Strathcona Vintage Tractor Association
SVTA - OUR CLUB'S EARLY YEARS
Our association was officially incorporated in August of 2005 as a not-for-profit society in Alberta. And of course, a lot has happened since then. But it wasn't quite that simple. Our actual beginnings go back to 2003 before our club was formed when a group of three local tractor enthusiasts were pulling at the Edgerton vintage tractor pull event. That was organized by Jim Sparks, an Edgerton tractor collector and restorer. In 2003, Jim joined up with the three individuals from Strathcona County ..... Ellis Kumpula, Leo Bilodeau and Trevor Kumpula. The group purchased a pulling sled in Saskatchewan and hauled it back to Edgerton. They used it in Edgerton and decided to host a tractor pull in Strathcona County at the Kumpula farm alongside Rg Rd 222. They moved the sled by fifth wheel to and from the two locations. So the 'LETS' PULL club was formed, the L for Leo, E for Ellis, T for Trevor, and S for Sparks. They operated under the LETS banner for 2003 and 2004 at Edgerton and also locally here at the Kumpula farm.
Moving into the spring of 2005, Ellis, Leo and Trevor hooked up (no pun intended) with Al Northrup who had earlier suggested that a local tractor club was needed in the area. Those four along with Marc Normandeau and Al's sons Rick and Darryl met in Al's basement and brain stormed some ideas. A meeting was advertised in the local paper and our first meeting was held at the Robin Hood School in March. We had a good turnout and we decided on a name and then voted in a group of 11 executive and directors. Those first eleven included Ellis Kumpula, Leo Bilodeau, Chuck Gero, Phil Johnson, Myrell Keller, Trevor Kumpula, Marc Normandeau, Al Northrup, Rick Northrup, Al Rice and Mike Ballash. Club members Ken Smith and Lynn Davies headed up a committee to draft our bylaws and objectives (see below) and complete the paperwork necessary to incorporate SVTA with Alberta Corporate Registry in August.
That first year we held our general meetings at the Ardrossan Memorial Hall and our directors met in the meeting room at the Deereland dealership in Fort Saskatchewan. We participated in a few field trips, our first roadside cleanup fundraiser, and several local displays and parades. The county had recently purchased the 80-acre Bremner farm property and we organized a field trip there and were shown the mansion and surrounding property by a county manager. That was the beginning of our interest in the Bremner property.
At the end of August in 2005, the first SVTA Vintage Tractor Pull and Show was held at the Kumpula farm. We held two more SVTA pulls there in 2006 and 2007 before moving to the Bremner site in 2008. All of those early SVTA events used the LETS sled which was replaced by the one we built ourselves a few years later. Our first pull at Bremner in 2008 was slightly uphill from east to west in the field just inside our main gate. At that time we started to think of the Bremner site as our "headquarters" and we have been there ever since.
STRATHCONA COUNTY EARLY DAYS - AERIAL PHOTOS
The following link shows aerial photos from several interesting locations and farm sites in Strathcona County from years ago. Notice the Bremner homestead farmsite (Schroter family at the time) with the current mansion. The photo faces northwest, you can just see a small part of what is now Rg Rd 225 at the bottom right of the photo. Double click on each photo to make it bigger and to show some written history on the properties.
Rural history from the skies
A HISTORICAL LOOK AT STRATHCONA COUNTY
Strathcona County has an amazing history and many of us who live or visit here are not aware of the events and people that have contributed to making it the place that it is today.
Click here to explore the rich history of our county
STRONG'S GARAGE IN BRUDERHEIM
Strong's Garage is a historic repair shop in Bruderheim, Alberta. It has been given a new life by a couple of young fellows who have close ties to our club, Matt Hotte and Jim Koladich are currently operating a vintage car and truck restoration shop at the site in downtown Bruderheim. Both Matt and Jim have been active at our annual Vintage Tractor Pull and Show organizing the displays and demonstrations of vintage road construction equipment. Click on the YouTube videos below to see some interesting automotive history taking place in Bruderheim thanks to Matt and Jim.
Click Here For A Garage Video Tour
Repairing a Ruined 1925 Model T Axle
Pre-War Ford Dealership Tools and a Factory Engine
THE FRANK HOULE GRAIN TRUCK
If you have been out at Pointe aux Pins Acres during our fall harvest, you probably have seen the Frank Houle 1947 Ford 3-ton grain truck in action. Frank's truck was made in the first year of the F-Series truck series that Ford still makes today.
Perhaps you have seen it pictured in previous editions of our newsletters, it's been our club's field workhorse since 2016 hauling grain to our bins. The truck now belongs to club member Marc Normandeau who purchased the truck from Frank a few years back. Frank died in the spring of 2019 at 93 years of age but his farming spirit lives on at our Bremner farm site when his favorite truck is put to use by our club thanks to Marc's generosity. Here is some information on the truck as written by Marc Normandeau.
Frank's family bought the 47 ford in early 1949. After the war ended, all big trucks went to work in road and infrastructure projects so they bought it as soon as it became available to retail customers. The engine was already a little tired so Frank swapped in a 1949 Ford flathead V8 he had acquired from a nearly-new wrecked truck. He also bought a scissor hoist, then purchased the grain box as a kit from Marshall Wells Hardware and assembled it all with a PTO drive to supply the power. The truck was put into service on the family farm as their primary field truck where it continued service for the next 60 years. It was used hauling grain and fertilizer to and from the elevators in Fort Saskatchewan and the Canola plant that was built across the secondary highway from the family farm near the settlement of Lamoureux. The one photo below shows the original family home which was built in the late 1800's. Frank and his sister Ida preserved and furnished the home to it's original condition and it was donated to the "Haying in the 30's" site in Malaig, Alberta.
In 2016, the truck began its second career at what we used to call the Bremner farm (now Pointe aux Pins Acres). The biggest load we have had so far is 8800 lbs of grain. When we showed the scale ticket to Frank, he laughed and said we should try harder since he regularly loaded 5 tons. I also am the caretaker of Franks 1962 mercury M100. Frank affectionately called it the "little brother" to the '47 3-ton. He bought it used in 1963 and it was his only personal vehicle until about 1986. Since then it was used only on the farm doing garden chores for the 2-acre garden he continued to plant until his passing. Franks legendary mechanical skills were only secondary to his storytelling, he will be missed.
THE HISTORIC BREMNER HOUSE
Bremner House (or as many call it, the Bremner Mansion) was built in 1912 on what we call the Bremner Farm. This historic residence is named after the original owner, James Charles Chatterton Bremner, who came to Canada in 1885 from Scotland at the suggestion of family friend Archie Boag. Archie had moved to Canada in 1882. It is rumoured that Charlie Bremner was a "remittance man" which might raise some eyebrows considering the reputation carried by those individuals back in the day. By October of that year, Bremner purchased a property adjacent to Boag and moved into a new house in 1886 on the current Bremner farm site. Charlie’s holdings and financial wealth steadily grew over the years and he married Edith Fielders. The couple had no children. Some believe that the original residence burned down and in 1912, the Bremners constructed the current grand residence we see today which has an area in excess of 5000 square feet.
Charlie died in 1928, some suggest by suicide in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The house and property was then purchased by William Schroter who raised a large family there and ran a successful farm into the 1970's. William's son Alex and his wife Joan and family then moved onto the property. They built a smaller bungalow near the mansion in the mid-70's and lived in it for a number of years. The mansion itself was rented out at times and one story says that marijuana was grown somewhere on the third floor. The Schroters lived there until 1988 when it was sold to current SVTA member Sten Nielsen and his wife Kirsten who were recent arrivals from Denmark. Sten and Kirsten raised their four children in the house and also established a successful tree farm (JN Trees) and raised some cattle as well. They lived there until selling it to the county in 2004. Some of our long-time members will remember us having a field trip tour of the mansion and yard shortly after our incorporation in 2005.
Strathcona County purchased the house and farm site with the intention of turning it into public facility that, along with its land and buildings, would be used to interpret the agricultural legacy of the county. In 2009, the property was established as a Municipal Historic Resource. That year, the restoration of the house began with the reconstruction of the large veranda. The building was found to be in excellent structural condition, although some of its original features had been replaced, such as the upper windows and the cedar shingle siding. In 2012, the exterior restoration continued with the rebuilding of the original second floor balcony, in addition to re-roofing with cedar shingles and the restoration of the brick masonry. A great deal of the house's original features remain and the restoration work will continue and eventually be completed over the coming years. At this time, the county showcases the mansion during our August tractor pull when they provide tours for those attending our show. One of the stops on the county's annual "Christmas in the Heartland" weekend is the Bremner mansion and the surrounding property. Our club participates in this Christmas event when we offer an inside slide show of our club's Bremner activities and we also provide tractor-pulled wagon rides outside for visitors.
Bremner House on Alberta Register of Historic Places website
THE PROCHNAU FAMILY OF BRUDERHEIM
All of us know our fellow club member Elmer Prochnau. Elmer has been a fixture in our club since day one and is always at our tractor pull and show as a puller and with his father's Rumley tractor and threshing machine which bring history alive when we thresh our Bremner grain crop from the previous year. Here is some history on the Prochnau family and the farm where Elmer and his wife Marg still live.
Imagine a living museum that requires no such recreation. Imagine such a museum where family artifacts are still in use. Imagine a museum where buildings, machinery and equipment span generations, thereby continuing to impart meaning to their owners. Such a place is SVTA club member Elmer Prochnau’s Century Farm at NW 20-55-20 W4. Here, there are echoes that trace the family’s involvement in Strathcona County’s history since their arrival in 1894.
Tucked in between a shed and the Prochnau’s main house is a log summerhouse, the original house that Elmer’s grandfather, Samuel, built upon his arrival. Much later, one of Samuel’s sons, Ludwig, moved the log house and attached it to his frame house that he built after his marriage in 1920. Ludwig was only two years old when his father, Samuel, and his mother, Caroline, emigrated from Volhynia, Russia. They were one of 14 Moravian farm families who left in search of religious freedom and land they could call their own.
A mid-summer frost that turned the unbroken sod white must have been discouraging for the newly arrived Moravians, but the immigrants had little choice other than to buckle down to the hard work that is the lot of the pioneer. They were desperately poor. If it had not been for Andreas Lilge, their self-styled leader, they may not have survived. It was Lilge’s ties to the Mennonite community in Altona, Manitoba that gave the fledgling Moravian settlement its start when the Mennonites donated a carload of food and livestock. It is said that the lineage of some Strathcona County cattle can be traced back to these cattle.
Meanwhile, some Moravian families filed on homestead land recently surrendered by the Papachase Band where Edmonton’s Mill Woods subdivision is now located. Others, like Samuel Prochnau took land northeast of Edmonton. By the time Elmer took over his father’s (Ludwig) farm in the 1960s, his grandfather’s old log house was in poor condition. Rather than tear it down, Elmer decided to restore it, replacing sill logs and insulating the building so that his wife, Margaret, could use it as a summer kitchen. On cooler days, Elmer heats the summerhouse with the same wood stove that was in his father’s home.
Close to the summerhouse is a modern shed where a 1912 Rumley tractor sits, bought in Saskatoon in 1914 by Elmer’s grandfather. When he got it home, his son, Ludwig, discovered that it was not working very well. He lifted out the crankshaft so that he could scrape the bearings. After that, the old Rumley served him well until 1924 when he bought a new Oil Pull Rumley. By then, Ludwig had his own farm, the one where Elmer and his wife, Margaret, now reside. This quarter-section had been homesteaded in 1897 by a cousin, also named Samuel Prochnau, and had gone through several owners before Ludwig bought it in 1919. Today, Elmer proudly displays the tractors at parades and, as a member of Strathcona Vintage Tractor Association, at the tractor pulls held each year at the historic Bremner house.
Ludwig invested heavily in his farm in the early years, and made shrewd purchases of machinery and equipment that Elmer still keeps. For example, Elmer still planes logs using the portable sawmill that his father purchased prior to his marriage in 1920. After he purchased the farm in 1919 from a cousin, Ludwig used the sawmill to build a new house for his bride, and all his farm buildings. His sawmill must have been one of the few in the district, for he did a lot a custom work for other farmers. Ludwig didn’t mind; in fact, he enjoyed helping people. When he purchased a small flour mill in 1929 to grind grain for his own use, he did custom grinding for his neighbours as well. The flour mill, although not used by Elmer now, is still in working order, stored in a corner of one of his sheds. In addition to doing custom lumber planning and flour grinding, Ludwig also did custom threshing throughout the area, pulling his threshing machine from farm to farm to help his neighbours bring in the harvest. Ludwig's portable sawmill is still used by his son, Elmer, on his Century Farm in Strathcona County.
Although he had only a few years of formal education, obtained at Deep Creek School, Ludwig was a natural when it came to working with machinery. The 1930s were difficult years, and Ludwig had to struggle to keep the farm. He couldn’t afford to buy a new feed cutter. So, he invented one! He fabricated many of the moving parts and after perfecting the shape and design of the wooden components, Ludwig had Coutts Foundry in Edmonton make casts. In his wood- and coal-fired blacksmith, he drilled, filed and forged parts for this feed cutter. The feed cutter proved to be such a success that seven other farmers in the district persuaded Ludwig to build them one as well. Always a bit of a “lone wolf”, Ludwig did things his own way and paid little attention to formalities. As a consequence, it appears that he did not apply for a patent on his feed cutter. Today, Elmer not only has the feed cutter but he has also saved the wood patterns of the gears that his father made.
“Dad was somebody in my books. He was a great person." Elmer says with a grin, “If you couldn’t sing, you probably weren’t the best kind of Moravian." His parent’s home was always filled with music. His mother sang while kneading bread dough, and Ludwig played his violin. Their second boy, Clarence, born in 1928, grew to be a gifted musician who taught school, and Elmer still has the piano that his mother bought so that Clarence and a sister, Elsie, could learn and, later, teach piano. Both earned their ARTC (Associate of The Royal Conservatory) diploma in piano from the Toronto Conservatory of Music. Elmer and a younger sister, Jeanette, also took piano lessons. “That piano has a lot of miles on it!” After some training, Elmer dropped his piano lessons. But once his own children were grown, he returned to music and had the old piano rebuilt. Now, Elmer sits down every day at the family piano that he keeps in Ludwig’s 1920 home, and tickles the ivories. A love of music and old artifacts are evident as well in the old pump organ, also in Ludwig’s house, stored there on a friend’s behalf. Next to it is a 100-year-old traveling organ—“You can fold it up like a suitcase”— that Clarence adopted for use in his classroom when the school at Namao was about to toss it out. Later, Elmer made a bench for the traveling organ from the shell of what had been at one time another organ. Elmer’s love of music led him to sing in a quartet, and of course, in the church choir. “I liked singing something that was difficult.”
Like his father, Elmer has an interest in all things mechanical. He was hired at Sherritt Gordon in Fort Saskatchewan at the age of 18. After working shift for seven years, Elmer grasped the chance when Sherritt Gordon offered to apprentice him as a machinist, a job he kept for 38 years until his retirement in 1999. Meanwhile, “I was a moonlight farmer,” he chuckles, having bought his father’s farm in 1967. His father, Ludwig the entrepreneur farmer and inventor, had stopped modernizing his farm when his custom threshing business died with the introduction of combines in the 1950s. So, in addition to holding a job at Sherritt Gordon, Elmer bought new equipment and purchased the quarter-section east of the farm and rented other land. Today, the Prochnau Century Farm is strictly into grain. Elmer hires someone to seed his land, although he still takeoff the crop on the home quarter himself.
THE BREMNER I REMEMBER (Written by Lorna Davies)
Lorna Davies is a long-time Strathcona County resident and wife of the late SVTA club member Lynn Davies. Lorna grew up in the Bremner area and has fond memories of her childhood days when she was Lorna Reynolds. We're sure you are going to enjoy this little piece of local history. Enjoy the slide show along with Lorna's story.
I grew up in Bremner and my memories are from the early 1940's through the 50's. My parents raised my three siblings and me on a small farm located on the quarter section on the northwest corner of the intersection of what is now the Hwy 16 / Hwy 21 interchange. My father, Martin L. Reynolds, owned and operated the Bremner Garage located with our home just up the rise and to the west of that corner. At the bottom, near Oldman Creek, was a skating rink and picnic grounds complete with a ball diamond (home field for the Bremner Seagulls). Across the road, south of 16, was Johnny Bertwell's general store and next to it, right on the corner was the United Church manse. North from the corner on what is now Highway 21 was the community hall on the right and on the left was the road leading to the grain elevator, railway station and post office.
I remember once having the great treat of going in to downtown Edmonton on the train with my mom. The little red brick United Church was just a little further south on 21. The Oldman Creek ran behind the manse and Bertwell's store, under Hwy 16 on through the picnic grounds and farm. I remember the water being clean, my brother building rafts and catching minnows in a jar. All these places were within easy walking distance of home and as a child, I didn't believe things could be better than that. It was a wonderful life for a youngster to grow up on this small farm where we had a couple of work horses, some cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and of course the cats and always a dog. We always had a large vegetable garden, raspberries and lots of wild saskatoons for the picking. There was a couple of bee hives for a supply of honey. We kept a supply of ice in the icehouse through the summer. Once needed for the icebox, the ice would be cut from the nearby lakes in the winter. A real summer treat was the homemade ice cream! Our home was heated with a coal furnace with the coal supply coming from the mine at Clover Bar.
My father, besides having the farm, service station and bulk fuel delivery, was a mechanic and electrician. A favourite expression of his was "I can fix anything but a broken heart." A bit of a local character, he was the self-proclaimed "mayor of Bremner" and once pulled off a hoax that he had been invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by posting in the service station, for all to see, an official looking invitation he had carefully cut out of a magazine that stated "You are invited to view the coronation of Queen Elizabeth...". This rated a small item in the "Fort Record" with the heading: "Mayor of Bremner receives invitation to the Coronation"
Social life in Bremner centered around church and school functions, community picnics and ball games, summer CGIT camps at Elk Island and Cooking Lake and in the winter there was sledding and always the Saturday night skating at local rinks. Children in Bremner attended school at Clover Bar Center, a one room school situated a mile and a half west from the corner on Hwy 16. (Approximately where Walmart is now.). The building had no telephone or running water. One teacher had to cope with seven grades, often doubling as janitor as needed. Those teachers were amazing women. To say they had to multitask would be an understatement. My sister taught there the year I started school which often made for interesting discussions around the supper table when we got home. Christmas at the school was magical. That one room school was transformed into a theatre. My oldest brother and other locals would arrive with lumber and throw together a proper stage complete with curtains hanging across the front and costume change areas curtained on both sides at the back. The entire school would practice for weeks to provide the entertainment and of course Santa arrived just as we finished. A vivid memory for me was the night one of the local boys and I got into a disagreement backstage and accidentally brought down the entire curtain arrangement leaving us revealed as the culprits. We were in a bit of trouble but I still recall we got the biggest laugh of the show! As a child I could revel in these events but as I got a little older I began to understand the struggles of our lives. Public buildings with no running water, hard to keep warm through the winter, outhouses, wringer washing machines, clotheslines, etc. In spite of these hardships the community would manage the wonderful summer picnics with homemade pies cooked in old wood stoves under the trees and marvelous turkey suppers in the church basement.
On a hot summer day, I believe the year was 1945, there was an accident at my father's service station which resulted in the whole building burning to the ground. The black smoke could be seen for miles and a small army of neighbors arrived and set up a system to get water from the creek to save the bulk fuel warehouse and the family home. It took a long time before fire crews arrived from the city and by that time quite a crowd had gathered. Fortunately no one was injured and with plenty of help from friends and neighbors, the mess was cleared, a new service station was built in no time and life went on.
My mother was a beautiful, busy, kind woman who always managed to keep a tidy home and plenty of food ready for our family of six and usually a hired man and sometimes random folks who happened by because of car breakdowns and were in need of a place to warm up and enjoy a cup of tea. Tragically, when I was ten years old, she passed away after a short battle with cancer. We all were devastated. Again, the love and support of family and community helped us through.
Bremner, once named Hortonburg, has continuously evolved through the years. My memories are from a relatively short period of time but during that time all the community buildings disappeared; they were victims of progress as the new highway construction commenced in the 1960's. Residents moved on, children were bussed off to bigger schools. The churches amalgamated with half the community attending Ardrossan and others coming In to Sherwood Park. People of my generation moved on to lives elsewhere and the older generation passed on. Nothing I remember is left except for the front door to the family home which is on display in the Sherwood Park Museum.
THE "AULD" ARDROSSAN (article written by Dave S. Clark)
About 130 years ago, Ardrossan was a community of hardy settlers who had come from across the world in search of quality farmland and a better life. The hamlet got its start in the 1880s when settlers started to come to the area from Ontario, Norway, Scotland and the mid-west United States in search of rich farmland, which the Ardrossan area could offer. Many of the early settlers and forefathers of Ardrossan residents today came from Parry Sound, Ont. In 1892, about 300 people left the Ontario settlement as they were having a difficult time on the land. They were persuaded to come to Alberta and many put down their roots in the Ardrossan area because of its rich farmland.
In 1901, the first Presbyterian church was built, and a year later a Methodist church was constructed one mile east. A cemetery was added beside the Methodist church. While the church no longer stands on that location, the cemetery is still there and is now flanked on either side by the westbound and eastbound lanes of Yellowhead Trail. While many hamlets prospered from the expansion of railways into Alberta in the early 20th century, others, like Partridge Hill, suffered. It was once a blossoming town but when it was bypassed by the railway, it was hurt, giving way for hamlets like Ardrossan, which was fortunate enough to be on the Grand Trunk Railway. In the beginning, the area was known as the Grasshopper Settlement because so many settlers had come from Nebraska. However, the name didn’t stick and a local resident came up with the name Ardrossan, which was the name of a seaside resort town in Scotland. The Ardrossan name was first registered in 1908, but it was never incorporated.
Then the community got a huge boost in in 1909 when the railway was built, running right through the hamlet. The railroad attracted small businesses, residents and development to the area. The two churches were moved from where Highway 16 currently runs, to the Ardrossan townsite closer to the newlybuilt railway. After the move, the Methodist church burned down in a brush fire, but was rebuilt in 1910, where it still stands today as the oldest church in the hamlet. The railway, when it first opened, was mainly for passengers and it was infrequent. Over the years, that has changed greatly and it is now mainly for freight trains with the Via Rail train passing through as well.
In the early days, there were no schools in Ardrossan, so students went to Glen Garden School, at Wye Road and Range Road 221 or Baker School, which served the community for 50 years. Although the homesteaders were hard workers, they needed recreation, too. There were no organized sports early on, but there was skating and tobogganing in the winter. In the summer, families would take day trips to Cooking Lake, which was much deeper than it is today and had sandy beaches. The first post office came to Ardrossan in 1910, but it wasn’t until 1927 that the first mail delivery was started. Ardrossan was always very community minded and its first community hall was Orange Hall, built in 1913. By the 1940s, it was worse for wear and in 1947 the Memorial Hall was built. In 1972, a grass fire ripped through the area, which prompted the idea of starting a fire brigade. The next year, they had a tanker truck stored in a shed next door to the Williams’ store. It was manned by volunteers. Later in the 1970s, a true fire hall was built. Ardrossan is now the largest of Strathcona County’s eight rural hamlets, which also include Collingwood Cove, Antler Lake, South Cooking Lake, North Cooking Lake, Half Moon Lake, Josephburg and Hastings Lake.