Finding Treasure

In Saskatchewan, the distance between places is outstanding. It blows the minds of people from outside of Saskatchewan. If you are not from the prairies you will not understand. “Flat, far and wonderfully stretching forever” would best describe what we tried to take in yesterday.

We traveled from Regina, Saskatchewan to the town of Craik – a little over one hour north of Regina.

Alida had traveled to the small town in Saskatchewan to take in a part of her historical roots, along with her sister and Aunt(and the three husbands).

Her dad was born in this community where her grandfather had settled with his family. Grandpa and Grandma, William and Ella Jones, built their life together here after coming to Canada from Stillwater, Minnesota.

There is way too much to tell in this one posting. Where do you start?

One of our goals was to see the Craik Museum – a small grouping of old buildings assembled at the edge of town. In this museum we found ‘Treasure’ – in fact hundred of treasures stored for whoever would like to see them.

In order to get into the Craik Museum we needed to ask someone to open it up. One telephone call found the person in charge on her way to another town for a meeting. She called another friend that lived in a small house near the museum and that had a key. After about a half hour she came to unlock the museum and then others from town arrived to meet the relatives of ‘Bill and Ella Jones’. Our group of 6 was expanded to about 10 then 12 walking around the museum property sharing stories about the people that each knew.

It was like we had been there for ever. What a treasure in these people and the stories.

A Museum Filled with Stories….
The Museum was filled with artifacts from the past. Things that people had collected and then donated to the Museum were now the treasures of Craik.

There is one glass cabinet was Grandpa Bill Jones’ ‘Violin Cello’. The tag mounted on the Cello stated the following….
“This violin cello belonged to Mr. W. R. Jones. He played it in his father’s orchestra at Stillwater, Minnesota, in 1887. After coming to Sask, he played for dances at Craik & neighboring towns. Also his bass violin was given to me by Chummie Jones ~ Mildred Crawford”

Alida and her sister looked into the Cello case together – here was a hint for some of the musical abilities of their own families.

Not far from the Bass Violin Cello was a cabinet filled with some oddities from the long past.

The card on the one item caught my eye. It read….
Bertha Strange…
“Made from the foot of a little girls pet turkey in 1855. The turkey along with others were driven 290 miles by foot, to market. The turkeys were gathered along the way. This match box was made from the leg… given to the Child in Remembrance…”

Bertha Strange had kept this very unusual item until recent years when she contributed it to the Museum in Craik.

I stared at this item for a long time thinking of a little girl that had a pet turkey so far from anyway out on this prairie, that was then added to a flock and walked 290 MILES across the prairie in 1855 to be sold in a market. The father saw the sorrow of his little girl and ‘helped’ her grief by making a tooth pick holder using the turkey leg. And here I was reading the small card 153 years later!

Yesterday – no one in all of Canada found a treasure the way that we did.

As we drove back to Regina through the “Flat, far and wonderfully stretching forever” prairie – I thought about all the people like the little girl of 153 years ago – that gave up so much to make this their home.

WOW!

~ Pastor Murray Lincoln ~