Ledyard C. Somerville  (click for photo)

We came from Oregon in 1908 and settled in the Lomond District in 1910. My dad, L.C. Somerville, known to all as "Pap", took up his homestead on the N1/2-29-18-18. My brother, Seth, and brother in law, Arthur Gould, also homesteaded in this same area, two miles east of us.

Winters were not always of the mild variety and after a particular severe blizzard, which left twelve feet of snow in the coulees, we found our flour barrel empty. Necessity once again proved to be the "Mother of Invention." We used our small feed grinder, which was used for grinding feed for the livestock and ground some wheat as fine as we could. Mother used this "whole wheat flour" to do her baking. Today we buy much for the same health flour in the stores.

Dad was a veterinarian, travelling many miles from homestead to homestead with horse and buggy, tending to sick or injured animals. I was always at Dad's side on these errands.

Mother was a midwife. She not only brought babies into the world, but also cooked and kept house for the other members of that family after the birth of the child. With my horse, Buck, I would rush mother to the needy in buggy or jumper, as the weather demanded.

The days of homesteading were days of much toil and sweat; yet they are looked back on as happy days.

By Bert Somerville

Lomond History Book, 1966

Page 131

Ledyard moved to Brown Co., Kandiyohi (Chippewa) Co., and later to Vulcan, Alberta, CAN

With my family I came to the Lomond District from Oregon in 1910 and took up a homestead on the S1/230-18-18. During the first winter there I hauled feed from Parkland. I used six horses and hauled 200 bushels of grain, and each trip took a week. My first home was a granary shack that I shared with a neighboring homestead, Roy Hart.

Time went on and crops failures and water shortages caused many of the settlers to leave the district and their homesteads. I went to Saskatchewan to look for work and there became acquainted with a little French girl who had arrived from France two years earlier. In 1924 we were married and settled in the district west of Lomond. We have three boys and one girl, Paul, Senior Engineer for missile test projects at Cape Kennedy; Roger, Pincher Creek; Yvonne (Mrs. Cornelius Blom) and Lee, both in the Vulcan area. There are 12 grandchildren.

Written by Bert Somerville, 1966

History of Lomond and History

Page 130