se well that they' duly made him. Superintendent. Everyone liked. him. He was friendly, aympathe- tie, areelein.M But Margaret had bigger plans. for him, him into take commercial courses at the Uni- versity of Southern California, it. was a great day for her as well as him when he was elected president of the Bellevue chants' Asseciation. It meant that he was somebody at • 'Wt. "Joe's made the grade," friends told her admiringly, "You've got a first-class husband," ' And se she had — for a time, Then she found — though she kept it to herself from pride— ihamiat lys he.p“hpaLai.dsk e.slehteon. bad in thwe watch him like a hawk, or he'd start slipping. The temptations that had landed him in prison - were too strong for him; he was felting into his old ways again, Cheques. paid in by clients for work. On 'properties and , mort- gages would be passed into his awn account, premiuirrs he cash- ed for his personal. use. Margaret • went in daily fear that he would facade of her domestic life would crash, be found out and • the 'whol But that was not all. He'd be come. involved with a pretty young divorcee of twenty-one in . a Sandusky beer 1:,44014 a few Miles away, Whenever he could elude his 'wife's watchfulness he'd dodge off to see her. %it that wasn't often, for Margaret was more than his guilding star — she was his watchdog, They had to go everywhere: to- ge.ther, he alleged in. a etate- ment he made later. When he went to work she would take him there in the morning, find an excuse to see him at least once during the day, and call to take him home in the evening. When he had, his own butinett she went to the office with him, We come into the world inno- cent, but right way things are being pinned on us, ism emergency Assignment, er "hot shot" as she ealle it, the sewer pipes froze. With three small children the plumbing: had to funotion. She wrapped a sheet Around the broom handle, set fire to it, crawled under the trailer and thawed the pipes with this home-made "blew torch." Another time, to keep the pro- pane gas flowing she had to warm, the frozen tank with hot water from a tea kettle, "At 60 below, and before breakfast, this is rough on the nerves," she told me. "Especially if the baby is yelling for his pablum." Wandering oil families prefer to rent, but wheneenteel quarters are scarce they improvise. Alice Visser, living in Calgary where her husband, Charlie, retired last year as. Imperial's drilling chief, once converted a granary into a fairly comfortable home, And Dean Hunter — her husband, Vern, is the manager of Im- perial's producing division in Saskatchewan — lived in Ben- Bough, Sask, in a converted power house, "I just got the floor painted and curtains over the or- ange orates before it burned down," she recalls, My own worst housing experi- ence was during the cold winter of 1956 when we lived in an Ed- monton motel, I kept warm struggling to stuff five young- sters into snowsuits four times a day so that we could escort Allannale our six-year-old, to school. She, the twins (age 41/2 ) and three-year-old Carla, were born in the Middle East, and used to little clothing. They, re- belled at the coaining snow- suits; it was like trying to dress the waving tenacles of a giant octopus. For the rest of the day I pull- ed children off the furniture, and one another. Within a week I was pulling myself off the walls. Drastic action was neces- sary so I joined forces with the kids and set up my own "kittie- garten" as they called it. From a lumber yard, a dressmaker's and a printing shop, we gather- ed wooden blocks, empty spools and large sheets of discarded blueprints. We made elephants and eels out of homemade play dough; slopped in soap suds and finger paint, and generally had a whale of a time, By evening, the children were worn out and glad to sneak off to bed. I came. out of that motel in the spring as lean as a mother bear but, thanks to my kittiegarten, only half as ferocious, Next to housing, the big buga- boo for most oil wives is water. In some villages water for wash- ing is hauled from the nearest slough and drinking water is stored in a cistern and sold, like milk, on a icket basis. One tall blonde, who'd already shaken a Saskatchewan village by saunter- ing around in toreador pants, "caused further consternation by complaining that the water was making her ill. Her husband found •two rats in the cistern. The blonde, sure now she had the Black Plague, went into hyster- ics. In no time the village doc- tor was deluged with calls. Bu•t no one became seriously ill. M- ter, a few days, the fuss died down — especially when it de- veloped that the blonde was ex- pecting twins, For other wives the bugbear is mud or laundry. The rich prairie Thirteen years ago In a Rep - OM garden u nice young oil man asked me to marry him. The evening breeze off the old Etee Orates gently touched the date palms. Through a small opening In the roses I could see the Eaten- liar outline of A tanker, low in the water, (Its, cargo WAS paying for My job as a nurse in an oil celnpany hospital at Abadan.) And I heard myself repeat the words of Ruth, "Whither thou goest, I will ,go," I've been go- leg ever since, I am a Canadian oil wife and moving is part of my life, In la years we have moved 15 times. Our present stop is Regina, our last was Edmonton, our next— who knows? Each move seems to be a little more, disorganized than the last, usually due to a new baby or a few added pets. My husband, David, who is a pipeliner, claims that to move with six children, a dog, two hamsters and 30 guppies is 42 times harder than with one child, two -teddy bears and a turtle, Which is sound logic, even if it's poor-mathematics. In western Canada there are up to 20,000 men associated with the oil business who are liable to move at short notice. Trudg- ing cheerfully behind them are their wives and families, a mod- ern tribe of nomads. We have our share of worries but more than our share of excitement and. rewards. Six months before I blissfully * committed myself to love, honor and follow, a great discovery in far-off Alberta changed the en- tire Canadian oil industry and, incidentally, the lives of future oil wives "Ike me, On that me- morable February day in 1947, after years of probing dry holes, an Imperial Oil drilling crew discovered oil near Leduc. In the years that followed, oil rigs mushroomed all over Alber- ta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia. For each new development a horde of experts descended on the unsuspecting area: land men, geologists, geo- physicists, drillers, engineers. When each field was established, the "transients" moved to a more promising location, with wives - and families at the heels. To some extent the trek is still go- ing on, This human ebb and flow brings with it innumerable problems for the families and communities Concerned. Housing is a subject particularly close to the hearts of all oil wives. ' Among us we've lived in practi- cally every form of human habi- tation. I know of one who was born and brought up in a tent in California where her father was a "toolpush" (foreman of a drilling crew). In Canada in the early days some wives lived in the "skid shack," a • portable cabin which- could be easily moved on a flat car, -Later came the trailer in all Its variations—from the modest 20-footer to the luxurious 50- Looter with washer and dryer. Atly friend 'Maxine ' Harding, whose husband is now party chief of a seismic group in Daw- son Creek, B.C., has wandered all over western Canada in the past seven years in a trailer. 'It's the only way the children and I can stay acquainted with my husband," she says, On one occasion, when all the men of the group were off on roots and lasting friendship so important to a family. One lo- cal dowager told me she thought oil wives were "tumbleweeds," The occasional breezy oil wife, dressed in slacks and driving her own car, openly criticized the lo- cal way of life and didn't help matters. Unfortunately, too, the advance, guard of oil workers sometimes iecludea a few boisterous swag- gerers who flaunt 20-dollar bills under the noses of the local farmers, One civic official who experienced this cells-eit "the arrogant attitude created by a pair of heavy boots, a wide belt and a leather jacket," Such men, removed from the influence of home and family, are of course not peculiar to the oil industry. Yet they leave a bad impression. The oil wives accepted this adveese attitude as a challenge. "To be accepted, we had to prove ourselves in each community," Dean Hunter says. To do this — and yet not appear "to run things" — they volunteered to help in church, school and com- munity pmjejcts. Noel Robertson, whose husband Harry is Im- perial's production superintend- ent in the Souris Valley al ea, is a member of ,Estevan's School and Collegiate Boards. Kay Mc- Caskill — husband Jack is now production superintendent for Impelaal in the Peace River dis- trict — was the first woman elected to the school board in Dawson Creek, B,C. Edith Chris- tian, whose husband is a pipe line general manager in Edmon- ton, has been foremost in such efforts as Community Chest and mental health campaigns. A host of other oil wives are in Women's Institutes, Home and School As- sociations and church affairs everywhere. Once the zeal of the oil folk blotted out their memory. The .congregation in Redwater bought a small church in a sad state of disrepair. One Monday, morning. the oil men decided to move it to a better location. All week the local mei shingled and paint- . ed while the wives provided re- freshments and scrubbed pews. On Sunday morning, the whole congregation turned out to bask in the minister's congratulations. Half an hour passed and he didn't appear. Suddenly one man leaped to his feet, "Holy Muses," he shouted, "we forgot to tell the preacher we moved the church!" Around Edmonton they'll never forget oil wife Mary Mc- Rae who has since moved to On- tario with her husband. In 1947, on a visit tb an American clinic 'with her seven-year-old son, Jimmy, e cerebral palsy victim, she remarked that Alberta had no cerebral palsy clinic. "Then why don't you do something about it?" demanded a doctor, Mary 'looked at her only son, helpless on the touch beside 1-er. Her chin went up. "I will.," she said. Back in Edmonton she put her friends to work, ran a "Per- §orial" .ad in the Edmonton Jour- nal and asked everyone she met if they knew-ofd any of the "for- gotten children,"' Within ta year she had discovered enough par- ents of cerebral palsied children to Meet in her basetterit aiid form the Ednientori Cerebral Palsy` Astatiatien, A year anal a half later, Mary had her clinic, built and maintaineel' by the Al- berta government. A recent communal project is the 011 Service Club, organized In Regina iri 1955 to raise Meal for a "holiday Heine"where HE'S A LAPP, ISN'T HE? — Laplander Oddmund Sandvik laps up local ice water in Kautokeino, Norway. His machine gun lies cm the ice. Sandyik, though he follows the traditional nomadic life along with 20,000 Laplanders, belongs to the Norwegian Home Guard. soil, when wet, is as tenacious as the people who live on it. Win- nie McKreevy, whose husband is now division drilling superin- tendent for Imperial in Edmon- ton, laughs about the early days in Redwater and "the women stepping out to tea, complete with white gloves and knee-high rubber boots." Mary -Robinson, whose tall husband, Joe, is an Imperial geophysicist in Regina says, "It wasn't so much the mud but the everlasting diapers all over the place. Joe was for- ever hanging , himself on the clothes-liner Which reminds Vern Hunter that for years he "never had a meal without a wet diaper slapping me in the face." There are still other problems that defy classification. Arlene Hanna — Murray' is Imperial's division engineer in Regina -- opened her refrigerator one hot day in Esteven to -fincl 10 little black snakes neatly curled around the butter 'and eggs. When she recovered, her daugh- ter Karen explained, "But Mum- my, it was so hot outside for the poor little things." Although most of the trials of the transient oil wife can be solired by a happy heart,- there are some which have their roots in fundamental economic prob- lems. J. H. (Jun) Staveley, popular ex-mayor of Weyburn, Sask„ is something of an expert on these. Three years ago, the quiet countryside around Weyburn rumbled with the stampede of oil rigs and all their accompany- ing paraphernalia — Including the wives and children. It was these that created the 'serious problems Mr. Stavely talks about — "extraordinary programs for sidewalks, sewer and water main extensions, new sub-divisions, addition capital expenditures for educational facilities, ,expansion of public utilities — and all these to be provided immediately . ," A gradual influx of people into a small town is a very different proposition from a sudden whole- sale invasion of families who, at the spurt of an oil well, may be up and gone again. Time af- ter time small towns cope with this tremendous responsibility. The city fathers of Weyburn Worked hard at these problems. Their success was partly due to three factors. They immediately provided fully-serviced trailer parks for the initial wave of oil. Men. Next, before building gib- divisions, they tried to use every available lot within the city, re- ducing the need for additional public utilities. Finally, in co- operation with the oil industry, they planned step-by-step expan- Sion of more permanent facilities as the extent of the boom be- came clearer and revenues in- creased, While towns such as Weyburn grappled with their headaches, the oil. wives — in addition to their physical eliscoleifert — of- ten faced a delicate and intan- gible situation in other` Areas: the resentment of the damn-lenity. "It nearly broke ny heart," says Maxihe Harbin-1g, "when a Member of a town cbuticil in- formed us the first day we at- rived that We weren't Wanted in his town,'" Why did some corktintinitied me sent oil people? Sometithea :Sauk of their natural tonservaa tisna. Sometime§ it was our own fault. Many long-settled women honestly feel that ottr gypsy ex- istence doesn't provide the Sdeial TEEING OFF ONAKiii SoVief Preniler khrushchev at ei Moscow meeting said that he believes President ElitaiillieWiti Want* peace. Then he criticized the President's 4dolt pldyln* RATTLE FOR MAO — Pollee oi'id ituclen,fs In fakyti,, fight over posseselate of hanitert which Were carded by deftionSfrale>rs against the Japcitieteaktnertodirt security treaty.