Crop damage, car crashes, inspection impostors, and the threat of smallpox kept everyone on their toes in Yorkton as the dog days of summer came to a close 55 years ago.
During the week of August 22, 1962, farmers were getting ready for the annual harvest. While it’s always a Herculean task no matter what year it is, this week conspired to make it harder than usual.
A storm bombarded Yorkton with hail and rain. Farmers and assessors were still trying to determine how much damage had been done to the crops as the Yorkton paper went to press.
The storm had traveled from the Manitoba border to Willowbrook, pulverizing everything in between. Some areas reported one hundred per cent crop damage.
Despite the losses, grain elevators were still preparing for the harvest. In fact, a new grain elevator was being built. Its construction would be completed in four weeks. It cost $60,000 (over $400,000 in today’s money) to build and it would hold 70,000 bushels.
Health was another concern this week. The parents of James W. Orr, a child with a confirmed case of smallpox, traveled through Melville on a train from Toronto. Orr contracted smallpox during a trip to Brazil.
All passengers on the train who got off at Melville were encouraged to contact the local public health nurse.
The nurse might have had more to deal with than she could handle. The Yorkton-Melville health region board meeting expressed concern that the district was experiencing a severe shortage of nurses. The board meeting passed a resolution to ask the department of public health and the civil service commission to recruit nurses.
Luckily for Keith Dickson, he didn’t need a nurse. The truck driver from Moose Jaw walked away from a blazing tank-trailer after it crashed into a ditch north of Yorkton.
The Saskatchewan Power Corporation (SPC) warned clients about impostor inspecters. A few disreputable people in the Yorkton-Melville district had posed as power inspecters and had charged bogus “inspecters’ fees.” One pensioner was charged $10 for phony “repairs.” SPC advised clients to ask inspecters for proper identification.
In lighter news, the Yorkton Juvenile Phillies beat the Melville Juveniles in two straight games of baseball. Their victories qualified them to represent the South East zone in the Saskatchewan Juvenile Baseball Championships in Moose Jaw.
