The Old Timers’ Association Banquet

In February 1930, the Turner Valley Old Timers’ Association held its first annual banquet at the Dalhousie Camp in the north end of Turner Valley. The event brought together some of the area’s most prominent early citizens, including Martin Hovis, Samuel G. Coultis and William H. Herron. The guests shared reminiscences of past times, praised the pioneers’ “undoubted faith in the Turner Valley oilfields” and celebrated their collective success in developing “what is now one of the most famous spots in the Dominion.”

Old timers’ associations were common throughout Alberta by the early 1930s, as communities celebrated their earliest generation of pioneers who were aging and passing on. Turner Valley’s celebration, however, took a distinct form that reflected the unique circumstances

of the region’s development. While most old timers’ associations praised the local pioneers of agricultural settlement and community development, Turner Valley’s focused entirely on the people involved in the oil and gas industry, assigning to banquet guests colourful nicknames such as “Crude Oil King,” “Boiler Buster,” “Arctic Driller,” and “Hot Gas.” The event was chaired by Royalite manager John H. Macleod and featured other senior members of the company’s management, illustrating the corporation’s central place in the community. The event firmly rooted Turner Valley’s past in the development of the oil and gas industry, and pointed to the great prospects of future prosperity; as the Observer noted of the banquet guests, “some of these men are millionaires” while others were “on the way to financial success.”

It is notable that the Old Timers’ Association banquet did not acknowledge the contributions of women as pioneers or their important role in early community development. The guest list for the event included thirty-five invitees, all of whom were men. A letter of regret from a married couple who could not attend is the only indication that wives may have been invited to accompany their husbands, but there is no other acknowledgment of their presence. Chairman John H. Macleod’s opening address (as reported by the local newspaper) made no mention of women, praising the “support of the men in the Turner Valley oilfields” and asserting that the region’s men “were the best to be found in the whole world.” The event programme, which included a speech by the local “Chicken Expert,” did not offer even a token acknowledgment of women’s contributions to the region’s prosperity.

At first glance, this oversight is not surprising. The event celebrated the history of the petroleum industry, and women did not work as drillers, roughnecks or corporate managers. Such a narrow focus, however, obscured the crucial roles played by women in the region’s development and denied their legitimate place as pioneers and community builders. Thus, guests heard a speech from Roy Widney, who reflected on his memories of the "old times" in Turner Valley, but they did not hear from his wife Irene, who was later identified in the region’s local history as Roy’s “bookkeeper, banker, and chief

advisor” who “worked faithfully by his side through all of those pioneer years.” Carl Ohlson was invited to participate but not his wife Catherine, who had first arrived in the valley as a schoolteacher in 1910— well in advance of most of the men being honoured as "old-timers" at the banquet —and whose subsequent work as a midwife was essential to the well-being of expectant mothers in the Black Diamond area. Ed Andrews delivered a speech praising the importance of steam power, but nothing was heard from his wife Florence, who could have spoken about her experience with entrepreneurship— she was one of Turner Valley’s early business owners, opening a clothing and dry goods store on the village’s main street in the 1920s.

The Old Timers’ Association banquet thus offers a fascinating window into how the area’s most prominent citizens viewed their community at a crucially important moment in the region’s history. The atmosphere and tone of the event reflected the optimism of the petroleum boom and the expectation that the economic prosperity of the late 1920s would continue into the next decade. At the same time, it also illustrated the extent to which the experiences of women did not fit comfortably into the prevailing narratives of the region’s development. The petroleum industry was overwhelmingly dominated by men, who were publicly celebrated as pioneers. Women’s contributions were usually unacknowledged but were nevertheless essential to community growth and development.