July 20th, 2013

Since last posting to this random recollection of the beginning years following the formation of the Veterans' Project, i.e. the Fairview Heights Irrigation District,  more of these veterans who were part of this endeavor have died, including my husband, Charles Lincoln Finch.

I have many personal recollections of the thirty-six years we lived at the foot of the mountain, where the big barn is located, and of the people who created this magical acreage by stint of hard work and enthusiasm, and these I will try to record elsewhere.

However, the nuts and bolts of the formation of the community on the Cawston Bench seems to have been lost with the passing of the Veterans.

I read in the Penticton Herald of a ceremony and plaque recognizing the beginning of the West Bench, accomplished by a similar government effort to place Veterans on Small Holdings.

I am dismayed that there is no recognition or recollection (seemingly) of the Veterans who established the Fairview Heights Irrigation District and changed the Cawston Benchland

from this

 

to this