A lifetime in farming, running an auction house and selling furniture has given Alex Ewashen a lot of stories to tell. Now 82, the longtime Creston businessman has published Rags to Riches… My Way, a personal memoir spurred by a desire to keep his memories alive for his grandchildren.
“I guess this is something I’ve always wanted to do, write something for posterity, for my grandchildren,” he said.
“My children know most of it — my life in business — because they grew up in it all. But the grandchildren — kids are always so busy now with music, sports, dancing and the like. You need an appointment to get together with them. They know very little about my past and our family’s heritage.”
Ewashen was born on a Southern Alberta farm, his father raised in Russia as a member of the Doukhobor sect, the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood. Ewashen’s mother’s family was connected to Peter the Lordly Verigin. The Ewashens and the Verigins didn’t see eye to eye on matters of religion and Ewashen describes the marriage of his mother and father “a Shakespearean tragedy”.
Ewashen’s early life is a story not uncommon among new Canadian families. He headed off for his first day of school without speaking a word of English.
Writing My Way was a two-year endeavor, he said.
“I had more than the odd sleepless night” while the book was in progress, he said. “There was always stuff going around in my head. I would wake up with a memory and have to put it on paper in case I forgot it by the time I got up in the morning.”
The process brought back memories long forgotten, some he didn’t even know he had.
“I can remember Dad building me a jolly jumper out of binder canvas and a spring from a seed drill, and eating corn on the cob while I was bouncing,” he said. “I couldn’t have been more than two years old.”
Writing also served as an affirmation of a life well lived.
“I am very content and very happy about my life turned out. I have had good fortune through persistence, and lots of luck, too.”
The stresses brought on by building auctioneering and furniture businesses took a toll on his personal relationships and health, but the highlights have been numerous, he said.
In My Way, Ewashen retells the story of joining a peace caravan in 1984. Organized by high school teacher and peace activist Sigurd Askevold, a group of 17 met in Europe for “Peace and Friendship Caravan International, 1984, 50,000 km for Peace”. For three and a half months the group drove throughout the entire Communist Bloc and Western Europe, meeting with other peace activists, ordinary citizens and elected officials. It was, Ewashen says, the opportunity of a lifetime.
Readers who attended any of Ewashen’s countless auctions will enjoy learning about his early years learning the auction business in Southern Alberta before he and his wife, Julie (who wrote a children's book last year), moved to Creston in search of a milder climate.
Regular weekly auctions, estate and farm auctions, and, later, government equipment auctions allowed him and Julie to interact with thousands of clients and customers, and become well known figures throughout the Creston Valley and the Kootenays.
A book launch even is in the planning stages and the Advance will report on details as they become available. In the meantime, copies of Rags to Riches… My Way can be obtained directly from the author by calling 250-428-7097.