On Mar. 1, 2010, our own Harley Geldart was our special guest speaker. Our scheduled speaker couldn’t make it, so Harley spoke about his life history.
Born in 1917, he was one of a family of 10 children. The Geldart family was one of four families in the Prosser Brook area, and his mother was a school teacher. His father farmed and bought the 128-acre farm for $125.00, which included the farm, house and land...
The family moved to Elgin in 1925. Harley left school after grade 10 as he didn't want to spend another year in school to better his reading and language marks. He tells us he did excel at math subjects. His first job was driving yard horse for $15 month plus board. He got his driver's license two years before he was legally old enough to drive and started driving a truck at the age of 16 for $1.00 a day. After that, he worked on a bridge crew.
He joined the army in 1939 for 90 cents a day and spent the first three years in Canadian coastal defence. He went overseas in 1943 and into France in June 1943 in the armoured division as a driver. He told us he once went nine months without a shower/bath until Christmas of that year when he had some time off.
Upon discharge, he got into lumbering, then the bus business and then back into lumbering until weak markets saw the business close. He then worked in the construction industry for many years, most recently with Mac Parlee until his retirement in 1996 at age 79.
Harley is one of our original charter members and was recruited by Hazen Hogg, who asked him to attend an evening supper meeting over 30 years ago, which was the first meeting of the Rotary Club of Sussex.
As always, some interesting stories from Harley.