Harrowsmith Fall 2019 | 51ABOUT A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFFtrack, he would break into a cold
sweat. I don’t believe he ever got
over the incident.
He could never repay Uncle for
saving his life.
During the outbreak of
diphtheria in the community,
Uncle also went into his niece’s
house, where all the members of
the family were quite sick in bed.
He nursed them back to health.
A very daring gesture. He’d have
made a fine doctor!Tune in, Tokyo
By Bessie WilsonA
rthur and Dave Wilson
were quite the inventive
fellows! When they were
younger, they would always build
at least one ice igloo using a
pattern they had from Eskimos.
These were very cold houses
to play in, to say the least! One
summer, the boys asked Mr.
Ben Johnson, who lived across
from their farm on the Coldwater
River, if they could build a teepee
on his property. The boys were
also very gifted in making
unique little water wheels out
of cedar and actually produced
operational windmills.
Later on in years, Arthur and
Dave both became extremely
interested in shortwave radio.
Arthur took a course from the
Radio College of Canada in
Toronto. Please keep in mind
that we had no electricity in
our homes up to this point, so
the boys cleverly rigged up a
generator to send and receive
messages. One fellow rode a
bicycle to generate power while
the other sent and received
Morse code messages. Their call
letters were VE3XP and VE3BKP.
This was truly an enjoyable
hobby for them and a break from
their hard farming work. It was so
thrilling when a QSL card would
show up in the mailbox from the
other side of the world![Editor’s note: For those who
are more familiar with Facebook
Messenger and FaceTime, a QSL
card is the ham radio equivalent.
The card is a written confirmation
of either a two-way radio
communication between two
amateur radio stations or a one-way
reception of a signal from an AM or
FM radio, television or shortwave
broadcasting station. The cards also
confirm the receipt of a two-way
radio communication from a
third-party listener.]