Street View

This is the turn off on the #35 highway. You can see the stone Cairn (on the other side of the road from the stop sign) of where the old church used to be just beside the road in the north west quadrant of this image. This land used to be owned by my great grandfather Wilhelm. He donated it so that the Evangelical United Brethren Church could be built there. Although he never attended that church – he was a Lutheran.

The old Lipton EUB Farm Church, at the site of the present cairn.

This is across from the church where the kids used to play while the adults talked after church. Grandma Ruth Hepting is one of these kids. There was no highway there at that time. In the In the north east quadrant of the Google view this is now the site of an abandoned farmyard.

If you click three times on the right button you will actually be looking at the south east quadrant. This land is what we own and you can see it has been cut for hay. It used to belong to my Grandfather PG Smith (Grandma Hepting’s father). And a couple of owners before him it was owned by my great grandfather Wilhelm Hepting. Wilhelm sold that land to a Mr. Huber, but regretted forever after. He is quoted as saying “I became a poor man the day I sold my land”.

Click three more times and you’ll be looking at the south west quadrant. You’ll see a bluff of trees. If you zoom in you can actually see a few buildings. That is where my grandfather Fred farmed when he got married and raised his 10 children. His children included your grandfather, John Hepting, uncle Irvin, uncle Harold, etc. However hard times hit in the 1930′s. He basically went bankrupt. His wife died in 1936. He soon got remarried but that was a disaster. His new wife didn’t want the children so the younger children were divided up and went to live with their mother’s siblings (the Berners) in the Assiniboia area. That land is now owned by the Kube family. But they have still kept the old Hepting farmyard intact and allow us to visit it whenever we want. It was where we went to visit in 2005 family reunion. The Ken Kube family now live in Saskatoon. Perhaps Camille and you remember meeting the mentally challenged girl and her mother at the Christmas Concert at Elim – that is the family.

If you go a mile or so north you will see a farmyard on the right side of the road. That is the final farm where grand PG Smith farmed, although the original house is no longer there. Grandma Ruth Hepting would have grown up here in her late teenage and early adult years. His son – Jackie Smith took over the farm. He willed in to his son Garnet Smith, and now Garnet’s son Christopher lives in the house, which he is remodelling.

This is the Google view of that farmyard where Grandpa PG Smith farmed, and where Ruth grew up.

This is a photo of the PGSmith family when they lived on that farm.

1943 Smith Family, L to R: Jackie on tractor, Vallery, Toefil Ikert, Irene, Ruth, Alma Pranke, Wanda (nee Ikert) Pranke, Florence Ikert, Phillip Smith, Shirley Ikert (baby), Lizzie Smith (pregnant with Geraldine). Photo taken at Lizzie & Philip’s farm house.