This advertisement from the Moose Jaw Times-Herald was found in the attic of a three-storey farmhouse in the Archydal district north of Caron.
Featuring a doctor and boy admitting it could have been him, the ad promotes safety and careful driving behaviour.
The T. Eaton house was part of the Sybil farm Preston Smith bought in 1925 when he settled in the district, having come five years before from New Brunswick.
The Eaton's catalogue sold houses and barns in pre-marked bundles by mail order from 1910 until the 1920s.
The old three-storey Eaton's house had a large “widow's walk” on the top. The widow's walks were built so family could watch family sailings come home and leave.
Made of metal the five-foot by 16-foot metal fenced widow's walk was impressive and unusual in a prairie setting.
And durable.
During the Second World War a Tiger Moth trainer aircraft from the nearby Royal Air Force flying school at Caron hit the smack on the widow's walk.
“It bent the lightning rods, no other damage,” recalls Cecil Smith, a retired Palm Dairies driver, who grew up in the house and later ran the farm.
The aircraft strike “sure shook the dust out of the place.”
The pilot was unharmed.
The house was intentionally burned down years ago when vandals kept damaging the once elegant home.
“I hated to see it go,” says Smith, now in is 90s. “What can you do?”
There was another Eaton's house “exactly like it north of the Caron cemetery. It was burned by kids.”
The Smith property, about eight miles north of Caron, was homesteaded in 1918. The land has been sold twice since Smith sold.
