Food and water delivery.
Paula E. Kirman
In a time period when food security was often precarious, many families who lived in Jasper Place, before it became part of Edmonton, relied on delivery services to meet their nutritional needs. Here are some memories.
Colleen: My mom got eggs from the egg man, and chickens and turkeys from another fellow who came round.
Paul: We lived at 9524 156 Street. Mom bought pheasant eggs from a lady who had a farm near where the zoo is today. She also bought honey from a Mrs. McCrumb who lived on the hill just above Whitemud creek on the south side of the creek.
Linda: I do remember a big wood wagon rolling down 93 Avenue in front of our house filled with farm vegetables and I think some fruit as well. I know it had come from a farm but I can’t remember if it was a truck with a big bed on the back or if it was really a wagon or cart pulled behind. But I’ll never forget seeing all those vegetables. And not one of them was in a can! I also remember the Hutterites coming into Meadowlark in the early ‘60s with their chickens and selling them door-to-door. My strongest memory of that is one year when they were the toughest bird ever and it seemed like everyone’s mom had bought one.
Chrystia Chomiak, in an interview with the Jasper Place Community History Project (JPCHP) recalls: Specifically, my mother was a huge lover of fish, and she could prepare all kinds of different ones. Where we got our fish from, it was from the Métis people that would come around, Métis fishermen, and she would buy them from them. We were a household that the Mennonites would come to, either First Nations or Métis people with fish, with whitefish particularly. She also liked jackfish.
In addition to meat, eggs, and vegetables, many people used delivery services to get dairy products. There were a number of local dairies that served the area, such as Star Dairy and Jasper Dairy. Star Dairy’s large dairy barn was located on the northwest corner of Arthur Elliot Park, where the West Jasper Sherwood Community League is now located (9620 152 Street). Operated by the Visser family in the early ‘30s, the barn was demolished in the ‘50s after dairy operations ceased in the ‘40s, and the barn appears to have been demolished in the 1950s1.
As well, there were numerous dairies in Edmonton at the time, and their delivery boundaries were not neighbourhood specific. This was advantageous if a family had a preference for a specific dairy2.
Donna: We had milk delivery and ice delivery in a horse-drawn wagon. Later, I had bread delivery as well. Jasper Place Bakery. As an aside, my sister married her milkman.
Heather: We had milk delivery from Nu-Maid Dairy and also baked goods from Hollandia Bakery. The only food delivery I recall was Chicken on the Way.
Shirley: We had milk delivery from Silverwoods and bread delivery from Sunrise Bakery.
Norman: Not sure this counts, but in the early 60’s my folks got an annual shipment of Chinese stuff from a company in Vancouver. Think it was shipped by rail. Now stuff like pomelos, dried chinese mushrooms, dried noodles, oyster sauce etc. are available in any supermarket.
Rick: Chicken on the Way. They cooked the chicken in a vehicle set up to cook outside at the curb.
Karen: We had milk delivery from Silverwoods Dairy.
Val: Milk from Silverwoods (my Dad worked there). Thought we were very posh getting Chicken on the Way cooked in front of our house.
Carl: We had milk, cheese, butter. It was delivered by Jasper Dairy. The first I remember it was delivered by a Divco truck. Wagons were before my time but I remember riding in the truck in the summer because my father was the milkman. When Jasper Dairy closed its doors my father went to NADP [Northern Alberta Dairy Pool], delivering and for a short time he was a supervisor, I think.
Calvin: Another thing you may want to make note of is that the milkman, bread man etc. all wore company uniforms. This was not just a food delivery thing though. Gas and electric meter readers and service station attendants also wore uniforms.
In addition to food, water is also vital to proper health. Jasper Place did not have its own water and sewer systems until the late ‘50s. Until that happened, a water truck filled up in the City of Edmonton at Terminal Store on the corner of 149th Street and delivered water to Jasper Place. As for bathroom facilities, homes had outhouses.
Linda: I remember milk and bread. We also had water delivery before indoor plumbing.
Donna: We had water delivery too. Our water was stored in a cistern in the basement (well, dugout). We used to joke that we had running water because the pump always seemed to leak and the water would run down the hall.
Barrie Touchings told the JPCHP in an interview: The house had been built in ’47; it was a couple of years old. It was small; I’m guessing 600 or 700 sq. ft. It had two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. There was a kitchen table where we ate our meals, and that was it. The basement was a bit of a dugout, and that’s where we had our water barrels. Once a week they would come along and fill these, I think it was two, maybe three, 45-gallon barrels. We had a pump; we’d pump the water from these barrels for our consumption. No bathroom; it was an outdoor toilet. For bathing, we had a tin tub. That was it. We did have electricity. No phone; we didn’t get phones until mid-‘50s, and when we got a phone, it was a party line, three people on a line.
Ken Newman was also interviewed by JPCHP: We lived in a small house, a little white house on the property, that really consisted, I think, of two bedrooms and one large room which consisted of the living room and the kitchen area, which was separated by a curtain that we pulled back and forth. There was a porch at the back end that contained a great big water barrel that would get filled up by the Davis water truck. This was a big truck – what would be classified as a three-ton truck – with a large wooden barrel on the back, that serviced the west end of Edmonton, or Jasper Place. He would come every so often – I can’t remember what the frequency was – but he’d fill up our large barrel inside the porch. That was where we got our water from. We didn’t have plumbing in the place; we had an outhouse. That was quite normal for all the properties along that area of 156th Street.
Bakeries also played a role (or, “roll”) to families in Jasper Place. Large families often couldn’t afford to buy bread, so they had to bake it at home. Those who could afford it had bread and pastries delivered, or visited bakeries in-person. These bakeries included:
Ardyth Bake Shop, which was located at 15124 Stony Plain Road according to the Henderson’s directory for 1950 and 1951. However, after 1952 Art Cleaners is listed at that address, and Ardyth never appeared in any future Henderson’s.
Jasper Place Bakery was listed in Henderson’s at 15223 Stony Plain Road from 1952, with owners Martin and Hilda de Jong living at the same address. By 1960, the address was vacant.
JP Sunrise Bakery started out at 10118 149th Street in the early ‘60s, then moved to 15627 112th Avenue in 1978 after the City decided to widen 149th Street3. Sunrise Bakery is still in business but is now on the north side of Edmonton at 14728 119th Avenue.
Hollandia’s Bakery was listed in 1955 in the Jasper Place Directory as one of two bakeries in the area (along with Jasper Place Bakery), and in the 1956 Henderson’s as being located at 15716 100th Avenue. By 1960, it was located at 10126 95th Street and in 1963 was owned by Klaas and Henry Lindemulder. The bakery offered free delivery.
Bon Ton Bakery opened in 1956 by Holocaust survivors Eugene and Judy Edelmann and still exists under different ownership at 8720 149th Street. It is still known for its pastries and variety of breads.
Notes and References
*Unless otherwise specified, quotes are from responses to questions posted in the Facebook group “I Lived In Jasper Place Before It Became Part of Edmonton.” Only first names are being used. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
1“Visser Residence,” in Donald Luxton and Associates Inc. and The City of Edmonton, Jasper Place Historic Resources Inventory, City of Edmonton: February 2019, pp. 88-91.
2“City Dairies Against Set Milk Routes,” Edmonton Journal, Nov. 12, 1963, p. 25.
3“Land bought for road project,” Edmonton Journal, Dec. 5, 1977, p. 24.
Paula E. Kirman is a freelance writer who grew up, and still lives, near the Jasper Place area.
[This post is an expanded version of an article that appeared in Summer 2024’s SPANN]
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