Piggot
  Piggot  
 

Ken Piggot is holding a photo of his parents Irene and Don Piggot. When they married in 1930, Irene (nee Cooper) was the schoolteacher in Nicholson. In his younger years, Don and his brother Alec received their education at the Nicholson school, riding the five miles from the family homestead at 12 Mile in a horse and buggy in summer, and a cutter in winter.

Ken’s grandmother, Edith Piggot (nee Hobbs) was born in Essex, England in

 

1868 and, after her husband Ernest’s death, arrived in Golden in 1912 with Don, Alec and four more of her older children seeking the land of opportunity for her children. At first they camped on Tom Hawkes property (just north of Mitchell Rd.) then homesteaded the adjacent land.

It was tough times but all was not work in those days. One of the highlights of a winter dance was to gather a crowd in a sleigh and drive to Parson.  After dancing all night, they would return as

 

far as Piggot’s place where Edith gave them a warm welcome with coffee and sour dough hot cakes. Then the Nicholson crowd continued their ride home.

The background is a family photo taken one moving day during the building of the Banff-Windermere Highway circa 1920-23. Ken’s Uncle Alec is second from the left and Uncle Tom Hawkes is on the right. Edith Piggot now has fifth generation grandchildren living in Golden and the rest of Canada.