JOHN WILLIAM HEAP - by Mrs. J. W. Heap  (Edna Barnfield) - 1967

    John William (Bill) Heap arrived in Silver Creek in the spring of 1904 after being snow-bound for three days in Maine when the trail he was travelling in, had to be dug out of mountainous snowdrifts.

    He went first to Bert Gray's to "learn farming." He said one of his first jobs was to hoe potatoes and having come from industrial Lancashire he didn't even know which were potatoes!

    He bought the N.W. quarter of  No. 28 and for years farmed along with Sam Keating. Bill raised horses for a while and owned "Dick" - a horse he claimed was almost human. One of Dick's tricks was to swipe Bill's hat and run off with it in his teeth.

    Bill was a great reader, sitting up until the early hours reading his Manchester Guardian by which he swore! He was also a good conversationalist and loved an argument.

    In 1930 Bill returned to England for the summer and met Miss Edna Barnfield and the following spring they were married in Winnipeg. They lived on the farm until 1957 when they moved to Russell where Bill died in 1960 at the age of 84.

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