21
Interview: Mary RobinsonInterviewer: Emily Maxner, Grade 9
Question: What's your full name?
Answer: Mary Kathleen Tidd (Robinson now)
Question: Was there very many people in your area with the last name Tidd?
Answer: There was some but not a lot. Most were over the mountain - Culloden.
Question: How many was in your family?
Answer: I had three brothers and 3 sisters, not including me.
Question: Where were you born?
Answer: Born at home in 1924.
Question: How old are you?
Answer: Born in March 30th 1924, makes me 80 in March.
Question: How long have you lived in Digby?
Answer: I was 22 years old when I moved out of Digby.
Question: Why?
Answer: When I got married I moved, but I always went back.
Question: Where did you go?
Answer: Came to Conway.
Question: Does most of your family still live in the area?
Answer: I only have one sister older than me. She's 83, living in Digby still. The rest are all passed on.
Question: What historical memories do you have of Digby?
Answer: I can remember when they made the first big theatre on Front Street, called Capital. The Manager was Mr. Wing (ha, ha). I can still remember his name. Also, I remember the red school in Digby. That was the first Digby ever had until they made their new school. All the people that went through Digby became doctors, nurses, lawyers and anything in order. It went from grade primary to grade 12. Most classes were quite large. You didn't start having different teachers until grade 8.
Question: How long did you stay in school for?
Answer: At 16 I left school to work. My first job was babysitting then restaurant work than clam factories till I was married.
Question: What was the jobs of your parents?
Answer: Dad was a fisherman all his life until he got older then he traveled. And Mom worked out. Sometimes as a nurse for when women had kids. She would be there to help.
Question: What memories do you have of your family?
Answer: Well, I lost a brother at 4 years old. I was 6 at that time. He died with a summer flu. Many died with it in Digby at that time. It swept families right out. We didn't have a lot of necessities. In summers to make money we picked berries, babysat, ran errands. You would only make a dollar or so a week and we used that money to buy clothes for winter and school books. We did any job that we could.
Question: What was your community like?
Answer: Digby was only a small community when I was a girl, but as I grew up, more restaurants popped up as well as different stores.
Question: What was your house like?
Answer: Our house?
Question: Yep.
Answer: Our home was not a rich home but it was rich in love. Our parents did things that didn't cost; like going fishing…Papa always took us fishing. Many nights Papa would play the mouth harp and we would sing.
Question: What area of Digby did you live in?
Answer: We lived on St. Mary's; the longest and also Mount Street.
Question: What was the health care like?
Answer: Doctors came to your house in those days. If you caught any disease that spread, your house was quarantined by putting a black card on it. No other kids or people could come in your house. The health care in my day was better than now, I think.
Question: Why?
Answer: Because we got needles for anything that was going. The VON nurse always came to your house to check up on everyone. But there's more diseases now than there ever was before here. We never heard of AIDS. There was a lot of doctors.
Question: What happened when you got sick?
Answer: Mom would take goose grease and cook onions in it…it broke the colds. If you sprained your ankle or whatever, we rubbed old horse liniment on the area. There were pills for kidneys. They always made sure there was a laxative in the house if you got sick or got a fever…(ha, ha)
Question: (Ha, ha) oh my…So did you go to church on Sundays?
Answer: Yep! Went to Salvation Army when I was a kid. Then, when I got older I went to Baptist. 40 years ago I joined the Baptist Church in Smith's Cove.
Question: What was your religion?
Answer: My mother was a Methodist and Dad was a Baptist. I am Baptist.
Question: Do you remember going to Sunday School as a kid.
Answer: Yep!
Question: What did you do back then?
Answer: You didn't group up. We were taught right from the Bible. We were all in a classroom together to be taught.
Question: Did a lot of people go to church?
Answer: A lot more people went to churches back then. Drugs, liquor is all out there. Children are not made to go to church nowadays.
Question: What was Digby like?
Answer: You could walk anywheres and never had to worry. There were no gangs. There was always a town cop. He went through town all night.
Question: Was Digby different when the war started?
Answer: Cornwallis was set up as the navy place. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. There was an airforce on Cannon Banks, trained them for flights. The streets; at any time you could see sailors, soldiers and airforce. At midnight the train would come in and 50 or so would come in the restaurant at once. We would have to have soft drinks and sandwiches ready at that time.
Question: What kind of sports was there?
Answer: At the winter time we skated and bob sledded against each other. We really enjoyed winter in them days!
Question: Was there any sports in school?
Answer: No. We never heard of them. It was just tag and little games like that.
Question: Was the teachers strict?
Answer: Yes! Especially the principals.
Question: What was your punishments?
Answer: If anyone got caught with gum in their mouth, they had to sit at front of the class with gum on their nose. That was a big laugh. If you got in trouble you would have to stay after school right up till the teacher was ready to go home, then you were. The strap was also used. If the teacher couldn't handle you then they would get the principal.
Question: Did you ever get strapped?
Answer: Yes I did. Quite a few times.
Question: Why?
Answer: Everyone cheated, got caught passing notes, chewing gum, or not having homework done.
Question: Did you have a lot of homework?
Answer: Oh yeah, every night, but I never did it…(ha, ha). I only got to grade 10. When I was 16 I said goodbye school. At night we didn't have time to do homework because you had to do dishes, cook, take care of younger siblings and get your clothes ready for the next day.
Question: What was the rules of your house?
Answer: There was no swearing at all! Papa never allowed us to touch playing cards, any games, nothing like that on Sundays. They were quiet days. We always had sing songs Sunday nights. Mom was a wonderful singer. We had manners! We were never allowed to call someone by their first name. It was Mr. or Mrs. You were not allowed to talk at the table. Papa always served our meals when he was home.
Question: Did you have a vehicle?
Answer: Nope; never had a car. You either went with someone, went by train/buses or walked.
Question: Was there usually other people in your house besides family?
Answer: Yes. Our house always had kids, they looked for home-made cooking. We had swings and lots of climbing trees (apple).
Question: Did your family ever see anyone famous?
Answer: King and the Queen. I took a group of girl guides up one time. They was just an arm's length away. We seen them in Halifax.
Question: What did you do for fun?
Answer: Went to the theatre a lot for ten cents. We had dance halls, Big Apple…it was like Tim Hortons where lots of people went to talk and you could watch other (older) people dance. But mostly we made our own fun.
Question: Did you have any animals?
Answer: Always had our dogs and cats. We had pigs. The dog was the main thing…they used it as a guard.
Question: So what was life like back then?
Answer: Work, work, work! No drugs or liquor and you could walk around without any worry of someone killing you. You didn't see many people smoking. You never had to worry when you went out somewheres about getting beat or raped. You never heard much of rape.
Question: Did you have outside toilets?
Answer: (Ha, ha) Yep. Usually there was the Simpson's or Eaton's catalogues that was always hung up for toilet paper. Once a week one of us used to clean it. It was clean most of the time, it just smelled.
22
Interviewing: Vincent SnowInterviewer: Charles Halibuston
Question: Now, how about the beginning, Vincent? You grew up in Digby, Vincent?
Answer: Right.
Question: So do you, I wanted particularly you know about the scallop business and how it began in this area. There wasn't always a scallop fleet in Digby.
Answer: No.
Question: What do you remember about the earliest scalloping?
Answer: Ah, the thing that I remember about the scallop business, at the start, when I was probably about 9 or 10 years old, I suppose.
Question: Would that be around 1920?
Answer: Around the twenties, the early twenties, I suppose. My father, he took some time off from the sea. He was a sea captain, a deep sea captain, and he
Question: What was his name?
Answer: William. Captain William Snow. And my uncle, Vernon Bent, at that time, was interested in going in the scallop business and the boats were very small then. I remember they were much smaller than they are today. They were-for fuel they gasoline, almost all of the boats- used gasoline, and
Question: Were those boats like our cape Island boats, or were they decked in?
Answer: Ah, they had a little deck in the front, they were more like the Cape Island boat and yes they were open for the most part.
Question: An open cockpit towards the back end?
Answer: Toward the bow.
Question: Towards the bow.
Answer: Yeah, they had a little, sort of a little cabin toward the bow which is what the Cape Island boats have, as you know. And, anyway, he had my father interested to the point where he, I guess, whether my father bought a boat or they shared in buying a boat, and they went dragging, as they say, dragging the scallops or raking them out in the Bay of Fundy, and I remember them going through the winter out there with the tide and there would be a lot of ice cakes around, you know, and they'd wend their way when the weather was calm enough, when there was little wind, and they'd fish through the daylight hours and they'd return just before dark, and sometimes with the tide, and with the ice cakes coming in, I remember. But anyway, they were shucking their scallops shore those times. They used to bring them in and shuck them sometimes.
Question: How many men were on that boat? Just your father and Vernon Bent?
Answer: Yeah, just the two of them, I believe. They might have been or had somebody go along to help shuck the scallops. They'd shuck some outside and mostly ashore, then in those days.
Question: Where did they shuck them?
Answer: Ah, oh, I remember, Rollie Warmal, you see he was the, he and, Rollie Warmal and Ern Vantassel, I believe, were probably the first two to drag scallops and they first got them here in the Annapolis Basin. They found them there, and then it was later on, of course, that they went into the Bay of Fundy, but I remember that on one occasion, probably when I was 11 or 12 years old, they were along side of a wharf at the racket and they had this pile of scallops there. I remember they shoveled them out on the beach there, and I went down and they said that, well, if you want to shuck scallops, here's a knife, you know what I mean, and you go to it. They were paying maybe $0.50 a pail or something, I guess , at that time, and I made a dollar that day.
Question: So, you were shucking them right out on the beach?
Answer: Right there, in the outdoors. We were
Question: And what did Rollie, was it Rollie Warmal, Roland?
Answer: Rollie, ah we called him Rollie Warmal, but Roland I suppose his name was.
Question: And, was he the first fellow that dragged for scallops?
Answer: I think that he probably was, that a - I know it was Jim Trahan, the blacksmith, and Rollie Warmal that conceived that you know, a type of drag, and there was some contention I know in later years as to who- they wanted to get a patent done on the thing as to who was most responsible for, what do you say, creating this type of drag, and so, as I say, it was in the early twenties as far as I know, as I remember it.
Question: I see. Who, was there actually a battle about it, any court actions or anything about
Answer: I think there was a court, some court case over that, I'm not sure about that but I know there was some trouble over it anyway as to
Question: And Trahan's Blacksmith Shop was just at the end of your street, King Street?
Answer: It was, no, it was on first Avenue. It's where the Digby Forging, don't they call it Digby Forging now?
Question: I see, I see. That was Trahan's place.
Answer: that's right.
Question: when you say they first conceived the idea of the gear, was that the particular type of gear or was that scallop dragging, period? Had they found scallop drags or were they copying scallop drags from somewhere else?
Answer: they, I, maybe they got some idea of how to make them from some other place, I don't know, but they came up with something different again that would be suitable for dragging here in the basin and then eventually in the bay of fundy, you see. And
Question: Was there any scallop dragging going on further down the Bay of Fundy or on Georges Bank or anywhere you know of before Rollie Warmal started dragging here?
Answer: Ah, as far as I know, the only scallop dragging that amounted to anything was Digby for quite a few years, yeah. Then in later years, of course, down around Lunenburg, they used to set out and went to Georges and dragged scallops there.
Question: But that would be good deal later, wouldn't it?
Answer: yeah
Question: Wouldn't that be in the 1940's or so?
Answer: I think something like the 1940's of the 1950's, yeah, that they started, because for one reason, we had a number of boats that came from the south shore of Nova Scotia, that came to drag scallops here. There was a fellow by the name of Parks, he had a sort of little tugboat type boat. There was Venice Wilmouth who had the "Lazaren" he called it, the little- it was a small vessel, a two- masted vessel and he used to drag scallops here and a fellow by the name of Bacham and Strum, those fellows were from the South Shore.
Question: What period would that be? What years would you be talking about?
Answer: Ah, well it would be in the 40's. we started in 1936 to buy scallops.
Question: So these were fellows that you brought from?
Answer: That's right, yeah.
Question: Going back to the twenties when your father and Vernon Bent were fishing, were there other boats, there was Warmal,
Answer: That's right. There was a number of other boats but it was a small fleet and small boats and
Question: Do you remember any of the other people involved?
Answer: Ah, one of the first ones, now Frank Anderson, who was the assistant-manger, I think, or he might have been the manger of the Maritime Fish Corporation then, he had a boat, let's see, he had Shirley Tidd, I think, was running his boat and it was one of the first and one of the oldest I know that I remember in later years that was still fishing, and the "Earl h.", she was named after his son, Earl, H., yeah.
Question: Any other boats at that period? Was there anybody from Parker Cove fishing out of here at that time?
Answer: There would be some , yeah. The Longmires were into it. They came into it in the 20's, sometime in the 20's.
Question: Did they, in the 20's?
Answer: yeah, and there were people like, when we, when I first started in, there was like Ernest McGraw, Cyril McWhinnie had the "Aldenmack", a small boat
Question: This was 1936.
Answer: This was 1936, yes, and a few years later, when Cyril gave it up and Ernie McGraw still was carrying on or he owned the boat, George, a fellow by the name of Captain George King came to me one day and wanted to know if I would share with him in buying this boat from Ernie McGraw and that, by the way that was about what, a 45 or 50 foot boat, small- they were not very low in the water and, you know that he and I shared in the purchase of that boat, we both invested $350, $700- the boat was already to go, machinery and all the gear and everything.
Question: That was the full purchase price? $700?
Answer: The full, yeah, the full purchase price.
Question: What years would that be?
Answer: That would be in the 40's, probably or some, the early 40's, I would imagine, and
Question: And George King, is he related to Jack King?
Answer: Father of Jack.
Question: Jack's father?
Answer: Yeah. And he used to give me a share, you know. He was the captain of the boat and, that used to catch two to three half barrels of scallops a day, about as many as a lot of those boats are getting today.
Question: When you say a half barrel, was that a scallop barrel?
Answer: Yeah, they were waxed inside. They held about 125 or 130 lbs. if they were full, but there would be brine in with the scallops at the same time.
Question: So how many pounds a day was that boat catching, then, 250 or 300 pounds?
Answer: That is something like that. Yeah. And during the daylight hours, they'd come in a little after dark possibly.
Question: Now, did I understand you saying earlier that Clayton got into the scallop business before you did?
Answer: Before I did, yes.
Question: How long was your father involved in fishing scallops?
Answer: oh, I only remember two or three years he went, I guess.
Question: And then did he go back to the banks?
Answer: And then he went down to the deep sea fishing again. After that. He did this during the winter, I guess and the hardest part of the year when, you know.
Question: At that time, Vincent, in the early 20's, were there fish buyers in Digby like we have today?
Answer: Oh yes.
Question: So there was Maritime.
Answer: And there was Syda and cousins, I think, before my time. I remember them talking about Syda and Cousins. Hayletts around the retail market and they used to buy from the inshore fishermen, and that's all we bought. We bought from the inshore fishermen. We didn't buy from the offshore fishermen.
Question: Who else would have been in the fish buying business then?
Answer: Of course, there were the Maritime Fish were the big buyers. And they had, like, they bought from Centreville, you know, the Raymonds. Ern Raymond who was the father of Keith Raymond. They used to buy the fish down there in Centreville for Maritime Fish, and let's see, oh yeah, there would be Hayden, a man by the name of Hayden, who had a wharf to the west of the Maritime wharves. And I remember, That's where there was a dory tied at one of his wharves one day and I went down there and it had a long line on it, and I mean, quite a lot of play, and that's how I happened to row a dory, I got in it and the oars were left in the dory and I fooled around, I remember, after school one day, at Mr. Hayden's wharf.
Question: There was nobody around in the front of the town buying.
Answer: Now there was Sproule, there was people by the name of- I don't know whether he had boats or not. He had a store- a fit out store and Milbury had a fit out store for the fishermen in that area where the fish company is today in the racket.
Question: Do you remember how your father, then, when he was fishing for scallops, how he sold them? And where he sold them?
Answer: Ah, I know my brother, Boyd, was the sales manager for a National Fish Company in Halifax at the time and I know they used to ship some scallops down to him.
Question: How did they package them to ship them?
Answer: They would, now I would imagine, they would be shipping them in half barrels. I don't know whether they put them in boxes or not, but we were, by the way, I might say this, that my brother, Clayton, and I, they call him Bucky, as you know, anyway he and I were the first to grade scallops in Digby and we out them up in little plastic bags, about a pound in a bag and we packed them into wooden boxes, but first of all, you'd take the scallops and you'd wash them through the brine, and you'd cull them, you know what I mean to say, there was the brown scallops you used to pick out if they didn't look very good or there was a lot of foreign matter, like even the little baby cod fish, you know, that would come in with the scallops sometimes, and we'd wash them through and clean them up and then grade them for size, and now I had a salesman in Detroit who wanted the very small scallops so I'd pack off the small ones for him and they were the size that he used to buy the Cape Cod scallops. They get higher prices for that. Well, he paid me a bit more for them and, of course, he had three, what did he have, a very large restaurant in Detroit. I was there visiting there one time and there were three parts to it, I know, and there was a long line of people waiting to get in, you know, a very popular restaurant, and he served me some of these scallops when I was there so
Question: So you sold them direct to that restaurant, then, in effect?
Answer: That's right. Well, I had a salesman there and he used to sell them. He took me to this restaurant to meet this man that ran this restaurant when I visited there one day, but
Question: O.K., well, now, in 1936, you got into the scallop business yourself.
Answer: Right. And we sold the fisherman gasoline and oil, scallop kegs, and I sometimes used to buy their groceries for them, you know, if they were fishing night time, and the stores were closed, or whatever, and they would put their orders in.
Question: You mentioned scallop barrels or half barrels and scallop kegs. What do you mean by that? What were they made of? Where did they come from?
Answer: We bought them, first we bought them from, it would be, Oxners Limited, I think it was, in Chester, Chester Basin, actually, and then when he died or went out of the business, his son-in-law, by the name of Eric Countway, we bought, oh, we used to buy 200 barrels at a time, half barrels there were at the time.
Question: Why do you call them half barrels?
Answer: Well, that's the size that they were. A full barrel was about 200 lbs.
Question: Do you mean it was a barrel that's cut in two in someway to make it a half barrel?
Answer: No, they were made smaller, that's all. And they had steal hoops on them, you know, they weren't like apple barrels, and they were vey tight, water tight, and if they weren't quite water tight, we used to swell them and make then water tight to hold the brine.
Question: And when you packed the scallops in those, did you use a liner at all, or was it straight in the wood?
Answer: they were waxed inside. The wood was waxed inside.
Question: With paraffin?
Answer: they were burned to begin with, a sort of, I guess maybe the buring was to cure the wood or something, and then they were waxed so there was protection, you know. The scallops didn't hit the wood, in other words, directly.
Question: Were there other suppliers of barrels?
Answer: Yes. When they got through producing them, you see, in the 30's, by the way, the late 30's, we bought a lot of barrels from Bealer and the Baxter in Bridgetown, and I almost believed, now that I think of it, that they were the first before we bought from Oxner and Countway. Yeah, Bealer and Baxter. We bought, oh thousands and thousands of barrels, and Clayton and I, at the same time, we were running the golf links in the summertime at that time, 1937, and we were in the fish business as well.
Question: Well, at that time, the scallop fishery would have been only a wintertime fishery, wouldn't it?
Answer: Ah, it was seasonal from the middle of October until the end of April, I believe then, and then after a few years, they went beyond, lets see, they closed from seven or seven and a half miles off shore, and then beyond that, you could fish in the summertime.
Question: Would that be about 1950 before there was a summer fishery?
Answer: Around the late 40's I would say, or around 1950, yeah, when they brought in the summer fishery, it would be around the late 40's.
Question: Back to these barrels again, how many scallops, how many pounds or how many count or how many scallops, gallons
Answer: We used to put them up in gallons and after we washed them out of the barrels.
Question: Is that how you sold scallops at that time, by the gallon?
Answer: By the pound and by the gallon. The gallons- we used to get our cans from the States in Boston- American-sized gallon and they would hold eight pounds of scallops.
Question: These are- now you are talking about cans.
Answer: That's right. The cans-we bought the cans from Boston.
Question: Something like a paint- like a gallon paint can, is that what.
Answer: They were tin cans, yeah, I suppose they would, they were tin cans anyway, and they were shellacked inside. They had a shellac lining.
Question: How did, so when did you decide to ship, why would you sometimes ship in a barrel and sometimes in a gallon can?
Answer: Well, the first few years we were in the business, most everything was shipped in the half barrels, the kegs. They were properly called kegs.
Question: All right. I
Answer: Then we went into the more specialized business by shipping further. You could, well, you pack your scallops in cans and ice them, see, now when they were shipped in the kegs, they weren't, well, we used to sometimes put a junk of ice in the centre because that's where they heat up first is in the centre of the keg. And that would keep them cool. But to keep them longer, we would pack them in the tins or the cans, as you might call them, eight pounds to a can, and then there would be, but then we would, an apple barrel, by the way, we bought a lot of apple barrels, and we would put four of these gallon cans in the bottom, in the centre there would be five and another four on top, so let's see, there was thirteen or fourteen cans in a barrel, gallons, with ice, you see, all through the cans and on top. Of course, you would probably have about eight or ten inches of ice on the top of the barrel and you could ship them further, of course, and they would keep better, you know, fresher by doing it that way.
Question: How many pounds or how many gallon were there in one of these half barrels?
Answer: Well, thirteen or fourteen/
Question: No, in the half barrels?
Answer: Oh, in the half barrels? How many..oh, well we didn't ship the cans in those.
Question: No. But how many gallons or pounds did a half barrel hold?
Answer: 125 or 130 pounds. Loose.
Question: That would be about 15 gallons, then.
Answer: Yeah, that's right. Or a little better-15 or 16 gallons.
Question: And, what method or what were your markets when you were selling in the barrel, when you were selling only in the barrels, what markets were you shipping to?
Answer: I would say that a large part of our shipment to Boston and the Boston area. Some went to New York and there was the odd time, we had a man who was interested in buying our scallops way down in the Southern States, but we didn't ship many down there. In the cooler weather, we did, you know.
Question: In the barrels? Did you ship them down there?
Answer: Yeah, in the wintertime, in the cool weather.
Question: were you selling through brokers, through salesmen?
Answer: Well, we sold direct to him and we sold direct to Powell & Nickerson, a company in Boston we shipped to. That was direct to them.
Question: That's Powell & Nickerson?
Answer: Powell & Nickerson. And they were people originally from Nova Scotia, the Powells and the Nickerson.
Question: I see. Were they brokers like Reba and so on?
Answer: They were wholesalers but I don't know whether they were retailers or not, but I think they were wholesalers for the most part. The Consolidated Lobster Company was another company we used to sell to in Boston area and
Question: Well, now again, were they buying them so that they could ship them around there?
Answer: They were actually distributors, I suppose you could call them, yeah.
Question: What was the price you were getting when you started your business in 1936?
Answer: When we started in 1936, we were working on a commission and we started with $0.50 a keg. For 125-130 pounds, we were getting commission, for the most part. We shipped to Boston. We did a little business on our own, you know, we bought and sold, but then we figured that $0.50 a keg wasn't enough because we were taking shrinkage sometimes on that too, you know, so we struck for $0.75 a keg, I remember, and we got it.
Question: When you were, so when you were buying on a commission, you were also buying barrels. Now who paid for the barrels?
Answer: We paid for the barrels.
Question: Out of the $0.50 a keg?
Answer: Let's see,
Question: Or did the fishermen pay for the kegs?
Answer: The fisherman, yeah, that's right. We sold the kegs to the fishermen, right. They were paying for the barrels. They were about $0.35, I think, $0.35 or $0.50 a keg, then, that they paid us for those kegs. That's right. No. But if we were doing it on our own, if we bought them outright, we used to give the fishermen a chance either to sell outright at a certain price, because we'd try to figure out the market ahead of time, and then we'd get the market price everyday by telegraph. Yeah, we used to use the telegraph in those days, of course, we have the C.N. and the C.P. Both had telegraph office here, and we'd get the reports of what they sold in Boston that day, to Powell & Nickerson, what Powell & Nickerson got and what they were willing to pay us, and now we said to the fishermen we'll either pay you on the basis of tomorrow's market, see, because we shipped the scallops today, or we'd pay on the day after's market. You can take the results of that, or you can sell them for a certain price, after we really got going there, after a year or two, but that's the way it went.
Question: How many people were employed in that business when you started up?
Answer: ah, we had- there was Clayton and I, of course, and we had- when we just had the scallops, we only had one or two men working with us.
Question: When you were selling by the keg or barrel, did the fishermen actually pack them in the barrels themselves or did you do that?
Answer: Oh, they were in the barrels when they sold to us but then we'd take them out of the carrels and wash them in the big tubs. We used to have big dip nets.
Question: I see. Even when you were just kind of acting as a commission agent at $0.50 a barrel, you still
Answer: We still washed them through the brine and cleaned them up, you see, and cull them and take all the foreign matter out of them, and pack them off and ship them in the kegs, yeah.
Question: Now, when you- so Boston was your main market?
Answer: At the starting, yeah, the first year or two, two or three years.
Question: How did you transport them to Boston?
Answer: Well, they'd go by truck. I know there was Bill Hazelton used to take them from here to Yarmouth and they'd go on the ferry from Yarmouth to Boston.
Question: Did he operate a regular trucking service?
Answer: Yes, he did. Yes.
Question: Bill Hazelton.
Answer: Yeah, Bill Hazelton, yeah. They lived on the north end of King Street in his father's home. They lived there.
Question: And, did he- did that service go every day or every other day?
Answer: Six days a week. We operated six days a week.
Question: What happened to them in Yarmouth, then? What ships are
Answer: Let me see now. The Yarmouth boat, yeah, was it three times a week the Yarmouth boat…that's right too, but he was available for trucking, I say, six days a week, but I believe that we had three days a week that we shipped to Boston.
Question: What ship
Answer: Every other day.
Question: I see. Was there one ship that operated three times a week?
Answer: The Yarmouth, ah
Question: The "S.S. Yarmouth"
Answer: Actually the "S.S. Yarmouth" I think it was, and the "Evangeline" I think was the name of the other. There was two ships going, I think, between Yarmouth and Boston.
Question: Were they same- belong to the same steamship company? There was a Yarmouth and Boston Steamship Company or something.
Answer: Yeah, they belonged to the same steamship-and the C.P.-they were C.P. ships, so far as I know
Question: Oh, were they? Were there any ships coming in here at that time from Boston or New York?
Answer: Only that, let's see, in the late 30's early 40's there was a, in the summertime, you know, there were cruise ships.
Question: I see.
Answer: One from Boston every week and one from New York every other week, I remember.
Question: Do you remember their names?
Answer: No, I don't remember their names.
Question: But they didn't carry cargo back?
Answer: No, they were just cruise ships.
Question: Now when the business changed, and you got shipped in these cans, how much later would that have been after 1936?
Answer: We started shipping the cans, let's see, it was in the early 50's, probably '54 before I started shipping cans.
Question: So that's 10 or 15 years that you were shipping in kegs before that happened?
Answer: Yeah. We sometimes packed scallops into boxes, fillet boxes, and then, oh yes, the fillet boxes were what, 20 pounds. They'd hold 20 pounds of fillets. We'd line them with parchment, these boxes, and then we'd produced, then what we had, I remember we used to have our boxes made down in Meteghan and the Comeau Brothers, you know, the father, I guess, started the business.
Question: E.M. Comeau & sons.
Answer: Yeah, that's right. E.M Comeau & son, and we got them to make a ten pound box and it was all printed up, you know, suitably for scallops, and we packed those. I think that started probably in the 40's sometime. Yeah, sometime in the 40's we started that.
Question: Where did those boxes go, this was your own - nobody else was shipping in boxes like that then. That was just your own, that was Snow Brothers, was it?
Answer: Yeah, that's right, yeah. Snow Brother Registered, we called ourselves.
Question: Right. And where did you ship those boxes?
Answer: Well, there- my brother, Boyd, who was, as I say, I mentioned, I don't know whether I mentioned to you, but I mentioned to somebody, about being the sale manager of National Fish, anyway, in 1929, I think, he went down to Liverpool, he and a Captain Myers, and they started a business themselves, the Mersey people, the Mersey Fish Company sold out to them or there were Nickersons that owned the place and ran it, and anyway, they operated there for a few years and it was in depression times, and things didn't go very well, so finally, my brother, Boyd, moved to Montreal and he became a broke up there and we- he arranged a lot of our sales at Montreal and we used to ship to Quebec and throughout Ontario, different points in Ontario and Toronto, and so forth, and so he had a big connection, you see, with all the wholesalers and retailers there, and he used to sell quite a lot of our scallops from there.
Question: Were your shipments, so was your business at that point, then, after Boyd went to Montreal, was your market mainly in the Montreal and Toronto area?
Answer: Ah, our Canadian market, most of it, yes. We still shipped quite a few scallops to the states.
Question: How did you make your shipments to the Canadian market?
Answer: They all went by train, you know, by ferry across here to Saint John and then by train.
Question: So that was a daily service.
Answer: That was a daily service, yeah, and we could, as I told somebody, that we could count on the shipment leaving here within minutes, you might say, and arriving within minutes.
Question: What time of day did you get them out of here?
Answer: Ah, they left here in the early part of the afternoon. Of course, the saint John boat, you know, left here the ferry left here at
Question: At two o'clock or so?
Answer: Two o'clock. Around two or three o'clock, it was.
Question: And it was a three hour run to Saint John to meet the train?
Answer: That's right.
Question: And when would those scallops be in Montreal or Toronto?
Answer: Well, they'd leave here, let's see, as you say, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and they'd arrive at about noontime, I think, in Montreal the next day or they'd arrive in Boston. If we were shipping to Boston, they'd arrive noontime.
Question: Oh, you could route them through Saint John to Boston as well, could you?
Answer: That is right. They had that train service from Saint John to Boston.
Question: What, after, then, you developed this little box, you were really in the business of buying scallops then. The fishermen had nothing to do with where you shipped them or what the price was?
Answer: No, we for the most part, I think, probably altogether, we bought at a certain price and sold at a certain price.
Question: Yeah. How long did that situation prevail where the fishermen had the option of saying I want my scallops shipped to Boston to so and so, or whatever?
Answer: Well, they didn't care where they went so long as you gave them the market, you know, figured out the market price. Oh, that went on until, I would say, until the middle, let's see, the middle 40's
Question: Middle 40's.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: As of the middle 40's, what kind of equipment were the fishermen using, and who were the fishermen you were buying from/
Answer: Ah, at one time, well, there was one winter I bought from the whole fleet. There was about 25 or 30 boats there. The source of supply had gone down to a point where some of the boats had given up, you know, and these ones from the south shore weren't coming and the ones from Pubnico, I don't know, there might have been several from there form Middle West Pubnico, but it wasn't worth while for Mr. Richardson, who was the manager of the fish company over at National Sea Products, as I guess it was then. He said you might as well look after my boats as well as your own and so we did. But,
Question: That would be the fleet in the mid 40's?
Answer: Ah, that would be the mid 40's, I think, probably that the source of supply went down to that point, but in the late 30's, from, let's see, when we first went in 1936, '37, '38, yes, and probably '39, there was something like, between Digby and the Bayshore, a lot of these boats were from the Bayshore- Centreville had at that time, probably 12 or 15 boats. Altogether, the whole fleet would be about 80 or 90 boats when we first started.
Question: I see.
Answer: Must have been around 80 or 90 boats registered.
Question: And it dropped down to 25 or 30 boats?
Answer: Down to around 30 or 35 anyway.
Question: At that point, when the fleet had diminished like that, what kind of daily catches would the boats expect to get?
Answer: Ah, they were down to two or three barrels. In the late 30's, they were getting as high, of course, they would fish all the fine weather they would get, sometimes they'd stay out for two or three days to a time, you know, night and day, and they'd come in with maybe 10 or 15 barrels, half barrels, kegs as we called them.
Question: After three days, after two or three days fishing.
Answer: Yeah, maybe 12-15 barrels. Yes, there again, there was a difference in the size of boats and, you know, the gear that they handled.
Question: Well now, the dragging gear was the same in '45 as it was in '35.
Answer: Pretty well the same, yeah. I think 18-foot bars they had and probably six drags, six three-foot drags on the bar.
Question: The number of drags would, perhaps, depend on the power they had in their engines, would it?
Answer: I think, yes, right. The bigger boats would carry heavier drags and more, but
Question: What kind of boats had they become in 1945? Were they still much the same as they were in '35?
Answer: They were still, yeah, run by gasoline and very much the same engines.
Question: Had they the elevated afterdeck decked over as we know today?
Answer: Yes, when we first started in the late 30's, they were decked over, yeah, the boats were decked over then for the most part. No, they weren't like they were in the middle 20's.
Question: I see.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: So that had changed between the early 20's and the 30's?
Answer: Yeah, they would go further a field and they would stay out, you know, longer hours and, you know, the boats were larger.
Question: Do you remember who the, I suppose there were highline fishermen, then, just as there are today.
Answer: That's right.
Question: In the mid 40's, do you remember, does anybody stick out in your mind as being among the better fishermen?
Answer: The fishermen, yes, I don't hesitate in saying that Wilbur Robinson and Elwood Oliver were very steady fishermen and they looked after their fish really well. Don Turner and his brother, they were good fishermen.
Question: Were they from around Granville, the Turners?
Answer: Ah, Litchfield, Don and his brother. Ah, Wilbur Robinson, of course, as you know, is from over the shore, Parkers Cove, and Elwood Oliver, and of course, Horace Snow From over in port Wade, he used to sell to us once in a while. He built his own boat and he had a nice size boat, a lovely boat, and as I say, Ben d'Eon, who is still living. He's in his early nineties now and they tell me he is very alert yet, and he used to look after scallops and they were good - they produced a good quantity of scallops and very best quality, I would say.
Question: Did those, you mentioned Ben d'Eon with a two - masted schooner. Did he, did that schooner and did the other boats have wheelhouse on them fore or aft at that time?
Answer: Well, the little two- masted schooner, of course, they had their fo'c's'les you know, forecastles, and the regular fishermen - they went sword fishing when they were in between scallop seasons, they would go sword fishing and like that.
Question: That schooner wasn't operating under sail when it was sword fish and dragging for scallops?
Answer: Well, I think they used sail, too, and they had power, of course, but I think that they had sail too. They used to use sail.
Question: Well, now, these other boats like Wilbur Robinsons and Snow
Answer: They didn't have sails.
Question: What did they, where was the wheelhouse?
Answer: Ah, they had a wheelhouse in back, yeah, those boats then, when they were covered over, the decks - when they had the decks on the boats, the wheelhouse was on the back for the most part.
Question: And they dragged their drags from the side, then?
Answer: Yes, that's right. Yeah, they were planked on the sides, you know, to protect them, the boat itself, and they dragged from the side. Yeah, today the scallop boats, as you say, the wheelhouse is up front, isn't it? And they have quite large wheelhouses. The boats today are very wide and they're deeper, of course, and the tonnage is quite a lot greater than it was when we bought scallops.
Question: Now when I came to Digby in 1962, a lot of the scallop fleet were what looked like converted sailing vessels, maybe. Or there were several Newfoundland schooners and slender, sleek looking hulls- some of the others that had been built for power. As you say, that's changed now. They look a lot stubbier, but were those boats
Answer: They were double enders, a lot of them, when we first went in, they were sharp on both and stern and bow, you know, double enders. And the one that George King and I bought was a double ender boat, the "Algamack."
Question: Were they all, were they mostly, most of those boats that came into the scallop fishery, had they been built originally for other things or were some of them built
Answer: Oh, quite a few of them were built
Question: Specifically
Answer: Some of them were built specifically for dragging scallops, yes, that's right. And a lot of them were built on the Bayshore, up around Parkers Cove, up that way.
Question: Do you remember the names of any particular boats?
Answer: Ah, well, there was the, let's see,
Question: Wilbur Robinson's boat, do you remember what that was?
Answer: Yeah, that was- Wilbur, let me see, what was his now, gosh now, I'm on the spot there now.
Question: Or snow? Was he the one that built his own boat, you say, in Victoria Beach?
Answer: Right.
Question: Horace Snow.
Answer: I forget the name of the boat that he
Question: Now, let's talk about Horace snow's boat that he built himself. Did he build it there at Victoria Beach?
Answer: He Built it over there at Port Wade.
Question: Port Wade?
Answer: Port Wade.
Question: And how big- how long would that have been?
Answer: That would have been about 50 or 55 feet probably, I suppose.
Question: And did she fish here for a long time.
Answer: Quite a few years, yeah.
Question: After he was gone, or
Answer: No, I think the boat was out of commission before he died, I think. I'm not sure about that, but I think it was out of commission. He might have sold it to somebody else, I forget now.
Question: Do you recall what her width would have been?
Answer: Ah, no, I don't know the dimensions. I really don't know the width. That is, it probably would have been 55, could have been a 65-foot boat.
Question: And what kind of an engine would he have had?
Answer: No, well it was a gasoline engine, but I don't know the power.
Question: They used to use Acadia engines in the 20's
Answer: That's true. Yeah, I know that Mr. Sollows used to sell - I think he sold boats here, you know, he was selling engines from
Question: Did he sell Acadia engines or
Answer: Ah, I think he did. I'm not sure about that.
Question: Did he sell anything other than that?
Answer: No, I don't know.
Question: Vincent, we just had a little interruption and you told me the name of the boat that Elwood Oliver operated at that time.
Answer: Yeah, the "Lorraine O." Was the name of the
Question: And those Turner brothers were who?
Answer: Donald and Milton. Yeah, they ran their own boat. Very good fishermen. They were very reliable. They were steady customers of ours. We really valued them as customers and friends, for that matter. Fine chaps.
Question: O.K. Now after, so you and Clayton and another brother established the business, Snow Brothers Registered, during 1936.
Answer: That's right.
Question: What course did that business take after that? What sort of business interest did, perhaps, you and your brothers pursue up until retirement?
Answer: Well, in the early 40's, my brother, Clayton, and I divided the business. He , ah, we had started the lobster business you see, and we had the scallop business, and so he took the lobster and I took the scallop business, and then after a little bit, we, I think that he and I also started buying ground fish, too, before we divided the business a bit but anyway, he just took the lobster end of it and he developed that by - he started building buildings and building lobster cars so that we were selling lobster the year around. I know I still did some business with him after we divided the business and, by pounding the lobster in floats. Why there was a fellow by the name of Edmond Thimont. He came up and built us some lobster cars.
Question: Oh, from Church Point, Saulnierville?
Answer: Yeah, he died just a few years ago.
Question: Comeauville
Answer: No. He was from down the -Westport. Down from the Islands. Thimont. Edmond Thimont. Edmond
Question: Edmond Thimont
Answer: THIMO
Question: He was from Westport?
Answer: Down- I think so. Yeah. He was from the Islands somewhere there, and I think it was Westport. Yeah.
Question: Ah, What sort of volume of business were you doing in scallops, say in the late 40's, when you were handling it all?
Answer: Well, we were shipping anywhere form like, 30- 40 kegs at a time, and I remember that was one particularly good spell of weather and we worked three days and three nights with hardly any sleep at all because the boats, then, used to, you know, they'd fish anytime during the twenty - four hours that was good, fine weather to fish and we'd get weather reports from the Wilsons who were then down at the lighthouse, you know, and they were very kind in giving us weather reports as to how the weather was in the bay, and so anyway, we worked these three days and three nights. I guess I got about five hours sleep, and average of two or three hours of night, and we were falling asleep on our feet for that matter, but we bought three hundred barrels, three hundred kegs during that spell of weather, and the fishermen, actually, they were wiser than us at that particular time. This was sometime during the late 30's, and they were wiser on the markets and they had rather, they were better weather profits than we were, so they knew, pretty well knew, that the market was going to go down and down and we were taking a chance on the weather breaking, you know, and the market holding, and that pretty near put us out of business. We lost over $300. We had bought 300 kegs and had lost over kegs and had lost over $300 so we had to reassess and think about this.
Question: What was the price of scallops? You lost about a dollar a keg.
Answer: Yeah, we lost an average of about a dollar a keg.
Question: What was the market value for keg at that point?
Answer: They were around, let's see, for a keg, 125 pounds, they were only going for about $12- $14 a keg.
Question: So about $ 0.10 a pound
Answer: Yeah, something like that.
Question: so you lost about 0.10% on your gross.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: Were those shucked ashore at that point or shucked on board?
Answer: No, they were shucked, for the most part, in the Bay and they took shuckers a long with them.
Question: Do you remember when and why what changed? Why they were shucked ashore?
Answer: I think there was more intensive fishing. You see, in the 20's, in the mid 20's and late 20's, they didn't fish as many hours, probably, as they began to fish in the late 30's, when we established our business.
Question: Was there any use made of the shells when they were shucking ashore?
Answer: Some, yeah. We used to barrel them up in the apple barrels, the shells, and some people like to have that and I think probably they were used for different purposes, I don't know. There was a certain amount of lime, you know, you break them up and they were good chicken feed. And clam shells, maybe, I don't know.
Question: In dollar volume, what was the biggest year, or would you mind telling me what was the biggest year of dollar volume that your business did?
Answer: Ah, scallops, let me see, I'm pretty, it's very hard to say but, we would, that was when, let's see, October, November, about a six-month season, would it be something like that, and the total production would be, oh goodness, we might send eight or ten thousand kegs to market, or something like that, if you could figure that out.
Question: I see, and at price of $12 or something like that?
Answer: Yeah, a keg, you see.
Question: Now, did you ever handle more scallops than you did during that period, after you and Bucky separated, did you handle more scallops after that, or, than you had before, or was.
Answer: No, about the same, the same Quantity of scallops. Ah, you see, I
Question: Then you got into clams after that period, did you?
Answer: Yeah, the clam business I went into about the middle 50's, and I still kept on buying scallops, but when we began to process clam meats, and we canned those you know.
23
Interview: Eva StantonInterviewer: Matthew Stanton, Grade 9
February 2004
Question: Ok, I got some different stuff here, like, umm, I got like where did you go to school?
Answer: Out in Tiddville. It was a house. Clifford and Elsie live in it now; they made it into a home. They turned it around sideways. It was, well I don't know if I ever got a picture of it or not, but it was pointed with the door towards the road. And they turned it around and made a home out of it after the school went to Sandy Cove.
Question: Mom wanted me to ask if you ever had any 'Snow Days'?
Answer: I don't, I suppose. But what I remember is the days we had off. We had one room. It was a one room school house. And the wood we used to have to carry it in from outdoor and put it in the porch, there was a porch in the school. And sometimes we only had one stove. It would be so cold and they'd be ice on the wood that we couldn't get a fire going. And we'd be sitting there with our mittens on and everything. And it was so cold the teachers would send us home 'cause we couldn't, you know, we couldn't function it was so darn cold. It was, the stove was, kinda one of those long things, not that high, and it would get hot, when you got it going. But sometimes we had to do it ourselves. And it was awful cold walking out over here, you know, up the road. So the men had cut us a path through the woods, I don't know whether you could still see any of that or not. And it used to go from up back of Joe's garage there, is where it came out. And then there was one that come out, one part of it, that come out down back of Lovett's, up behind his house. We'd come down through their yard. And if you wanted to you kept going across the top of the hill there and it come out where Steven and Paula lived, lives now. That used to be the Post Office. When I was a kid, they kept the post office in the house there. When I was a little kid the post office was down by the road into a building where, you know, do you know Gert?
{No, not really}
No, well she lives across from Steven's driveway. They got them television things in her yard now. That was a little building; they moved it over there for her to live in, her and her husband. And that used to be the right through the foot of Steven's driveway and it was a little store and a post office, when I was a small kid.
But it was a lot warmer going through the woods then it was coming up the road.
Question: So there was no plow come over here?
Answer: No, not until we was married.
Question: You had to shovel the road?
Answer: Yep. The men had to shovel the road.
Question: When does the plow come over to the road? That would be around?
Answer: They got Frank to call and they sent a tractor down from Digby, or somewhere. 'Cause when he called, that musta been in '48, '47 or '48. No it wouldn't have been '47; it must have been in '48. But before that, when I was a girl they wasn't a plow come down The Neck. There was a bus that used to come that carried the mail and it took people to Digby in the morning. It took the mail up in the morning, and it brought it back, it came back with the mail at suppertime. Well you could go up, if you had business on that mail. It was a bus, old fashioned looking to what they got now. But he had a plow on the front of it and that's what plowed the road. See the road wasn't paved then, Matthew. I guess the first for plow, paving the road was, was when Stanley was a little feller, and Kemp, well not when Kemp was born. There was working on the road in 'Lake Side'. It was a hell-of-a bumpy mess. It used to be, 'cause it was full of pots. Kinda like your drive way down here. But it's a dirt road.
Question: Ok, did you ever go to, like, any dances or movies or things like that?
Answer: Oh we used to go to Digby go to the movies. Yeah they was two movie houses in Digby then. The 'Bijou' and the 'Capital'. Where the 'Capital' was they've just built that, that new place where you buy health food. What is it called... 'Sea' something? They just built it last summer.
{I dunno, 'Sea' something?}
Right there, its right there by the shoe store downtown, coming in. You know there's a new building there they just built. You never even noticed it?
{Nope.}
It was in there. I think there's a parking lot there too 'cause it's been a parking lot there for years. It burned down, that one theater. And the other one was somewhere down around where, just below where the Jewelry store is. That was an old building. That was called the 'Bijou'.
Question: Like I hear Grampy, or something or Dad, maybe, talking about going to different dances and stuff. Like would they just, like, have them. Just certain people have one or was that like...?
Answer: Uh, that was not when I, that was during the War. Well I musta been, let's see the War started in '39, and it ended, it lasted four years didn't it? I musta been 16 or 17 when the war ended. 17 probably. I don't know where the dances was before that, but during them years they was sailors in Digby like crazy. 'Cause that, where we go to Cornwallis, that was where the sailors from all over Canada trained. In Digby was just sailors, sailors, sailors, sailors and they used to have dances for them. And, well they
used to have two or three places. Some of them was kinda just drunk hangouts, but some of them. I used to go to one down, where Annie used to live when she first had a place in Digby you remember, down there. There was a big place that the sailors, that the Navy owned, and they was rooms in it they used to have dance every Saturday night. And you could go down there and they had rooms where the men could go and write letters and setting rooms where you could go talk to 'em because a lot of them was lonesome. And it was just young fellers lot of 'em, and they had service police there. But then there was another dance hall out by the propane place Kemp goes. Out to the foot of 'Racquet Hill' there, where you turn up to...
{The Golf Course?}
Yeah, right to the foot of that hill. There was a dance hall up over head in that. I never went there. It was kind of a rowdy place.
Question: What kind of jobs for like different people, like in, women or stuff was there, like, you know around here?
Answer: Well, there was a tuna fish factory all summer. And we did up pollock. And Jesus, they was some crowed, seeing them in it. They split 'em like you do to soften 'em. Oh, you never seen such big pollock now days as they was then. And they'd be laying on these things and they'd come in and thick, about that thick, you'd be canning them. We'd eat so damn much we wouldn't be hungry. We ate the tuna fish too. That's what, in the summer there wasn't much in the winter, the men went lobstering but there wasn't much for the women. See you didn't, you didn't go to Digby to work then like you do now 'cause nobody, hell I don't know if anybody around here had a car. Uncle Vaughan used to come home in one; that would be Wayne's father, down there. Every week he used to call us from Digby and he must've rented one and he'd come home. That was when I was smaller. But when Frank and them got grown up they got some kinda rattle trap piece of a car.
{Yeah, dad was saying some feller there got a half ton truck and was in the winter, was towing kids up and down the road on the car hood and he'd, I dunno, break down trail heads in front of there I guess.}
Yeah. But when I, when I was small, before I got that old. Why we used to go in the woods and pick berries or we'd go on the shores and play on the shore and we'd go down to the wharf and catch pollock, you could catch fish down there then. The wharf they had then, it blew down. A lot of it was on spiels, they had butt men and it was on spiels, I can remember watching that go.
But we'd get hungry, we'd go over on the beach, take an old tin can and imagine that was what the paint came in in those days. And it was over there and we'd pick penny-winkles and cook 'em. Build a fire and cook them and pick them out with a bobby pin and eat 'em or you'd pick berries and keep right on playing all day long. 'Cause they was such a crowd of us we wouldn't think to go eat.
I can remember coming up the road, when I was a kid, down there to Ruth's and going like this on your belly. You could hear the water jiggling in your belly, you'd be so darn hungry. But we all had a good time. But sometimes they'd be fights but them's what's around a bunch of kids.
But, yep, we'd start riding down hill, from up by Kemp's house there, and go clean down the cove over by where your father lives. 'Cause they was hills, there was those three hills here (we'd call them the first, second, and third hill). Sometimes it would be a ball and we wouldn't make the turn here.
Question: How would you steer coming around the turn like that? Like just lean it down to one side?
Answer: It was our feet, you'd be laying on your belly and your toes. You could steer it either dragging one foot or the other. God, to learn how to do that. After awhile I, a few of us would have sleds, bottin sleds, and they had a thing with a handle in the front that you steered them with. But most of the sleds was something somebody made. Then going down from Joe's down we rode there a lot down far's the cove and haul them back up. Hell they'd make bumps in the road and let 'em freeze at night, no wonder it hadn't killed you, tore your kidney's right out. That's what they'd do going over these bumps and go right in the air. It's a shame I can't, it's what I tell April, that I can't show you what I can see isn't it. I wonder if some day they'll have it so that you can.
In the winter we skated on the pond up here. I can remember them building that pond. Dad helped to work there 'cause there wasn't enough money in fishing here. Five dollars a week.
Question: So what is it just like Little River that they just plowed out?
Answer: You mean up there?
{Mmmm}
It had been kind of a, it had, well you know, yeah, what it was Little River. That's what it had been at one time. It had little sticks; I remember that, sticking up there. But the Whitman's' owned that land then and they made the pond that's there. They hired the men from around here one time, so scares and they did it. I believe they had a nice house too. Think your father can probably remember that. I think. But when I was a kid they used to have just a big saw that they stuck down in and kept sawing it. But he can remember doing it with a power saw. That was in the later years.
But the ice would be that thick. Just as pretty and blue. They'd never let us go skating up there at Christmas day; it always was safe Christmas day. I don't know why. We used to, but then in February I guess they'd start cutting it in January and February and we were skating then. They'd be a big hole in the middle of it.
I can remember your Grandfather, he had a calf. His father gave him a calf one time that the cow had, it was a little bull calf. And he used to go up there on the ice with it. And I remember they had a hole cut in the ice and I don't know they must have got water up, it was a round hole. And that, one of his legs went down in, a lot of wailing that darn thing. We used to have it hitched up and haul wood. You seen it, pictured it up there him riding around on its back.
I remember one time me and Gen, Frank's sister who's dead now, we was up there and we could hear it, was skating, and we could hear this awful noise. Woooooo, it would go and cracking, the ice, and we started for home. We was scared, afraid we'd fall in. And we met Gena's father coming from the woods, cutting wood, he came down by here. He was talking to us and we was telling him. And he said that bull that'd be the oxen. It was just that sometimes when the ice, you know, when you can see them thick cracks in it when it's heavy that way.
{Mmmm. Me and Damien was up on it and it was cracking.}
Yeah.
{That and Dad was saying it was just water running out and it starts to sag down a little bit.}
Yeah, yep. Well that's what it was doing and it was making a hell-of-a noise. Scared the hell out of us. Cripps they scared us of that pond anyway. We couldn't go up there and learn to swim, they was afraid that we'd get drowned and we wasn't allowed up there in the summer time, even though all the rest of the kids learned how to swim in it. My kids did. Never learned to swim 'cause we used to go down on the beach. By the time you got to your knees you was so damn cold you couldn't. They wasn't scared of us getting drowned there 'cause we couldn't go out far enough, I don't think they hardly knew they was a Lake Midway, well we couldn't have gotten there anyhow. But we had a good time 'cause they was an awful lot of us, kids everywhere.
Question: Well there was, like, that many kids here. Musta been a lot out to 'The River' and that. And out to Tiddville.
Answer: We never went up there. We didn't have to it seemed. We went to the store, walked to the store and back. But you see, you didn't get acquainted because you only had the little school out here to the road. Tiddville kids come over. But you didn't get acquainted like you do now. It's kinda hard to understand.
But, you see, they was nine kids down Frank's house, 'course some of them was older than me and some was younger. There was six over home. They was eight down to Wayne's. And they was seven over to Kathaline's, over where Teed lived there. Down to Ed's there musta been six or seven. The only one that you could have, and Ethel Elms they was six. And they was only three to Orin's house. His mother died awhile ago with cancer. But it was, it was...
{A lot different?}
Yeah, even the cloths was different. You'd damn near freeze to death 'cause you'd wear something wool and the wind blew through it. Now days what you have the wind don't blow through it.
We was poor, people was poor around then. But the kids made their own fun. I can remember the little boys that would, the carts and things they used to make. Now days, hell we don't make nothing, we go buy it.
They used to have a great big wheel off of a wagon, you know them great big rims you seen them. The iron rims about that wide. And Frank and Ensley and them, they'd have a stick, a crotch of a tree like that with a handle, a stick handle on it. They'd put that, straddle that, and they'd run along. And they'd go like the devil. And they got so they could run and kinda keep up to it.
And then the cart's they'd make. They'd take a stick of wood that was about that big around and cut two blocks off it like that with a hole in the middle with a rod through it. Just a handle on it and you know they'd go along with that. Later on they got so they put hind wheels on it too and then they had a cart to set on. And they'd have a rope to haul it with. Well the rope, it was kinda made so that when you pulled on one side it would go one way, you know, and on the other. They amused their selves.
Everything you had was home made. Somebody'd come up with something new. 'Course your Grandfather and Emsily, when they got a little bigger, they got smart and cut his fathers car half in two to make a thing for his Dagon. That kinda stirred up trouble.
Question: Don't matter anyone said they'd do.
Answer: Your father, at his and Kemp's age, after they come from school they could go take somebody's dory down though. They'd have about 5 or 6 traps down in the cove. Then they could go out and haul them traps and have a little money. Now days, hell you'd be in for it if they caught you doing that. I don't think things have changed for the better.
Life was easier, in a way. It was hard to earn money, maybe harder than it is now. Things wasn't worth as much, you didn't have as much money. But you made due with what you had. Everybody, or most people around had a cow, even during the Warring years. And they'd have a pig you'd kill in the Fall, you'd have that. And you'd have butter and they had hens too. Then when the War come, they'd be stuck on the shore on the beach. Hens stuck there.
Question: Was it still good when they come?
Answer: Yeah it was rations. And it was, it was in cans. It was just where the boats had been torpedoed and stuff. You never knew what you was going to find. Oh the young boys, it's a wonder they hadn't all got killed 'cause they'd find shells and all kinds of stuff up in the forest. Murray one time had a hand-grenade throwing them around.
Question: They just floated to shore?
Answer: Yep, they'd be in cases. See the boats that'd been torpedoed that was during the War. And we'd see, we'd see a bunch of boats out around for a while and we knew they'd be looking for something. Now what it would have been, I suppose it was submarines or something. Lots of times we saw boats going from St. John down to Halifax that we knew was joining the bunch that go over seas.
When I go to Cornwallis, maybe I'll get over it someday I don't know, but all I can think of, it puts me in mind of a graveyard. 'Cause I think of all them young fellers, they was all being, some of them was even 16 when they joined. 17 and 18 years old that was so full of fun then, and they never got out of Halifax, you know, just out of the harbour a ways and the boat would be torpedoed.
There was one boat that was torpedoed down off the Island that body's come ashore. A lot of them was on the shore down here. And they took him to Digby in the back of a police car with his feet sticking out. The poor bugger. He musta ran, I guess, I don't really remember. Dad said he had a picture in his pocket of some kids, two kids. And they put him in a garage down; we had the barn we had was down where you go in Cusma's driveway. That building that Joe's got was part of it that was where we kept the hay. And that's where they put him, laid him out so they come and got him. Never would have let that happen now days, it shouldn't have been allowed then.
24
Interview: Leigh TheriaultInterviewer: Colin Theriault, Grade 9
Question: What is your name?
Answer: My name is Leigh Theriault
Question: How old are you?? When were you born?
Answer: I was born in 1953, and I am 50 years old
Question: Do you have strong religious beliefs?
Answer: No, I believe in evolution
Question: Where have you lived all your life?
Answer: 80% of my life I spent in Digby County. I mostly lived in the town of Digby
Question: Who are/were your parents?
Answer: My parents were John Theriault and Estella Comeau
Question: How many brothers/sisters do you have? What are their names?
Answer: I have one sister and three brothers living, and one deceased. My sister's name is Marie, and my brothers are Harry, William, Daniel, and Paul
Question: What jobs did your parents have?
Answer: My father was a carpenter, and my mother was a house wife
Question: What did your family have to work on at home?
Answer: My family had a farm to work on
Question: Did the family get along?
Answer: Yes, very well
Question: What values have you learned through your life?
Answer: I've learned respect; you have to work hard to make a living, and 50% fun.
Question: Where did you go to school?
Answer: I went to Digby school
Question: Did you get a full education?
Answer: No, I had my grade 9
Question: Did you go to college or university? Where did you go? When?
Answer: I went to community college in Middleton in 1969-1971
Question: Were you involved with any organizations during your life?
Answer: I was involved in the Digby Fire Dept., Scouts, Civil Air Search and Rescue
Question: What jobs have you had during your life?
Answer: I was a mechanic, carpenter, clerk, manager of parts department
Question: Has your life passed by quickly?
Answer: No, I have many memories of my life
25
Digby County:A Journey Through Time With Families
Interviewed: Beulah Thimot
Interviewed by: Fallon Thimot
Question: What is your full name?
Answer: Beulah Irene Thimot
Question: When and where were you born?
Answer: I was born in Freeport, Digby County on August 9, 1932
Question: What was the reason for living in Digby Co.?
Answer: It was my home town, and that was where I was born and raised.
Question: Where exactly in Digby Co. did you live?
Answer: I lived in Freeport.
Question: How long have you lived here?
Answer: I think it was 63 years in Freeport and the past 10 years in Digby.
Question: Do you have any siblings? If so, please name them.
Answer: I have 10 siblings. Pearl, Edna, Gertude, Louise, Vesta, Raymond, Lou, Earl, Carson and Clifton.
Question: What were your parents names?
Answer: Percy Earl Thurber was my father. Belle Marie (Garron) Thurber was my mother.
Question: Where were they originally from?
Answer: Percy was from Freeport and Belle was from Westport.
Question: What did your parents do work wise?
Answer: My father was a fisherman, and my mother worked in the factory (fishplant) Connor Brothers, and she sold Avon for a number of years and she was also a house wife for 11 kids and a husband.
Question: What was your house like?
Answer: It was just an ordinary house, well kept, had an outhouse and later had indoor plumbing, as soon as hydro was brought to the island we had it, and we were also the first people on the island to have an electric washing machine.
Question: What was your school like?
Answer: We had a school with 4 rooms in it, 2 downstairs and 2 upstairs. We had outside bathrooms(then called backhouses instead of outhouses). There was only 4 teachers and our school went from grade primary to 11. To heat the school we had a potbelly stove that used coal, And we had to carry drinking water from the neighbours down the road in a bucket.
Question: How far from your house was it?
Answer: About a half a mile.
Question: How did you get to school?
Answer: We walked to school.
Question: Did you finish school?
Answer: No, i finished grade 10.
Question: When did you get your first job? What was it?
Answer: It was working in the factory(Connor Brothers) in the cannery and I got 25 cents a hour. I was about 14.
Question: Was it hard in your house chore wise?
Answer: All the girls had their own chores and you had to do them or you wouldn't be getting out of the house, and if you did them wrong, you'd have to do them all over again until they were done right.
Question: How much money did you get for an allowance?
Answer: I didn't get any.
Question: Was there any big snow storms, well bigger than the one we had this winter?
Answer: Yes, I've seen it worse than that. Pretty close to the tops of the telephone poles. There were no snow plows. The men had to shovel the roads and they had their own section to shovel and if it wasn't done, you'd get fined.
Question: When you were a teenager, what did you do in your spare time?
Answer: Spare time... we used to have a club called BYPU. It was a church club. I used to go to church and sunday school every Sunday, and every summer, they'd have a big picnic over at Will Pyne's farm and uh.. we used to have 3-legged races and sac races and they would have a scramble for candy. I also used to go to the movies Friday and Saturday night and after the movies were done, there would be dances. There was no liquor served at those dances at the time. And the music we listen to was tapes.
In the summer time when i was a kid, i stowed hay for local farmers. I also used to drive with the milk man Carmen Mase, he drove so slow that he wouldnt get the job all finished in one day. We went strawberry, blueberry and blackberry picking in the summer. In back of my house was a hill, a grass field and you could walk back and up over the hill there was a rock where you could see both bays and all over Freeport and now the hill is all full of alders and if you tried to walk back there you'd get picked to pieces. We went sliding on Crockers Hill down to Austin Weskits store, and we went skating on the brook and Fannies pond.
Question: Did you have any hobbies?
Answer: No i didn't.
Question: Do you have a favorite/funny memory or story you would like to share?
Answer: No.
26
Interview: Holland TitusJuly 23, 1979
Question: How old were you when you went out?
Answer: What? When I started?
Question: Yeah
Answer: Oh, I started when I was, I was, I went to school up unto ten. About that time I started. I was about eighteen, seventeen.
Question: Seventeen, eighteen huh?
Answer: I was seventeen.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Oh, gee, we made none. Oh no, no we never. It was at one time oh, let me see, in 1923. I don't know whether was out fishing then or not, but in 1923 my brother and I, we had a boat built. The Cape Island, Clark's Harbour. I took her home in March. It was the eighteenth of March I got her to Westport. Well, that spring we went lobster fishing and it was of course, in those times we saved everything you know you were selling the smaller ones to the factories around here. Well, anyway, and in the month of April we put out, I put out a hundred pots where we put them of course, you wouldn't know. What they call the Searcher's Shoals. Twenty-five miles off Westport.
Question: Twenty-five mile off Westport?
Answer: Yeah. Sou-West, fourteen miles off of Yarmouth. Well, we put our pots off down there and we caught some lobsters, but they wasn't worth anything. Well, anyway, we saved out lobsters, we saved our lobsters. The last month did we cart up.
Question: Thirty-eight hundred pounds? That's a lot of lobster.
Answer: No.
Question: For two people it is, isn't it?
Answer: No. Look at the fishing we done to get them. We was about three weeks.
Question: Three weeks?
Answer: Getting that much. That summer we had to sell out see? The season closed and Kinney was buying Westport. Had two or three buyers down in Westport. Well, they selled out, no market. And there was a buyer from Portland over to Freeport. Jameson, Lloyed Jameson. He was born in Portland, and he was doing something in Portland. He was crating them through and well he took our lobsters. Clementsport didn't get no lobsters at that time, that was in 1923.
Question: Oh, I see. Thirty-eight hundred pounds?
Answer: Well, we got enough to pay our bills for that long.
Question: You got enough then?
Answer: Got enough to pay our expenses.
Question: Really?
Answer: We got eleven cents a pound.
Question: That's not too much.
Answer: And then I took, we had a fish net, and four of us built a one of these things they got off the weirs you know and a in the harbours down here at Westport. And of course, I, I fish if we had uh, I'd go out and seine the, that weir probably we'd have 30-40 barrels of herring couldn't sell them. Had to throw them overboard.
Question: Why couldn't you sell it?
Answer: No market. Look at today. Geez, you get about 15 dollars a barrel for them today.
Question: Yeah, like they have some of those back.
Answer: And look at lobsters. Look at the price of lobsters today. Some difference.
Question: Yeah, not fair.
Answer: There's no comparison at all. Fishing today there's no comparison with it was in the 30's. Course, uh, when it came up in the 40's, during the war, when the war started then the price came up. Well, even scallop fishing. I was up here scallop fishing '45, '46, '47, Had my own boat. We got 50 cents a pound for scallops. Today they're getting three dollars.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Well, I don't know what other information I can give you, I can answer questions.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Well, I don't know what other information I can give you, I can answer question.
Question: Yeah, I was wondering once you caught you lobsters what did they do, did they can them? Or did they sell them or…
Answer: Oh no, they went right on the market, the American market. That's the shippers, the shippers, see anything under nine inch would go on to the canners. They canned everything.
Question: Just off to the canners. And where would the canner be around here, that would be in the states too?
Answer: No, at that time we had 2 canning plants down at Westport.
Question: Yeah?
Answer: Are you familiar with down there?
Question: Not really. I just been down a couple of times.
Answer: Yeah, in Westport we had there was 2 canning plants down there of course that was when I was young. You know.
Question: How many people would work there at the canning plant?
Answer: Oh, probably 15 oh, about 15-20 in all, yeah, in the canning plant you know we'd borrow them. Of course, I used to work in a canning plant on the holidays and Saturdays when I was going to school.
Question: Would you get extra money for it?
Answer: Well, you know a little bit. I made it. I used to have to help out. Get a pound of better or a quart of molasses to take home. My father never made no money. You know at that time.
Question: What did your dad do anyway? Was he a fisherman?
Answer: Yeah, he fished and he went to sea some. And he tired cooking. Oh, when I was a kid growing up my father was only making what, $20.00 a month. $5 a week.
Question: Yeah, it's not a real big wage.
Answer: No it's not in comparison, living today is no a boat shucking scallops. $20 a bucket. Those kids they don't save it, I don't think.
Question: No, they seem to be spending it having a good time.
Answer: Oh yeah….going to the tavern, see them going to the liquor store.
Question: Yeah, gee. Well, what would you have done for entertainment down in Westport if you had a chance and a bit of extra money? Would you, like was there a show or…
Answer: Well, yeah, it uh, in the '20's we used to have a piture show there.
Question: Yeah, did you?
Answer: Yeah, silent pictures. Yeah, it was about twice a week.
Question: have good crowds too I suppose?
Answer: Yeah, oh yeah, no money in it. You could go to a show for $0.15, $0.20…..Well, I think when I grew up. Well, I think we had better fun than they have today in a way.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: Oh, yeah, we used to put on plays. Practice say, a month, 2 months in the fall of the year. And in the winter it didn't matter what we had the sons of Temperance. We had once a week. You know? You know, we had these house parties.
Question: Yeah?
Answer: Today it's all together different, parties today, you just, you young people today all you have to do is raise hell and tear things to pieces.
Question: Yeah, it seems to be a pretty wild bunch.
Answer: Oh, yeah, there's no comparison, oh yeah, you can't compare the living. And then when we finished she was a hard to find. We had to do some hard scrounging and look what we got today, oh boats, crates, sounders, radars, you know. What we had to get was when we wanted to get a show off ground. I fished away form home say twenty miles and we wanted to find out how deep the water was we had to fire lead overboard, and let it go down.
Question: Yeah? Just send a piece of lead down to the bottom and see how deep it was?
Answer: Yeah. If we wanted to get say fifty fathom of water we might be sounding sixty-eight to seventy fathom of water. Today why, all's you gotta do is read that. So depressing.
Question: A lot easier now.
Answer: Oh, yeah. You're in the thick fog huh. With these radars aboard the boats today it doesn't make any difference how thick it is. That used to be fishing through that…from down to Westport.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: Sure.
Question: How big a boat did you and your brother have in 1923?
Answer: Oh, that was a forty foot boat.
Question: A Forty footer?
Answer: Yeah, before that we had a thirty-six. We used to go heights of twenty-five to thirty miles a day in the summertime.
Question: Just the two of you crewing or….
Answer: Well, in the summertime on used a crow line salting the fish there'd be un three of us. About the some as lobstering since there'd only two in a boat.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: You got if fixed John?
John: No, Thursday ten o'clock he told me to come Thursday ten o'clock. He must be busy.
Holland: Yeah, I seen you gone this morning.
John: Yeah, yeah, I heard you eight o'clock.
Holland: Right…
(Irrelevant conversation)
Holland: You represent the fishin' industry?
Question: No, its with the museum, the Admiral Digby Museum. Like we're just trying to find out about like I don't know just history of Digby. Like there's not much really written up about it. So, we were going out and interviewing people and trying to make it up so it doesn't get lost. I was wondering where you were from.
Answer: Out here at Westport.
Question: Born in your mother's house or….
Answer: what?
Question: Born in your mother's house or….
Answer: Well, I was never, oh, I was born yes in… We never owned the house. It was a rented house. Oh, yeah, we never had a house of our own until just before mother died. But, after I was married I rented four years and them I built my own.
Question: But, that was done, uh you built on the island on Westport?
Answer: Oh yes, on Westport, well, they say I can't remember but they say at one time probably when all the vessels was there people come in from outside. Oh yes, that's when Joe and I'd be kids, babies. They'd estimate it's pretty near a thousand, a thousand man population.
Question: A thousand men on that island?
Answer: Population, population….
John: They was all big families.
Holland: But today, I don't think you'd count out three hundred.
John: Oh yes, over three hundred.
Holland: Is there over three hundred there now?
John: Yes.
Holland: Well, why didn't you tell me? I wonder how many of the names are on the voters list. I never noticed that.
John: That gives you an idea.
Holland: Well, uh, if there's uh, there isn't four hundred.
John: No, there's not four hundred, three hundred, three hundred fifty or so.
Question: Why would the population drop off like that?
Answer: Well….
John: They all had big families. Every one of them had big families
Holland: I can't tell you.
John: Today why, nobody has big families down there.
Holland: The older people why there's not very many elderly people om the island. Years age weren't old people anyway what they are today out in the Westport today you won't find I don't imagine on Westport today you wouldn't find over fifteen, would you John?
John: No, I don't know if you'd find that many.
Question: I wonder why that is?
Answer: Well life is very much different than it was when we grew up.
John: Well, there must be in Westport, there must be eight of 'em here, old people.
Question: Is that right?
John: Yeah, in Westport alone, there's three of 'em right here.
Holland: Yeah, here he is. We don't talk to him though. He don't want us to talk to him.
John: Well, I was down at the wharf watching them.
Holland: I was down there this morning.
John: A smelly old truck come by me and I was only that far from the truck but when that water comes down, by golly, the whole side of my car, I had to wash her.
Holland: That was where, that was way out.
John: No, I was way out and had a look around.
Holland: They had those big tank trucks outside.
John: That gives you an idea.
Holland: Well, uh, if there's uh, there isn't four hundred.
John: No, there's not four hundred fifty or so.
Question: Why would the population drop off like that?
Answer: Well…..
John: They all had big families. Every one of them had big Families.
Holland: I can't tell you.
John: Today why, nobody has big families down there.
Holland: The older people why there's not very many elderly people on the island. Years age they weren't old people anyway what they are today out in Westport today you won't find I don't imagine on Westport today you wouldn't find over fifteen, would you John?
John: No, I don't know if you'd find that many.
Question: I wonder why that is?
Answer: well there must be in Westport, there must be eight of 'em here, old people.
Question: Is that right?
John: Yeah, in Westport alone, there's three of 'em right here.
Holland: Yeah, here he is. We don't talk to him though. He don't want us to talk to him.
John: Well, I was down at the wharf watching them.
Holland: I was down there this morning.
John: A smelly old truck come by me and I was only that far from the truck but when that water comes down, by golly, the whole side of my car, I had to wash her.
Holland: That was where, that was way out.
John: No, I was way out and had a look around.
Holland: They had those big tank trucks outside.
John: Eh?
Holland: They had big tank trucks. Took two loads.
John: Yeah.
Holland: That's for you come down.
John: Yeah, that's for I come down. One fellow landed and wanted 5 ton, he said.
Holland: Oh yeah, takes 3 or 4 of those small boats to take in that much. Up to Casey's where Casey's got his that's where they unloaded.
John: Well, that's where I was
Holland: Yeah.
John: Where Casey's was
Question: So you've got 3 fishermen here?
Answer: Yeah, there're 3 of us, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy those big tankers. There's those big tankers outside there.
John: Yeah
Holland: One of them big boats there well, Matthews from Grand Manane fishin' from out those big one.
Holland: I think he took in two or three ton.
John: Yeah.
Holland: Took them way down to Wedgeport.
John: Yeah
Holland: That's where they was carring them.
John: Yeah.
Holland: I imagine this one here probably went down to Ben's down to Saulnierville.
John: They was pack in all his in that………….
Holland: Oh yeah, well they was putting it up there.
John: On the wharf there
Holland: Yeah
John: Yeah
Holland: Those other boats are up beside there.
John: Yeah
Holland: See them big tankers.
John: These boats, some of them's from Pictou
Holland: Oh Yeah?
John: Yeah, yeah, they to carry ice in one of 'em when they made that long lift here, I guess these two loads are goin' there now.
Holland: Well, the fisherman's got a great break today.
Question: Yeah, how do you mean?
Answer: On money.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: No comparison, no comparison.
Question: Who owns those big ships down there, the bigger trawlers and draggers, what ever they are?
Answer: Oh companies, you know, big companies.
Question: What would they be fishing for now?
Answer: Herring. Have you been down there on that dock?
Question: No I haven't.
Answer: OH, well you wanna go down there.
Question: Will they be going out to the weirs to take the herring out?
Answer: No, they have big stakes to set they go out at nighttime, you can only see those at night-time, you have to have night time to see those. You see herrings come up in the water at night time. Daytime as soon as the sun come up, they go right down to the bottom.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: This is a feller from Westport, he's fisherman too. He' wanted to get some news on fishing business. I tell him there no comparison today you can't compare fishing today to fishing 60 years ago. 60 years age we couldn't sell our fish. Today you haven't got money enough to buy 'em.
Question: It must have been pretty bad working all day then having to throw your fish back in the water?
3rd Fisherman: Oh, yeah, yeah well, we sold them high $0.30 a hundred. Nice great big fish, $0.30 a hundred.
Question: You mentioned something about the sons of Temperance.
Answer: Oh, yes the son of Temperance used to years ago. That's where we got our entertainment when we was kids. Didn't we Colman? You join the son of Temperance at that time 14 years old. We had a lovely hall there too.
Question: What did you have to do to join? Anything special or……
Answer: Well, you know we'd have to take a pledge. If you broke the pledge then you'd have to get reobligated.
Question: So you would have to get reobligated every weekend then?
Answer: Some did. I took a pledge when I was 14 and I been rid of liquor. I could swim in it. Never took a drink in my life.
Question: Never had a drink in you life?
Answer: I been down the Carribean, down to Cuba, where you could buy it for $0.25 a bottle. That corn liquor. All other fellers most of 'em got drunk, but I never
Question: That's good pledge if you can stay with it that long.
Answer: Yes. Well that's what it was at that time. When we grew up we'd have our house parties and we had better time than these kids have today. I think.
Question: Not quite as wild I suppose, ripping things down and smashing things up?
Answer: Well, oh now there were elderly people you know, we'd respect 'em. Another thing, when we were young, young men you know, say in our twenties and thirties, same as the odd fellows, if one of the members was down sick well the members would set up with him you know, and tend hem all night long. Today they don't do that. No, these young people wouldn't know how to take care of anyone. You see everything goes on. There's no comparison in today an what it was 60 years ago.
Question: Not as much of the neighbourly community type of?
Answer: No, I don't think there is, I don't think there is. There is cases where, you know, one will help out the other. I don't think there is anything you can do. Of course as far as money, there is anything you can do. Of course as far as money, there is money today. Down here shucking scallops get $20.00 a bucket, for shucking scallops. Down there there not fast really but some of those young folks make $50.00 a day.
Question: That's pretty fair.
Answer: Well, yes, and then a fast shucker, some down there will make $100.00 today. I could go down there and shuck and make $17.00, when you get in your 80's well you've had it it, I'm past 82 so……
Question: Is that right: What about John?
Answer: John, John will soon be 82, it's comin' up soon. We worked hard. Boy, I'll tell ya, the years go.
John: I didn't think I'd be here this long. Work will never kill no one.
Holland: I been down, I don't think I'd ever get back.
John: The only thing I think that might, I got rheumatism right in my knees and legs, by God, their awful, wearing rubber boots all the time. Well it was always rough where we fished. Where we used to fish most of the time you had to hang on never knew if you could get back or not.
Holland: I was tellen him John, see summers we used to fish the Grand Manane Banks and we never had no sonar. You have to get in 50 fathom water. A fella caught a 6 pound cod when he hauled that back he didn't sail until he touched ground. Now all you have to do is say hello to the ground, they show ya.
Question: You can see where all the schools are now.
Answer: Oh, they pick up schools of fish and everything.
John: Yeah.
Holland: yeah.
Question: How many fish would you catch hand wise on an average day? You would catch that many would you?
Answer: In August, mid August, we'd go night fishin. We'd take 3 men in a boat and come in the next morning. They'd average 4000 up to 8000.
Question: With just 3 men going out at night?
John: There was a time when you couldn't give 'em away.
Holland: I told him John, when we had that weir home there, different times we had a great big 17 foot dory. I've seen that dory twice taken in the dock and we couldn't see 'em. George Morell, two or 3 times come up with his dump truck and take 'em and out 'em on his field. And sometimes we'd hafta dump 'em when we did sell we got a dollar a barrel. That's when carter put the smoke house up. We filled that smoke house at a dollar a barrel.
John: We sold Pollock for $0.30 a hundred. Now they $14.00 a pound for them. We sold 'em $0.30 a hundred
Holland: I was telling him about the time we has 3800 pounds of lobster and we couldn't sell 'em and Gordie jenson took 'em over to Freeport- $0.11 a pound.
John: I got $0.09. Had to take 'em to Yarmouth. Took 'em on the boat and got $0.09 a pound.
Holland: Well, we shipped, Frank and I in December, that would be your Christmas money, we shipped 600 lbs. of lobsters up to Nonnie Campbell, she run a restaurant up there and we got a cheque for 60 odd dollars. That was supposed to be our Christman money. The folks today the first have they make in the last week in November the high boats can get 1000 lbs. 1000 lbs when they get $2. lb. there's $2000. right off the bat. So there's no comparison whatever.
John: Codfish the most I ever got in Codfish in my life that was the last when I knocked off fishing and that was $0.16 lb. Now the kids today get pretty near $0.81 and a bonus on top of that.
Answer: No gov't bonus when you guys were fishing.
John: No bonus, no, no bonus, while we were fishing.
Question: Nothing was subsidized? They wouldn't pay anything if you had a bad season?
Answer: No, No.
Question: No, relief we had. I used to have to go pick up coal on the beach to burn and cut wood and stuff like that. My father didn't make any money at all.
Answer: Father would get $5.00 a week, or 20.00 month on Westport. I'd go out the clam flats and dig a bunch of clams for $0.25 and go to the store and get some molasses to take home.
John: My Father and my oldest brother Freddy, used to fish up here to Digby in Snow's vessels. They never made no money. We'd have to go on the beach two or 3 of us and pick up coal and go in the woods and cut alders and bring 'em out to burn.
Holland: Yeah.
John: I remember one time when he came home he did bring one of them great big long boxes of raisin cookies. God, we howed into them, I'll tell ya, 4 kids. After I got to growing up it was different. I caught my fish, didn't make a lot of money, but I made a good livin.
Holland: Mr. Darin, there, his father's a blacksmith. He'd pound iron all day to make $0.50.
John: Yeah, I can remember him down there.
Holland: you been down……. You wanna take a walk, drive down on the fisherman's wharf there, see 'em shuck scallops.
John: Never seen 'em shuck scallops?
Answer: I read about how to do it, but I've never seen
John: Oh, my God, scallops are just little things no bigger than that. Oh, it takes a long time to fillet 'em.
Holland: John, I'm gonna tell 'em when I first came up here 3 years age. I went down and shucked 7 buckets. It was $10.00 a bucket then. Now they're getting from $20.00 to 425.00 and you see…..
John: There must be 20 on them boats.
Holland: oh, there's 30 men on Sonny's boat now. He come in this mornin. Yeah, had his hatches full. Land knows how many he had on deck.
John: They must be getting down right to the right close to the bottom. Cleaning the bed out. Oh, lotta gravel.
Holland: Yes, to see the fishermen down around that wharf.
Question: What do you do with them once you take the shell off the scallop?
John: Well they put 'em in bags and I don't know if they freeze 'em or what…….
Holland: Oh, yes in them packin places there, you take O'Neils, he's got a …..
John: Does he freeze? Oh, yes in 5 pound boxes. In Casey's too.
Question: Where would they send most of those?
Answer: Go to the Stated. They go all over probably to California.
John: Oh, yes.
Holland: You take the boats down there, there getting $3.10 per pound.
John: Yeah. There makin a lot of money those fellas.
Question: Must make you angry all the work you guys did.
John: No, no.
Holland: Oh, I'm glad they're makin it. Well that's the only thing keeping us old fellar. We get a pension so, you know. My father never got no pension. Well he got a little, first one he got was $14.00 a month.
John: I give everything over to him. The shop and all but he lost the shop and they had to build a new one. They give 'em relief to build a new shop after the storm.
Question: Ground Hog day storm?
John: Oh, it cleaned everything right out.
Holland: They was well payed.
John: There was only on there couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 shops left.
Holland: It tore the waterfront up. They was well payed.
John: Oh, yeah they was well payed. But oh, they lost a lot of things. My boy I don't know how many tanks. Those tanks tanks that you salt fish in, they all went.
Holland: Well, that place I had, had 17 tanks, but the government payed.
John: Oh, the government payed.
Question: If that ever happened in the 20's you wouldn't have gotten anything.
Answer: If that had happened in the 20's we'd been ruined.
John: That was done, that was done in one sea. You wouldn't believe it, take the whole ……., started from the lower part of the island, the sea come in and come right up and kept on going, took every building along with it in its way. Only left just a few buildins. Wasn't no more than, I guess, four or five buildins left on the water front.
Question: That must have been pretty scary down there.
Answer: Very, we weren't there the ones that…….
John: No. we wasn't there.
Holland: I've heard say the ones that………
John: Got no ides what it was.
Holland: It was scary alright. Next one might cover the Island, gone right over.
John: Yeah.
Holland: You know, you never know.
Question: You know, it surely could.
Answer: You'd have to be there to see it to realize it.
John: Well, when you take one sea come in like that, they didn't know. What was gonna come or if you was gonna go under or not.
Holland: No, if they had another one…….
John: Well, a tidal wave it could kept commin and whole island could a gone under.
Holland: Right over- those things, you know……..
John: It was the tide, you see it was a tidal wave, the tide after that storm the tide went down as much as four or five ft.
Holland: Lot of 'em figured the world was comin' to an end at that time, the older ones.
Question: Must be hard to get anyone who it sick down there up to the hospital.
Answer: No, not so bad.
John: Not so bad now.
Holland: They got an ambulance right down on the island.
Question: Few years ago it must have been hard.
Answer: Well,….
John: That's the reason we're up here though. My wife was sick, she said I'm not stayin here another winter. Well, I said, if I get a chance to sell, I'll sell. I had a chance to give it away and I give it away. Decided to come up here.
Question: Must be a lot easier than down on the island?
John: oh, yes, now my wife's in the hospital down here.
Holland: Oh, there's no place down there for elderly people.
John: Well, you take you take …she's scared in the summertime when it's blowin, she scared to death, nerves. No, she couldn't stay there. She's nervous. You know, we moved up here, we been up here for goin' on 9 years.
Question: Yeah, must be quite a change.
John: Yeah, the young crowed down there, I don't know any of them. Eight years, if someone was 7 or 8 they'd be grown up and you don't know em and they got wiskers and all.
Holland: It was a good life though on the water. I enjoyed every bit of it.
John: Oh, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. I would a never come myself it hadn't been for the wife and her nerves. I think I'd been better off really if I'd a stayed there. I think this time when she went in the hospital, I think she really was homesick, myself. She don't say so, oh, but I really do feel so. I woulda had something to do down there.I come up here and I got nothing to do. I coulda gone down and built a trap if I'd wanted to, jigged around the shop, went fishin once and awhile if I'd a wanted to. They catch squid now. Kay went out last night and that struck em at Alders Cove they drifted in the passage. The young Moore fella drove a truck up here with me from Connor's and they drifted in and they caught 800 and then uh, Roy Grey and uh, his brother there they went out, they had over 800.
Question: This is squid?
Holland: Yeah, squid. That's something that hasn't been for years.
John: No, years and years.
Question: How do you catch squid?
Holland: Well, they have a little squid jig.
John: With prongs on it.
Holland: It's full of pins.
John: With prongs on it.
Holland: It's full of pins.
John: It has pins, ya know, and they suck on it and you haul it up and you have to turn the jig upside down and let em drop off.
Question: I heard something that they shoot oil or ink all over you do they?
Holland: Oh yeah.
John: Oh, yeah
John: They got an ink bag inside of em and that's full of ink and when they come out of the water they'll shoot some water sometimes and sometimes the ink will come out. Yeah, they'll squirt ya boy.
Question: Squirt each other on the boat, eh?
John: They make great fish bait sometimes the fish likes em.
Question: What would have been the main fish back in the 20's and 30's?
John: What would have got the best market?
Question: What would have been the main fish back in the 20's and 30's?
Answer: Oh, I'd say there was no market really, but they was the same fish that you catch today.
Question: Herring….
Answer: : Cod, Pollock, of course the herring. They make a difference in the herring today, the herring fishin is different.
Question: How has that changed?
Answer: The market has changed the herring.
Question: You still catch them the same way?
Answer: no.
Question: No?
Answer: No, years ago we never heard tell of a seiner (open net for sea fishing). We used to seine Pollock, schools of Pollock, but never heard tell of seining herring.
Question: How exactly do you do that, seining?
Holland: : Well, they're seining about 300, 3500 fathoms long……
John: Oh, 400 fathoms long.
Holland: Them are 40 fathom deep and they run that out you know, to make a big long circle. They pick the other end up with both ends aboard the boat and then they pull that up from underneath which draws them together and then they got the fish. If you go down on the wharf you'll see the seiners there.
Question: Yeah, I think I will go down later this afternoon.
John: They got a big roller now and that seine comes over the roller. We used to have when we seined we used to have to pull em by hand.
Holland: The roller rolls it.
John: All they have to do is core it.
Holland: Yeah.
John: There's nothing to it now.
Holland: Then the machinery pulls it together.
John: Yeah.
Holland: There's an awful lot of new inventions today.
John: Most of the herring these fellas find the herring are 'bout that long before they can save em.
Holland: yeah.
John: And down our way all they can find is all mixed up, herring from that size……is all they'll take. If they don't get the big herring you can't save em you gotta let em go again.
Holland: I asked Guptille the one's in the big one down there if he heard anything from the folks down the island last night. He said he heard some of em talking they went offshore. They went out, they must have gone out round McDormand's pass that way. They tried to find the big herring. Yeah, you wanna go down on the……and you're interested in pick up you know write up about fishin.
Question: Yeah, very interested. It just amazes me how it has changed over the years from the couple of people I've talked to.
Answer: No comparison.
Question: Are you saying that there was no size limit on anything like on lobsters, you mentioned earlier. You could keep any size lobster?
Holland: Oh, years ago there was not, you could save anything that went in that trap when they had the canners. I don't know when this went into effect, this 9 inch law but that's been the last I suppose fifty years that you couldn't save small ones. I know when we had that Cape Island boat in 1923, we sold to the canners. There was a canners then.
John: Yeah.
Question: That was right on Westport?
Holland: Yeah.
John: I guess in Prince Edward Island they save small ones.
Holland: Yeah, they have canners down there.
John: They have canners. I don't know how whether there's been any difference or not. They claim it would ruin the fishing if they cut the small ones off.
Holland: well, made a big difference down home when we was fishin whoever heard tell of goin out and getting a 1000 pounds of lobsters. We got 200lbs, 300lbs at the first of it, John.
John: Yeah.
Holland: Take in the summertime and in May the catch would come up pretty good. We used to go to Yarmouth sometimes and sell out . Then Cape Saint Mary's we get I'd say, 300 or 400 pounds of lobsters.
Question: How long was the season? Same length of time?
Holland: Years ago we had 6 months. Today it's only 3.
John: No, it's 6 now.
Holland: What?
John: six now, they start in December and knock off in May.
Holland: Yeah, that's right. We did have 3.
John: Yeah, we had 3.
Holland: Few years ago.
John: Well, one time they had 2 seasons. You start, I guess, in the fall
And you went so long and had to knock off.
Question: Why, it was too much?
John: I don't know, they had two seasons in one.
Holland: They do it in Grand Manan
John: Eh?
Holland: They do it here.
John: That's right they've got 2 seasons here in Digby
Holland: Yeah, above Point Prim.
John: Yeah, they start here 15th , 15th of October and they fish for aq couple months I guess they em up and then they start again.
Holland: Yeah, they have fish above Point Prim.
John: Yeah.
Holland: From Cole Harbour to Point Prim is a six month season.
Unknown Woman's voice: the old men's convention?
Holland: Oh, old men! What are you talking about old men? I don't like that. We may be old today but we will be you tomorrow.
John: Sun's getting warm.
Question: All you guys out here watching the pretty girls walk by?
Answer: We used to have to watch over in the lounge but we can't see them now.
Question: Do they have a recreation room here in the building?
Answer: Oh, yeah.
Question: Must be a little boreing for a fisherman?
John: The recreation room is right in here.
John: When are you going down home to Freeport, tomorrow?
Holland: No, I was talking to Vike last night and she wanted to stay down till Tuesday.
Started fishing at 18 yrs. Old-small income
1923- Brother and he had a boat built- Cape Bound- Heart's Harbour
Lobster fishing-no size limit
April-100 pots- 25 miles s.w. of Westport
Caught 3800 lbs of lobster in 3 weeks
Sold out that summer - no market'
Buyer from Portland- Gordie Jameson- 1923 received $0.11 lb.
4 built a weir- seine-30-40 barrels of herring which they had to dump overboard.
Today it is $15.00 a barrel.
1930's-no comparison to fishing today
Prices rose once the war started
Scallop fishing in 1945-47-$0.50 lb. while it is $3.00 today
Lobsters went on American market-under 9 inches went to canners-2 canning plants on Westport-15-20 employees
Worked there on the weekends when he was a kid-had to help buy groceries
Father was a fisherman-didn't make much money. Worked on the "Old Westport" for $ 20.00a month
Today it is $20.00 a bucket shucking
Used to have a movie house- silent pictures twice a week. $0.15 or $0.20 a show
Used to have a better time when he was young-used to put on plays
Belonged to the sons of Temperance-met once a week-Had house parties
Fishing was much harder-no sounders or radar- tested depth by dropping lead.
Boat he owned was 40 ft. - before that owned a 36 ft.- used to go 25- 30 miles out
Usually a crew of 3 in the summer time- hand-line and salting the fish
With lobster fishing- 2 in the boat
Born in Westport-parents never owned a home until just before his mother died.
Built his home on Westport.
Population used to 1000 on Westport'
Population today approx. 350
Used to be a big fleet of vessels and big families
Not many old people there today
6 or 8 people from Westport right at Basin view
Fisherman have it much better today-money
Seiners -only seine at night- herring come to the top light sends them to the bottom
60yrs ago he couldn't sell his fish- did get about $0.30 a hundred
Sons of Temperance-joined at 14 yrs. Of age- took a pledge-never took a drink in his life.
Had a good time at House parties- Had a nice hall- a lot of community spirit- helped sick friends.
A good shucker makes $100.00 a day
Could make $70.00 a day himself
Friend John joins in the conversation
Used to hand line for cod
Go night fishing- average 4000- 8000 lb a night
Remembers having his 17ft. dory full of fish and couldn't sell them- used for fertilizer
$. A Barrel-filled the smoke house.
$0.30 a hundred- today Pollock is $0.14 lb.
$0.11 a lb for lobsters in 20's and 30's- once sold for $0.09 a lb at Yarmouth
Was no relief or subsidies-had to pick coal on the beach for fuel
Also sold clams for $0.25 a bucket
Cut alders to burn
Best price ever was $0.16 lb. for cod
Mr. Dakin's father- blacksmith- lucky to make $0.50 a day
Quite a bit of gravel in the scallops means they are cleaning the bottom of the beds.
Markets are in the states and all over the world. ($3.10 lb) Happy the fisherman are making money
Ground Hog Day storm-wiped out waterfront
Both have had a good life on the water
Catching squid- method-used for fishing bait
Main fish in 20's and 30's-same fish as today
Seining-method and changes-only keep big herring- over 9"-no size limit years age
2-400 lbs was a great catch
Have two season- take a month off and then start again
END OF TAPE
27
Interview with Arnold Trask1976
Lighthouse Road, Digby, Nova Scotia
28
Interview: Arnold TraskInterviewer: Karen Trask
Life In Digby In The 1930's
I chose for the topic of my History paper this term life during the Depression of the 1930" in our area, and I asked Mr.Trask for an interview because he grew up in this period. He was about nine when the stock-market crashed on October 29,1929, and therefore he could tell of it from the point of view of a young boy, not too many years younger, and in the last part of the 30's, the same age as my classmates and I, which would make it all the more interesting. Neither Mr.Trask or myself were very anxious to tape the interview, and so we agreed on my writing down his replies to my question. Here are the results of our labours:
Q: How old were you when the Depression started?
A: I was about eight or nine when the Depression started.
Q: What was it like to grow up during the Depression?
A: I didn't realize then what it meant, I don't really remember that much about it. I do know that we had to do with out things we had before like we used to have bananas quite often- bananas and cream- it was a real treat to have them in the 1930's. People couldn't afford, couldn't earn money to buy the things they wanted. Grown men were getting a dollar a day. We made out a little better, we had our own cows, chickens, mom used to churn our butter. We sold milk, cream, eggs, raised our own pigs. We didn't have too much in the line of new clothes, the oldest would get new clothes, and as he outgrew them they would be passed down to the rest of us. Mine were made form old clothes Mom cut down and remade to fit me.
Q: Did you have to find a job to "help ends meet" at home?
A: Yes, I started work when I was ten for a florist- Mr.Harris at the Racquette Gardens- mainly hired to weed his garden. I helped him build a greenhouse- paid $0.50 a day, and worked form 8 o'clock in the morning to 6 o'clock at night. I eared enough money the first summer I worked to buy all my new clothes for the next year-almost the first new clothes I'd ever had.
Q: Did you mind having to work?
A: Not really, it gave me something to do in the summer- I would have to work at home anyway and this way I got paid for it. I was lucky because I was allowed to keep this money for my own use, they kind of kept an eye on me to see that I didn't waste it. It was easy to save because there weren't things to buy. My first suit cost $9.95-two pains of pants, a vest and coat. It was almost 4 weeks pay. (I was getting three dollars a week).
Q: Do you think you missed out on a lot of the fun and other things usual to childhood by growing up during the Depression?
A: I don't know I did because when I was in school I had time to play with the boys- recess, noon hour and sometimes after school. Dad would take us fishing in the springtime when trout season opened, and in those days we did things we'd seen grownups do- tapping trees, we built a camp in the woods. I don't think I missed out on anything. I think the Depression taught me the value of money.
Q: Do you think it would be good for Canada to have another Depression?
A: No, don't ask me why, but no.
Q: What about the young people to-day, do you think they could cope with life during a Depression, without all the luxuries they're been brought up with? Do you think they'd make it?
A: Yes, sure they could. They'd find it hard but they could do it. Young people today are just as resourceful as we were when it comes to making and saving money, many more so. If they want to earn money they're not scared to work. They have ideas on how to earn money.
Q: Did you mind growing up in the 30's? If you had a choice, when would you prefer to be a young boy growing up-during the depression or now?
A: The 30's belonged to me. Now belongs to you. Right? I enjoyed growing up when I did.
Q: Were the later years of depression as bad as the first? History books say that around 1934 was the time when things started getting better (slowly).
A: It started getting better around 1934. Things didn't really get good until after the war really, although they weren't as bad.
Although Mr. Trask didn't really say anything about it in the interview, there were a lot of good times in the depression, laughing times, incidents that weren't funny at the time, but are now. Like the time Dad had to tend the furnaces at the greenhouse one winter night- they had to be stoked at 9 p.m. and at about 3 in the morning. Well, he thought that if he put in a lot of coal, he wouldn't have to get up at 3 and put in more. So that's what he did. The furnace got red-hot and blew up.
Then there was the time Dad's sister Marion was dancing on the barrel of salt mackerel pickled down, and she fell in. Or the time she decided to ride the black mare, who was quite fast and flighty. She got on bareback and was sitting too far back. Dad told her to move forward because she was sitting on the horse's kidneys, and Marion dug in her, leaving poor Aunt Marion in Mid-air, for a while, anyway!
So as you can see, although the Depression was tragic, and hard to survive, it had its good times too. It brought people closer together, families were more of unit than they are today. People were pleased and amused by the little things- a neighbour giving you a bar of soap or some poataoes if you had non, and small incidents like those few mentioned above, helped ease the pain of having to do without the other, more costly things of before, and made those people appreciate those things a lot more.
29
Interview: Monika TreleavenInterviewer: Michelle Treleavan, Grade 9
February 2004
Question: What is your name?
Answer: My name is Monika Treleaven.
Question: How old are You?
Answer:I'm 51 years old
Question: How long have you been living in Digby County?
Answer: I have been living in DIgby for the past five (5) years.
Question: Where abouts, in Digby, exactly do you live?
Answer: I live on Warwick Street across from Sobeys and Canadian Tire.
Question: Right in town?
Answer: Well, it is a little bit out of town, it's not considered to be downtown but yet, it is still in the town, in the town of Digby.
Question: Why did you move here?
Answer: Because of work.
Question: What appeals to you about the town? What's your favourite thing that made you decide to move here?
Answer: Well the favourite thing was manly the work, we have our own business, and that caused us to move to Digby, but uhh, also the ocean, the sea is very attractive.
Question: And uhh, what is it exactly that you do?
Answer: I'm a motel manager.
Question: Are you active in the community?
Answer: Yes, I am.
Question: How so?
Answer: Well, I'm doing alot of volunteering in the church. I'm doing chaperoning for high school children on their trips and I am also a member of the Glee Club.
Question: Tell me a little bit about your family? Ummm your parents or uhhh, do you have any family in Nova Scotia?
Answer: No, I don't
Question: So what were your parents names?
AnsweR: My parents names were Theresa and Rudolph Concensni (?) and they are both German people, as well as I am. I was born and raised in Germany and immigrated to Canada thirty (30) years ago.
Question: Well, that's a long time.
Answer: Uhhumm.
Question: Are you married?
Answer: I am married with one child and two stepsons.
Question: So ummm, do you live with your whole family right now or...?
AnsweR: No, I, I, the boys, the two stepsons, they live in Ontario, they have their own family and our daughter is living with us here in Digby, and she is going to Grade nine (9) in Digby High School.
Question: So, originally you are from Germany?
Answer: Yes, I am.
Question: Is Germany and uhhh, and Digby the only places you ever lived or where have you lived before?
Answer: I also lived in Ontario, in Ottawa, as well as in Toronto.
Question: Does anything of DIgby remind you of your hometown, or the places that you lived before? Any simularities or...?
Answer: There are some simularities, especially to the people in Germany, like uhh, this here, Digby is a small town and everybody knows each other and that basically was the same in my home town. Because I was born in Frankfraud which is a big city, but yet every district, ummm, has its own Municipality, and they have their own activities and, ummm so you basically keep close to the district that you are living in and you know each other there and everybody goes to the same shopping mall, and you meet always the same people at the butcher or the bakery. Thou it is some sort of a small town, ummm, image that you have over there as well. And that reminds me a little bit of Germany when i'm here in Digby. I did not have that in the big cities of Toronto or of Ottawa. Everything was melted together.
Question: Did you miss it? When you were gone? The fact that you knew everybody, or...?
Answer: Yes, I did.
Question: So you didn't like seeing strangers everywhere you went? It was nice to familiar faces?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, are you planning to stay in Digby?
Answer: So far, yes!
Question: So do you find it easier to live in a small community like Digby or in a larger one like Halifax? What are some of the differences? Like the biggest things that you notice that you prefer or you dislike a little bit?
Answer: I like the smaller communities because its very easy to get around. Especially when you have smaller children you don't have to worry about driving them long distances all over town like it was in Toronto. Like if you want ot go to a special program or a special childrens activity then that they were sometimes spread all over the town. We had to travel all over the town which meant probably about an hour from uhhh, uhhh, from the house that we lived, and this, the nice part about here in Digby is that you can basically walk to it, all the activities and uhh, you don't waste so much time being on the road.
Question: So you have had some experience having children growing up in different communities. So do you like...What are...I'm not sure how to say this... Is there anything that's good about raising a child, other than the fact the distances aren't so great, and it's easier to manage to be able to go to all the activities in a small town? Is there anything else that stands out?
Answer: With regards to raising children?
Question: Raising Kids? Yeah.
Answer: I don't know, there is an other factor, which is the security. I always find that in the bigger cities you have to street prove them, You have to do that here in Digby as well, but it is much easier to let them walk in a group to school. Where in a big city usually the parents went with the child to school. There was more supervision required. So yes, it is easier to raise children in a smaller town.
Question: Less worring?
Answer: Less to worry. I don't know what will happen during the teenager, teenage time because (LAUGHTER) I think uhhh, then some worries come up with regards to driving a car and in the country but I will deal with that when it comes.
Question: So, what are some changes in live style that you have noticed when you moved to Digby? Like is there a difference in how you do things here in Digby versious how you did them in Toronto?
Answer: The main thing is shopping cause here in Digby there is hardly any clothes shopping available. And if you want to buy something special you have to go to Halifax or to Kentville which was out of town and uhhh that was a certain change of lifestyle that I under-went. I really had to plan my shopping trips, while living in Toronto I didn't have to plan I just went off to the mall. And the same thing with movie theatres, you just went to a movie theatre, a movie, whenever you felt like watching it, but now we really have to make an effort and plan it. So it is quite a lifestyle change.
Question: So, ummm, what about memories? I mean you must have lots of memories of Toronto and all these places you lived in and since you have been here for five (5) years you must have quite a few of Digby. Is there anything that really sticks out in your mind? One of you favourit memories and your best time.
Answer: I would say the friendliest of the people in Digby. And the peace out here, it's somehow a combination of the ocean, the water, and uhhh, it's a certain serrinity in this area that I really, really enjoy , away from all the hassle and bassle of a big city.
Question: So it's more layed back, more relaxed.
Answer: It is more relaxed.
Question: Less hectic?
Answer: Ohh, no hectic at all.
Question: Is there something you remember doing maybe when one of your childrens, or stepsons, or another member of your family or friends came to visit you. Is there something you remember doing with them that ..., somewhere you went maybe or something you saw that just really sticks in your mind?
Answer: Well, I think what we always do is we tell them, show them the town, show them the marina, show them the Pines, the Golf Course, and the lighthouse and the beauty of the nature and of course some trips out to the beach on Digby Neck or even a little bit further down Yarmouth. Uhhh, it's always very fasinating for people that are coming out of a big city just to enjoy the nature of this area.
Question: What about the area around Digby? Do you find...Do you travel quite abit around and out-and-about?
Answer: Yes, we do quite a bit of travelling and we don't mind travelling. Ummm, our, our live does not end in Conway, we, our live bascially is between Halifax and Yarmouth and that's the area that we move around, that's the area that we have a lot of friends and we visit back and forth and go to theatre outside of town as well.
Question: Great! So I think that's it. Thank you very much!
Answer: Thank you for having me!
30
Digby County: A Journey through Time with FamilyInterviewed: Bonnie VanTassell
Interviewed By: Michael VanTassell, Grade 9
Question. Where did you come from?
Answer. I was born in Bear River, Digby county, N.S.
Question. Why did you choose Digby?
Answer. I trained to be a nurse, and came to Digby General Hospital to work in Feb, 1959.
Question. What is your descent?
Answer. I am a mix of Irish and Scottish.
Question. Did you live in town?
Answer. I have lived here for 45 years.
Question. What kinds of clothes did you wear?
Answer. Before the 70's all girls wore dresses, and skirts, hats, gloves, and seamed stockings.
Question. What was life like?
Answer. When I was growing up we had a radio and we played outdoors. We went to a community school (2 grades each class room) everybody knew everyone and the whole community looked out for each other. We walked practically everywhere we went. On our street only the minister had a car. I was 9 years old when we had our first telephone. I bought my mother and father their first television.
Question. What chores did you have?
Answer. My brother and I had to saw the wood and fill the wood box, do the supper dishes on the weekends, we all had to clean and do the cooking.
Question. What jobs did you have?
Answer. The jobs I've had in my life time are nurse, social worker, and raising a family.
Question. What kind of education do you have?
Answer. I have a diploma in nursing, and I am registered with the N.S. ASSOC. of social workers.
Question. Do you have any stories to tell?
Answer. The snow storms that we have had the past 2 years are typical of the winters I experienced as a child, We would build snow forts and tunnels, go sledding, and skating on out door ponds. Our lives were less organized and more relaxed when I was a child.
31
Name: Kathryn VroomInterviewer: Katelynn O'Neill, Grade 9
Born May 4, 1938 in the Digby Hospital, she lived with her mother Gladys Buckler and her father Atlee Buckler in Bear River. Kay, as she is called by friends and family, had two younger brothers and a younger sister that she looked after while she grew up. She had a busy childhood, her mother made her family's clothes. Her family was poor, but there was always a lot to eat.
Kathryn went to school at Bear River school in a one room school house, grade one to grade seven. One teacher taught all the students in the school. From grade eight to grade twelve was a different school called Oakedean. She went to that school for three years. She traveled to school by taxi everyday. Kay quit in grade 10 and started to work at the Harbourview, cleaning cabins.
Kay and her family didn't travel to Digby often; they shopped in Bear River every Sunday evening. Her only memories of Digby are Margolian's Clothes and Footwear (it was where Mr. Bargain's is now). And a place called the Cornwallis Café (where the House of Wong is now). Some of the stores are the same as they are now.
Kathryn married a man named Edwin Bruce Vroom, and they had three children. They lived in Deep Brook for most of their life. In 1990, Kathryn's husband died from cancer. She moved into Digby where she lives happily.
32
Interviewed: Mrs. John WalkerQuestion: "Your Mrs. John Walker?"
Answer: "That's Right."
Question: "And when were you born?"
Answer: "September 4, 1899."
Question: "Were you born here in Digby?"
Answer: "I was born in Rossway."
Question: "When did you first come to Digby?"
Answer: "Well, I didn't come to stay permanently, but my two Aunts lived here in this house, and I use to come and visit them when I was just a child."
Question: "And what were their names?"
Answer: "Miss Ella Robbins and Miss Janet Robbins. I use to spend all my summer vacation with them. Nearly every year. After I started school I did. I really remember more of them probably from the age of 10. But I do remember being here before that. After Christmas was over, my sister and I would spend Christmas together, and after it was over I would come up and stay over New Year's with these Aunts. My mother said they spoiled me so, that she'd have hard time when I go home.
Question: "I Was told this house was called Acacia Cottage."
Answer: "Yes, Acacia Cottage was the name of it. My Aunts ran it as a boarding house."
Question: "Oh, I see. And why was it called Acacia Cottage?"
Answer: "Because there are two Acacia trees out front. And at one time, there was a hedge around front, Acacia trees."
Question: "I never heard of Acacia trees?"
Answer: "Well, it's the same as Locust, Honey-Locusts."
Question: "Oh, I see. Yes."
Answer: "Well, you know, Acacia Valley out here, well that's where that came from. It was just loaded with these Locusts trees."
Question: "So, about how many boarders would they take in?"
Answer: "Well, there were four bedrooms. And possibly in the summer my Aunt would have at least three of the rooms and possibly a couple with a child with parents in one room because they were big enough for a double bed and small bed. And she also at that time owned a house next door and that, she had just for bedrooms, and they all ate their meals here."
Question: "So did they provide the meals?"
Answer: "Oh, yes. That was one of the main things. We were quite famous for our meals. And at that time certain people came and stayed for several weeks at a time. You see there was no motor traffic, as there is today and people came for at least two weeks and possibly more."
Question: "Where did they come from?"
Answer: "They came mainly from the New English area, New York, and I would say after world War 1, I would say the majority would have come from Montreal and Toronto areas."
Question: "Oh, that's quite far away?"
Answer: "Yes, it is. She said at one time she use to have the whole CPR office force, they'd come from Montreal for their vacations. And they'd come back year after year. So they really got to be friends. And I grew up every summer with a lot of those people. And I do remember some very lovely people who came from New York and other areas of the United States."
Question: "Do you remember any French people?"
Answer: "Once or twice, but the majority of them were British and Scotish people."
Question: "When you would come up and visit, how would you come?"
Answer: "Oh, my father would drive me with the horse & carriage. And he also drove me back & forth to high school on weekends."
Question: "So did you board here than?"
Answer: "Yes, I stayed here those three or four years, I went to high school."
Question: "So what grade did you start high school, Grade 7?"
Answer: No, nine. Grade 9, 10, 11, 12
Question: "So was that at the red school?"
Answer: "Yes."
Question: "So where was Grades primary to nine. Was that also there too?"
Answer: "That was there too, at that time. It wasn't that large. It was just for the town at that time. It wasn't a rural high school like it is now."
Question: "So it wasn't as big?"
Answer: "Oh, no."
Question: "What was it like inside?"
Answer: "Well, there were two floors and the high school rooms were in the upstairs rooms. Now Grade 7 and 8, would be Junior high now, they were in one room. And 9, 10 & 11, were in another room. I said four years, but when I went to high school they didn't have Grade 12. You had to go somewhere else for that."
Question: "Do you remember any of your teachers' names?"
Answer: "Oh, Yes. Mr. Powell, was the principal and he taught English and Mathematics, Grade 9, 10 & 11. Possibly other subjects but I mainly remember English and Mathematics and he was a marvelous teacher. And the, Miss__________, who was the Vice- Principal, when I in high school. She taught us English-History, as I recall. Ancient History in Grade 11, we had in our own room. And after Mr. Powell left, we had a substitute teacher, I think he became ill, and we had a substitute teacher for part of the year, and I don't remember his name. But than Mrs. Elizabeth McWhinnie came as Principal, and she was there when I was finished and she was also very good.
Question: "Everyone seemed to respect her?"
Answer: "Oh, Yes."
Question: "I was wondering if there were any conflicts, changing from a male principal to female."
Answer: "No, not that I remember. She was also very efficient and a very good teacher. And by the way, as far as I know, she is still alive and lives in her own home in Port Wade. At least she there when I came back from Florida 9 years age. Now, possibly, of course I did inquire for her. Someone told me she was still there."
Question: "Do you remember any special rules, anything special you did in the morning? Like now some school have O'Canada?"
Answer: "I don't remember that we did in high school. If we did I don't remember."
Question: "So you went to Elementary school in Rossway? Where was the school?"
Answer: "It was at the corner of the Digby Neck Road and the Gulliver's Cove Road. And it is the building that is now the Community Hall in Rossway. That was the old school house. And it was a one room school."
Question: "And how many grades would be there."
Answer: "Sometimes nine. With one teacher. But I don't remember just how many pupils there would have been."
Question: "Was it pretty well filled?"
Answer: "Yes. It would have been. The smaller ones up front and the larger one in the back. And I don't know why the little ones didn't freeze in the winter time because it was heated by a wood stove, and that was all the heat there was. But I don't ever remember being really uncomfortably cold there."
Question: "What were your desks like? Were they just benches?"
Answer: "No, They weren't. They were regular desks."
Question "Did they have one for each one?"
Answer: "No, some of them were two and some of them were one, as I remember."
Question: "What date was it that you first came to high school here in Digby? Do you remember the date?"
Answer: "1914."
Question: "I', going to change the subject here. I was told that you were related to Robert Tempany?"
Answer: "Yes. Mr. Robert Tempany. The first loyalist to settle here."
Question: "He was one of the 1st settlers?"
Answer: "Yes, he was one of the first loyalist settlers. He was granted land on Digby Neck.
Question: "In Rossway?"
Answer: "Yes. That's right, because my father's farm was part of the original grant of land. My father's mother was a Tempany. And my father's people were also loyalists, but they came I think to Yarmouth County, and then it was my grandfather who came from Yarmouth County to Rossway. And he bought from one of the Tempany, his farm, and it was part of the original Tempany land. He married Hanna Tempany."
Question: "Where did this Major Tempany come from? When he first came here, where did he come from?"
Answer: "I'll tell you Wilson's history. I think he came from Pennsylvania. But my father's history says he was born in Northern Ireland. And the name of the town is on his gravestone up in the churchyard. There's quite a long bit of where he was born etc. But my father told me that he came from Virginia to New England and than Pennslyvania, or wherever it was. But my father says New English, but he may be wrong. But originally he was suppose to have come from Virginia at the beginning of the revolution, because when he came to Digby he brought with him, several of the old slaves from his plantation in Virginia, and their graves are in the fields down near the first home. My father showed them to me once. It's all grown up to pasture by now, but my father did show me where those graves were."
Question: "Could you read anything on them?"
Answer: "No, there were no marking on them of any sort, but my father knew where they were. He was always greatly interested in any family history and apparently his grandfather or some of his relatives had showed him where they were. And when I was a very small child, I remember going to see the remains of the first old house that was built. The first that Robert Tempany built. Some of it is still standing and why on earth they didn't preserve it, I'll never know. I remember going into it with my father and being amazed at the size of the fireplaces in it. They were perfectly huge."
Question: "Now, they were, I suppose made of stone?"
Answer: "Yes, they were stone."
Question: "What were the farms like? Were they large farms?"
Answer: "You mean the original one?"
Question: "Yes"
Answer: "Oh, it was a large grant of land. I couldn't tell you exactly how much it was, but it was quite large. And as far as I know it went from the St. Mary's Bay shore up to the main highway, I suppose that was the main highway afterwards, I don't suppose there were any roads when they first came there. And they built their homes near the shore. And when the main road was built down through Digby Neck, then there was this long lane we always called "Tempany Lane" and it's still called that now. It's marked. If you drive down there you'll see it. And it's where the original Tempany home was. There are still several houses down there, of course, they're occupied today, and one of them, I don't think there is more than one of them that is still in the family and that would be a great, great, I don't know how many greats, a great-grandson of the Tempany, and his name is Thibault, George Thibaets, because his mother, Rose Tempany married Frank Thibault and he was French and his family came from Brittain. They were very, very blond and Rose, his wife would have been my father's own cousin. But her father had built a home on part of the Tempany grant and some of it sold on the other side and as I said, my fathers' father had pert of it and my father's farm was part of it."
Question: "It must have been quite large."
Answer: "Oh, Yes. It was a large grant of land. And of course, it was all wood."
Question: "They must have had quite with it at first."
Answer: "Well, yes, I would think, because they's have to clear it all out."
Question: "Getting back to Digby, most of the people that would have boarded here would have been tourists?"
Answer: "Yes, except in the wintertime. There would have been a few school teachers, or possibly one or two, either men or women who worked in the bank or something of that sort."
Question: "Would you think that the tourist industry than, was larger then it is today?"
Answer: "No, I don't think it was larger, but of course, it was entirely different. People came by boat and train, and stayed much longer in one place. And there were several large hotels that were offering at that time. There was……… Lodge, Manhattan, Myrtle House, Columbia House, which was a year round affair, it was up in back of where the Post Office is now. And The Pines, of course, it was always there. And ever so many small private boarding houses, like this one. And usually all pretty well filled up."
Question: "What about business in town? What was it like? Pretty well built up?"
Answer: "Well, there were two banks, as long as I can remember. There were more grocery stores."
Question: "Can you remember any names?"
Answer: "Well, there was A.A. Shortliffe and than H.T. Warren, A.R. Turnbull, South End Grocery and I think it catered more to the fishermen, than the regular grocery store. I think it was owned by a Sproule. There was a wharf down there by that name, 'Sproule's Warf.' We use to fish off it for smelts. I can't think off hand, any other grocery stores."
Question: "Well, that's quite a few?"
Answer: "Oh, there were several. There were one or two, I think smaller ones, that carried a few groceries, along with what I call odds and ends."
Question: "What about clothing stores?"
Answer: "Yes. There was……………Which was suppose to be the best one in the town, I would say. It was afterwards, "Wreghts", but when I was growing up it was…………….. Then there was J.L. Peter's and afterwards was Roop's. And there was two Jewellery stores. Where Sauunders is, was Keen's Jeweller Store and a Mr. Charles Lynstrom had another very nice jeewellery store. He also did watch repairing etc. And several meat markets. But I remember just one good old reliable fish market, A.J. Stoddard. He had the best finnan haddie you ever ate. Just wonderful."
Question: "What were the winter like?"
Answer: "Oh, just about like they are now, I would say. As far as weather is concerned. Some years we'd have more snow than others."
Question: "There were some years you had snow as high as the buildings?"
Answer: "No, I don't remember snow like that in Digby. I do remember on winter I was still going to school in Rossway, when we had a terrific amount of snow. There was actually tunnels in some parts of the road. So you had a roof of snow over you head when you went through it. And I can remember coming home from school and climbing up the snow banks and standing with our feet over the telephone wires. That was a lot of snow. Now I just remember that once. And heaven help you if it got a little soft and you sunk down in it. The other boys and girls had to come and pull you out. And I do remember going to school in the spring and there was ice and snow on the road, we walked a mile to school, and it came a sudden thaw or a warm rain storm, you'd have to wade your way home and some of the older boys would pick you up and carry you over the deep, deep puddles."
Question: "Do you recall the 30's
Answer: "I wouldn't have been here than, I was married in 1920 and left here."
Question: " Did you? And where did you go than?"
Answer: "I went to Massachusetts. Brookline, Mass."
Question: "And how long did you stay there?"
Answer: "Oh, a couple years, I guess. Than we went to New York. My husband was an engineer, and electronic engineer, and we moved nine times, during my, we had one daughter, and she was 19 different schools before she graduated from high school. We were transferred all the time. We lived in Maine, we lived in New York and back & forth."
Question: "Which did you like the best? New England states, or Digby?"
Answer: "I likes them both. I loved New England. I like the Boston area particularly. It always seemed like home there. Because off and on I was there perhaps, as much as I was anywhere. And my husband died 9 years ago and we would have been married 50 years that winter. I was just 21 when we were married."
Question: "So what the depression like in the states?"
Answer: "Well, it wasn't very pleasant. My husband was working for RCA in New York. He was stationed at long Island, in New York. And he & several of the other engineers were let go."
Mrs.J.Walker Part # 2 October 3, 1979
Question: "So he didn't have a job?"
Answer: "He didn't have a job. No. But he worked for radio station, temporarily in Boston. We left Long Island, came up to Mass., and I think one of the main radio stations, I can't remember the name of it, but worked there temporarily. And than he finally took a job as a radio operator & went to sea, in order to have something to do. And we had just one child, as little girl, and we were staying with his father & mother at their home. And she was in school and I worked off and on at one or two different department stores in Boston. Were ever I could get the extra work."
Question: "Was you husband from the states?"
Answer: "Yes, he was, but his mother was born here. WE use to play together when we were small children, in the summer. His mother would come from Mass., in the summer. She had her old home up here and I was here with my Aunt and that's how we met."
Question: "Entertainment as a child? What exactly did you do? Would you have many toys?"
Answer: "We didn't have a lot of toys but my sister & I were always very happy together. She's two years younger than I. We had dolls. We had a cat, but no dogs, because my father didn't like dogs. We had two boys about our own age, who lived very near us, next store in fact, with whom we grew up and played a lot with those two boys. We made our own games I guess. But we had Croquette and we played card games like in the winter. Of course. We had to study, because we had homework. We always had homework during the school year. And apart form that we had church and Sunday school."
Question: "Were there any organization or clubs?"
Answer: "Not that I remember in Rossway, No. Not when we were small children. I don't think so."
Question: "When you were small, did they have a cinema here in Digby?"
Answer: "I don't remember just when it came. But I do remember going when it first was here. When I would be here in the summer was when I was allowed to go. Because in the winter I wouldn't be allowed. But I do remember going. I can't remember what it use to be, Comedies I think. Little short films that you were suppose to laugh at. But I do know that when I was in high school, that was the period when they had this serial that we went to every week. We didn't want to miss an episode. I can even remember the name of one. It was 'The Broken Coin'. And we would walk through snow-drifts or pouring rain to go down to the Odd fellow's Hall, which was the theatre, to see that week's episode of the serial that was running."
Question: "How much would it have cost you than?"
Answer: "I don't really remember. Usually your boyfriend took you. So I don't really recall."
Question: "Were they silent movies?"
Answer: "Oh, yes. Well, talking didn't come in until, oh, it must have been about 1930, maybe a little before."
Question: "Did, you go skating?"
Answer: "Oh, Yes. We went skating a lot in the winter."
Question: "Was that on outside pounds?"
Answer: "No. I learned to stake out of doors when I was small. But we skated at the rink. They had hockey matches etc."
Question: "When would they have built that? Do you know? Or was that before you can remember?"
Answer: "It was a roller skating rink originally, and there was an English man who came here, a Mr Walker, and they flooded it in the winter."
Question: "What were the skates like?"
Answer: "They were boots like hockey skates, but heavier. You put them on and laced them up. And we use to go swimming in the summer."
Question: "Where abouts did you go swimming?"
Answer: "We use to go down in the Racquette when the tide would be in. there was a regular swimming place down at the South End og town. Right near where the lodge was. There was a sandbar."
Question: "Was it near the Yacht Club?"
Answer: "Right around there, I think. Of course, there wasn't any Yacht Club then. but there was some bath house there, where you could change, and you only went at high tide because there was only water when the tide was up."
Question: "What about the hockey games? You said they played hockey?"
Answer: "Oh, Yes. They always had a Digby Hockey team."
Question: "Can you remember, did they wear a helmet?"
Answer: "Oh, no."
Question: "Much padding?"
Answer: "No, very little. I don't think they maybe played as rough as they do today."
Question: "About how many would be on a team?"
Answer: "Well, I'm not sure."
Question: "Were there a lot of people that would go to the games?"
Answer: "Oh, yes. And we use to have a skating carnival once or twice in the winter. Everyone would go fancy dressed. There'd be a prize for the best costume. That was lots of fun. I remember one elderly lady, Miss Clinton, who had a candy shop here in, for years and years. Her and her sister started in having and ice-cream parlour years back and they served the most gorgeous ice-cream that anybody ever could imagine. Homemade ice-cream & they had a candy shop in connection with it. And if I remember rightly, they had the first soda fountain. I think they had the first one in Digby. Then both the drug stores got them, I remember that. I don't remember when they went out of business. But this little Miss Clinton, she was a beautiful skater, a good figure skater. She had been a nurse, and R.N. in New York, and she always had a lovely costume for the carnival."
Question: "And what would the costumes be?"
Answer: "Oh, I can't remember anything in Particular."
Question: "Were they comical ones?"
Answer: "There were funny ones, and pretty ones, all kinds."
Question: "Did you ever win a prize?"
Answer: "No, I never did. I'm not a very competitive person. I was just happy to be able to go and have fun."
Question: "Do you remember of anything else? Did they have ballroom dances?"
Answer: "They were having dance classes here, someone was teaching ballroom dancing and I remember going to that. And then I remember the dances they had, way back, World War 1, for the service men."
Question: "Where would they be held at?"
Answer: "Usually at the Oddfellow's Hall, or I remember going to one or two at the rink. I don't remember what we had for music though."
Question: "Well, That's about all the question I had. Is there anything that you can think of that may have happened in Digby?"
Answer: "I use to enjoy the summer very much, before I was married and went away. There were more things to do for tourists right in town because, of course, there had to be, because people stayed, two weeks, or longer at a time and they had to have something to do while they were here. I mainly remember the nice boat trips they use to have. This was just small boats, that use to take parties out. There were several of them and according to where the tide was, they'd go to Bear River and back and Annapolis. Way up in the Joggin when the tide was in, and to Point Prim, Port Wade, Annapolis."
Question: "About how long did these trios take?"
Answer: "Oh, two or three hours. A better part of the afternoon or morning, whenever the tide served. And someone from the boat would call and let you know when they'd be going out. And you'd congregate down at the slip by the Manhattan Hotel, which was where the IGA is now or down here at Fishermen's wharf. And they often use to take fishing parties out. You know, just line fishing. Then there was a man from New York, who came down here several summers, and he had a small ship and he use to take parties. He use to go maybe all day. He'd go all over. And it was a lot of fun."
Question: "You had lots of entertainment then?"
Answer: "Oh, yes. I can remember they had a cricket team, I remember going to cricket matches."
Question: "What was it like?"
Answer: "Well, it's that famous English sport. You play it with a ball and bat. I I don't think they play it much now.'
Question: "Do you remember any other sport?"
Answer: "No, I don't recall."
Question: "well, that was very interesting interview. Lots of information. Thank-you very much."
33
Interview: Mrs. Edith WallisOctober 29,1979
Subject: Digby Courier
Digby Courier & Wallis Print Ltd.
Question: "When did the Digby Courier begin, and when was it first published?"
Answer: "Well, I'm very pleased that you had asked me for this interview about The Digby Courier & The Wallis Print Ltd., but before anyone is mislead by me doing this, I should like to say right here, that Mr. Roy Mailman of Bridgetown, is now owner of the Digby Courier & The Wallis Print Ltd. He purchased the business from myself, Edith Wallis, & my two daughters, Janet Garnham & Ruth Chapell in 1973. Mr. Mailman also owns the Bridgetown Monitor & The Annapolis Spectator. However, now that we have that straightened out in our minds, why we can go back to the year 1874. That was the year that The Digby Weekly Courier was established. The Digby Weekly Courier, by the way, was not the only, nor first newspaper in Digby town & county. The first weekly newspaper was The Weekly___________, which began publication about sixteen years before The Courier. It was in the year 1858. Of course, The Courier was the only paper in the county which survived any great length of time, yet it is now 105 years old. I do not know how long The survived, but records seem to say that he was forced to discontinue because of insufficient subscribers. Then there was The Acadian, started in the same year as The __________. It was started by Ingram Gidney of Sandy Cove, & Albert Dobbs, of Annapolis Royal. But the plant for The Acadian was destroyed by fire, so after that was The Weekly Examiner, which lasted for about two years from 1865- 1867. And the for seven years Digby County was without a weekly newspaper, up until this 1874 when R.S. McCormick started The Digby Weekly Courier. The Courier was an independent paper under Mr. McCormick, but under the Editorship of W.T. Ford, when he came to take over the Editorship, it became a liberal paper, showing liberal support, so the conservatives had to find a paper, so they put out The Canadian, edited by J. Lee Jones, who was a medical doctor, and Charles Herman. But The Courier, of course, turned independent again and it has remained independent all the years so far. For awhile, The Courier carried a column in French. It was supplied by the Rev. E. Holme, I think it was, Pastor of the St. Vincent's Church in Salmon River. Editors of The Digby Courier, as you mentioned there through the years were, Mr. McCormick who started it, ford with whom I mentioned & Aubrey Fullerton. There was Oakes Dun, George Chisholm. There was Eugene Stratland, R.C. Mill, J.J. Wallis and myself.
Question: "When did you first become the Editor?"
Answer: "It was 1955 when I became Editor, after the death of my father-in-law, J.J. Wallis. Through these years, there had been different owners of The Digby Courier, for example, there was Clarence Jamieson & Frank Jones, a lawyer. And it was about 1931, when Mr. Wallis became the principle owner of the paper & that is nearly fifty years ago. But I should like to mention my late husband, James McNaughton Hurbert Wallis, who was associated with his father in business and was associate Editor until his death in 1949. It was then when I became associate Editor and later became Editor after the death of my father-in-law in 1955, which would be exactly 25 years ago in March of 1980. However, I had started working at the Courier in 1947, when my husband took ill."
Question: "Did you obtain any particular training or education for the special business or profession?"
Answer: "No, I'm afraid not. Unless school teaching prepares you for that type of work. I taught school, elementary and high school, for about ten years. And after I was married I rarely helped at the office, although I was willing to do so but my husband and my father-in-law, felt that taking care of two children was enough for me to do. In fact I knew so little about the business before 1947, when I started to work there, that when I was in Saskatchewan the ______________ wrote me off as one of the Editors who didn't even know the circulation of her husband' paper, which by the way is now, approximately 4,000."
Question: "Where did the name Courier originate, or why was The Digby newspaper called The Courier?"
Answer: "Really I wouldn't know, except that the word means 'a carrier' or 'a messenger' and the newspaper carries the news and delivers the message. There are several papers by that name or the name Courier included in the title."
Question: "Can you explain what procedures were like concerning the printing and editing of The Courier when you first became acquainted with this Wallis Print Ltd?"
Answer: "Well, when The Courier first began, the type was set by hand. Each letter, just a little tiny stick of metal with the letter inscribed on it and every letter for all the words in the whole paper, usually eight pages of it, had to be handled individually and out into place. Then came along the linotype, the most complicated machine. It is operated similarly as you would operate a typewrite. This process made half metal slugs which would be set up fresh for each issue of the paper, and could give the paper a much cleaner appearance and beside, it saved an awful lot of time. If you can imagine handling one little letter at a time to make up all your words in the newspaper. But, you'd have to see the linotype machine operate in order to understand at The Courier. Maybe somewhere in the late 1920's or the early 30's. and other linotypes have been added since. However. Linotypes are used very little. They are just about out of style. The Courier is now printed with that we call the offset method. This uses cameras as the basic process and for that purpose, for the past five or six years the paper has been printed in Mr. Mailman's plant at Bridgetown, The Mailman Publishing Co."
Question: "There certainly are some changes that have taken place through the years. Was the office of Wallis Print Ltd. always in the area it is now?"
Answer: "No, it wasn't. When I first came to Digby, The Courier office was on Water Street, the main street of Digby, about where the Kaywin Restaurant now stands and the job printing plant, The Wallis Print Ltd., was in a small building on first Ave. That would have been right back of the other place where the newspaper was printed. That building is still standing there. The building here at what use to be know as _____________, was purchased by Wallis Print Ltd., from MacDonald Motors Co., and had been built by the late Reginald Weir, originally. And just within the last few weeks, Mr. Mailman has purchased the building next door on the north side of this building. He purchase it from Jack King. It used to be known, I think, as the Willbur Vantassel place. And Mr. Mailman has made two fine offices, one for the editor here, and the building is still undergoing renovations for some of the commercial printing machines will be moved to that part of the connecting buildings too."
Question: "So it must be quite an expansion coming?"
Answer: "Yes it is. It really is."
Question: "How many people were employed at The Wallis Print Ltd. when you began working in this business?"
Answer: "Well, I remember when our staff numbered thirteen. A fair size industry for a little town. At that time of course, we printed the paper on what we called a flat bed press, which printed four pages at a time. You went through the same process for printing the next four pages on the other side of the first four that were printed and you kept that up until you had printed eight pages or ten pages or twelve pages or more. It's just according to the amount of news and advertising space that had to be accommodated that week. And that took quite some time. The press was slow and now that the paper is not printed at this plant, you see, there will be fewer needed in the staff, so we have about ten, I thin, I counted on staff. The news is gathered here and a copy is sent to Bridgetown to be said & the pages are printed and mailed out from there so there's not a need of so great a staff."
Question: "What were some of the earliest prices that you can remember of The Courier and how they raised through the years?"
Answer: "You asked about the early prices of The Digby Courier. Well, the subscriptions at first were $2.00 per. year and some places I've read they were $1.50 per year, but on the first volume of The Digby Courier. I noticed the price was $2.00 per year. We have different prices now for local and for foreign subscriptions, because of the high postage. Local rates are $7.50 a year, which is far from $2.00 and the U.S. for instance is $15.00. as with everything else you see, the cost and the wages have gone up and so must subscriptions and advertising and printing prices.
Question: "It's not as high as I would expect it to be, you know, $2.00 how was The Courier first financed and how is it financed now?"
Answer: "Well, I suppose you mean by that, form where does it get it's Revenue. Subscriptions alone you know, will never support a media in survival. You must have the advertising revenue or you'd never live. But there is a relationship. Advertisers want to reach a good segment of the population so the greater your subscriptions the more advertising you can demand. So generally the method of financing in 1874 was the same as 1979. But quite frequently in the older days too, a bag of potatoes would pay for a subscription to The Digby Courier or some other commodity would be exchanged for a subscription. This does not happen at all today."
Question: "In it's early days, how far did The Digby Courier circulate? Did it go to Bear River, Barton and the Island?"
Answer: "Yes, it went that far for sure. It took in the area to Weymouth, the Islands, Clementsport, Bayview, Victoria Beach and places in between during all the years. Few householders in areas do without the weekly paper today. We, however, have some circulation in the Annapolis Valley, Halifax, Meteghan, Ottawa, Toronto, and other Ontario cities and the U.S. Especially the New England states. People travel or are formerly from here and they want to keep in touch with their home by subscribing to The Courier, so we have circulation in wide areas. However, our concentration is really around the advertising areas which Digby County itself, you see."
Question: "How did you get news from the different areas in Digby County?"
Answer: "Well, strange as it may seem, the earlier scenes of The Courier had very little local news except for some around the Digby neighbourhood maybe. The whole front pages were filled with news from N.B., the U.S., London, Eng., and other foreign sources. Features were on front pages, and fiction stories were there. I suppose there was a lot of the lack of means of communication that kept them from being able to get the local news. But today, nearly every village in Digby County and the Annapolis area has a representative correspondent supplying the news to The Courier. Seldom do we use world news mow. Unless they have some bearing on this area. But we try to fill in the news gap which the radio, the T.V. And the Daily's do not cover in which we know the people want to hear about around here. We have I would say about fifty faithful correspondent's who send news to us regularly each week. Then we have, of course, staff reporters who cover the town,"
Question: "Is there any other information that you would like to add? That's all the question that I had thought of. Now we were once talking about if there were any other newspapers. What do you know about this? Other newspaper existed in Digby County at that time."
Answer: "Oh, Yes. Besides The Digby Weekly Courier, there was The ______________ and the Canadian, The Acadian and the Weekly Examiner, which I already mentioned in this interview. And in 1887, Valentine A. Langry and a man by the name of A.A. Corn, published The Evangeline which continues to live today, by the same name but it lives in Moncton, N.B. It had amalgamated with another Digby County Weekly, The Weymouth Times, Which began in 1888, under publisher Eugene Hangar. Then there was The Weymouth Free Press, started around the same time which ran until 1904, and as I understand, the staff problems in the Weymouth Free Press resulted in splitting that paper into two other papers, known as the Sissiboo Echo and The_____________. That was about 1900, but they died in 1901. Then there was The Telegraph established in Digby by John McBride. And the record in Weymouth from 1908-1909, so you see, we had a lot of different papers and then there is The Weymouth Gazette also, from the years of 1906-1909 and some 22 years later The Gazette was again revived, but it lasted only then from 1931-1934. But we must not forget about Bear River papers, because Bear River is in Digby County too, part of it at least. There was The Telephone in Bear River, established in 1896 by a man by the name of Fred Malhowe, in Lawrencetown and later this paper was acquired by The Bridgetown Monitor. And there was also The Bear River News. Many people have heard of The Tiny Tattler, I suppose you have. That was published at Central Grove on Long Island and it was founded by the late Ivan Shortliffe
When he was about 15 years old. It was said to be the smallest weekly newspaper in the world. Ivans' father, over 90 years, still lives in Central Grove. And before we finish this story on the newspaper in Digby County, more generally, of course, The Digby Courier, we would be amiss not to mention the publication put out by The Digby Weekly Courier in 1897. There was one edition only. It was known as The Digby Weekly Courier Illustrated Magazine. Few copies are available, but of the few which are around, some are being used right now by the industrious people in Bear River who are utilizing the information contained within the magazine pages to keep in mind some history of their own scenic and historic village of Bear River."
Question: "I think that was very interesting and I never realized there were so many smaller newspapers. I was just thinking that The Digby Courier would be the main one throughout the whole Digby County, and I didn't even realize there were a lot, you know, smaller papers. But they didn't last that long did they?"
Answer: "No, they didn't. And The Digby Courier is the only one that really lasted any length of time at all, of course, we also have now another newspaper and last few years. Operates from Yarmouth and it's in this area too. It's Not totally a Digby paper, it's the valley paper, so we can't classify it as the Digby paper."
Question: "That's very interesting and a lot of information you know, that, which I know a lot of people wouldn't know of, and we are very pleased to have it anyhow, and I thank-you very much."
Answer: "Well, you are quite welcome. I'm really happy to do it. I'm sure there's a lot more than that to be learned about Digby."
34
My Acadian NeighboursBy Ruth Woof
Introduction
Just as a litte bubbling brook
Winding its way to the sea
Changes its path in the course of years
It's the same with you and me.
On the road of life
Sometimes by hurry, sometimes by worry
And often times by strife
Perhaps as we study the causes for change
One reason we'll find in the end.
That the greatest cause for change in a man
Is found in the life of his friend.
This is a brief count of the life style of an Acadian family who lived next door to me when I was growing up and of the changes that took place over the years in their attitudes and values due to the influences of the environment in which they lived.
One daughter in the family was just my ago. She became my first playmate and friend. Through my association with her I gained Incites into their attitudes and values; also into the changes which in their lives over the years.
Mr. & Mrs. Melanson were at home to their family and friends on Oct.22, 1961, the occasion being their forth-ninth wedding anniversary.
Settling in a mixed Community
After being married for about two years Mr.& Mrs. Marius Melanson with their little son Leo came to settle in Marshalltown. Were they purchased a farm from grandfather.
The environment into which they settled was new and strange to them. This community did not provide a close association with Acadian people as they had been accustomed to having. Half of the population of the village as English, representing different religious faiths such as Baptists, United Church of Canada and Anglicans. Some of the population had no religious affiliation, while the remaining part was made up of such names is Robicheau, Comeau, Doucette, Dugas and Deveau. These were Roman Catholics who Carried Acadian names but had lived outside of an Acadian environment until they had lost most of their Acadian values.
It was in this setting that an Acadian family came to start their life bringing with them the life style and values of Acadians. Needless to say, adjusting to such an environment was not easy for the Melon because such a community presented many for them.
Problems Presented by the Community
When the Melansons moved to Marshalltown perhaps they not for-seen the problems that would face them as Acadians. The three outstanding ones were the English element, language and religion.
English Element
Upon their arrival their first association was with an English family. Having purchased their farm from my grandfather, circumstances necessitated then to move in before my grandparents located elsewhere. For several months the two family lived together. As a result the Melansons got acquainted with English families who had a close connection to my grandparents. My family, who lived on the adjoining farm, brought a further association with this Acadian family. These were new experiences for the Melansons. R . Melanson had grown up in an Acadian community just two miles away from where my mother was growing up-yet they had never met until they because neighbours living side by side. Due to the barrier of language and culture there was little association between their respective villages.
English influences were not really desirable for Acadians. In such a community there was always a danger of assimilation through marriage. This in turn could be a factor in bringing about a change in religious fait of the children as they grew up.
Language
Closely associated with the English element was the question of language. Mr. & Mrs. Melanson spoke French fluently. Naturally they wanted their children to learn their native tongue. This community, however provided no opportunity for them to continue speaking French nor for helping their children to learn it.
Loss of a Language
The English element in the community offered no assistance for teaching the French language to their children. Upon arrival in the community French had been the means of communication for Mr. & Mrs. Melanson. They had started teaching their language to their young son Leo. Now every association with neighbours brought only the English languages to them. As time passed there was more association with English speaking families. More children were taught by English teachers and from English text books. The children had English speaking friends and found little need for learning the French language. In spite of environment Mr. & Mrs. Melanson put forth ever effort to teach the French language in their home. However, they met with little success as only Leo, the oldest son, got any knowledge of their long age. Consequently, Mr. & Mrs. Melanson used less French and more English language as time passed by.
Religions
Furthermore there was no Roman Catholic Church in the community although there were several families of that religious faith. The Melansons has been accustomed to regular church attendance. What would they do in case of emergency? The nearest priest was several miles away and there was no quick means of transportation or communication at that time.
St. Theresa's Roman Catholic Church, Marshalltown.
This Church was built on the property of Mr. Marius Melanson. The land was donated by him. Some of the materials used in the building of the church was donated by Mrs. Melanson and other interested citizens. A great deal of the labour was volunteer help.
Church Problem Solved
The Church problem was less difficult to solve. Since the Melansons owned a specious house, there was ample room for them to provide space for holding church services in their home. The priest came quite frequently and this practice continued for over ten years. It was not entirely a satisfactory arrangement and entailed extra work for Mrs. Melanson. Finally Mr. Melanson offered a donation of land as a church site and proposed the construction of a place of worship. This met with the approval of other Roman Catholics. As a result St. Theresa's Church was built in 1930 just a short distance from Mr. Melanson's house.
Devotion to Family Life
Mr. & Mrs. Melanson were very much devoted to family life. Their family consisted of eight children and their hospitality extended to Mr. Melanson's bachelor brother. Both were industrious and resourceful. They worked long hours each day to provide a comfortable clean home and good home cooked food for their children. They both spent extra hours providing religious education and entertaining friends that the children brought home.
Role of Father
Mr. Melanson was the figure of authority for the family. In his quiet way he taught the children to respect and obey him. He seldom raised hi voice around the house except when called upon to discipline the noisy children who had gotten out of hand. One shout of his voice calmed the noise and sent all the children present scurrying to a chair.
He worked his farm in a small way. His grated concern was to produce enough food for the family. In such case as there was a surplus, it would be sold at the market. He kept cows to provide them with milk, cram, butter and beef. A small flock of hen provided them with eggs and poultry. Since his farm contained quite a large acreage of timberland, in winter he worked in the woods cutting timber or pulpwood for sale firewood for fuel. Whenever possible he hired out as a carpenter and in his later years this became his full time occupation.
His working day usually started about six o'clock in the morning with chores at the bar. At the end of the day work there were barn chores again. After work was finished in the early evening he sat in his favourite rocking chair by a kitchen window reading the daily paper or rocking the baby. After the younger children were tucked in bed often joined some remaining family members or neighbours in a game of auction forty-fives. Playing cards was his winter pastime. If a party was being given he would set on the flour with a group of teenagers to play hat stocking. It seemed that he was never too tired to join in the social activities of the family. He liked fun and parties. He kept the activities running orderly but did not deter the teenagers of our day from having wholesome fun.
He did no put a lot of emphasis on the boys getting an education beyond public schools. At the age of fifteen they left school to start working with him in the woods; this pattern continued for them until World War 11 when the three oldest boys joined in the armed Services.
Role of the Mother
Mrs. Melanson was a hard worker. Each day brought different duties for her. It took good organization to clean, cook and wash for large family. On wash day the water had to be carried form the well, heated in large wash boilers on wood burning stove and the washing done by hand over a wash board. Ironing the clothes was time consuming and tiresome job, especially in the summer because the irons had to be heated. In order to boost the family income she also did the washing and ironing for their family doctor. For several summers she took a job working in a hotel although it was quite uncommon for housewives to be working outside the home.
She relied on the girls for help with the homework. Needless to say they were taught to help shoulder some responsibilities for household duties at an early age. As a result they grew up to be competent housewives like their mother.
Many of her evenings were spent in knitting mittens and socks for the family. Another popular evening pastime was piecing together patchwork to make quilts. This was big interest of the community. Often a quilting party would follow. All the woman could make it attended. They would share experiences as they quilted and have supper together. In the evening the husbands would be invited to join the gathering where all would enjoy a game of cards. On such a special occasion Mrs.Melanson would probably have a favourite dish to serve at end of the evening- a rappie pie, which she would have prepared for the event.
Role of the Children
At an early age the children were taught by their parents to participate in easy jobs around the house. The girls were reminded often by Mr. Melanson that their mother could do with some help. They were taught to wash the dished, make their beds, help with the cleaning, to iron clothes and prepare vegetables for the meals. This was good training and the girls grow up to be competent housekeepers like their mother.
The boys had chores to do that would help their father. They would gather the eggs, feed the cattle, help with the gardening and carry in wood and water, in case their parents were absent form the home.
New Baby in the Home
The arrival of new baby in the home was a very important event. The new baby immediately became the center of attraction. All members of the family invited their friends in to see the new arrival. The baby received much love and attention. Much concern was shown for its health and development. Mr. Melanson would use French words when speaking when it was big enough to being smiling. However, this seemed to continue only until the next child arrived. At such time the previous youngster seemed to take its place with the other children who were considered to have outgrown the baby stage.
The Children Grow Up
Following the Acadian life style the boys left school at a fairly young age and stared working with their father about the farm and in woods. Later they found jobs close by. The girls got married soon after leaving school.
Leo, who was the eldest, was the first to get married. He lived most if his married life at home. When Hugh got married he bought a house just a short distance from his parents. Both Howard and Charlie built a house side by side on the land that belonged to Mr. Melanson. Lucy's family located also on her father's property but later moved in with Mr. Melanson when he became ill. Only three of the girl moved out of the community. Consequently many of the grandchildren are still settled around the homestead.
Devotion to Religious Life
The Melanson family were fully devoted to religious life. They exercised their duties faithfully as Roman Catholics. Religious pictures and crucifixes took prominent places on the walls of the living room and bedrooms. The whole family was out on Sunday morning for Mass. They carried a rosary and prayer book. Observance of the Lenten season and special holidays were strictly kept. Rarely did any member of the family attend a Protestant church. Occasionally did go beyond church rules to attend a wedding or funeral of a Protestant friend.
On one occasion Mr. & Mrs. Melanson consented to be attendants at a wedding of a Protestant couple who friends of theirs. For such involvement they were severely reprimanded by the parish priest. Mrs.Melanson took offense and made threats to leave the church. This incident was forgotten by both parties and in the short time everything was straightened out again.
Interview
On January 30,1975 I spent the evening with Estelle. It brought back memories of many happy experiences we had shared together during the past. We discussed the changes that had occurred in her life and that of the family due to environmental influences. She also expressed her feelings regarding such changes. Our conversation fell into three main topics, namely the reason for her parents settling in a community which contained so many English influences, their language and religious problems.
My first concern was to find out the reason for Mr. & Mrs. Melanson leave an Acadian environment to settle in a community which was greatly influenced by English people. She could give me no certain answer because they had never discussed this issue with her at any time. Her own idea was that her parents were anxious to locate on a main road and quite near to a town. She was sure they had no regrets about making this move and recalled her mother saying on many occasions that no amount of money could entice her to return to her home community. Mrs. Melanson had brought fears and superstitions which took some years of adjustment to overcome. In later years Estella remember her mother laughing about the times she spent hiding in the pantry, with the door braced, when she was alone in the early morning or evening. She was afraid it might thunder or that a stranger might knock at the door. She felt safer where it was dark.
The problem of language was an important one for the Melanson. They both spoke French fluently and Mrs.Melanson could also read and write it. Estelle recalled that her mother always had trouble pronouncing some English words correctly whereas her father had a more correct English speaking vocabulary. She told me that Leo was the only one of the children who had a knowledge of French. He could not speak it but could understand it quite well. She felt this was because her parents used their French more in the home when he was learning to talk. The rest of the family did not learn French because of outside influences. There was nobody in the community for her parents to converse with. They used their language only when relatives came to visit or in speaking to each other. As the children got bigger they began to feel that Mr. & Mrs. Melanson spoke French when the conversation was something they did not want them to hear. Consequently there was more English and less French language used as the children got older.
Estella feels now that she would like to be bilingual as it's an asset to anyone. She did not have this interest until recent years; however, she doesn't think that she will learn in now even though other adults are doing so. Due to the language barrier she say she has lost contact with most of her cousins. As a child she accompanied her parents on several visits to see relatives. It seems her cousins could understand why there was no means of communication during their visits. As she got older she preferred not to visit Acadian relatives. It seemed useless, they had no common interests.
We talked about her interests as an Acadian girl who had to mix with the English people of the village. She told me that she never gave it a thought at the time. She felt accepted at school and by the English families. Of course there were the usual quarrels when an English child would call her a Frenchman and she would retaliate with some the name. She pointed out that she had few playmates of her own age except among the English children. When there was a wedding or party naturally she invited these friends and vice versa. She knows now that these associations with the English did take something away from her culture but she was not aware this was happening at the time. In fact, until I pointed it out to her she did not realize that she no longer carried an Acadian name. Then we discovered that all of her sisters except one had lost their Acadian names through marriage.
When discussing the subject of religion Estella told me that during the first fifteen years in Marshalltown her parents provided a room in their house for church services. The priest came periodically form the Plympton parish. It was during these years that she made her first communion in her own home. As the children got older, Mr. & Mrs. Melanson felt there was need for a church building so they offered a piece of land for a church site. Other Roman Catholics in the community loaned in the project. They raised money by holding card parties and suppers, until finally the church was constructed. Mr. Melanson always kept the key and helped with repairs on the church as needed. She recalled him taking wood across the field in a wheelbarrow to make the fire for Sunday Mass. He continued this practice until later life when he became quite ill. I wondered if he ever received special thanks from the other church members for the time and effort he put into church work. Estella thought his effort were appreciated by the other members, in their own way, although no outward expression of thanks given him. I asked her if she still retained a strict devotion to religious life. She told me that she had lost interest in her religion and did not attend church any more. She feels that that Roman Catholic religion has changed so much since the time she was growing up that it's hard to know what to believe now. She commented on the strict rules of the church which had to be observed especially the Lenten observances. Many of these rule have since been relaxes so that now she's on her own she just keeps away from it.
As for the other members of the family she is sure her oldest sister attends church regularly while other members attend part of the time. Her youngest sister sends her children to a Protestant Sunday School but Estella is not sure whether or not she attemds any church. She suggested that maybe getting away from attending church was just a trend of the times.
Our Acadian Neighbours
I'll say it again as I've said it before
We had wonderful neighbours living next door.
They were cordial and kind and great people to meet
The Acadian family who lived down the street.
There lived Mr.& Mrs. with children eight
Getting there an occasion was really great
We'd have rappie pie or boil corn to eat
With the Acadian family who lived down the street.
From all over the neighbourhood, teenagers came
In the evening to play a favourite game
Or to dance French eights; and new faces to greet
At the Acadian neighbours who lived down the street.
Those days have passed and no more.
For Mr. & Mrs. who lived next door
Have left this real- but a daughter you'll meet
If you call at their house- just down the street.
An Acadian Playmate
The earliest playmate I recall
Was dark, curly headed and rather small.
She lived just one house down the street
And every day we JUST HAD to meet.
To romp the fields and play with dolls
To tease older kids and run off with their balls
To ride our bikes and go for hikes
Only the DARK and could keep us APART.
At seven school called us come each day
Together we walked two miles of the way
Great fun we had in those care-free years.
Though some misunderstandings often brought tears
Put all usually ended with a smile
And our friendship continued all the while
'till teenage years passed beyond our grip
And into adult life we took our trip.
This tore us apart- we went separate ways
But fond memories remain of those childhood days.
Our backgrounds were different, that's plain from the start
But it took more than Two Cultures to keep us APART.
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