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"I captured this shot one morning last summer using a Sigma 24mm ART lens at F11 for 1/100th of a second, then the moment was gone, so I went home. 
 
It wasn’t the first time that I had been to the site. In fact, a few weeks prior I stood in the exact same spot with my 4 year old and captured at least 100 other photographs - we probably would have taken more, but for an old farmer named Earl who seemed to take an interest in our affairs.
“I have been watching you people photograph the old Fero shack for 30 years…” he said to me, kind of arriving out of nowhere - even though you could see for 20 miles in every direction. 
After a brief but intense panic, I asked him if it was alright that we were there; and to my relief he smiled and told us to sit down so he could tell us a story.
“Back in 51 it wasn’t on this spot; that’s when my pop got the land in an auction.” Earl said, his 94 year old voice raspy and warm at the same time. He wore faded black dress pants, a white button up shirt, and a name tag connoting him to be an elder at the local Mormon church.
Sensing that my photograph was about to get a lot more interesting, I said “wow!” and secretly snapped a poorly focused still of Earl grinning mid-sentence.
For the next 25 minutes, my little guy and I sipped our slushies, laughed, cried, and marvelled as Earl captivated our imaginations with his most incredible story…
Gheorghe Fieraru was a full framed man who came from a long line of blacksmiths in Covasna County Romania, but in 1923 he immigrated to Alberta in search of a better life. At the time, the Canadian government was selling farmland for pennies on the dollar with the hope of boosting rural populations. Gheorghe arrived to a massive farming boom, quickly got married to Edith, and had 5 children. He was a harsh man who had no reservations in squandering the family purse and was reported to disappear for weeks at a time. He was a hard drinking, hard fighting, hard gambling, temperamental man who had the scars to prove it. He built the house in our photograph during the summer of ’27 as best as Earl could calculate.
By 1932 Fieraru’s fortunes had taken a turn for the worse; the great depression, a seemingly endless drought, and 5 straight years of El-Nino wind storms rendered his farm useless because there was no topsoil, no water, and nobody with money enough to buy what little grain he was able to grow. The following year, he was arrested in Billings Montana after driving a car full of alcohol into America for the illicit purpose of resale. I couldn’t find any records, but it was said that Gheorghe was arrested and promptly imprisoned without trial by the ultra-right Montana State Cavalry. Gheorghe spent the next eight years in a Montana prison apparently, and when America joined the war effort, he was conscripted; as was standard practice for any uneducated but able bodied convict. Gheorghe’s military service appears to be exemplary, I was able to find an online archive of the 163rd Infantry Regiment (Montana Corps) that reported Pte. Fieraru to be of “sound ethic”, “devoid to the fear of death”, and “232 pounds - large, heavy”. In 1948 after the war, Fieraru was repatriated back to Shelby Montana where, for some reason, he appears to have spent another 6 years in the slammer.
“What happened to Edith?” I heard myself ask, with trepidation and instant regret. 
I could tell that Earl didn’t like the answer that was forthcoming, but as a widower who lived a generally lonely life; he couldn’t pass up an opportunity for a good chat with receptive company. 
“I met her once as a kid” he said, “she was missing a whole lot of teeth”. 
After Gheorghe was arrested, Edith dutifully waited for years to hear from him, but she did so in vein and the Vulcan county shire eventually foreclosed on the farm for back taxes. Earl figured she packed up and headed back to the Maritimes where she was from, and raised the children on a seamstress salary. Nobody, including Gheorghe, had seen her since the mid thirties. (Author’s note: Stanfield Underwear has been a large employer in Turo Nova Scotia since the 1800’s. A quick google search turned up about a dozen results for current residents of the town whose last name was “Fier” - and I suspect a connection.)
Gheorghe eventually came back to Canada, where he and Earl spoke candidly on several occasions. As far as anybody knows, Gheorghe lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity by renting a room at a shared house in the nearby town of Forest Lawn and working as a roughneck in the region’s thriving oil and gas industry. He finally died in Calgary on April 7 1965, his age was listed as 68, and the US Army arranged for a commemorative metal plate to rest near his headstone. There was no funeral.
Earl yawned, thanked us for the chat, and disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. 
I stood there feeling inspired, informed, magical. 
I realized I had to tell Gheorghe’s story to somebody.
Thank you very much."