Edith (Pendle) Niddrie

Sundre

1896-1980

Description

Life and Work

Edith Pendle was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1896, the fifth child of a family of eight. Her parents were Charles and Amelia (Kelf) Pendle. In 1904, the father and eldest son, Walter, sailed for Canada where they found employment in a flax mill in Ontario. A kind employer lent them passage money to bring the rest of the family to Canada. As one of the children was ill at the time of departure, the doctor advised Mrs. Pendle to delay their embarkment until he recovered. Imagine their surprise when arriving in Canada they learned that the ship, presumably the Titanic, there were to have sailed on had struck an iceberg and sank!

About 1912, the family moved to Alberta, stopping for a while in Lethbridge before moving to Sundre. Their final home was the Eagle Valley district on a quarter knowns as the Neilson place, the NW1/4 34-33-4-W5. The Eagle Valley district is approximately 30km west of Olds and about 8km north.

On December 9, 1914, Edith married Frederick James Niddrie, their third son (born 1890) of William and Hanna Niddrie. The Niddries were a pioneer family, also from Great Britain, who emigrated to Canada about 1883, first to Winnipeg, then to Morley, and finally to the Eagle Valley District. The land in Eagle Valley in1891 was not yet surveyed so William Niddrie, in company with two other families from Banff who settled nearby, squatted on a lovely flat near the Red Deer River beside a creek that provided a constant supply of water for the livestock and the home.

Mr. and Mrs. Fred Niddrie lived on several locations in Eagle Valley before settling on the SE1/4 29-33-4-W5, part of the school section. This was a raw quarter so the couple had to build a house as well as barns and other buildings, which took time. Land had to be cleared and fields prepared, a great deal of work. Edith was an ideal helpmate for her husband.

By this time three daughters had been born: Eleanor in 1916, Helen in 1920, and Mildred in 1923. The children attended the Eagle Valley school, a distance of two miles. Riding horseback was their mode of transportation to school.

Edith Niddrie certainly did her share to support the farm. She raised chickens and turkeys. The incubator was set up in the living room of the house in early spring. A kerosene lamp provide the heat for hatching the eggs. They required meticulous care as the temperature had to be kept at 98F. The lamp had to be durned down on warm days and turned up on cold days. Each day the eggs had to taken out, turned, and cooled. It was Edith who tended this exacting work. Turkeys were butchered each fall for the Christmas market and the money used to buy essentials and new clothes for the girls' ever important school concert.

Besides raising poultry, Edith assisted with all the farm chores: feeding pigs, milking cows, and caring for the milk and cream. Cream was shipped to the creameries in Sundre and Olds.

Edith was a resourceful housewife. Flour sacks were made into a great variety of items: dish towels, pillow cases, aprons, shirts, dresses, bed sheets, ticks for straw beds, and much much more. The flour sack material was sometimes made pretty with the use of dyes.

Not only did Edith fulfill her role as a farmwife and homemaker, she was involved in community affairs as well. She always attended the school picnics in June, summer community picnics, the school Christmas concerts, and other social functions. Perhaps, though, her main contribution consisted of supporting her husband as he was very active in community and public affairs.

In 1938, Fred became councilor for the Municipal District of Westerdale; in 1946, chairman of the Olds Municipal Hospital board; in 1948, vice-president of the Central Municipal Association; and in 1950 he became MLA on the Social Credit ticket. With her husband involved in so many public activities, Edith truly demonstrated her dedication to helper her husband. She was happy to serve a cup of coffee and a sweet goodie to the many people who came on official business, and willingly took care of the farm while he was away at the legislature in Edmonton or occupied with other public business.

Edith Niddrie was a charter member of the Eagle Valley Women's Institute, organized in 1935. Although she seldom held an office on the executive, she was very active with the projects of the Institute, especially in sewing and knitting.

She had a lovely soprano voice and when she was a young lady she was a member of the church choir while the family lived in Lethbridge. She was often called upon to sing at Christmas concerts and other social functions in Eagle Valley.

Upon her husband's death in 1958, she remained living in the farm home, by now one-half mile south of the first home they built in 1921. She remained in excellent health for many years. She kept her flower garden, visited her children and grand-children, and was very busy making Unitarian quilts. She commenced this activity after the death of her husband. She made literally hundreds of crib quilts for the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada. Some were sent through the Eagle Valley Women's Institute but many she sent directly to the Unitarian Service in Calgary with family members or neighbors.

She also knitted many garments for the servicemen overseas during the Second Great War.

During her lifetime, Edith Niddrie witnessed many changes to the rural lifestyle: the change from wood to natural gas for heating and cooking, coal oil to electric power for lights, from horse transportation to the comfortable and speedy automobile for the necessary going and coming of our lives.

The Saturday night hockey games -- Hockey Night in Canada -- was one of her favourite pastimes, first listening to the radio and later watching television. In fact, skating was a joy; she was a very good skater and taught her granddaughters, Lynne and Jeanette Henry, to skate on nearby Eagle Creek.

Another program she always listened to was the Back to the Bible hour. with a Christian upbringing , she tuned into this inspirational program for many years.

A memorable occasion was the opening of the new Sundre bridge in 1959. While MLA, Fred Niddrie influenced the Alberta government to construct a modern, two-lane bridge over the Red Deer River. Acting on behalf of her late husband, Mrs. Niddrie cut the ribbon at the opening ceremonies with Hon. Gordon Taylor and with a large crowd in attendance.

Likewise, she officiated on several functions of the Olds Municipal Hospital board as her husband had been its chariman for a time.

Edith Niddrie died on March 23, 1980 at the age of 84 years, and is buried in the Eagle Valley cemetery.

Memoirs

When the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada needed warm bedding for displaced people throughout the world, Edith Niddrie took up her needle.

She would cut sewing scraps and stitch them into swatches of colour, with flannelette on the back. She made crib quilts, which were easy to fabricate on her kitchen tabletop. Hundreds of cold and homeless children slept under Edith's needlework.

Along with this, Edith Niddrie balanced the demands of the farm and her husband's public life as the Social Credit MLA for Olds-Didsbury. She was a member of Eagle Valley Women's Institute.

But she took time to listen to Hockey Night in Canada and the Back to the Bible Hour on the radio. She loved to sing at Christmas concerts.

With the death of her husband in 1958, she maintained the farm home and continued her service to the community until her death on March 23, 1980.

Contributors: Mrs. Mildred Henry, Lynne Henry, Jeanette Warren, Eagle Valley Women's Institute archives and local history book Wagon Trails Plowed Under.