Margaret Elvena (Philp) Hanulik

Richard Watts Philp Sr., Margaret’s paternal grandfather, was born in 1866 in Cornwall, England. He emigrated to Canada in 1882, where he worked on a farm in Ontario and then in 1887 came west to the Beresford District in the Whitehead Municipality. He homesteaded a quarter section of land and also worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1891, he bought three-quarters of a section of land (8-9-21) from the Hudson Bay Company, which was not homestead land, in the Glenvale District. (The Philp family continues to farm on this same land.)

Margaret Starrak, Margaret Hanulik’s paternal grandmother, was born in New Richmond, New Brunswick, in 1871. She moved west to attend the first Normal School in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1888. She taught in one-room country schools, finally teaching in Glenvale School #447 where she met and married Richard Watts Sr. in 1897. Richard Watts Sr. and Margaret raised four children: Marina, Richard Watts Jr., Ella and Frederic.

Richard Watts Jr. continued to farm on the same land for seventy-two years. He married Loretta Angus in 1933. She had completed the three-year training in Mental Health Nursing and nursed in Brandon, Manitoba. Richard and Loretta raised two children, Margaret who was born in l940, and Donald who was born in 1943. They were both born in the Brandon General Hospital.

Margaret’s maternal grandparents were born in Scotland. William Murray Angus, born in 1854, was a school teacher, but owing to ill health he was given a three-month option on life. A change of climate was essential for his health, so in 1882, he emigrated to Canada. He picked a half section to homestead (2-13-24) in the Scotia District of the Hamiota Municipality.

Elizabeth Ingram, born in 1861, was Margaret’s maternal grandmother. She came to Canada to be William’s bride. He married Elizabeth in 1885, which was the first wedding in Scotia. William and Elizabeth raised nine children; the youngest was Loretta, who was Margaret’s mother. Besides farming, William was the first postmaster of Logoch (named after his hometown in Scotland) and ran the post office in their house until it closed in 1932.

Margaret and Donald attended Glenvale School. When all the country schools were being closed in the 1950s, Margaret’s father bought the one-room school they had attended for three generations and moved it on to his property. Margaret boarded in Souris during the week for Grades 10 and 11. When Donald began Grade 9 and Margaret was in Grade 12, the school was closed and they were driven by car to Souris Collegiate.

Margaret was a tomboy and loved following her father around the farm, trying to help him. The family raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese to kill and sell in the fall. They would keep the hens so they would have eggs in the winter. Margaret and Donald would select six hens and roosters for their annual 4-H Poultry Club Competition in Souris.

At the age of nine, Margaret would walk, ride horseback, or use the half-ton truck to herd the cows to the barn to be milked. In the summer, for many years, she raked hay with a team of horses. The haystacks were all built by hand by Margaret, her father, and her brother. In the fall, when she was eleven, Margaret hauled grain in a two-ton truck, from the combine and augered it into the granary. She continued to do this until she was an adult. There was also firewood to be cut for the cookstove and water to be carried to the house. In the winter, Margaret and Donald also helped their father clean the barn and feed the cattle. They rode to school on a rack, or sleigh or in a buggy. In warm weather, they walked.

She had some fond memories of taking supper out to the field during harvest where the family would eat sitting in the field. She remembers wonderful evenings playing Hide and Seek with her brother and father under the full moon and stars. On some Sunday afternoons in the winter, the family shovelled the snow off the dugout and the neighbours would come to skate. In the summer, Margaret and Donald would go swimming in the sloughs and often would come home with itch.

Margaret felt that the Souris 4-H Poultry Club had an enormous influence on her teen years. She was a member for ten years and received a number of awards. She was the secretary, where she learned to record minutes and organize meetings and events. She and another member became the first pair to introduce 4-H demonstrations in southwestern Manitoba for competitions.

Margaret always had a passion for figure skating. She learned to skate on a frozen dugout on the farm. In 1952, and for the next two years, she skated as a Canadian Figure Skating Association member with the Brandon and Souris Figure Skating Clubs. When Margaret was in elementary school her father would pick her up after school and would make sure she got the twenty-five miles to Brandon to have her lesson twice a week. Her father would walk, pulling a toboggan with eggs and cream to sell, to the truck which was parked by a ploughed road. Margaret and her father would repeat the process getting home.

After graduating from high school, Margaret attended Brandon College for a year completing the Teachers’ Training Program. She taught at Hazeldean, a one-room school for three years, and then moved into Deloraine, Manitoba, for a year. In 1965, Margaret headed for the Yukon where she taught in Dawson City for a year. She moved back to Deloraine for a year, but she decided to head back to the Yukon where she had met a very interesting young man, Tony Hanulik.

Margaret was continually upgrading her education by attending summer courses in Edmonton and Brandon. She completed courses that the Yukon Department of Education brought in from Calgary and Edmonton during the winter. She and Tony spent a year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and she finally completed her Bachelor of Education Degree in Brandon. She and her daughter, Stephanie, graduated in the same year with Bachelor of Education Degrees in 1999 from Brandon University. There are now four generations of teachers in the family.

Margaret and Tony married in Souris United Church on August 1, 1970, and bought their first home in Whitehorse. They are proud parents of twins, Steven and Stephanie. Margaret took several years out from teaching to raise their children and then returned to the profession until she retired in 2005 after teaching for five years in Manitoba and thirty years in the Yukon. She received the Excellence in Education Award in 2004.

Margaret stated, “I enjoyed my 35 years of teaching. It was challenging; you worked around the clock preparing lessons or thinking of what you could do better to meet the needs of every student—but it was so rewarding.”

Margaret always remained very busy in the community and in her home life. She was a volunteer with figure skating for over thirty years. She began in Dawson City when teachers were encouraged to do community service as well as teaching in the classroom. When she came to Whitehorse, she joined the Whitehorse Figure Skating Club. Then she became the first qualified Canadian Figure Skating judge in the Yukon. When she retired from judging, she became a qualified CFSA accountant. Margaret worked on many committees over the years. She mainly worked on programs, and she was the Competition and Test Director for many years. Margaret was a founding member of the Fireweed Figure Skating Club. She was on the organizing committee for figure skating for Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse in 2007.

Both of her children began figure skating lessons at the age of four, so Margaret spent many hours at the arena in early mornings and after school volunteering and providing information on figure skating for the skaters and parents.

Margaret was inducted into the Sports Yukon Hall of Fame for volunteering for 30 years with figure skating in the Yukon. She also received recognition from Cariboo-North Central Region for 25 years of service and support.

Margaret volunteered at Grey Mountain Primary School and was on the school committee for three years when her children attended that school. She was a partner in the Cooperating Teacher Program with the Yukon Native Teacher Program for 15 student teachers. She was a founding member of the Allergy/Asthma Information Association, a former member of the Sourdough Stompers Square Dance Club and is a member of the Pioneers of the Yukon Lodge No. Two.

Another great activity over many years has been picking berries in the fall and preserving them, freezing them, or giving a jar of cranberry sauce as a gift. She has also enjoyed making greeting cards.

The family, over the years, has done a lot of camping and fishing together and spent a great deal of time at their cabin at Marsh Lake. Tony, Margaret, and her brother climbed the Chilkoot Trail in 1980. The family travelled to Dawson City frequently to visit Tony’s family and to Manitoba to visit Margaret’s family. Tony flew the family in their Cessna 180 to Manitoba for the Philp Family Farm Centennial in 1991. Now that the children are married, Tony and Margaret visit them in West Kelowna and High River.

In Margaret and Tony’s retirement they have travelled abroad with friends cruising to the Mexican Riviera, the Mediterranean, the Panama and on the Danube River, where they met and visited Tony’s relatives in Slovakia. They enjoyed holidays to Hawaii, Arizona and Palm Springs.

Their son, Steven, graduated from Brandon University in 2001 with a General Arts Degree. He continued his education at Victoria Motion Picture School and graduated with distinction in 2002. He completed the Automotive Technician Program and received his Red Seal in 2015. He was awarded the Dean’s award for outstanding achievement in the General Motors Automotive Technical Program at SAIT. Steven married Toni Chapman in 2005 and they reside in High River, Alberta. They have two children, Benjamin born in 2009 and Maggie born in 2013.

Stephanie graduated from Brandon University with a Bachelor of Education with Distinction in 1999. She graduated with her Master of Arts Program in Leadership and Administration from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, in 2007. She is currently teaching in West Kelowna, B.C. She married Colin Spies in 2002 and they have two sons, Mattias born in 2007 and Nicholas born in 2011.

There’s the gold, and it’s haunting and haunting.

It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

So much as just finding the gold.

It’s that great, big, broad land way up yonder.

It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder.

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

W. Service