"Ode to Annie".....Recollections of Maude Bannister living at the Bow Valley Ranche

Maude Bannister's eyes sparkle like sunbeams reflecting off the nearby creek when she talks of her mother, Annie. "She had beautiful auburn hair - it was almost a bronze color - with beautiful green eyes, flecked with brown," says Bannister. "My mother was a wonderful rider. Oh, she loved to ride and we had a beautiful black horse that Mr. (Pat) Burns gave to her. And she loved to dance, she was a beautiful dancer."

Bannister is sitting in a sunny corner of Annie's Bakery Cafe, named for her mother, who was the wife of Billy Bannister, foreman of the historic Bow Valley Ranche. Annie's Bakery Cafe, a new spot for coffee and light meals, opened just a few weeks ago in the old ranch house nestled in the Fish Creek Valley where Maude Bannister spent a good part of her early childhood.

Today, behind the broken windows and beneath the sculpted wall-to-wall carpet, there are glimpses of those heady years. Wandering the former parlor and dining rooms that flank the central staircase, Maude Bannister remembers the house she was born in back in 1900. "I was born here in the Hull house," says Maude, describing the small room up the back stairs where Billy and Annie Bannister first lived with their young family after their marriage in 1899. Billy and Annie had three children, including the eldest Maude, and were expecting a fourth when a new bungalow was moved to a spot west of the main house, by then owner Patrick Burns. "I was three or four when we left the big house," says Maude. "Mr. Burns decided the family was growing too big and he brought this house in." The foreman's house, moved to the property in 1905 from the M. Patterson ranch at Bayfield, is changed only slightly from those times, despite its new life as a café. Inside the front door is the old parlor where Maude remembers dark green velvet draperies encircling a space where children were not allowed. "Every room had (wall)paper and in the parlor where we weren't supposed to go, I remember a mass of green velvet," she says. "We had quite a collection of really nice dolls that people use to bring to us, but we weren't allowed to play with them. They were displayed in the parlor, on those curtains."

Her father, Billy Bannister, was the ranch foreman, first hired by Hull in 1886. He remained at the helm of the ranch after Burns purchased the property in 1902. Billy, who left his home in Collingwood, Ont. at the age of 15, was 34 when he married Annie Louise Birney a 19-year-old woman whose family lived on a farm near what is now MacLeod Trail and Heritage Drive. "He became a very good cattle man, with a reputation for being honest," says Maude. "He used to take cattle back and forth along MacLeod Trail and at that time my mother lived at Heritage station. That's where they used to stop, for a drink of water or whatever, They married in 1899."

One of the other ranch employees was Yuen Chow, or Charlie Yuen, the Chinese cook, gardener and caretaker who kept the house and fed the ranch hands there for more than 50 years. Charlie cooked for Annie and her family when the Bannisters lived in the main house, and planted the ranch's large vegetable and pretty perennial gardens. He kept the house a showpiece for visitors and was always in the kitchen, as comfortable cooking for dignitaries as he was for the ranch hands. Still, Charlie stayed on as cook and gardener. Even after the Bannisters moved to Inglewood in 1910 when Billy took a new job as head of the Burns stockyards. Annie often brought her children out to visit their friend, the Chinese cook. "She used to bring us all out for a piece of his pie - we always looked forward to Charlie's pie," says Maude, remembering the gazebo down by the deep swimming hole on the creek's edge, where they came for summer picnics. "Whenever he returned from trips to China, he would bring my mother bolts of silk. We had a beautiful silk table cloth in the parlor, with tassels all around, from Charlie."

One of the few original items left in the ranch house is a dining table, constructed by Billy Bannister, presumably with design help from Charlie. Like the tables common in Chinese restaurants, with a rotating central area, Bannister built the legendary round table, where ranch hands passed the pickles and roast beef by spinning the wagon wheel at its centre. "My dad built this but he must have got the idea from Charlie," says Maude, fingering the table's rough edges. "When we came out to visit Charlie, we always sat around this table."

The Bow Valley Ranche comprised of ten thousand acres. The Burns Company, or P Burns Ranches as it was known later, owned a frontage of 12 miles of the Bow River extending down river from the Captain Gordon place, now Burn's Feedlot. This Bow Valley was the sorting point for thousands and thousands of cattle. The big cattle ranches of the south such as Maunsell's, 7-U Browns Cartwright & Thorp's, Ings, and others sold their cattle directly to Mr. Burns at his Calgary office. He would send one of his managers. They would be required to go down to Nanton, MacLeod or wherever the shipping point, look over the stock and see about getting them shipped. Nearly all the cattle came to Midnapore first. A Mr. Willans had to supervise getting them unloaded if they came by rail. Those from closer were trailed right to the Bow Valley. The Farm was really a ranch. It was the clearing point for cattle from the Q Ranch at Kew, and the Milk River Ranch which he owned.

So the herds would come in and the sorting would begin. There were huge corrals just west of the buildings and there was a weigh scale there. These scales would weigh about 5 or 6 animals at a time. Raymond was sent down to help. There happened to be two hefty men swinging on the gate and Mr. Burns was there too. He said you get those guys off those gates. I don't mind you paying by the pound for the cattle, but tow guys are making the cattle pretty hefty. He was a very sharp old fellow. When these cattle arrived, some were kept at the Bow Valley Farm and fed, only to be sent in as needed. There was no grain feeding on ranches, just good old prairie hay. No steers under three years were killed for beef, and many were three to fives years old. The stocker steers were divided into bunches of varying sizes and put out on straw piles around the country, some as far south as Okotoks.

The first manager at Bow Valley was Billy Bannister. He eventually went into Burns Plant to work. Mr. Willans was manager until 1918 and Ed Hoschka until 1950. Lee Alwood was manager from 1950 to 1953. Mr. Burns always referred to Bow Valley as the Government Farm because the government survey crew and horses were kept and wintered there when they first surveyed the country.

Raymond can remember threshing at the north bank of Fish Creek, Lacombe Home afterwards. Hauling grain to the Home, unloading at one of the buildings outback. The Father from the Home used to come over to the threshing outfit and stay all day. He'd stay for lunch. One time when Raymond had to go into town for gas, he told the Priest he would have to fill up the truck with gas. The Priest said he would go along.

Raymond says he always had to move the bulls. One time he was sent out to Maloney Flats or Moccasin Flats east of the Bow River, riding a Bay horse owned by C.J. Duggan (Burns partner at the time) with a huge Hereford bull in tow. It was halter broken. Sometimes I was pulling him and sometimes he was pulling me. I would tie solid to the horn of the saddle and then he would take off. That was quite an experience. The older fellows never got these jobs. They either knew better or were never around when these bulls were to be moved. Moccasin Flats is Douglas Dale Estates now. The Maloney Flats or Moccasin Flats, east side of the Bow River, was farmed from the Feedlot. A six-horse team was sent over to seed a green feed crop. Bob Cruickshank, Jim Laverty, Bill Wright and Raymond Clifford were the ones sent to farm this land. Bob Cruickshank was a Scotsman. A very big man. He was a gunner in World War I. They would ride one horse and whip the other, making them run right to the front line. There were six horses on these outfits. The training in England was really tough. If you fell off the next outfit would run over you.

There was a farm hand or teamster by the name of George. One of his jobs everyday was to take a wagon load of oats into the Burns Plant from Bow Valley. After the delivery, he would go to the Shamrock Hotel and get loaded. He would start home with a team and empty wagon. The road was very rough with deep ruts. As he went along the wagon would tip this way and that but he would always sit very straight, no matter the level of the wagon.

One fall, Raymond was sent down to Bow Valley to help cut the crop with other farm help, a team and binder. Bob Foster had also been sent to the Bow Valley from the Ricardo Ranch as a farm hand. He decided he would teach these young fellows how to cut the crop in a hurry. Foster went ahead on the lead. These young men pushed their teams for all they were worth all day long. Foster had to admit he was beat and gave up. At that time there were 15 binders in the field. Four horses on each binder. Later Bob Foster was sent to the CK Ranch as manager. One time when Raymond was chauffeur for Mr. Burns, he drove Mr. Burns to the CK Ranch. Bob Foster was entertaining some ladies for tea. They were sitting on the front porch. Mr. Burns met them and said isn't it nice Bob has such nice neighbors!

Mr. Burns pretty well ran the Bow Valley himself with the help of the foreman, Ed Hoschka and hired help. Mr. Burns donated the land the Lacombe Home sits on. When Raymond was Mr. Burns's chauffeur he said Raymond, I am going to take you to the Grande Theatre to see the Dumbells. They were men dressed as women. Live Theatre from London, England. Mr. Burns liked Raymond and thought he would enjoy the Theatre. Pat Burns had a lot of good men. Some could handle the cattle and some could farm and put up the hay and all around handy men that would do anything to keep working. All these men had great respect for P.B. as some would call him.

The McGuiness Place was part of Bow Valley farming on a big scale. We called it "the big field". It consisted of a five-roomed house and out buildings. Later the Board of Directors added a lovely barn and pig barns and colony houses for the growing pigs. This area is now Midnapore Mall and extends into Sundance, a huge building development. The names of these different places were named after the previous owners. The Glenn Place was the farming part of Bow Valley and is part of Canyon Meadows now, on the north side of Fish Creek bridge at McLeod Trail. There was a railway spur track right where they are developing today and all the manure from the stock yards were loaded on flat bed cars and taken out on this spur line and dumped. It is not many years ago when the spur trails were removed to make room for the highway.