Thursday, August 7, 2014

A British Columbia Langelaar Historical Tour

This is the part of my parent's British Columbia history.  
So since I went from place to place where my parents lived when they immigrated to Alberta, I thought I'd take some time this afternoon to tour from one house to another that my parents lived in while living here in Abbotsford, British Columbia.  It was an interesting time driving around, thinking of various events that happened.  The first house was on Bell Road.  It was a small farm and dad milked cows, not very many.  The house looks like it was renovated and the property doesn't quite look the same from years ago.  This was my first house.  

After a year or so, we moved to the 100 acre James Farm on Townshipline Road.  I have many good memories here.  I spent much of my time with the animals we had on this farm.  When we moved there, dad and mom first rented the farm and eventually ended up purchasing it.  The farm has been changed, with additional buildings, a new house built and our farm house no longer exists.
The red roofed barn looks like the original barn where we milked the cows.  It is not a dairy farm anymore.  Our house would have been further back towards those trees in the back.
This is the long driveway with poplars lining the road.  When we didn't have the big "Maple Leaf Farms Inc." sign.
This was "up the hill" where we cleared a lot of land there.  Sometimes I would go "up the hill" and spend the whole day there playing around and discovering all sorts of things. 
This was the land by Townshipline Road.  It wasn't nearly as manicured when we lived on the farm.
Mr. Baker is visible from Townshipline Road, entrance to the driveway. 
In August 1972, dad had sold the farm and we moved to an acreage on Gladwin Road.  At that point dad worked on a pig far and later worked at selling dairy farm supplies.  He also raised some heifers to sell.  It looks totally different now.  The acreage was bought and subdivided into smaller lots and houses built on these lots. 
The yard is not the same at all. 
This is a house where our garden and lawn used to be between our house and our neighbor's house.
Picture of the back of the house.  This area where I was standing used to be field when we lived here. 
 After living in the Gladwin Road house, my parents moved to Rainbow Ave.  I was in college by this time, so I wasn't there when mom and dad made the move.  I went to Dordt one semester in either my 2nd or 3rd year and when I came back, mom and dad had moved to this house. 
We didn't have the red door, that happened after we moved out.
Mom and dad came to a point where they were unable to manage the yard work and decided that they wanted to move to an apartment.  It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The place was called Mayfair Place.
They lived on the third floor, top floor.
Lots of balcony space.
This apartment was the last place mom and dad lived before they died.  I still remember one picture of mom and dad standing on this balcony waving as I left.  They both lived a full life with many good places.  God was central to their lives.  Certainly their life was not always easy, but I know they both looked forward to their heavenly home. 
This summer has been enjoyable being able to retrace the places where dad and mom lived when they moved to Canada.  It is interesting to "walk" in their steps as they moved from place to place.  God was faithful and walked with them every step of their way. 

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