He courted her with a song: Fran Paul recalls a Meadow Lake childhood with nine siblings

By Joan Janzen

Summertime and sunshine bring back fond memories of when life was lived with family. Like many people from the Baby Boomer era, Fran Paul grew up in a family of ten children. The relatively new resident at Caleb Village recalled her childhood, which began on a farm near Meadow Lake.

Fran was born in 1950, the seventh child in her family. "By the time my youngest sister was born, the older ones were leaving home," she recalled.

Fran Paul recalls her summer vacations in the 1950s while growing up near Meadow Lake with her nine siblings. Today she enjoys life at Caleb Village. PHOTO BY JOAN JANZEN

Fran Paul (front row, third from right) and her nine siblings are captured in a rare family photo. She said they never had to look for friends because they always had each other. SUBMITTED

Kids today enjoy travelling and attending summer camps during their summer vacation. Summer vacation was very different when Fran was a child.

"I was a tomboy," she said. "And we had a lot of freedom on our mixed farm." They played a lot but were also assigned age-appropriate chores like gathering eggs and pulling weeds in the garden.

Her earliest memory was getting stuck in the mud in the garden and needing to be rescued. She said she was around three years old at the time.

"We played in the bush. It was exciting to do investigating, and if we went to the bush early enough, we could leave the two little ones behind and we didn't have to look after them," she chuckled.

When she was younger, the family didn't have a vehicle. "The closest town was five miles from the farm. We loaded up in the wagon; I remember the ride," she recalled. Meadow Lake was the farthest she had been from home.

The family moved to the tiny village of Makwa when Fran was ten years old. "My dad was injured and we moved to town. We had a very industrious mother. She grew a garden, sold produce, did laundry and sewing for families," she explained.

Fran learned how to sew and knit. "I didn't sew by a pattern, just took something that fit and made a pattern off of it," she said.

She grew up with her husband-to-be, who was a year and a half older than her, and his sister was her best friend. He came from a very musical family.

"He played guitar, violin, banjo and played the saw; that is not common," she said. He was part of a family band that played old-time country music at community dances. "He played dances with his siblings, uncles and sometimes their mother was in it. She played the fiddle."

Her husband also sang. "That's how he courted me; he sang songs to me," she recalled. "And my mother-in-law taught me how to dance."

Fran moved to various locations in Saskatchewan and Alberta before returning to her old hometown later on. Now she is enjoying life at Caleb Village, where she welcomes visits from family and cherishes many memories of her childhood summer vacations.