The Okotoks Parade saw massive crowds and beautiful weather for its 50th anniversary, all with one of the town’s most lasting residents at the helm.
Born, raised and married in her house on Riverside Drive, next to the old Bullpen, parade marshal Rose Marlow has seen Okotoks through all of its phases in her 86 years.
“When I went to school, there was 800 people living here,” she said. “I could tell you how many lived in each house, and who lived there.”
Climbing uphill both ways in the snow is certainly how Marlow remembers her journey to the Okotoks Lower School.
“When you went to school in the morning all the wind used to blow that snow over the hill,” she said. “We had to go over that hill with snow up to our hips, climbing the hill to get up on top. Then when you went to lunch and came back, it was the same when the wind was blowing.”
Despite the struggle of the winter trek to school, she said the full seasons have changed.
“In those years, we had the four seasons, we don’t have them anymore,” she said. “We have winter, summer, fall.”
Marlow has noticed in recent years that winter is no longer followed by spring, and said it gets really hot until Stampede and then the rain starts and cools off into fall.
Married in 1960, her husband, Ernest—who she calls her “flower man”—and her began their flower business two years later, which they operated until he died in 1987.
“He had a greenhouse in Millarville called Clay West Nurseries, and I sold flowers for 25 years until he died,” she said. “I was known as the Flower Lady, half of Okotoks was buying flowers from me.”
She won the Golden Shrub Award twice, and proudly displays the awards on the wall with pictures of her flower man.
She tends her flowers and garden at her home as best she can now, but finds time is catching up to her—keeping her lawn tidy is limited to the morning now, before she goes in to rest for the afternoons.
Marlow has seen her share of trials and tribulations too, speaking of the 2005 and 2013 floods she saw on her own, following her husband’s passing.
The 2005 flood saw her basement flooded, and credited her perseverance to the help of her friends, and hard work shoring up her home’s foundation.
Her family’s history is important to her. Her mother died in 1972, and her father, who was a First World War veteran, died in 1951.
“He was in the 14-18 War, my dad was. When he came out of that war he joined the army again and was Veterans Guard of Canada, and he guarded the German prisoners,” she said.
“He was stationed all over, and the last station he was in Lethbridge.”
Marlow said CP Rail used to have the tracks fenced off, and her dad used to drop his kit bag out the window of the train for her to grab and take home, saving him from having to haul it home.
“I remember getting a phone call saying ‘the war is over, watch for the train, I’m coming through and will throw my kit bag out (…) I was 11 years old when the war was over.”
She said her dad worked for the Town for 35 years, and dug graves by hand with a shovel at the cemetery before his passing.
“He really worked for the Town for a great many years,” said Marlow with a smile.
As the lone house on Riverside Drive, Marlow has seen the town grow and shape itself in new directions, and spoke fondly of the old creamery that was next door, before being the Bullpen.
“I was sorry to see the creamery go,” she said. “I really miss the creamery very, very much.”
Accepting the role of parade marshal was easy for Marlow, who said she gets along well with the Town.
“The Mayor (Bill Robertson) is very special to me, he is a wonderful friend,” she said. “I told him to his face, we’ve had mayors in there and you could never talk to ’em.”
Her observations of the town’s changes over the years speak to improvements, as well as problems, and she talked of how much simpler life was when she was growing up.
Between everyone being in a rush to schedules being so jam-packed there’s no time to stop in for a visit unannounced, she said she couldn’t understand how we got here.
“It’s about time people are slowing down, in everything,” she said.
Her piece of advice for the future? Treat others how you want to be treated, and that goes for nature too.
“If you’re going to be nasty with people, don’t expect people are going to be nice to you, because it doesn’t work that way,” she said. “Some people I think get up miserable and go to bed miserable. Life goes on, honey, life goes on.”
