I was climbing the high, wide steps in front of the rural Salem Mennonite Church, southeast of Tofield, Alberta, probably in the late summer of 1963. I learned later that those stairs were rarely used, mainly for weddings or funerals. The two lower side doors—one side for the men and boys, the other side for the women, small children and girls—were the ones used regularly by church members.
But I was a first-time visitor, unaware of those practices. I was arriving, you could say, on an exploratory mission. It was several weeks after a blind date with Grace, a young woman from the church. It had been arranged by my sister Alice who at the time was a registered nurse at the Tofield Hospital. Grace was a nurses’ aide that Alice had become friends with and liked.
I reached the top of the stairs and opened the door.
The first person to meet me was an older man. He walked toward me and looked at me closely.
“Wa-wa-wa-what are you doing here?” he asked loudly.
The man had a speech impediment: he stammered, and he had a high-pitched, raspy voice.
I was taken aback. I struggled for a suitable response.
“Just visiting,” I stammered back, “Just visiting.”
“John Zook’s the name,” he replied strongly, extending his hand. “Wa-wa-wa-what’s yours, and wh-wh-where do you live?”
That was my introduction to John Zook. No one else at the Salem Mennonite Church, as I eventually got to know them all, had such a similar, forward attitude.
We developed a strong friendship and he soon became a special friend to me as I began to attend the church regularly. I met, then courted, and eventually married Grace’s sister, Inez Kauffman.
John was a widower who lived on his own in a small house close to Dodds, which was even smaller than a hamlet: just one elevator and a few houses beside a later-abandoned railroad branch line between Ryley and a few other small points like Dodds enroute to Camrose.
The next major event in our friendship came a few years after Inez and I were married in 1965. In July 1966, our son Dale was born. Our daughter Joyce was born in September 1968. That’s really when the following story began.
Inez was in the Tofield Hospital after having Joyce and recovering, about a week-long stay at that time. Dale was staying with his grandparents, my mother and dad, at their farm seven miles from ours. I was batching.
I went to church by myself on a Sunday evening. Salem, and most other churches at that time, had both Sunday morning and Sunday evening services.
John Zook was there, aware of the reason I was there by myself. He invited me to his house after the service for tea and a snack. He also invited Joe Lehman. Joe was a widower like John. I think he may have lived on the Lehman farm with his son and family—perhaps he lived in Ryley, I can’t recall.
John Zook, Joe Lehman and I were together in John’s house. They were both 45 or more years older than I was.
John Zook loved to sing. He wanted the three of us to sing songs, a cappella, from a hymnal he had in his house.
John had a wild, untamed voice that ranged from low to high, occasionally on key, but he sang with fervour, enthusiasm and volume. John did not stutter when he sang.
Joe sang on key, more quietly, restrained, subdued. I was somewhere between Joe and John.
It was a highly unusual trio, but a memorable event.
Then we enjoyed tea and a piece of pie that John said had been made by his daughter-in-law. We visited.
Somewhere in the conversation the subject of mules came up. John was knowledgeable and even experienced with mules from a long-ago, former life as a young man in Iowa or Nebraska.
I mentioned that there was a fellow not too far from our farm at Bruce who had mules and raised mules. The mules John remembered were draft mules. My friend Louie Holden’s mules were small—Welsh or Shetland pony mares bred to a donkey stallion.
The resulting small mule offspring were strangely coloured or mottled, some with stripes of white on their bodies or legs, but not the normal pinto markings of their mothers. I mentioned this during our conversation.
“I’ve never seen a spotted mule,” he exclaimed. “Never in my life have I seen a spotted mule. I don’t believe you could have a spotted mule.”
I assured him that the fellow at Bruce had spotted mules, and someday I’d show him.
“I want to see them!” exclaimed John again. “I want to see those mules.”
Inez and Joyce came home from the hospital, Dale came home from Mom and Dad’s, and not long after that, winter came to Alberta.
On a regular basis on Sundays, John asked me when we were going to see the mules, the spotted mules.
Inez often invited church people for Sunday dinner. A trip to visit Louie’s mules with John and other company didn’t seem to fit.
It was decided we’d have John, on his own, come on a nice winter Sunday.
Arrangements were made; the Sunday came. It was a cold, pleasant, sunny winter day.
John came home with us after church and we ate another fine Sunday dinner that Inez had prepared.
Right after dinner, because it was winter and the days were short, John and I drove to Louie’s farm north and east of Bruce, about 12 miles from our farm.
We drove into Louie’s yard and parked the truck. It was a large sprawling yard with a very small cream-coloured house—did I mention that Louis was a bachelor? It had a well-built, cream-coloured, mid-sized barn, a few other outbuildings and wooden granaries scattered here and there. There were animals, horses or mules in pens and corrals behind the barn.
No one was around. Then we heard a loud “HELLO!” coming from behind some bare poplar trees. Sleigh runner, horse and human tracks in the snow led between the trees to the area where the shouting was coming from. We walked through the snow following the tracks.
A bobsleigh with a wooden grain box had been backed up to the open door of the wooden granary. The front of the sleigh had a neck-yoke, pole and double-tree for a team of horses. I wondered how someone with a bobsleigh pulled by a team of horses could back it up perfectly, squarely to a granary door.
A man was standing in the door of the granary, leaning on a grain shovel. It was Louie. He was shovelling oats from the granary onto the grain box on the bobsleigh, feed for his horses and mules.
Louie recognized me, nodded, smiled as we got closer. He was looking at John to see if he knew him too.
I was thinking how I’d make the introduction, but John spoke first, loudly.
“Ya-ya-ya-you work on Sundaayy?” he called.
Louie was surprised, taken aback, just as I had been when I first met John.
Louie recovered in a second or two.
“Yes, yes I do,” he replied to the stranger. “I work on Sunday.” He paused, “But I rest the other six days!”
Well, John absorbed that for a second or two, then roared with laughter, slapping his knee.
They became immediate friends.
Soon, Louie was showing us his barn as we walked to the pens and corrals with horses and mules.
The walls of Louie’s unique barn were made of used railroad ties standing upright side by side. They were all from Torlea, south of Louie’s farm. On the outside of the ties was a horizontal layer of drop-siding that covered the ties and held them all together. It made strong, insulated walls. The barn was painted an attractive cream colour, the same as the house.
Pillars of railroad ties supported the full-sized hayloft and the gambrel or hip roof.
It was a remarkable, unique building. It would have taken days of back-breaking work to load, haul and place several hundred railroad ties into perfect position and create Louie’s sturdy barn.
John was impressed, and marvelled as he examined the careful construction and design. He commended Louie on his “wonderful barn.”
Soon we were looking at pens of small horses and mules of various sizes and a multitude of colours. John was excited, as gleeful as a child as he patted and stroked and talked to them. They were quiet and gentle. He was enjoying himself immensely.
Louie showed us his donkey stud, a small, rather ordinary, very donkey-looking animal. It was entirely greyish-brown, the regular donkey colour.
“But how can his foals be so different in colour?” John asked. “All the mules I ever knew were solid-coloured, large bay mules, with absolutely no white markings.”
Louie knew a lot about mules.
“That’s because the mares were all draft mares, solid-coloured, most likely black Percheron mares, bred to a large, ‘giant jack’ donkey sire. The offspring were solid-coloured brown mules with a black mane and tail, all of them. That made it more easy to match them up as teams, the same colour, size and confirmation. Those were the good-looking teams of mules that you remember.”
John pondered Louie’s remarks and nodded. He gazed lovingly at the little pint-sized animals.
It had been a thrilling, interesting and pleasant afternoon for John. It had been the same for Louie and me.
As we drove back to our farm, John didn’t stop talking about all that he had seen.
John stayed in the house with Inez, Dale and the baby while I did the chores. We had a light supper together before I drove him the 25-or-so miles west to his house. He thanked me for a very nice day.
When I got home, Inez showed me her guest book. All the people Inez had for Sunday dinner always signed her guest book; some added a comment or two.
The last entry had the date, and the writing that followed was beautiful, classical handwriting, like someone who had taken a calligraphy course had written it.
It said:
We had a very nice dinner, then the men went 2 see the mules.
Thank you.
John Zook.