Norma (Freeman) Burrell

Norma Evelyn Freeman was born on July 1, 1934, to Selma and Sandy Freeman. She was born at the home of her maternal grandmother, Louise Holman, who delivered her. Norma was the Freeman’s fourth child, joining three older brothers. Later there would be a sister, Lois Marie, completing the family of five children.

They lived on a farm near Forshee, Alberta, which is halfway between the villages of Rimbey and Bentley. Norma’s mother was of Norwegian heritage, which factored strongly in their lives, as the Norwegian grandparents lived nearby. Norma’s father, Alexander (Sandy), was of English descent. Childhood visits to the maternal grandparent’s home are fond memories for Norma. She grew up enjoying the traditional Norwegian fare, such as lefsa, rumagruten, and even lutifisk. This may well be where the seeds were sown for Norma’s lifelong passion for cooking and baking.

Norma’s early schooling, grades one to six, was typical of many prairie children of that era. She attended a one-room, multi-graded country school by the name of Centerview. This school was located several miles from their farm, across the Blindman River. It’s likely fortunate for Norma that she had the three older brothers, as they travelled to school by horse and sleigh in winter, and horseback in summer. All these country schools had barns for the horses to rest in, as they waited for the school day to be over.

After six years at Centerview, Norma began attending school in Bentley. During her high school years, Norma developed a love of all of the sports activities that were offered. She participated in track and field, volleyball, basketball, and softball. In winter it was hockey, skating in the Bentley rink and on the frozen river. At this time, she was also introduced to curling, which would become a lifelong interest.

Norma met the man who was destined to be her life’s partner at the tender age of eighteen, which was not uncommon in those days. As she waited for the bus each morning of her Grade Eleven year, this cute guy would wave and smile as he drove by in his big truck. Well, they eventually met, and the rest is history. The man was Charles Milton Burrell (Chuck), a fellow Albertan from the Water Valley area.

Chuck and Norma were married on May 15, 1953, on the farm, at the home of her parents. Family and friends gathered to see the young couple married and wish them well on their new venture. A wedding dance and supper was held at a nearby community hall.

Their first home was in Brooks, Alberta, where Chuck had found employment with an oil company. At this time, in the fifties, Alberta was experiencing a boom in the oil industry and many young men, like Chuck, were willing to go where the work took them.

Within a year, though, they were transferred back nearer to Bentley, and family. They were pleased about this as their first child, Brenda Lee, arrived on March 4, 1954, in the Bentley Hospital. In the years following, Norma was busy being a new mother, with housework and farm work, and helping out her parents and family.

In February, in the winter of 1957, Norma’s father, Sandy, died suddenly of a blood clot in the heart, leaving the family devastated. Two days later, on Feb. 28, Norma gave birth to their second child, a boy, they named Robert Alexander.

The year 1961 saw a move into a house in Calgary, as Chuck continued to be employed in the oil patch. The third and last child, Barbara Lynn, arrived on July 18, 1964. They remained in Calgary another year, but 1965 brought a big change.

A move to the Yukon Territory was undertaken in February of 1965, when Barb, the youngest was only seven months old. They travelled up the Alaska Highway as a family of five in a 1962 Dodge car, loaded to the gills with provisions and belongings. Chuck’s brother Stan helped with the move, driving his own truck with a load of their household goods. They lost two days when the motor went out of Stan’s truck in Watson Lake. In Whitehorse, a place was found to rent, the two eldest enrolled in school, and Chuck went to work on the North Slope in Alaska.

Norma found it very difficult and strange at first, as she had always had a large family nearby. After awhile she got to know a few people and eventually got involved with sports again. Over the years, Norma has curled every winter in the local rink, and has participated in bonspiels around the Yukon Territory, and Alaska. In 1996, she was on the Senior Ladies team that represented the Yukon in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Summers would find her on the baseball diamond.

Norma also had a career outside the home. In the late sixties, she took a clerk/typist course at the Vocational School. She worked for a time for Richardson Insurance, for several years at The Northern Store, for over ten years with Home Care, a branch of Yukon Health Services. All the while she was keeping the books for Burtran Transport, Chuck’s trucking company.

No relating of Norma’s life story would be complete without a mention of her cooking and baking skills. Her homemade bread and cinnamon buns were legendary. She took great pleasure in feeding people. A table laden with steaming bowls of homemade food, made from scratch, and a half a dozen hungry participants, made her day.

Chuck passed away in 2018, in his 88th year, and their 66th year of marriage. Two out of three of their children live and work in the Yukon. They have two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren all residing in the Yukon. This is an example of one family who came to the Yukon, worked hard  to make a good life, and became Yukoners.