Roy Whitnack's enterprises
The Beiseker IHC and John Deere dealerships
Pretty Dorothy Henderson met Roy Whitnack because he had joined the military. Stationed at Vedders Crossing, British Columbia, Roy started his career as a driving instructor, teaching the troops to operate heavy equipment such as tanks and army trucks. Then, instead of a career overseas, Roy found himself back in Alberta, because the war effort needed coal too. Roy was sent to a freezing cold mine, working as a machinist in Wayne, and that was where Roy and Dorothy met each other.
A mining town in western Canada might seem like a decent place to wait out one of the deadliest conflicts in human history, but mines were dangerous places, too. Dorothy’s father was a blacksmith in Wayne. As tough as farming was, and is, there was a whole different level of difficulty for people from mining communities. The early twentieth century saw the Drumheller valley populated with mines, and the conditions for the workers were infamous. Hazards included exposure to heavy metals, lack of safety regulations and the mine owners who claimed that they provided good working conditions for their labourers. Even the smallest mines supported little communities that had churches, schools and even a hospital in the case of Wayne – but the ownership of those mines sometimes threatened to use machine guns if there was talk of starting a union.
Those were the conditions Dorothy’s family faced. Thirteen children were jammed into a small house. The mid twentieth century conditions were anything but idyllic. Leroy believes that his mother dealt with depression all her life. There was little support available for people with brain injuries, trauma or mental health concerns at the time, and one of Dorothy’s sisters was struggling so severely that she was institutionalized.
Leroy Whitnack was born in the hospital in Wayne in 1943 and he attended elementary school there.
After the war ended, Roy transitioned his skills back into agriculture. He worked for the International Harvester Company (IHC) dealership in Drumheller. Roy had always had a mechanical bent, and in those days, the way you became a mechanic was to proclaim, “I want to be a mechanic!” And you were. In an interesting tractor dealership crossover, Roy also spent time working for Viggo Pedersen’s IHC business in Rockyford, and you can read more about Pedersen Equipment right here. Later, there would be another merger with Pedersen Equipment, because Dorothy and Roy’s daughter June married Viggo’s son Ken!
In 1952, an opportunity came up in Beiseker, Alberta, when Frank Schmaltz’s shop and gas station came up for sale. Roy and a neighbour called Carl Jensen decided to go into partnership to buy the business and turn it into an IHC dealership, with Carl taking on the parts department and Roy handling the shop.
It was a true family enterprise. “Uncle Ernie” was the parts man and Leroy was working too. He recalled driving tractors to Beiseker from Drumheller on Highway 9. It was a big responsibility for a teenager, but he insists that it was “better than grinding valves” which was the other terrible job that the owner’s kid got stuck with. He also sanded and painted pre-owned tractors to get them ready for resale and was the all-purpose “gopher” for the business.
When their first building burned down, the business relocated to a new spot that was right on the highway. The Whitnacks put up the building themselves. Dorothy witched the well, with the water table proving so high that they had to build up their new structure.
Their Royalite Service Station combined with the IHC dealership, which also sold International Harvester trucks, the popular K series. The business was christened “Highway Service”.
The move coincided with the introduction of the IHC 660 tractor. Roy Whitnack had travelled to the United States for a product unveiling, and he knew immediately that the tractor was going to be a problem. “I don’t like the look of it,” he said, and rushed to the telephone to warn Carl Jensen not to sell any. It was too late – Carl had been dutifully promoting the new machine and had already sold twenty-four of them. That tractor set Roy Whitnack at war with IHC, the manufacturer he had been working with for years, and he wasn’t alone. At Wenstrom Equipment in Langdon, Alberta, Ron Wenstrom also recalled that the 660 was “an unmitigated disaster”. It had a long turning radius and was tough to start. It was even difficult to climb on and off. While some IHC tractors continue to be very collectible today with excellent resale value, the 660 is most definitely not one of them. Bad engines with sleeves loose in the block were yet another of the miseries associated with the 660. Roy knew he could overhaul the faulty engines, but he was not going to do it. The design flaw was not his problem.
Honouring the warranties over such a flop was both exasperating and expensive. When a neighbouring business operated by the Hagel family wanted to buy in, the decision was made to switch to a competitor: John Deere. Rebranded “H & W Service”, the new 4010 John Deere tractor must have seemed like a welcome apology for the headaches associated with the 660. It was a great John Deere with a power shift and a hydrostatic drive. Another good tractor in the product line up was the 5010, the biggest tractor of its time. It was a tractor built for field work, but with a live power take off, it was also a dependable choring tractor. It offered high pressure hydraulics and a closed engine system, making the tractor both powerful and safe. The 5010 came with a cab if you wanted one, and most Beiseker area farmers did opt for this creature comfort, ordering the upgrade. Local farmer Robin Reding remembered the first 4010 and first 5010 tractors sold in Beiseker, and recalled a night in the brightly lit showroom, with a group of admiring neighbourhood men standing in a ring around the new arrivals, possibly more excited than they had been for the birth of their first-born children!
Roy Whitnack was a legendary old-school mechanic who seemed to mystically divine what engines and moving parts needed. People who worked for him describe a blend of common sense and experience. He loved magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and was a healer of tractors who would go to the rescue when he saw a machine in the field that had stopped running. Whether he knew the person running it or not, Roy would save the day. On one occasion, he stopped when he saw a truck stranded on the side of the road with the wheel taken off. The driver had managed to get the wheel cross threaded. Not only did Roy have the exact tool needed, but he knew how to do the tricky roadside repair to get the vehicle going again.
H & W Service played a role in employing local teenagers like Robin Reding. Robin started working in the spring of 1965 and spent winters there for about three years. Duties included pumping gas and doing oil changes. The day typically began at 9.00 a.m., working through until supper, and sometimes coming back for a second shift until the gas station closed at 9.00 p.m. Robin recalled that Roy could be a good teacher, if you wanted to learn. “I learned more from that old man than from anyone else.” Training military personnel years before had become a transferable skill. Robin remembered Roy encouraging him to study the shop manuals on his lunch break. Roy encouraged Robin to take on challenging projects, saying that if he made mistakes, he would be there to help. “I’ll give you all the time you need,” Roy promised.
Farmers in Beiseker were doing well financially in the 1960s, and they preferred to buy new equipment. Robin said he enjoyed both the mechanical aspects of his job and the added responsibilities of sales. “I told the farmer exactly what I thought of the equipment,” he says, adding that his customers were his neighbours. “We knew them all.”
The customers were based as far away as Delia, Drumheller and Dalroy. The gas station patrons were regulars who Leroy got to know over time. It was the only gas available between Beiseker and Langdon Corner. The business also leased out a small restaurant space that sold truck stop fare such as coffee and burgers. Coffee times were at 10.00 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. every day, and Robin Reding remembered how much local farmers enjoyed that ritual. As for the burgers, they were excellent, with the deluxe burger being a crowd favourite. “And the fries were always good.”
But Alberta in the mid twentieth century was not an idealistic environment. Leroy learned later that one employee had been spying on the women using the gas station washroom, while another was rumoured to be a member of the Alberta chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
In addition to his duties at the dealership, Leroy worked as the janitor at his school from the age of twelve. He remembered an exhausting day of shovelling grain onto a wagon in Delacour on one occasion during harvest. Another time, he came home after a night of partying. Roy asked him where he was going. “To bed,” Leroy replied. The demoralizing answer? “No, you’re not.”
Leroy’s father had taken a giant step up from the legalized slavery of the mines, opening his own business. Now it was time for Leroy to take a similar step. He left Beiseker in 1963, when he got a lucky break to work construction for Environment Canada and ended up for a time in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. That steady and generous employment with the government created a life that he could never have dreamed of. He married Pam Drake from the Keoma area. “I consider myself the luckiest man in the world,” he says. But the decision did not go over well with his father.
The days were numbered for H & W Service. Farmers were trading in their used equipment, and it was not selling, which spelled financial trouble for the dealers. It was the same challenge that Jim Butterfield of the Case dealership in Beiseker had identified. Roy sold out to Albert Hagel, who took over with New Holland, yet another tractor brand that was more lucrative than John Deere. The employees of H & W left the business and went to work for John Deere in Calgary, which was not really so far away on fast-paced Highway 9.
Roy Whitnack is still remembered for his mechanical ability in Beiseker. Dorothy had been a lifelong smoker, and she died in 1964. Roy eventually ended up at a senior’s home in Strathmore, not far away from his daughter June in Rockyford. The respected business he developed had employed community members and had debuted significant agricultural products – both good and bad – during its time in business. He lived to watch his daughter continue to have a role with the farm equipment business and his son go on to succeed in a life that went beyond the hit-and-miss agricultural sector.
As a person who had started out as a driving instructor in the Canadian military, Roy’s life spanned a time of tremendous societal and industrial change in mid-twentieth century Alberta. The opportunities for higher standards of living, to be self employed, and to see his children succeed were replicated for many families throughout the province during that time.
The impact of major highways has been highlighted yet again in this article, with employees leaving their small communities for employment opportunities, commuting to Calgary. It has impacted local farmers today who own John Deere products. If there is a breakdown during harvest today, the nearest John Deere dealerships to Beiseker are located at Trochu (70 km away) and Balzac (50 km away).
Thank you to Leroy Whitnack and Robin Reding for their recollections and to Shelly McElroy for preparing this story. Thanks also to the Historical Society of Alberta for their funding support.
