June 29, 2004
True love never fades
o Couple celebrates 65 years of marriage –by- Amber Casey
Helen Brockman remembers the very night she first laid eyes on Dan Brockman and the couple both agree it was love at first sight. It was August 13, 1937, at a dance at the Codner Hall (also known as the Oras Hall) when Dan got up the nerve to ask Helen to dance. “Dan asked me to dance among other fellas”, Helen said explaining that she liked him right away. “I saw that good lookin’ gal right away”, said Dan, remembering that he wasted no time because there was a little competition. “Then we had a crush on each other. She really egged me on”, joked Dan.
Helen moved to Rocky from where she was raised in Barons, Alberta 30 miles north of Lethbridge, in 1937 where she lived on her father’s farm. She had only been here less than a month before Dan swept her off her feet. After the first dance, the couple didn’t miss a beat. They went to dances all over the countryside to enjoy each other’s company. “From that night on, if one or the other wasn’t in the hall the place seemed empty,” said Helen. She remembers that the women packed bag lunches and put them up for sale and Dan would buy her lunch before they danced the night away. “It was set up so a guy could buy lunch from his gal”, said Dan. Dan would borrow his father’s team of horses and load up the democrat in the summer and the sleigh in the winter and set out for dances in the community. He was usually in charge of hauling the orchestra around. “It was called Pickle’s Orchestra,” he giggled as he explained that they used to call the banjo player Pickles. His real name was Jack Yeatman and he played banjo along with Fred Stewart on the violin and Bob Ayers on the drums. “I’d always be hauling five or six people around. I’d fill the back with hay and that’s where the couples would sit and cuddle up to one another,” Dan said. Helen worked as a waitress at what used to be called the Melton Hotel and Dan helped his father on the farm. Helen said that Dan never really proposed to her because they both knew that they would be married. “From the time we met we knew we were meant for each other,” said Helen. “Yeah, I couldn’t wait till the next dance,” said Dan, adding that he was always anxious to see his sweetheart again.
The couple were married on June 5, 1939, at Dan’s sister’s house, (Bill and Clara Paskall) in a little house where the bottle depot is today. Helen Slaymaker became Helen Brockman and this marked the beginning of 65 years of marriage. They were married by Reverend Woodruff, then they started a life together four miles north of Rocky in what was known as the Belder or Fuller place. Later they purchased the former Seymour house and moved it to Dan’s father’s homestead which was called Pine Grove Farms, and it is located near where the Pine Grove Cemetery is now.
Dan and Helen had three children, Sandra, Charlotte and Leslie. Over the years they both took on many different jobs in the community. Dan started out farming for his father until 1945 when he quit farming and purchased a dray business in Wetaskiwin. In 1946 they moved back to Rocky and remained in the dray business using horses and a rubber tired wagon to deliver groceries for Killico Groceries and hauling coal. He eventually had a contract with the Central Alberta Dairy Pool and he built himself a milk wagon and became Rocky’s milk man. At that time they paid two cents a unit for a delivery. He then worked on a feed mill that he ran until 1960 before he ran the bowling alley and drove school bus. After this he began working for the Provincial Government as a building superintendent. Helen kept busy raising children, doing housework for neighbours and waitressing at local diners. “I worked at Stedman’s Five to a Dollar store for a while. Anything to make a buck. In those days you did what you could, it was known as the hungry thirties,” she said. She took a beauty course and became a hairdresser and started her own shop called Helen’s Beauty Salon in 1962. She ran the salon until 1964 when she sold the business and opened the first Simpson’s Sears mail order office. She worked there until she retired in 1971.
After they retired they travelled every year and enjoyed time alone together. They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary earlier this month at the Pioneer Centre where friends and family united. In lieu of cards, guests were asked to donate a twoonie to the Rocky Hospital and a total of $233 was raised to go towards a video monitor for the endoscopy program. “We are grateful and thankful to think that we could celebrate it together. A lot of people aren’t that lucky. All these years and I still love him,” she said. “And I still love her, too,” said Dan, as he put his arm around his wife.
Copied from the Mountaineer so it could be formatted to one page – by – LSP October 25, 2004