Chapter 2
ALEX STEWART: I couldn't say about that. Irish. Do you remember Irish? He was a bartender under Alec.
FRED MORRISH: What was that other Irishman's name that used to work at the mine? Happy something. He'd get on a drunk and he'd always have a keg of beer up here over his bed with a hose. He could have a drink any time he liked. He used to stay at the Central.
ALEX STEWART: They were great old days.
FRED MORRISH: I laughed at him one day. I was working with him in the mine. He was standing up and leaning against the wall sound asleep - leaning on his shovel and the boss came in. The foreman at the mine at that time. What the Dickens was his name? Ed Montgomery. He got a hold of Paddy and he shook him and he says " If you want a job here you'll stay awake. Do you know who I am?" He says " No, I don't." " Well " he says " I'm the foreman." The Irishman said " Well you've got a damned good job and you want to try and hang on to it."
ALEX STEWART: Do you remember the great tug-of-war teams.
FRED MORRISH: Yes, I do.
ALEX STEWART: I guess that was the greatest thing in the line of tug-of-war that was ever pulled off.
FRED MORRISH: Gee there were some big men in that.
ALEX STEWART: They brought a fellow from California to be anchor man against me. I was on the police force but I represented the Centre Star Mine. They asked me. They brought in this big fellow from California to pull for the War Eagle. That was an awful pull - one hour. The saddle I had if it were built now would cost $150. I was training to build up in the saddle. Well we got a pair of horses up at the Centre Star Mine on 100 ft. of rope. I got my feet braced and they said "go" with the War Eagle team on the end of the rope. I held them there the first pull. Someone at the scene said "Try it a second time" and I agreed to take another chance. That time this right leg bent and the team pulled me over so my shoulder hit him in the ribs and he broke three ribs.
FRED MORRISH: I remember that - I took a glass of water out to you when you were pulling. You just took one little sip and rubbed the rest of it on your face - or I probably rubbed it on for you.
ALEX STEWART: The fellow that pulled against me - that big fellow never got over it before he died - three weeks afterwards.
FRED MORRISH: Oh, that was a terrible thing that tug-of-war, to see those great big fellows...
ALEX STEWART: And a darned horse ran away and came and jumped right over the top of me - he never touched me but he ran right over me.
FRED MORRISH: When they'd take the strain you'd think the rope was going to break - you'd see it stretch out like a piece of elastic. Everybody would hold until Alex got his legs up. Then he would straighten out and you'd see that old rope come up and away.
ALEX STEWART: There was an awful lot of money up. There was over $1,000 bet in the Hoffman Hotel that day.
FRED MORRISH: Some of the biggest men I ever saw were on that team.
MURRAY GIBSON: What year was that Alex?
ALEX STEWART & FRED MORRISH: Around 10 or 12
BILL WADESON: The Hoffman House was still going then ?
FRED MORRISH: Oh yes, they had a bowling alley in it. I'm the only one who ever bowled 500 in it - I bowled a perfect game in there.
ALEX STEWART: They bought that alley down in Chicago.
FRED MORRISH: Say - I'll tell you - I had a letter from Ella Keef. Eddie Keef just died a month ago. Burned to death in San Fransico. I guess he had a cigarette or something when he went to bed. But they found him in the morning and he was three quarters burned but still alive. He only lived for an hour or so.
ALEX STEWART: Say when I first went to Rossland I got aquainted with a fellow called Dunc McDonald - no - McDonnell. Did you fellows know him?
MURRAY GIBSON: Well, I think we all knew his family. We knew his girls and he had one son - Joe. Was that the fellow? He was on the police Force ?
ALEX STEWART: Yes - that's right - he was a police fellow. And he had just quit the force. And I was talking to him one night and we were pretty good friends. And he says to me "Can you come in and have a drink even though you're in uniform?" I says " Sure - I'll take a chance." Well he says "The man who's running this spends a lot in my place and I've just never had the chance to spend a few dollars - I'd just like to go in and buy a drink for the crowds."
Well we went in there and this ( Teest ? ) the old fellow who was a supposedly very powerful man - he kept a big dumbell in there and he used to bet all night to see who could lift it up the most times. The dumbell weighed 75 pounds. I've still got it in Vancouver - I bought it from him.
When we went in Garrick was just giving an exhibition and he challenged anyone in the crowd to put it up as many times as I can and he said " I'll bet $10." Well McDonnell spoke up and he said " I'll call you - I'll bet on this man here." And McDonnell didn't know me more than three weeks you know. And I had no idea who he was picking on. When he put up the money he turned. to me and. said "Will you try it?" " Oh Gosh, " I says, "Dunc, you shouldn't have done that." I says " I wouldn't have a chance with that man." "Oh, it don't matter." he says " I just want the chance to spend a few dollars with him, and if you lose it's O.K. - just try." So we tossed up to see who would have to do it first and he had to do it first. He put it up 22 times - this 75 pound dumbell. So when it came to my turn I put it up 42. I just seem to be a lucky person. I wasn't anything outside the ordinary but anything I went into seemed to be pure lucky.
FRED MORRISH: Well you kept yourself in good shape, Alex, all the time.
ALEX STEWART: Yes I was trained right to the minute all the time. I blame some of my good fortune to a priest. When I left Cape Breton to come out west, another young fellow was with me and we were on the train. This fellow drank a lot - I didn't drink then at all. He got out into the smoking room with three or four other fellows - and they were all drunk. My pal got drunk too. Well a priest came in to have a smoke - I guess he wanted a smoke pretty bad. He came in with his big pipe and when he came in they were cursing and swearing you know. And I thought it was awful in front of a good man and I got up and walked out. I went out into the coach and sat down in my seat but I was only out there a few minutes when the priest came in and sat down with me. He says " Young fellow, I think you belong to a better class than what you are travelling with. Well we talked for a while and I had bought some shoes - you can't buy them today, but in Cape Breton when we left it was snowing and was raining - about three inches of snow and slush and I went and. bought these fancy rubber boots lined inside with sheep's wool, you know. They were perfect looking things - beautiful - and, of course when I got on the train they were too warm and I took 'em off and put on a pair of shoes. These boots were setting in the seat beside me. "Oh my," the priest said, " Wouldn't I like to have a pair of boots like that where I'm going." He said " I'm getting off at the next stop to see a sick woman and I've got to climb up hill and it's nothing but snow and slush and pouring rain." He said " Would you sell 'em?" I says " No, I wouldn't sell 'em - I just bought em yesterday." So we went along and finally the horn tooted - the whistle tooted - for him to get off. He said " I've got to leave you, my friend," and he got up and shook hands and started to leave and I said "You're forgetting your boots." He says "You said you wouldn't sell 'em." " No, I won't " I said, " But I'm giving them to you." He told me to stand up and he put his hand on my head and he said a lot of things that I don't know what he was saying. Then he spoke English. He said " You'll have a great and prosperous life." That's the way it's been all through life.
FRED MORRISH: We had quite a bit of excitement up there at the time of the explosion. You were there then?
ALEX STEWART: Yes. You mean the time John Ingram was killed.
FRED MORRISH: That was an exciting time around Rossland.
BILL WADESON: That must have taken just about all the glass in town.
FRED MORRISH: Just about. Even down as far as the where the old water hole is - down at Floyd's Ranch (down at the Milk Creek Dairy). It broke windows down there.
MURRAY GIBSON: Just the one man killed in it though ?
FRED MORRISH: Just the one man,
ALEX STEWART: Well, let's have another.
BILL WADESON: I like to hear this because if a drink'll loosen your tongue, by all means let's have a drink.
ALEX STEWART: Where's yours ?
BILL WADESON: Oh, mine's been empty for some time - I'm one of these fast drinkers.
ALEX STEWART: Well will you have another.
BILL WADESON: Thanks, I'll Just do that.
MURRAY GIBSON: Bill, have it out of the Scotch bottle this time, we don't want to clean his stock out here.
FRED MORRISH: I'll tell you what I was telling these fellows on the way over. That my younger brother was the only one really hurt besides the man who got killed in that explosion.. Do you remember - he got his eye put out 9 with a sliver of glass. He was just a kid and old Dr. English said "If you can live for another 50 years you'll be able to see anything out of that eye again. And to-day he can read anything at all with it. It just came back like overnight. After all that time.
ALEX STEWART: I read without glasses.
MURRAY GIBSON: At 90 years old Bill. That's fantastic.
BILL WADESON: Amazing. And what do you do for exercise now ?
ALEX STEWART: Well I'm exercising from the time I get up until I go to bed because every little thing I do, I do it in a way that I'm always exercising. Anything I grab a hold of in my hand I'll press a half a dozen times. If I go to the wash basin there I'll bend a dozen or two times - about a dozen times a day. Or I'll go out to do a little clearing or jump up to the limb of a little tree there and grab a hold and then drop down. Of course in Vancouver I've got all sorts of apparatus to work on. Dumbells and so on.
MURRAY GIBSON: Well I'll join you. Alec.
ALEX STEWART: Yes you do that. I was telling Eddy and Ethel that I'd met a mighty fine fellow down there, and of course they know you.
MURRAY GIBSON: Oh yes I've known Eddy and Ethel for about thirty-five years, I guess.
FRED MORRISH: Well there's not very many old timers left in Rossland. When I go up there I'm lost. There's only one or two I can go and talk to - Jimny Hunter, Roy Stevens - he's still going strong.
ALEX STEWART: Roy - Well for gosh sake - Well he's as old as I am, I think.
FRED MORRISH: No, but he's along in his eighties, though.
ALEX STEWART: For God's sake the first time I remember him he was bald-headed and I was just a kid.
FRED MORRISH: When you get talking about old timers, you look around and you see these people. You actually see them in action, you know, you can't help it.
BILL WADESON: There's a name that's always intrigued me from up there, and of course I didn't know him - Bigga da Mike. Who was that ?
FRED MORRISH: Oh yes, Mike Caffaldo. All the family pictures were hanging around the outside of the house.