PEARL NICHOLSON

Condolences & Memories (2 entries)

• Thank you so much Wayne for your wonderful tribute to Mum! She loved the farm life and "the family" as she referred to all of you. - Posted by: Lynda Forster (Daughter) on: Jan 16, 2016

• Aunt Pearl's passing brings back a flood of memories. The most treasured of which are of a small boy from a farm at Bemersyde Saskatchewan (2 grain elevators 1 general store) spending time in Winnipeg. At the time It seemed like the largest city in the world to me. I remember Aunt Pearl taking me downtown on the bus for the sole purpose of allowing me to ride the escalators at The Bay and Eatons for many hours. On other outings, we would get in the car and go to a new phenomenon, "the drive in restaurant", for french fries and root beer (something that far exceeded anything Bemersyde had to offer). Somewhere on the excursion as we drove down Portage Ave. Uncle Hoss would target a car where a young couple were snuggled up go each other (ahhhhh remember bench seats). He would role down his window and yell as loud as possible "lover boy". Of course this gained a horrified response from Aunt Pearl, insisting he should stop that immediately (which had an affect about 50% of the time) My favourite memory was a winter where my family & I lived with Uncle Hoss and Aunt Pearl in Winnipeg, while my father, Walter, supplemented income to help the Saskatchewan farm's bottom line. During that stay, Uncle Hoss & Dad built kitchen cupboards in the evening after working all day. I remember being annoyed because my bedtime coincided with their construction project start time and I was dying to drive some nails (still love to do that). On another occasion, we made a last minute decision to come to Winnipeg for Christmas and surprise Uncle Hoss and Aunt Pearl. I will never forget Aunt Pearl's face when she answered the door. It was one of the best Christmases I can recall. As a side note, the train trip we took at that time was on the branch line which ran through numerous whistle stops (we stopped at every one) including a town called Maryfield. Little did I know that I would end up going to high school there and as well meet my future wife (Penelope). Life can be funny that way. Uncle Hoss and Aunt Pearl made several trips to the farm and to Corning, Saskatchewan where her Mother and Father resided. One fall, Aunt Pearl decided to come out to the farm to help Dad with the harvest. I think I would have been 8 or 9 years of age that fall so too young to drive anything. Pearl's job was to drive the truck to the combine to unload the combine hopper. With the benefit of hind site Dad made the dubious decision to unload "on the fly". On our first attempt I was riding with Aunt Pearl and thought we were closing too slow on the combine so I yelled "gun her Aunty Pearl" which she did. As we surged forward, unfortunately we were too close to the combine and hit the combine auger with the truck box dinting to to the extent it was no longer functional. Aunt Pearl was devastated but my father showed his ingenuity and fixed the problem and we were once again harvesting with minimal down time. As bad as Pearl felt at the time, we had many good family laughs about the incident. My parents were always close to Uncle Hoss and Aunt Pearl and Lynda once she arrived on the scene. I will always remember Aunt Pearl as a loving, caring, and extremely strong woman. She will be forever missed. - Posted by: Wayne Dixon (Nephew) on: Jan 10, 2016