Andrew and Edna (Draper) Delong
Warkentin and Draper Family History

In March, 1902, he started north alone with the covered wagon and his good team of Belgians. Two weeks later he met the Draper-Jackson wagon train headed to Saskatchewan from Oconto, Nebraska. Three wagons were included in the Draper-Jackson train and extra help and companionship were very necessary to everyone especially Andy DeLong.

Edna Draper, then nearly 15, her parents, Charlie and Hattie Draper, and her younger brothers, Ernest and Cloyde, had a family wagon. An older brother, Bert, remained in Nebraska as he had recently married. Jim Jackson, his wife Mary, Sons Harry and Fred and two young daughters, Mabel and Aggie, travelled in another wagon, while Francis Draper had a third wagon.

Mabel and Aggie were later to become Mrs. George and Mrs. Tom Hennessey of Rural Battleford. The trip by wagon train took three full months. As there were few roads, at times a wagon would sink to the axles, and the six or eight horses would be needed to budge it. Very little progress was made on some days, as spring thaws caused one wagon after another to become mired. Or a whipple tree or axle would split and need replacing. Nevertheless, it seemed the children who were cousins enjoyed most of the trip, it was an adventure.

After they crossed into Saskatchewan, the families rented a boxcar and the equipment and household goods were shipped to Saskatoon. From there they travelled overland to Battleford where they arrived June 2.

It seemed by this time the drought cycle had broken, for the ground was so soggy that a wagon load of sod Andy DeLong had left on the level prairie had caused the wagon to sink to the axle by morning. Cattle became mired on the edge of the sloughs.

As soon as they arrived in Battleford the families rented the Dick Laurie farm about two miles south of the police barracks. The families divided the big log house. Charlie Draper immediately planted wheat, broadcast method, that produced a surprisingly good crop. Potatoes also were planted on prairie sod.

After building a barn and log house on S.E. 24-43-18 W3, he was married to Edna Draper in September of 1905. The ceremony took place in George Truscott’s residence, close to the foot of the Eagle Hills. The Truscotts had the only piano in the district and Mrs. Truscott was an accomplished pianist. On the homestead, Andy constructed one of the first windmills in this area for stock watering. He had a blacksmith shop and worked on many wagon wheels and other iron work for neighbours.

Andy was also a fireman for the big steam tractors that broke bush land on many farms in the district. He was a steam boiler man for several threshing crews. The crops were good and as there were few big threshing outfits the crews worked into late January.

Andy DeLong had suffered from ‘rhumatiz’ each winter because of a childhood accident. The doctor advised a warmer climate.

Gradually via real estate agents, they decided to move to West Virginia in 1916. Fay Hastings bought the homestead, now belonging to Bill Bridge. After a brief stay with the Drapers near Cleveland School, they travelled by train, via Chicago, to a plantation farm in Virginia. After our wide Saskatchewan farms and advanced farming technology in comparison to the hoe and cradle method still in use there, the DeLongs returned to Battleford in 1917. This time to a farm in the Battle River School District