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Historian provides interesting overview of town and family’s background

Years ago, when Margaret Marshall was a schoolgirl and her last name of Rimbey matched the town in which she lived, she decided, one day,
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Rimbey descendents: In the back from the left are Dennis Moore

Years ago, when Margaret Marshall was a schoolgirl and her last name of Rimbey matched the town in which she lived, she decided, one day, to play hooky.

The 93-year-old had a twinkle in her eyes as she recalled the day she and a friend decided to skip classes.

“My girlfriend and I had heard there was a wedding in town and we decided we wanted to go to it,” she said.

Marshall, who took a moment to chat after her presentation as the keynote speaker at the Rimbey Old-Timers’ Reunion, said the girls sat in the back row of the church but before long they were spotted by the minister.

“I shrank against the wall hoping he wouldn’t notice me,” she said, “but he did.”

Finally, the preacher came up to Margaret and much to her surprise and chagrin, asked her if she could play the wedding march because they didn’t have a pianist.

She replied she would have to go home and get her music which she did, accompanied by the best man.

“I ended up playing for the wedding,” she said. “That’s what happens when you live in a small town. Everyone knew I played the piano.”

Marshall, who is the granddaughter of Sam and Molly Rimbey, and the daughter of Chester and Ella Rimbey, grew up on a farm and admitted she never learned to ride a bicycle.

“Why would I ride a bicycle when I had a perfectly good horse?” she said.

During her overview of the history of the Rimbey family, Marshall told the crowd how brothers Ben, Jim, Sam and a nephew, Oscar Rimbey, left Kansas on an immigration train bound for Canada at the turn of the century.

The Rimbey families rented farms around Lacombe in 1900, with Sam moving into a cabin with a sod roof, southeast of Lacombe in the Lakeside district.

“Grandma, Sam’s wife, hated it. She said that it was the closest to hell that she ever wanted to get. It had a dirt floor and after it rained, the sod roof dripped water for days.”

The men drove around the country looking at land and finally decided they liked the land in Rimbey.

The Rimbeys found a survey stake four miles south of the corner where the Beatty House and hotel now stand. Sam, Ben and Jim had picked out the land they wanted, so they started at the survey stake to measure off the proper distance.

They tied a rag around the rim of one wheel, measured the circumference of the wheel, then with a compass, started north and counted the revolutions of the wheel so they would know how far they had gone.

Sam’s land included the quarter southwest of the Beatty House, Jim’s quarter was northeast of the Beatty/hotel corner. Ben’s quarter was east of Jim’s.

The brothers got together to build Jim’s cabin and they all bunked there while they built the others.

The families moved out to their homesteads in 1901 before the ice on Gull Lake thawed.

By fall the quarter sections were fenced and good gardens raised.

In 1902 John Rimbey came to Canada, buying land on the south side of Lacombe on what is now part of the Lacombe Research Station. Also in that year, a sister, Lorena Jane and her husband, Joe Marshall, arrived here with their family of eight. Four more children were born in Rimbey.

When the Rimbeys arrived their post office address was Lacombe, North West Territories, Canada. All supplies and mail had to be brought from Lacombe. Anyone who went to Lacombe, a trip that usually took five or six days, brought back supplies and mail.

The new settlement, now known as Rimbey, was originally called Kansas Ridge because most of the settlers came from Kansas. However, when a post office was needed the name changed.

“Mr. Iddings told me that three names had to be submitted to the government and Rimbey was the name chosen. So that is how Rimbey got its name,” Marshall explained.

Her presentation included pictures of some of the original homesteads and members of the Rimbey family.

Several descendents of the family were in attendance at the reunion.