Tuesday, August 02, 2016
My Ancestors Crabapple Tree
Grandpa Delorme’s ( Desire Delorme) Crabapple Tree is situated on my parents Lake Front homestead, overlooking One Mile Bay on Trout Lake. This is where my brother Dave, sister Tosh and I grew up. We moved here from the city when I was three, so that would make it around 1965. We were the third family to live year round out there. It was a place of adventure, forests to explore, hills to climb and trees to hide in; whether it be a tree we built a fort in or to play kick the can and hide around, this place kept our young minds dreaming up the next adventure.
Once, I believe I was eight years old at the time, dad’s ( Rolph Francis Tipler) mom, Grandma Tipler (Hazel Olive Latour), had picked a bushel basket of crabapples from her crabapple tree over on Margaret Street. Thinking my mom (Isobel Desneiges Delorme) would make some preserves like apple butter or crabapple jelly with them, she gave them to her. Well before my mom had a chance to do anything with these crabapples, we kids got into them and had a big old crabapple fight! I do believe my cousins and the neighbour’s kids were all in on this crabapple fight. It was lots of fun hiding around the house and “beaning” someone as they showed their face. It was not so fun when you were hit as it stung the skin something awful. Nevertheless, as kids we recovered fast and looked for our next victim to inflict a crabapple shot at. Mom caught us in the act but by that point we had ran out of crabapple ammunition.
All was forgotten, until Grandpa Delorme had come to visit us. He lived in a one-room apartment on First Avenue in North Bay and at the age of 90, he loved his independence. He would visit quite often taking us for walks and showing us different plants and trees. He would show us how to make whistles from willow trees and even spotted Hazel nut trees along the road that we had never discovered. He knew quite a bit about trees and the forest. I am sure if he had gotten lost in the woods he could have survived for days. Any way we were out following Grandpa in the yard one day and he spotted a three-foot branch growing from the ground. He knew right away what it was. We had no idea. He told us it was a crabapple shoot. Mom realized that it had sprung up from one of the crabapples we had had that fight with; one of my Grandmothers crabapples! Grandpa Delorme dug up the shoot and relocated it down at the beach overlooking One Mile Bay. When he was finished planting it he told us that we would always remember him by this tree. Grandpa was right of course. We always have fond memories looking at that tree, of him, Grandma Tipler and the Big Old Crabapple fight.
Grandpa would go down ever spring to the beach in hopes of finding blossoms on that crabapple tree. In 1975, Grandpa Delorme died at the age of 93 and never saw the crabapple tree blossom. However, on the 6th May 1982 the tree finally blossomed. You see this was Grandpa’s birthday and not just any birthday, he would have been 100 years old that day! The tree still stands today, tying both sides of my family together. It blossoms ever year and has a profusion of apples on it. Funny thing is mom only ever made crabapple jelly from it once. It has with stood a fire on its branches, the lawnmower, cats, dogs and kids climbing in it, fierce weather and even my brother pulling the apples off to practice his golf swing. I like to think that many more trees have grown from that crabapple fight and probably have grown up across the lake because of my brother’s great golf swing. This tree lets us tell our children the story about its history and the history of their ancestors. Here’s hoping it will live on for generations to come!
Monday, February 22, 2016
Saskatchewan Genealogical Society Conference 2016
http://www.saskgenealogy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Brochure.pdf
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