| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR2006 | | TITLE: | Alda Dale Randall fonds | | CREATOR: | Randall, Alda Dale | | DATE RANGE: | 1920-[ca. 1960] | | EXTENT: | 0.05 m of textual records | | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Alda Dale Black was born August 21, 1887 in Brandt, Ohio; she was the daughter of Adam Alonzo and Effie Catherine (Engle) Black. The Black family moved to North Dakota. Dale attended the State Normal School in Mayville, North Dakota and Wittenburg College in Dayton, Ohio and later worked as a teacher in the Dakotas and Wyoming. She married Guy Willis Randall on June 25, 1912 in Gillette, Wyoming. Dale and Guy farmed in North Dakota before moving to Alberta. The Randalls, along with Dale’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law, Maud Hazel (Black) and James Gallespie, left North Dakota for Canada in 1917; they first lived in Barons, Alberta, then in Stavely, Alberta and finally moved to High Prairie, Alberta area in 1919. Initially, they homesteaded near Snipe Lake (Sunset House), Alberta, but the following year moved closer to High Prairie. Dale and Guy had seven children: Willis Elmore (born April 18, 1913), Edith Dale (Dolly) (born March 11, 1916), James Warren (born July 8, 1918), Leila Rose (born December 22, 1920), Guy Everett (born March 5, 1923), Mary Katherine (born December 24, 1925) and Lisle William (born April 3, 1929). After Guy’s death on October 24, 1939, Dale and the children continued to farm. She moved to High Prairie in about 1940. Dale was a founding member of the local public library and museum. Some of Dale’s short stories were published in the Family Herald and the New Yorker. Alda Dale Randall died February 13, 1977. | | CUSTODIAL HISTORY: | Leila R. Lawrence, daughter of Alda Dale Randall, donated the records to the Provincial Archives of Alberta in 1994. | | SCOPE AND CONTENT: | The fonds consists of two diaries of Alda Dale Randall, primarily from the 1920s, which include accounts of her life as well as short stories. The diaries serve as a good example of the reuse of writing materials which had previously served another purpose. | | DATE NOTE: | While the records were primarily created in the 1920s, there are some entries from 1938 and 1939, and then a comment on a 1920 entry written about 40 years later. | | PHYSICAL CONDITION: | Some pages are torn and the binding is broken. | | ASSOCIATED MATERIAL: | See also the Peace River Country Research Project collection at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta. | | EXHIBITION, PUBLICATION AND OTHER USES: | The diary was used in the Archives Society of Alberta's 1998 virtual exhibit Dear Diary, which can be viewed at http://www.archivesalberta.org/diary/diary.htm, last accessed January 18, 2007. It was also used as part of the 2005 Provincial Archives of Alberta Archives Week event Voices of the Past. | | GENERAL NOTE: | Information for the biographical sketch is taken from Turning the Pages of Time: A History of Nampa and Districts, 1800-1981 and “Where the Redwillow Grew:” Valleyview and Surrounding Districts, which are available in the Provincial Archives of Alberta Reference Library, 971.231 N152 and 971.231 W574r, from Trails We Blazed Together: History of Grouard, High Prairie & Surrounding areas, from information provided by the Glenbow Archives, from Dale Randall’s obituary in South Peace News and from the records. |
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