Brief Review: A Mill Behind Every Stump

Author: Marianne Van Osch

Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., paperback, 187 pages 

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

Marianne Van Osch is a Cariboo-based author and former teacher. She writes about pioneers homesteading, their struggles of daily survival, with neighbours few and far between, and distant mail service. Van Osch has written stories for the 100 Mile Free Press and various magazines. She has visited elementary schools for interactive historical presentations, and presented short story and book readings. 

Contents

This volume contains a Preface, 43 mostly short chapters, an Epilogue, Acknowledgements, and an Index of People.

Brief Observations

This local history focusses mainly on the Judson family, in particular Louis Judson, who pioneered in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Louis Judson’s grandfather Noble Roger Judson and his sons Matney and Marion immigrated to British Columbia from Washington in 1910. Louis was born in Ashcroft, BC in 1924. The Judson family originally came from Yorkshire, England to the United States in 1634. Adoniram Judson served as an American missionary in Burma in the 1800s, and translated the Bible into Burmese. Judson College opened in Marion, Alabama and a Judson University in Elgin, Alabama were both religious schools. 

Life was difficult in the early homesteading days. In addition to farming, they tried prospecting for gold, but were not very successful. Louis remembered the first Judson family home in the Cariboo. It was a ten-by-ten cabin, cold and very uncomfortable. 

The children learned how to work when they were quite young, each had chores to do. Louis started milking when he was only seven. He and his siblings Alonzo and Marjorie walked to school in the Bradley Creek area. The school was built by Louis’s dad, Davey Jones, and Walter Van de Camp. Mr. Van de Camp was given the name ‘Pork and Beans,’ because he was full of hot air. Dances were also held at the school.

Louis describes the process of constructing various buildings. When he was only thirteen, he and his sister Margie constructed a log outhouse. In the younger years, there were picnics, sack and wheelbarrow races, fishing trips, swimming outings, looking after traplines, and several other activities. 

Over the years, Louis worked at a variety of jobs. Eventually he had his own portable sawmill, which he moved to a number of locations to work. He tells stories about the mill, the work, employees, and losing his foot while milling and building his own peg leg. 

There are other stories about meeting and marrying his wife Sheila, raising their family, and their house at Ruth Creek, growing older, and the celebration of Louis’s parents’ golden wedding anniversary. 

It is, among other things, is a volume highlighting the strength of community, hard work, and celebrating the history of pioneer life in British Columbia.