OXBOW - Take a little spin around Oxbow and you’ll soon discover that there was someone by the name of Galloway who played a prominent role in the town’s history.
There's Galloway Drive and the Galloway Health Centre.
Turns out that there were multiple significant Galloways in Oxbow’s past. William was among them, setting up a homestead near Oxbow in 1882. He felt that it was necessary for a town’s well-being to have a doctor, a value that he drummed into his son, Harry, who willingly served as a town doctor from 1906 until his death in 1938.
Harry’s youngest son Gerry aspired to be a pilot, but in time felt an obligation to follow in his father’s footsteps. In 1947, he began his practice and doctored until his sudden passing in 1991 from a heart attack at the age of 70.
Lisl Gunderman is the oldest granddaughter of Gerry and his wife Hilda. She and her husband Darrell Hunter live in Alberta. She is very interested in her family’s history. Of particular interest in recent years was the question of what became of Gerry’s snow plane.
It resembles a plane without wings that is on skis and is powered by a large airplane propeller at the back.
When Gerry became a doctor in Oxbow, he specialized in making house calls and found out very quickly that was difficult during the snowy winter months. A company in Moosomin, Fudge Industries, sold snow planes. Dr. Galloway bought a four-seater for $1,342. A bargain today, but a fortune back then.
Upon bringing it home to Oxbow, he named it The Delivery Wagon and emblazoned it with an emblem depicting a stork with a baby bundle. For 10 years, it travelled over the snow, taking Gerry to homes and farms to deliver babies and provide medical treatment.
After it was retired, it sat among the doctor’s vehicle collection for many years. Sometime between the doctor’s death and Hilda’s passing, she sold off or donated his collection, including The Delivery Wagon.
Gunderman and Hunter wondered what happened to the plane. She took an interest in what knew that her grandfather had a fascination with the Manitoba Antique Automobile Museum in Elkhorn, Man., and their collection of functional world-class antique automobiles. In the summer of 2022, she and Hunter paid a visit to the museum, with the hopes of possibly finding the snow plane there.
After describing it to an employee of the museum, they were told that there were many pieces of something that could possibly fit that description in one of their sheds. They had a look at those pieces and there it was. They knew it was what they were looking for because it had the legs of the stork on it.
Hunter is a journeyman tradesman and was very interested in trying to rebuild the snow plane. He met Dean Goden of Moosomin who had been involved in a number of restorations around that town and Rocanville. He felt The Delivery Wagon could be rebuilt, even to the point of being able to travel again. As a result, Hunter and Gunderman entered into a collaboration with the museum.
Under Goden's mentorship, they are rebuilding the snow plane at their own personal expense, with the intent of finishing it within five years. Upon completion, it will be returned to the museum to be put on display.
So, in the fall of 2022, they trailered all of the pieces out to Alberta and since then, Hunter has been working hard to put it all back together.
It has been a labour of love and an opportunity for Hunter and Gunderman to recapture some of her family’s history. They have met a lot of very interesting people in this restoration adventure. It is their hope that one day, they will be able to bring ‘The Delivery Wagon’ to Oxbow and feature it at events. It will bring back a lot of memories for a lot of people, as it has for them.
Follow the progress of the project on Instagram at drgallowaysnowplane or YouTube’s Fudge Snow Sedans or Snowplanes.
