Dan McTaggart left Winter, Saskatchewan, in 1949 to work with his father in the Kananaskis Valley. When he arrived in the Kananaskis, the roads were wagon ruts and pavement was a long way off. They worked for Ace Construction in the valley at the Upper Lakes and at the powerhouse in Seebe.
On May 15, 1951, Dan started work with the Canada Cement Company in Exshaw where he was employed until retirement age. Dan was a heavy equipment operator for Canada Cement (Lafarge), operating D7, D8 cats, tournadozer, bobcat, etc., and finally the diesel locomotive before his accident. Dan didn’t actually work after a motor vehicle accident and subsequent brain bleed June 6, 1986, put him on long-term disability. Dan is presently a patient at Alberta Hospital-Ponoka with hopes of transfer to Canmore Extended Care in the near future.
In 1954, Dan married Frances Marie Baptie and they moved from Exshaw to Canmore. They lived between the two towns until 1973 when they bought a house on Hospital Hill and moved permanently to Canmore.
Dan and Fran had six children: – Laurie Jean, married to Brian Facette, two children, Matthew Daniel and Michelle Marie; Diana Lynn, married to Mitch Durant, three children, Michael and twins, Paul Ashley and Andrew Mitchell; Susan Kathleen, married to Rick Bishop (divorced), two children, Kristen Ann and Shelley Lee; Timothy George, married to Jean Nagel, two children, Vanessa Rae and Daniel Timothy; Dani Marie and life partner, Murray Bennett, two children, Chelsea Marie and Courtney Ann; Terri Lee, married to Tony Zuk, two children, James Anthony and Katelyn Frances.
Laurie is the only child still living in Canmore; the other family members are in Swan Hills, Cochrane, Calgary and Castlegar, B.C.
I was born in Canmore in my grandparents’ house on 7th Street, next to the Anglican Church. I attended grade one in Canmore. Jenny (Anderson) Innes was my teacher. Grades two to six were attended in the two-room school in Exshaw. For grade seven and then grades nine to eleven, I returned to school in Canmore. Jean (Purcell) Maschio was one of my teachers in high school. I attended Calgary Business College after grade eleven and then completed my grade twelve several years later in Banff in 1966-67. I was employed with Steel Brothers (Continental Lime) for seventeen years and then seven years as business manager for Alberta Family and Social Services. In 1998, I took early retirement and am enjoying not working.
There have been many changes in Canmore over the years. I remember Leong’s Cafe across the street from the hotel and a soda fountain where Mountview Video is located now. We had a CanTeen Club that held dances in the “Y” and Mr. and Mrs. Buckley (the druggist) teaching us the “Black Hawk Waltz” at one of those dances. The school had oiled floors, as did the Company Store on mine side. The streets weren’t paved and you could rent a horse to ride for fifty cents an hour. My grandfather’s house had a gravity system for water – a pump in the cellar pumped water to a tank in the attic and gravity caused the water to flow when a tap was opened. They had a grand old coal stove that heated the house as well as the water in the tank. My grandfather, Fred Ashley, had a greenhouse built on the southeast side of his home and he would grow wonderful tasting tomatoes. Granny Ashley knit beautiful baby shawls that were as fine as the finest lace. How sad we didn’t think to preserve one of them.
Dan and Fran McTaggart
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p.206.
