1 10 20 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b172ea6a3ae5cacb42ea5a0070842a55.mp3 c786e3c0165fc869593069ac3cdc6eb9 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/f84c307a1c4f2c2da0a123ee92b03356.mp3 b0d0865d924973847cbb6c5eafc5a1c9 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1f94236a97b6b7885f8e446acd190a8b.pdf cda42e7e7bc45aef30eb2e32a3a1eee3 PDF Text Text Mrs. Jacobson Born in Scotland Came to Canada in 1902 or 3 Lived in Dorion - came to work - knew a family - all bush No roads - CPR wheat freight - once a week Bishops Trail - went to a mine - train delivered groceries Small cabin - little bit of timber 13 children - she was the oldest Mother - Mrs. Whatie? - was a midwife. Men were not allowed to ~ring their wi~es up - her father was the Justice of the Peace and convinced the authorities to let the women come up. Mother went to deliver a bab,. - would celebrate for about 48 hours after. Mother was not trained - read a doctor's book - used ca~bolic acid to sterilize - imx~XENX«s - unpaid ~or task All we ever got was colds. Who delivered your mother's children? My dad. Doctor for the last one. She did not like it. Many miles for a doctor to travel - came from Port Arthur. Tasks as children - clear the bush, got to school for about 3 months. Log school about a mile and three quarters away. Had to walk Consolidated school came for her children. Didn't h~ve any tea chers. 1920 or so worked for the YMCA, cooked, cleaned- mar~ied .round 1938. Went to Schreiber. Was working during the depression - remembers the reight trains being loaded with men. Aroi, nd Hurkett, nm money paid to men - reporter from T. o. Star did story - refer to William Holder. Hurkett and Dorion - active politically. Women attended meetings. Pass on the railroad once a year for working in the Y. Went somewhere each year. - Winnipeg, , Victoria, Seatle, Travellea by herself. Everything went well while travelling. Tra velled alone. Went to Windsor. Relates an incident once when she lost her suitcase on a train. Started at $30. per month and board. Demanded higlier wages. Went to $45. per month. No problem in holding dovvn her job. 0.K. for single women to work. 7 days a week. 8:00 to 5:00 Second World War - not affected by it. Very little communication. Mail regµ.l ~rly delivered. Had to be. Different from today. Mrs. Miller - did not know her. Got quite a chuckle out of her. I cut pu~pwood. 4 foot wood. Used cross-cut saw, axe and chisel. Hauled it to Lake Superior.. 80 chords, in one winter. Summer - vegetable garden, gathered fruit (wild). Went hungry one summer but managed to get a deer. Discuss a friend of the family, - Harry Bxxim,Bryan\, organizer of some labour unions. Entertainment - dances once a week. Dances usuaJjy at someone's house - fiddler - eventually got a tovvn hall. �Mrs. Jacobson - page 2 ~ ■ II House in Do~ion - 1-room log shack - shovel off snow on roof Relates story of Lynx coming to visit house. Used to snare rabbits, fish for trout Kept house warm by cook stove. More and more children came - house did not expand - just the family. Eventually built a bigger house. She did not live in-.the biggeF house. Small ravine with root nose - well wit~ surface waten - dug well. Summer - water turned broyvnJ - mosquito larvae in summer - would touch the water and the laryae would dive under - then they would draw the water. Baths - once a week - barrel cut in half would be bathtub. Friendly community No alcohol - too busy - trying to get a farm going Ha d no cattle - chickens and pi~ they had Hitched pigs up to a sleigh - made a bell for the pig but it did not like it. Pig would follow the kids like a dog. Used to f ollow her to the trapline. Eventually had to slaughter the pig. Indian f a milies - on across the tracks in Hurkett w man had an Indian housekeeper with a wooden leg. Indians were "down the line". Little contact with the whites. Not many ethnic groups in Dorion - mostly from down east Hurkett - Bulgarian population Knew little about other people's backgrounds. 1933 CCF was organized - 1934 she joined Railroaders against the CCF Wm1x~xEaxxxkx~xN~mxsx She was attending the meetings so when she went to vote her name was alrea,dy struck off the list Nothing much you could do about it. Active in the CCF - worked in Gommittee rooms - went to conventions. (Tape is blank here) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Caroline Jacobson Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Caroline (Watty) Jacobson of Dorion, Ontario. The interview was recorded October 30, 1975, as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. Caroline Jacobson (1900-2007) lived along the North Shore for much of her life, working for the CPR's YMCA in Schreiber for a time, and raising a family. She was also very involved with the CCF/NDP. The interview speaks to her childhood in Dorion, time working, and involvement with the CCF. The recording consists of two sides of one cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Please note that this tape includes discussion of settler-Indigenous relations, using language that would not be seen as sensitive or appropriate today. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dorion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-10-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/c8485c0002c9706ed7a6facc42b09cfd.mp3 25f8905b2490c120d946c03575ea96f7 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/a254e34517aef8ba27de9aca11c998f7.pdf cf06c968ba5a3cbf39a65225bb84e344 PDF Text Text Interview of Mrs. D. Murray by Georgina Garrett ---@__MQmen.Ls A: In-s-tlttttes- ... my father and Mr. Cooper were friends, and I knew she was an Institute lady, and that was, I felt, part of their project. There was an Institute in Pearson, but they weren't getting, I mean, they were going along befriending everybody, but again there was no money for the, you know, with them, or for them. raising money, because nobody had any. No way of So I told, wrote to Mrs. Cooper and I told her that I had a family , or two, with children in it and so on and they were lacking this and that and the other. kids outgrow things. Could they help, because often You know how it is still today. So, by golly, they had a shower shall we call it and boxes of stuff I had my present, my husband now, he is at present but at that time he wasn't, pick up the stuff and brought it out, and so we were able to help a number of the families that way. Well then another time, a couple of families were really hard up for food. Really, you'd think living on a farm there was food, but the crops were poor and so they had potatoes and that was about all. So I wrote to her again. some help, can you help us?" I said "We need So, they did. Then jars of fruit, cans of beans, cans--anything and everything, boxes of stuff. into town. - - - - - -I married my husband and we came So east Fort William by that time--and then I was a, had joined the Institute out there. Their Secretary-Treasurer, well, just quit in the middle of a year, so who was going to take iit? And I used to go to �-2the meetings when I could, after school. So, I said, "Well I can't meet with you people at two or two-thirty, 'cause school's on. But what we could do, I saw the Inspector, and he said 'well, if the senior girls want to go to the meetings, where they could have them in the school, teach through the noon hour or give them fifteen minutes for lunch'". So that's what we did, and then the senior girls came, we had it in the school from then on. So that, and then so I took the Secretary-Treasurer for them, and finished out that year, and then as I say, jwe were married, and I catne into town. Eastfort, Westfort were both pulling me. Westfort was easier, I could walk down Brown Street to the homes; the other was way was a longer walk. The younger group in Westfort, my own age. But I felt, well, Eastfort has done so much for me, I just said ''Can you help", and help came. So that's how I got into Eastfort. Q: What year was that? A: Nineteen fourty-one. A: .... practically the same, I would say. Oh sure, each community's going to have something different, or something, but as a whole 2: But you want to get an overall picture, too. It's actually their likeness that comes across, but then that's a good thing too, because it's women united. A: That's right. 2: ... Which is really ..... . �-3A: Which is right, yeah ... Q: It's the similarities that stand out more than the differences. A: Yeah, yeah. Q: I know, yesterday in Dorion, where I was talking to Mrs. Atkinson. She was mentioning that the Women's Institute, the women were very close despite racial differences, ethnic background, whatever. So, I would sort of like to find out, is that true of the Thunder Bay rural woman? I don't really know. How close were, lets say, Finnish women farmers to people from the British Isles, or were they, did the women have to be self-sufficient. A: Well, there again, I'd say, I taught in a, first taught in a Finnish community. There were no English people in that cormnunity. Q: In Pearson? A: No, no. Q: Oh yeah. A: You see, there again, I would say, now at Chabaqua, they In Chabaquao. • didn't have an Institute. They stayed more or less to themselves .......... . Q: Well A: No. we're not just doing Institutes, you know. And there in that area the Finnish people stayed more or less to themselves. Oh there were, down at the station, the section people were Ukrainian descent, talked Ukrainian at home, Finnish ___ there, there was only one And when I was out lady, really, that talked �-4- Englishe, and she had gone to school there, and taught, and not taught but, she married, and they had a store, and so I, that was my companion. with her mother. You see, I boarded The children spoke Finnish, as soon as they--Finn or Finnish,whatever you want-- as soon as they left the school and home. And some of the parents realized that wasn't good and they said to me "Make them talk English all the time. You see, the parents couldn't, a good many of the parents, some of the men could and the odd woman, but they were afraid of putting their subject or their verb, you know, mixing it up. They were afraid of that, and so they were very hesitant about talking English to anyone, not just to me, but to anybody. We And ahm,--that could talk English. Well, you can't follow every child home. yard, I did insist after I them in In the school- Finnish, but even in the schoolyard, see, they would talk Finn. Well, naturally, that's their language. 2: Sure, it would come easiest. A: So I insisted after that, in the schoolyard, that they did. I said, ''You might, as well. you might as well learn." I loved them. You're here to learn, You know we got along well; I was out there three years, and it was just one big happy family. those people, very good. They were very good to me, Well, then when I went into Pearson, well then you had a mixture, well mostly English ... Q: Some were ScandinavianQ �A: ... --Anglo-Saxono Uhm? Q: Some were Scandinavian, the Olsen's? A: Yes, the Olsen's were Scandinavian, but, but, what will I say, as much or more Anglo-Saxon as the Anglo-Saxon. You know what I mean. There was no distinction there. There was one or two Finnish families, but they were, they were accepted, and they carried on with all the right rest of us. Maybe a little bit different ~there, I don't know what it was. But as a whole, they all got along together and worked together, and when there was something on, well they all worked, you know, they all carried on. Like I know, through the school end of it, you know, the concerts and things like that. So the families naturally were more eager to help or something. Q: Do you think the women co-operated a great deal, and helped each other out alot? A: Oh, I think so. Oh, yes. Q: In what ways? Q: Well, when there was sickness, they would help out, ayh, go and help people. Now, in Chabaqua, the lady I stayed with, as I say, it was all, mostly Finnish settlement, she had no nursing training, but whenever there was somebody sick or a baby on the way, there was an English-an Anglo-Saxon lady, young couple, what, three or four miles down the road going to have a baby, so they came ou know with the hand car rail, they borrowed one of those somehow and got her to go there. So it was the same thing in Pearson, although they went into town to have �-6babies, but at the same time, when there was illness or something, they co-operated. When somebody got burned or-- burnt out or something, they all co-operated. a happy situation. yes. It was Oh, yes, they would co-operate. Ah, Well, I don't know, maybe half a mile, a mile away from somebody, that's your neighbour. You don't care what they are, as long as ______________ ou go and talk or you have a cup of tea or something like that, ayh. 2: You know what !mean, . 1.t, . ' 1.t s . . . . . . . . . . . . Yeah. y~t probably people would integrate an awful lot better, simply because of circumstances. A: That's right, yeah, yeah. Q: Do you think farm women were treated, on the whole, as equals to the men, or were they treated sort of somewhat subserviant, next to the animals or something? A: I can only talk for two areas. Chabaqua, I would even think the women were the boss, the head of the household. to do. They sort of told, tell them what they were going No, they weren't treated as aminals or, or ... Q: Not as animals, but what I mean is .... A: No, no, I know, but I mean No, no. So far as I know, they're, and in many cases, I'm just thinking back to, oh, four or five definite families in the area, you know, where the woman was sort of the boss of the house, sort of thing. were equals. And in _?earson, I think they They would talk, any house I was in, they would talk about what they were goinna do or something, you know, and a crop had to be done, or this had to be �-7done. Women helped; they had to. You know, out in the fields and that, because there wasn't always enough help. Not all women, but some of them. this ah, no. But there was none of Not like you used to think. 'Course, I think these ahm, the father and then the mother down in the house were years and years ago. in the rural areas. Before _ ____out And certain types of people, too. Certain races. Q: So do you think the work of women was always valued as highly as that of men. Of course, I suppose the work was somewhat the same. A: Well, I think,like they knew that the--! think it was valued, because the woman did her work in the house, which was necessary to keep the man going, ayh 9 And if the haying time, and she was needed, I think the father or the husband appreciated the fact that the mother went out and helped to - - - - , or whatever had to be done. In any of the communities I were in, yes. Now in the, in the Pearson section where I was, the man would get the potatoes and so on. go out and help. The women would I often used to go after four. Out in Chabaqua, another rural area, Finnish area, the women did that sort of work. That was women's work rather than men's work, and yet the man didn't look down on woman because she did that sort of thing, you know. Q: What did the women do with the children when they did farm work? A: Took them with them if they could, or there'd be �-8- somebody else to look after them, like in the older children. I don't ever remember any child being left alone in the house. And then again, as I say, and some of those times I was there when the children were not tiny little ones. There was a few families that had little ones, but then there always bigger ones to look after the little ones if mother was out in the field or so. Q: Did you ever get the impression that maybe the women were a little disappointed with the circumstances, some of them coming from cities in Britian, or Scandinavia, and then being plunked in the middle of Northwestern Ontario bush? A: Well, there weren't too many--there were some that had come from, whose husbands had good jobs in town, and went out to the farm, because the farm was the thing to do, make a living, get the kids out on the farm, you know, out of trouble, and they'd had lovely homes and so on in town 9 But I never heard any complaints. of accepted it. They sort It was the kids they were coming out for, and they accepted it. It was harder work than in town, because you had a well to get water from and so on, and especially Anita(?) , I don't remember. Pearson it's different now. turn them on. Now again in They have taps and they But when I was out there it was well water or you hauled your water from the___ But there was always a youngster to do that, you know, mother didn't have to do that. But most of them accepted their lot. �-9One lady, of Norwegian descent I think it was, her husband was a housepainter in town. He got the idea the country was the only place, so he went out to Pardee, which is further on than Pearson. And not knowing anything about building a house, he built a house down at the bottom of the hill. Well, in the spring, the water used to leak right through the house. Now, I did hear her complain, but who wouldn't. Not complain, but say "Why did we ever leave?" They came down, they had to come down the river, in the spring when they came there, in a canoe, so they paddled their way down. in a boat, And then, she didn't know anymore about where to build a house than he did, and so as I say. But never again did I hear her ~say, "Oh, I'm going to leave", like today you hear, "Gee, I'm not puttin' up with it, I'm gettin' out, oand if you don't come, I'll go on my own". 'Course, the women didn't do that then, what thirty years ago, thirty-five, fourty years ago. Thirty-seven years, anyway. But yet, every year the same thing happened, until finally they did build another place. years and years. But this went on for No, I can't really ever say that I, maybe because the people that I came into contact with hadn't had moeny or an affluent life in the country they'd come from. I know a lady that came out, her husband went out to Scobol, and she had been well-to-do. she accepted it. Well They didn't stay there long, because I don't, I, well, a few years. She was, when my baby �-10was born, she was the nurse in the hospital. She was a nurse, and she'd had, they'd had a good living ~in ~ England, and came out, and then he got this crazy, you know, I shouldn't say crazy, but the idea your going to live on a farm. He got this piece of land in Scobol where nobody could raise anything. few years they went back to town. But after a Again, I never heard her say, "What the dickens did we do that"--she did say, "Coming from London to here", you know, but never did I hear her grumble about it. grumbling today. Q: I don't know. Were the daughters of the families treated as valuably as the boys? A: I think there's more I know that sometimes that's· ------- Well, agian I say, from what I gathered, yes. I think when you think of that idea, you're going back before my day in the country. Maybe eighteen ninety's or something, or nineteen hundred's, where they wanted boys so they could work on the farm, ayh? But in many cases, where there were no boys, the girls helped the father. So, I mean, they were, they perhaps couldn't work as hard as the boys ·, but still they did the job, too. In fact, one family out in Pearson, there were four or five boys and three girls, and the ,~i:,_: one girl, she didn't like to work in, so she worked as hard as the boys did outside. She loved that, and so she was treated as an equal by her brothers as well as by the father. The mother often used to say she shouldn't be working like that, she should be in the house doing things. But she �-11- she wanted to stay outside. Any that I have contact with, yeah. Q: How did you feel as a woman teacher out in the bush? A: In the bush. And Chabaqua was bush then, because they were just building the highway out through there. Actually, I liked it very--at first, it was a, sort of a frightening experience, because I went in where no one was talked to. You see, where I boarded, the ~l lady could say "Eat, now" or Finnish word for teacher. 0 ).- , f pe,\a.) Ct II , that's the But after the first month, I was very homesick the first month, I didn't want to eat or anything. But after that, I just loved the place. Q: How old were you when you went out? A: Twenty. Through normal school, I didn't go to University, I took University sometime after. came home once a month. And I Department of Highways was working out there, or Ministry of Highways, it's not a Department. They had a true~, and I'd get a ride with them Friday nights and go back Sunday night with one of the men that were going back to the camp. The road was passable. Q: I read that, especially among the Finns, the A women teachers were really highly respected. A: Oh, yes. I was. I didn't want to say that, but oh, yes. And through this girl whose husband had the store, through Laura, she told me that the people, oh, the Inspector told me tooo He said that they didn't know anything �-12about the system of education or any--you know, things like that. So they left it up to me, and they knew it would be all right. And I was very highly respected. And very, very well treated. Gifts at Christmas--now, again, they were hard up, too, and so it wasn't gifts of stockings, or things like that, but jars of fruit to bring home to my mother. me, but through my mother. You see, not only through Chickens and beef, and stuff like that, where in those days we didn't have a fridge, and so it was just the same, that stuff. Oh, no. And yet when I left--and they left the system of education up to me, and I did, I honestly did my best. Because of their trust, too. But then I was, I'm not meaning to boast, but I wanted to do the best I could. When I went out to Pearson, it was different. We had one family in there--it was the system, writing. first the children printed. At Well then the new system, Mr. Mustard the new Minister of Education said they must learn to write. Well it's harder for a child to write than it is to print, so I used to teach so much printing at the start and then write. And I got ever so many letters from pare--from this one particular family, about them writing. You know, (garbled). I guess they'd read the paper, and knew there was going to be writing instead of printing, and so on, in letters. Well, I didn't get any, never got a--'course they couldn't write in English at Chabaqua, but at the same time, they left it to you. For the best results. �-13- Q: Yeah. Ahm. Oh. When did you leave teaching? Did you retire in town? A: No. I taught three years at Chabaqua, five years at Pearson, and then I got married, and that was it. Q: Were you not allowed to teach as a married woman? I know that that was the case earlier. A: Well, it was to a certain extent. Well, I didn't want to, my husband was, it was war time, and my husband was wanting to get in the Air Force. him down. Well they turned So he tried to get in the army, and they turned him down, because his heart. And I had, they had wanted me to come to town, like when I got married, to teach, but at that time, if he'd gone away, I was gonna go too. And that was my, you know, my , what we were going to do. away. So I didn't get into town right And then I felt, well, I had enough to do. I was interested in making his home, and I belonged to the Institute, and you get into other things through the Women's Institute. Well then we had a daughter and then when,--! would never go to work, I said, while she was young, so when she went to kindergarten. And it wasn't 'til she was grade five that I went back to to supply teaching. But only~ two or three schools. I'd be home when she was home. Now I know today, the system was different, altogether. to do. That isn't the thing You go and you get a babysitter . . But I didn't believe in that. And then I supplied at _____ three or four years ago. I could have gone on �-14- teaching, but I didn't want to. Q: Do you think work outside the home is important for women? A: You were a teacher. That's hard to answer. individual, ahy? I think that's up to the You know, like myself,--well, I have these other interests outside the home. no money with it. There's Depends too, on what, whether the woman's working for money to get something, or what. It's up to the individual. Q: Why did you want to be a teacher? A: Uhm? Q: Why did you want to be a teacher? A: Oh, because when I was going to highschool, the depression was on, and there were three places you worked, in a store, or a nurse, or a teacher. You couldn't be--and there was no air hostesses or anything like that, you know. No. And so, I just happened, I went into teaching. I liked children, I liked teaching. We also, every sunnner used to play school when we were kids, and I was always the teacher. So the kids knew their multiplication tables when they went back to school. it. have. Oh no, I enjoyed Maybe if there'd been, if it was today I wouldn't There's so many opportunities, I might have flitted from job to job, because there's so many things that I would loved to have been ino journalist and so on. Public relations, My daughter has the life, had the life until she got married what I would have enjoyed. She went through journalism, then she worked for the �-15government, was up on the hill, you know, - - -oh, boy, and travelled the country. But . . . . Q: ? A: ? Q: So you think things are better for women now? A: Well again, !--yeah, !---they have more opportunities, don't they? Q: Uhm uhm. A: Because of more opportunities, though, do they take life--well, maybe we took it too seriously. I think anybody that was raised during the depression, they used to--ah, you people weren't? 2: ? A: No. 2: ? A: No, I know you don't. But I mean, those who went through Depression find, we took life too seriously, and I think we still have that tendency to compare today all this money back to when you had nothing, or when you had maybe had one pair of shoes; the sole wore out. As I heard the other night on the radio, ----·just stick cardboard in your shoe. Now I'm not meaning that that happened with everybody and so today on, but ahm, oh, opportunities are greater I\ And again, if a woman feels that she wants to be outside the home, I think that's between the--if she's married, between her and her husband, jor something. It's hard to make a yes or no out of that, because j �-16there are different circumstances, different ..... You hear women saying, "Well, I have the brains, why shouldn't I do this if I can still have children and get the babysitter, in?" Well, when they get married, if they both think that way, well .... Q: It's hard to make a (end of tape) This has been Georgina Garrett talking to Mrs. Doreen Murray, June 21st, 1978, in Thunder Bay South. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Doreen Murray Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs Doreen Murray in Thunder Bay, June 21 1978, by Georgina Garrett. The interview is a part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of one side of a cassette tape, available here as an MP3 file. (Click on the speaker logo to play the file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. The interview talks about what farming life was like, the need for assistance, rural Women’s Institutes, and family life in the areas of Shabaqua, Pearson and Scoble. Discussions centre around women’s work, care for children, immigration, language, learning, and the resilience of families who settled into farm life. Mrs Murray, as a teacher in Northwestern Ontario in the bush, travelled out for the week to teach. She taught for eight years before getting married, moving to town, and starting her family. Returning to supply teaching while caring for a family, Mrs Murray shares about what it means for an individual to choose a job outside the home, through the Depression and the war. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-06-21 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/79630ad785398a7e59b9e383198bf04a.mp3 cdd2e0ebe12d13522e5d5261409b8682 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7b179231a7fefa86caffcf00447fd13b.mp3 0455cc167b52cfe671307d8395e7a5c4 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/576834165824b3246194eaefd851dd83.pdf 202dd21a22ed240f6233e34f99926306 PDF Text Text / ! / (-~ This is , Kanen Graves(?) talking with Mrs. Almos in Port Arthuro G: At G: A: G: A: Could we start by telling me what year you were born? 1913 And where were you born? I was born in a little CPR siding, called Melgand. Where is that? Now this would be, Oh, I don't know, past, well half way between here and White River, I think, on the CPR Mainline. My dad was a CPR pumpero This was when they had the steam etiginjs, and they had to take water, you know,every so manyo And¼::here we moved to Cauldwell; he was a pumper there, and then from there, when I was about four, we moved to Jackfish, and he was a stationary fireman there. They took coal in for the docks, the CPR dock there,for the trains, and he worked there till the deasel came in, and then they' did away with the coal, natµrally,then he was.o. No I'm wrong. They did away w~+h bringing it in from the States ~ by _boat, and brought it from, from the eh, provinces, somewhere, by CPR boxcar, and it had to be unloaded by boxcar, so they didn't need anymore fireman or anything li like this, see, to keep things going,to unload the coal, so he was transfered to a place called Britto G: That sounds familiar. A~ - That's down, oh, around Perry Sound, and there he stayed until he retired. G: Did you move with him? A: No, I married, and stayed in Jackfish. G: Had your parents been born in Canada, or were they immigrants? A: No. My grandparents came from Scotland as Hudson's Bay factors, up to Moosonee, and my Dad's family was all born there. And they came down to, by canoe, to, where is it now, the CPR anywayo And then just scattered around. My grandfather on my mother's s.ide had a store in Heron Bay. And the rest of the family fished; on~ uncle had a fishing and tourist business in McDermod. And the others were mostly railroaderso G: What do you remember as a child growing up in a small town? A: Well, I don't know. We weren~t very rich, we were a big family; eleven of us, twelve of us. G: Twelve kids? A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: Uhm uhm. Really! Eleven, and adopted my mother's, be more like a nephew to me, but he was adopted, because his mother and dad had passed away. And I don't know, we just seemed to have enough of what we needed. We never had to go without anything~but we didn't have any frills, that's for sure. But I think we were much happier then, than the children these dayso You appreciated things I guess. Everything just handed to them, ayh? ' What we got we really appreciated. An~ we had to work, you knowp I worked from the time I was~urteen, for, ten dollars a month, I thinko Doing what? Well, I went to help this, he was, Mr. ~ Nichol was the station agent, the gas station agent, there. And she needed 6: \. ~~ somebody in the sunnner, because she had so much company an~1/~0 ~VV that. So I just went and, as a cl-, like a girlc;-~ a y h o ~ . And, that's about all. Went to school until graoeeight, J and How big a school was it? Pardon me? How big a school was it? It was •:up to grade eight. It was from one, there was no kindergarten, ~ rom one to eight ayho And there was just the one teach~r~~ ;.._b,.we had very many happy memories there, because there wasl concerts, and field days, that kids have never heard of, these dayso Arbor d~y, I asked the kids if they had Arbor day. "What's that Nanny?" And, I don't know ._~ This was the centre of activity, the school and the church, ayh. The c~urch, once a month, there was two churcheso So everybody ~fo the, and the Salvation Army cam~ probably once every two months. And strange, I do quite a bit of volunteer �-2- ""~ work, and I do a lot for Home League, or~with them alot. And they knew all these Captains, and that, that came to Jackfish, like 60 years ago. G: What would they have come for? A: The Salvation Army? G: Yes, this is the first I've heard of this. A; Oh, well, just for a service. G: Counselling type? A: No, just a church -- o., meeting at night, you know. And, everybody would bring a lunch, and we'd have a little gathering after. This one chap, especially. He came from the Yukon, and I just heard recently, through a ~ Home League here, that he died in Californiao OThese are just the little things that we'd look forward to. We were fortunate enough that we had a pass, and relatives, that we could travel. Where a lot of the other children didn't ayh, we could go free, we had relatives in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and that. So we were able to goo•• My dad took us pretty often for a trip to Toronto and Montreal if we could afford it. But then I married, and we lived there, it was ,,, I was just saying, some girl came here the other day, said she was tired because she washed the clothes. I said oh, what kind of machine do you have? Well, an automatic, ahy. I said''what if you do like me when Don was, we had one boy, and one still-born child. When ~,Don was small, my husband was a railroader too, so he had to go out and relieve on the different jobso And in the winter I had to snowshoe down a hill like about Hillcrest Park, and snowshoe back up with the water to wash clothes. And I said, "And you push a button, and you're tired? And when my brother-in-law wasn't home, I had to chop the ice, to make a hole in the water,ayho Sometimes it was pretty thick in that bay. And then I'd come up and wash clothes on a board. So, when I look back now, I think, 0 dear, I woT\der how you ... My neighbour across here, she was raised on -Me. farm too. She said I wonder how weJ<l.id it ayh. We sit back~ nd wonder and really, you know, Jhat .. o But like I say, I think we were much happier then than now that you could ... I know when I go down town now and, we were married during the depression, and when I go down town now and think "Gee I wonder if I should, maybe I'll buy this. Do I need it?" That's a throw back from the depression. So it seems strange that life goes on s·o • G: What kind of social things did you do, say in your m_a_r_r~i_e_d_ years? Community dances, and things like this? A: Oh yes. We used to have pie socials,to raise money for the Christmas fund. And bingos, later on we had bingos. But mostly it was, oh, teas, church teas, and pie socials, and cake socials. And what else now, ohJ then we used to have snowshoe parties. We'd all get together to snowshoe out to a certain, everybody had a little, tracking camps, like, you know, and you'd make beans out there, have beans and that. Like I say, I was one of the more fortunate ones, Art always had a job, and we had a free pass, so every year of our life we've always had a holiday. Even if it was, I know !'! come back often, with just enough to tip t~e porter ayh. Or maybe not even that, but we had our pass, and we knew we could get home without any money ayh. But every month, I'd put away maybe even sometimes 50 cents to a travelling fundo And when our holiday came, well that was our money, and when that was spent, we came home. G: That's an interesting way to travel. A: But other than that, like, and ... I think the teacher was the head of the social, like you know, she put on the Halloween dances and ... G: Would these all be held in the school? A: Yes. At one time we had no ibasement in the school, so it was quite a chore to, our seats were on two by fours, and we had to pull them all out, you know. So the, I can't remember, they must have got a grant or something, and they ... I was married then, when they put the basement in the school, and this was were we held all our socials, such as our ... G: How large a community? A: Pardon me? G: How large a community? A: I would say about 35 families. And of course, during the summer the Patterso, you know, these freighter folks, they �-3would come in with coal for th~ ... It was the only industry there, was the coal industry, for the CPR, for the engine'S. And it seems every time a boat came in, they'd put on a dance of some kind,and they'd let us know, and we'd put a sig~ up, and the ladies would bring a lunch, or the boat would bring Q 'lunch. So, pretty nearly every week we' d have a danc·e. G: Then this would be with the people who worked on the boat. A: This was with the, yes, with the Captain and the mates would put it on, like, you see, and everybody that was free~.Rn the boat would come. I guess they'd been out on th~i ~~e~a week, ten, twelve days, and they were happy to get some~recreation. At one time we had a pool room there, and that was part of the, you know, they played pool. But that closed down, too. wheA we built our own skating rink and looked after it. We played hockey between Rossport,and Schreiber, and Jackfish. G: Did you seem to have been a lot more sports minded, a little more active1 A: Yes. There didn't seem to be any cliques. Everybody seemed to get together. Then we bou•ght, there was a general store and the Post Office, and Immigration Department thereo And we had that, we looked after that, til the placed closed up. G: So that would be an office to receive benefits? A: Well, no. The officer had to come here to clear the American ships. You see, the American ships came in, and they had a clearance before they go out. So that office was in the store too, the general store, and the Post Office. So then when that closed down, when Jackfish closed down, my husband got a job as a, went out on the road as, he was 7 of course he's an engineer, this was what he did in Jackfisho But it was more like a~_ ~mergency; he was sent anywhere from Fort William to, oh~~~crwthe Sioux, to Ottawa, to Mattawa, and anyplace that they needed him, ayh. So we lived, we had our own car on the railroad, and we lived there for seventeen years.before we retired. So that was an interesting way to live. I know one weekend,one middle of the week, we were in Rossport, or just out of Rossport, and (interrupted by phone) So whatf was I saying? G: You were talking about living on the rail A: Oh yeah. We were up near Rossport, about Tuesday, and they said to Bart, "Get ready, there's a train picking you up, and they're going to stop at White River, and get your groceries, and you've got to keep going til you get to Mattawa, for the weekend." Because they were building an overhead bridge, and you can only do it on a weekend. It was things like this that made it so interesting ... G: So you just took up your car and,.o A: Well, the train picks us up, ayh. We were on the railroad, like a, like a trailor ayh. And a train would pick us up and the machine that Bart worked with, ayh, and take us all the way down along. And wherever we were, like if we came into a divisional point, where there's a train waiting for us to take us out, so we'd get there in time~ So you never knew what the next job was going to be. G: I guess, you said you just had the one son? A: Yes, and when Bart took this job out on the railroad, he had just started high school here, so he was up here like,you see. And when we were close to home, close around here, he'd come there for the weekend, and if we weren't home, he'd go to Jackfish to his grandmother'so So we were there for eighteen years. G·: You said you were married during the depression. How did the depression affect you? ~ ------- r , I think we were very fortunate because on the job that tiart was, a hoisting engineer's job. In the winter they just had , maybe eight or ten staff, or twelve. And they had .\o ~<.,'-le. time keeper. And none of them could do office work. None of thot+older men, even if they had more seniority than Bart, they couldn't do the office work, with the result that he was never out of a job. As small wages as he had,we were fortunate; we never lost our insurance, or our house or anything like that. So many of our friends did ayh. Other than having to be very careful,you know, make sure that you didn't go off on a buying spree, or somethingo ~d (}.. �-4- G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: - G: A: Did it affect Jackfish, particularly bad? Not too much. Most of the people there were, I would say have permanent positions, they would be, like section men, and in the wint~er, like section men, and then th~v had to keep this plant going, because they had to keep a. coal shute going to keep the coal eh, ready to coal all these trains, all these ... So it was more of a steady thing, except in the stnnmer they brought in these extra men to help with the unloading of the coal for the winter. But we were very fortuna..te. • -~ There was nobody, I ~~bink, out ot work in Jacktisn ouxing the depression, because of this CPR coaling station, see. Maybe the junior fellas on the way, like on the track were laid off, but pretty well it didn't affect them at all. But all around us, terrible. I know friends of ours that had lost their homes and their insurances, and things like this. Did you get a lot of people travelling through on the railway? Oh yes. men in the box ... Boxcars, yes, yeah. In fact there was some of that still when we went on the roado Cause they warned me, I was often alone, you k~ow, out on the siding,and they said not to let anybody in. ~~ t ~is was not like the depression,! think it was just those who were travelling more just to see the, the, cause it was during the war when we were out there, so there was lots of work. How did the war affect you? Pardon me? How did the war years affect you? Ahh, not ... I guess things became a little more prosperous? Yes, yes. Well I know when uhm, when Bart went out on the railroad, when we were in Jackfish, there was no union. So he would have to go, he went to work at seven every morning. And if that company, boat company, wanted that boat unloaded for a certain hour, he would have to work, all those hours, maybe sometimes up for 5 o'clock the next morning. And he never got paid for more than eight hours, ayh. So as soon as he went out on the railroad, on the, on the mainline, he was able to join a union, and he did, and I could never get over him being paid, in fact, this was how we bought this house. All the overtime that he made, I put it aside, because I said "If we, you know, this is just money found, because you'd never have it, if you didn't have this job." So this is how we put money away to buy this house. Because if you travelled, at night, with the crane, then he had to look after it, and he was paid for it. And if there was a mainlinefl and the mainline was busy, then they would have to wait maybe til after 5 o'clock, or 6 o'clock, til the trains were all gone, then go out, and he was still paid. And I can remember my son was, it was during the war, they couldn't get a helper, so the boss asked Bart if he didn't know anybody. So Don said he'd go out. And I can remember the first day Don worked, he had to go out an hour ahead, at six, to get the crane ready, and they couldn't go out til 8 o'clock that night to work, cause the passengers were late (?), it was a mainline job. He made 42.50 that one day. I can remember his dad saying, "This was what I made in a month when I started to work". So it was quite a, it was quite a thing to be able to get paid for what you did. But, and that job in Jackfish, we were paid for eight hours only, no matter how, and you couldn't refuse, ayh. Especially Bart. He was the only who could do this certain job. He had a helper, but he couldn't work when there was men, they emptied these boats of coal, well when they got near the bottom, there had to go men in there to scrape it up and -•~~ put it irlZ0 the bucket so they could get it upo Well the (ljfa"'. _ ~ helper couldn't do that, because they were scared th~-'-=d-- ~ ✓0 swing the bucket maybe, and kill someone o So Owhei:l there was a cleaning job, Bart had to do it all. There was two of them, like two cranes, but they had to do all that worko Was there any talk there of organizing a union? They tried. But, this was the way they got around it. There wasn't enough, uhm, steady members, like. I think �-5there had to be ten or~welve. And the CPR made sure that _ they, (joke and laughter), but the company made sure that they got, you know, that they were kept below that. The steady ones, like, you know. They could have in the SUllllller, but then these were just men that came in for, maybe three or four rr. Jnths, so that didn't count. This is how I think I, I have never voted anything else but social, NDP or, please be careful whatever you ~all it. Because this was when you heard all about it during the depression, ayho And I can remember, uhm, Jack MacEvett, he was organizing, ayh, in Schreiber. He said"I've gone out in the country and preached", and he said "I had to be in a truck, because they'd throw tomatoes at me", ayh, or eggs or anything, if they didn't like him. And I can remember the first, uh, convention I went to in Regina I said to Mrs. Jacobson, " I never thought I'd ever see the day when I'd be coming to Regina, in a hotel for an NDP convention, ayh, the way it started out, because I know many a time I did without things to, to help <-·calm down there, like, you know, the people that came in _e,v~ ) they always came to our place to sleep, or eat or anythi11g. Mr. uhm, what's his name (\t,~Tate, he's an old timer, Jim Caullie, I was just reading about him the other day, and Jack MacEvett, of course, he was from Schreiber, and uhm, there sure was a lot of talk of; you know, political talk during the depression, and I think this was for, because, uhm, when yo,, looked around and saw what was going on, these guys working for five dollars a month, I think,on the highway. So, uh ... Oh yes, I think the whole of Jackfish was, was CCF then. G: I've been studying Dorion and Hurkett a lot, and that was a really progressive ....... town during the depression too. A: Yeso I think all these little towns, you know, that really uh, it hit them quite hard. G: I guess soo Uhm, I wanted to ask you about the early days of CCF. Did you ever think that it would become sort of a credible third party at the time? 11 A: G: A: G: A: G: A: A: A: N .• Did it start off really really small? I Uh ... See I don't ... Oh yes, like I say, I can remember, especially down our way, because uh, oh there was so many other factions against it, ayh. Strong factions, that people were afraid to, to even talk about it, in lots of places, ayh. Uh, and I really can't remember how it, that was overcome, because, like in Jackfish, nearly everybody w~s a CCF, ayho There was the odd one, but uh, they didn't do to much about it, so uh,.o• But they had no problem there. I think Jackfish was CCF ever since I can remember. And uh, everybody worked, helped, and eh, you know, ... Were the women just as active as the men, would you say? Uh, Yes, I think so, uh, 'cause I know I waso And uh, and any of my friends, there was, oh yes. Did you feel that you were, I don't know, taken seriously, that's not quite what I want to say, but you know what I mean ... You were as respected, in the Party1 Oh yes. Uhm Uhm. Oh y~s. ' · Yes, because, uh, what I found, we had so many gooa arguements, that these, the was arguing against us, You know, they couldn't find anything uh,'- come back wi ·:th, really. When we say, "Well, look-et, what's this government doing; five dollars a month, ayho And all, well Canada was, it's a rich country, and, you know, these are the arguements~LJe used to get literature~ t, and study it, you know, and have study session, and that, and uhm, and we really ... No I don't, we never had any problems down there. It was always, uh, it was always, as far as I can remember ... Of course, now, the earlier years I don't know ... 'cause I wasn't old enough to vote, ando•• But uh, ... it was alwasys strong, the CCF, ever since I can remember. 0 �-6G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: Do you, I doo., I think you're probably to young for, to remember women getting the vote. No, not really, no. twenties. Yeah, no, no. It's ahh ... You know, I can remember something about i t , all right, because I remember aguements,,, I can remember ministers come and arguing, and you knowj about ... My dad was very religiouso Uh; I don't know whether really religious, but he, uh,'cause people were very religious, and apparently always had to study the Bible very .. And they used to argue these things forth and back, and uh, and uh .. o This was what he used to, uh, argue mostly with, was because he was figuring that this Bible wasn't quite right., from the things that was said, and then some of the things that was preached, ayh. But like I say, when there's a large family, we all had to get up and do our own chores, and that; there wasn't much to, to, uhm, like ehh, there was chor~s, .and, and then schoolwork, and different things ~that. We never got much into political, uh, arguements at home. But I really took interest in it when Jack MacEvett started to come down. Of course I was married then. I was nineteen when I was married, and of course you couldn't vote until you were twenty-one, theno But I was really into--My husband has always been, 'cause he said that, uh, his dad was from Norwayo And he used to tell them how the big shots took everything there, from the fishermean, no matter how hard you'd worked, you had to ... And uh, And so, he was always socialist, if you'd like to call him that. And I haven ... I've never voted anywhere else ... anything else. So, .. o How about transportation in these days1 How did you get around? ~ Oh you know, this is uh, the strange thin oo ... We have never had a car. We have never had a car. Really? And uh, for the simple reason, that in Jackfish there was no highwe y, when we lived there. Now, uh, the highway came through after we went out o~ ~he road, oh maybe a year or so before. And we had totuhm, I don't understand too much about it, but everybody had to pay so much, then and do . .. If you didn't pay, you had to work so many days on the road that they had cut in, like. I guess the town id it, ayh. Well then, the car was no good to us then, because we were away all the timeo My son had a car right away, of course. But we always travelled by rail, or ship. How about within the community, though. I guess if.tbings.o. Oh. It was all railway, all rail. But the community was, uh, You've never down past Jackfish? No, I don't think I have. Well there's, there's just the railwasy, in the middle, then the lake on one side, and the mountains on the other. So with the result that the, that the cut-in from the main highway was very hard to put in,because it had to come down through this plane, and then over a mountain, and then (cut back to?) And there was no place you cou--There was no place in the town where you could drive a caro You had to drive just to the railway, and leave it there. So it was all railroad travel, when we were thereo And you'd just walk ............. . And just walk,~ yeaho It was av ery small village, somethin' likeo•• Oh, it wouldn't have as much walking space as Rossport, if you've been there. Uhm uhm. Rossport's really small. Yeah. But, see Rossport is, is kind of flat, ayh, and at least you can drive into there. In Jackfish you could just come in behind this mountain, there was just a valley in between this mountain, behind the church, and then right down to the railroado And that's where you had to stop. Oh some people, uh, p~t planks across there, and went across. But you couldn't go anywhere, so there was no point, ayho So, ah, everything was by car, by railroad, and it was so small that you didn't need a car,anyway, to get around. I've been thinking of Thunder Bay standards. �-7A: G: A: Yeal.. Oh, no. I know my aunt, she came from the west, she used to say "I can't breatrehere, like, 'cause she lived in the prairie, ayh. And she said she just seemed like she was closed in because there was just this little place to walk, ayh. Mountains on one side, and the lake on the other, and the railway in the middleo It sounds like it would be really beautiful. Yes, it was, it was a lovely spot. Uh, a very busy spot bsecause, uhm, in the summer they had, uhm,uhm-a, a pulpwood, the pulp boats used to, uhm, how. can I say this? The boats used to come into Slate Island, l that was out quite a way) and load the pulp there, so we had th~, uh, men come in then to, they stayed out there all summer and worked on this pulp business. So it was always a very busy spot, in the summer, very quiet in the winter. But and a good, we had quite a good tourist business when we had the store too--we had a lot of Americans come in there, because beautiful lakes lac~ in there, very, uh, untouched, ayh .. good fishing, and so we haa "')"->.ri. £k C?) quite a good tourist business.there, too. The Americans used to like to come in. But, uh, there certainly wasn't any cars around there was no place to drive them, Everything was done by wheelbarrow, if you had to, uh, .. Move things . Move anything; wheelbarrow in, in the summer, or toboggan or, or sleigh in the wint er,ayh. I know we used to have to, we burnt coal, naturally,-we were on a coal depot, and they used to bring it in bags home, on the toboggan. So, everything had to be moved by hand, wheelbarrow or, that old wheelbarrow outside, that was what we used in Jackfish. An antique wheelbarrow. Yeah. What was life like for your mother, with so many children? Well, you know, we all had our own job, ayh. The older had to look after the younger, and ah, as many as us, there was of us, she has b~ ders beside. Men that used to come and work in the summer, ayh, would come board with us, which she always used to say it doesn't make much difference putting a few more potatoes in the pot, ayh. But we all had our own jobs, and we all had to look after our own clothes, and things seemed very well organized. I don't know, I can't remember tha t;here was, uh, we all had to look after our own rooms, ana beds, and, and uh, we all had our turn to do dishes, and uh, .. o You had to be a lot more responsible. Oh yes, oh my gosh, yes. You know, if we ever got up and we I think there was only two of us that was born in Schreiber. The rest were all born at home with a midwife. Was there a local woman, who acted as one? Yes, uhm uhm. Bart's mom--my mother and I used to do most of it. And before that there was an Italian lady that used to do it. And uh, it was just, one other thing, just another ..... I can remember my last two brothers, they were born in Schreiber, because these women were getting older then, ayh. And uhm, so they, my aunt, she was kind of a midwife in Schreiber, too. So she went there, and had it there. But uh, but uh, I can't remember any, uh, I think today they'd, when I see children, the way they, I think it's just uh, oh, I think it's partly parents fault, today. Because they take the line of~ east resistance, they say you can't do that, and they do it anyway, and they don't do anything about it. I can't understand that. I know with my grandchildren here, I say \\ you do it; and they look at me, and I say "and fast ;; Don't sit and look at me o'r And 63, ayh. You've got a lot of nerve. I said "You justo .. o" Of course I do a lot of kidding, but uh, I, I just couldn't take that. When I said somethin to Don, I said "I want that done", and he went 0ndJ done it, ayh. And if he didn't do it, he just had his privileges taken away from him. And I think this is half the battle. Because they just, just don't seem to 0. G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: �-8bother, I don't know. I can never forget one woman said "I'll be so lad when they're married, when they're out of my way." Oh.9 I couldn't understand that. I said "don't you enjoy them?" And then when I saw the way they acted, I thought, "no wonder", but I thought "lady, it's eour fault" . . I think television has a lot to do with ito A: Oh yes, terribleo Just want and sit and look at that uhm, My little chtm1 was sittin' there yesterday and put the, and put it on for some x sports, and I thought, "I bet you ten years for G: Is this why you workEi_d? A: since we move'l_1ere. We moved, Bart took an early retirement~ e've been here about seventeen years. And he still worked two years, like we bought this house, oh maybe, ten or twelve years before we moved up, ayho We knew that we couldn't go back to Jackfish, we had a house there, but there was nothing there, ayho So l ike I say, we had to buy somewhere, so we , everything_J--;t~~"' got overtime, I put away to put a payment do~house, . Well then we bought it, and we rented it for about twelve years. Well then, the people who rented i~were going to move away, so I said to Bart, "Well whf} t -.f taki n' an early, he, this was how we started~fto Mex. i~ o, in '57, He had an arthritic hip, and they said that, like the winter's a slack time, ayh, 'cause there's no building or anything like that. So, uh, I started looking into going to Mexicoo So we went down there, and then, uh, the . nP.xt winter they'd, the people said they were going to move, so we moved down then, and we didn't go anywhere that winter. Just So we've been here eighteen years, and ah, Like I say, we never stary in the winter, except the, the two years since I've been sick. But ah, we've never had a car either, so we've just ... Like I say, then, but he came up, he worked, he still worked two years, at, summers, while we were here. So I, I just couldn't sit here and do nothing, so I started to babysit first. Babysat for all the doctors, and that, thereo And ~ then ah, this little, this little store down by ah, the clinic, McKay's, they looked, they were looking for a clerk, so I worked there, for ah, five years. Then we were, every winter we ~ .~ away, she'd have to get someone else, so ... This year we're goin'to, summer we're goin up to Alaska, so I said "I'm oing to quit", I said "You911 have to get someone else", 9cause it's not fair to her either, ayh. So we came back in October, and then I knew the woman that was working in, in the uh, what do you call the office down there, employment office, and she phones, and "Would you like to go and work at Burk's ~ itts. I said "What?" So she said "They're looking for someone for Christmas rush',' so I said "Okay, I' 11 go down and try it". So I went down and then I worked every summer then, for ten years. I really enjoyed ito • G: Did you work, uhm, in your early_..y,ears of marriage? A: No, except for our own . bus flies s, when we had, had our own store, like, you·-know; in, in the country. But when we were on the road, we were never anywhere maybe sometimes .two weeks, and then maybe sometimes two days, ayh. So !~ just ah, G: Are this, I that there are3/many opportunities for women to work, in small towns, small ~industry towns. A: Small--No, no,no. Uhm, what there was an :~ an hotel in Jackfish, during uhm, now let's see, that started during the war. But, there had been previously, a hotel before, and it, people died, and they just closed it down. Well then, this family, Spidoni brothers, you've heard of them in Schreiber, I guesso They bought the hotel, and they opened it up, so this was the,really the only place to work, ayh. Cook, or or, ah, upstairs girl, and bartenders. But I never did, I never worked there, 'cause we had our own store, then. G: You had the general store? A: Yes, l the post offic~ and this, uh, other office, that the �--9- G: A: Immigration guys So I worked there., most of the time. But uh, other than that there wasn't, there was nothing in, in smaller places. Do you remember any people, I'm thinking particularly of women, being really lonely, really sort of cabin-crazy? No. No, I don't think so. Not that I can remember. Everybody was too busy. You knowo Like the men worked steady, ayh, and the women just had to do, take over for the men laid off when they had to work,ayh. And like uh, you just didn't come in and turn a button on, and a stove go, you had to keep your stove up and carry your water in. Heat your water on the stove to wash clothes, and it, and iron ) the iron's on the stove, and this all, you know, it took so much more time than it does these days. So I say laugh. · when that girl said she was tired, pushing a button on an automatic washing machine. Ahh, no I can't ... Oh there was lot's around eh, you know, in the 1 . .m re the farming district, I thinko Yeah, I guess women really isolated, in the country. Yes, but we were never really isolated, because we had mail twice a day,ayh, which is something, because the mainline went right through it, and the railroad carried the mail then. And ah, so we had mail twice a day, and we had, uh, we got fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week. From town her~,they'd come down, on the train. And fresh milk every morning, 'cause it came on the train, too. At one time there was seven trains going by there, ayh, passengers. And uh, So we really weren't~ where we were, we weren't isolated at all because we, ~ other than that we didn't get out too much,. Like I say we made our own fun, and, and we uh, oh we were never without anything. And like, there was a doctor in Schreiber, which is, was nineteen miles awayo And if we needed him, we just phoned through the CPR phone, to the station in Schreiber, and he came down on the first freight. So we really were better off than a lot of places that didn't even, when they didn't have a highway~ ayh. We at least had the mainline going right ~ through. And anything happened, well, they were always kind enough to stop a train and pick anybody up that was hurt, and bring them in to whereever was, to Schreiber, or anywhere. I know all the uh, sick people that had to come to town, they just stopped them, put them on a stretcher, put them in the baggage car. And then we came up with them on the baggage car. So uh, and we'd phone the doctor in Schreiber, and say so and so was on the baggage car, and he'd come in and see if they needed a needle or something. He was a CPR doctor then--and a town doctor too. And if they needed help before we got to town, well he'd give them a needle of some kind, like, you know. And we just stopped in time to expect a train here, and took us to the hospital.The, uh, only thing that we found, the younger ones wouldn't stay there to have their babies,ayh. Like, before the babies were born they came up to town here, or to Schreiber and waited. But the old timers used to have them right in town at home. But no, we were, we were very fortunate there, because, like I say, we were just like on the mainline of ah, uhm, lots of places that's all they, the only thing that was, you know, there was no highways in a lot of those places. So uh, we were, we were, I guess, we never thought of it then, but now I realize that we were lucky, much luckier than most people, where they were isolated away back in the bush. What did~ ~u say, that there was a school in Jackfish? Uhm uhmJ_~ rade one to grade eight. And how ~ Mdid many people go on to high school? Yes, quite a few. And they'd have to go to Schreiber? They'd have to come to town hereo Oh, to here? Uhm uhm, Really? Uhm uhm. There was no high schools i ny of the ~~ 0 G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: 0 ± There was high schools in Sc reiber, but, now, I don't �-10- G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: understand what the ruling was there, I guess you could have gone there, but it, uh, no, I don't think so. 'Cause nobody ever went into Schreiber too. My son took music lessons, and he had to leave, Like he'd leave ot night at seven o'clock to go to Schreiber, which is nineteen miles away,stay overnight, have his lesson, music lesson in the morning, and come back at noon the next day. But he didn't mind that at all. And first he, the first time he went to White River. He started in White River, but then the music teacher died, there, and eh, I thought "well gees it's much easier to go to Schreiber, because I, that was two days to go to White River, ayh. You went down in the morning, and then you couldn't go back until the next nighto So that was the whole weekend, and he, he used to love to fish, ayh, so uhm, this way he went in at night and he was back in the morning. But eh, no, everybody there, I don't know what the reasono You know, I never thought about thato I think that most of them that came up to high school, wanted uhm, to go to technical school, they didn't just want high school. They did their first year, and then they chose their, what they wanted to do, ayh. I think th¾_s was why they mostly all came up here. 'Cause I know Doqhad to come up here. And anybody that came, eh, it was out p, unless they wanted to go to, eh, to be a teacher, then they had to go to North Bay. There was no teacher's college here then eithero And-a, nursing, they mostly all came here,because at that time there was a residence~fhat they could stay in, ayh,o Now it's all, isn't it alJJJniversity and just ... The college, stays there, yeah. Yeah, uhm uhm. And, 'cause quite a few nurses, quite a few pupils come out, ayh, quite a few pupils came up. Do you recall the, uhm, it would be mostly boys who continued on to high school? Or was it sort of half and half? ~~) No,no, no. Half and half--a lot of~girls, nursing, teaching. Like I say, I know they had to go to North Bay to teach, because when we wer on the road, we were in North Bay,working, and this young girl was in college there, and she used to come down to visit us, ayh. And this is how I know they had to go to school,into North Bay to go to school, Oh no, the, the, girls had uh, came out, there was ai many go , as boys. having more, uh, they were, should go first, were the, uh, foreigners . You know, they thought the boys were, should go, and the girls should stay home. But in among our, we, that was never, .uh, prevalent were we, you know, girls, if they wanted to gOf'\iad the same chance as boys, whereas with some of the foreigners,the boys had to go first. Even if they're dumber. You know. They were the, they were the misters. You mean there were. ~~-_·,:~a:.,~~,.. a lot of foreign families? Yes, there waso Uhm Uhm. What nationality would be ,,.,, ----7. (~) Uhh, uho Mostly Italians, there was ah, a couple of Ukrainian families, but they were mostly *alians down thereo And ah, then all, men that came i o work in the st.mnner, brought their families, in Sudbury ?)o But ah, Did the connnunity, uh, did they reach together? Oh yeso Uhm , uhm, uhm uhm. Like I say, there were so few, ayh, that it took everybody to, to get anything going. But as I can remember, we had some good times. We used to ha ve big picnics, you know, in the summer. And ah, pie socials, kids didn't even know what a pie social was. What's a pie social? It's a box social, where you make this fanc, oh no, fancy, and there was at this, uh, most of the time there was such a competition on who would make the best, the nicest box, ayh. And uh, then you'd have to have it auctioned off, and ... You know, you never hear of those things any moreo That was just something you do for ... I must, I must suggest that to Home League sometime, just for fun. 'Cause their always looking for something different to do, you know. We have teas and, and~things, but that\/ was J1~fent:_ ~-~t\\~ ~\) 5~ �' -11- G: A: And they always said they could tell the teachers ' box, 'cause it was always so much fancier, she had so much to work with, ayh. And I can remember this one guy had quite a crush on this teacher, and ah, this, she just put it in a, in a plain brown box with a bow on it, ayho And this great big fancy box came up, and he thought it was hers, and he bid, bid so way up high. And here it was ~ married woman, she had about six kids. And here comes this box, and he didn't bother, and here it was the teacher'so It went for about a dollar, ayh. But, like I say, everybody had to, to chip in, ayh,because it was, but we had, we made our own mi , we had to go and build our own mi shack, put a stove in, to, to change our shoeso We used to do it in the station, and then the officials got mad and kicked us out of there, so ... But everything seemed to, I don't know, everybody seemed to pitch in and, •o• I guess smaller cotm:Ilunities are like that. I don't know, they always like the ... Like I was telling the kids, I think we had just as much fun then--there wasn't G!.any money, but, but we were fortunate enough that nobody was hard up. And, like I say, if anybody had a problem, everybody was there to help them. .c~1:r --\. Yeah, I've also found that places that women~didn't have so many social service agencies as we do now, there was a whole sort of, policing force within the, in the region. If someone was mistreating his wife, or those kind of prob 1 ems . ~ ere.'s· Yes, yes. Oh yeaho I think A far too much hand-outs these days. I know I did volunteer work and I do meals on wheels, too,ayh. But boy, oh boy, there's some funny things going on there too. I know I used to go � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Elizabeth Almos Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Elizabeth Almos in Port Arthur, Ontario. The interview was performed by Karen Graves as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Almos recalls the social and working conditions of Northern Ontario, primarily focussing on Jackfish, Ontario, in the early 20th century, with topics including housing, mining, railways, unions, the Canadian Pacific Railway, community and personal relationships, and the activity of women. Mrs. Almos also highlights the presence of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its eventual successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in small towns in Northwestern Ontario, specifically Jackfish, Schreiber, Dorion, and Hurkett . The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/60ab5289d6c85aeae7f5d40fad9280c3.mp3 d339c5bc24d7376d30eddd797d792bd5 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/bb5ef2167f96110968675a2d7fbfe8c9.mp3 0627bce914fc4b5ac96ef66943154349 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/163960670b5f385b86195a386ccfe50d.pdf ad8b62432e0209da781bf4e9bc7c40ca PDF Text Text HERSTORY PROJECT T'Irs. Lru-nb interviewed by Helen Lovekin +-AAe.SI'\ J)..\5i1~$i,/ Q, You lived on a farm in Saskatchewan? A. Yes. Q. r7 ere your parents homesteading? A. Yes, my father took the property for homesteading back in Q. Do you have a large family? A. Yes I • and 8 children and Mother and Dad. Q,. T!hen did you move to this area? A. 1924. Q. After you were married? A. After I was married , yes. 18'jQ, Q.. , · ) What made you come here? A, r The dry weather out there, so we decided to come here. And because of the timber - out there ue had no wood , we had to buy coal for fuel. Q, So did you farm here as well? A. TI ell, I guess you could call it farming - hay and we had cattle and horses and pigs and chickens. Q. Jhat did you think of this ·~rea? 'e fell in love with it right a11ay. A. After being on the Prairie, we were about JO miles from the lake and here we got probably right on the edge of the lake, Q. How do you feel about having this papermill here? A. I clon 't know 1-rhat we would do without it. Q, You married in_ Saskatchewan? A, Yes. Q. And your husband was also a farmer? A. Yes. Q. 1 A. At Rscham, north of here - we don ' t pronounce it correctly so they tell us it !here was your farm here? should be pronounced Rikam. Q. 1·!hen you carne here did you have children at that time? A, Yes, I had four of them, two boys and hro f;irls. ~- So your whole family moved here. �A. Q, Yes. A.i A~ ~t [. Q. How did you come down, by train? Yes, we came by train. My husband came in the car with the stock and ·implements and I came with the children in the train. :ere your children very young when you had to be moved up here? 32 and my husband was 36. A. I was Q, So that would be a rather lone jour.aey with children on a train. A. Oh it was, they got very tired ancl the youngest ono, he was 2;~· • he would say everytime the train stopped, "Now come on Hommie, c;et off this rickety old train. " He didn ' t like it at all , he had never been on a train before. Q, What was the home like that you came to here? A. We just stayed with a neighbour we had known before we came doun here. He generously gave us his kitchen to live in until we got a loe; house up on the homestead. Q. How long did that talrn? A. Pive months. Q. So what you had to start off uith in building your home here was pretty rough. A. It was built with rough logs, yes. And there was a small sawmill here and we could get lumber for the floor and the roof. Q. How did you keep it warm? A. By woodstove. Q. ::--,s that very good for heat? A. Oh , yes, wonderful. We had wood stoves out in the Prairies too but He didn ' t have timber so we had to use coal. But here , after being in the country where there was no wood , every chip· and stick was used carefully. f ere you pretty isolated on the farm or did you have neighbors close by? Q. 1 A. Here we had neighbors very close and at the time we came there ·Fere a lot of people coming in here. Q. So here you had neighbors and in Saskatchewan your neighbors 1-wuld be further away. A. They wanted to get away from the dry reL.,ions. You Hould be more isolated? No, about -¼ a mile was the nearest _1eighbor there. That was about the same here. Q. How did the climate here affect you? A, Ue didn ' t find a _:rea.t deal of difference. We had cold winters in the Prairies but He had a lot more rain mre in the summertime. Q. Could I ask. you hou old you are? A. 88 ?Oin~ on 89, �Q. You .:;rew up in Saskatchewan. Your mother also came from England? A. No, my mother was raised in the east . Her parents had come from Scot land ju;:t before she was born. Q. How did she cope with the homestead? A. They f01.md it rather rugged after the east, with all their fruits and nice e;ardens and all that and_ come out to the Prairies where they had to break up the land and gradually work into fruits and vegetables. Of course they started out 1-1ith oxen for p01rer. Q. You would have had a lot to endure, alot of hard Nork and ver-J different from •._,.hat your father ana ::iother uere usGd to. Did she teach you anything about how to cope with life? A. Yes it teaches you patience for one thine;. You just have to be patient and take thini;;S in their stride and as they come. Q. Can you think of any particular incident which demonstrated to you what you would need to have in your later life as a girl? A. i-Je had to make everything. We had to k..l1.it the socks things and make the other clothing from materials. alld mitts and caps and One cliff erence I noticed a great deal now - I remember one time my mother called me in, Eaton ' s in those days used to send out samples of materials for dry goods and my mother got samples and she called me in to pick out a piece that I would like to have for a dress. yard. I chose a nice pink one with little dots in it and it was 5¢ a One year I made the dress - that is something that I have often thought of since the price we had to pay for material now. I wish I had kept a piece of that material. Q. ~an you think of any stories she taught you by her example as a mother? A. She taught the girls all through that we had to take a hand at cooking or dishwashine or getting vegetables prepared. Q. iJhat about education? Was she anxious that you got your schooling? A. By this time, the time I was old enough to go to school, they had e;ot a sort of grant to pay someone to teach in a private home. By the time I was at the school age they had a school building and homemade desks and seats - so they weren't very comfortable to sit on. Q. You had brothers as well? A. Yes, five brothers and two sisters. Q. Were you all encouraged equally to go on with your education? A. Oh yes - I wanted to go on. There was ei€;ht of us all together. But if they i·:rould rather choose some other life - two of my brothers chose railroading engineers. �Q. Did you work before you married? A. Just at home, that ' s all. Q. You are the oldest of the daughters? A. Q. I was the oldest of the family. A. Yes, and I thought that wasn ' t fair. There was the children. You had some additional responsibilities? Too many things I think - she wanted me to supervise and it didn ' t turn out quite right and I got chastized for it. Q,. What kinds of thines were you able to do to brie;hten up your house and make it more into a home? Oh, embroi.elery work and we gathered theso :lowers and bullrushes in the fall and tied them up with - well we would crochet a straie;ht tie and make a little bow on that. Sometimes we put them in a fruit sealer and put them on an organ or something like that. Q. Do you do those paintings? A. I did the center one, the other two are done by. friends. Q. Did you find you had a talent for painting when you were youne;? A. No, this was aft er - my f arnily were pretty near all away when I st a1."t ed to paint. The lady here.was the President of our Women ' s Institute and she was just a natural paintei - she had no schooling on it at all. We were all so keen on her work and she said, ":Jell if you ladies would like to learn, we could arrange for some painting lessons. " So she did. Q. Did you do quilting'? A. Yes, lots of quilts. Q. Did you have one of your children at home? A. Yes, they were all born at home. Q. Who helped you when your time came? A. Just a neighbor lady and then I had the doctor here. Pieces now that we wouldn ' t bother with. There was no hospital like 1101-1. There was a doctor and he had a large community and it was difficult to get him. I just remember my mother telling that when I was born my Dad had to go 20 miles with an ox hitched in a hay. ,,de., to get a doctor. He had a pony of course and could come much quicker. Q. When you were having your children did any of those old stories occur to you about your childhood. Oh, yes, sure. Especially the first one. had gone through. Q. Did it give you more strengh ? It made me think of what my mother �A. ·Jell, I guess it did in a way. Q. you. You would have been brin;;ing your children up in the depression? A. Yes, that was hard because w!?. The things that they needed. You think that if your mother can do it so can couldn ' t get the things that we really wanted. We couldn ' t 6 et the things for their lunch, in fact, that He would like to get. Jhat Hould you be able to get them for their lunch? Q. 1 A. Mostly just a sandwich made of homemade bread and homemade butter and the meat was home cured also. And jam, we picked a lot of fruit and made jam out of that. Q. Being on a farm, I guess you never have to go without food at all? A. No, we were never short of food - we grew our vegetables and I think back now and I see wagon.loads of potatoes and carrots and beets and turnips and things that were cooling in our basement. them all in the winter. Q. We just wondered \how we could get through We irere all ready for next spring and to start again. Would you have to go without or economize on things like clothing or household. utensils? A. Yes, you get one good dress made and that would be handed down from one to another. With my mother, I remember she had her wedding dress, a brown silk, and she had that one for 2.5 years, that was her good dress. Wherever she went she had to wear that. Q. You mentioned the Women ' s Institute. What yeat-: did you join? A. My mother and I had joined to a Homemakers Club in Saskatchewan which is practically the same thing. Q,:. Did you join the Women ' s Institute here shortly after you moved here? A. Yes, in ' 26 we organized our Institute here. Q. Did that help you meet new people in the area? A. Oh, yes. Many of the things we did helped the school and teachers and furniture, The Institute supplied the furniture for the first school. Q. What kind of fund~ raising things did you do? A. We put on concerts and we had a wonderful lot of people here for entertaining. So we put a great deal of thG.t on. Then we made quilts and sold them and we knit caps and mitts and sold them. Q. Did you see the Institute as a club that helped people? A. Oh yes, it Has wonderful. Q. But it was something for yourself too. A. Especially for the Homen. It really raised their lot a good deal. �Q. A. How? By e;etting them all together. ::Xchanging recipes and methods of housework. I don ' t know, perhaps you ' ve heard this story of the lady that first started the Institute. She was just a yotmg girl and I think she was raised near Toronto and she wanted to be a teacher and she became one and in those days they had to teach two or three years in a rural district before they were elegible for a town. So she did this and while she Has putting in her three years out in the country she fell in love uith a youn_:; fellow at the house where she was boarding and finally cot married. She ··rent out ~iving lectures on organizations of the women so after a time - Erlin Lee 1 ·as thon the Minister of Agriculture and he told Mrs. Hoodles'"" that if she 11anted to he would cto all he could to help her. Department. 0 et an organization for women He was the President of the Farmers He did help ui th that a lot because he went ar01md demonstrating and lecturing what the thincs would be like for the women. That is how the or_:anization started and it is still ::;oing. Q. It seems to have cau0 ht on really quickly. A. Our membership now is Q. Did your institute do the T reedsmere histor-J? A. Yes, we ' re doing that. Q. You mentioned that the women organized and you said that 11as a very ___;ood thing, 8½ million. Al~ of course, over the ·world. 1 was there a definite lack of Homen .:;etting together in this community, not sharing things? i. There was lrntil we started organizing the Women ' s Institute. Then they caught into that very readily. Q. How did JOU arrance things so you could have your afternoons or evenings free? Did you leave your children ~ri th your husba..n.d or ... ? A. \e took the children with us. Nothing like a day care centre nouadays, we had to· take our children with us. Caxry them on our backs and go wherever we could. Q. Very often, one hears the idea that women can ' t work together. A. '-le haven't had anything like that - very little. Over 50 years nothing like that has happened that is worth mentioning. Q. It made enough of a difference apparently to the lives of the wom:en to make it ~rnrthwhile. A. It certainly did_. A wonderful difference to women ' s life. Q. 'That did you, what kind of a woman's life did you ~Lead? �A. We had so much work doing, ne couldn ' t get into mis ctt.ef. Q. What kind of work did you do in the farm in Northern Ontario? A. Almost anything - on the Prairies I used to drive the horses and harrow or whatever it waE",,depending on what you had to do. I milked cows, I milked as many as 20 cows at one time. Q. So, in your circumstances, people just did what they could ;md it wasn ' t a matte.I of a man doing this or a woman doing that. A. Oh , . no, doing. If a man iras busy at something else, you took over what he hadn ' t bee:e If you didn't know how you had to learn how,· Q. And the kids would all :~.help too? A. Oh , yes , they were right there to help out. The young people in those days :-rere more willing to do these sort of things. them that 1-fant Today there are very:· few of to do any work. Q. Did you have any time just to sit down ax1d think by yourself? A. Very seldom, sometimes in the evening, especially in the Hinter time. But then you irould be knitting or sewing or something. Q. Did you find that frustratin 0 ? A. No ·rn just enjoyed it. Took each day as it carne along. We had games, we would get together and sometimes in the winter in the afternoon. We all had home- made sleighs for sliding down the hills and we would gather, about 10 or 12 of us, and sleigh r~de for the afternoon ru1d then we would go in and make doughnuts and coffee. timo we played 01. 'rhat was our amusements in the afternoons. tside games all the time. In the swnmer- We would play with the children, "Ring around the Rosy" etc. Q. 1.'ere there dances and things? A. Yes, ue had dances once a month, the difficulty Has to get music for it. Q. TJould it be just local people? A. Just local people. Q. Would the dances be held in the homes? A. Yes. Q. ~That kincl of music - •rould you get accordion, violin? A. Yes , accordion, Violin, ~uitar. Q. Did you use the organ? A. Yes, that was used at many a dance. ~. Did you bring it from Saskatchewan? A. \To , we bought it here - it was the first organ that was sent up to Dryden ... There was no piano. �There Has a teacher here, Mrs.Ryto who came up from the east to teach and in the summer time instead of her ~oing back home, she had her brothers and sisters come out. Also some friends came too. When they. ·went to church here, the Presbyterian Church, and they thought it nas awful because there was no music. You had to have a person Hho 1rould.llead the singing. When they w:int back home they got their auxiliary busy and bought this organ and sent it up here. When they got better off and decided to get a better organ, we bought it from them. It cost $35. I 've been offering *500 now but no one would take it. Q. $500 is not enough. Can you recall when women got the vote? A. Yes, that was a very interestinc; time. every woman to vote. We were very excit·ed and tried to get We had a number of Ukrainian families here and it was hard to get them interested in voting, they joined the Inr;;titute and were _::;reat workers but when it came to voting, they had a different idea. Q. ~Ihat was your iclea about voting? A. I thought the women should have the same opportunities as men. Get the right to vote and excersice your wishes. Q. Do you remember any of the d_emonstrations or speeches on the part of the suffra.a-ettes? A. I don't thinI<; _.we had few of them. Q. How alJout in Saskatchewan? A. Yes, I think there :Tere more than down here. They -rnre more excited about the vote up there. Q. Do you remember the attitude of some of the men a.rouncl here? When women were first allowed_ to vote. A. Oh, yes, the :1en thouc;ht He should stay home and mind the babies - that ' s what they told us. Q. But you didn ' t listen to them. A. No. There was one man who before he got married had_ given h7s lady love a ring with ten little diamonds in it and a pearl in the center. Well, she was look- ing at it and admiring it and he says, "That is ten boys and one girl" and she said, "You ' d better Get an incubator. 11 Q. What did it feel liI:e when JOU ca.st your first ballot - did it feel like you had gotten somewhere? Yes, I had the feeling that Tm were rising a little bit anyway. �Q. ··J ere you :involved in any suffragette activities or the Women ' s Christian Temperance Party? A. Yes, v-re 1-?-Sed to help 1-1ith that too. That was more on the Prairies. Q. Tiow do you feel about the women ' s movement· today? Do you feel that we are still 1--rorking for the same thing? Yes, it seBms that it is the same as me, maybe I ' m old fashioned - it seems that we are going up another step. Q. Thincs toe 1: a lon[., time. A. Yes, that is right. 4-. Has your family affected by either of the wars'? A. rnl.l it goes back to my i:::;reat grandfather , he fought in the Boer War and my grandfather was in the African War and then my father was in the, I can ' t remember nhat year that was because he didn ' t go overseas, he was just training on tho P:iairie and then ny h!o sons were in the last war. Q. Hhat was it lil:e after seeing the First Vorld War and they say that this is the war to end all wars - to have to send your boys off to a Second World War? A. We didn ' t agree with it at all. setting thi1v-s. We thought there should be some other way of Rather than taking a King or a country all the time. Q. r?hat kind of work did the women do here after the rfar? A. Beside homesteadin~? Q,. ]hat about the wo~1en that stayed home? A. They 1rnre working for them and !r.nitting thin__,s to send overseas and caxming ....... . vegetables and fruits and meats to send over. Q. Did that accomplishment make the women feel that they doing something if.re for the covntry? A. Yes, I think that they felt they were really helping with the Q. The more I hear about women Imitting clothes etc., the more I think that the Har. governmeiTt didn ' t issue them. Ue also heard that there seemed to be more of a committment on the civilian women ' s part, to the First World 1lar. They seemed to work harder for it than the Second. A. I ' ve heard that too, but I couldn ' t say that it was so. or dmm here. Either in the nrairi.e Women worked equally as hard in one ·war as the other. I suppose if your children are involved, it becomes much more personal. Hhat do you think was one of the hardest parts of being a farm woman? It is much easier nowadays. The fa:cmwomen have as many household conveniences as do city people. Q. -rould there be a chore that you particularly hated to do? �A. Oh , yes , dish-rashing for one thing. Q. Hating dishHashin 6 sure hasn ' t A. No it hasn ' t, even if I do have a dishwasher. Q. Unlike a lot of women your age , you are not telling us that we should be home 0 one out of style. having babies and looking after them and you are quite interested about the affairs of women. Why do you think you picked that up? From my mother I think. She was very much that waJ. She was very much in favor of better conditions for ,;,rnmen. Q, Was there any pa-.:-ticular reason? A. All the uonen around her, especially on the Prairie, they just did as much work as the nen really. Q, You are prob2bly familiar with the Irene Murdock case out in the Prairies? '-That Hore your vie--s on that? A. I don ' t k.Y101-1 what to think of that. So far we haven ' t got too much information on it, Q. Y0 u told us that most fa...rm women worked hara_ if not harder than the men , so if something happens to their family, do you think it should be divided eq_ually between them? A. I think that Nould be a proper thin - if they worked equally hard. Q. The Homen have to work outside 0:1 the farm as Hell as inside, and often they a.re a man ' s work persay, did the men in your family ever share any of the chores inside the house? A. Oh, yes, some of them did, but f'ome of them 11ould.n ' t take to the housework at all. My crandfather and my father Pere quite willing to take a tun1 at Nash- in~ tho dishes or peeling potatoes. Q. Even noP if you . . an cret your brother or your boyfriend or your husband to wash your dishes it is a real accomplishment. Did your husband help you out with your children? Yes, he was alnays willin2: to do Hhatever he could. I was raised in such a large family that I ~ot used to doing everything in connection ·with If I asked_ him to clo things he was willing to do it. children. Sometimes he -:rould say , "I '11 do it if you shm, me how" . Q. How did you feel about other women who would do twice as much work as their husbands - workin 6 outside and then working inside} _ ,· A. n e had one case like that that used to rile me because he was a school teacher and he wn1.1.ld go out and set out so many yards of land for his wife to clear �vhile he was teaching . Q. Chopping up wood? A. Yes, cutting the :wod and clearin0 the stumps and everything. That used to a11noy me. Q. A. Did you ever speak :-Ii th her about it? No, I never , it 1-1asn ' t my business . I clidn ' t want to make trouble between them. If she was willing to do it for him, I guess it was best just to leave it as it was . .That was it like in a rural community if there was a familJ and sonebody was being mistreated but there were no e:overnment agencies? A. I don't know just how far the neighbors could have gone, but in this case, they didn't do anything. If they - sometimes, some of the ladies Hould co over a.Dd help her, clear the brush etc . Q. A. Q. A. Q. .That about in a case where sO), eone drank too much and Nould 3et violent? In that case, some of the men would interfere. So if somebody was beating their wife, a neighbor Nould come a.Dd oeat them? I don ' t know whether they would l)eat him or not but they would do somethinc;. So you had your mm policing force. How far north Fas the community youllived in? h. Fifteen miles north. Q, So did you get into town much? A. ITo, it 1·as a year and a half before I ever sa1;-: it. our home up and tho ba_rn for the stock and We were too busy :;ottins chickens. Q. .Tould it be a treat if you had to come into town? A. No because you had to ride in a wagon and there was no road. I dread to think .C' 0.L •.J.. l v now. Q. So it wasn ' t something you looked forward to doing? A. No. Q. When your chlldren were grown up did you begin feeling lonely? You ' d worked so hard to establish this home. No because I had some knitting or sewing or somethin.:; to do. time for lonliness. There was no Evelyn , the eldest one , she was only 13 and I had to send her to Winnipe.3 to go to college because she wanted to be a teache:c. Two years later, FraYJ.ces wanted to be a bookeeper so I had to send her to Winnipeg too. I had to pick be::,'.,~ies to pay for their board. Then I got working for some lady who wanted me to be there with her children when she was going out. �I worked for the board &'1.d that helped out a lot. Q. So in the early days you 11ould. pick berrie,... a.rid ··hat?, sell A. No, just sell the bo~cries. ja.1~1. I used to }ick abovt a $100 worth and that rras a lot of money in those days. It was a lot of berries too. long would it take you to' pick a $100 worth? Q. H011 A. All the berry season, as soon as the berries got frozen He couldn ' t sell them ' mymore. Fe would start about the 20th of July but there wouldn ' t be very many for pickine; and later on into Au6ru.st a day, my husband and I. Q.. He could pick maybe three baskets The children would pick maybe two baskets each. So you believe as long as you can keep active and do something useful there is no reason to be lonely. A. That is the way I feel. I've aJ.ways been that way. Q. Aside from your mother, can you think. ·of any other 1romc1.1'1 1·rho affected your life or tho Hay :,rou thouzht? . i . No, unless for my grandmother or mother ' s mother. She was a very proud Scot and I used to have to go stay with her during the winter because my uncle was up at the barn most of the day and she 1-ras getting on in years and they were all afraid she might take ill or something so I had to go and spend my winter months there. I remember one clay, their cattle weren ' t used to children, just :rown ups so one day she as:::ea_ me to take the potatoe peelings out to where the cows were milking. .Ana_ I didn't like to go. I wa.s afraid of those great big long hornecl cattle. She asked what was the matter with me a.rid I said I was afraid of their lon.; horns and she said, "Ah, la.ssie you do not trust your Lord or you Hould not be af ~aid to 6 0 out there. " lone way from me, Hhen those cattle got after me. 0 I thought , the Lord was a Q. So ·a lot of determination Has in your family. A. Yes, on both sides - my mother and father both were determined and I guess that is T;rhat pulled them throush. Q. ;rere they very strict on you as a child? A. Just about the sru.1e as all the children were. The parents were a great deal more stricter than they are today. Q, Were you as strict uith your mm children as your mothGr was? A. No, I a_on 't think Q. Hhat were the sort of thin_;s that you didn ' t want to do to them? A. I always tried to strai..;hten things out without trying to spank them. =1-ras. I didn ' t �like that idea. I think that was just taidnt: the spanking out on them for nothinc:; really. If you start when they are young and make them understand 11hat they should do and what they shou.ldn ' t'"·do, then you don ' t need to do the spankinz that some :people do. Uhat they call child···beating now. Q. How important was the Church in your life? A. Very much so until we did come doim here. Dryden was the nearest church and if you didn ' t mm a tcalfl of horses and a wagon you co1..lldn ' t '-·o in time to t;;et there. So we us Pd to have 81..ma_ay school and every Sunday it would be in a :iiff erent ho:-ne. Ue i-rould have a:.,-1 elderly man take the boys and nen and &"1 older lady for the older ones and I generally had the little one5. Q. 1 Tas the Sunday school important because it brouglt people together? A. Oh, yes, in that way. r'le used to get the missionairies that came in a.11.d they were statj_onea_ at Sioux Lookout and he vrob.ld come up once a HeeI: and l"old service in the evenings here,, at the different houses. Q. Did you ever ~et your mm church? A. r-.rot up there, no. He came out to Dryden and I think He had 7 churches here. Do you live here? A. No. A. I Tras 1-~ondering if you lived here you would I:noN "better the number of churches. Q. If you Trere our age is there aJ1ything you nould like to do? A. I 1 ron ' t say I'd like to do it over a.;ain lJecause I could make a lot of correct- ions. Q. ',Jhat nould A.. A number of thinbs I had to put up Pith a.11.d I didn ' t like. Q. 1 A. Different people coming in to settle here. JOU like to correct? Jould it be too personal to ask 1·~hat. they are? Sone of them would come in and they would be quite socialble and help out Hith everything. be Thm there would others that 1rould come in that would just seem to fight and ·o acainst ··•ha;t you were tryin 6 to do all the time. a lot. That was one thing that bothffced me Q. Here there many non-English spealdng immigrants? A. Yes, there was quite a lot of them. Q. Was there much interaction bebreen those people? And yourselves? A. They tried to mix with them and get them to see their way and try to impress upon them that they were in this country now and that they weren ' t in their ola_ country, and these were new rules that they had to abide by. �.J . .,~\. For instance, when the women __:ot the vote - espel::ially the Russians, they could not see that the women should get a.r1y vote at all. She should just do what he.r husband Hanted her to do. Q. . ould this be the views of the Russian men or the Russian women or both? A. The Russian men mostly, but the ~-~omen too. That is all they ever k..new. As things Hent on and they rr-ot older, then they couJ.d see our views. Q. How involved was the ·romen ' s Institute in wonen ' s rights? A. They ::-eally took a leading part here. Q. What kinds of things, other than the vote? A. Tho lady that or._;anized it - Mrs. Hoodless - she went around and practically cspent the rest of her life going around and lecturing and getti:h 0 women to join,. the Institute. Sometimes I ' d hear stories of women walking twenty miles through the snow dmm East to get to wherever she was lecturing. Q. Do you recall the views of some of the men in your community towards the Insi tutE A. They nere just as ea[;er to see it a success - they did ail sorts of things to help. ~- ~fas that because you did so much social work as well? A. It might be, yes. Q. 'Jhat do you think of the chru.1ge in women ' s roles? A. It is much ea,sier for them al though there is a certain, d e,_;ree of "tryinc to keep up with the Joneses " . ;Je dicii1 ' t do that, we 11ere satisfied wit h oui; :_ l og cabin and woodstove. Q. Insofar as she has changed in society - how laws have chcmged - instead of saying we are asking f o:r things we are fightin9 for then no~-1 and sometimes we set listened to. Are you glad to see this happen? A. I guess we will all be able to ha-rn somebody to carry on the work. ~. I hope so. A. . ........ there are women here who might be able to 6 i ve you more information than I can. Q. You ' ve been very interestins. A. There are 62 residents here. Q. Do you enjoy livin~ here? A. Yes, but when you ' ve been used to living in your try to keep busy. 01m home it ' s different. I . I usually spend the summer out at the farm but this sprin6 I had a call stone attack aYJ.d they wouldn ' t let me rro out there aion-e. Q. You macle dresses and things from A. No, f:~om flour bae;s. tobacco pouches? Tho~r v1eren ' t itchy, they we1."'c smooth after you Hashed them. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Eva Lamb Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Eva Lamb in Dryden, Ontario. The interview was performed by Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview Mrs. Lamb discusses living on a farm in Richan. She moved from Saskatchewan to the Dryden area in 1924, after she was married. She discusses the effect of the wars, raising children during The Great Depression, and women’s suffrage. There is a focus on family life when she was growing up and when she had children of her own. She was an active member of The Women’s Institute in the area and describes the role it had in bringing women together. This recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file). The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dryden Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/80015bcb0b1896dd779115222e8a99d7.mp3 7864cb6fd1e2eeb6f52d49e2cd73dfa6 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5b809326085f5e608a1cfb1c28892ba6.mp3 c6df8efcda58db1010370169bb508415 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5fb275888be553dc27019b0504bf328a.pdf 0d4ef5066ba8d7025f6681928ebe73ab PDF Text Text J HERSTORY PROJECT Mrs. Kamstra interviewed by Georgina Garrett Q. A. Q. A. I'd like to talk about the relationship between women out in the country were women close to each other, was there a lot of co-operation? They were all very independant ... Yes. You had to be close enough to feed a threshing gang. What do you mean, feed a threshing gang? The threshing gang would come in and the man with the machinery - there would be a man who had a threshing machine, and he made it pay by going around to farmers and threshing for them. The usual thing was the waiting for-the thresher to come around. When the threshing gang came with the thresher, which was as many neighbors as possible, so the farmer's wife has to cook a whole bunch of pies, because no farmer's wife would thin.k of having a threshing dinner without scads of pies. So the pies had to be made and the roast had to go in and you couldn't do it alone - that is when you had to be close to somebody. I used to be jealous of the men because they had a great deal going for them, they seemed to have a lot of fun, what with the dirty jokes going around, and the only person who had a hard part was the owner of the farm. He had to do the dirty work, he had to stay in the maw? that is where all the junk and charr'··goes and that is the jo·b for the family whose grain is being threshed. So th~y would go in with kerchiefs and red handkerchiefs and they would come out of it with bloodshot eyes, and it was very hot weather and that job was the hard part, but only when it was on your place. I saw that this was fun for the men and a sweat for the women, but then what I noticed about the old-timers was that they got such a big high - the women out of producing enough and with quality, then everybody would say, whether they meant it or not, what a wonderful dinner that was. The closeness that had happened in the early days, I used to wonder about it because they lived so far apart and they had to walk to visit, so that a visit meant a whole day, and they would spend a whole day with their neighbor. Then they would have it to talk about when they got home, but they weren't in each other's hair a whole lot, they would really put all their effort into going to that place for a whole day. When I came to the country, that was all over. Those \ �people were reminiscing about the good old days and what they had had and how close they were. But in reality I used to wonder how this was because it didn't happen very often that they got together. Q. Maybe it was more of the quality than the quantity. A. I think so. Q. In what year were you born? A. '20. Q. How long have you lived in South Gilles? A. I went there first in '38, I went to Scobo\!. which is in the S. Gill es area, I think the deep issues had to be dealt with on those days. three miles away from Gilles. That was my school, down there. I was there for two years. Q. Can you talk about how you became a teacher? A. Yes, I was born in England an9- I was a baby when we came to Canada. Did you say you were British? My parents came from Surrey in 1921 and my father's family had to come here in 1913, My grandfather was brought here to be the city roads supervisor and all his life he seemed to gripe a lot because when he got over here, assuming that this job was waiting for him, they had given the job to somebody else. Q. What was it like for your grandmother coming from England to Thunder Bay? A. She was another very determined little lady. She was five feet tall and my grandfather was six feet three inche~ she was so short that she had no lap. She had quite a strong temp-er and she was uneducated, she couldn't write and she had to sign her name with an 'X' I think. by his sister so he Imew how to write. My grandfather had been taught She just fought her way. When my mother came in 1921 we were afraid of Gran Adie. Q. Did your mother come over as a child? A. My mother married Gran Adie's oldest son. She came to Canada in '13, then there was the war and my father, her son, was in the war so afterwards he and his bride .... Q. So your mother was a warbride? A. No.not exactly. They had been married. in England and had my older sister, so there was a four year old and a one year old come to Canada. My grandmother had this fight to survive, so much so, that my mother could har:aJ.y survive. Have you seen the show "Upstairs, Dmmstairs", well my mother wasaa downstairs. She was a housemaid, she would be very angry if l did.n 't get her proper position. She was a parlour maid which was a little further up the rung. She had learned from the aristocracy some of the social graces and some of the fLr1er things. She had access to music and art and she wanted her children 7- �to have some of the finer things in life. earth you know, By God. My grandmother was right down to The thing to do was to make money, and making money was what my grandmother was about doing. Q. How did she go about that? A. She pushed my grandfather, and he never measured up. She was just a woman. He did the best he could. She came to Canada thinking she was going to be the wife of the city engineer and it didn't work out that way. My grandfather got the supervisor of the incinerator job down at the end of town where nobody who was a nice person was supposed to go. That was a whole part of my life, that I used to go down and visit my grandfather at the incinerator and found such lovely, warm people dmm there. My poor mother was afraid that if we went down to that end that we would be raped. It was really such an. education and right away I cuuld see the pulls as a little one. Q. Very class conscious. A. Our street in Westf ort - Brooks St. - there were Roman Catholic and Protestant fights. We were Anglicans and most of the people down that md were United Church and Methodists and Presbyterians and they were having their little thing. Besides that there were the Italian immigrants up the road that every- body caJ.led waps and we wea.-e not aJ.lowed to call waps. Then there were the Poles and the Ukrainians and there was a reaJ.ly strange thing that you couldn't figure out. We were not allowed to go out of our gate, other kids were al- lowed to play on the Francis St. playground and there was a mix-up of the races there, but from my mother's background, she had to keep us English, but my grandmother was going to stay English but she was going to fight her wa;y out there. She was rough, very class conscious, but she was go:ing to be up because she had been down in England. As I got older I discovered that this was an ingredient of the immigrants of all of the races, and the ones who came here were the fighters and that's why we had so many fights. They had to survive and the only way they knew how was to push the other down. My maternal grandmother was the same and I didn't know her but I heard and I've gotten to know some of my cousins in England and her daughters, half of her family said that she was a "proper bitch" but my mother adored her, so the other said that mother would favor a daughter - there was a lot of sibling rivalry going on. But that old girl brought all her dau&1ters - she had a family of te:n and eight survived, four girls and four ,lx>ys and she brought the daughters through the terror of the war._ by her strange strength and by J �her ability to do midwife things. People were afraid of her but she was also in charge when there were crisis situations. She was an amazing woman that none of the cousins or second cousins Imew. She wouldn't hesitate to leave the old man - she did the terrible thing of separating from the old man. Q. Was there very m'l;ich separation? How common was that in the c·ountry? A. Mrs. Turk saw for herself a role that was more than being a mother. Q. Was that because she had been a teacher? t. I think so. She had experienced being put up on a pedestal and she liked it. She had a way of talking, she didn't talk like the rest of toem, she talked with a bit of an accent, I don't know quite what it was. little American sinoe her mother was American. to have change take place in people. -- Could have been a There was a lady who was able She was able to do it with kindness and warmth and streffi.h and she was no underdog. She was quite beautiful. She kept her Anglicanism and when I first moved out into the country I was an Anglican and she used to come, she was a·bout 80 yrs. old, to our house. Our new little house, the bride in the community and we would have the priest come to our house for Communion and there was just this quality about her. +'\thought she was a lady because her behavior met with my ideals of what a woman should be. Her husband was a very amusing man, she used to do the right and proper thing and she didn't believe in booze. But old Bill Mitchell, who was the dearest, sweetest, funniest man - going through rough days but being able to see the funny side. He used to say that he unscrewed his wife's blueberries in order to get a little bit of fermented juice down. away with that - I don't know whether she knew it or not. He got From what I know of her, she probably knew it and let him get away with it. Q. How do you think they raised their daughter so that she had the gumption to leave her husband? A. I don't know. All I ever knew of Annie was that I felt sorry for her. In getting into the education thing.·:like me, you start to feel yourself being pulled away from the people that you love. Being put on some kind of a level that you '.re not prepared for and don't want. Because you have the name schoolteacher. Q. Can you talk about that level? The women teachers ..,I have talked to didn't talk about that, I know they were respected - but what kind of respeci;? A. It was resptct for a person who could lift themselves up to such a status as a teacher - they really had a high expectation of a teacher. �You couldn't live up to that because you had a certain area of expertise and it was very, very, narrow. You went into a culture that was foreign to you and you had to learn about the culture in order to funct ion. Sometimes you had to get in there and ask questions that were embarrassing. I asked too many why questions. I know that They became threatening to people - usually the wives or mothers of the families I taught. They would be people that you knew and immediately they would start play acting in some strange way that I couldn't understand. It would be a kind of "put the teacher down" game. "Put her in her place", I felt, but I couldn't understand what place. didn't understand their jokes, because it is a cultural thing. I I didn't understand why I had to be called Peaches, why couldn't I have been called Freida? You have to have a nickname here, so I tried to understand it but it didn't fit right with me. Then there were the husbands who flirted with me and who came on fast at the dances. I had to keep that to myself - I didn't understand it - I was only 18, and I was the teacher, this almighty teacher. I needed somewhere to go to talk about these funny things that were going on between the mothers of the children and the fathers. I could see that some of the fathers were doing mean things to their wives, and the wives didn't Imow. The wives were providing - they went out to the blueberry patch - although there is a side issue here since the wives got freed.om in the blueberry patch. That was also a status thing, how many better berries you can put on the table. The women had to provide the food, and I noticed that in one or two families that I boardedwwith, that the big thing for the father to do was to e;o out and hunt. in the fall to make sure there was enough meat and yet the wife had to stay home and do all the cutting of the wood to keep them warm, and harnass her kids to that. Q. You were a teacher in the time of male supremacy,- and yet most of the teachers were women, and were highly respected. A. It's not quite respect. It was respectiin the way that they were being looked at "respicio" - the latin word. at and they were being tested. And they were really being looked Tested against the former teacher. I had a Danish woman who used to come in and she had come to Canada with her husband and she was having this male-female fight. It was a fight - he used to chase her doim the road in the night and he had some kind of a drum ... it was really weird. Eventually I got to thinking that these people were crazy. She had been the former janitress and when I came, I was a new 5 �teacher and they also had a new janitor and so she was going to see what she wanted in the building because it had been hers before". She used to come around and peer through the windows and ask me questions about my program. I was scared of her and she was an example of the way the teachers were being tested. When the mothers would get together the teacher was alQ. A. way~ the topic of conversation. Do you think it was because the teacher was so important in their childrens life, and the mothers hoped that they would rise above their station, so the teacher was responsible? Yes, I'm sure, but the teacher wouldn't dare letoon ... for example, I remember one of the fathers giving me the third degree on Shakespeare. And to teach after Grade 10 and what I knew about Shakespeare was what in high school and it was Macbeth and Hamlet, and if he got me out I was sunk. But I didn't dare tell him because he was a member of I had I got of that the school Q. board. It doesn't sound like you enjoyed being a teacher that much - some of the A. other women say it was a great part of their lives. Maybe they say so but at that time, there were many of us who had great doubts and breakdowns. When we could get into town we had a Saturday where we would just talk shop all the time and we'd exchange seat work to keep the kids busy next week. Our real community on the education line had to be the teachers getting together on Saturday - had to keep that connection in order to develop our teaching skills. If you talk to me about the Christmas concerts-never have I reached that peak of power and creativity. That was mighty powerful stuff - you used your whole being and every scrap of paper and every crayon you could get a hold of and you had nothing, not even toilet paper to work with. You had to produce a Christmas concert and by God if you didn't you were fired, because the Christmas concert came right before the annual school board meeting, when you weren't there, and many teachers, if their concert didn't measure up were fired. Q. What things made the conditions of the concert so significant? A. It was the one thing that everybody went to and brought them all together with shared purpose. It took care of all the aches and pains of the year. There were tears and there was laughter and hugging, and bottles passed around. Santa Claus was usually drunk and you hadato have a few under your belt to play the part. I don't think I'm exaggerrating, everyone was there, so the �struggle for survival was forgotten, it was a ritual which mended the hurt feelings. If the teacher had a creative bent at all, then she collected a big ;high from the Christmas Concert, and a sense of power. I got the sense that this was what I was created for. , I can do this and do it well. The sad pa.rt was that like all things it got out of balance and some teachers thought that the focal point was the concert, started practising for it in September. The academic part of it was lost therefore, the inspectors dictated that the concert had to go. There doesn't seem to be a place where the community can get together now. Q. Why didn't many women have anything to do with the Women's Institute? A. That sounds as if not many did but a lot of women did and it did serve an educational meet, and a social meet. least once a month. Oh God how they needed that meet at The Women's Institute as you '11 notice is not a big organization, numbers-wise, ... Q. The number of wanen in . the countryside are shrinking. A. That's not so, maybe it is. powering. In my communitythe young women there now is over- I am so surrounded by young wives now, more than I've ever been. It's not trueethat the population of women are shrinking in my community. Q. Women, one in particular, attributed the decline of the Women's Institute' in her community with the introduction of automobiles. You are now able to drive into the city and have much more leisure time, so that rural values and comerad.erie were no longer necessary. A. There is truth in that. I suppose it is hard for any organization to be flexible enough to meet the changing needs. That's what happened in my estO imation - they d'idn 't have either the knowledge? or the understanding? who had any understanding of what was happening in the sixties? the Women's Institute understand it? input from the people. How could There was no roomiin their format for You did the 4-H program, and I also remember when I gqt into the Indian communities how badly those people asked. They wanted to Imow recipes, they wanted to Imow how to live in the present when they had to deal with food out of cans and different food. the very program that the Institute was offering. They were asking for The 4-H clubs were mar- vellous and they taught how to sew, and cook and also a lot of creative craft and they had experts in the field brought into the community so that you weren't getting old hat information - you were getting top notch infor- 7 �mation on budgeting_ and so on. The Department of Agriculture had that pro- gram, Indians were wanting it but the Department which is behind the Women's Institute - I talked to the top people in the Department personally - they couldn't do it, they couldn't change the program. That was an example of why the Institute failed. Q. It couldn't change the program to adapt to Indians? A. Yes, for inst.ance, these people couldn't write so they had to keep notes. Q. It sounds likeyyou were rather ostracized from the S. Gilles community because of your priveledged. position in your husbands' household compared to other farm women. Were you ever able to establish a feeling of closeness with neighboring farm women? A. I found that happened now, only now. Q. Did midwives ever help you? A. No, I had my children in a hospital. The only emotional experience I had with that was when I first came to the country in '38 and one of the little boys who I was teaching in Grade One, his mother had died in childbirth. Aunt Cassie had been there and the doctor from Hymers had been called but they couldn't with their expertise, save her. anything about midwifery. After that I didn't hear 6nly the very poor people took advantage of that. I remember a Hrs. Barret - she used to deliver some of her neighbor's babies. That was in the '40's. Q. How did the climate and envioronment of N.W.O. specifically affect your life? How was it different being a woman in N.W.O. as opposed to the Praries? A. Elsie Couch's father was the pioneer of H:¥Jllers. They came in and they got into the surveying and the men in those days seemed to get access to the outside world and the women got "bushed". This was the word that was used. Q. Hhat did ''bushed' mean? A. I don't really Imow, except that the women who used it to me said that "I'm getting bushed", and she hungered to be in the town where things were going on, to talk to people. It was used by other people in a sort of way the people took for meaning that someone was going crazy. eral women who went that way. I have known of sev- I'm thinking of several whose burdens were so great and there was no place to go. If they went to any tof these strong women, their message was that "you have to be strong", and they couldn't. So they just left the world of reality, and that is how I assessed beine; "bushed". Mr. Hy.mers was a beautiful, intelligent, wise man but his wife �was said to be crazy, you could.n 't communicate with Iher. She died at 60. Mrs. George Hy.mers. With the Mi tchells and with the Couchs, with the Hy.mers - these were people from affluent parts. The Couchs came from Absley Ontario and they had already raised their kids and they brought the last half of their family up here to start freshebecause of _ _ _ __ killing the old man Moses. The Hl{Illers were adventerors, and wanted to see it all. The next generation something happened, since they d.idn 't have access to education. In comes a green little school teacher and they a.re suprised at the lack of better education. One of that man's daughters told me a story of her uncle who had been caught, stuck down by a thunderbolt and she had the thunderbolt on the fireplace to prove it. Now that is just the next generation you see. Q/ A. Q. A. She didn't' know 1·rher8 China was, their world was there and that was all. It was an urban platter of e;oodies that they resented. Partly that, but there was something else. It had to do with the male-female thing because the teacher was a threat, she was someone who could, and felt it necessary, and the measure of her was how she could stand up to a man, and to the school board. The school board boys were caught in this attraction and making a man out of her too. How did you deal with that personally? I was very naive and the only thing I knew was that I was a woman and a woman gets married. It is very good that I have my teacher's certificate and I'm glad I had that training because at least I could give m~ kids something that the others didn't have. That whole thing was in my heart but then I saw how it separated - just with b~ing with me - the mothers in the country refused to realize that they were also teachers. I could.n 't do anything really worthwhile unless I took all the kids, so I got myself involved with the children. I had to go through about ten years of undoing and unlearning and to turn myself in some direction. I could function with the children because they were honest- there was no way I ought to have discussed anything with the parents - there leave you with the impression that I hated longed in the Women's Institute and that is she couldn't tolerate the Women's Institute now there was a woman who was strong in her while was no way I could. I probably all people who believed and benot so. But Vi for instance, - Vi Woodbeck, your aunt opinions about J:Ihat is worth- �She could.n 't stand all this bloody gossip - she couldn't take it - she hadn't the time for it. There was too much to be done, she had to raise all her kids and Orbie was so beautiful and sexy and women all just loved Orbie. just had it with the women. He Attractive young wives and women, he made them feel great - but he didn't know how to earn money. She had to feed the kids so she had to work and she didn't have time to spend at a bloody meeting. Q. A. Your grandmother didn't go to the Women's Institute. They were sort of solitary, they didn't open up much. Mrs. Garrett opened up to me. I found her far from solitary. She looked after my kids when I decided to go back to teaching, because they couldn't get teachers when my kids needed teaching. Q. A. This was in the fifties, '58. Well she was quite old then. Yes, I guess so. She came and looked after my kids and did the housework while I went and taught school. She was very free. There was a closeness among the women but there was also a very destructive grapevine. When things were okay - if I need your friendship right now, I'll accept your inadequacies and I will acPept you as a friend. But if a time comes that you might beat me out in a power struggle, then I'll use that information you gave me, against you. Mrs. Kamstra told me to stay out of the organization and if you go into it, be very careful of what you let out. I think that was a truism and it's a natural human thing. Q. Is there an interesting story or anecdote about your life or another woman's life you would care to relate? A. My favorite story - I'm 18 years old and Mrs. Nielson with the brown eyes and crazy look has been coming two or three times a week and harassing me. It is about quarter to nine and I'm at the school - I walked the mile to the school - some of the kids have to come three miles and some on bare feet. What they had for lunch was lard on stale bread. They also had lice in their hair and they had to have it c.u t off because they had so many scabs. coping with this as a Westf ort girl who had never been to the country. woman is coming and telling me I don't know how to run a school. she came in again and I was frightened. I'm This This day She came, up to me again and I broke down and I was so mad at myself for crying but I didn't break down when she was there. She had left and wen to get her mail where she told all the stories of what was going on in the school. I had 33 children and up to grade nine that year. Colleen Haywood nee Lark was in that school and her brother �Bill and Art, Art was 13 years old, and he had a crush on me. We were in love with each other I think, he was a terribly attractive boy and he made my life almost impossible for me because he teased me and he wouldn't do his work and he goaded me into disciplining him. He was the first one to come into school after Mrs. Nielson left - he had just walked two miles. He caught me crying and asked me what was the matter and I told him what Mrs. Neilson had said about our school. He asked me where she went and I told him that she propably went to get the mail. I then decided I had better get the work on the board and then I went to ring the bell and there were no kids. my kids with Art Lark in the lead paraded into Mrs. Nielson's yard. that I had really done it now - there's going to be war for sure. All I thought Then the kids came back and they were angels that day and when they came in Art told me that she wouldn't bother me again. And she didn't. Somehow I guess that gave me the strength - I've always relied on the kids. I became a community with the kids rather than with the parents. That is a moment in my life that stands out. Q. Do you remember Aunt Cassie at all? A. No, I just remember her horse. People had a lot of respect for her. Those two women - Vi Woodbeck and your grandmother - . the way they went about being themselves, they wore the pants in the family. father, I think he died soon after I crune. women. I am. I don't remember your grand- They were considered strong Pinky is the next generation and Elsie is quite a bit younger than They have been going all around, visiting those country people, all around the mail route, I don't know how many years. or longer. Maybe 15 .,or 20. years They had been at the pulse of the c.ommuni ty. That is were you pick up the news of who is dy.ing, who is pregnant and who is sleeping around, this kind of gossipy stuff and it's chewed over by the regular folks. You find out the values of the community right there, and those who were deviating from it. They seemed to be doing a very subservient job to people, they are waiting on their husbands a lot of them thought. I have heard over the last 3 or 4 years from someone of some of the unpaid, loving jobs that they have done because they wanted to. The lonely women who are out there get connected by that truck coming around, and the women who can't speak English or write it, depend on them. Pinky g oes out on that truck and she is all sort of rattly sometimes, and she doesn't know the value of her work at all. Even if you told her, she wouldn't believe you. . .... My salary was$690 per year. �• They kept it under $700 because of some bookwork. get a thousand dollars. It was always like that. Men doing the same would There was something so priceless and precious about men at that time because so many had been killed. Killed in the war, so that when I went to normal school there were only 8 boys and one of them is the head of education here, in town. I was a better school teacher, I know I was, I rated much higher, marks-wise. But there was no way I would aspire to be the Director of Education. Q. What were the war years like in South Gilles? A. It didn't touch us too much. of them did not go overseas. friends which affected me. Except the people whose boys went over. Most It was my high school chums and my brother's My husband had to stay on the farm, they made him stay there. It says here about the positive change in the women's role in the community - I think there is a very strong change. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Freda Kamstra Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission to make this interview public has been given by Freda's granddaughter. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Mrs Freda Kamstra by Georgina Garrett. The interview is a part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play the file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. The interview uses language that is no longer used and may be offensive in nature. The interview begins with Freda speaking about companionship between country women. This is spoken about through the lens of cooking large meals to feed groups of men working the threshing machines. They go on to speak about Freda's and her families past including their immigration from England to Canada. Freda speaks about her paternal grandmother and how she was quite hotheaded and determined. Freda then speaks about early life in Thunder Bay and how the mixing pot of different religions, cultures and races led to a large amount of conflict. She speaks about Mrs. Turk and her mother, her mother being a woman she seemed to find a role model in who was a teacher and whose "behaviour met with my ideals of what a woman should be". She also touches on how she felt separated from her peers due to her families' status. Freda then goes on to speak about her experiences being a school teacher and how she was put on a pedestal of which she did not care for. She explains that women teachers at this time had a great deal of expectations put on them by society that could be very difficult to keep up with. She talks about how the pressure affected her mentally and that she was constantly in fear of being fired. Freda then speaks about some of the issues with the Women's Institute and touches and the lives of some of the Indigenous People's during that time. She expands on her thoughts on the Women's Insitute, speaking on how she used to think that women were born to get married and have children and she thus clashed with many of the opinions of other women. She also did not appreciate the gossip and the on/off nature of her relationships with many of the women. Freda then reminisces on one of the great moments of her teaching career where she found community with her students, particularly a student named Art. She also states that she liked the kids and relied on them much more than the parents. The recording ends with Freda touching on the wage gap between male and female teachers and how men were treated extra special during this time due to the war. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - South Gilles https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/dbd9f7654e23589b1391af4c2f2355cb.mp3 d0fbea1fa429f42bd0aa3d367c6988bb https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/af859eb01913e169fa0d4d2aa1312c25.mp3 edc72996619376e70addd6a0f0d530f1 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/3eaa8a6235fe57fbc4d488e1eb849729.mp3 b0e4f06bd4050bfb2fdf6f75979cde65 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/c032fea0855f4d81c3b59d9a4ef3eef9.mp3 3707aaed138524bc0a81d915abb73875 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/58cb742b6db3bc67d1c7fe638f05929b.pdf 815399a90a0a8a7471dc9c2e3b018bb6 PDF Text Text /)Jo. ~~ ~~/4 ., /}fl~ ~~ ~ ~~v ~ - :;;~ ~~-~p 2:{) ,~()/t/3-t ,I read your bookletoon Silver Islet history and you indicate on !" 'µ\,, ,~ . VQ IM..i...... the label set but I don't want to leave XH anything in that area but what I would like to do is to go back into your own life in the early ~ part of your childhood and talk about as you remember growing up, ~hat i~ ~our personal life story. -A Well among the first things that I remember of course living in Port Arthur, there were board sidewalks all over the place. I imagine they were made of good white pine planks, all over the place, there was no cement at all, and there were cracks and if you happen to drop a nickmm or a penny why you could see them through the light of the crack but then it was to get an older brother with a not~s ~itx and get it out. p= a pick or something to hook up this plank, you see, It was quite something that all the young people did as they walked along to see if there be a glint, and if there were xexx why then finders xsssexs is keepin you see, aM ~f course there was just one public school. Now the first public school mind you there were two or more that were run by xke just Miss somebody or other that would gather a group of children but finally there was a school set up and was two rooms and it was divided, I don't know ex~~ii¥ what grades went into which rooms but anyway that's all there was. Q. What year was this? A. It was before my time because that school is now a double house or else four suites next to the Baptist Church in Port Arthur, but when it got too small then a front was put on and that's the front of the Central School over in Port Arthur up on by Gore Park. Well then when the ... and the two rooms were at the back of it joined on and when that became too small th~setwo rooms were moved over by the back of the church somebody bought it and made into two or four suites or a double house and then the �present addition I think 8 rooms was put on the back of it and that was the only school there except the Catholic school. Well then about 65 years or more ago there was a new Methodist church being built which is Trinity and the old church was moved down the hill and down Bay Street now Algoma Street to where Secord School is and it made two rooms and that was the first school, what do you call those schools not the central school (primary) anyway it was the first school other than the central school in the city and everybody,everybody had to go to Central school first and then the people that crowded in and built up the south end of Street Port Arthur had this Secord/School to go to. Then I think the next school that was built St. James Street school way down Court Street. Q. Of all first, Thunder Bay North, Port Arthur, preceded Fort William development? A. Oh no, Port Arthur was or Fort William was first, it was the fourth. xxxsx Q. What we call the East end now must have developed then was what was called Fort William then, near the old Fort? A. Yes, that's why down in the East End there are McLaughlin Street, McTavish and all those Scots names, named after the Hudson Bay men, the whole place most of it has Scots names because most of the Hudson Bay men were Scots. Port Arthur you walked to school of course. then, in what area? In Q. Where was your home A. Well the first home was at this end of Court Street before Bay, there was nothing from Bay Street on (just wilderness) Yes, just wilderness, just swamp, cranberries. Q. Even in the 40's when Jix moved up here that was still swamp Intercity was largely swamp there? A. Oh yes, well you see in prehistoric time this was a great bay than rairup as far as XR&HEekH Kakebeka Falls and then they claim that there was a Afpping and the water drained here and piled up over on the south shore of Lake Superior but however, it drained out and only wiggling Kaministiqua �River was left to drain it and x it was all swamp right from the height of land at Port Arthur to the mountain, it was all swamp and they declared they could never build a town or a city here because it was, they called it"Frog Town" it was full of frogs, it was a real swamp. lands and of Well they started in to build course the draining just kept on in some part down in the coal dock they pumped the sewage and the ... Q. All of waste that has to be A. Up and out you see EHRKHSe but of pumped because of course Port Arthur is on the hillside so they had to around as well there but Port Arthur was wooden sidewalks and mud or gravel ~ or earth t.hrowed. Q. When you were very young some of the 11e1x very well established society in the Lakehead Thunder Bay was very elegant in comparison to the outliffing areas? A. Well you see all the settlers came from the east and most-of them came from good homes down there and they E~H~ brought some very nice furniture with them and as they could they built their own homes. At first there was just the peek-through wooden houses everywhere 7well then nice homes were built on what they called the Court Street ridge that is from made by the hillside there and the Court Street and very nice homes were there. It was many, many years afterwards, I IVl. {,U-u,(~ suppose, ~ow 60 years or so, when they began to build up in Maragay and those parts they were operft-y men that would buy great space and of course up in Mar~y it was swampy~ it was a great blueberryppatch up there. Q. This area here out in McIntyre River and out towards Chippewa Park was designed to develop originally as the in? ~ area of the Twin Cities. Industry has crept A. I guess those sections outs there were finally left to the mosquitoes and roads and they had to think of the centre of the little town or village because after-all the stores were there. d �So they just kept building houses. Q. Yet there were streetcar tracks moving out to Chippewa Park and streetcar tracks right ijtx~ 0 Rosslyn? A. Well the idea was that they would take them out to Rosslyn and you know that bridge that goes xx~kx over the Kam River has an upper structure. y ou drive through in the lower part, well that was built meaning to have the streetcars go right out through there the and if the top deck is on a level with/hills on each side. There was to be a high level xa ~ and go over the bridge right through and span the immediate valley but then trucks came in and the farmers didn't need the/railway to BHiX~ bring their produce in and in fact there wasn't such a tremendous population to encourage large farms with the selling of produce in the town, ...s.Q i understand it .tfo be ~laced before very long but that bridge must be oh I suppose that's 70 years old or more. Q. There's a story that a woman designed the first bridge across the Kam River~ so far its only a myth, I haven't been able to track it down? A. No, I couldn't tell you of that. Near that bridge, the first bridge that went across and into Flint River Valley and all was there. You turned lQ~scorner and go across the bttdge and you went straight on and it was a level on a river level bridge. Q. Bigger families ~ llectio~ ~J here's ~ I ) -- ~ - - U ~ IJ..R.Arff)-4p i ct ure S of 80for 9~t.Q Oeta5ie 1golhg to Silver Islet for Sunday picnic and very elegant thing5 ~~each other packed and so on. ever a part of the excursion for Sunday afternoon? Were you A. No, we strictly went to church and Sunday school, we wouldn't go on excursions on Sunday but when we first were out there, Capt. Malloney xaxke~ would leave the Port Arthur dock at 10:00 on Saturday night and the men would scramble to be shut up their stores and get it, and XHB¥X tgen they would reach Silver Islet by midnight and the wives would meet them there, and help them carry home the basket of fresh meat and so forth. The men would stay then until 8:00 o'clock Sunday night ~ the �tugs would leave and get into town around 10:00 o'clock Sunday night. It was oh some time after that I suppose what 65 years ago anyway it became a grand spot, Silver Islet. It was theonly place where there was a dock ax decent dock and there was no highway, no #17 I either way, you couldn't get out of town except by water and so these sailing boats w~re old boats that were bought down east and brought up here one at a t i m e - /44ien it was wrecked or scrapped another one would be bought. There were daily excursions Ji Silver Islet because that was the only place you could go and the old carpenter shop was fixed up and a hardwood floor put in it and they had dances and then for picnicing why they picniced all over the place whexerever they wanted to open their basket. picnic consist of in those days? Q. What sort of food would the A. potato salad, cabbage salad, but not any of the frillies pretty baking now-a-days, sandwiches, cake and pie in the original baking dishes. you have a bottle of wine? Q. Would A. Oh, I never heard of that, I suppose some of them might have, it wasn't the outside drinking that there is now. changed Q. Has the attitude xx~a towards d~I½ in Fort William in these past fifty years? IA,M/' A. Oh ~ea~ ~~,,(~ ya, you see in the olden days t h e r e ~ they tell a saloon on every corner of Cumberland Street, four corners and four saloons and right from Arthur Street down to well Pearl Street~•- cnrd"J:t was a different type of person that drank, drank abundantly, it was the men that came and worked in the bush and then they would come in and they would spend a good part if not all axx of their winter's earnings on just getting drunk, and what they haven't spent somebody would relieve them of. Oh it was terrible, and a lot of drunkeness but not educated people, not the kind now,well then when how many years ago, Lt-'1v7 ~alcohol was entirely outlawed and then it got to be considered smart to find a .-----blind keg or be able to sneak in and then the �/. ,. educated people they should have had more sense t ~ n'- 1' -.le 1,,. ~~ and it§ continued, I hear so many well educated people that could ,. be fine citizens and therjust alcoholics and the poor people, well I guess there's a good deal of drinking of there.& beer, but you don't hear so much about that, except in the way of crime0 J tk generally drinking RH~ that brin~s on the crime. So it would look as if were headxH~ed for many years that it would be outlawed again. In catalogues see all of the paraphanalia xf~ making wine and beer. b �J Q. A. Well the important point is love, but then people their own home have inner thoughts and in and they save the dining room, the living room has an arch way between where the is wooden why because of taste and some people had quite large living uh dining room. This is you know and across the hall from MRS there large I think a comedy thing and they would send to Toronto would have a first in those days and they would send I think it was coal that was food sent up by Train and coal into the cubic form and Mrs. Mccullen showed me a big form that just looked like a big piece of wood, but that's what she said it just was sent up the other way the coal would be boned at KxxkxaHa and separatea with a fontth meatand put a jelly in XH sthis form and have H some radishes and different things imbedded in the jelly and then they cook and then the whole this was xke a coal you see this was thin~ was sort of levelled itself and that's what turned up here by train and then the night of the diner party I suppose and it was turned out onto it would be dipped into a R plack oh huge one HHa no Houbt, and then Mxss Mr. i great there was no bone in it, and he would just slice right down and leave the outside room with jelly and be ice cream and 70 years ago. This was a terrific maid or maids maae/and others borrowed Then there would before cherries that's about and we had axxxs girl and they had all this cleared away and after the ice cream, and the �cake and the cheese cake, and pie oh the cooking would be tremendous Graham and then there's a dance. Well George Rxa~ now they and the McTabish were the leading socialites in Fort William and this George Graham's first home was down on the river like the McKellar home just way down here out straight down and they had lawns and a lovely that goes home ~xase down to the river and they had beautiful and they were very nice. When the~ the railway tracks were moved from down in the East end up here, all those houses were either raised or moved and her's was moved out to the corner of Archibald and Metcalfe? ? and on the south corner of Archibald and quite a large house well there's after he built everything on this side and he built a great big park and when the other of the old house there's a garden decorated with big parlour and then Peter had an office there interested and Died off and I was no longer xx he came down just a meeting about once a year or once every two years or so, and when he and there's all the papers were brought to me one time to digest and write but I was ill and I was ill for a long time but I happened for whatever I could be any worth on my bed the box could be geared over and Mr. Langley had brought so this here to skaH when I was so he took the one day when he was home and gave it to Bill Langley in his office. They had them kept in a trunk in the basement of the library, the old library, well it got to be oh not many years ago somebody wanted to know where those papers were, so I told them in the libaary. Well they hunted in the library and then thing.insi'd e out cou ld n I t f'in d t h e turned thexaaxxH~ trunk and in the mean time Mr. Langley had just died and one of I �daughters oh was I thrilled because I did my part xax~ex he ~~x gave them right back to me because he had brought thmmx to me and I couldn't tell John go xi~kx &Hgk find whoever had the key to this trunk and whoever finds xxwa ix the key I would do my part. Oh that's what happened. Well the older people those thatw were left, when those older people had joined to form what we call ..... they would alternate the meetings but would be very well attended because there xaliieae more people wka maxe« and there were some in Port Arthur really new comers although they were elderly and then they progressed to having a building and my mind simply thought well at xeHxx these meetings were over the library and this is why the ... and then you see these new people which was all revitalize the wanted to and do the museum and have about up and coming things was in my surprise I said would become of these Port Arthur people where very impressed, they outside and I said well my goodness are you going to do it? its wonderful to have some a~iside that are going to revitalize it, they didn't even sayH anything, however, but you see the end of these between these two towns, but of course they're one now but I mean in the west xi«e end isn't died off, it takes a generation of folks to die off. Mind you in the olden days it was a «ixxiii~x thing because they MaHx« were quite isolated in the winter, cut off, entirely isolated cut off still and they had good fights just tremendous fights that brought often HH« xkex any other day and this kept them alive. Q. weren't enough. A. Oh yes, because there Q. There wasn't enough A. Yes ae~HHXe if they want they could have it, you were �/0 in Port Arthur and they were very friendly, those people ? A. Yes, you see Q. Do things like that their grandfather came to Ontario when everything a long time ago to the land if you took the land and you were told that only mining was sss xke ~~xsxKHsx~~HXkKs KHSX~~HxkKsxx~ x~ took a fold and you had to hope cariboo and also to the California gold and therefore be something a miner and you just sent by the Allie Mining Co. who their representative here and they kKs have prospectors all through the bush. I would expect there would be a thousand prospectors all through the bush, mind you it would be so many miles out where they were and I suppose they were out about xke all the substance where they win but .... Q. A. Yes, maybe forty years ago, a long time ago, ... Q. Would A. Well they, yes, that was established by a :f:xxm called a i~~, they had six xliii and the grandmother and he and my aunt they then had six sons KHs, then there was and/they had three daughters. Then grandmother and grandfather and the girls at that why the sons were all fixed with tradeaown east machinist and father was a IIXKHSX and they weren't just ordinary tradesmen time were they were really sHpex supper, I guess all of them had two trades before they were a handyman. , and of course in those days you were There was a University in Toronto father wanted to us and back home there was what we found in Toronto. So father from and my mother and brothers like a another one has a foundry now and also coal mine next to the one �II who has a foundry and something else, and the oldest brother has something call RH~ end of an old building ~ln'.HXXH not an archway, oh my goodness that was very long ago, but only he would he would be back and also with a potter maker and that's very still Well they had all these things, the brothers, and m¥ grandmother thought that this was going to be arain city • a ~xeax an d t h ere way you h a d to come h ere an d th e west wou ld come here and they coming into this they would set now but she just told the boys up and they would all go inx~ =together, so the day came when they guilt the Port Arthur Iron Ore all under one roof, and they were BR ? and it was A. The year, well 92 years ago, 1873, and father was married/before Eva lffRthe first child was born so he stayed down east and he knew the Q. What year did Indians? He bought them food and came up in July of that year and the Crothers had been here putting up buildings. there~was The CPR was coming through and it was going through RR ~x~ no foundry between Toronto and Winnipeg and there was so many being done so father would that they would be working night and day to settp the and get the He had this xi~ little engine that they had set up a boiler to give them the power to run the little engine, it would run all over in the machine shop. to put up a Now in the foundry they had and all kinds of things there and in the blacksmith's shop fordge and all this. Well iMewas the machine shop that was taking xkeixx~x~exs the longest and they were trying to get this boiler to get it started but in the meantime . as it was hard for them to get the material so they set them up XR a line and if you know anything about a steam shaft why they or electricaR~&they had a ~zezz¥ great �overhead and they had leather belts over those between downhill heal on their and they would sew the machine belt,,would be to turn the machine this rubber thing would be on. and and then he put extended So they set them up and he put a great big candle and would .... the long enough for two or three men to stand, but those men could and turn it was a the handle of this forget the word, anyway they came back then they could release the strap came on from a small wheel to a large wheel the large whe~l and then back again and they could turn, I don't know how many men, they could turn the and then before you have the boilerJ~He engine boiler they then you have the cooler working and then ¥~H would matter i~rkx~most of the night to fill th e then r-X ~-xH /boiler and that was no easy they got the little engine going and its a kooky engine but you and but it was an old man who know the staff/they were well would start as long as I could remember but it was a grave price so much noise, so much going on after shop blacksmith/ around school there were always boys who town that would need men well the blacksmith would RH ask him to help with the fordge you know this sort of A. Yes, and X Q. KR I ix was awful after school and on Saturdays this nice old boy and I found out that he was one of the men he worked I guess he kept track of everything and like the handyman � https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d879455e6691b905a588f780a4c40db1.pdf b8d9aa7b2c6d2f103b99d16600f8879b PDF Text Text .·, 1 MRS. GER~RUDE DYKE~-Norah Street The first thing she remenbers is living in Port Arthur and that there were board sidewalks all over. She thinks they were made of white pine planks, there w s no cement at all. The boards had cracks in them and for fun they used to try and get money that was dropped between the cracks out they used pliers or a pie or anything to hook the board so the \ 0 could get the money out. There was just one public school and she doesn't know the date this was. It had just two roans and they were divided. It is now a do 1ble house next to the Baptist Ghurch in Port Arthur, this is the ori r. inal building they did build on to it and it is now the front of the Central School near Gore Park. About 65 years a g o there was~ new Metho ~ist Church being built and the dld one wa s moved down the hill and down Bay 0treet to where the Secord Schoo1 is and that was the first school besides the Central uchool, the next school was on St James Street. Port Arthur and Fort Nilliam were built fourth the first to be built up was the East End were l 1cLau ·· hlin and McTavish Streets are. The first home w·s at this end of Court Street before Bay from there on there was just wilderness. In the forties inter~ci ty was still swamp area. The} s~id they could never build anything on it, it was full of frogs and when the~ did try to build the sand just sunk and it dr2.ined. When people settled here they broucht t _e best furniture as they did come from good families ~own East. The nicehomes were built on Court Ridge and many ~, ears later they started to build in Mariday and it was swampy this was out towards Ghippewa Park this was suppose to be the residential area but industry crept in. When she was young she was never part of the e~cursion that went to Silver Islet for Sunday picnics. There was no hi 6 hway or any other way to get out of town so they had to use old boats that were sold down East and brought her~. The picnics used to consist of potato salad, cabbage salad, sandwiches, cakes and pie. In her day there was the usual drinking, there were four �saloons, and it was men that worked in the bush that used to drink all their wages up in one ni c ht of drinking. Ste said it was outlawed to drink and it wasn ' t educated people who drank then but she thinks there would be better people if they didn't all drink so much, crime wouldn't be as bad if there was no drinking. Around the year 1875 0PR was coming thro ugh. � https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/3f780398215efb8d448801dfa135afb2.pdf 4e8efdff911365f2c76e9e145e0d7dd5 PDF Text Text 7/ J..~ lI ✓ •! I ' I. \ HERSTORY PROJECT Mrs. G. Dyke interviewed by Helen Lovekin Mrs. Dyke: Q. Now what do you want to know about? First I would like to ask you some general questions and then some specific ones that we have come across in our research. How long have you been in Thunder Bay? A. All my life. Q. Uhat did your family do? A. My grandfather came 130 years ago and at that time his mail was addressed to Thunder Bay. I was born in Port Arthur. He came to Thunder Bay as representative of a mining company, he had gone to the California Gold Rush and to the Caribou (Canadian Gold Rush), so he knew quite a bit about minerals. His sons all lean1ed trades so four of therncombined and came to Port Arthur and built Woodside Iron ~1 orks. The company still exists in P.A. . It is 9.5 years ago, this July since my father and mother came because the boys stayed down east when their father and mother came he.:ie, and they learned their trades. Then there was the black- smith and the machinist and the pattern maker and one was a carriage maker an:i painter. They all seemed to have two trades and they were all master mech- anics in whatever they undertook. So their mother thought that the Lakehead would be the Chicago of the north, before there was any C.P.R. running through, So they came up - four of the six boys - to the Lakehead and with their father they built the first building and had that all ready and father was buying the machineT"J down east and making it because he made the first engine that was used in the shop, and it was 8.5 yars ago, the 19th of July. I don't remember dates but my oldest sister was 6 weeks old when they came up; they crossed the lake in a sidewheeler and one of father's oldest brothers was settled in Port Arthur and so they started up right away. inery in rie;ht away, as soon as it came up with father. ing towards P.A. 9.5 years ago bu£.\ is wasn't up to P.A.. and so they could cast iron things. I They put the mach- The C.P.R. uas buildThey hall a foundry The C.P.R. was desperately in need of foundry and ma<:!hine work sas well as blacksmiths. The blacksmith Hasn't so bad because you can move a blacksmith and a foree and an anvil, but you can't / �move a machine shop and a foundry. work at once. So they set it all up and commenced to Father was tryine; to get the boiler in place and get the engine so it would do the work and there is a shaft overhead. with the machines underneath and you pull a lever and the belt that is up top will turn the machine you are working on. This one shaft will turn all the machines, if there is two rous, then there are two rows of shafts. Well, father couldn't get it up at once and there was such a need for it that father put a great big iron thing which could fit 3 or 4 men and put it at the end of the shaft. These men turned the shaft by hand to run these different machines. Uhen one was winded he would step out and another would take his place - and they worked until all hours of the night because there was such a demand for their work. There was an old man in the shop and I remembered old Ned Hill and he was always kept on and when I knew him he was old but he had the job of just Imowing where everything was and he also turned the crank and a man that endured that, father kept him on. The other men had gone of their own free will but Ned had a family and he stayed. Woodside Iron Works. That was the beginning of There is really a great story of the beginning of the shop, when they had the place set up, men uere married and had their homes the brothers, and then there was grand.mother and there was the three girls that Here 13 yea.rs younger than the 6 boys. So there were a lot of women and they decided they would have a pink tea dmm at the shop to celebrate the opening. Q. What is a pink tea? A. It was called a pink tea in those days just for a little decoration I guess. But the women had pink teas at church - we say they had teas nowadays - wHl they added pink and gave it an air. So they had a pink tea, they brought cups and saucers and the baJdng and all arid the work stopped for a half hour and they had pink tea to celebrate. This brother who was in the other molding room or shop as was the case, had cast a horseshoe, a little horseshoe. There was a patten1 made of it in the pattern shop and then you put it in sand - you have to see a foundry to know how it's done. shoe for every woman there. And he cast a horse- As a child I remember that every kitchen had a horseshoe with a li ttl e bit of - not canvas but anyway, yuu put a piece of cloth on the back and you made this little pouch and it was a matchfolder. I don't know where our's went, I don't know if my brother keeps it or not. Anyuay, that was a souvenir of the opening of it and they had a lot of things �like that, and they a.re really a story nowadays. Q. Could you tell me a little bit about your education? A. In p. A. we had the Central School which was the only school in the whole city and then we had the high school which was the only school in the whole district. They came from Fort Frances a.rid Murillo if any of them wanted to - I don ' t remember that any of them did though - and Fort William and Westfort. They came to this four roomed high school. Q. Where i-ras it? A. It was where the gym is at the high school on the hill - P.A. C. I. Q. So they were quite close - the two schools. A. Yes and the high school was torn dmm and the big one built then, they added the gym. It was just four rooms and two teachers and finally they got a woman teacher which meant three. Q. Do you recall what yea.:r that was? A. I don 't Imow. Q. But you were at school at that time? A. Yes. Q. Did that cause any sensation? A. Of course most of the teachers were women but in the high school there had just been the two men always. That a woman was teaching? Then I think this woman was buffeted around by the two men but she stuck with it. from the east. Niss Achison was her name, she came We had a e;reat many teachers who came from around Sarnia because they could come direct by boat. Q. Has she a young woman when she came? A. She seemed young to me - she may have been JO. And I think she taught history and geography and the principal was a Scotchman who had taught boys ' school in Scotland and why he came out here, I don't know. Except that he drank once in a while. Q. Perhaps he was just another black sheep that was shipped off? A. I don ' t lmow, but he was a very superior teacher. The other man was l\'Ir. Morgan and he taught physics and chemistry but he had learned German and at the most unexpected time we would have a little lesson in German just when the principal wouldn't know anything about it. Everybody picked up a few German words. Q. So you feel you got a ue2..l rounded education? A. Yes - . and a great many Hent to Toronto University which was something. • It 1 �would take on the part of the teacher, a lot of real teaching to get them so ambitious as to go on. Q. Did you finish hieh school at all? A. In P. A . ? Q. Did they have Grade 13 at that time? A. T-J ell, Yes . they didn't have grades - in the public school it was the book - Junior and Senior 1,2,3 and 4 and then in high school, I guess it was the year, 1, 2 and Q. J. There was just the three years? Hm1 old would you be if you graduated each year you passed? A. I started school 1-1hen I was 4. My father was chairman of the Board of Educ- ation or a member of it, years and years. This time they were short one pupil to get the goverrrn1ent grant so they said, "Tom, you have lots of children, you can just spare one." Well, I Has tall and big for 4 and so I was sent to school and my aunt Ann, his sister, was the kindergarten teacher. And she taught up to the end ofthe first book I guess. So I was strorg and nell and I uas just 10 or 11 uhen I Has in high school and I got through high school and we had teachers college in P.A. Q. You became a teacher? A. Yes, for L~ yea.rs. 1h . So I went through that and when I graduated I wasn ' t quite And they couldn't Grant me a certificate, I was too young . Q. You had to lJe 21? A. You had to be 18, however they grru.1ted me a special dispensation and I went down east to mother ' s old hqme ru.1d taught there for a year. Q. ~Jhich town would this be? A, Out of l'ieai'ord, near Owen Sound. Then I came back and because they bad done this, allowing ne to teach, I was obliged to teach one year here, so I supplied in the different schools in P.A. -well, there was just the Central School. Then they built the south ward and I took the principals place, she was sick or uent on a trip and I think that was when I was 16 that principal of a south ward school. But I was 5' 10½" I .was so they didn't argue :'1ith me. a. Q. This was A. Yes. Q. A. Q. Because you went through teacher ' s college rather than normal school? secondary school? Yes - because they didn't have a normal school/ And you taught, married, raised your family - how did you become interested �in becoming an historian? ~: If you grew up here, naturally you saw it all happen so you couldn't ~elp but be interested. You might say I just stumbled onto it or grew into it. Q. It has become for you a career? A. No. Q. Do you look at it as more of a hobby? A. Hobby, yes. Goodness, I hadn ' t time. You raise a family - these women that work and raise a family are braver than I. Q. How many children did you have? A. ; I raised 3 children, but I had a lot of company. Q. Company with friends or with your children? A. Both, and relatives - we had relatives all the way from Halifax to Dawson City, and they all stayed on, on trips. Q. Hith both your career as a teacher and a historian, did you find any discrimination? You mentioned that Miss Achison had a bit of trouble with the men but you were able to hold your A. 01-m? Yes , but it was the first lady teach er and if any pupil had to stay aft er 4 she was delegated to stay too. Q. But you were the principal in the south ward - how many teachers were under you? A. Just one - of course don ' t mention that - I was principal at 16. That ' s why I was young when I was teaching, because I started at 4. Q. Was this a lady teacher as well? A. Yes. Q. You would have had no experience between wage differential? A. My goodness, I think the teacher got $32 a month or so. Q. Regardless of whether you were a man or a woman? A. No, I guess the men got more because they were the principals and sub-principals and they had families - they would have to have more - but $32 and $35, There were some of the girls that had a special permit and taught, that saved money and went on to university. Q. Was a teacher paid according to whether he was married or not? A. I think there was a set wage. Q. For a man or for a woman. A. Yes, but the man was al ways married and the woman wasn't. Q. This was before women were allowed to have a career after marriage. A. You didn ' t dream of anything after marriage, other than scrub bare floors and scrub clothes - you hadn't time for ... Q. No married ladies taught, even if they didn't have children? s �A. I don't think so. They didn't here anyways. There were widows - that was Q. different. As a historian, I have come across some of your works which are extremely competant and have you ever had any trouble with the - there is quite a few male historians about kn-ocking anything you might have to say. A. I have never had any trouble because whatever I wrote I had printed myself and they didn't consider me a full scale historian - I was just a woman that was writing down a few things. I don't know whether anybody wanted to have any trouble with me or not but I never did. Q. A. I wrote 3 booklets and I have the .. ........... . lfaat about the organizations and co-operation between women and their org- anizations? I really can't recall any dirty work, they seemed to have - well you can't say they have worked together always because they haven't always. There have been women - some girl teachers who came from down east who were stirring the teachers up to go on strike, years ago. Such things had never been heard of - teachers going on strike - too bad because teachers have a wonderful influence on their pupils and they don't have an influence through It sets them down a bit I think - for the pupils. :Bu:-:t I think that this one that was the leader in all this, wasn't hired _in the second year and things were done gently, they did.~'t have a fist fight. What was her proposition? Hhat was she upset about? Wages, and she was principally upset about it, everything that a strike would ... So you felt your wages were high enough? No, the wages were always low. And yet, you would not consider strike action as the course to take? Not ... She was upset about wages, she was upset about what else, hours? One thing they were upset about was that we weren't pr0ducing teachers of our own and these teachers had to come from down east and of course, in those days, the girls were very glad to get a position and so they came from Petrolia and Sarnia because it was close to the boat. So, one thing she was going to strike for was that the Board of Education would pay their boat fare here. There were people in the town who boarded teachers - they were well cared for and were honored citizens in the churches and all were fine strike. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. �women. Some of the finest women we ever had are teachers, ~: Can you recall, as a young girl, the suffragette movement being discussed? A. Yes, Q. Was there a suffragette organization withing Thunder Bay? A. Of sorts. It wasn ' t very strong but of sorts. The suffragettes had many cartoons in papers of the suffragettes and I think some of them were accused of wearing pants and you could be run in, you could serve a term if you appeared in pants. It is not many years ago since my husband told me that I could~..go to his tailor and order a tailored suit with pants - any material or any cut - and he would pay for it. He knew perfectly well that I would never wear pants and out here it is just the kind of thing because it's cold and keeps your ankles warm. It's not so many years and now we don't think anything of it at all. Q. Must have been auful hard washing long dresses and ... A. Yes , washed by hand. Q. After the suffragette movement of sorts, do you recall the organization that also had something to do with that movement? A. Miss Black who was one of the first librarians in Fort William wasn ' t a fighting suffragette but she was quite in favor of that. Mary J. Black, Q, Unfortunately, all her people were lost when she went out to B.C. A. Yes, she had a brother that she went to when she was sick - before she died, and I suppose like. so many people, they cleaned up everything thoroughly. Q, Too bad that she hadn't given evecy ... A. I suppose, like many people she was going to write it up herself. Q, I believe th?.,t the Homen 's Christian Temperance Union supported suffrage? A. Yes, they weren't fighting about it but ... Q. They gave support. A. Yes. Q. They sent petitions and endorsements. A. Mother believed and belong ea~ to the WCTU for years. We were a big family but mother always had help - always had a maid and hadra washwoman, that came Monday all day and Hednesday for a half a day. That was the day when our dresses and our underwear were washed but not the sheets or pillowcases. That was once a week. She was president of the Ladies Aid and a member of the Mission Circle and the Miss WCTU and the Mother's____ Anyway, mother went to that and the one thing I remember abo~t it - she came home �and mother was the kind that she never looked for an argument, she was a very wise, sw~et uoman, but this night ~he came home and we sat down .... had not experience keeping house for a man and had no family and never did but she undertook to tell the mothers how to bring up their families and Mrs. Dr. Smelly had 8 and Mrs .. Neelan had 7 and they had big families and here(wRet was this woman telling them how. Q. What sort of things was she recommending? A. How to dress your children and how you fed them an.d what you taught them and everything - ;gh'e knew how. answers. These women with no children who knew all the Mother and Mrs. Smelly talked it over and they agreed that they did the best they could at the time. Q. To get back to the WCTU - you mentioned it in your book so I wonder - you have never heard what happened to Ricobs or anything - nobody seems to know. A. Young fQlks organization - The White River Band - and we had the record books for them but Dr. John Ritchie of Regina - he was a surgeon· there for years he is an uncle of Ken Ritchie the doctor in P.A.. A very fine man - well he was secretar-J for years and years and he was a pure wit and his minutes you got there early so you wo:i.aldn 1 t miss John B's minutes, it was lovely. So we had them - it had closed dmm for years and finally my sister sent them to him and of course he wrote back - he was delighted - he said many of the words he didn't know what· they meant but he had used them. So that is were that ·went, and as for the rest I don't know but Mrs. Hamlet - Q. I found several books in the library that were minutes. One of the more notable was a report of a social survey by the Department of Temperance and Moral Reform in the Methodist Church. a great amount of detail with it. It is rather complete, they went into TJas that a woman's organization or was it just church members? A. I don't know for sure but I would say it was an organization within·__. the church not necessarily all church officers. Q. What was it called? The report was called the Preliminary and General Social Survey of Port Arthur, March 1913, Directed by the Department of Temperance and Moral Reform in the Methodist Church and the Board of Social Service and Evangelism of the Presbyterian Church. A. So, you can take your pick there. Q. Yes, it is rather - so detailed, I was wondering if it had been a notable organization. �A. Q. A. Well, I think it was like so many organizations that just are born and flourish for a while and then go. They were doing good work in getting that written down. The statistics were very good. In my letter I told you to contact Mrs. Hamlet who lives in Waverly Towers. She is still there is a little nuclei of the WCTU - she and her sister, who is now in Westmount or Grandview in Fort William. Let me see, did she die just lately? Anyway, Mrs. Hamlet will know - she•s a little birdie woman Q. a very nice woman, a widow. I have noted on my studies of the English suffragettes - they were the prime movers~ that they allied themselves with temperance movements, for the rather obvious reasons. Nellie McClung was very closely allied with the temperance movement. Although it wasn't a militant movement, literature was circulated for women's rights and this went along with temperance, which was A. because women couldn't afford to .... I don't think so, it was the same women largely in all organizations. King's Daughters and all of these - oh, mother belonged to the K.D. or the Queen's Daughters - it was the Queen's Daughters in Victoria's time and then it was Q. A. the King's Daughters. Could you explain the function of the Queen's Daughters? It was an organization that fostered patriotism and when any noteworthy person like a Govenor-General etc. came, the Q.D.looled after them and they had meetings and showed the flag, like the Imperial Daughters - but they were older women - younger than lots of the IODE. Q. It was just a patriotic formation. There was also another book I came across - a report on the Local Council of Women - The West Algoma Local Council of Women. didn't you? A. No, I didn 't . Q. There was a Mrs. Dyke. A. It might have been my mother-in-law. You convened that JO years But I attended - I don't know whether I held any office in it for q_uite some time. But I wasn't a leading light but I think my mother-in-law was and she was a member of a hospital aid before the RMG hos pitaJ. was built and during which time, mother and Mrs. Dr. ~1Smelly and Mrs. Neelson and Yi.rs. Mical. Quite a bunch of them that were very friendly and they enjoyed their friendship at these meetings and once the RMG started - once a week they went to the hospital and mended the sheets and pillowcases and towels. Mother always had a good maid, woman or girl, so that �her children were in e;ood hands and mother was up early so that in the a£ter- Q. noon she could go and bring word back of what they did. This would be the ladies social contact I suppose because they didn ' t work out of the homes. If you didn 't belong to an organization, you wouldn ' t go A. out very much. Yes, that is so. I did come across the minutes from 1894-1950 and I wrote a list of all the Q. proposals and the ammendments that the coucil had made for the wanen. They strongly pushed for women sitting on various boards, particularly the School Board and in 1917 they wished to have at least two women appointed to the Taxation and Organization of Homen Labor Boards. Although they were interested in hospitals, they seemed to have suggested - in 1930 a pre natal. clinic in Port Arlhur - all sorts of things that women are still asking for. It seems that they were thinking along feminist lines - did it strike you that A. way at the time? That ' s why they organized - to have mightier say in things than they have had before because they were supposed, just to run their homes and bring up their children. And now they bancled together and asked for some things like the RMG hospital. There was just St. Joseph ' s Hospital and women didn ' t go to the hospital. to have their babies. The RMG hospital., the women urged that until they got it and the primary idea was for it to be like a maternity hospital. They had wards .and private rooms for maternity but it was RMG that was General, The Railway, Marine and General Hospital. Well, in those early days there was a great deal of typhoid, and they had a lot of typhoid wards and men ' s and Nomen 1 8; And my oldest sister went to the RMG to have her baby and there was a night nurse on for the men's typhoid ward - she crune across the hall to ansuer the bells of the young mothers. To have a nurse who would be far more interested in gabbing all night with those men than Q. A. bothering washing and scalding her hands before coming to the mothers and Eva went home with typhoid fever. Did she survive? A. She survived but she was ill for a long time. The baby as well? Yes. Q. They were both very lucky. A. Yes and lucky too there was a Scotch nurse - a married woman . Q. You see any lO �trained nurse was scarce and this woman married and came with her husband to Port Arthur and someway, I think my brother-in-law knew them well enough to have her come and look after Eva. She was Scotch - trained and we had very few trained nurses in those days. That is what started the RMG - to be Q. a maternity hospital. Were you also a member of the Women's Institute? A. No, that was a rural organization. They made - two or three years ago - the word went through all the institutes : "Have your district written up." and Mrs. Oliver did it for Slate River. Each area had it written up and I pre- sume all those books and papers are kept at the headquarters. Q. We are having a difficult time extracting the Hymers book from a Mrs. Thatcher. She has it and she is not giving it out. A. Q. Well - and hasn't had it published yet? No. I know that the Women's Institute did some valuable things including setting up libraries and providing rural women with what they needed - a place to go and be with other women. The council is more politically orientated - was there any tension between the two or did you co-operate? A. I don't recall any tension. Q. A. Was there any co-operation between the two groups for projects? Some. Q. Can you give me the areas? A. Q. I just have the feeling. Did you hear of the Dominion Women ' s Franchisement Association? They did change their name to a much easier one which was the Canadian Suffrage Association. I talked to Mr. Russell Brown and he said he remembered but he couldn't remember anything about the suffrage movement other than they wore pins. A. They tried to be militant to stir themsel~es up and to head up a slight war but they never got that far. Each strove a little bit and all together they have got some very good things for women. Q. After looking at the minutes I am findin 6 so many things that we are still fighting for. Looking back, do you think we have changed very much? gotten anywhere? Have we A• They have really done very well. Slowly and without making big distresses. They quietly accomplished a good many things. Q. Have you got something that you had worked on then, that is still not an accomplished feat, that you would very much like to see happen? \l �A. I don't think I can pull that one out of a hat. Because there ar~ so many things that they just have quietly gotten. Nellie McClung - she used to come and speak. Q. A. Her father-in-law was Presbyterian. She came to speak here? In P.A. and F.H.. The men loved Nellie McClung, she was witty. I used to go with father, and to hear her speak in the evening, there was lots of laughs in it. Q. A. She was very diplomatic and very kindly but she made a point. lfas she an inspiration for you? Yes and she had some experience with liquor and so she was out and out for WCTU. I remember her speaking in the Presbyterian church in Port Arthur - St. Paul's - and there would be as many men as women because she was worth going to hear and you quite agreed with what she had to say because she put it quite nicely. She spoke this evening and I think there was some big ~ I don't suppose it was a war, but something was on and the Archbishop of Canterbury had said that he couldn ' t do without his wine because it helped his digestive system and stomach do it ' s work. And the way she would state it and she had a little twinkle in her eye and everybody was laughing about this. The Archbishop uasn ' t an out and out prohibitionist, he liked his wine. was a very fine woman. She She went west - her father-in-law was one of the earliest ministers in P.A. - Methodist, because Robert McClung, who she married taught a Sunday school class of boys as a minister's son was expected to do. My aunts were all teachers and my grandmother taught the Bible class and my uncle was a Suuday school superintendant, and his wife played the organ in church. These were unrilly boys that Bob Mcclung was teaching. young man, 19 or so, He was a very Hell they would sit around him with their row of chairs, heads tight together listening to him. And they discovered that he had a copy of Robinson Crusoe in a Bible cover and he was reading that to them and they just~ loved him and loved his stories. Nellie went west to teach in those early days and she fell so in love with Mrs. Mcclung and there was a young son and she was so disappointed because if she could marry a son, she would be Mrs. McClung's daughter-in-law. To her great amazement and joy, this bo:;y sh(n1red up one time - he was a druggist - and here was a ready-made son of her own age. So she said that she - well, she would say it of course - she simply said her cap and he couldn't get out of it. So they married. led a great deal and was acclaimed wherever she went. She lectured and travelShe was well-known and one time she heard that her husband was objecting to her being away so much \2 �without telling her. So she went home and she had been honored in Toronto and Ottawa and he felt she was getting beyond him so when she got there in the evening and they had tea, she said to him, "Would you please pass.the brown bread?". That was the staple food, brown bread, and she wanted him to under- stand that she was still staple. So it went on from there. She loved Mrs. McClung and Mrs. McClung loved her, more than any of her own children. Q. Was she treated well by the papers here? A. Yes, wherever she went. Q. Did they print up any of her speeches? A. Oh, yes. Q. So, if I go through the microfilm - you don't know the years she was here? A. No, I couldn't tell you .... If you just get up and give dates and times, it just bores you to death. I see you have read "Plane Down" , that story in there. It is pure fiction but this is the house they crune to. They came in that door tumbled down their goods there, and went into the livingroom and we made fires in the kitchen and the back shed still has the great woodpile. Ann Caaslet, the Dickinsons were really pioneers, her great grandfather ran - r·don ' t know whether it was the first paper published in P.A. e His granddaughter is Mrs. Ann Causelet and she lives in this cottage where old Captain Marrin lived, Ann Dryna - my mind went blank, what was I going to say about Ann Dryna? ,a/,. '· 1 e A. . .... Oh yes, that "Plane Down" and they have been here for ever and ever and were talking about Nellie McClung. Ann speaks very slowly. morning. She lives back again in F.W. and she phoned this She said, "Mother and I have racked our brains trying to think of the year that plane mishap and we can't remember it at all. pen?" When did it hap- I said, "Imagine, have I convinced you?•, "Convinced me of what?". "That's pure fiction" and she said, "You told it too well, we thought it was true," Q. You have been very active in women's organizations all your life, and so has your mother. A. How do you feel about the women's oganizations now? I'm stric~ly a temperate woman, Father called it the "accursed stuff" because he had such trouble with th.e,~:men, especially the foundry men. fines and hauled them out and got them back to work. He payed their He and mother were strictly temperate and one thing I o1;>ject to is that these organizations now there is wine and cheese - well, it doesn ''t seem to dawn on them that they don't need to have this wine and cheese business but they think they've got to do like some of the others do. There are other less outstanding things �that they are also embracing and it used to be that now the Canadian Club was a splintered organization, it was for the most part made up of cultured, educated women, and I don't say that they aren ' t educated now, but I don't like some things and I feel that the women ' s organizations should stand forth for the best in Canad.a and you can't bring up children to avoid alcohol if you belong to these organizations that serve it and take it. to be on one side or the other. didn't need it. You have got We didn ' t serve it and we didn ' t miss it and And then, after all, women have a place that is separate from men and women are dressing like men and their doing so many things that men do, Q. Do you mean working? A. No, I mean in every way. For example, car racing and boy, the women are driving the cars along with the men. They have to do with all the sports. Q. You think that 's wrong. A. I think the men like them to be women. Q. Nellie HcClung had a saying: We were t~J.king to a woman who preferred to have her coat taken off and the doors opened etc. and Nellie McClung referred to that once as "wantin 0 to eat the icing rather than the cake." And that goes right along with her brown bread saying, where yoy. have to be recognized for your ability, and whether they open the door or ill.at shouldn't stand in the way. To me, this is the goal I 'm trying to work towards, and I think a lot of other women that I work with would agree with me on that. It is the cake that I would rather eat, you get too many cavities eating icing - too many holes in it. Do you have a daughter? A. Yes, in California. Q. Do you think that it is a better life for her than it was for you? A. It was pretty rugged and we didn't know it because it was where we lived and what we were used to. They have sidewalks and roads now that you can go without going down to the axle and in my day, in Fort lilliam especially. we have coveniences now in the house and travel etc. And Yes it is much easier. I was telline; somebody of a classmate of mine who got to P.A. from the States and came to high school. I don't know how she got to P.A. and her father had died and her mother was lecturing for something. She and her brother and, I don't know how they jerked themselves up but anyway they both got to P.A .. She was poor and had no ml':biley or \~achl.ng worked her way. but she got up to Collegiate and she She got up for this English woman who had 2 girls and she �washed and dressed them and got them breakfast and eot them to school and did the beds and dishes and left the house tidy - to come to school herself. I didn't think she paid and as for clothes, she gave her her cast-off clothes and this woman was two sizes smaller than Lula and Lula I remember had no hat so she wore a bonnet every winter and it was all she had. jolly well take· h er with a bormet or leave her. And you could She went through public school and went to the teachers college which we had for a few years and then she went up the line to teach and married the first man that asked her. hadn't had a home, so just to have a home. about him. She She wasn ' t asking the man much He had a farm but it had been bun1t over and when I saw her after some years of marriage, her hands were like horns - she was still using this burnt over wood and she had 5 children and somebody said "one every Friday" .every year, anyway. Her husband wasn't interested except to feed them - that was his duty done. She wanted them to have an education so she sewed and she proclaimed herself a barber and then she got a second hand chick hatchery an incubator - and turned one of the two bed.rooms she had into an incubating • room and hatched chickens and sold them around the district. tomatoe plants and sold them and sent her children to school. Then she raised Then they had to go into town for the hi¢gh school - her oldest daughter went first and she got babysitting - had a room but I don't think her board, but did that and it was enough to bring her cash. Then she went home Friday night and her mother did the s~wing, washing and ironing, fixed her up on Saturday and then she came back Sunday night and brought a big basket of food. Her brother was ready for hig9.school and they just put a sheet up in her room with a bed on each side and she managed the food for them. He eventually became a teacher and she trained in HcKellar Hospital and she had the money that they, paid the girls - $2.50 a month or $J.OO and if she broke a thermometer, it ~as a disaster and she had clothes her mother made out of old clothes. Stockings and those button - on shoes was all she had and she learned like her mother:· that was what she had and she wore •-il and she was thankful. denims so she could go hiking with the girls. RMG and had a bad time. Had a pair of The next girl went into the The matron didn ' t approve of her - a poor girl in the class with some of the girls that had more - so she dismissed her on the first pretext she could find and she herself was dismissed for cilsmissing the girl. They all managed and were splendid children. How many are doing that nowadays? \S �If they haven't silk stockings and all the rest of it, they sit down and howl at the moon, but these youngsters didn ' t. Q. I feel sorry for the girl you went to school with who married the first man who caJ.11e along to get a home and live with a man - probably not a very happy life. A. Oh, I'm sure, but she wouldn't cheep, there would be no squabbling, she made her bargain and she kept it. Dad finally died and he had a thousand dollars life insurance in some organization - very little. Now that is five $200 ' s well the youngest girl had died so there were four and she was the fifth so they each got $200 and that was just touching the •::louds. She came to F. W. and two or three times she came representing the Women ' s Institute and they would pay her way down and then she would stay with me and she told me "I just went on a regular binge, I bought an electric iron and an electric kettle" and then she bought enough black silk or rayon and a neighbor helped her make a dress and a jacket and she had $.50 left and she put it in the bank - so she had a bank account. The others - it was spent the same Hay - had to give a good account of every nickel. She died long since and at Christmas time I write one of her daughters and this daughter - her son and another boy in the neighbqrhood were going to play PeeW ee hockey in F. W. , so they stayed with ll!e. Youngsters love to see through a house so when they had been there a little while .I suggested that the boys go on and look through the house and see everything. One youngster went home and I guess he nadn 't been in a big house before and he told his mother all the details - the furniture, what they had on the beds, how they took a bath . in the bathtub. He is now a grown man and married long::::since but she still gives me a little of his history and she and her sister were fine women and well thought of in the community and the one boy is a teach er and the other is head of the highways in Kenora and I don't knou whether he is still there or whether he is retired or not. They have always accepted any help - so nicely - no embarrassment, just thank-you very much. Q. Uas there any help for a woman uho wanted to leave her husband - perhaps if he physically beat her or the children? Has there anyone she could turn to if she had no family? A. 1 tfell, they turned to the church and the minister and his wife. went into housework - that was her refuge. Of course, she �Q. Would she be able to take all of her children? A. If there Here children that would be different. Q. She would have to put up with it. A. Q. Yes, many of them did. A. There was often a ver-J nice neigbor map. who would beat the daylights out of This is one of the things we are still trying to work on. him - which he well deserved. Q. I asked an Italian lady in Italy what a wife would do if the husband beat her and she said that generally they never moved from the original village and she had her brothers protect her. It would take on<f.'•• thump and generally he got the message. A. There was an early priest - Father Baxter in P.A. He was a great big burly man and if he heard of any man that had been beating his wife, he ' d talrn off his clerical black gown, "nightg0vm" as they called it, and he ' d just give him such a thrashing that he wouldn't forget it. Many a man stopped beating his wife when he had a beating from Father Ba,'Cter. He came out here in the early days and said mass and that white house down there is built on the old foundation of the old Catholic church - the Sellars live in it. quite a family of them. in the Lakehead. There was They were the early elevator people and grain pe ople Hr. Al Sellars bought it but it was in such disrepair and it was finally torn down and then the foundation was. remade and he built the same size on thesame foundation. It was during the years I was away from Silver Islet that it was finished so it took some arguing on Ethel Sellars ' part to convince me that it wasn ' t the old Catholic Church. Q. Do your remember WWI? A. Yes. ' Q. · I am a history teacher - do you remember after the Har, in your experience, if the attitude towards working women changed much? A. Yes, it commenced a change because the women had irnrked so hard during the uar. Q. At jobs that a lot of people didn ' t think they could do. A. 1-J ell, Q. Did it progress further after WH2? A. Yes and after WWI and especially after WW2, the people had learned to go out there were more stenographers and bookeepers and things like. that . and enjoy themselves and people had learned to leave their children and go out. They took their families lightly to what they had been before, A mother wouldn ' t \7 �leave her children and go gabbing. They think nothing of leaving them and they can pretty much bring up th ems elves, the youngsters. Q. Do you see no discrepancy between a woman hiring a girl t.o feed her children breakfast and lunch and do their clothes and send them out to school, even though she lives withinl. the house, to women who have to use daycare centres to do the same thing? ·no you see much of a difference? A. Of course daycare - Miss Michaels has now set up her evm school in the Salvation Army Eall and has the daycare. That is a real profession. She has a real degree and education. Q. The point I ' m getting at is the effect on the children, Why would it be more acceptable to have a girl living in your home to do that? A. Because they are home - that's the only differ-~nce. These daycare centres, where the girl has to Imow a lot and the child must learn a lot. Q. Yes, they are very careful with them. A. There was a couple married in Hesley Church a11d they were quite active, they were both teachers. They had a child and they didn't show up again and it was some time before one of the ladies went to call and found that· this beautiful little girl baby had an enormous head - it was terrific. There nas something wrong with the children a11d so from that, they banded together and Wesley let them have a room and they met every mon1ing uith a different mother looking after these 5 or 6 children. It meant a holiday for the mother -l~ days a week and 5 mothers, and 5 children and they did simple ~ai.11es and things and looked after them and the mother would be refreshed and rested. I went d01m for about 26 years. I was the relief officer - that is an at- tendant to the second-hand clothing and people would come to my house, I had a trunk that was never empty and never full. ....... I would then send overseas twice a year there were greatshipments. I" remember one time .we sent 850 lbs. a.nd that is a lot to pack a.nd Hr. Gerr'iJ would come and help us rope and the McKenzie dray came and took it, shipped it, a11d paid tho shipping charges and just charged us for the shippinc charge - they never charged us for their dray and went on for years and yea:cs ... I would often be at the church in the morning~ after school and these children - the little girl with the great big head, I don ' t know how she held it up - it must have taken a long time to get it O o I• Q. How long did she survive? A. I think she was 9 or 10 when she finally died. shapen and mongoloid. The others, they were mis- I always stopped and talked to them and told them a story, so that they got to know me. l3 �• Q. A. Aft er the war, when ladies had been working in factory jobs and that sort of thing, when their husbands came home, did they expect them to go back to the way they had been? What sort of conflicts Callle from the change? They expected it. Women often went out without any squabbling, they get their own way and they had more money than they had ever and they weren ' t going to give that up right away. Q. A. So there was difficulty. The majority of women stayed with their husbands. And the husbands learnt to live with liberated women? It wasn't so easy for the men to get jobs and there are a few sensible men that would see that their wives really had to bring in the bread and butter and they had to work at home themselves. You saw quite a few, but also you saw the one that wasn ' t going to have it. going to stay so. ironed out. He was king of the castle and was That was the unfortunate few but it is wonderful how many There was one English girl that came out - the men came home first - well they sent the women home first - anyway, she was-______ and she married and Indian from the mission over here and in England they are not so concerned about the color of their skin as we are. them marry from the Near East - red and brmm skin. A great many of One of our ta,-ximen was at the station and this girl came to him and wanted to be taken to the mission, and he was shocked. She was a fine looking :I!nglish girl, so he said "Are you sure that is the right address?" She had married a native Canadian and was going to stay with his people until he got here. H2 very nicely tried to persuade her not to but she was going - he took her for quite a long ciistance and then you turn up tolthe reserve and he said he noticed that her chatter ceased when he turned up because it was pretty crummy in those days, they've decent houses now. He told her that this was the house and he told her he would wait and for her togo to the door. So she did and a big, fat, very unclean looking squaw came to the door - the mother of this boy she married. She just threw up her hands and came back to the taxi and said for him to take her away from there. He told her he knew and had tried to tell her but he decided she had better see for herself. He told her he would take her to his house or to the Salvation Army, 1-1hichever she wanted and she could get help from the Red Cross to go back home. She chose to go to the Salvation Army and reported to the Red Cross and they came and helped her. went right back home. She just They would have been marrying boys from all the colonies so she ..... now they are very fine, smarl Indian men that are working on the highways and worki:pg at machines. They've had a tough time, our native people. /9 �.,· • Q. A. We have a lot to account for. They used to scalp people and shoot them down with arrows and burn them and do all kinds of things. If we had a hoard of p~ople come in and take over our country - they had it for thousands of years - of course they ' d fight. Q, As far as scalping goes, it was white men that taught the Indians - they used It was easier to bring in a scalp, they thought of ears for a while but a guy could bring in two different ears and say they were ears from one person and so, the scalps. A. More power to them - fight for their land. If somebody crune along and put me out of this house, ..... Thank-you for your help Mrs. Dyke, it for bounty. l.C � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Gertrude Dyke Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Gertrude Dyke in Port Arthur, Ontario. The interview was performed by Helen Lovekin as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of two sides each of two cassette tapes, available here as four MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnails. During the interview, Mrs. Dyke recalls the social and working conditions of Northern Ontario in the early 20th century, focussing on the education system, her personal historical interests, regional terrain, temperance movements, local businesses, community and personal relationships, and the activity of women. Please note that this tape includes discussion of settler-Indigenous relations, using language that would not be seen as sensitive or appropriate today. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [197?]-06-27 Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/410c47f63b3093a416dc18cf4dcb14e3.mp3 50d9889c7e2c2e2d5594d9fac554b494 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/0bf9bda3bc2e6ca1787dcf4464679786.mp3 b91e4e5becfe39eff6d039225d2e78a3 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5da075abefd2ebfa02058a1a555de252.pdf cbabafa68b879647067d3c3b15adc946 PDF Text Text T / j HERSTORY PROJECT Mrs. Peltier interviewed by Helen Lovekin - Q. ~hat year were you born? A. 1896. Q. How long have you lived here in Atikokan? A. Since Q. When did you move up to Northern Ontario? A. In 1923. 1923. We went to Keshabowieand there were 13 houses at that time including the school, the Post Office the store, everything. Q. What brought you into Northern Ontario? A. Work - we couldn't be were we had no work. You see we were close to Winnipeg and it was the time of the Depression and a man that comes from Montreal and goes and settles in Saskatchewan with crop failure year after year will sell it. Q. Did he work on the railway? A. Yes, there is where he started when we moved close to Winnipeg, he was laid off in the fall because he was a new employee. All winter long we had no- thing to eat - just what I could squeeze so hard in the summer time, we just barely lived. Q. So you grew things in a garden? A. Of course, we had to, we had to do something. All the berries we could get at least for at Christmas time - that was the least we had to have. With time and application, each time there was an opening at some place on the CN, he kept applying until he got the job at Kashabowie. Q. How did you feel about leaving Montreal? A. I didn't live in Montreal, my husband was from Montreal. I think it must have been a hard time for him too. Q. Are you from Quebec or ... ? A. No, I am from Manitoba. Q. How did you feel about the change? A. I was glad as long as I got something to eat and feed my children with. There was not much of a future but at least we knew we would have something to eat all year round. When a man worked frcrn April to October and then he is laid �off and not a dollar is coming in. "' No matter how careful you are you have to have a few clothes for the children, you have got to get a pair of shoes now and then - it was no life. I would have gone anywhere, anyplace as long as we were earning our daily bread and I didn ' t believe in going "on the town" and I was too proud to go and ask for help like that, so it was rough. Q. For the sake of being independant, I was willing to go anywhere. There was nothing I wouldn't do to better myself. q When you came to Kashabowie you said there were 13 buildings - how many children did you have with you at that time? A. Three, I went over there with a three week old baby. The other two were tugging at my skirt, and a bag of diapers and a few cookies for them because I had 12 hours of train ride. I never forget when I arrive over there my heart went down so low. Q. A. Why? r \'1\ .Q..'() l • Mainly becaaee) they don't trust us too much sometimes. .. 1J IYI 1, He told me about a nice, white little cottage that I was going to go to, well, I was so happy and I looked forward to that white cottage. It was on a hill alright, but it was an old cutter ' s shack only partly whitewashed.. Q. When your husband was working in Kashabowie what sort of things did you do? A. Entertainment, you mean? Q. Yes. We stayed there four years and the only thing that we could do was at Christ- A. mas time when they had some kind of Christmas Concert~y the children who were going to school, in fact - e ¼:c was one of the pupils, she did her first year, Outside of that, they were all Finlanders and there were maybe two or three families that 1,eren 't - two Francais and the others must have been English. those Finnish I'm telling you it was lonely and they would invite us women, and they were very nice and very entertaining with their baking, ver-J generous. But they all speak their language and us, we were just sitting there like a bump on a log. Actually it was boring for us but for the sake of seeing somebody - you get to a point in places like that - I guess you go backwards instead of forwards. You think more of your problems than of something brighter. Q. Uhen you were with these women, and although it wa-s boring because they didn't speak any English, was it more for the sake of being with the company of women? �3 A. Yes, it Has for company's sake. You Even if it was boring, it was still something. were g etting dressed, you took time to get dressed, put on the best dress you owned, fix your hair, you made your girls as pretty as little dolls and it was something to do apart from cooking the cheapest way and' scrubbing those bare floors and carrying water, like I did by the pailful. pail up the hill. Pail after It was a change that was really helpful al though it was boring to sit there and not know what was being talked about. Then every- body lmitted in their own way - the Finlanders don't hold the needles like we do and do they ever go fast and the beautiful knitting. They were won- derful women and wonderful workers with the exception of the language problem. Q. Did you have more children while you stayed at Kashabowie? A. Yes, I had two more and each time I moved back home to have them. Q. You never had them in a hospital? A. Never. Q. Who helped you with the children? A. A neighbor - there was always an old neighbor, somebody older than I was, Who helped you as a midwife? Everybody did it, I helped you today and tomorrow you helped me. it myself too after I was older. I did Not for money, at no time did we take money. And then the entertainment - I've seen at times if somebody who could sing came, it was a singing party. Q. A. lhy did you come to Atikokan? 1 For a better living again. From Kashabowie, of course my husbaJ1d kept bidding for the section foreman's job and then we went to ------- for year but he couldn't handle the work so we got transferred to Emo. one I wanted school by that time for the children. Q. They were old eno,ue;h to go to school? A. He had two of school age and then I wanted school because I didn't have all the schooling I lrnuld have liked to have and I didn't want my children to be in the same boat. So we went to Erno and we stayed there 28 years so the children all got their education there and of course in Fort Frances soon as they went into other courses. I came here after my husband retired, you have 8 children and small ch~cks all the time, in fact I always tried to earn money myself outside to make up. All he had was a $40 pension per month and we couldn't pay ta-xes, we cou:1dn't pay fuel, we couldn't pay hydro, we couldn't eat/and the work over there was not good enough for me. �Q. What were these jobs? A. No, in the hospital. Cooking in camps? Anyway I decided we should come here and I '11 get a house and I'll keep bo\ders because mines were still in full swing. of the mines - this was 22 years ago and the That is w-J:nt I did, I caine here, and I bought a house for 9 thousand dollars and I had almost 2 thousand dollars of furniture because I had to have a large freezer and leaving a place where I had no electric appliances, I caine here and I needed those things. In seven years, I was clear - I didn't owe a dollar to nobody. Q. For both tmms, Erno and Atikokan, when you moved to Emo, was it already an established toim? A. Yes, but it wasssmall, about 700 I think. Q. Not, like Kashabowie. A. No, at least there was a four room public school and there was a two room high school and there were three churches. There was a better future for my children and I wanted my children to have better than what I had. Q. In again,- Atikokari, what was it like 22 years ago? A. Not too many sidewalks. Q. Was it like a hole punched in the bush? A. Not, really, it was better than Emo. Better grocery stores, better schools but then I didn't need those things then because my children were all gone, in fact, my twins had just finished their courses. self. So I was really for my- I had three grandsons that were that age besides my own. Then they were teenagers so they were not small as to tie me dmm, so I was free to ) work. Q. You are very strong about the idea of improving your life for your chttdren, from the interview from Mrs. Uebber she has mentioned that you are deeply involved with the Catholic Church? Was that a religious conviction, a pers- onal convic:tion to work for your children? My parents were Catholics and I was brought up a Catholic. But there was always something - I don't know - not that I think it is the wrong religion, but some of their rules to me were man-made rules uhich I dirln 't agree with. I'll take from the Bible, I'll accept it but from another man, it'sllike I read from some of today's books. Sure it is a beautiful story but it is still a man's stOT'IJ. There was aCatholic church over there but they had a priest only sometimes and then sma.11 group of people like that who are poor, no matter hou honest you are, you are always the little one. There were always the ones better off who we had to look up to and I resented that very much. Myself, I believe in equal rights. �5 Q. Do you believe equal rights for not only classes but from the standpoint of A. men and women? Yes, and no. I like to be independant from men, I'll admit - I don't like men to boss me around. They're not going to tell me what to do - I know what I have to do and I'll do it. And if I know I can't do something, I'll say I can't do it or I don't care to do it. I don't like to ~e pushed around. I think I am a queer woman sometimes, but ... I have been fortunate and I am at this time, one of the most fortunate senior women that is living I am sure. Q. A. Why? How do you see yourself fortunate? I look at all of the wonderful things there are in this world. I have the nicest friends and it is not because they are poor women like me - as far as money is concerned they are far better off than I am. They have the ed- Q. ucation that I don't have. I never learned English at school myself. Did you find it a problem when you moved to Manitoba, not speaking English? A. I was born in Manitoba and I was raised on a bush farm. enjoyed it but I don't think my mother liked it too much. money was as scarce as it has been for us now and then. Of course, us kids In those days We were fortunate that my mother was a school teacher, so she taught school there. Not through the government like they do today, she did it for the sake of the children and she liked to help out. That is how come we got out French but we didn't have English - she knew English but those Frenchmen - you had to be so French and it is drilled into us to be French and we are. - When I left home to go and work I found it difficult and I was lonesome and I was amongst Englishspeaking people, but I was determined to work and to make my living. Q. Did you encounter discrimination in your wages or in your positions because you were a woman? A. I don't think so. Q. A. For instance, the differences in paychecks? Oh, yes. Q. Was it a great deal or was it just a little bit? A. It was not that much - of course with the work I was doing, I was not a professional and I was just cooking. a man does. Maybe us women get away with more than Q. What do we get away with? A. Let's say a crew of men that you are cooking for will expect more from the man than they woul d expect from the woman. �In time they might cat er to us and to take too, to what the cook will say. Q, A. Q. A. That is important in a bu;3h camp,ci It was not in a bush camp, I never cooked in a bush camp, just in the hospital and the railroad. How did you feel after p~tting so much of this tremendous energy into giving the children the best that you could possibly give? After they erew up, how did you feel when they were gone? I was happy. They turned out to be good women, every one of them. They are all living, I got my eight girls and they are all living, and they all finished something and they are all able to keep themselves above board and better off tha.n I ever was. I am alright now, I have got plenty to eat and I don't have to worry, I don't have a palace but I like it - I like old things, I am old and I like old things. I am happy with my girls, they are all good to me. Q. So, your family hasn't left you, they are still around. A. Oh, yes, they are all here and generous and so are my son-in-laws .. Q. So it was an accomplishment to you? A. Yes. And you found all the effort was worth it? Q. A. Q. A. Yes, I'm repaid for it. It must be very gratifying. Yes, of course there is religion involved too. I guess I preach sometimes too because some of my girls are ver-J close to religion too, some are not so close and their husbands too. But they are all good men, that is One thing I am thankful for. When I hear somebody say something about mother-in-laws, I don't like that. I have no difficulties with my son-in-laws - why do others have difficulty? I don't Imow. What more do I want in life? Right now I couldn't ask for any better - I don't: live in luxury but I like it. I keep my house as clean as I can and of course I am busy. Q, Do you feel that when you had this large family, did you feel like a pioneer? A. No.I tried to get to the top, that is all. Q. And this was a place to do it? A. Really what I had in mind was the future of my girls and I wanted them to have better than what I had, at any cost. time, no sacrifices. I wouldn't back up on no work, no I would have done without shoes or stockings, or any- �1Q. A. Q. A. thing to let them have it so they could go on. It is nice that all of your girls grew up well and they still come and see you and you a.re vecy happy with them. You mentioned about being French and how you loved being French. So what I go for that I believ e in is to lea:rn to speak it well, use the proper words and your proper grammar. So you don't like the Quebecoisi.J;c.,.\e<..~ 1~ Not too much. When we were small a funny thing happened. There were some Quebecois but the kids were always tormenting us because we were French Belgian, you see, my father was from Belgium. They kept hounding us and calling us "The Belgians" or something like that and at one point we went to Mama and asked her why they kept calling us that name. We were proud to be French Belgians you Imow. You see, my father's parents were from France and they had to imigrate to Belgium after or I think before my father's time. My mother just said "Call them Green Canadians" and of course we went out Q. A. like a shot and if after they said anything about our being French Belgian, - I don't know why we resented being called that because that is what we were - of course we called them Green Canadians. Did you find that this pride was a spiritual need in you? No, I think it is more the French feeling - and old country French - and that is home and country. You die for your country - you lay down your life for your country first of all - and I think that is what it was. Although my mother was a Canadian born and my father was old country French and their mother was from the U.S.. My mother never really talked that way to us, but of course we had old count:ry French people too and then our relatives were all older than my father was and without hestitation you lay down your life for your countcy and your flag was .. that's it. Q. Did you find any of these feelings lacking because you lived in these small communities in Northern Ontario? A. Q. You mean lacking in me or in other people? From your sur-.coundings . A. Yes. . .......... Nobody has the same interests. Maybe they would if they were in another country. I don't think people really talk about it or are interested the same as we were. Because most of the people of my father's generation were from the old country and that is what makes the difference and maybe �t r:. ~lk.r c...; '"1"?.\"'\J;~ if I were in another country myself it would make a difference. A •••••• And that is the only kind of wood she had in the winter time and she had only a cook stove. She had to keep on making fire all night long in order not to be cold because the little boy was not very old and the little girl either. So my kids found out on the way to school that they stopped so we went to see her and she told us_she had been up all night making the fire. her to come over I told and they stayed with us until I don't know what happened. Until she had something else to help her but the wages were all the men could get at that time Q. - was five dollars a month on the highway. Do you wish there had been more co-operation between the women in these communities or do you think there was a great deal of co-operation? A. I think the co-operation was as good as it could be, considering the conditions. If you have no work, what can you do? Iffyou don't earn any money - I know, I went through that after the First World War - you just can't do nothing. What can you do? You are raising children, poor little babies and you give them all you can and you are just barley living yourself. could tell you a true story. I When I just had Jean and Madelaine - that- spring was before my husband went to Kashobowie, he was out of work all winter long. As careful as I was to try to have something to eat, and all we had was bread and p:o:vrid.ge and brown sugar. And then came springtime so my husband left to go to Kashabowie for work there which was supposed to be a steady job which he gladly took, and then I didn't want to spend any more ~ money than I had to. When it came to the last of the brmm sugar I just cave them to my two little kids and I did without it with the porridge. That last month I wanted to spend as little as I could. That were the sac- rifices we did during the Depression along with so many other people. sure I was not the only one. Some were more fortunate of course - those that were established you know. thing. I am But when you just start, you start with no- It is just like a business, you start a business on small money. You do it but you have got to be careful and know that you get no wages for yourself and it takes time before you have enough to call your own. Q. A. Did you have any time fo:r yourself at all? With 8 children in less than 14 years? No. ·-"": and I washed diapers for 8 children on the board. on the board. \ I did my sewing, I did my knitting I washed for ten - e &us �Q. Did you ever think sometimes that you couldn't stand it any more? A. I felt there would never be · an end to it sometimes. I saw other people it was or-ay, it boosted me up. Not aJ.l the time, if If I didn't see people every week, or if I couldn't go to church - that is why I went to the United Church actually, that is what took me over there because by going there every week it gave me a boost. Q. What was the longest period you went without seeing anybody? A. I don't know, weeks or a month. Q. What did you do? A. In a place like that, you've got to carry water in to cook , to wash, to wash That must be very very depressing. I your floor, to wash your children, to do the washing, to do everything. is a lot of water to carry, and that takes a lot of us. That There is wood to be carried in, there is ashes to take out, there is water to take out, there a clothesline uas never· too close to a house as a rule. bread once or twic~ a week for that many people. You hawe to make You had to go and dig your potatoes if you had them, you have to go and work your garden .. You have to sew, in those days we patched, not like today. We patched clothes in those days so it was Monday; wash, Tuesday you did the ironing that we don't do today; Wednesday you mended and you mended socks until you couldn't mend them any more. You patched and sewed buttons. So you wash your dishes you wash the little faces, the little hands,put them back to bed and the next morning you ihook the covers and you made the beds again and you feed them and all that and you are busy. There comes a time when you want -t o see someone from outside. a Q.. You just have to get away for little while. A. Yes, you have to otherwise you uould just - you get so lonesome, you fe·e1 there will never be an end to it. It is as if you were caught in a trap. Q. So you did feel trapped sometimes? A. Yes, I did. If I saw somebody taJ.k to somebody, I was up again. I could break loose. As long as Break from the burden of the family where I was tied down and I i-ron 't leave them, they were my children and I stood by them at aJ.l times until they were about 18. There was joy and a lot of sorrow and dis- appointment. Q. Can you tell me about that? Hhat would make you particularly happy, aside from seein6 your children grow up happy and intelligent? �,o A. To Imow that your children are away and you see that they are going to do well for themselves. They grow up to be honest women. Uhat more do you uant? Q. A. That was completely fulfilling for you? Yes. What more could I wish :for? pies - they were reserved. Q. They choose good men, they were not .hip- They choose their company also. _ Do you believe there has been a positive change for women's roles in this ~ community, for say, your daughter? A. I think so. They are freer. In my time, women had to be so careful not to look sideways - you' re talked about - or you don't have to do nothing but'. people will think something. You didn't dress like I am dressed now. matter hoH hot it was you had to have stockings on. free - they are so lucky. Q. No Today the women are so Oh, if I had the chance that the girls have today. If you did have the chance to be my age, what do you think you would like-to do? A. I would travel and I would go for mission work. Q. Hhy mission work? A. To help the less fortunate. Q. So, you like_giving things. A. Right now, I bet you I am the only person who does what I am doing right ·:.1 now. Q. A. What are you doing? Of course I work with the hospitals, I donate good things, new things or almost new things. Sometimes they have too much and what can they do with that but pack those good clothes and have them burnt. should make quilts for the poor with that. six quilts. One day I said we So far this year I have made All it costs me is just 2 or 3 dollars to make and if I have quite a few on hand sometimes and if I sell them I usually turn the money over to the hospital. Q. So you would like to do missionaI'J Hork in Canada? A. Abroad. Q. Any cot1ntry in particualar? A. In the days when I just would have loved to go to school, I would have went to China. Q. I hav~ been to China . .fl A. Have you? Ue have a Chinese girl here. I would do the work here, but as:"l ong as I help somebody less fortunate than I am. I don't like to give to people �uho can afford to buy. Somebody that needs it, regardless of colour or' creed. Q. Do you think that you got this attitude because of your childhood - of giving and sharing and hard work? A. No, I think it was more the Depression. In the Depression after World War I, we were not the only ones who were hard hit. It is like when we were small we went on that bush farm - there were other settlers also- but I don't think they were much better off than we were. Q. Do you think that your mother taught you a lot of things that were valuable Hhen you had a family? A. I was not close enough to her. Q. You wish you had learned more you mean? A. No. I wanted to: .look out for myself, I was a bit independant. told that many times and I believe it now. Q. I have been --What You must remember the time that they brought in the vote for women? did you think about that? A. I think it uas good. the work. Why shouldn't we have anything to say, we do half I believe it is right. think what the, what it is. •r hey don't care. I don't think the men really stop and If they vote, they just vote and that is it. And I guess some women too. When I vote, I vote for that man because I think he will do something . Q. You wouldn't like to get deeper involved in politics though? A. Not now, I would have once upon a time. Q. What did you wish to achieve? A. I would have liked to have been up there and give them my opionion on some ___.--, things. Q. ~Then was this? A. Durine; Depression time . In the 1930 's. It was a time when my girls were studying to go to high school and they had to write exams. ll ell, we had to pay for that - that one dollar meant so much, and of course I d:ldn 't like that. I thought some of my girls would be school teachers but they got into anything else but teaching. Q. Did you teach them to be independant and stand on their ,os.m two feet rather than depend on someone? A. I must have because they are all independant. Some of them, my goodness. The same with me, the smaller ones are so spunky. that they are all honest women. Uhat I am happy about is And they are all hard workers. When they �do something they do it well, they work better than I do • .Q. A. Q. Well, you must have taught them something. I guess I started them, but, it is like if they are knitting or crocheting, it has to be perfect when they do it. Is there anything that you would like to see done within your society? Anything about people's rights that you would like to work for? For instance the Women's Movement? A. Q. A. I don ' t Jmow. Other than missionariJ work, and you do do a lot of work for the hospital. Uhat I regret, maybe in a larger center it was like that a long time ago although I uas young then, but if it was, if such situations existed, then I don't know, I wasn't in the gang. I regret so much - you see some young people with all their lives ahead of them with nothing to do. I have tried because sometimes I had to help some of the women with a group of girls to do something in their clubnork, and they have nothing to do. I say that they should learn to sew, and that I would show them if they wanted. If someone wants to learn, I'm right there - or knit. But they don't seem to be interested. And it seems to me, at least with my sisters, and cousins, we had something that we were working at. we even had work we could do. At noon hour and recess at school We were at it and we were so ambitious and tta t was the case with everyone, but you don't see that today. And another thing you notice at school, I don't say everyone is like that but that is what. I saw, when they learn their sewing at school, they put something crooked or something wrong, they don't want to undo it and start over again. Undo it and start over again and then it will be well done. If I had been a teacher I would have been too strict I guess - I would have expected too much. Q. It is a hard life and I don't think you can train people too much to go out and face what goes on in the irnrld. A. And then, it seems to me that we were so busy when we were that age and I Q. don't think that the kids have that today. We had a group of girls for a couple of years, that the school sent to us if we wanted them. llho is "we", what organization is this? A. The school teachers. In a way they were to do some work for us. waited for the day they were allowed to come out to do our work. So we Try to see �.·,. . --·· ;, if you can ma;ke them do it. You show them how to go about it, and that is the way I want it to be done and that is the way it is supposed to be done. No way they would do it. That wasn't the way they did it. They want to do what they want and not what we want. When I went to work and I learned when we worked, we do what our mistress wanted us to do, they wanted it done that way and that was it. They don't always send the same girls and we must have had 8 or 10 girls, and if 2 from that 8 or 10 was willing to do the work, that was about it. teach. Q. A. Q. A. The kids don ' t like to learn, they want to Ihlearned that a long time ago - don ' t tell me you know how to work better than I do. I asked you what you would like to do if you were my age, you are obviously very active - what do you plan on continuing? As long as I can. You just want to keep doing. I hope so. I had one of my aunts from Belgium, She stayed all alone until she was '90 and that was in the country were there is no convenience - carry the water in, carry the ashes out - and she stayed by herself until she was And thn I guess came the time that she couldn't do anything else ..... . You just shoned us what you are doing, the beautiful quilts and knitting 90. Q. and . ... A. And my scrapbooks. Q, You have scrapbooks too? So you like to stay on top of things. In one of my books that I have, I have the first stamp of the hospital when A, there were only two rooms. Tha.nk--you Mrs. Peltier. I like. all history like that. � https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d7078ae188dc5963689e890f8f82c25f.pdf 7654ee5ca4b41e0f85e235b9659c7584 PDF Text Text MRS. PELLETIER-Atikokan Mrs. Pelletier will be 79 in December 1975. She has lived in Winnipeg, Emo and Atikokan. She has eight children and has also raised two grandchildren. She is a deeply religious person, now she has four dogs and says she is very good at playing cribbage she has played since 1949. She would have liked to have more for her children when they were growing up, she said she was like the Old Woman In Th I Shoe, her children were always clean and ~ e never in rags. She always washed and ironed and patched all their clothes. In those days if you had to manage on seventy dollars a month you did. They paid $800 for their house and paid $20 a month with- out interest and of course she had her garden. nothing to anybody. Today she owes Inflation doesn't affect her to much, she says she is careful with her money and is used to hard times. She said as long as her children were fed and were comfortable it 4idn't bother her. She thinks you have to live from day to day and make the best of it, you've got to be willing and accep it. Her husband was different from her she was very outgoing he didn't like it but when she wanted to go out she did her work at home and slipped out. He never stopped her from going out. If she had to do it over again she said she would never live like this, she would have travelled or taught. had it rough and cried a lot but stuck it out. Shes had She never had t the pill so the babies kept coming and coming and she never had one of her children in the hospital. . �MRS PELLETIER ATIKOKAN old in December Mrs. Pelletier will Religion Mrs. Pelletier a de eply religious person states "So many things of course we think about it, no m~tter how we are r aised ............... . .................. some belief of our own even if wed 't about it or discuss it wj JJ:i nobody eJ se 01 1r f .lith grows to be ia such a wa ou k ow You believe and I believe and some things we don't believe and we think doesn't make sense and so·on. And it was like that with me, but I'm against certain things. If it's supoosed to be that way OK let it be, don't matter to me but, don't make sense to me so I let it go over my head." Mrs. Pelletier makes reference to a recent stay at Avila Center which she enjoyed. Dogs t Mrs. Pelletier has 4 dogs in the house, ..................... " My Baby sleeps beside me." Cri at it but I can handle On her pioneer life What I hated most was to wash his jeans and iron them and patch them, It had to be done, my dear lady, we WJuld have been in r~gs and it's something that no matter how little I had and how many children, ) ; ke the OJ d vyPWiU1,.__i_n ~ll.oe,_.my child-r.-.en ne~.r: -went with soi Jed cJ otbes. : the· -.....--=~=~,~...;..,;,c~- da but at ni In those days -=-~=-=!""'!!llli~~ be ironed, nobody went out with clothes that wasn't ---~:--did and you know some women Often wondered hov,1 I done it but it h;;id to be done. They wondered how I baked. My husb 1nd was working and I had to bake something for for his lunch that was better and of course with the children I had to. Pies maybe for Sunday. :.::.::..;:;.c....,....::.:.;;;~~::-,,r...;..;....~..__-= __,~ . _ _ �Question "Were .YAU eyer reaJ ly Pnbaooy wi r,b yo 11 t 1 ; fe?" Answer " I would h ave liked more for the sake of my children, I always wanted something. I would h ave liked enough money, but when I needed it, I ne~ded to buy a pair of shoes I could go and buy it, but I always had to wait, sometimes 'till pay day, 15 days maybe sometimes a month before I could go buy the pair of shoes and I hated like heck to go to the store and say "Well, could you wait 'till next payday so we c 3.n pay for th3.t pair of shoes." ••····•··•••·•··•····•••·•···••••··••····I suppose everybody was hard up but they and 2 children. Oh it was 40 below that morning, so cold so after my breakfast ............................. "She had been up all night just making fires, she had ~nly dry poplar wood to make fires, it's a fire that don't last and no heat. She had been up all night just keeping the fires, so cold. So I took them all in, her and her 2 little children and I kept them a couple of days." Question "Could Answer "When you h ad t~. you d~." Question nn· d OU h ave to ? n ~~.....:.i..~~----~~l\'g-~~==t:~~~~ Answer "We aid $20.00 a month on the house We pought it fqr $$QQ QO but they made it e asy. We f.).aid $20.00 and no interest. ..Q.f -uCPwc.s we h~d our arden too ~mprJ1-i o J;_bo.se...da.µ, 6 Packa es of seeds for 25¢ • ..... .... .... ... ........ ..... ..... ........ ... . ..... ..... ......... You have to do it. When you think exactly what you need. With my pension I live good, keep somebody, give them a cup of tea, what you like to do. Each day I'm above board, I owe nobody nothing, I want something extra ....... and I h ave still something in my pocket �QUESTION ?fl "Do y:ou find infl Answer " Not me personally, guess because I'm careful, I'm used to hard times. It's the best time in my life, the easiest time, because when I have my little babies as long as they were fed, dressed and I Know they were confortable, nothing mattered to me. _It didn't matter if I had one dress to wear. I'd take if off a night, wash it at night, let it dry through t ~e night and put it on the next morning, it didn't matter to me. I would h ave liked to have more, but as long as my baby was comfortable. . ....................... . Sometimes I felt there was not enough to go around, but I got something that had to be got. My husband was working outside, he h d to have clothes that wqs wann. It was far more expensive to dress him up th an anyone else. There was a few things that my mother gave me or my sister . gave me, I could always cut it to make a little dress for my girls ••..........•............. "knitted mitts, knitted sox and scarves for my 8 children, I don't know how I done it but I never stopped .. ... .. ... ... . . . . .. . .... . ........... ..... .. ...... .. ....... .. .. ....... "I t hink you have to live from d ay to day and you got to be willing to accept what comes and make the best of it." "We li veei in a small town, Emo. something for t h eir future" husband was not Ques tion "M ny gµ are All my girls h ad to leave home to learn mix.!~.,• ~ox t..ake p art-.in SQmething. a yer.,,._.r,.:~~~~~~a1:::ld!:'-" Answer "Yes I am. I'm the o oosite" Question nn•ct OU ou?" "Yes" "How did :t_OU live with it" '~0h you "Was he unhap py b~cause yqu were gute;ging?" Answer "Oh he was but for me to live out like . t .tlgt wbe,,q not that I leave to be done, when I see t~at it's done then I sli commi t _tee work. ---- �Question"Was your husband eyer mean to you becau se you went apt?" Answer "Oh he told me a oi ece of his mind." Que ~tion "He di dn' t s to 0 •..ro u from Answer "No I was too detennined • . .. ... .. ... . . . . ........ .. .. .. "My self ad -the chance • n life believe me I would have done nothin like I did do. I wouldn't h ~ve lived this,~.~~;~~~~~~been tre.vellin te '::. chin and in mi e. sion work but I didn't have that chanc I just h ave public school, in f act I didn't leArn Eng just picked uo EnglisJl: "I wish I could live another 10 years like I -=l_i _v___,.;:...,,......-;::;i,..... fun in that 10 years • ................. ... ... "I cut grass" (This was the first year she didn't dig the g Rrden twice a year herself) " t First it was hard." rt/ ou marr a man we think we know him but we don't. After we pa ere he's not the man that contract, he's you have some arguments too, I've shed tears and ha throu h h ard times. But I stuck tom ..... ........ .. Tbere was ·no_p_ill in that time and the b ~bies were coming just as fast as I could have them without all the ne The only time I was in the hospital sick in my life, not th at I felt good either, it was when I h ad a broken kne6w about 9 years ago. Question nyou never e bos.p-;Lt al?" Answer I won't know what to ex ect to ed home " "0 I think I neeaed those 10 days. �\ to sur:no~t ?. / \ ~- \J \ t I ~::..., l'l ·• doctJr in ful.l, 2.mi 1,-;ouJ..J -r.er:d assistance ir. sh·: ,•:[1.._- of ,1e ar<J situated on the Ct-: 11adlan iJatiom.1.l :(aih.,ra:,:s, the f j rst t9r:nln:1l '>'lest of i-'ort Art\rnr and hd.ve a large number of railway men runnini~ into this villag~ llncl 0ul te a nwnb~r of ernnloyeP.s in thr:' loca.l yards a;1d s!10ps. uur nearest doctor to t!1e east is located at i· ort .:1.rt . .1u', lL/' miles &.way, and to the west at Fort .r'rances, 90 ;n_~les dista:1t. l}.n· c•::ly rn-:: ar..; of trans Portation is a tri-weckly train service ,:.1.ch ·.,.r_..y. "e t1 ave !10 ~o.:..:.d::; or lligln-la:/s. in case of serio:1s illness we ·1us: Hn.i.t for two or t hr~-> iays or1 train service. de have created 0 oclr.>t:r rr.aintn.ins c1. J. small Red Cross Hc,spital nurs~. This would be an advantap;e __;i;rnP-d: .·:Lirk ,1hi teheaj ;~. Cho~/slwn :10 r~n-~I':' ."\. .:hn:..:s ,(. i-'arad.i.s ,., . u • Connell Glc.,:·"'nc~ Jefff!cy ; . 0hrdepuik J • tlcCutclleon °:,J.C. s.~. Gordon Sameron C. Gliver H. Ra.suck ·.--J .J. HcKonne;r ~. ~oy~o J. riaffyGlrnk !~. Sandalowich f·:eN~ t,.1 \·.rLer~ t!1 ,., a doctor. :•.l~~- ; v;;ter }'.. ~l;:iba F.t. 1-loore :...d.anta it. Jrni th Hi.~e Looa F. Au·r>cy A. Albert T .. :JF~d:1arsk:i U. 3krinsid. v.A. Otto. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Grace Pelletier Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Grace Pelletier of Atikokan. Interview performed by Helen Lovekin, October 15 1975, as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnails. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-10-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Atikokan Canada - Ontario - Emo Canada - Ontario - Kashabowie https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/6173196b6018e8fbd4c7d252364fec63.pdf f28fba9aecf069948532d72a3dbed077 PDF Text Text HAZEL CLINK--Barwick Mrs. Clink arrived in Barwick in 1902 on a September night she had a sister and h~r mother artd father. There was nobody to meet them, the C.N. was just coming through so there was no de p ot yet. They walked to the only hotel in town which is on Main Street and spent the night there. The next day her uncle Hod Gillies came to get the~ to take them to his home. Bar\ick t this time was just mud of the street it just rained and r ~ined. Her father had a job as a clerk in Chicago and then decided to come to Barwick. Her uncle Rod Gillies had one hundred and sixty acres and he gavL her father the north eighty acres. They had to clear five acres and put a building on it and then they could get a deed for the place. winter at the Gillies. They spent that her mother came from a well of family and was used to all the luxaries like indoor plumbing, water, electricity but she didn't mind it because the children thrived in the country. There weren't very m~ny doctors at this time so when women h~d babies there was an Indian women who was a mid-wife the white women trusted her very much. The ~ e were quite a few settlers between Rainy River and Fort Fran ces. Before Hazels time it was said a priest tried to teach the Indians about the bible but it didn't turn out so well so he left, in his place a nun came and they said they scal p ed her and she died. By the time Hazel got to this area the Indians were a kindly people. - In the early nineteen hundreds tDere was an abundance of deer, moose, bear and a few elk, they didn't hunt for sport but for food. summer the In the ate partridge, mud hens, rabbits and there were lots of coyotes and timber wolves, ;iazel loved to sit on her porch and listen to them, it was an errie sound but she loved it. The first store was on t 11 e river bank and the first storekee per was W. Thompson and the first hotel keepPr was Thomas Weston and the first school teacher was Thomas Knetal. The first school was an old log cabin and in 1901 there was twenty seven children, Kate Ruttan taught in 1903. At the end of September 1901 and all of October the school was closed because of an �epidemic of diphtheria. Barwicks first Reeve was Thomas Weston and the first Baptist Church preach was Traiten Luckens and he came in 1903. Mr Sam Booth was first and only blacksmith. The Booths lived one half a mile from their place and they hauled water to the school from Booths well. Barwick got its name from a few of the first settlers in Barwick, they were Thomas Weston, James Tierney and George Cawston. The mail used to come by boat as they didn ' t have a post office, the Tierneys had a dock for the convenience of the settlers and the boats. These men then informed the Post Master ~eneral at Ottawa that the name would be Boston but they said there was already a Boston in Ontario so they decided Berwick was a good name but again they were informed that there was already a Berwick in Ea - tern Ontario,~the Post Master General did suggest they change thee to a to make it Barwick so the three decided that it was a fine name. There were getting to be more people settling in this area and more children going to school so the people got together and formed a school board;:it was called Shenston No . 5. In 1903 and 1904 the first new school was built, at this time Hazel was five years old and she remembers Nr. Knectal as one of the firs~ teachers. She remembers the pot bellied stove that heated the school. In the summer for recreation they had ?nnual picnics, and often had box socials. For the picnics everyone donated food, her father used to make the lemonade ~nd her father-in-law used to make th~ ice cream she remembers this time with nostal .ia. Thebo~{ socials used to be lots of fun they used to sell their boxes or auction them off the school teachers used to go for the highest amount but the teenaged girls who were quite popular came close to them. When you bought their lunch you had to eat with the person whom you bought . . In the winter they worked h8rd to get a good Christmas concert, they would all get together at the school one farmer would pie~ everybody up in his steish which was �pulled by a team of horses, they had hot stones for the ladies feet, the horses had bells on their harnesses and it was real nice. They had plenty of blankets to keep warm, they were quite coillfortable, they sang songs going and comin8 to the concert. Santa came to the concert with gifts for everyone. They had sleigh and tobaggan parties and did enjoy the winter. In the summer they picked all kin~s of berries, she started to pick berries at age six and picked berries this summer of 1976. They canned them, made jams and jellies to last from season to season. They raised there own beef, pork chickens, ducks and geese, they made their own vegetables, pickles and saurkraut, they just bought the necessities in those days they made bread, pies and even canned meat that was left over from the winter. They didn ' t have a church at this time so they had their Sunday services in the school. They didn't need weiner roasts, corn roast, games and parties to keep them from coming to church. In those days it was a privelage to go to church and they went. The only time people didn't ~o to church was if they were ill. She always wondered why little children always wanted to be 0 grown up. he feels childhood days are far to short, tha they are the happiest days of our lives, children are carefree, innocent and blesse~,,we understood nothinG of the hollowness of life or the treachery of nature, we don't know sorrow or distrustfullness, or despair. and tha She feels it is good to know there is a wqy of escape is to lean hard on the Hock of Ages. 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There was a flow'ry little path beyond the garden wall, A lake, an isle, and golden sand, and fairy castle, tall, I was the only princess there, in all this pleasant land, And miniature castles made, upon the shining sand. No errands there, for me to run, no baby to amuse While mother did the dishes,- and I could always choose The things that I liked best to eat, for porridge was unknown, And I could stay down at the lake, 'till I had tired grown. 1- u One day a charming prince rode by my castles in the sand, He stopped and talked with me awhile, he even held my hand; Much finer castles could he build, than any I had made, He painted them with star-dust, the kind that does not fade. Then we would sail our white-gull ships, away out from the shore, Then we would scale the golden steps, right to the castle door, And climb up to the highest tower, and ring the golden bell; The castle was a special place, and we both loved it well. One day when I had older grown, I went out there to play, But lo! the castle, lake, and isle, had vanished quite away! The prince ne'er rode that way again, it makes my sad heart grieve That I can never, never find my land of Make Believe. ~d,~, ~)~' .f~~~ t- i d ~ ~1~~ th-/ I f ) ~ , SJ d:..::/ ~ A.e-lL ~ " ' ~ t:i ~ ~ -~~~~ (,. h-.., ~~J -:,/, LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE t ~ 25~~ �LONELY I am lonely tonight, as the warm Spring rain Falls over the town, and the road below, Alone, in the twilight, with memories fond, Of the dear past in the days long ago. Then I was happy for you were here, Never a worry had I, nor a care, Now I am sad in the twilight gloom, Turning Life's pages back, one by one. I am lonely tonight while the whip-poor-will Calls, and the echoes resound again, List! his mate answers him down in the vale, Calls to her lover out there in the rain. She is so happy for he is near, Never a worry, and never a fear, Of this life's pleasures she takes her fill, Living is sweet to the whip-poor-will. I am lonely tonight, and the shadows fall, Darkening down in a stormy night, Dark, like some soul in its bitter woe, Without a hope, or a guiding light. Nothing is left but a bleak despair, No one to comfort, no one to care, Like a late leaf on an Autumn tree, Waiting till Winter winds set it free. (1955) �� https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7e5fd21170301d4cea7759bdb8595d5d.pdf 2cb26eb4136cea0e1843c72605cabcc8 PDF Text Text t I I ' t_, • - ~~ st 'f . t- ' -r- - ' I 6 .. l !. 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I : ~ ~ t~' -t t1 ! r ~ - rt Ir -h ti{ t¼rri l . r, ., t f ' ~ .~ ~ r ~ I .,. , + • ' T .. i + -+ ~ ~ -- .- - J r ~ I I f~ ~S= t ~ rr~ , ~i )0 ~ • ._ ~ t ~- r~- \ i 6'. ~. f f J t 'Y ~f~ ~ ~ I ~ ' ~ , C J J- rI • ~ ,t 'f, b\._ ~ I , f I , I I -.. l. ~ ' f Jt r t11 r~ :, t' 1J f t ~ { ~ li t t t ,- ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ 1 r I ... ~ r 4, f. ( ~ ft ,h f: ~ f.1 t -· •• pt • ~ t ~ . t f. r fJ i ~ r ~ ~ t I ~ ~ i ~ l t~ t r ~ t t l i f t _J r ~ ( ~t Cf r- r f (J ~1 ~ ... - t~Lr1 ~ • ~ r t ! ~ j • ~r I° ( ~ - - r ff~ {1t t "'a 1 ~, \'\ 1 f ? ~ --1 ' "' ~ \ -\ ~\L_ �t r' I:\ p - . !~ tJt~ri·t t,'r ~t ~ ~~ 1~ I ' §' I ~ t' t f I '- ,1 f / I I I t ~ I l I I ~ ~ L I I I i ~ ~ \ l ~ t l t f' ~ t t ~ t tJ l ~ 0 k { f ~ ~ ~l f~ !' ~· I t trsj, }. t~ i .fr r"· r;) ~ "1t ~ ff ~ J~ r t~ ~- ~ J~i r~ 1(1{1~ f Jr f t tj ' l t r- ~' ~~ ~~l rt ~~ � https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/ea0046994f6e9ca961a668e067fc40d3.pdf 03b323179ac345ffe7ac35c7c797309f PDF Text Text SC1IBT~ING ABOUT PAZEL ELINK ~~/ ~ ~ Is{) My life in early childhood was spent int t~c security of loving parents who did all in their power to provide a congenial and influential atmosphere in the home. Mother was brought up in the strict old orthodoxy of the early Presbyterian Chnrch in :Cas Lern Ontario. Wesleyan Methodist home. r,~y father was brought up in a Hence, we were brought up to ~evare the Bible, to shun profanity, which one said was ·"'le rely a crutah for a weak 11ind, and to respect our elders. We we:t·9 not to judge them and think they were eccentric, who did not see eye to eye with us, and whorn we thought a bit queer. A verse l my mother often quoted was "Vengeance is :-Jina, I will repay" saith the Lord. We had a man in our district who poked fun at old crippled; one of these :1ad been hurt in his early twenties, and left with a crippled withe red ha:1d. He also used a cane when he walked. He passed this farmer's house every Sunday on his way to church, and this gave the neighbour an j '1is children an opportunity to make fun o·~ 1.is gait and the way he carried his withe red hand up by his chest. It felt more comfortable up there. The neighbour got a hearty\ la~gh from his older children as they mimicked the dear old man. Several years later the 'a:9er• 5 ot his hand badly mangled in sorie machinery, and was compelled to carry it up near his chest, and held the re by his other harld. reap what we sow. Verily, we "The Mill of God grinds slowly, But it grings exceedingly small."' My own dear father died when I was not yet fifteen fears old. Up until that tine, al thoup;h my mother suffered with arthritis, 1Ye 11ad not known sorrow. Now I could realize with full force what berea,,ement ·neant. re 1)cllious I was bitterly at the thought of G,~d snatching my :ather when we needed him most. I wondered how the sun could possibly shine so brightly, and thebirds could sing so merrily, while I felt so desolate and alone. I wished I too could have died. - �2. "VThen sollle beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly Aud silence, against which you dare not cry Aches round you Jj_ ke a strong disease and new- What hope, what help, what ~usi~ will undo That silence of your senses? .....•• Nay none of these! Not friendships sigh ......... My s~hool days in our little school would soon be over and I was r3ady to try my entrance into High School, but ·:men thl s tragedy came, ~,! other was unable to fj_nance m high school education for me, and I, who so greatly longed to bf' a school teacher and Rn author, was forced to go out as a hired girl, where peaple just needed me in the busiest season or where a prospective mother was I biding her time 1 • I worked hard and long for scant wages. I was embi tt.,ered and regrett,~d miserably the poverty which denied llle a good education When I was eighteen years old, I married a boy whom I had kl'lown ::ill 'TIY life al though he was eight years my senior. War 1 anc in the end of De~ember we had five chi 7 dren. Vf~i."'G li e had returned that summer from WorJ_d narried. Down throug·h the years we The oldest was seventeen when the baby was born. Our l-iouse was in a grove of pine, birches, spruce, cedar and poplars. It was a lovely spot. I have many happy memories of my home no:bth of Barwick, along with some very tragic occurances. In 1955 my husband waw killeo ~~ an accident, one of those quick a8cidents that one finds all over the world, and• which the loved ones find difficult to for~et, where desolation settles 1.ike a pall_ on the heart and brain, and where you ::-ecover in slow degree from the shock and horror or it, if you ever do recover. I moved .from the farm which we 1\'ere living on 8.t that time. a year, with the option of buying if tt suited our needs. We lived there We had hot water on tap and many other conveniences that were lackinG in our former\ home. I moved �3. into our village of Barwick, as my children, with the exept.ion of the youngest, were married or working away from home. The youngest was attending schoojb at Fort Frances. I worked as a cook in a timber ~amp with a lady I knew, one w:inter. the summer, I baked in a bake shop in Sioux Narrows. In But as 1 had pernicious anenia for years, and had Bl2 shots every two weeks, I vms obliged, under my doctors orders to come home as there was no doctor in Sioux Narrows. T~en the Bell Telephone bought out our Municipal phone and I was taked on as part-time operator. I liked the work and on days I did not have to go to the office, I di0 day work in Fort Frances. In my spare time in t~e evenings, I completed Grade 11, 12 and 13 Literature ~ram the Board of Edu~ation (lessons by mail) Then a course in Ancient History, also a course in Archeology and one in Wilderness Consehvation. I scribbled poems and rhynes for njfferent occasions and had scribble~s full of things I liked to put in rhyme on paper. While I was taking the by Sigurd Olson, Ely, Minn. I Wilderness Course' I was asked to read s011e books I could not ge:b the'TI in our library in Fort Frances and wrote to Mr. Olson as to where t}iey c0uld be procured. and we corresponded for some ti~e. He wrote imrriediately ne ultim-ately read so~e of my po-ems and urged ;i-ie to get ·.hem publisried in book :'orm, if' it was only that my ch.i..ldren and grand :hildren might have them. He enjoyed the 0nes I wrote on 'Wilderness' and several others which are in my boolt ' Sele1Jti111e Poems and Prose 1 • Mr. Olson• s opinion I valued highly knowing what deep respect is ~iven hirn 'Joth in tl-ie USA an:i in Canada, also in overseas countries. I have read all his books except the last one. About this tirne, some friends of rnine, T' r. and Mrs. Bill Hay of Brandon urged me greatly to let them undertake the publis~ing 0: my poems. After some consideration, I dec~ided to let them have the books I liad scrawled them in. She w1s a receptionis6 in her husband's office, but found time to type off much of this. I spent much time in 3randon with them, and enjoyed their �4. kind hospitality. I had never dreamed t.hat I could ever white anything t ri at was worthy of a place in a book, although I haye had several poems in the 'Toronto Globe' as it was then called. After the first one ---arne out, I had a letter from 'Vm. Dyer the Peace Poet, in Toronto. He compl ~~ented me on it and had µassed it on to his good friend Charles n. D. Roberts ( both now de~easedO and he wrbteto Mr. Dyer and commented on my poem. Told ~e how good it was in all but the last verse and showed me how I could rectify it, and explaining 1vhat to av:oid in writing poetry. I valued this letter, which Mr. Dyer had ·sent on for my perusal, and was amazed that two celebrities would even condescend to notiae the scribblings of a would-be writer. dcat~1. I corresponded with Mr. Dyer unti 1 his The poems that appe ared in th~ 'Globe I ane in my book, which was printed in 1973 when I was seventy-two years old. I was disappointed in the type errors, which are many, in my book, but it has sold well, and is paid for long ago. I 1.1a,re a few left which I rnay get sale for from ti~e to ti~e. I was askerl f'or ;11y philosophy of life. My main belief is in the Bible• which I read through every year, and haye done so for nearly forty years now. I fiMily believe John 3: 16 and since then, He has s:.noothed :ny pathway and the bitter thj 11gs have become sweet. I re'tlernber that we all wi11 stRnd be-'"ore a just God, at the judgement of the just an d bf the unrighteous. I know 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the h,mds of the Living God' so I govern 'TlY life a~cordingly. I an not a Saint but I ar1 accepted of the ~hrist who died for ne, and you w~o love Him wiJl see me sone dqy, where all is hope, joy and peace. This is not a sermon, nor is it philosophy, it is sir:rp1;v Scriyture. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Hazel Clink Description An account of the resource Autobiographical writings by Hazel Clink of Barwick, Ontario, a part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnails. These autobiographical writings by Hazel Clink tell the family story of settling in Barwick in 1902. With an increase in population in the area, the first school began, as a small centre for country life. The summary tells that Hazel Clink became a poet and published author. Two transcripts of handwritten notes tell details of Hazel Clink's arriving in the Rainy River District with her family in 1902 from Chicago, to join her uncle’s family homestead at a time when settlers were arriving in Indigenous communities. The writing tells about the land, people, climate, and industry. The first store, hotel, school and church activity are detailed. Hazel Clink shares memories of social gatherings, school, country living, her childhood, family and area history in recollections and poetry. Hazel's life was shaped by the loss of her father, her working life, marriage at 18, death of her husband, and move into town with her children. Hazel was able to complete high school, publish her poetry, and share her philosophy through her writing. The texts include some language that is no longer considered appropriate, as well as discussion of settler-Indigenous relations and sensitive and offensive material. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Shared by consent of family. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hazel Clink Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Barwick Canada - Ontario - Emo https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/849bad08f25eaf67ea34a9e1fd3ae8b6.mp3 041fe7b05310e670d47f2ead744077be https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/8673e186adf0d05f622da3aff97115b2.mp3 6b9839eb83d6f8785d27601b3cd7b274 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7c230f580ca8894a1bf08a3d9b77905d.pdf 51f2125e6728db6754373a8bef79af6c PDF Text Text I \ HF,RSTORY I P10JECT Mrs. Helen Atkinson interviewed by Geore;ina Garrett and Karen Dubinsky G.G. You were going to tell a story about Mrs. Miller, the b~acksmith in Dorion. A. She wasn't really known as a blacksmith but she always had a lot of horses on her own farm, back in the valley, up in the Ouimet Canyon area. In the early '20's you had teams of horses, particularly heavy horses - this is what they used to haul pulp in the bush camps. Mrs. :Miller and the hired man, Alec Boisie, they both hired on to t he Provincial, I think that was in F.W. the Abitibi was a few years ago, was the Provincial Timber Co. - I don't think it was the Provincial Timber Co., I'm not sure whet it was really called. Anyway, they went back into camp and of course she took one teai~ and Alec took another team and the shacks they lived in in those days are a far cry from the type of things they live in today, in bush camps. It came time to go to bed and of course all the other men in that particular sleep schack were all a little wary about ~etting undressed because a woman was in the camp but she couldn't load her - I guess it would be sleighs because they did most of the hauling in the winter time on sleighs. Q. A. Did she hire herself to haul lumber? This wasn ' t lumber, this was pulp - ther's a difference. She had to load it and it was 4 foot sticks and you would load it from the piles the cutters had cut and they were all cut with ordinary saws in those days, not power saws. She turned around to the men and she said, "Look fellows, you might as well go to sleep .... " (she was already in bed) " .... all I came for was to haul pulp like the rest of you." And she turned over and went to sleep. I al- ways thought that was so 2.propos - women's lib. away back 58 years ago. She was g_uite the old girl, I just loved Mrs. Miller, she was really a darling person. Q. Where was her husband at this point? A. I don ' t know, I asked about this the other day because I thought of this story. I've got two or three of these, of these old stories, with these old time c:;als �with women's lib ideas. A lot of people nowad.ays figure that they went along with everything their husbands said. They did to a point but sometimes they could dig their toes in and make things pretty miserable, in a very subtle manner that a lot of girls nowadays don't do, can ' t do because once they had the training how to do it. But her husband, I don ' t !mow whether he died or she left him, I really don't know. Bill Holder might be able to tell you that. She stayed one winter with old Bill Holder down there, and she was an old lady when she died - she was way into her 90 ' s. She was the most beautiful cook and it used to be cute to go and visit her and old Alec Boisie, he had been the hired man, but by this time you're both getting old and he had his not his part of the house exactly, but he had a sort of sittinG room bedroom and it ·was quite large because it was a fairly large house - and she had her end of the house. I remember the last time I was there. They had no power back there yet, there wasn't sufficient population for the expense and they each had their radio and we were there one Saturday afternoon. We had gone out - my husband had to get something from Mrs. Miller - however ::he turned on the radio, this wasn ' t that many years ago, I don ' t think T.V. 'shad come up yet, we were johnny-come-lately's as far as T.V. reception was concerned, with Thunder Bay. So we had to listen to the radio and Alec, he comes to the door and he says, "If you think that is a good one, come and hear mine." Well, I wasn't going to say that this was better. It wasn ' t exactly a feud but it Has a sort of one-upmanship all the time. It was really charming. I don't think a lot of people were aware of it but it used to really tittilate me because my grandfather and grandmother were very much the same - always Q. one up on each other, but that pulp story I thought was beautiful. How did she get a reputation as a blacksmith? A. She did do her own blacksmithinB so far as I know. Long after I came out to Dorion she riould come out to the store, to Bratten ' s store, it used to be up on the side road, ana_ then they built the big new place and they sold it 3 or 4 years ago. She came out with a buggy - she was still coming out with one of them. Q. How did she survive financially? A. She farmed back there and that uas exactly why you go back in the bush with the horses in the Hinter time, because He used to have this cash, I don't know what they goi, but it shouldn't be that hard to find out. �Q. A. She'd cut her own wood? No, she wouldn't be cutting the pulpwood, she was just hauling from somewhere out to a landing which would usually be on a lake so they could raft it down in spring. Q. A. You must be from the east. No. If you've never seen them form a raft, they haven't been doing that for a A. long time. I've seen it in Lake Nipigon. Yes, you see the big rafts there. Q. too. Does she have descendants that are still living? Q. A. 'l. A. Not that I know of. She never had children then? I couldn't even tell you that. Used to raft down here on the Black Sturgeon Never heard it mentioned but I'm not saying .... when I first met her she was a woman in her 60's and you don ' t ..... When I first saw the house, and it was a log place that they had built, it was really nice, I always wished we had had it. It was a really beautiful place with a great Q. A. big lot - they are the "in" thing now. This is your husband's mother. Yes. But mousy places because mice could get in. Oh, boy, there were mice. They had come from England in 1910, Joe wasn't born until they got out here. They lived in F.W. for perhaps a year or two and then they got the place fixed, the farm. They bought the property down her, or homesteaded it. That's somethine; I'm not sure about, there is a difference. I think it was bought. They were in it together - Grandpa Atkinson and Grand.ma Atkinson who has been dead for years and years and her brother, Foster, was his last name. Anyway, when they got off the train, when they came from F. W. and they had everything loaded into one box car - they landed out her out on Station, so they had to walk up the track a mile from the station just beside the ____ to the ______ which is not too far from the track. It is right across the highway from where the track is and where the highway is now. The sister was about 4 when they got to this farm and the house was just rounded logs with the cracks because they don't fit smooth like timbers do. There were even the chips lying around - this is a family story told over the years although Joe was only a baby - about 3 months old - he wouldn 't remember but he has heard it often enough. It was just a rough building and this �is what you're supposed to live in with a 3 or 4 month baby and a 4 year old daughter. Bessie, the 4 year old - Elisabeth - she looked around the place and said to her mother, "Do we have to live in this woodshed?" I found out anyway by asking members of the family - Bessie in particular -.how you could get a place like that liveable. You can imagine walking int.o a rough log place, what would you do with it? She said they used mud and sawdust and anything you could get to chink it for the winter because it was about June when they came in. They got it all chinked up and then they used gunny sacks in which the animal feed came in and I think perhaps one cow·was all they had, and you would tack that to make a smooth finish, as smooth as you could 5et it and then you would, later on if you could afford a few rolls of wallpaper, then you made home-made flour paste and glued it on. It took several years to get tse place into something decent, when I first saw it in 1938, it was Q. A. really'a charming place but when you think of how it at first was. tlhat did they do for furniture? Theirs was with them, in fact there is a walnut rocking chair - it is really beautiful, I think it's called a Queen Anne style - I ' m not saying 1t's a real Queen Anne, I don't even Imow where the thing came from. I just gave Q. A. it to my daughter-in-law and my son because we used to use it in our summer cottage. There is quite a few things like that - the clock they brought with them was a wedding present from England. There was also china. Did they want to farm? Is that why they came here? In those days in England, if you owned 160 acres of property, they were always Q. relating it to what it was like in England. Where would you ever buy that property yourself? Anyone in a working class atmosphere, themselves would never be able to buy it in England - they can't yet I don ' t think. You 're a large gandowner if you own 100 acrs. A. Right - Grandpa owned more than that - he owned 320 acres, 160 anyway, that would be safe to say, and a grandson has it now. Q. We found that so many people when they came to the middle of the bush in Northern Ontario, would always bring something likecchina etc, to represent the good life. A. That's right because, they were perhaps a little different then all the settlers. Joe has pictures of when they were just kids ·- all of the pictures of Joe and the younger brother, Ben, who owns a garage over here and is living in a fantastic house, shows them with their white shirts on on Sunday with the ties on and always the white linen tablecloths on the table. So you brought your culture with you, even though your environment was a little crude like it would be in the bush at that time, but you did have a certain amount~ �of culture, especially the people from Britain. Q. Do you think they were disappointed? A. I don't think so, Joe's mother died 4..5 years ago and Grandpa Atkinson went back to England - the first time he went back - Joe and I 1xere already married and you used to hear these stor~es about England and you used to think you ' d never want to see the place because everything was super. I asked him how he found things and asked him if everything was better than Canada because this was how we always used to rib him. He said "Oh, Blast. They are so blind over there, some of the places don't even have electricity !" That shut him up, I never heard anymore about England. Q. ~Je talked to a woman - Catherine Stephenson. A. Oh, yes, she was a war bride. Q. No, she wasn't because she came over here as a young girls anddstayed with her aunt and lLY1cle. She has been here since 1924 and. she would say "home" meaning England. A. They do talk like that because my people are Scottish from Manitoba and it ,;•ms "home" and when you get to see those old Scottish people together. I remember not too long before Dad and r1other died there were a few Scottish people and they uould all go back to the brog11e like they had only come over a year ago and they'd been out here since ... Dad since he was 17 years old and that Has 60 years and they could go back into that easily. In fact my brother and I used to be able to do it too because you hear it for so long. ~. Do you knm-.r if there was any i:nvolvement here on the part of the Women's Institute in the suffrage movement? A. That I have never heard of. Ontario were johnny-come-lately ' s women-wise, as far as separtism was concerned. Manitoba was the loader in that. Q. It seems most of the rural communities were ......... . A. Have you any idea how many women it doesn't mean a damn thine: to as far as the vote is concerned now? You know what one woman told me at the last election? She said, "I'm not too sure who I'm going to vot for but ....... " I can rem- ember one girl telling me, "There was a big dance and I wanted to go and I didn't have a decent dress" so she dug out some flour sacks, nq sugar bags, and "I dyed them and I macle myself a dress. I cut buttons off old shirt·s that were in the ras bag until I had enough" and she had it buttoned all down the front 1--rith a belt to match. new to wear. I was 16 and you had to have something �told me how her mother would make dresses out of flour sacks - Q. they bleached them so that all the writing on them caJne off and then made A. dresses. And pants, underpants. I remember when I first came to Dorion - you were just getting out of the Depression in ' 39, I came that fall and the war started in September. I remember a friend that lived a mile from us, making kids' underwear - slips - but she put lace on them, little panties with lace, so Q. A. Q. A. there was this little bit of culture. It's funny, now they sell flour sack tops in stores and leave the writing on. You're kidding. Oh, yes - Robin Hood. I doubt if it is real flour sacks .... . ... That was 1904 .... but I do rememner that because 74 years ago I was even surprised when I read this, that they actually elected a woman a treasurer, when there were all the men, . . . .Nrs. S. Holder .... Q. A. I thought the pr~iries had long, severe winters. They do, but not as lonr as ours. You go out there in April and the grain is up all around, where you are not plantine; anything here at all. We just plaated our tomatoes this morning, and I think that has a lot to do with it. Also you were greatly dependant on your gardens for a lot of your vegetables, because those old girls used to can stuff and you had root cellars and that. If you had early frosts and frosts during the summer which are very prevalent in this part of the country, in Eastern Ontario. So if your earden is damagQ. ed to any extent ..... I remember reading about a pioneer and the first year everything was wiped out. A. It was all wiped out with frost. problem. Getting meals ready must have been a real Take your potatoe crop, suppose you had an extremel~· ~,;ret fall and you couldn ' t bet them picked up or harvested and you lost half of them. You ;-rere dependant upon your own potatoe crop because if yours was damaged with some of those diseases, 9 times ou:t; of 10 your neighbors would have the same problem. If you were lucky enough and you always had to save potatoes from last year's pla11ting for next year's seed in this part of the oountry because shipping Has pretty grim in those days too. one? Q. A. Doctors - how would you eet to A lot of children died uith diseases. Did you know any mid-wives in this area? Yes, Mrs. Watty was a midwife, and Joe's sister in the ' JO ' s. She was a e:-raduate nurse in St. Joseph's and she used to work in with the Department �of Agriculture - you've heard of their extension services - and she would go around giving home nursin:; courses which is the "in" thing now. Keep the penple·home and go and take care of them there because the hospitals are running on shortened money and the more severe cases go to the hospital. In those days, suppose you had a very ill child and you were living way back in the ______ area where we lived for JO years and the roads Here blocked in the winter, how would you get out? You had to depend on yourself and whatever medicines you had or old fashioned remedies. That pulled a lot of them through but a great many died too. Q. Do you think the women down here learned anythine; from the native women who A. had a lot of skills in living in this kind of "nvironment? Dorion? Perhaps no, because it wasn't a real bic_; Indian area, not for a long • time. In Hurkett there were a lot of Indian people. They interreacted in - the smoking of fish, now a lot of people did smoke fish, especially the suckers that ran heavily in spring and you could get loads of them. Q. for the winter. People ate suckers? That was fish In Th1mder 13ay they don ' t eat suckers - they are wormy fish. A. They are notaall wormy. cake out of them. I canned them too. You can make a beautiful fish And they learned a great many things about canning. The men were pretty fair hunters and even during the Depression in the offseason, there were loads of times that a moos or deer - that ' s where your meat came from. Q. Do. you think women developed the skills as they lived or did they come here with some kind of Imowledge of medicine etc? A, I think both of your suggestions are correct in some instances. Also a 0 reat many of the women did get their information from older women - learn things from neighbors like cooking - recipes go from first to last. In this area not too many ethnic groups came in from Europe until after the First World -rar so that a lot of those women wouldn't have too many of those skills unless they were rural women but rural women have always had a lot of these types because it is learnt from mother to daughter etc. I had an extremely good neighbor - Mrs. Reno - they were very early settlers in 1910 and she had slews of relatives left, sons and daughters and grandchildren. But mentioning the medical skills, in those days Mrs. Watty delivered several of Mrs. Reno's 1 �family. My oldest son was very sick with diarrehea and I had him into see a specialist in town and he gave this prescription but nothing worked so Mrs. Reno came over one day - she said she could sive mef something for, that. He was about 18 months and was he sick, he lost a lot of weight. She sent one of the daughters over with raspberry bushes - just the cane - and told me to cut them up and boil them and simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain it carefully through several layers of material so none of the thorns came through and bive it to him in a bottle or anyway he ' s going to drink it. In two days he was all cleared up. :She said her mother had told her that trick. I remember telling that to a child specialist and he said he wouldn't doubt it and that some of those old girls had marvellous treatments they think of. Q. Have you ever heard of lemon juice being used widely as a birth control method? A. You were talking to Bill, I ' ve got sheets of stuff that he sent me long ago. How about mountain ash berries, have you ever tried them? Q. I hear they're poisonous. A. No, they aren't. You've heard of Pete ____ from the Ministry of Natural Resources, well his wife asked me if I had mad it and I said I had twice. Jello from mountain ash because I read it was good. I don ' t doubt that it ' s loaded with Vitamin C but, it ' s just like wild plums, can ' t get enough sugar in to cut the sharpness out of it. Q. A. What about baking soda? Never. Do you know if that was a good ...... . Q. Fill capsules up with baking soda and lemon juice. A. That sounds like a placebo. Q. Do you think there is a lot of co-operation between women in Dorion and the Hurkett area? A. Q. There is some interaction but not really. Hhy didn't they mix? A. I don't know, I've often wondered. I can remember seeing that done as a placebo. They were always friendly and if anyone got burned out, now I ' m thinking of a long time ago, you'll find there are always more people in Dorion that settled as families than what there were down there. Old families as compared to what there is in Hurkett. Because a lot of people down there were ori,:inally, their families were from Dorion. There was an institute but with a little interractiion. Q. I don't mean between women of Hurkett and Dorion, I mean the women in Dorion itself. �' . A. Yes, there still 1s, to a great extent but a gr;eat extent of the people 1n Dorion have gone to school together which gives you a sort of - a great many of' the families are related through marriage. In fact i t took me three y8&'C'S to get it aJ.l strai~ened out when I first came. You didn't. say anything about anybody because i t could be a sister-in==law, a cousin or an aunt or an uncle etc., so you said nothing because after you'd get caught they'd say, "Oh• yes, that's my brother's wife or she's my aunt on my father's side." Get pretty leery about sqing anything. Q., What about in the older ~s? A. Just the sams.. there was just as much. whan they were Church that doesn •t stand anymore, the Anglican Church and the Baptist Ohurch had something also and then the 'l'he Anglicans perhaps would h:.e a _ _ _ _ an Fricuey building the Baptist had an annual. picnic Catholic Church too. ~ t and you could Q. depend on the same people being on that one as would be on the Catholic one because they intemixed. a great deal, no never ulnd as far as religion was concemed. Do you think ·the relationships bet-ween women overcame etlmic and religious boundaries? You've heard of the Intemational Da.y that the Institu·t.es have? Well, we had one ~t the haJ.l quite a f'ew years ago and i t made no nwer :nind he:re. I was really surprised when I first came to Dorion. I had been brought up that w~ m;rsel.£ because when I went to school we had the League of Nations. One thing I rsaember the first year I started public sohool, I was going on 9 and I didJ1't even know what the poor tea.chllr was talking about. She toldus we shollldn ~t eat garlic before we came to s~hool. Especially in the wint~ time when the roams would be just sick, these were first generation Canad1ana like JI\YSelf' and theyt'J. have strings around their 11eck. On old woman lived in Dorion and my sister-in-law, for the oldest boy, that was just what she tol'- rJ.m to use - you couldn'•t. get, near the poor little guy. Garlic was a cure all for everything even then, they used to put turpentine on brown paper and .put i t on your chest £or a <..~ or on the soles ot your feet. What your . feet had to do with your chest I don~t Imow. Was the Wamen•s Institute the only organizational format? Yes and 1.t did a tremendous amount o£ good. V e1.vy tiue of a lot of places. A. Almost ever.y-where. Q. A. Q. A. �Why do. you think that was? I Q, A. Q. A. You're too young to realize there were not too many women's organizations. Actually it is the largest one in the world ~th the grea.tes number of members, at last count.....it was about 7 million. The ~icanadian Women's Club was an old club but it was, ~trlct~y urban und th~ sam.e with the Canadian W(>Dlen•s Press Club but it •s called Median Club now. It is also old but- strictly urban. There was .not~ in th~ rural areas - II183'be the famer•s Association and the _women were invited especially a £aw times in Ea.stern Ontario. You m..,an the United _F armers Part,y tha.t won the election? l'lo. Mrs. Ho?d.less - Izvine Lee is the man I was thinking of. He was responsible for get.ting it started. He invited. her to go a..1:oim.d with him and do the first speaking at this fa.1.111ar's meeting and ·t;he women had been invited. I oan•·t remember what it was C"~cl. I've aJ.wqs heard va.n~e things about it over t.ha yeaxs and nEJV'er could pin anyb~ dmmo There were the Junior Famers and there was alweya the Woodlands ~ch groups. I don•t think there was a Catholic Womens• Leac,~e but I think there is now in Hurkett, Dorion and Pearl but that is very contampera.ry_. Where do ~.QU think that 1 t wa..'3 the Women •s Institute that too!t off? Why is it so extensive? When i·t first stuted. in Ca..?lada. - and it is ver:, big 1n a ,l ot of oth~ countries where a lot of what we have leaJ;ned 1n t,he :N.rst 25 to 30 years of it ,s being o:r6dnized. in Canada - food production and preparations and preserving food etc. _,. -they are just wor~ on that in a lot or areas now. In the developing countries - and some develop but there is a very great dif;l'erence between - beca.1.tse most of those countries don tt µave a midc!le cl~s such a~ t-1e .do,. They have the very rich or the very poor - there is .1 very thin line of' in-between where t'1.e masses of Canada and t~e U.s, . and even J3%'1ta1n are ma.de .up of the middle class. Fduca.tion had never ~een too big in some of th, .. countries. Ou.r's was the one that ssid women should be educated and they did the best to educating tlte women - maybe mor~ in the line of housekeeping skills, cleanliness and things people take for granted. no~. Pasteurizing milk,. public hea1th service, educattn~ women - if you read any of those stories about the first woman doctor .. sh~ ~ ter.r:1ble times getting t:t,eough tmiverei.;.y because they didn •t feel she wo~d have the a.bllity, the brains, etc.. You were al.wB.¥S class.e a a.s a second-cl3Ss citizen 1t· not fourth-class �,. after the animals if they came off a farm. I think that's what it was and Q. the women were aw:.i., of j t • We looked at the Le~~~ b<;'ok from ~ - Hymer's area 1·Jomen 's Institute and it is really good. It gave outlines of some of the topics discussed at meet- A. ings. Some of them are very interesting. Laws pertaining to Ontario women - and that is a contemparary issue - was in Q. 1913 discussed. A. It's like everything else you get - you oute;row things. But there have been a ,ireat many things that have been brought into law as far as women and children are concerned. One of the big deals here is the family laws. four years ago a_nd still is, Some of the women had been cut off 1-:ithout a dime. The husband diecl and left half of it to the church or J/4 of the women worked Q. like dogs. Mrs. Hymers, my neighbor, considered herself to be a very independanrfi, strong woman - do you think their husbands treated them as equals because they worked so hard on the farm and work in the bush etc., or do you think that even though they had these skills they weren't ... A. It depends entirely on the man-woman relationship. My mother was a very independant woman, she and dad got along very well. I think it depends on the people themselves. Fith all the talk etc., it takes two if you're going to be married - it takes a certain relationship but it depends on you as much as your husband. Q. A. What was the attitude of the men here, to the Women's Instutute? I'm a fairly new member compared to others because it had been operating for years before I ever heard of it, although my grandmother belonged in Manitoba. I think they kind of made fun because you actually do get that attitude even yet with a lot of women's groups. so. Chatter and stitch type of thing but not I think women do a lot of talking but men do too, all you have to do is go to conferences these days - they talk and talk. Maybe not so much modern vromen - the use of the husband in your family came first even though you worked outside, and loads of them did, held down a full-time job. interested in your family first and then the job. You were First you have to be an individual yourself and an independa.nt type of person. You can't do a good job on those two, I don't care Hho you are. If you can't carry on a good relationship Hith yourself. If you can't be happy with yourself you won't be LI �happy with anybody. I think a lot of pioneer women learned how to live with themselves first ru1d then the rest comes easy. I ' m thinking of all the women I knew who had been active all their lives, have done.all those things, have been married and are still married to the same person. I ' m not counting the friends who have been divorced two or three times because they could be married 49 times and they ' d go and do the same thing everytime. First you learn about yourselves, I think that is something a lot of younger women aren ' t aware of. This finding yourself that you're always talking about is not a thin~ to talk about, it ' s a thing to do because no one can do it but you and it comes from inside not from all the blah blah. I don ' t care who you are . . . . . . . Invariably you take lunch with them, so they served coffee and sandwiches. Q. But women never did the firefighting themselves. A. No, but some of the younger women now, because women have been incorporating Hith some of the fire departments, especially the volunteer groups because of the men beini:;; away all day. I think i:aka beka - they had the first women who actually drove the truck, they are trying to do that now here. But there is al Hays enough men around here that work right in within the community . . . . . . . we didn ' t 3et any grants or anything - they did the whole thing themselves. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Helen Atkinson Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Helen Atkinson in Dorion, Ontario on June 20, 1978. The interview was performed by Georgina Garrett and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Atkinson recalls the social, material, and working conditions of Northern Ontario in the early 20th century, including housing, farming, furniture, pulp hauling, clothing, medicine, community and personal relationships, and the activity of women. Halfway through the second audio file, Mrs. Atkinson speaks about the Women's Institute and other women's organizations of the early 20th century. The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Please note that there is brief mention of Indigenous peoples in the area of Dorion, Ontario that make use of language no longer considered appropriate. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-06-20 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dorion Canada - Ontario - Fort William Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/91434b931ba2389c30926c1409a42a5d.mp3 cfddfc33726ed0a849f96837eb6cae16 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/8478f1f25a8406e24446ac2f9c18fd09.mp3 a8244c78a9f5d7c2f9a30dc686df5f4c https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/37ca34e4b1b4a4a69b6b53165f6286de.mp3 807987e817ac16f7a7512d1a0d78a793 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/2d775f760650c71f26ab1c33f2f7c5d6.pdf 4f9e48cef8f2180259a6bcbfd49827ba PDF Text Text I ) HERSTORY PROJECT Mrs. Maki intervied by Georgina Garrett Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. In what year were you born Mrs. Maki? I was born in 1911. How long did you live in South Gilles? I lived in S. Gilles for 59 years. Why did your family go to S. Gilles - how did they get there? My mother and dad came from Finland but my dad came about two years before. He worked in the States for two years then he came to Port Arthur and he sent for my mother. My mother came with three children, two boys and a girl. and the little girl died about two weeks after with the whooping cough. So, my father looked for a farm for the best territory for the family. They settled in South Gilles which was a farm with a 160 acres and a little shack.,,,., Then, he started clearing land, there was about two acres clear and they got a call on credit from somewhere so that is where they started. My father sometimes worked out ten hours a day and he'd get / up early in the summertimes, about four or five o'clock and he'd clear land and go for work about seven. He'd come home in the evening and he'd again clear land until it was dark. How many acres did he finally manage to clear? Well, they:·had four farms and they managed to clear about 150 acres total. Then my brothers grew up and the family grew too - there was eight of us children living because two had died - and when the boys grew up they had to help out with the farm work, the cows had to be milked and the herd of cattle grew, they had about ten or twelve milking cows, pigs and mixed farming. Would you say that the farming was pretty prosperous out there? No, not in the first years. My father had a team of oxen and he used to go to work for the other farmers, and he got about a dollar a day , enough to buy groceries. It was pretty hard at first. My mother worked on the farm when my dad worked out and she worked in the hay fields and she raised the family, made her own soap - everything from scratch. Picked wild berries, grew a garden and knitted all the stockings and sweaters for the children, she'd sew when the children were put to bed, she'd sew to twelve or one o'clock in the morning. She just bought the material because it was cheaper ------- \ �to buy, the clothes were more expensive, so she did all the work herself. I really can't see how she did it all, she did the work of three women. I think maybe it would take half a dozen nowadays. So the boys grew up and some of us got married, two of my brothers stayed on the farm - they were bachelors. So finally they had two barns and a big house and all the working equipment - haybailers if they went to bail hay for the farmers in the fall for about three months. This is the way my parents and we lived until we got married. Q. Do you think it was a very satisfying life for your mother or do you think it was filled with drudgery? A. A lot of drudgery and no time for play. Of course women were satisfied. in a way because most women rad to do the same thing. Maybe some were better off - maybe they didn't have to manage the barn, maybe their husbands did it. Q. When my dad worked out, the boys did most of the farming. Who looked after the children in the early years when your mother had to do the farmwork? A. The old:er children. When we got the farm my older brother was about eight I at the time and he was left with the younger children and when I was six or seven, I was left at home all day to look after the kids. \ I changed their diapers, I washed dishes - I had to stand on a little stool, and there was a mountain of dishes and I still hate washing dishes. On the farm, if you had a big family you couldn't afford to send the children to school , I know I wanted to go in the worst way. ~-~f. high I went five and a half years to public school and I passed and they told me I was good in school so I tried everything but my dad couldn •t afford it. ,l And so very few I children went to high school even though there was a lot of smart kids I - but there was no money to be had. Q. Was your family close to other Finnish settlers? A. No, this was mostly an English community, they were the only Finns there. Dad had to learn some English when he worked out and he got along all right with the English but well, it wasn't easy. About twelve or thirteen years before the other settlers there came two or three families from Finland, to locate in South Gilles. Mother would visit people along with father Nolalu - all the way they'd drive with the horses or oxen. at And then we had a nice little lady _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , she was. ·an assistant coach - well she could understand, my mother wouldn't know a word here or there, and she'd put it all together. She used to visit our place often and I remember her �when I was little, sometimes some of the things she told us ...... And they would walk a long way - some of them used to be ten mile walks. Then of course there was the Women's Institute but my mother didn't belong because she wasn't fluent enough in English. The Women's Institute· was a wonder- ---- ful thing though because they would go once a month and they'd all gather there. They would go with the horses and the men would go too - it was in the afternoon. The men would have a meeting by themselves and talk about farming and the women would have their meeting and talk about different ways • of doing things - making soap, preserving eggs. and preserving other things. They learnt a lot of things in the Women's Institute. I think it was sort I of a university for a lot of women. They were a very good organization. Q. A. Did you ever join? Yes, I'm a life member of the Women's Institute for almost forty years. I joined the institute ten years after I got married , and I found it very rewarding. I was at the time very shy, couldn't get up to speak or say anything but finally it was hard for me to say "I second the motion". Eventually I got up and gradually I was named for many ~ffices in the _, institute. I was in the Council for three years_; on the School Board, etc. Q. All this in South Gilles? Yes. That sounds like political involvement - how did you develop that way - to A. Q. A. Q. A. want to participate in the community? I'm an avid read.er, I read a lot and I think that then, the Women's Institute and everything helped. I had learned much more after I left public school than I ever learned in public .school. Bit by bit, reading and all that I became quite a politician. I know all the Conservatives and Liberals and CCF and Social Credit. I make it my business to know their pu.atf:orms and what they want to do and what their ideas are. Of course you can't really know politicians ,you have to take it with a grain of salt. When you were young did yoµ and your husband talk about politics? We did, right from the start. My husband did not go to school very long in Finland because where he lived they didn't have public schools until he was fourteen. He went to school for about one year but he's very good in arithmetic and he reads and writes and knowledgable in world af'fairs. He's like me he reads a lot of books and magazines - too many in fact. If I had had more education I would have been a politician. But, I haven't II �Q. A. got the gift of gab, if I'd have got more education perhaps I would have got the ability to phrase the words differently. Can you describe your life when you were a young woman in Gilles? What was it like for you? What kind of expectations did you have? He didn't have too many expectations because the times weren't very good and the Depression years struck us, mostly because we didn't have a chance to go to school - the majority of women, only two that I know of, went to high school, and they only went about two years. One started teaching and the other was a clerk. What we thought about was - you get marri-oo,____....,,. and you settle on a farm. This was our big objective, we couldn't think of anything else. Married women didn't go to work and in the Depression years if you were married and if you were a teacher, you couldn't get a job. The single people were hired, you could not get a job if you were married. It was thought that you would settle on a farm and somehow get enough to get clothes for yourself. Had wood stoves and box stoves and you would use them in the winter time for heat. You got goods like milk and butter from your cows, the eggs and meat from chickens and we'd grow a garden and grow potatoes, you could pick wild berries. . There was good food, no doubt about that. We had no meat freezers then but we put the carrots in the sand;with the other vegetables and things we would use the root cellar. The cellar was dug into a little hill and you'd line it with seed and - - - - - and put double doors on it and aJ.l the vegetables would be kept there. I know sometimes in July we had carrots that were just like they'd been taken out of the garden, they'd keep so well. And the potatoes and turnips and we make pickles of all kinds. There was no -- Q. A. problem in getting food on the farm, but it was trying to get anythin_g____; else that was bad, because money was so hard to come by. Where did you learn your skills to preserve food and meat? My mother mostly and from other women talking about how they did it and I'd get tips from others. I remember my mother - moose meat was always available, there was so many moose and deer running around the fields that I know a lot of: people shot them out of season because there were too many. My mother would clean, wash and drain the meat and she'd pack the meat in jars, about 1½ quarter or 2 quarter jars and she would add about a tbsp. of salt and put alspice on top, That would boil for about six or seven hours in a big wash boiler and you'd put little sticks on the bottom so �5 that the jars wouldn't hit the bottom and then you'd boil them outside and you kept them boiling for about six to nine hours. That meat was so delicious, I can't describe it to you, it had a flavour all it's own. It was better than any other canned meat I've tasted. Some people salted it down Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. but it had to soak for quite a while ' and then it was boiled or roasted with pork .• if you had pork you would put it on top because moose meat is very fat and deer meat is very fat. And my mother always made real soap from the fat and the bones were put in as well ..... this was good for washing clothes. Do you think there was a lot of co-operation between the women? Yes there was, but there had to be. My mother was having problems with the language and I would know the language from going to public school, so I would interpret for her. And then they had quilting bees and things like that. Do you think there was any ostracization of certain families if they were very poor? Yes, in a way there was. I know one family that was very poor and they had quite a few children and the other children would comment about their poor clothes .... And there was no social services, they couldn't get any help, but the children turned out very well, much better than anyone ever would have expected. Can you talk about some of the social activities that went on in South Gilles? Yes, box and pte socials and the picnics and the school concert - they were something because we had very little other recreation. Pie socials well it was a pie social, everybody would bring a pie and they would be auctioned off and you have the name and you'd have them all decorated, the handle and the pie plate and then the men would bid on these. Then they'd have another for younger people, from about 13,14 to 16 year olds and then the boys would bid on these. I remember one, we were at ---School which was about five miles from Gilles School, we went mostly to Gilles School but sometimes we went out there. And then there was the teacher, she had told her boyfriend what the pie was like so all the other young men, well, they had eyes and ears. Sure enough, he started bidding because he lmew it was the teacher's. Eventually he had to pay 13 dollars, for that pay, he had to work about a whole week. Where did the money go? It went to the school and hall. It was sort of a community affair. In the winter time sometime we had a social were the women provided a lunch, there �was no dance, and we had all kinds of games. Then there were the school picnics, where a big truck would take the school children and go to the _ _ and spend the day. There were platforms put on the bottomeof the truck and they weren't very well fastened so whenever we took a tum, the whole truck would sway. And then the school concerts, we used to prepare for that two months ahead. I remember going once to S. Gilles for the con- cert and it lasted to midnight - the different costumes and the work of the mothers and teachers, was tremendous. The concert usually ended after about an hour and a half to two hours but this lasted to midnight. It was a Christmas concert and it was performed five or six days before Christmas, but now it has been discontinued which is a shame because this was a type of training for the children - they took children from the audience who would do their piece if they had courage - it was a living process. they said the children spent too many hours of school time on it. But I rem- ember when I went to school, not one hour was spent of school time on it, was noon hour and recesses that we did all the work and practise for the concert. I think they should have been kept on in the country because the children don't have the same opportunity to perform before an audience ~, Q. A. _J_/}~- Who helped you when you had your children? There were midwiYes. J The majority of the women had their babies at home, and I know my mother had ten children and she was never in the hospital once, and everything turned out fine. The first time she went to the hospital was when she was seventy years old. died in our community at birth. I don't think there was a child that I think the women were stronger in those days, they worked until they were ready to have the baby, which helped I think because when you 're on the go you 're strong. I can remember one woman saying that this man 1-iad a horse and it was in foal, and he had a hired man so he says to him that the mare is in foal but be very careful of her, when you turn corners, turn them gently. But his wife was pregnant and she worked day and night and he never told her to take it easy. The young colt was worth money but the baby was just one too many. Q. What about heal th care? Did women give each other hints on that? A. We had old time cures for different things and if it didn't help well the person died ..... Cures like this didn't always work .... Q. Is there any interesting story or anecdote about your life or another woman's life you would care to relate? A. Q. I can't think of anything. In what way? Just a story or concerning what? Something that shows your pioneer spirit, or maybe just a woman who stands �out in your mind; what she did for the community etc. A. Well, in the community I was in everything. as an individual. Politically I had never held although I had been interested in it, but I had not had enough an office education. Of course I went to all the political meetings etc. and I helped when they had an election as a scrutineer. They gave me the papers and told me how to do it and I worked on that. Q. What about in S. Gilles, what kind of work did you do there? A. I worked as a farmer's wife but then I was on the Council for years, I was still on the Council before I left. Q. Were there a lot of women on the Council? A. Not very many and I was elected yea:r: after yea:r, and then I was on the School Board for ten yea:rs, but I had to retire from the boa.rd. Q. What gave you this idea to run for office? A. Some people asked me. position myself. I think I would have been to timid to go for the I was a timid woman, I didn't put myself forward at all, I always had a low estimation of myself. Q. Do you think that is typical of farmwomen, I mean they were a pretty independant lot, why did they feel timid? A. Because I think most of them had very little education, I think most of them didn't even have grade school. The times were so, that if they got grade school educations they were lucky, most people thought that it wasn't worth educating a girl. F,ducate the boys if you can, but a girl - I remember my father saying to me - "Well you can change diapers withou;t· an education' ' . The way he put it, I would be a wife and I'd have children and I'd have a home. Q. This was the attitude of most of the community. I've heard that most rural women had more education than their husbands because the boys had to be taken out of school to do farmwork. A. This is true, as far· as the husbands go. education than their husbands. I think most of the women had more The new school was built and the old school was moved to the other side, and a new road was built. things. And yo, organized A new Ladies Aid of the United Church ..... the small church faded out of the picture after, For yea:rs, the co.:..ops existed, and then I was a member of the board of directors because there were very many co-ops then. There were many meetings I had to go to and I was the first secretary of the Hall Board, and I don 't know how I ever got the time. Q. Can you talk about your farmwork, what kind of working day you had on the farm? �q A. Well, it was niixed farming. We had chickens and cows and of course in the Depression years we worked on the farm and I did a little bit of sewing. We cleared. the land but we moved - we stayed on that farm for about three yea.rs. We moved to another farm and we built a new house and we had cows for a while but we decided to go into poultry and we built a poultry house. We found it very rewarding in the way of money as well. We got more raised than we bought actually because we bought themaa day old and they always would give us three or four extras for each hundred, so we raised more poulets than we paid for. Very few of them died. During the summer we would take many hundreds of them to Safeway - so we got double the price. Q. Did you dress them and kill them? A. We killed them and dressed them but they were New York fashion - we didn't take the insides out - we kept them cool for the night and the butcher shop did the cl ea.ning. We plucked them, my husband knew a way to kill them you know, to pierce the brain and then they were plucked and with a blow torch any hair that was left was singed, then they'd be cleaned and wrapped in wax paper. As for the eggs, we had a good market for our eggs. People say that chickens smell, well our didn't. , we had a ventilation system that was really good. We never cleaned the litter it crone up to about 10,12 inches high and it was dry. We had to clean what dropped out and the wire under the roost so that the chickens would never get under the dropping pens. In the daytime when they were scratching, all the droppings would fall into the litter and it would dry. Q. Did you like working with the animaJ.s? Did you do as much work with the chickens as your husband? A. Yes. ActuaJ.ly in the summertime he would look after the big house and feed all the chickens in the big house, while I looked after the young ones on the range. of it. We had them fenced in and good grass so that they'd eat a lot I liked the chickens, and I had the garden and about an acre of lal-m with lots of flowers and trees, and we planted about a hundred trees. When we first moved there there was nothing but jack pine so we had to cut them all and replant. Cutting that lal-m was a lot of work - three hours with that lawnmower, sometimes people would stop there and look. I remember someone telling my neighbor - "You know, I just had to stop my car and look at that place". We sold it and left it. Ue went out of the 'chicken bus- iness because it wasn't very1good any more and chicken ranches were coming up where they'd have 30,000 chickens, they ran it much more efficiently. We bought this house two and a half years before we moved here. the farm that much but I miss the neighbors. I don't miss We had good friends and that �Q. is what I miss the most. It seems that a lot of women in the country were really more involved in the community than those in the city were. Do you think that their opinion was always respected as equals to the men? A. I'm not sure but I think they were. I know a lot of women used to take part in events, and they had a Ladies Aid of the United Church and then they had the Women'·s Institute but they didn't last very long. Put the I don•~ know why. Women's Institute together and no matter what - dinners etc. they always came to the Women's Institute, and they would do it. There was a lot of co-operative women, they helped in any way they could, if someone asked them to something to raise funds for the Cancer Society, they would and everyone knew that others benefitted. Q. One person I talked to remarked that if it wasn't for the women, the communities would not have got settled because women worked with groups. A. Yes, I think it was the women in the community who worked so hard. I rem- ember when we were in the first haJ.1., it was the Women's Institute Hall, it was only insured for : two thousand dollars and it burnt - it was worth five thousand. All the equipment burnt and everything. With four thousand dollars, the Community Center was started and we put out tenders and it was the bare necessities that were put up first and later on it was renovated. It was the Women's Institute who started all this and it wouldn't have been there if not for the women. Q. They were the organizers? A. Yes they were the organizers of the Hall, of course we got the co-operation of the men too. The women planned these things and of course you had to get the men - you can't build anything without the men. Q. Do you think it was more important to the women to have community organizations? A. Yes, I think so. The women looked at things a little differently than men. They raised their children and I think the women looked ahead more than the men. Q. How did the climate and physical environment of Northwestern Ontario affect your life? A. It curtailed our social life to a great extent in the winter time because the roads weren't open and when we went to school we had to walk on the sleigh trail of the horses which had gone by previously. Later on they made a snow plow and they had about 17 horses and a dozen men behind which would go ahead of the horses and clear a little snow if there was an especially bad snowdrift. In the summertime it wasn't that bad but again �(O the roads were very poor, the ruts were six, s even inches deep, but the old Tin Lizzy would go over anything. The cars then were higher off the ground so they didn't scrape the bottom. It took us about two hours to get to the city and that's a long time. We used to walk - five miles was nothing to wa']k to a dance, so we'd walk there, dance all night, and walk back home again. I think that we wanted to go so bad that five miles was nothing. Q. What was your earliest recollection of your mother or some other woman that was important in your life? A. I think Aunt Cassy was another woman who was very important in my childhood. She was always meek and merry, she'd be always laughing and talking. She wasn't really my aunt her name was Mrs. Carson, everyone called her Aunt c~assy. Q. What qualities about her did you ad.mire? A. Actually she was very jolly and I think this was what drew me to her more than anyone else. A child likes a jolly woman - she'd talk to the child- ren and laugh - I can't re~ber anything else but her personality. Q. You didn't get the impression that she found her life greulling etc. A. No, she had a very simple life - a house with two rooms , one was used a the bedroom and the other as a dining room and kitchen. I remember as a child papering all the wa1ls with newpaper and it wasn't rea1ly effective. see some people now papering their dens with newspaper . -would do that and everything was neat and claan. I Every year she The study was inside and because of the rough boards it was rea1ly hard to paper and I don't know how many layers of peper she had to use on that. Q. She never had any children? A. No. Q. How did she gain her 0)id w 1{Q(lLiskills? A. I don't know, she came from t C East and I don't know whether she ·just practised herself or if she found out from somebody else. Q. What do you think was the hardest part of being a country woman in the old days was? A. The hardest part was the work and I don't think there was much social life. Q. • •••• Very few people could afford reading material. If someone got a book it wa : passed around the whole community ..... Do you think there has been a positive change in the woman's role �• • A. even as farmwomen? I think there has been a big change. I think after the Second World War when women went out to work, there has bit by bit been a change in the men's attitute towards women. independant. Now the majority of women work and they a.re Before I remember women had to beg for m:oney from their husbands for groceries etc. Q. There doesn't seem to be the closeness among ruraJ. women as their used to be. A. No, one goes om:J way and the other one goes another way. We used to stick together in the old days, of course then we had no recreation and no transportation. They just get into the car and go now. Everything now is youth orientated and the older people seem to be left out. I don't think it is a matter of respect, but they don't seem to care for the old folks as much as they used to. The young women nowadays a.re much more freer. I think there has been a big change. Q. Do you think they lost something not being as close to other women? A. I think in a way they have. , ...... . Q, Can you taJ.k about your work in the co-operatives? How did you get involved in the first place? A. He had just one store in the community and you would go to the store and you'd have to wait a.round for an hour or a half an hour for them to open the store, !nd when they went to dinner for an hour the store would be closed again. So the farmers were getting pretty disgusted so they said the best thing would be to open a co-op store. be open aJ.l the time. If they had a co-op it would So the people donated logs and lumber and they had one carpenter and the whole store was worth it. The men and women both worked and this is where I got involved in the store, and the store was built and people started living - it was a wonderful thing for the community. You would sell your work, and the milk was taken to the dairies - of course there was the co-op dairy for a while. their milk than they ever did. that wa:sn 't very good. People got so much more for They did have a truck hauling cream but But the milk, the money really started coming in. Then if you needed anything from the city, you di:dn 't have to go there yourself, the co-op truck would bring anything you needed. You could sell everything like your hay, at a much better price than you used to. So then I got into the committee work and then they joined with the co-operative in Port Arthur and everybody bought shares. �• Q. When did it start to decline? A. Q. What was the role of women in the co-operative? 'A.. do? Girls and young women in the community would work there. Q. Did women do any organizing work for raising funds? A. Yes. cash. What kind of work did they The co-op should not have given credit, it should have been strictly This is when it declined. because people wouldn't pay their bills. I think they just should have had it on a cash basis. We could have sold the goods much cheaper if only cash were used. Q. Can you remember the P & D and what kind of effect it had on the community? A. Yes, it was a wonderful thing at first. The farmers would haul the ties up to Hymers etc. but when the trucks came, I think this was the decline of the P & D. Because people didn't go to the city by train anymore, they got cars and when trucks came, the people started hauling wood via trucks. Q. Did you know Mr~.Mitchell at all? A. No, I didn't but I knew some people who knew her very well. down in the other end, she lived in Whitefish. She lived way She was quite a woman, and that book she wrote, I just read it. Q. You said that your mother and father were from Finland, what kindoof things did your mother do to preserve her Finnish culture? Do you think that was important to her? A. I don't think at that time. She just worked and worked, she didn't do any- thing else, and there weren't too many Finns in the community. There were three other farms which were Finnish and that was in 1920 and mother had lived in an English community for years. So I don't think she did anything to restore it, except speak the language. I started learning and she would help me with the writing and spelling. Q. How did you feel? A. I don't know ...... . Did you want to preserve your culture? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Impi Maki Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Canada - Ontario - South Gilles Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Mrs. Impi (Tissari) Maki in Thunder Bay on June 27, 1978, by Georgina Garrett. The interview is a part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available here as MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play the files.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Mrs Maki was born in 1911 and lived in South Gilles for 59 years. Her father immigrated from Finland and worked in the US for two years before moving to Port Arthur and her mother then immigrated with three young children. Buying 160 acres, they cleared the land and began farming. The interview talks about her mother's work on the farm and raising a family of ten children. Discussions centre around the rural community, family life, farming, women's organizations and women's work. Mrs Maki speaks about being involved in political meetings, community leadership, the Women's Institute and the Co-op Store. The interview offers a detailed look at farm life in a rural community in Northwestern Ontario from women's lived experiences through life in the Depression, WWII and beyond. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-06-27