Job Reed's Letters : Life in Lethbridge, 1886-1906

              We still kept a record of the milk after coming to Woodpecker and reckoning ten cents a quart as the price of milk we made ninety-six dollars off the cow from June to the second week in January when a cold snap set in and she went to the river for shelter and got dry.  The last week she was up we made six pounds of butter; but there was abundance of dry grass and I had fed her a little bran.
Friend Barnes lived at Dunmore all summer but did not work much, he was not well for one thing; the son liad plenty of work.  The road was finished the middle of September and friend Barnes was amongst the first to go through to the Coal Banks and get work.  His son got work in the [Alberta Railway & Coal] Company's machine shop, and Mrs. Barnes was engaged as housekeeper in the first hotel [Lethbridge Hotel].  They had two cows and calves, but having no time to attend to them they turned them out, and one of them ate some paint and got poisoned, and during the winter the other strayed away and has not since been heard of.  I bought the two calves and got them out here with mine.  Those who had worked for the [C.P.R.] Company at Dunmore had free passes to the Coal Banks, now called Lethbridge; but the Superintendent knew I had worked on the Section and ran a Section house for the C.P.R., and wanted me to do the same for him, so I agreed somewhat reluctantly to come here for the winter.
[The designation "Company" in the above paragraph is confusing.  The companies organized by Sir Alexander and Elliott Gait went through a number of corporate enti¬ ties, depending on their purpose.  The first, organized to exploit the coal discoveries at the Coal Banks, later Lethbridge, was the North Western Coal &  Navigation Company. The second, organized to build the railway, was the Alberta Railway & Coal Company. It seems to have been the latter that Mr. Barnes and his son worked for.  The "Company" at Dunmore was the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.]
When we first came up in September we had two gangs of men, about five or six with each foreman.  I was running the Section east from the house and the other foreman the west.  We get fifty dollars a month as foreman and the men get one and a half dol¬ lars a day.  I had to pay five dollars a month rent for the house and I charge four dollars a .week for each man's board.  The board bill is sent in at the end of the month with the time book and the Alberta Railway s Coal Company keeps the money out so there is no risk of losing it.
We had milk and fresh butter always on hand which was quite a rarity in a new country, so I got credit from the trainmen for keeping the best house on the road, as I did at Irvine.  It pays to do the best possible and I did very well indeed.  On the first of December the other foreman was laid off and I had to take charge of both sec¬ tions and only one man to help.  We had splendid fall weather right up to New Year's day when a snow storm came and we had it pretty cold for two or three weeks; but I never saw better weather for the month of February in any country, with the sun sail¬ ing through a sky that was cloudless from sunrise to sunset day after day for more than three weeks.  There was no frost in the ground so that ploughing could be done anywhere.
This month we are having a little snow storm once in a while, but it does not last long, and is not very cold.  I think you will find this a shorter letter than the last one but as we are all well and doing well, and I believe living in a very healthy climate, you must excuse it and hope for more next time from your
Sincere Friend
Job Reed