Gallivan My Home Town

 

Quote from Notes and Clippings, It all Started in Saskatchewan and Autobiography 

by Lorraine (Bertrand/Birstein) Martin 2017  

Chapter One The Gallivan Years Page 28 

Gallivan My Home Town

  (Published in the Western Producer during the 1950s )

Dear Co-op- I want to tell you about my home town. In Gallivan there are only a few buildings. There are two store and in one store there is a post office. The owner of this store also runs a work shop, a sort of garage. The community hall is used for a high school. The public school is in a different room altogether. Our school takes grades one to six, the other grades seven to eleven. There is also a United Church and a manse. There is a C.N.R Station, a Pool elevator. A few men work on the section and fix the railway. Around the district there are many farmers. The history of Gallivan is a very interesting one. In 1903 the first man to make a settlement in this district was Mr. Mike Gallivan. Mr. Gallivan came from Ontario to Saskatchewan in 1903 to seek a new home. Choosing the land, now where Gallivan stands, he cleared and broke the soil on which he planted trees because there weren't any but small scrubby poplars. He built a home and ran a blacksmith's shop, which still stands. The home also stands but is remodelled. When the settlement was young, there were no store, or good roads, railway, elevators, schools or churches. The railway was built in 1912, elevators in about 1913, school in about 1917, hall in 1940 and there were telephones put in homes. The nearest town was North Battleford. Now, Mr. Gallivan is a resident of Cut Knife, which not far from the hamlet, which bears his name. ---------- “Frenchie” Gallivan Sask. ("Frenchie" was my pen name at the time)