Ivy did not become a deep-sea diver. But, just as her mother said, she did turn out to have a gift for nursing. Pursuing her education was tough for Ivy. In 1929 Canada entered the Great Depression. Times were tough everywhere, but they were worst on the prairies. The economic depression coincided with years of terrible weather for farmers. But Ivy persevered and managed to get her high school education, and then to move to Vancouver to go to nursing school. She loved life as a student. She made many friends among her fellow students. She hiked the local mountains.
Most of all, she discovered a passion for science. When she graduated as a registered nurse she got the highest marks in all of Canada. After nursing for several years she was given a scholarship to return to university for a nursing degree. She eventually became a professor of nursing at McGill University in Montreal. Her many nieces and nephews adored visiting her. The fact that she owned a succession of sports cars might have had something to do with her popularity as an aunt.
William spent several years working as a clerk in various stores, in Milorie and later in Calgary. During the Depression, when work was scarce, his was often the only family income. In his mid-twenties he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was posted to the far north. He spent his whole career in the land of the midnight sun and was very happy there. He married and had four children. His son Gordon lived with his Aunt Ivy when he went to university in Montreal.
When World War II began, Gladys followed in her father’s seagoing footsteps and joined the Royal Canadian Navy. Here she met the man who was to become her husband. Later they settled in southern Ontario, where they started a nursery business.
In this far-flung family, Harry was the only one who stayed in Saskatchewan, settling in Regina, where he worked in radio, then got in on the ground floor of the exciting new invention of television.
Abel and his father did make it to Vancouver, where Mr. Butt remarried – a widow with several small children. Abel did very well in the role of adored older brother. He and Ivy kept in touch for their whole lives.
No Weatheralls remained in Milorie. The town itself, the setting for the beginning of Ivy’s great adventure, disappeared in the early 1960s. You will not find it on a current map of Saskatchewan. But in the memories of Ivy, William and the twins, and in the stories they tell their families, it is still there – a grain elevator pointing to the sky, summer dust between the toes, the taste of saskatoon berry pie, and the view clear through to half past tomorrow.