Ken (Bud) Newman was raised and attended school in the Town of Jasper Place in the 1950s and 1960s. Both of his parents had grown up in southeastern Alberta, and then settled in Edmonton. His father, who served in World War II, received Veteran funds after the war and, with them, bought 20 acres of land at 10760 156th Street in 1946. This would have been, at the time, part of the M.D. of Spruce Grove. The family lived there until he was 9 years old.
In video clip #1, Ken (Bud) Newman talks about having “a fantastic opportunity to grow up on a farm essentially right on the edge of the city.” He describes their house and property, the animals that they had, including two cows, chickens and dogs, water delivery, and the farm and garden products they were able to produce and consume.
In 1956, the family was offered an opportunity to move from 156th Street to a new house in the Glenwood neighbourhood:
…the property [on 156th] was sold because developers had come and it was going to be developed. My parents in the negotiations ended up being able to afford a new house, a split level three-bedroom at 9602 – 163 Street, which also bordered on the edge of the city at that time, or the edge of the town. So I still had farmers’ fields behind me on 163rd Street. …. When we moved, part of the deal – I’m not sure exactly how the deal evolved with the developers – but the sale price of the house and dealing with the land developer resulted in a new house for us, and probably some other monies, I’m not sure exactly. So it was a three-bedroom, fully-modern house, which is there today. But at the time, as I say, there was a road going out to a farmer’s field, and we used to go out there and catch gophers.
This house on 163rd Street is considered of historical significance in the development of the Town of Jasper Place and is described in Jasper Place Historic Resources Inventory1.
The five schools that Ken (Bud) Newman attended include: Canora for grades 1 to 5, Glendale in grade 6, Meadowlark for grades 7 and 82, Lynnwood in grade 9, and finally, the newly constructed Jasper Place Composite High School in Fall 1961, where he was in the first cohort to graduate. In videoclip #2, he describes the JPCHS, the system of streaming, his activities while going there, and some of his teachers, such as Ed Dale, and classmates such as Barrie Touchings, who are mentioned elsewhere on this site.
Ken (Bud) Newman is the son of the second and last mayor of the Town of Jasper Place (3), Kenneth Gordon Newman, who served from 1957 to 1964, after which the Town was annexed by the City of Edmonton. In video clip #3, he walks us through his father’s rise from being a janitor at Canora School to being mayor of the Town of Jasper Place, and on to his role as a City of Edmonton alderman for 19 years after amalgamation. He also mentions other jobs and activities his father had as well as his interest in boxing and how he was successful in bringing Muhammed Ali to Edmonton. In 1987, a park was named after Ken G. Newman, and is situated in the High Park neighbourhood.
Bud Newman also shares a story about his father taking him and his sister to school in the throes of winter in the early 1950s:
“[F]rom where we lived on 156th Street, it wasn’t too far really to school. Dad would walk to school and I guess Sharon and I would walk in the summertime. But when the snow came and it got really cold, like minus 30 or so degrees, dad would take Sharon and I on a sleigh to school, but he’d put a cardboard box over us. He’d tow this cardboard box on the sleigh to school so we wouldn’t freeze. So that was a unique experience that I can still remember.”
Ken (Bud) Newman mentions that his father was a great storyteller, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Throughout the interview, we hear stories of his adventures as a boy, about the neighbours around 156th Street and the places he went to in Jasper Place; being in Air Cadets at the Jasper Place Composite High School, learning to fly a plane, and then crashing one; his luck at university in studying a particular computer program, which led to his career path, and the places he worked and lived. He puts a spotlight on the neighbours and friends that he had throughout his years in Jasper Place saying, “We were such a blend in the whole community,” and finishes by talking about a particular friend, Gordon de Jong, who he met in Air Cadets and who became a Snowbird.
References
1Donald Luxton and Associates Inc. and The City of Edmonton, “Newman Residence,” Jasper Place Historic Resources Inventory, published by the City of Edmonton, February 2019, pp. 140-143. The .pdf version is available here, courtesy of the City of Edmonton.
2“Jasper Place Ceremony: $210,000 Public School Opened [Meadowlark],” Edmonton Journal, Sep 27, 1958, p. 8.
3The City of Edmonton Archives has published an audio interview from 1982 of Kenneth Gordon Newman in From the Vaults: Audio from Edmonton’s Past.
