Move To Alberta
Despite his election to the Chatham town council, Bennett's days in the town were numbered. He was ambitious and saw that the small community was too narrow a field for him. He was already negotiating with Sir James Lougheed to move to Calgary and become his law partner. Lougheed was Calgary's richest man and most successful lawyer.
Bennett moved to Alberta in 1897. A lifelong bachelor and teetotaler (although Bennett was known by select associates to occasionally drink alcohol when the press was not around to observe this), he led a rather lonely life in a hotel and later, in a boarding house. For a while a younger brother roomed with him. He ate his noon meal on workdays at the Alberta Hotel. Social life, such as it was, centered on church. There was, however, no scandal attached to his personal life. Bennett worked hard and gradually built up his legal practice. In 1908 he was one of five people appointed to the first Library Board for the city of Calgary and was instrumental in establishing the Calgary Public Library.
In 1910, Bennett became a director of Calgary Power Ltd. (now formally TransAlta Corporation) and just a year later he became President. During his leadership projects completed included the first storage reservoir at Lake Minnewanka, a second transmission line to Calgary and the construction of the Kananaskis Falls hydro station.
Read more about this topic: R. B. Bennett
Famous quotes containing the word move:
“A mother wants all of life to be painless for her child. This is not a realistic goal, however. Deprivation and frustration are as much a part of life as gratification. It is some balance between these that a mother is looking for. To take the next step is always painful in part. It means relinquishing gratification on some level. If one is totally gratified where one is, why move ahead? If one is totally frustrated, why bother?”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)