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David's grandmother, Mrs.Aron Giesbrecht, with seven children, landed, and homesteaded in the Dalmeny area in 1902. The town of Dalmeny was the homestead of Helen Giesbrecht Wiensz, who then sold it for $6,000.00, and bought two quarters of land west of Dalmeny. The rest of the family homesteaded in the Dalmeny area. David's father, David Giesbrecht Sr., had a homestead 11,2 miles northeastof Dalmeny.
The Penners also had a homestead near his father's homestead of which family he married Sarah Penner who is I David's mother. The Penner clan of later generation- is still in the Dalmeny, Langham, Saskatoon and Hepburn areas.
Most of the Giesbrecht family moved away, of which four families moved to Dallas, Oregon. One family moved toCalifornia, while one family moved to Vancouver, B.C. One family, the Jake Giesbrechts, stayed in the Dalmeny and are still in the Canadian area. However, the David Giesbrechts Sr. family moved to Dallas in 1919.
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he celebrated his 22nd birthday, and it was memorable foranother reason.
"While we were working on a friend's farm, they teased me, and said, "We're moving to the Pete Schultz' next." They told me to be careful. "Cause there was a 17-year old girl cooking for the threshing crew."
Although he returned to Dallas after the harvest, he said he could not forget the girl and returned to Saskatchewan to marry her in the summer of 1930. He and Elizabeth have been married 54 years and have three children, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Giesbrecht said he and his wife returned to Dallas after their wedding, with only $37.00 to start married life. "We struggled together by working and saving and boughf farmland (first in 1935 acquiring more later) and machinery. Our harvest- working years were between 1950 and 1960, "when they a farmed both sides of Rickreall Creek". Lots of times we got up at 2:30 a.m. taking care of three irrigation systems, setting pipes, raising strawberies and corn, besides farmings some 500 acres of dry landr grainfields, feeding cattle and hogs, and some times turkeys and, chickens and milking cows."
A Dallas newspaper described Giesbrecht as someone "who rather pioneered the local strawberry industry." He had as many as 128 pickers in the fields in those days.
Giesbrecht remembers the days of farming with pleasure, despite the long hours and a hard work. He and.his wife have been members of Salt Creek Baptist Church since 1930.
His family had a greenhouse and he sold plants while attending local schools. At 16 he began work in a Dallas sawmill. Although he worked for four years, he described himself as "restless"; he liked to be outdoors. Farming appealed to him so he gave up the mill.
Giesbrecht-bought a tractor, rented prune orchards and began custom tractor work, expanding into more diversified farming as tIme passed,
In 1928, he returned to Dalmeny to do farm work with some friends. 'I had a Model T Ford and drove 1,200 miles which took one week of driving" he said. During the trip [line missing...]
They belonged to the Grange and the Farmer's Union and he won a number of ribbons for his farm products at the Country Fall'. He is a life member of,the Oregon Wheat Grower's League.
Davld was a good story teller. His tales were filled with humor and a sense of enjoying himself and his life. He continued in various aspects of farming till in 1983 when he sold his equipment and stopped farming.
"In a way I miss it," Giesbrecht said "I still have the cattle. I go to outdoor sales and buy feeders, and then I go out and cut wood in summer," Then he continues, "I hope I find more tIme to go flshing."
In a recent letter to his cousin Jake Giesbrecht of Langham, he writes that he's just finished cutting and splitting (with a mechanical splitter) 50 cords which are for sale. He's been so busy, he's only gone fishing one day. He sends greetings to Henry and Mary, Albelrtine, Milton, Clarence, Ben, Harvey and those he hadn't mentioned.
He describes himself "I'm a happy and lucky go-getting!"
- M. W
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