Dear Editor:
When I received the Dec. 3 edition of Yorkton This Week I glanced at the headlines and then immediately turned to the 鈥淗istory Corner鈥� to see what gem Terri Lefebvre Prince has featured. To my surprise the heading was Wartime Housing Corporation 1949. I had spent last summer researching and taking pictures of the two wartime houses our family had lived in after the war. We arrived in Yorkton October 1945 after Dad was discharged from the Navy - there was no place to live, so the Balmoral Hotel became our home for at least two months.
Canadian Utilities, Dad鈥檚 employer bought an Army Hut and erected it in the bush on Magrath St. and Wellington behind the Power Plant. Dad divided it into four rooms, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen and water closet. No plumbing - we carried water from a well at the Baldwin鈥檚 home.
We spent our first Christmas in Yorkton in the Hut! We lived in the Hut for almost two years until 1947 we moved into the a newly built no basement storey and half house on 40 Gladstone North. Peaker Heights wartime housing was built and veteran tenants who lived in the no basement homes had first option to move into the new homes. We moved to 125 Laurier on the north corner of Peaker Heights.
After the war, the young veterans and their wives were responsible for the 鈥減opulation explosion鈥� - babies were born as fast as rabbits. As a teenager I had so many baby sitting jobs on Peaker Heights I had to refuse some but it kept me in spending money!
Early in the 1950鈥檚 we had the option to purchase the home but Dad was transferred to Sask Power Head Office in Regina. I was working and stayed in Yorkton.
Sheila Harris
Yorkton, Sask.
