ALBERTA HISTORY 1938-1944
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1933
One million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand, two hundred and sixty two Canadians are on some form of relief. Seven jobless men went to jail in Edmonton for taking part in a hunger strike.
Malcalm Groat married Fort Edmonton Marguerite Christe (b-1851) a Metis daughter William J. Christie b-1825, and Mary Anal.
(IV)-Marion Salzl (1910-) is chief floor lady at Canadian Bedding,
making fourteen dollars per week and future husband Robert Garneau (1909-1997), working at Trudeau
Cleaners, brought in ten dollars per week.
This year the grasshoppers ate up to $30 million worth of wheat in the west.
A Garneau recollection of the times is expressed by their friend, Tom Walter's, who said the new married couple had two chairs and a mirror to watch themselves slowly starve to death. This was a standing joke during this period of the Great Depression.
The Nazi Government is being formed in Germany and at the other end of the scale the Banff School of Fine Arts started this year.
The Alberta Metis Association had 1,200 members in 41 locals.
1933 EDMONTON ALBERTA
Robert Garneau, born April 12, 1909, Strathcona, Alberta, died September 9, 1997 Edmonton, Alberta, son of John Garneau, born 1885 and Mary Alexazina Gauthier, born 1888. He was married, October 9, 1933, Edmonton, Alberta to (IV) Marion Elizabeth Salzl ,born December 23, 1910, Edmonton, Alberta, daughter (III)-Mathias Salzl, born 1885 and Gerusha Anna McDougall, born 1889.
FOUR CHILDREN WERE RECORDED:
Robert Arthur Garneau, born May 12, 1934, Edmonton, Alberta, married October 27, 1956 Edmonton, Alberta to Patricia Noble, born April 9, 1933, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Gerald (Jerry) Joseph Garneau, born December 24, 1935, Edmonton, Alberta, married on August 17 1963, Edmonton, Alberta to Donna Marie Claire Mahood, born September 21, 1942.
Richard (Dick) Daniel Garneau, born August 10, 1937, Edmonton, Alberta
married on July 23, 1960 to Noreen Anne Monroe
Richard's second marriage on June 26, 1976 in Calgary, Alberta to Jeanette
(Schuh) Camponi, no children recorded in this second marriage.
Marion Theresa Garneau, born December 23, 1938, Edmonton, Alberta, never married.
1934
Pioneering Socialist Tommy Douglas wrote: "Those least fitted to propagate have done so and have filled our jails and mental hospitals at an alarming rate". Tommy Douglas held a supporting view of compulsory sexual sterilization. He was not alone. Alexander Graham Bell, physician Sir William Osler and Judge Emily Murphy also supported this infamous violation of basic human rights. It is noteworthy that Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney, three-fifths of the so-called 'Famous Five' who pioneered the women's movement in Canada, supported compulsory sexual sterilization. The infamous Judge Murphy wrote that Canada needs human thoroughbreds but is burdened with lunatics. The United Farm Women of Alberta declared themselves in support of compulsory sterilization and said that democracy was never intended for degenerates.
Robert Garneau is born May 12, 1934, Edmonton, Alberta, son Robert Garneau, born 1909, and (IV)-Marion Salzl, born 1910.
This is the year of the first of two severe droughts on the prairies. I started with an unnatural winter with no snow, and sharp cold, followed by extreme heat in the spring and summer that set the stage for catastrophe. Some farmers had suffered 3 consecutive crop failures. A grasshopper plague invaded one thousand, six hundred square miles. The stories of their numbers are awesome and by mid May the black blizzard extended from Drumheller to Medicine Hat. The unceasing winds this year swept away the topsoil. Then, on July 12, one hail storm extending from Carstairs to Stettler pounded all that remained into mush. Thousands of turkeys, chickens, waterfowl and rabbits are battered to death. The old timers said that the real dirty thirties had begun for this area. In the southern half of the prairies, forty thousand families and a half million head of livestock struggled for survival. The summer agricultural fairs had to be abandoned; there is nothing to exhibit. Before the end of the depression a half million farmers would leave the most severely affected areas.
Richard Gavin Reid, United Farmers of Alberta, is elected Premier of Alberta 1934-1935.
1935
Gerald Garneau is born December 24, 1935 at Edmonton, Alberta, son Robert Garneau, born 1909 and (IV)-Marion Salzl, born 1910.
Alberta elected Social Credit to represent their province for the next thirty-six years, so deep ran the hatred of the Federal Government, the Police, Banks and Big Business. Even to this day the English-Ontario's philosophy is considered a blight on the rest of Canada. 'Bible Bill' (William Aberhart) became Premier 1935 to 1943 and tried to become a Socialist Dictator. He was considered a tyrant and most of his legislation including restricting freedom of the press is struck down by the courts.
The bored and disgusted inmates of Bennetts work camps walked out in their hundreds. By late spring nearly 1,000 broke camp in British Columbia and began marching East.
June 7: Upon reaching Calgary they were 1,300 strong and
growing. They wanted Ottawa to remove the Army from the camps and pay the
inmates 50¢ an hour. Bennett ordered the Mounted Police to stop the
protest marchers in Regina as their numbers grew to 2,000 men. The Calgary
Herald said "There must be no submission to unreasonable demands made by an
organized mob" "Otherwise mob rule would soon become an
established menace to peace in this country". These ordinary young
men wanted a job, a partner, a home, a future. The infamous R.B. Bennett
of Calgary said the On-to-Ottawa trek is a sinister plot. The R.C.M.P.
considered this a Communist plot to bring down the Government. Their
leader was Jack Cosgrove a WWI soldier who led the Go-to-Ottawa March.
About 2,000 Calgary people saw them off, offering them moral support and money
for their just and peaceful protest.
July 1: In Regina, a Police induced riot left one trekker and one policeman dead and several dozen police and civilians injured. Trekkers from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, from those 'Bennett Slave Camps' as they are called, are marching to Ottawa to present their grievances. They had the support of most of the peoples on the prairies including the Canadian Pacific Railway. R. Bennett, in Ottawa, ordered the men stopped on grounds that it is a Communist plot to overthrow the Government. He is convinced in his distorted mind that a revolution is in the making. There are about two thousand trekkers in Regina this year and Emmett Hall, a future Justice of the Supreme Court, would state this was a police (RCMP) provoked encounter and that it was ordered by Ottawa (Bennett). This action spelled the end of the Bennett Conservatives as the voters would go to the polls on October 14 and the Liberals and MacKenzie King would sweep into power on an anti Bennett vote. Bennett immediately disbanded the 'Slave Camps' but it was too little too late. History records the Federal Government suppressed freedom by ordering forces to quell what was a peaceful movement. The R.C.M.P. were absolved of the guilt of murdering a trekker but research suggests there was a cover-up and whitewashing of their guilt. There is no question that Police violence was unnecessary.
August 22: William (Bible Bill) Aberhart, (1878-1943), a Social Credit is elected Premier of Alberta (1935-1943) capturing 56 of 63 ridings. 'Bible Bill' Aberhart, Presbyterian, creator of the Prophetic Bible Institute, an extreme fundamentalist movement, had attacked the United Farmers of Alberta as "Rats, sons of Satan, liars, money-changers and fornicators!." He however was never able to fulfill his election promises although he ruled Alberta for 36 years.
1936
Most city folks believed the farmers were better off because they could raise their own food. (III)-Mathias Salzl, of Edmonton, having worked both sides, would say, "That may be true, but if you return in the spring you will find a fat, naked farmer." There is poverty in the midst of plenty. Bennett buggies, automobiles being pulled by horses, are a common sight as there is no money for gasoline. Farmers are unable to pay their gasoline bills to harvest their crops. The major oil companies would write this debt off but many farmers would finally pay their 1930's bills, that are yellow with age, in the 1950's and 1960's. One million, three hundred thousand are still on relief and this would increase by eight percent by year-end.
1937
Richard Garneau, the author of this web site, is born August 10, 1937 in Edmonton, Alberta, son Robert Garneau born 1909 and (IV)-Marion Salzl born 1910.
Aberhart, in Alberta, pushed through what is called Hitler Legislation to regulate the banks, the press and publishers. The courts however eventually ruled them unconstitutional. The Alberta newspapers would receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1938 for upholding the freedom of the press.
Sterilization in Alberta took a nasty turn this year when the requirement for consent was removed. Adolf Hitler did not require consent and the government thought this was a good idea as they idolized the Third Reich.
During the period 1937-1938, the International Bitumen Company produced eleven thousand dollars of fuel oil and asphalt from its small plant at Bitumount, fifty miles north of McMurray, Alberta and in 1941, Abasand Oils Limited, organized by Max Bell of Denver, produced 17,000 barrels of crude from which good gasoline was obtained. The plant was sold to the Federal Government for study purposes.
Unknown to most Canadians the Canadian Government started production of chemical weapons at their testing facilities at Suffield, Alberta N.W. of Medicine Hat, Alberta. These chemical weapons were tested on unsuspecting soldiers. The final disposal of these chemicals included burning, burial on land and into the oceans both the Atlantic and Pacific. The Government however has lost track of the ultimate disposal. The United States Government has yet to dispose of their stock piles of chemical weapons because of environmental concerns.
ALBERTA HISTORY
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