CARNDUFF - If you live around Carnduff, you’ve met Bert Steenbruggen. Everybody knows everybody in small towns. But even if you don’t, chances are you have met or heard of him.
At the time of this interview, he had just lost a close cousin and not too long before that a 100-year-old sister that he talked to on the phone weekly and a nephew to COVID. Every week, it seems like he’s losing someone he knows.
As a result, he spends a lot of time reflecting on his life. Life hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but he will smilingly tell you that he has no regrets.
He is experiencing the wear and tear of time, but he doesn’t complain. “After all, the alternative is no heck.” ‘Heck’ isn’t the word he uses, but you get the drift.
Steenbruggen was born at home at the beginning of the depression. He was the last of six children and is the only one still living. When he was 10, his dad was killed in a gravel pit accident. Life got off to a rough start, and wasn’t getting any easier.
Jobs were scarce and often very unpleasant. He cleaned up garbage and coal ash and emptied outhouses. He got teased a lot about his job. On good days, he was called the town scavenger; on the bad days, kids called him far worse. Mockingly, they would hold their noses whenever stinky Steenbruggen went by. This led to some fights, which didn’t help the overall cause.
He quit school in grade 9 because he hated it and focused on filling some of the gap that his father’s death had left. At 16, he got polio. The following year, the polio vaccine came out. Sadly, it missed him by one year.
He worked hard to overcome his polio limitations, even playing hockey. One night he had to take a teammate to the Gainsborough hospital. A nurse needed a ride home to Carnduff and he offered her one. She accepted even though he was a total stranger. His heart didn’t pitter-patter that night, but a year later, he married that nurse, Edith Shier, even though her sister felt that she should have held out for someone better.
Their marriage lasted for almost 62 years.
Three years later, Steenbruggen was a dad. There were some difficulties during Bernie’s birth, so the decision was made to stop at 1 child. That birth eventually led to three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He loves them all and talks of them with glowing praise. He also thinks the world of his daughter-in-law Claudia, seeing her as ‘God’s gift to us’.
Tired of working for others, Steenbruggen decided to start up his own farm. He borrowed money to buy four quarters of land, but it didn’t have a great opening chapter. His first crop was poor, but he survived by milking his cows and plowing snow for the oil companies. He persisted and the second year was much better. In the next few years, he added pigs to the cows and crops he already had, plus more land and acquired several mules. He became a mule whisperer of sorts, breaking in the most stubborn of animals.
In the 1970’s he had another hospital encounter. This time, in Regina, a man suggested that he set up a tire business at the Steenbruggen farm. The idea grew on Steenbruggen. For 29 years, he sold tires as he farmed and ranched and met many, many people. Perhaps that’s where you know him from.
Things had come a long way from when he started out with those four quarters of land.
He stepped back from active farming about 10 years ago, passing the torch to his son and grandson. He still drives out to the farm daily for coffee and quite often he hears the question, “Dad, Grandpa, what do you think about this idea?” He enjoys his new role as farm consultant.
Steenbruggen’s worst day took place in 2012, when Edith passed away after a one-and-a-half-year battle with cancer. He had lost his greatest love and his most faithful supporter.
The last few years, he has spent much time in the suite that he loves at Sunset Haven, reminiscing of his 91-plus years of living. Life has been hard but good; he has known sorrow but also much joy; he’s accepted life for what it’s been and continually comes away with this conclusion – “I have no regrets.”
What a great perspective to have in life.
