Laurine (Avanzino) Milne whose Mexican father homesteaded in Saskatchewan and whose reserved upper class, Boston-bred mother went with him, wrote about her sister. "Mabel was barely three when she decided to become a cowgirl. She looked like a little bird perched on Sparky's broad back, but she managed to stay on with her skinny little legs sticking out on either side.

"If Mabel found him lying down in the yard, she would run and bridle him. Climbing on his back she'd command, 'Come on Sparky, let's go.' and he'd rise like a camel.

"With his shabby white roan coat and a long Roman nose that gave him a rather mournful look, Sparky was far from handsome, except in the eyes of my sister Mabel.  Her prize possession was a picture Mother had taken of the two of them. She was forever taking it out to the barn which puzzled us, until Dad caught her sitting on the manger holding up the picture and talking to Sparky, 'There Sparky, just look at that. You are a beautiful horse, aren't you." (published local text. ref below)

I found her beside that barrel, the one in the picture to the right. Curled up probably trying to protect herself. She was 26 when she was killed, let me put it that way, killed, a neutral term, by someone never caught. It was March when all of us want to stir, want to be joyful, and we are kept back by the weight of the constant wind, the times the snow pelts and seems as though it won't stop, the times just before a change in weather, changes for the better. That was March, 1950.(fiction)

quote from  "Growing Up on the Bench" By Laurine (Avanzino) Milne.  Non-fiction memoire.  Available in the Eastend area. Booklet 138 pages. p. 39

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image © D. Wall