Norval Johnson Heritage Centre
Niagara Falls, Ontario

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Our Stories - Remembering Niagara's Proud Black History

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

MD - Marjorie (Bell) Dawson, interviewee; GB - George Bell, interviewee; JA - June (Bell) Anderson, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

MD: ...thank the Lord for that.

LR: T', tell me about the things that you have noticed that, that have changed, Marjorie.

MD: Oh, the streets! And, and the stores. My father used... you know. When my father died, I took a lot of his things. He had all those things written on the paper. Different stories; different people; where they lived; different streets and different businesses and stuff like that, you know. And now I've noticed that, how things have changed, everything's changed. Streets have changed; people have changed. You know?

LR: What, what are, what's a 'good' change that you've noticed and...

MD: Yeah, it is a great change, because it seems like its changing and it started changin' so fast...

LR: Yeah.

MD: To me. I don't know.

LR: What, what do you wish hadn't changed?

MD: [chuckles] Whole world.

GB: The traffic. [chuckles]

LR: The traffic!

MD: The whole world...

GB: Used to go down Lake Street, and it, where the highway is, there was 1 house on the other side... where the baker delivered bread. That was the end of St Catharines! Down there...

JA: But the young people changed; I wish the young people hadn't changed. They don't respect anything...

MD: So much drugs and...

GB: There's too much dope and stuff; and, and, and it's all over the place that it's happening. In families...

MD: Everything changed.

GB: ...it's just too much. And even to the fact that if you got in a fight when you were a kid, and somebody fell, or got hurt, you didn't kick, you weren't trying to hurt him or...

LR: Right.

GB: ..like that, you know? There were fights but they weren't vicious, like tryin' to maim somebody.

JA: If somebody said 'I'm gonna kill you,' that was just a phrase.

GB: And now it's meaned.

 

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