Benjamin Rogers was born July 20, 1899 at Bargoad, Wales, and Annie Esther (Mantle) was born September 15, 1901 at Hencefer, Llangunllo, Wales. They married at Tydfil, South Wales, on January 29, 1926.
Ben came to Canada in the autumn of 1926. Their first son, Douglas Bernard, was born March 24, 1927, in Merthyr-Tydfil, Wales, and he came to Canada with his mother in November of 1927, landing in Quebec. When Ben first arrived, he worked with a group of Orientals on the railway at Legal, AB, and then got a job at the Canmore Mines in 1927. Other children born in Canmore were:
Llewellyn John – born June 16, 1929; died September, 1934
Joan Letitia – born July 31, 1930
Winifred Annie – born July 20, 1934; died June 22, 1979
Pauline Esther – born October 28, 1936
Lynda Jeanette – born August 4, 1938
Benjamin Vernon – born November 20, 1943; died November 25, 1943.
Ben worked at the #4 mine as fire boss. He had taken a Masseur and Red Cross course and set broken limbs so well the doctor wouldn’t have to reset. All the miners and townsmen had a part in building the skating rink and cutting down trees to build a cabin at the “L” on Mount Rundle.
I remember Canmore being a very active, happy town with so much to do as a child – not having a T.V. or a car in our family. My brother, Doug, at a very young age, would make circus tents out of potato sacks, for all the kids in the area, plus moving rides. He also made movies out of rolls of cutouts from newspapers and comic books, all glued together. Entrance fee was a penny or a button. It was nice to see him grow up to be a movie projectionist at the old Opera House. As a young child of eleven, he got diabetes – the only one in Canmore with diabetes. He is still alive today at the age of 73, after many years of hardships, due to the archaic medicine and aids to control it. He has lived with diabetes for sixty two years and has been awarded Silver Medals from the Joslin Diabetes Center at Boston and Eli Lilly and Company (for over fifty years).
The Union Hall was always a flurry of activity – plays, concerts, dances, shows and weddings. This was also the case with the “Y”.
The town always had floods; once our house was flooded and everyone had to leave by means of planks placed out of the window, on to the fence, and down the other side. My sister, Pauline, was carried out as a baby this way. I believe it was February or March so all the water froze and my sister Joan remembers going in with Doug and skating inside the house!
Young children would swim all summer long at Third Island, the Bow River, back of Mallabones’, the Sandy Beach Pier and Cochrane Mine. In the winter, we could skate around the whole mine side – from the Engine Bridge, down a stream at the side of the Horseshoe, up to Prospect and back to the Bow River Bridge, near the skating rink. It would take all day to climb up the ski hill at Twin Lakes and after a bite to eat, it would take five minutes to get down on little trails. There was also tobogganing down Hospital Hill. There were always boats being tarred alongside the Bow River, with fires, and always someone there eating wieners or marshmallows on a stick. Skating would cost $2 a season for a whole family.
Kids were always playing games outside: baseball, tennis, hockey, over the boiler house ‘anti-anti eyeover’ and ‘run sheep run’, and, of course, the marble (alley) games under the street lights, with bats swooping by. There was mountain climbing and playing with catalogue cutouts on rainy nights. No doors were ever locked, even though we had a skeleton key – it would open everyone’s door, anyway!
Halloween was always lots of fun. I remember someone telling me how some fellows, every year, would move a certain outhouse – but the householder beat them to it and when they came to move it, they fell in – what a mess!
One time, during a methane gas blowout, my dad was telling everyone to run out and, in the meantime, he was run over. Instead of being upset, he was more concerned with getting everyone out – he kept shouting, “Get running.”
I always remember Canmore as being very peaceful and quiet, with a real closeness, knowing everyone. I’ll never forget the crickets and frogs on our many warm summer nights, and the most beautiful music from the skating rink (The Blue Danube and all the skating waltzes) heard from our bedroom on a cold evening.
Ben and Annie had seven grandchildren – Letitia, Jessie, Valerie, Michelle, Bob, Marc and Brian, and seven great-grandchildren, Clinton, Jodi, Mathew, Amanda, Jeffrey, Heather and Harrison.
Ben died Jan. 20, 1980; Annie died November 9, 1972.
My husband, Valmore Burgie, came from Toronto, ON, in 1952. He worked in #3 mine for three years and delivered milk for twenty-three years and still lives here.
Ben and Annie Rogers
Doug and Joan Rogers in back, sitting Annie, Win, Punny, Lendy
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p. 249-250.
