TRANSCRIPT

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

LR: Um, so what was it like growing up? Did you, did you live in a house?

MD: Mhmm.

LR: And, and where was your house?

MD: On Alexander Street, 2 Alexander Street; now it's Greenlaw.

LR: Okay, 2 Alexander Street. Big house; small house?

JA: Small house.

LR: Small house?

MD: Was a small house.

LR: So... 10 of you in the house... [laughs] 8 kids, 2 parents?

MD: Well, it wasn't 8 kids all at once [laughs].

LR: Oh, okay; so you were not, you weren't all living at home at the same time?

MD: Well, I guess when the other ones come, some of us were married and gone.

LR: Okay. So there's a wide spread between you?

MD: Well, wasn't that much, about a year and a half between me and my sister; but, you know, we were older and...

LR: Right. So what do you remember about living at home in St Catharines...

MD: Lots of good things.

LR: ...when you were a kid?

MD: My father cookin', my mother cookin', all that good food! [chuckles]

LR: Ah! Did you, did you have back garden that contributed to cooking?

MD: Pardon?

GB: Garden; no.

LR: Did you have a garden? Did you grow your own vegetables? How did you...

GB: The yard wasn't big enough! [laughs]

JA: No, we didn't have to grow our own vegetables...

LR: Oh you didn't have to! Okay.

JA: No, my brother Leslie, he used to work for this man named Tony Star Fruit. And, uh, you know when they come home, he'd send home a lot of the leftover vegetables and stuff. And then we used to run up to Wright's Bakery and we'd get the day-old bread and, and we made it.

LR: 'kay...

JA: Our mothers' could bake; they baked and they, you know, and my father baked, and my mother... At Christmas time...

GB: Yeah...

JA: ...people come to the house and she got, everyone, 'What kind of pie you like? What kind you want?' Everybody would come for that. And she'd, you know... we made out ...