John Beattie, Jr.

JOHN BEATTIE, born 1905 at Udley, Ontario was only one year old when his parents moved west to Douglas, and shortly after to Roblin where they ran a livery stable. “Johnnie” was four when they traded the business for the Bert McGillivry homestead at Deepdale and nine years of age when they moved to Makaroff. He attended the Makaroff Consolidated School and as a young man went to work in B.C. In 1929 he returned to Makaroff and purchased the Richard Craven farm SE 30-27-29. In the meanwhile, Kathleen Levins of Crandall, Manitoba had come to teach at Makaroff. Two years after Johnnie’s return from B.C. he and Kay were married in Brandon. Little firewood was available in the area by this time; it had to be hauled from north of Togo. This was in the days before municipal graders. Farmers using V-plows and blowers on their tractors kept the roads open. The group in their area included farmers: Johnnie Beattie, Sam Relky, Adolph Hischabett, Pete Nabe, Frank Grundy, and Evert Boyce. In 1940 Kay returned to teaching and in 1963 transferred to the Roblin Collegiate from which she retired in 1970. She had taught school for a total of 36 years and was presented an Honorary Life Membership of Manitoba Teachers’ Society in ‘appreciation of many services to the community of education’. Johnnie and Kay raised three daughters and one son and retired to Togo in 1974. Their daughter Donna, a teacher, married Harold Nabe (see Peter Nabe) and made their home in Togo; Ilene married Peter Penniston of Togo, both became teachers at Stony Mountain and raised two sons, Don and Jack; Beryl, who had been with the Royal Bank since 1957, married Ross Poulsen, an accountant with Inco at Thompson, Manitoba. Clifford worked for a year on a ranch in Alberta and a year in construction in Calgary before returning to work as a P. F. R. A. rider at the community pasture. He later worked at Bell Brothers Garage in Togo. In 1963 he purchased the McKnight farm at Grand Narrows but didn’t take up full time farming until 1968 when he purchased the farm of Pete Nabe at Makaroff. In 1981 he married Marg Delaney of Maple, Ontario.