Making Moonshine

Family secrets . . . every family has them.  Even in this day where 'telling everything' seems to be the vogue, some secrets should remain secrets.  However, others become amusing stories told repeatedly at family gatherings and they become family favorites . . . like the story I am about to tell.  I had an Uncle who made moonshine and sold it, illegally, at the Edmonton City Public Market.

I know . . . your first question is, "How did he do that without being caught?"  The answer is simple.  The police officers patrolling the market were his friends and were numbered amongst his customers.  As long as there were no complaints, the officers simply chose to look the other way.

The reality was that it was not general knowledge that Uncle was making moonshine and selling it although many of the relatives knew and some of them even took a little nip themselves on special occasions.  Anyone really interested in buying some could find out how to do it via the grapevine.

Uncle's real livelihood was making and selling homemade German sausages (Grits wurst) at a stall in the Public Market on Saturdays when all the farmers would come into town to sell their produce.  The market was always crowded that day.  Because his sausages were popular, his weekly production quickly sold out.  To buy the moonshine though, one had to know that it was available under the counter and those that knew always took something extra home with their parcel of sausage.

The moonshine was manufactured in a still set up in a room built under the garage in Uncle's backyard.  Access was gained from a secret entrance under the steps leading down into the basement.  If you did not know the entrance was there, the basement looked like every other basement on the block.  One of the posts supporting the steps was rigged up with a tap so that Uncle could draw off his moonshine without having to go into the secret  room every time he wanted some.

When the secret panel was pulled back, you would crawl on hands and knees through a short tunnel to a tomb-like room located beneath the cement floor of the garage.  The tunnel and the room was shored up with beams and vented into the garage.

Understandably, this operation took a long time to build.  To carry it off, Uncle had to be clever and resourceful.  He would invite the neighbourhood children to come and play football in his backyard while he was doing the excavation work.  He would move among the children as they played shaking soil from the excavation from pockets concealed in his coveralls.  As the children played, they would stamp the soil into the ground and no one was the wiser.  This took place in the 'thirtys' but it reminds me of the wonderful war escape story, The Wooden Horse, where prisoners secretly dug an underground tunnel while other prisoners played soccer on the field above them.

Eventually, somebody found out about Uncle's sideline at the market. and went to the police.  The police had no choice but to confiscate the still and shut him down.  As Uncle was an elderly person, he was fortunate in that he did not have to spend time in jail but he was forced out of business at the market.

My parents and older brothers actually lived in that house for a time after Uncle moved away and it was still standing when my brother Kenneth and I drove by it in the summer of 1997.  Nobody seems to know what happened to the tunnel and room under the garage. 

The backyard of that property was so smooth and level because of the excavations that my Mother's sister, Esther, who lived with them, flooded the back yard every winter and turned it into a skating rink so my brothers had a place to play hockey.  I have a picture of the three of them on skates on the rink.  I also have a faded picture of Uncle with a big smile on his face holding a brandy snifter filled with an unidentified liquid.  Whatever it was, he was happy!