Joshua moved across the country to Regina, where he began working as a chiropractor. One day, Joshua decided to take lessons to improve his dancing skills. “Life seemed to be a little dull, so I decided to take dancing lessons and phoned the local dance studio,” he said. “The dance teacher said she was booked up until nine o’clock that evening. I told her, ‘That’s all right. I want to get started and will come back at nine o’clock.’” His dance teacher’s name was Winnifred “Wyn” Fletcher from Moose Jaw, Canada.95
Six months passed since the first dance lesson. “When will you marry me?” Joshua asked Wyn. “Tomorrow,” Wyn replied without hesitation. Because of the poor financial conditions, Joshua and Wyn’s honeymoon destination was a straw patch on Joshua’s parents farm. After the honeymoon, they moved to a small trailer owned by Wyn.95
The couple had five children: Scott, Edith Lynne, the twin-sisters Winnifred Maye and Almeda Kaye, and Angkor Lee.95 They couldn’t afford a proper bed, so Scott had to sleep in an old apple box. But as the chiropractor business grew, the family moved to a house with three floors and 20 rooms.94
Joshua was a competent chiropractor with many satisfied customers. “He used the x-ray to determine exactly where the problem was and then proceeded to give the correct adjustments,” a co-worker said. “The results were very good – sometimes almost miraculous.” Like a future space entrepreneur, Joshua showed a high work ethic. He could work in the evenings, on the weekends, and if the customers could not come to him because they were in great pain, he could treat them where they lived.93 If they lived far away, he could fly to see them with his own aircraft.
Both Joshua and Wyn enjoyed flying in their single-engine aircraft nicknamed Winnie. Designed by the Italian Mario Bellanca, his aircraft were known for their efficient, low-operating costs, and they set many records in endurance and long-distance flights. Joshua himself set many of these records.93
The Haldeman family needed to fly so they could visit all the conventions and activities that interested them. In total, the Haldemans flew across 80 countries and territories. When Scott was just a baby, they brought him with them on their flying endeavors. Wrapped in a blanket, they placed Scott on the shelf behind their heads. The other siblings also got to go with them. “When they [Maye and Kaye] were three months old, we flew with them to Davenport, Iowa, to attend the Palmer Chiropractic Lyceum,” Joshua said. “Pictures of the ‘Flying Twins’ were in the Davenport papers in the one week. At a year old, the flying twins were certainly cute and attracted a lot of attention.”93,95
When Joshua grew up, his mother Almeda allowed no one in her house to drink, smoke, use improper language, or tell shady stories. Playing cards and medicines were also prohibited.91 Similar rules were established when Joshua became a father.
Joshua believed the body had the innate ability to heal itself if it wasn’t abused and if it received chiropractic adjustments on a regular basis. His mantra was: Haldemans don’t get sick or upset.93 “He [Joshua] was a very strong chiropractor and believed in the old time chiropractic thing,” Scott said. “If you had stayed healthy, you ate well, you drank well, you don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you exercise regularly, and you get your chiropractic adjustments periodically, that you’d live a long and happy life.” Scott recalled that no one in the family ever visited a medical doctor or took any medication, and chiropractic adjustments were given to the family members for any symptoms.88
Forbidden activities in the family were smoking, swearing, and having headaches. It was also forbidden to be unhappy, pessimistic, or dishonest. The children were not allowed to drink coffee until they graduated from school, or drink alcohol until age 21. Joshua also collected ground wheat directly from local farmers to avoid unnecessary contamination, and during both the winter and the summer, he took a swim each day.94
In 1950, the entire Haldeman family, including Winnie the plane and a Cadillac, moved to South Africa. The reason why they decided to leave Canada is unclear. Joshua had never visited the country before, but he left a number of clues.88
The decision to move could have been based on political protests. Joshua was active in the political landscape in Canada and had once ended up in jail because of his political views. He thought the political system had deteriorated because of a rapid growth in the power of the government to control the citizens. He also thought the moral standards of the country had been lowered. Other reasons why they decided to leave Canada might have been a desire for an adventure, or a hope to advance the chiropractic science in another country.93
Yet another reason why they decided to leave might have been that Joshua opposed the use of cocaine in Coca-Cola. No one in the family was ever allowed to drink Coca-Cola, probably because Joshua had a friend who drank 20 bottles per day. His friend deteriorated mentally and physically before he committed suicide. This was not a popular view, so the family received several death threats. Joshua believed representatives from Coca-Cola delivered the threats. Another supporter of the campaign against the use of cocaine had mysteriously fallen out of a window. The police said he had committed suicide, but Joshua didn’t believe them. Because of these threats, they may have felt they didn’t have any other choice than to escape from Canada.95
With a freighter, it took the family 30 days to travel to Cape Town, South Africa – the same city as had resupplied the ships from the Dutch East India Company. The family had no plans for what to do when they arrived. To find a nice place to live, Joshua began flying across the country.88
One of the cities he flew over was the largest city in South Africa: Johannesburg. Winston Churchill described the surroundings when he approached Johannesburg from the south together with the British army. “We had marched nearly 500 miles through a country which, though full of promise, seemed to European eyes desolate and wild,” he wrote. “At first, after we had crossed the Vaal [river], the surface of the country was smooth and grassy, but as the column advanced northwards the ground became broken – at once more dangerous and picturesque. Dim blue hills rose up on the horizon, the rolling swells of pasture grew sharper and less even, patches of wood or scrub interrupted the level lines of the plain, and polished rocks of conglomerate or auriferous quartz showed through the grass, like the bones beneath the skin of the cavalry horse. We were approaching the Rand [the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built].”12
Just outside of Johannesburg, there’s a city called Pretoria. Once a year, Pretoria becomes distinctive from the surrounding landscape. The city is also known as the Jacaranda City due to the thousands of jacaranda trees planted in the streets, parks, and gardens. When Joshua flew above Pretoria, he saw all the jacaranda trees’s blue and purple flowers and decided this was the place to build a new life and open a chiropractor clinic.88
Opening a chiropractor clinic in South Africa wasn’t easy because most people had never before heard of chiropractors. They couldn’t advertise because the Afrikaans-English dictionary didn’t include the word chiropractor, so they had to use their own personal contacts. “I was unable to get an office downtown, so bought a place 2.5 miles [4 km] from the business district,” Joshua wrote in a letter. “We moved in on the first of December and started to practice that day. Had good success with the first patients so the practice built up to 25 appointments by the 15th of January and 37 by the 5th of February, without any newspaper announcements or advertising other than personal contact and booklets.”93