Stu Wells writes about a friend……Glenn Tweedy.
Our family friendships go back to 1953 when the Wells family arrived in Osoyoos. Glenn was such a generous welcoming person that my dad , George, was immediately attracted, and the two families bonded at many levels. Throughout the years the friendships flourished. My brother Terry thinned peaches for Glenn and while I don’t recall every working at the Tweedy farm many of my friends did.
When I first entered into the local political scene I always knew I had the support of Glenn and Iris. When I first announced my intention, Glenn would call and ask me to come over and he would have a contribution for my campaign. It sure made me feel good to have that support.
Glenn Tweedy
September 1, 1925 – November 8, 2012
Glenn Albert Tweedy was born in Westlock, Alberta on September 1st, 1925 to Bertha and Johnstone Tweedy, the fourth of six children. The Tweedy family resided in northern Alberta until making their way to Osoyoos to join Bertha’s family, the Pendergrafts, on May 8th, 1934. They settled in a large circus tent on Lake Osoyoos until Pa constructed a small cabin.
Glenn often reminisced with his family about this joyous, though frugal, time of his life. Riding his horse Midget, with Dick Montgomery and Val Haynes, jumping the irrigation ditch with Midget to retrieve dirty laundry from the miners at the Dividend mine, taking the laundry back to his mom to wash, and then riding back to the mine the next day with the clean clothes. He saved his tip money, and was very proud when his dad took him to Oroville to the brand new big store just built by Ben Prince. with his savings, Glenn bought himself a new three piece suit. He was only ten years old. Glenn was determined to wear his new suit to school which resulted in many school yard tussles and can be attested to by one of his schoolmates, Dorothy Carlson Fairbairn. At the age of 15, Glenn joined the Canadian Army. He just told them he was 18. His duty was decoding. Make no mistake about it – his patriotism kept him quiet regarding top secret transmissions.
Glenn met Iris Pembridge during wartime. She too was an enlistee, and though they were separated during the war by different postings, on October 10th, 1946, they were in Vancouver. The arduous journey to Osoyoos following the ceremony was fraught with misadventure, including extreme fog while Iris led the way on foot down the windy, treacherous roadways.
Shortly after arriving in Osoyoos, the Tweedys settled on ten acres of sagebrush and cactus. It was here, two miles north of town, that they would call home for the fifty-five years.
It was here that they built a home to be proud of, tilled and planted the land with hard, arduous labour and sheer sweat. This began the start of the work ethic that Glenn instilled in his three daughters.
Donna, Rhonda, and Bonnie will all tell you that whether it be working in the ground crops, picking cherries, cutting and selling Christmas trees, helping cut and load props in the bush, driving prop truck – whatever needed to be done – no matter how physical – Glenn’s young, and very slight, daughters, were up to the task!
Donna recalls being stranded in the States on numerous occasions with broken U-Joints on an overloaded prop truck and becoming proficient on how to replace it and get home. Bonnie’s favourite job was cutting Christmas trees and props in the bush with her dad. On one occasion actually ending up rolling the truck over an embankment with a full load of Christmas trees. But her dad taught her not to be afraid and after help from the Hedlunds, she was back on the road headed for home. Rhonda can tell you that working weekends as a teenager meant really working – working for and with her dad ingrained a healthy ethic for hard labour which was always greeted with well deserved accolades and rewards.
Under the heading of the race track story Bonnie had a new friend Granny Quintal and when Glenn found out she hadn’t been to the ocean nothing would prevail but they must go. Of course it was a business opportunity so Glenn took down a load of apples which he very successfully marketed. He wanted to take the girls out for the best lunch so at the suggestion of brother Don, took the girls to the brand new Four Seasons. Glenn was wearing his formal Osoyoos farming attire and of course the service was less than he desired or demanded. Glenn didn’t take this snub very well and he stood to address the room of suits and waiters and declared that they were all a bunch of shoe clerks eating dainty sandwiches he wanted to order steaks. Anyway they exited and headed for Hastings racetrack where Glenn had visited previously with Mayor Jack Shaw. The staff thought Glenn was the Mayor and treated him accordingly with the best seats, service, and attention. This recognition suited Glenn very well and he thought this was a “dandee” situation, just dandee. Even on subsequent visits with Iris he never corrected the assumption that he was the Mayor of Osoyoos. I was wondering if I went there today would they think I was an imposter.
Glenn was the spirit of entrepreneurship. He had so darned many enterprises going and sometimes many at once. These were the Christmas trees and the tree prop business which were mainstays in the equation but there were many agricultural endeavours and Glenn never missed the opportunity to make a buck. Early on there was Tweedy Brothers and Sand which was a trucking, aggregate/road construction type of company. They sponsored the Osoyoos men’s fastball team which had the likes of young Corny Decock and his windmill arm as the pitcher. Of course with all these enterprises there were many tales. My dad George would make darned sure that he went on one of the prop delivery trips to Manson or Quincy or Chelan.
Glenn’s work ethic extended to the hundreds of young men and older men that he hired over a fifty year timeframe.
He fired everyone at least once. Some were fired several times! Of course, after rehiring you, there was a probably bonus on the table.
Naturally, with Glenn when the work was over, the play began. Having fun was his realm of expertise. It didn’t matter if it was Christmas dinner with a house full of friends and family, which in the early year was preceded by the ritual grouse or goose hunt – or just simply any excuse to have a party. And small gatherings were out of the question. The more the merrier.
A trip to the Oregon coast to go salmon fishing involved seven of them from Osoyoos – friends and family – to meet up with Don and Evenly Tweedy, and Geoff and Jean Vantreight. On the return trip, an American long weekend, finding a place with vacancies was next to impossible. After stopping at one motel and discovering that the rates were “by the hour” they carried on to the next small town, where Glenn had a grand idea. He entered the local police station and asked if the establishment could put them up for the night! After laughing out loud, the officer said, “Sorry, it’s a long weekend. We don’t expect to have any vacancies.”
One year the family spent Christmas at Disneyland. Whether by divine design, or pure fluke, they encountered many other folks from Osoyoos. Glenn immediately arranged reservations at a nearby restaurant for over twenty Osoyoosites for a traditional Canadian Christmas dinner, with turnkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and plenty of good cheer. He did things spur of the moment – but he did them in epic proportion with sterling results.
Glenn was always full of surprises – bringing home a horse from Uncle Ted’s – Commanche – one of the sweetest surprises for the girls. Commanche would jump the fence and Glenn once had to ride her home bareback with a halter from Fernande’s fruit stand!
Glenn loved to dance – and danced gracefully to the music of “The Blues Brothers” with Iris, the girls, granddaughters, and great granddaughters on the gala occasion of Glenn and Iris’ sixtieth wedding anniversary.
Glenn was also very adept with a deck of cards and it really didn’t matter the game. From bridge to crib and all variations in between he was a master. If you were taking on Tweedle you had better have your “A” game and a little bit of luck. Many problems wee solved over the kitchen table at the farm house.
Glenn was a complex man. A man who loved to work; a man who loved to play. But to many he will be mostly remembered for his spirit of generosity. Glenn played a large part in the history of early Osoyoos as he was a back and worker and volunteer on many projects such as he curling rink and the first nine holes of Osoyoos golf course. If there was a need, Glenn was thee and I want to stress that the community need was way bigger than getting paid for his equipment.
For many decades he donated the large Christmas tree situated at the end of Main Street. He laid bricks for the building of the Osoyoos Legion Hall. Christmas trees were donated to the schools. And if you bought a tree from Glenn, leaving without a shot of Grand Marnier was out of the question. He took Christmas hampers to families who had vey little. He didn’t boast about it. Looking back, his family feels he really embodied the true spirit of Christmas.
Glenn was a man, who wore many different hats, both figuratively and literally, (Stetsons and Tilley’s especially!) He was known to people in all walks of life.
To many he endeared himself to them as simply “Tweedy.” To others, he was “Chief” or “The Boss.” To many old-timers he was, “The Cardinal,” where he presided, speaking in flowery superlatives and language befitting a college professor. This out-of-the-ordinary man could enunciate words that some thought were invented!
And he would always call it the way he saw it. He could tell his peers, “You’re a scholar and a gentleman,” and in another instance, one might be designated a “shoe clerk,” or a “hoodlum!”
To his family, Glenn was known by one name, “Papa.” He was not perfect – he was human. But he was the husband, brother, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and uncle who was dearly loved by all. He returned that love to every single one of his family and his extended family with all of his heart. And he felt that same way about his many dear friends.
In closing, he would have only one more thing to say – “So long sports fans!”
This article supplied by Brian Wilson – editor of Archivos (Okanagan Archives Trust Society) magazine