The Mystery of the Mortlach Fiddlers:
 - A Lesson in Love

by Sylvie M.

Who and what were the Mortlach Fiddlers?

The Mortlach Fiddlers’ sign standing proudly outside the Mortlach highway entrance gives us an indication that something worth celebrating took place here…but getting a real sense of what that was, for us newcomers, is a  challenge.  Today, a cabinet of Mortlach Fiddlers memorabilia in the Wagons West Cookhouse and some Mortlach Fiddler CD’s  in the Crocus Ridge Gallery,  are the only other links to these past events that folks can easily find in Mortlach.

An Old Time Fiddler - Today

I started asking about these ‘fiddlers’ to see if we could have a rebirth of some kind, and in this way I was led to have an interview with one of the two surviving original members, Vernon Rowe.  Vernon lives at the Bentley Retirement Community in Moose Jaw, having moved there from his home in Mortlach about six years ago.

This was my first meeting with Vernon but immediately I had the sense that his fortunate life had a lot to do with and was inseparable from that very sharp mind of his, his level of awareness, kindness, warmth and friendliness that are so quick to come across.

Vernon Rowe turned 94 years of age on October11, 2007.  Everybody calls him ‘Grandpa’ – even I was doing that.  What makes this fiddler tick? I asked myself. What IS an old time fiddler?

I can report to you, dear reader, that these days, this long time member of the Mortlach Fiddlers organizes the Bentley Band;  his hands are too shaky for much fiddle playing but Vernon still arranges the players and attends the dances, sometimes filming the dancers.

There are other things about him that have grown from his fiddling past.   Vernon loves listening to his surround-sound fiddle music and he is up on the latest audio and visual techno gizmos (apparently the electronic staff at Wal-Mart know him by name and call him up to inform him of the latest arrival of interest).

Lucky for me, I can assure you Vernon is a great storyteller.  His renditions offer honest disclosure, wonder, humor, curiosity and zest for life. 

I was hoping Vernon would be able to play the fiddle at Mortlach’s upcoming Mortlach Saskatoon Berry Festival this July 5, 2008 with some young fiddlers, ensuring some version of the tradition would live on.  I could have been disappointed, as he is unable to do so; instead, during and after the interview I felt touched by the heart of almost one hundred years of prairie living.

The Early Years

Born in Rowletta, Vernon was the oldest of five children. Vernon ’s parents married in 1912 and had come from Ontario. “My dad was a good farmer, a natural farmer – he knew how to sow crops and take care of the fields. Many farmers had been trained in other occupations and some weren’t so good,” he noted.  His family farmed the land four miles south of Mortlach and a little to the west and there they farmed for 80 years.  His father was also a horseman, once buying a ranch out for its Belgian’s “the best natured horses there are.”

Kalamazoo School was two and a half miles from home and often his father took the children and the school teacher that usually boarded with them, to school in a sleigh. “Everything went on around school,” Vernon informed me, “There was a school every five miles that had 30 kids in it. There were lots of teachers and lots of kids.  Now the farms are bigger, there are less people and less kids.”

Consequences were direct and hard to misinterpret in those days. Vernon remembers throwing snowballs at a wagon from a neighboring town traveling by the school in 1927. “The next time that wagon came by, the men inside pulled out their bullwhips” he laughed, “and we got the message!”

Vernon described the finer points of ‘box socials’, which were lunches or sandwiches in a box that were auctioned off.  “If you were ‘sweet’ on someone, you had to find out which box was hers and pay a high price for it!” he explained with a grin.

Black Dark: The Dirty Thirties

Farming was tough when the 1930’s arrived.  An ominous blend of sadness and incredulity colors Vernon ’s voice as he remembers the coming of the depression. “I know the moment the dirty 30’s hit,” he said.  “It was May 24, 1929 and I was driving our brand new tractor.  All of a sudden a wind came up, the dust came up.  It was black dark. You couldn’t see anything it was so black dark. The engine on the tractor quit, I had to walk home. I was aiming for a building and ended up a quarter mile off target. The dirty 30’s started right there.”

Vernon met his wife, then Marion Johnston, at a country dance in the 1934 and they dated for four years. “We got married on Saturday, March 12, 1938 and you know what we did on Monday? We went on welfare. Everybody was on welfare then, and we thought we might as well too.  We just thought that was our lot in life.”

Finding Besant

Vernon was one of the founders of the site of today’s Besant Park (where the Mortlach Fiddler’s played three-day festivals for many years). He used to enjoy picnics at Besant with his family when he was a child, and so, when he and Marion became parents, they and others thought about the good times they had at those picnics and wanted to create the same fun for their children.  They looked into who owned the land. The land belonged to an older lady who was approached and eventually agreed to donate the land for a park. Two days before the work was to begin on Monday, Vernon picked up his mail to discover a letter from a lawyer stating the deal was off and there was to be no trespassing on her land.

 “Well, on Sunday, Duane Haukaas, Garry Rowe , Barney Moerkerk, Roy Pollack and I started walking and within one half mile, we found the site of the present day park. “This is the right place for us,” we thought.  It was on the north side of the tracks, which was much better for us than the other location, which had been on the south side.”

Park’s Director for all of Saskatchewan , Archie Campbell was able to expropriate the 55 acres of private land from a farmer, who was none to pleased about it, Vern admitted. Every organization, every lodge in Caron and Wheatlands was approached for input to a committee. About one hundred people came to a meeting to plan the park.  A rally was held at the park where 40 men worked to fence in the entire park, clear underbrush, dig the pool, build two bathrooms and two change rooms.  The job was completed in three days.  It ran for three years entirely on a voluntary basis.

People were unable to continue the volunteering at that level and so the government overtook the park for a number of years until 1981.  Eventually the government couldn’t sustain all its highway parks and it was then leased to Bill Campbell, who still operates it today.

 The Mortlach Fiddlers: They were on time!

I asked Vernon how he started fiddling.  He told me his mother gave him a fiddle when he was about 13 years old and he learned how to play by taking a few correspondence courses. “In those days, everybody played an instrument, and they volunteered their playing at functions.”

Vernon was a member of the old time fiddle band for 22 years. The Mortlach Fiddlers ran the three day fiddle festival at Besant Park for 13 years, by all accounts putting Besant ‘back on the map’ after some years of struggle to survive as a park. Vernon and Holden Hodgins were the MC’s for those festivals and were appreciated for their insistence that it ran on time. “We had over 20 fiddler groups come from all over to play.  Everyone wanted to keep playing,” he said, “and everyone wanted to play ‘prime time’ which was Saturday at 1 pm.  But we made them stop and let the next person play on time. Every hour was prime time, you know, it really was”.

 I was surprised how modest Vernon is about his own fiddle playing – he was much more impressed by how some people could come to the fiddle fests and dance every single dance for three days. “How could anyone do that?” he asks in amazement. He mentioned what an excellent banjo player his cousin Percy Rowe was.

A Man of Many Passions

Vernon is a man of many passions and interests - fiddling was just one of them.

Vernon curled for 48 years, much of it in the old downtown Mortlach curling rink. He recounted how the community decided to upgrade to two sheets of ice, by using scrap lumber and then actually moving another building in pieces – by hand.

Vernon was also very involved in the construction of our new Centennial Rink in 1967- as Secretary Treasurer and to get volunteers for the construction.  Two men were hired from Rush Lake but all the rest was built by volunteers…. I heard impressive facts like the 800 bags of cement mixed for a hanging foundation ….8,000 bolts for the rafters and a 30 foot waiting room that Vernon fought tooth and nail for.

Time for Work?

Somehow he squeezed in time for work.  In his earliest years as a farmer, Vernon explained how loan companies gave money for seed and enough fuel to get the crop in the ground.  He then told me how it came about that he was able to clear off his debt for very little.  I could tell this was a favorite story of his!  “This man called J.N. Wilcox came onto my land to collect the money I owed him for seed and gas.  I had no money, but I did tell him he was in a pile of trouble.  I told that man that he was trespassing on my land before the lease was up and I would report him to authorities.  Mr. Wilcox then told me there was no need to do that,  he would clear up the debt I owed his company – for four of those beautiful Barded Rock chickens over there…. So,  all my debt was cleared up with four chickens!”

 In 1938, Vernon worked as an elevator man for $75/month.  In those days elevators gave ‘cash tickets’ which people could trade for supplies in town.  Still incredulous at the effort people made, he said, “People would drive 28 to 30 miles in a wagon to bring in a load of wheat, and would take a load of coal home.

Mortlach was a thriving village of 800 people then, with two banks, hotels, restaurants, harness maker, lumberyard, two barbers and a pool room.  The community hall we have here today was moved from Mossbank in three pieces, and of course, Vernon was involved in that too.

In 1947, Vernon quit the elevator and after that owned and operated the Cockshutt Dealership, carrying farm machinery and New Holland balers.  He was also one of the first government insurance agents in the province selling Wawanesa Insurance.  When his father died in 1960, he took over the family farm and drove to work, 5 1⁄2 miles until 1980.  Greg and Rhonda Haukaas married then, and he rented the land to them.

Helping to breathe life into the idea of a golf course, Vernon was also first president of the Mortlach golf course and a member for 27 years. “When I retired, that’s when I golfed and fiddled” he said.

This man has a lot of interest and energy for life!  There’s more….twenty eight   years on the school board, 10 years on the hospital board….  And I bet there’s a lot more good works we’ll never know about.  I also bet his feistiness and unwillingness to give up, ensured the success of so many of the projects he, and others participated in.

Perhaps Vernon summed things up nicely when he offered this comment, “The best part of life, was volunteering.  I got more kick out of that, than making money.”  So, Vernon agrees; the best things in life are free and freely given.

(There are other details of Vernon’s life, and other Mortlach residents of the last one hundred years that are available in the book, “A Time To Remember” A History of Mortlach and District. One copy is found in the Mortlach Library.)

(The Mortlach Fiddlers made seven cassettes and one CD which Vernon took all of the pictures for the covers for.)