The Connell House: an example of post-war ingenuity

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Published on Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Photo courtesy of the Connell family. The house as it was just being completed in the 1940s. 

By George Connell

The Neepawa Press

Many of you I’m sure, are familiar with the two story house at the bottom of the hill, on the east side of town, at the corner of the Carberry Road. Well, I grew up in that house, and was recently asked to explain the unique history of that home. So, the following is the story as I remember it.

How it came to be

My parents, Argyle and Anna Connell, were the original builders/owners of the property. My father was a veteran of World War II, and as such, was eligible for favorable loans from the Veterans Land Act (VLA) program to purchase property and farm lands. So, with that program available to them, in the late 1940s they made their applications for the monies to purchase the property at the bottom of the town hill. I’m not sure exactly how many acres the land contained, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of around five acres. 

Once they had been approved for the monies, at very preferred rates, they made the land purchase and began to make plans to build their dream home on that land. However, my father soon realized that they were going to require more money from the VLA to purchase materials to build that house. So, the application was made for those extra funds. Now, keep in mind that the VLA being a frugal (yes there actually was a government department that was) department of the federal government were the people who were in charge of distributing the said funds, and as we know, most government departments are not known for being overly frugal. However, in this case, the VLA wasn’t so forthcoming with the requested dollars. 

So where did the materials came from?

This being the post war era, there were many old British Commonwealth Air Training Centres (airports) left all across the prairie provinces, as well as all their infrastructure. During this period, the government was busy decommissioning these properties and dismantling them. So, there was a plethora of former barracks and housing units being disposed of. With this in mind, the VLA instead offered my father all the lumber and hardware that he might require to build their home from the buildings being torn down at the Neepawa airport. With this goldmine of materials offered to them, my parents quickly shifted into high gear to build their humble home. But with the opportunity before them to use whatever materials they required, the plans quickly changed to building a two-story home with a self contained, revenue generating, suite on the second floor to assist with paying back their loans. That suite over the years, was home to a virtual who’s who of Neepawa residents. The list goes on and on.  When we attended the Neepawa 125 celebrations, I met up with many of these folks, and my wife was amazed. She asked me if there was anyone in Neepawa who hadn’t lived in that suite at one time or another.

A partial list of tenents include: the Doctor Watt family, George Bates family (Susan Bates family), Eleanor Nicholson (Pasosky) before she married Cliff Nicholson, Dorreen Sage (Spicer) before she was married, Gary and Debbie Tibbett, Ron and Inky Forsman and Alf and Christina Long (probably longest tenants to live there).

I’m sure, now that I think about it, there were probably several other homes around Neepawa built from the same source of materials, as there were many other veterans in the area who, I’m sure, would have been eligible for the same considerations from the VLA.

The logistics

Now, once the home was built, they needed to have a reliable source of water, and the town system did not extend down into the valley on the south side of the highway. So, they had to come up with their own supply. My father had local character, Bill Greentree, witch a well for him, and once it was dug and sampled, it turned out to be a doozy. Water tests came back from the lab in Winnipeg, stating it was some of the best water ever sampled in the Neepawa area. Big score!

When the house was originally built, it was heated by a coal fed, gravity heat furnace. I remember my father having to get up in the middle of the night in the wintertime, to stoke that furnace so that we had continuous heat through to the morning. I also remember having to clean that furnace every weekend and haul the ashes out to spread them on the garden plot, as the ash was an excellent fertilizer. In the early ‘60s my parents had the house converted to natural gas heat and I will always remember watching with glee when that old monster coal furnace was hauled away to the dump. What a wonderful day it was, when that dirty, unpleasant job, was forever banished from our home.

Unique considerations

At the time my parents built their home, the Manitoba Highways department did not have a master plan for highways throughout the province. Years later, they eventually did draft up a master plan, and as such, my parents home, due to it’s proximity (within 1,000 feet) of the corner of the Number 4 (now Highway 16) and 5 highways, fell under the scope of these plans. However, because they had built their home in the years prior to the development of those plans, they were officially grandfathered out of the restrictions those plans mandated. As such the highways department, in contractual form, agreed that should the department ever decide to develop a major interchange at that intersection, they would pay for the moving, or the purchase of my parents home and all associated buildings, as long they were owned by my parents. 

However, that agreement was to be considered as null and void upon sale of the property by the original owners. So, in effect, when my folks sold the property, that agreement went away forever. Now, as far as I’m aware all future owners of the home and property are on their own as far as moving or demolishing the existing buildings if a major intersection were to be built there. Not that that is likely to happen at any time in the near future.

Neighbours

We had some of the most awesome neighbours down there in the valley. The Vivians, Evelyn and Lewis, and Lee, lived right next door to us and as such, I ended up basically with two sets of parents and a second sister in Lee. Scotty and Rita Burnett lived just across the road on the other side of the Whitemud River, and as such, I also considered them to be family as well. I was probably over there as much as I was at home, came and went from their home at will and was welcomed at all times. I likely ate as many meals there as at home. Across the highway, at one time when I was quite young, the Partakers had a home and I used to be there a lot as well, playing with the younger boys. The Kaspricks lived just to the south of us, and I also spent many hours at their home with the boys. Then, just a block to the north of our place, was the Lions Riverbend Park, where I virtually lived in the summer months. If my mom couldn’t find me during the day, she would come there and sure enough she would find me. 

The hard part

Because the property had several acres of land, we always had a very large garden, as well as a couple of horse pastures, where my sister kept her horses. I remember many hot, sweaty, backbreaking hours and days, spent in that garden, prepping, planting, hoeing and picking all the various vegetables that my mom and dad grew there. However, I do remember the fun we kids would also have raiding that garden as the plants matured and neared picking time. There were certainly some excellent raiding parties held and we ate raw veggies till we were so full we thought we would burst. Who knew that what we were doing, was eating the foods that our folks wanted us to eat all along? Pretty crafty of them!

Education was involved  

Many of my friends will remember that my mother, who was a school teacher, ran a kindergarten in the basement of our house for several years. I often joke that I was the only kid in town who went to kindergarten for about three years in a row, before I was promoted to regular school. I never fail to run into someone when I’m home that mentions, “I remember going to your mom’s kindergarten.” This was probably one the most successful small businesses in town in those days, as it was the only kindergarten in town, and my mom was widely known as a extremely capable (and a stern and very strict) teacher. So that in a nutshell (albeit) a rather large one, is the history of that big house on the corner of the Carberry Road, as I remember it.