Years of horse sense helped Canada’s longest surviving Mountie finally get his man.
RCMP officer Ernie Henderson was able to catch up to a man he had been looking for when he came upon the suspect’s horse tied up to a hitching post at a Turner Valley drinking establishment sometime in the in the early 1940s.
“The man had been in some trouble and Ernie could never catch up with him and he saw the person’s horse tied up at the local bar,” said Henderson’s long-time friend Reg Powys-Lybbe. “Ernie went into the bar and couldn’t find him.
“Ernie then went out and took the saddle off the man’s horse and the next day the guy came into the Turner Valley station to claim his saddle. Ernie got him.”
Ernie Henderson, Canada’s longest living RCMP constable, died on Nov. 9 in Calgary at the age of 106.
Henderson served in the Turner Valley detachment for a year and a half the 1940s before being transferred to head the High River station. He also served in Drumheller, Cardston and Hanna.
He got his start in British Columbia in 1933, however, at that time B.C. had its own police force and he did virtually no police work, according to his memoirs.
“As we also enforced the Railway Act, I spent three summers clearing the freights and sometimes passenger trains of those stealing rides,” Henderson wrote.
Cleve Cooper, former assistant to the RCMP commissioner, is one of several ex-RCMP officers who gather at the High River Dairy Queen once a week to trade stories. Henderson was a regular at the coffee chats up until a few months ago.
“Ernie used to tell us of those days when he was literally riding the rails and having to get the hobos off the freight cars,” Cooper said with a chuckle.
Henderson was always a perfect gentleman in his duties; one such example came to light when he left his posting in Drumheller in the early 1940s.
“When Ernie was leaving his posting at Drumheller a chauffeured car pulled up to the detachment and a ‘lady’ who was the proprietor of a ‘house of some repute’ approached Ernie,” Powys-Lybbe recalled. “Ernie told her he was surprised to see her, but she said that she wanted to wish him good-bye as although he was tough he had always been fair in his dealings with her.”
Henderson was born in Manitoba in January 1905. He worked on the family farm until 1932 when the hardship of the Great Depression led him to the join the RCMP. He retired from the force in the late 1940s after earning the rank of corporal and many of the First Nations people called him “Ernie Two Stripes” because of the bars on his shoulders.
Henderson went on to be a fieldman with the Canadian Shorthorn Association and later ran a hardware store in Saskatchewan.
He came back to Alberta 1n the 1970s and became a member of the renowned “High River Mafia.”
Henderson joined forces with Marlene and Powys-Lybbe to become a dynasty in growing award-winning dahlias and gladiolas.
“In 1972, Marlene and I were setting up in Toronto for the first world show of gladiolas,” Powys-Lybbe said. “This gentleman came up and asked where are you from and I said High River. He said: ‘I’m moving there’ and we have been friends ever since.”
Henderson lived in High River the remainder of his life.
The trio would win so many awards when Henderson and the Powys-Lybbe would pull up for a show, other participants would joke: “Here comes the High River Mafia.”
Henderson would win one gladiola national show with a variety, ironically called, Mountie.
Henderson was growing award-winning gladiolas and dahlias virtually right up to his death and he helped Powys-Lybbe select an award-winning dahlias this past summer.
He was also instrumental in getting an old RCMP member started with growing award-winning flowers.
“In 2003 I had come to High River from Ottawa and Ernie helped my wife and I on how to grow dahlias,” Cooper said. “He was 98.”
Henderson’s wasn’t forgotten by his fellow RCMP. He became a celebrity across the country when he celebrated his 100th birthday in 2005. He participated in more than 20 events that year, including being the parade marshal for the High River Little Britches Parade.
“Ernie really wanted to be on horseback and had even picked the horse he wanted to ride – John Monteith’s horse,” Powys-Lybbe said. “John used to ride by the glad patch at Roy Simpson’s when we were growing in excess of 20,000 glads there and Ernie was often helping us. Ernie was a horseman and knew a good horse when he saw it. The parade committee, however, was not sure about the wisdom of having Ernie ride the parade route at age 100.”
Henderson was also a member of the RCMP Musical Ride. He was such a good rider, he and his horse Pard, were used as extras when Nelson Eddy played Sgt. Bruce in the classic film “Rose Marie” with Jeanette MacDonald which was filmed in Canada in the early 1930s.
Both Powys-Lybbe and Cooper talked of Henderson’s strong mind right up until his final days.
“I was driving him down to Fort Macleod in June — when he was 106 — and he told me this story of Orrin Hart from his Shorthorn days,” Cooper said. “I of course, thought of Owen Hart the wrestler. We ended up calling the Harts in Claresholm and had a visit.”
Henderson was driving until he was 103 — he bought his last car when he was 100.
He was predeceased in 1987 by his wife of 46 years, Fanny Henderson. He is survived by two children, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
A celebration of Ernie Henderson’s life will be held on Nov. 18 at 1:30 p.m. at the Snodgrass Funeral Home in High River.
