Fun at Frontier Days - Swift Current's Summer Fair

Frontier Days Fair and Rodeo in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, is typical of summer fairs across Western Canada. It has its share of cowboys, cowgirls, ranchers, cattle, horses, midway rides, midway food, exhibits, cowboy hats, trade show items for sale, home-cooked food, and entertainment.

DriverWorks Ink had a booth at the Frontier Days trade show this year and Al and I spent time visiting with lots of great people, including Bryce Burnett, author of our book Homegrown and other poems. Bryce is a local rancher as well as a poet and a member of the Swift Current Ag & Ex board of directors, serving as chairperson of the Livestock section of Frontier Days.

Here's a photo journal of our time at Frontier Days 2015.

Howdy, partner! Welcome to Swift Current's Kinetic Park!

This is the door to the office of the Stockade Building, where we were set up as part of the commercial exhibits/trade show.

Here's my partner in publishing (and my husband too), Al Driver, telling customers about our amazing Prairie books written by Prairie authors, including me. 

Outside the Stockade Building, there was a lot going on too.

West Coast Amusements was set up to entertain with amusement rides, games, food, etc.

Doc's Town is a section of Kinetic Park that features preserved Prairie buildings and other features such as farm machinery.

I didn't know Case tractors were ever blue. I suspect this one was painted and then moved to this property. The Case tractors we drove on the farm, when I was growing up in Alberta, were a distinctive orange colour like this one - which looks a lot like the one we had. (Seeing the photo of this two-toned orange Case tractor just took me back almost 50 years to my days as a 10-year-old frantically trying to reach the clutch and brake as I turned the corner while pulling the baler behind the tractor. Yikes!)

But back to Swift Current's Frontier Days...

Walking around the grounds, I enjoyed the old buildings, but I did stop and do a double-take when I saw this...

It's a DINOSAUR!

A man dressed as a dinosaur actually - moving every so often and freaking out whoever happens to look that way. It's part of an educational display to tell folks about that era. 

"Alright, heart... you can slow down your beating again now..." I said to myself.

At supper time, this was the best place to go on the grounds. 

The Tea House offered home-cooked meals, like this turkey dinner, complete with lemonade and a dessert of lemon cake and ice cream. 

For $14, this was all ours to enjoy. That's right, ours. Al and I shared this delicious meal as well as the roast beef dinner the following evening. 

Another fine feature of these meals - the profits from the meals went towards the maintenance of Doc's Town on the grounds. Win Win!

We got a chuckle out of this ironic sight - a burly Hutterite farmer holding this very pink, very feminine, inflatable "Princess Power" mallet. It just goes to show you the warm heart of this fellow.

And we saw cowboy hats. Lots of them.

Even on little guys like this one, who was enjoying his berry-flavoured drink on a hot, hot summer day. (His parents gave me permission to take and share his photo.)

On another stroll around the grounds, I headed toward the barns. I enjoyed seeing this operational "General Store" selling cold drinks, snacks, and various hardware and other items.

These cattle are being led between the barns.

A 4-H Angus class is being judged here. (Our author and friend Bryce Burnett raises Black Angus cattle and Tarentaise cattle, by the way.)

These riders are lining up for their turn in the ring.

A heavy horse event is being judged.

I asked this woman's permission to take a photo of her shirt. Every time I see angel wings, I think of eight-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner, subject of my award-winning book Never Leave Your Wingman: Dionne and Graham Warner's Story of Hope (shameless plug). 

This woman graciously stopped walking and posed for me.

I thanked her. She will never know how many people have smiled and been given a tiny bit of joy and hope because of the shirt she wore that day.

I got a kick out of the prizes offered on the midway. Minions were everywhere...

... including in the lap of this tiger!

Minion Fall Down ... Can't Get Up!

WHAT ... IS ... THIS?

That's exactly what I said to myself as these spry young fellows walked by our booth one afternoon.

I caught up to them a couple aisles later and, being the shy young men that they are (not), they quickly began posing for me when they saw my camera. Clever guys. 

But it must have been ridiculously hot in those outfits since it was plus 34 degrees Celsius most days of the fair! The things some people will do to make an entrance, hey?

We were pleased to see people stop at the booth of STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service Foundation, which operates in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba). "STARS offers time, hope and life-saving transport to critically-injured patients."

Jeffrey Dickson, the STARS community relations officer for Saskatchewan, was selling lottery tickets for STARS. 

My favourite line from Jeff came when a man accidentally tripped on a chair by Jeff's booth. Jeff quickly responded with, "This is the right booth if you're going to get hurt." Jeff may not be a paramedic, but he has a great sense of humour and works for a good organization.

And the BIG NEWS of the fair for us?

Bryce Burnett has been notified that his book, Homegrown and other poems, has been named a Finalist for a 2015 Will Rogers Medallion Award. How great is that?

Bryce's book of cowboy and other poetry celebrating Prairie rural life has already won an Honorable Mention in the Poetry category of the 2014 Great Midwest Book Festival. How nice would it be to win another award!

Congratulations, Bryce! Well done. 

(Bryce and I stopped for a selfie to celebrate his book being named Finalist in this prestigious competition.)

The Will Rogers Medallion will be handed out this fall in Fort Worth, Texas. We'll keep you posted on how Bryce's book fares.

Al Driver and Bryce Burnett had a visit at our booth one evening, when Bryce could take a break from his Ag & Ex duties.

And our daughter Lisa Driver visited us for a bit one day too. Lisa is the author of the award-winning spiritual wellness book, Opening Up: How To Develop Your Intuition and Work With Your Angels.

Shortly after this photo, she and I drove to Regina to get ready for her bridal shower! yes, this is going to be a great, busy summer!

But first, farewell from Swift Current's Frontier Days!

May your summer include time for you to relax and have some fun.

May you find joy in the simple things, the images and sights and sounds that surround you.

Most of all, may you find time to be with the ones you love.

Happy summer, everyone!

A Thank-You Note for the Cream Money book

A thank-you note came in the mail the other day, from a woman in Alberta who received our Cream Money book as a gift from a friend.

As this book has already done many times since it was launched on May 23, 2015, Cream Money: Stories of Prairie People prompted this woman to remember her years on the farm and to share them with us:

"I was also raised on a mixed farm and surely can relate to my mum hand-milking 6-8 cows & shipping cream with a cream truck picking up the cream. Also I married a mixed farmer & we, like a lot of neighbours, milked a few mix-breed cows until we became fluid milk shippers and increased the herd to 50 or more, at times, Holsteins.

“After finding it so difficult to hire help for winter chores, we sold the quota before the price rose. Then I went back to shipping cream but had to deliver it to Vermilion, where a cream truck met the few cream-shippers left. After it stopped, we left the calves on the cross-breds we now had and even bought the odd calf to put on the heavier milkers. I milked one, with the first milkers we had used earlier, until March 2014, when the old favourite dried up – just couldn’t sell her so I had her put down mercifully.

“Thank you again. I’ll write a thank-you to (my friend) for thinking of me.”

This lovely thank-you note came with another pleasant surprise – a cheque made out to the Saskatchewan Lung Association,“in appreciation of the work of DriverWorks Ink in publishing Cream Money.”

We were delighted to pass that cheque on to the Lung Association and to express our thanks for her thanks. Win Win Win!

A Future Reader Is Why I Write

It always blows me away when children recognize the Never Leave Your Wingman book. I am slowly getting used to adults telling me they've read and enjoyed this inspiring book about a seven-time cancer survivor and her wingman husband, but children's comments always surprise me. Pleasantly.

At a recent signing at the Chapters bookstore in Regina, Saskatchewan, a little girl came up to me and said, "I have this book at my school!" She gently touched the book cover as though it was a precious diamond or her favourite toy.

I asked which school she attended. She replied, "Douglas Park." 

I asked about her school because I and Dionne Warner, the subject of the book, have each spoken at various schools in Regina and elsewhere. I have not yet presented at that school and I wasn't sure if Dionne had either, but no matter. I was pleased that she expressed interest in the book.

As they were walking away after our chat, the little girl's father commented that his wife has posted on Facebook about the Never Leave Your Wingman book. Again, I was pleasantly surprised but I did not ask any further questions. 

I know! That was very difficult for this woman who has spent her entire adult life asking questions of others. But I fought my inquisitive journalist urges and refrained. Instead, as they walked away, I called out to the girl, "Keep reading and learning!"

She called back, "I don't know how to read!" I again was surprised. She was so intelligent and interested. I had not thought about her young age until then.

"I'm sure you'll learn soon and be great at it," I told her.

I turned back to my table of books and said to myself, "And that is why writers write. For future readers like her."

Cream Money book launch among the best for DriverWorks Ink

We recently launched our newest non-fiction book, Cream Money: Stories of Prairie People - and it was the most fun book launch ever. At least that's what the people in attendance said, and who are we to argue with them? It definitely was a great time!

Thirteen of the 30 people who contributed stories to this fascinating book were at our launch. Some of them drove almost three hours to be there! It was the first time I had met a number of these folks in person - I'd only talked to them by phone or email when editing the stories they submitted - so I was thrilled to shake their hands and thank them in person for contributing to our book. 

The launch began with a happy, casual atmosphere that continued throughout the afternoon. But first I'll bring you up to speed on what the book is about and why we published it.

Cream money was an important source of income for farm families on Canada's Prairies in days gone by. Farm women in particular - including my mother - milked the cows, separated the cream from the milk, then sold that cream and/or milk to neighbours, friends, and townspeople to earn a little extra cash. The money earned was used to purchase groceries, fabric, farm supplies, and other items that could not be produced on the farm. 

DriverWorks Ink, our publishing company based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, produced this book to record some of this Prairie history and pay homage to this long-ago way of life. We're also making a donation to the Lung Association of Saskatchewan from some of the book's proceeds, by the way. I thought I'd add that detail before I forgot.

In the book's introduction, I wrote that my mother sold cream in pint and quart jars to families in town and in cream cans to the local creamery about once a week from the 1950s to the 1970s. With this money, she paid bills and purchased sugar, salt, fresh fruit, canning supplies and other grocery items that could not be grown or made on our farm. She bought fabric and sewing notions and, if we children happened to make a rare trip into town that week, we were sometimes allowed to spend 10 cents in any way we wished. As we grew older and farm finances allowed, we were sometimes each given a shiny quarter, which led to lengthy deliberations about whether we should spend it on bubble gum or chewy Mojo treats. Or should we spend our entire allowance on one bag of potato chips or one chocolate bar? Often we would make deals with each other and share our purchases after we returned to the farm with our bounty. (From Cream Money, "Introduction - My Family's Story" by Deana J. Driver)

The Cream Money book contains 29 short stories and two poems written by a variety of Prairie folks who talk about events on their farms during the 1920s right up to the mid-1980s. There are stories of hard work, fun, and adventure that honour family and community. You'll read humorous tales of children falling into full milk pails or mice falling into cream cans, and explanations of cream money well spent or other adventures during those years on the farm.

While I was compiling and editing the stories for the book, those who contributed their family's stories often expressed their gratefulness that these pieces of family history will be preserved through the book's publication. It has been a central piece to the work I do as a non-fiction writer and Prairie books publisher, so it was nice to hear that they understood the reasons that my husband Al and I published the book. Our contributors brought this grateful attitude and their excitement to our book launch and we were off to a great start when we saw two of the contributors at the launch venue, raring to go, as we were arriving to get set up!

We were fairly busy during the launch so we didn't take a lot of photos, but here are a few to give you a flavour of that great afternoon:

We set our Cream Money cake and a few lemon tarts on a table in between two old, empty cream cans. Just looking at those cream cans brought back a lot of memories and began some storytelling for folks.

I welcomed everyone and shared a bit of my family's story and the reasons we published this book. Some of what I said was similar to what you'll hear in this CTV Regina interview I did leading up to the launch.

Eleanor Sinclair of Fort Qu'Appelle, SK, (author of Our Lamps Were Heavy) spoke about the dairy cooperative's strike in the 1970s, which led to their farm having to get rid of vast quantities of milk and cream in any way possible while the strike was on.

Bryce Burnett, a rancher and cowboy poet from Swift Current, SK (who published his award-winning book Homegrown and other poems with DriverWorks Ink), shared his poem "Cream Cans," outlining the many uses these cans have had throughout their long lives. (Later, one of our other contributors told us that he had heard Bryce speak before but was excited to meet him at our launch. We were happy this event enabled the two of them to have a visit.)

Next, Dexter van Dyke of Regina, SK, shared his story of being involved in the milking process and benefiting from cream sales proceeds when he was a child.

Above are some of the people at our Regina launch. Janice Howden, a contributor from Saskatoon, spoke about the book on Saskatoon's Global TV. Here's that interview for you to enjoy.

Among the connections that were made between the people at the launch were some priceless moments that occurred between these two contributors. Roy Tollefson of Moose Jaw, SK, born in 1926, met Clara Puddell of Moose Jaw, born in 1924, at our launch. Their daughters work together in Swift Current, but these two had not met before. They quickly discovered that Clara knew one of Roy's siblings. They enjoyed talking about mutual acquaintances and much more. Amazing.

When the speeches and readings were finished, we asked all the contributors who were present to please get together for a group photo. As family and friends stood in front of us and snapped photo after photo with their cellphone cameras, we proudly held our books and grinned like the happy authors we are!

Back row l to r: Dexter van Dyke, Truus de Gooijer, Irene Bingham, Jerry Holfeld, Glenn Swallow, Maurice Giroux, Marlene Hunter, Bryce Burnett.

Front l to r: Roy Tollefson, Deana Driver, Clara Puddell, Ruth Wildeman.

(The cream cans on the book's cover came from Allan and Elisa Jackson and the book's cover design is by Erika Folnovic of Regina, SK. We also thank Creative Saskatchewan for assistance in producing the book.)

At one point in the afternoon, my husband and publishing partner, Al Driver, asked 89-year-old Roy Tollefson, "What does it feel like to be a published author?"

Roy replied, "I never thought that would happen. I helped with a community history book and I wrote a little piece for that but that doesn't count. This is really special."

We couldn't agree more.

Thank you to Roy and all the other contributors to our Cream Money book.  We hope all of you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing our stories and getting the book published.

Don't forget, you can purchase a signed copy from us here.

Happy reading!

Liberation Day Netherlands 70th Anniversary and The Little Coat book

May 5th is Liberation Day in the Netherlands. Today - May 5, 2015 - is the 70th Anniversary of the end of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. Canada played a major role in ending that occupation. For this reason, Canadians are still highly revered by Dutch citizens.

My husband/publishing partner Al (not pictured) and I (left), along with author Alan J. Buick (centre) and his wife Carol Buick (right), were privileged to be invited by Saskatchewan Honorary Dutch Consul Judie Dyck to attend a celebration ceremony last week in Moose Jaw, honouring some Saskatchewan veterans who fought to free the Netherlands. We were invited to bring our award-winning, best-selling book, The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story to honour Canadian soldier Bob Elliott's heroism and the historic coat given by Canadian soldiers to the then-10-year-old Dutch girl Sussie Cretier during the war.

This was the program for the Saskatchewan event celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, at Moose Jaw's Western Development Museum, April 24, 2015.

 Judie Dyck, Saskatchewan's Honorary Consul to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Canada, organized the celebration.

Judie Dyck, standing on the left as Lt. Colonel Christa Oppers-Beumers, Defence Attaché, Kingdom of the Netherlands, addressed the crowd.

Saskatchewan veterans were thanked for their service.

Lt. Colonel Christa Oppers-Beumers presented 70th Anniversary Liberation pins to veterans.

A veteran introduced herself to the crowd.

Author Alan J. Buick signed copies of The Little Coat book. (Publisher Al Driver is seated at left.)

 Author Alan J. Buick chatted about the inspiring story of The Little Coat.

The veterans and guests were treated to a tour of Canadian Forces Base 15 Wing Moose Jaw in the afternoon.

Maria McNair (nee Van De Werf) chatted with author Alan J. Buick at 15 Wing Moose Jaw. Maria came to Canada from the Netherlands in 1949 as a war bride, settling in Coronach, Saskatchewan. 

Maria's image (above) is one of those - along with Sue Elliott of The Little Coat book (below) - painted in the Canadian-Dutch War Brides exhibit created by Calgary artist Bev Tosh. 

Sue's special little coat (on display previously at the Canadian War Museum below), has been loaned by the Canadian War Museum to Calgary's Military Museums to be a companion to Bev Tosh's Canadian-Dutch War Brides exhibit from May 5 until August 28, 2015. The exhibition is called Trees Heeft een Canadees (Teresa has a Canadian). 

Al and I were privileged to see Bev Tosh's exhibit (above) in Groesbeek, Netherlands in 2013, and to meet Sue Elliott / Sussie Cretier of the book (below) in person in 2013. Here is my blog about that wonderful experience.

The final words go to the late Bob Elliott and to Sue Elliott, from the final pages of our book. Below, they are shown at a 2010 Liberation Day celebration in the Netherlands.

"I see this book as a tribute to all my wartime comrades. It

also expresses my feelings for the people of the Netherlands

who suffered so much under the Germans during the war years.

I am also thankful I have my Sussie."

- Bob Elliott

"My gratitude for the young men who gave up their youth

and their lives for the freedom of our country. I never, ever will

forget.

Veterans, thank you all so very much. You all were heroes

and always will be for the Dutch people. I have one veteran for

myself and I sure love him.

Much love to you all."

- Sussie Elliott

What's in a Name? Authors Deana and Cornelia discuss Sabinka

I recently talked with Cornelia Bilinsky, one of the many wonderful people who submitted stories for our upcoming Cream Money book, due for release in late May. Cornelia grew up on a farm in Manitoba and now lives in Ontario. She is the author of several children's books, published by Pauline Books and Media, run by The Daughters of St. Paul in Boston. (I am constantly learning and meeting the nicest people in my line of work as a Canadian writer, editor and publisher.)

Our conversation began with me thanking Cornelia for submitting her memories of growing up on her family's farm. Then I let her know the details of when the book will be released - late May or early June. 

These are parts of a cream separator used on the farm in Manitoba where Cornelia Bilinsky grew up. Red paint has since been spilled on the separator bowl. (Photo - courtesy of Theodore Mikolayenko)

I also asked her for clarification on how to acknowledge her contribution. Does she use the name Cornelia - which is how she signed her email - or Connie, which is what shows up in her email address?

This led to an exchange of further emails, including her giving me permission to share our conversation:

Cornelia:
Thank you, Deana, for sharing this news. I am pleased my submission will be included in the book and glad that donations will be made to a very worthy cause!
By the way, I've enjoyed reading a few of your blog posts!
Cornelia

Me:

Thank you for your comments, Cornelia – or do you go by Connie? 

The stats tell me that there are people who are reading the blog posts, but I rarely hear from readers about them. It’s nice to hear from you that you are one of them.

Cornelia:

Well, there's another story. My actual name is Cornelia. It was an unusual name in our Ukrainian community of Ethelbert, Manitoba. Some of my schoolmates in the one-room elementary school I attended had trouble pronouncing it. I remember resenting their mispronunciations. In my last year of high school, my closest friends nicknamed me "Connie" and the name stuck. Friends and family still call me Connie (and you may, too). However, I have learned to appreciate my real name and have always used it in all official correspondence and documents and, of course, as the author name in my books and other writings. After all, it is the name my mother gave me.

Connie (Cornelia)

Me:
Oh, now there is an idea for another blog post. I have always had trouble with people mispronouncing my name. That's why I finally added a pronunciation in my work emails.

Deana Driver (dee-na)

DriverWorks Ink

Proud Prairie Publishers
We also had trouble deciding what name we should call my mom for most of our adult lives. Her original Polish name (Sabina) was changed (to Sabinka) when she arrived in Canada. At university, she was given a nickname (Binkie), which she responded to for all of her adult life, but actually disliked. In her 80s, Mom finally told us what she really wanted to be called (Agnes, which is her middle name).
If I do decide to write a blog about this, can I please quote from your note about learning to appreciate your real name?

Cornelia:

What a poignant story about your mom! I think this kind of thing happened to many people who immigrated to Canada, and their children as well. My husband's name is Bohdan, but when he was in Grade One, the teacher decided he would be Bobby.

Your mom's experience illustrates keenly how a name is the key to self-identity. I'm in the process of reading The Book of Negroes. One of the things that really touches me is how the main character (a slave girl, captured in Africa at age 11) longs to hear someone call her by her real name, because it awakens in her the realization of who she really is. But, of course, to the slave traders, plantation owners and others, she is only a commodity, and they care nothing for her name.

Yes, you may quote me if you like and you may use the name my mother gave me.

Cornelia

Me:

Thank you.

The Book of Negroes just may be the best book I've ever read. I loved it. Enjoy.

My conversation with Cornelia helped me realize that others might care to hear about the origin of my own unique name. I teased my mom for years about why she named me Deana. (I was pretty sure my dad had nothing to do with the naming process, as his was more the stereotypical male role in the family and my mom had been a teacher and was very creative.) All of my siblings were given names that are easy to spell, write, and say - Karen, Barbara, Alan, Leanne - while I was given 'Deana'. I am the second-oldest, so birth order was no reason that I could see for that switch-up, although I teased Mom that maybe she had been given too many drugs during my birth.

My mom often ignored my pleas for an answer to this question. One time a few years ago, when I asked about my name's origin, she told me, "I was going to call you Myris."
"My what?" I asked.
"M-a-y-r-i-s," she spelled out the word for the dumbfounded me.
"Umm ... Deana's good, Mom. Thanks."

I didn't know if Mom was joking or not. She had a wonderful sense of humour and often made stuff up, encouraging us to do our own research and come to our own conclusions. She died from pancreatic and liver cancer in July 2011, and left me wondering about my name to this day.

I had always thought my name was a compilation of those given to two of my mom's sisters. Put 'Dora' and 'Jeannie' together and you get 'Deana'. That made sense to me. But that was not correct either, I was told.

Another story Mom told me was the most believable of all her explanations. In the 1950s, she listened to a soap opera on the radio. It was called Ma Perkins and one of the many characters was Bernadeana - they called her 'Deana' for short, Mom said. I searched the Internet for hours one day to try to confirm this story. I finally found one mention of a Bernadeana as a Ma Perkins character. I cannot seem to find that reference again, but that was good enough for me to go with this story as the most plausible explanation.

There were 68 different characters over the 27-year run of 'Ma Perkins'. One of those appears to have been Bernadeana - although I'm sure Mom told me that Deana was 'the heroine' and not a bit player.

As a young journalist in the 1980s, I gave up trying to correct people who mispronounced my first name, especially if I was planning on interviewing them for only one feature story. Finally, my husband Al recommended that I need to correct everyone. "If you don't correct them, they will call you Dee-an-na your whole life." He was right, of course, and I have since learned to politely correct people.

Mom once asked me why I was so curious about my first name. "What do people call you?"

"Deena, Dana, Donna, but mostly Deanna."

"Harumph," was the sound I heard from Mom.

When I married Al Driver in 1976 and changed my last name from the Ukrainian hard-to-pronounce 'Pacholok' (with a silent 'c') to Driver, I thought that would make my name so much easier for others to say correctly.

The first time I was called by my married name, I was introduced as 'Deanna Driven.' Oh, brother.