Dave Suttie was born in Angus, Scotland, in 1897. He spent his youth on farms around the area and served five years in the Army during the first World War. The following six years he worked in the dairy section on an experimental farm in Wales.
In 1929, like many other young men, he came to Canada. His first job was on a farm in Saskatchewan, seeding in the spring. The hours were long and the wages low, so hearing of work at Trail where the wages were five dollars a day, he moved west.
He worked one month on the labour gang, but when they found out that he was an experienced dairyman, he was transferred to the Company Dairy. It was sold shortly after and in 1932 he came to work on the Company Dairy in Marysville.
In 1934, Dave married Catherine Garbutt. Her father was William Garbut, originally from Ontario, coming west to the Bluebell Mine at Riondel in 1908. Catherine was born in Nelson. When her father was transferred to Kimberley she completed her last two years of high school there. She recalls two teachers, Miss Ruth Stewart and Miss Keer. Catherine went to work at the C.P.R. station for the agent, Mr. Swanson. She remembers Bill Leaman giving her the work orders of the day.
Catherine and Dave have three children, twin boys, David and Nairn, and a daughter Jean. Both boys are in the Air Force. David was stationed in Germany for a time where he met a Canadian girl and they were married. He is now in Edmonton and they have two sons. Nairn married Eileen Neilson of Marysville and they have two children, a boy and a girl. He is stationed in Comox and they live in Courtenay. Jean trained to be a nurse in Missoula, Montana. She married Tom Bolen and they reside in Jaffray with their three sons. Jean is a supervisor at the Cranbrook Hospital.
Dave Suttie spent fourteen years working at the Company Dairy in Marysville. One incident he recalls was when a fire bug burned down the big barn and all the equipment and feed with it. The job of milking seventy cows proved quite a problem. It was managed by tying them up in the corral in relays and every available person that knew how to milk by hand was commandeered. Allen Keer was one of them.
The Dairy was sold in 1948 and Dave went to work at the Concentrator, spending most of those years building trestles at the tailings pond. He retired in 1962.
When they left the dairy at Marysville they bought a small farm near Wanklyn on the road to Cranbrook. Dave drove back and forth to work and maintained some livestock on the property. After he retired, he sold the farm and moved back to Marysville to the little house Jimmy Freizen used to own. Catherine keeps busy crocheting many beautiful articles, and they have a small garden.
