TRANSCRIPT

RB - Ruth Bell, interviewee; AS - Ada Summers, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

LR: That's not a problem. What do you remember about, um, living here on North Street [in St Catharines], when you were little?

RB: Oh, when I was little?

LR: Mhmm.

RB: Well, like here where the lot is cross here, there used to be, well, this is goin' way back...

LR: mhmm...

RB: Well this is when... Actually, I'll, we lived, I was born on North Street down on this end, but my Dad had a house across the road, I think it was number 58, and where the church lot, the lot is back there [across the road from Salem Chapel].

LR: Right.

RB: Well, there used to be horses 'n that in there.

LR: Ah, okay.

RB: And we could see them out the window at nighttime and that...

LR: Ah...

RB: ...you know, that was the bread van and the milk van with the horses tied....

LR: Okay.

RB: ...back then. And the ice man.

LR: And the ice man?

RB: Mhmm.

LR: How, how was it different when you were a kid, what things were different in, in your house, what do you think, what things have changed?

RB: Well 1 thing, we got electricity. We had oil lamps back then.

LR: Okay.

RB: And, uh, we had a wood and coal stove; we had to cook by a wood stove. In winter, the coal stove heated the house.

LR: Okay...

RB: Do you remember that?

LR: Now what, what about takin' a bath?

RB: Well, my, we had a... I don't know what you call it...

AS: Big galvanized tubs...

RB: Yeah.

AS: Big galvanized tubs...

RB: But then my Dad, he used to, he heated water on the stove, you know...

LR: Okay...

RB: In 1 of those, what do they call the round ones? I mean not round, it was oval shape.

AS: Yeah, those great big galvanized tubs, they had the great big...

RB: No, well, this was a oval shaped 1 and...

AS: They had different shapes...

RB: ...for the water, put water in the...

LR: Okay...

RB: ...in the tub on the floor.

LR: Okay.

AS: You sit in there 'n bathe...

RB: Yeah.

LR: Okay. Now...

RB: Maybe a couple would bathe in the same water.

LR: In the same water; okay...

AS: Water was precious then.

LR: Yeah. Where did you get your water?

RB: Oh they...

LR: Did you have it in the house or did you...

RB: I think so...

LR: ...have a pump?

AS: From the tap.

RB: I think it was in the house.

LR: In the house?

RB: Mhmm.

LR: Okay....

RB: See, tryin' to think back, it's kinda hard...

LR: It's okay...

AS: I didn't grow up that far after you, 'cause I went through, I'm saying all the same stuff: the coal stoves and everything else. Yeah... The wood stove...

LR: It was still there...

RB: The wood stove, that's what they cooked on...

LR: Yeah...

RB: ...and heated the house with...

LR: Yeah...

RB: But in the, well , they cooked in the summer but in the, they didn't have to keep it on then.