559 10 13585 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/285dba208206fc0bfe4aefafcbc9e876.mp3 70a5ce426b5c2428430727363d248869 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/46a69a71f9f5e652e07d531449f0a86a.pdf feb2208a5fad6cb1805e2d4c99a9571f PDF Text Text ' i . l J '--'<'. ~ j HERSTOTIY PROJECT \ Mrs .. Forrester interviewed by Georgina Garrett Q. .Jhen did you start at Canada Car Mrs. Forrester? A. January, 1941. Q. How old were you? A. 16. Q. Why did you start working there? ·A. My stepfather was sick, he couldn ' t work and I had to quit school and get a job. Q. What made you choose Canada Car? A. They were hiring in those days and needed all they could get. Q. I know a lot of women worked there - were most of the peoply you worked with women? Q. Uhen I first started there were 200 men and 5 women. Did you like it?" A. Oh yes. Q. How did you feel abo.ut doing something that was kind of unusual for a woman A. Not at first. to do? A, I enjoyed it, I really did. Q. What did you do at first? A. I went into riveting. Q. ]ho taught you how to rivet? A. Bill Williams and Doug Holchak. Q. :Afhat did you work with? A. They are air guns and rivets. Q. TJhat were you building? A. The plane wings. Q. What kind of planes were they? A. When I first started they were Hawker Hurricanes, and then it was the Curtis How do you rivet? Helldivers for the States. Q. A. Was there a patriotic feeling about building these planes? I don ' t think so, it vras just a job. �Q. A. Was it mono~onous, riveting? No, I really enjoyed it . There are so many different sizes of rivets and sizes of guns and full of different things and parts of the wings. I worked on the whole wing , not just one piece of it. Q. tras it highly skilled? A. No. Q. In this picture you are standing across from another woman. A. Sitting, she was riveting, I had the gun on this side and she was bucking the bar on the other side to flatten th~m out. It took two to rivet, she was my helper. Q. Was there a close feeling amon€:, the women? A. Yes. Q. Why was there a close feeling? A. For one thing, the people were from right across Canada who worked there, we Of course there was a whole department, there was no fights or anything. rqet people from every province. Q. i!hat was there about the plant that .... ? I still write to them and go to see them. Has there any co-operation among the women? Did they teach each other dif- ferent skills? A. No, I had helpers that were women but we had a lot of boys coming in. about me? But what They got higher pay because I was a woman and yet I had to teach them. Q. Didn ' t your union ever complain about this? A. Nothing you could do about it. The women got paid lower than the men. Even when I was there for 4 years, the boys came in and they were younger than me but they got higher pay because they uere boys. And I was teaching them how to do it. Q. This was pretty -:"1ell universal in the plant· then. A. Yes, all over women were paid lower. Q. Did the women ever talk about complaining? A. No, not really, the odd one but one can't do anything about it. Q. Did you belong to a union? A. Yes. Q. And the union didn ' t .... ? A. That was the wage rate and that was it. Q. That ' s really awful. A. Yes it is. was. Now I wouldn ' t put up with it but those days this was the way it �Q. Do you think tha:.' s one reason so many women were hired? A. No, the men had gone to the services so they had to hire women. Once you worked there you couldn ' t even quit unless you were pregnant. Q. Why not? A. They needed people to build the planes during the war. Q. What, where you on a contract then? A. No. Q. Well why couldn ' t you quit? A. This was where you started work, you couldn ' t work anywhere else because you started working there because they needed you. Q. So you wouldn't be hired anywhere else if you .. had quit? A. Well you probably would because during the war years, you couldn ' t stay out of work. Q. Can you describe what a typical day was? A. No, I lived in F. W.. Did you live on the site? You would sign out your tools - your motor and a gun and light and get the rivets. Then you ' d start riveting and find where your job was. Q. Did you get any breaks in the day? A. Oh yes, a lunch and coffee breaks - one in the morning and one in the afternoon of 10 minutes each. Q. Did you associate after work hours with any of the other women? A. Yes, on Sunday the whole department wouldlmead down to the show at the Capitol Theatre so in the shows on Sunday night was all of Canada Car. Dancing on Sat. Q. Did Canada Car supply the clothes? A. Yes, at first we had one-piece overalls and after that there were two-piece overalls. We had to wear those two-piece blue uniforms with these hats to put our hair in. Q. How did the men treat you? A. Good. I was only 16 and I was pretty green. A couple of married guys gave me a book on sexs marri,,ge and birth control and I never thought about it and I read the whole book between lunch breaks. was awful shy but not after They explained it all to me. I 5 years in there. Q. Why was that? A. I don ' t know, they never treated you like girls or women. Q. fellow employee, that ' s all. So other than wages, you didn't encounter any discrimination? A. No. We were just another 3 �Q. "Why did you stop working there? A. The war ended and that was it, everybody was.: out the next day. Q. What about the men, were they laid off? A. Yes, we all were, some wer.e hired back for the buses they were building. My husband ' s brother was hired back to make buses, he stayed there two more years and then he went to the paper mill. Q. So you met your husband out there. Were you familiar with what the barracks in Canada Car were like for the women? A. I was just there once visiting a girl friend. The walls were like paper is all I could say about it. Q. Did you try to get another job after Canada Car? A. Yes, I was a telephone operator in the Fort William Telephone Exchange. Q, How was that different from working at Canada Car? A. The wages were better but I enjoyed Canada Car more. The straight work in the afternoon was split-shift. Q. The telephone operators were mostly women I guess. A. It was all women then. Q. Did you encounter discrimination in wages there? A. No. Q. Did any woman play a role in the union at Canada Car? A. Q. A. Q. There must have been but I forgot now. A. It didn ' t really affect me at all. How did you feel about the union? I couldn ' t say - I paid my union dues and that was it, Had the odd meeting. How did the war affect you in other ways besides going to work? I had no brothers to go or relatives that went overseas, it didn ' t affect me. Q. Did other women talk about it? A. Yes, a lot had their husbands killed or their brothers. Q. Do you know of any other war industries in Thunder Bay? A. There was a shell plant on Mission Island. Q. Did you move up the ladder when you were working since you worked for 4 years. A. No, I started at .42¢ and at the end of 4½-years I was getting .83¢ an hour They called it starch work. and we ·worked 12 hours with overtime most of the time. time Q. We felt bad about it. 4:30 from the afternoon to 4:30 in the morning. income tax at first, just the last year or two. Would you say it was satisfying work? On Sunday was double We didn ' t pay any �A. Yes, I enjoyed it. It wasn't boring.:, it wasn ' t sitting in one spot. You could walk around .. At the telephone excha?:lge you always sat in one chair for 4 hours, and that was it. This was different ..... . Q. Why did you walk around? A. Jell in that job I finished one part so I moved around to the next. Q. So you would rivet in all different parts of the plane. A. Yes, the wings and other parts. Q. Was there any kind of risk involved in it? A. Not really, on my 17th birthday there I was bending over and was drilling with the rivet. spot. My hair was hanging down and it caught that and I had a big bald A lot of times, for fun, somebody would pull out your three-pronged plug and put it in upside down and you woiu.d get a shock when you put the mot or on. It was fun - it I-mocked you on your rear end but it was fun. . Q. Uas there· a feeling of camaraderie? A. Yes. Q. Why do you think they had that kind of atmosphere? A. Made of the --kind of people - people from all over. The bosses didn ' t come and sit and watch you, you could joke with them. After the war we went to Winnipeg and we just stood there and everybody said "Hi Canada Car". You didn ' t know their names but you recognized their faces. Q. Was it the fact that you were all working on a project for the war? A. That had something to do with it but at the time it did.11 ' t enter our heads. Q. Do y ou think there should be more jobs like that for women? A. Yes, I liked my experience. Q. 6,800 yes. The paper said 700 but 7,000 worked there. Did you ever want to go back. Did you apply to work on the buses or street cars? A. No, I 1-1orked at the telephone exchange before I married and then I had two kids to look after so I just q_uit working. But I ' d go back tomorrow if I could go back to the- way it was then. Q. Is there anything else about working at Canada Car you can tell me? I heard there was a woman president or manager, because she had been an ene;ineer of an aircraft - McGill I think was her name. A. I don ' t remember her at all. Thank-you very much. There probably was ..... � 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: Jean Forrester Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Jean Forester in Fort William, Ontario on July 21, 1978. The interview was performed by Georgina Garrett as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Jean Forester recalls her time working for Canada Car from 1941 to 1945. Jean reflects on the discrimination in men and women’s pay, the role of the union, the types of planes she worked on, her relationship with her co-workers, and her usual work schedule. She also reflects on her time working as a telephone operator at Fort William Telephone Exchange. The recording consists of one side of a cassette tape, available as one MP3 file. (Click on the speaker logo to play the file.) Text is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. 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 1978-07-21 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 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 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/eb7afccfaf79f30f6fd125d4af1bf2b2.mp3 1f2c833c80ad77ccb16be0a33230181e https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/25da6b29fe075ca90c6d712ceedc77df.mp3 7d9f56703e8647b1a9bc5fac36193844 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: Jean Holyk Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Released form signed (Alphabetical list says Texts not Found) Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Mrs. Jean Holyk in Thunder Bay. 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. The discussion joins an ongoing conversation in two parts. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) A reflective conversation with Jean Holyk about Ukrainian women’s history, Ukrainian community in Thunder Bay and women’s rights and equality with a focus on the importance of education, culture and advocacy. The discussion also talks about immigration, Ukrainian history and the social networks for women and their families through the Depression, World War II and integration into community. 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 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio 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 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1accc879249bb199cf359594dc40bfcc.mp3 868e969cf481dac65e618d886983bcae https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b58aaa98591ccc38cf679856cde41cdb.mp3 c60746aa41276715b834bcefd5457990 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/3631e11906902a6102c112b46ad92cba.mp3 4ce7f442fe5f4ba44de6c3db3b585cb6 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7fe3ed85066373a8901cc760f8e266f1.pdf 9bef97e7822049507657e2ee4f8e8aa6 PDF Text Text r '/ _, Mrs. Stephenson: Interviewer: (exactly as transcribed in handwritten form) Murillo Karen Dubinsky and Helen Lovekin (Children count to 5--fore run) K: We're taling today to Mrs. Stephenson, from Murillo. Could you tell me what year you were born in? Mrs. S: K: Oh, 1904. Yah, and how long have you lived here? Mrs. S: And I have lived in Murillo since I came here in 1924. K: Where from? Mrs. S: K: Really? Mrs. S: K: From England. Did you come straight here? And I came right to Murillo. Yah? Mrs. S: Well I came, yiu know, I landed in Montreal, and came to Fort William and came here. K: Did you come with your family? Mrs. S: No, I came on my own. Well, my mother brought me to Montreal and then I came up here alone, and I came to my Uncle (Lance)? farm. to. And I came up to that That's the picture of the farm that I came ----·------ Out on th~J i § : ~ And I lived there from then until I moved to Murillo, here in this little house, in about 9 years, about 9 years whenn I moved out here to live when I lost my husband. I couldn't live on the farm. I had to seel it and I moved to this little house. H: What did you arise on the farm? Mrs. S: Who me, I was orignially raised in England. �-2H: No, raise on the farm. Mrs. S: H: Oh yes, I was raised in England on a farm. No, I mean your livestock. Mrs. S: Oh yes, we had a dairy farm and sold milk to the Co-op Dairy. K: What dinds of work did you do on the farm? Mrs. S: Oh, outdoors. Well, I had to work outdoors and in, but my, I came to my uncle when my un~le was sick. He had asthma. You know what that is. you can work, some days you can't. Some days So I had to practically do his work and let the easy work for him to do because when you have asthma, on a muggy day, you're just like a wind-broken horse. You know, you can't breathe so I did the hheavy work and he had to j do what he could of the lighter jobs. So that's the way we managed. K: Is that unusual, then, for the woman to be doing the heavy work on a farm? Mrs. S: Well, I was raised in England in the war so in England in the war everybody worked. all--that's how I lost my thumb. on the farm at home. the farm there. And you did everythingo were going to do next. life. H: And there I worked England home. We all worked. Mids and I worked on Everybody worked. You didn't know what you You was fighting for That's all. You didn't go into the cities at all to work? Mrs. S: No. No. No, it was practically, where I was raised, �\ -3a farming district, and it was, it was, it was a little seaside resort and the biggest town was only four miles from where I lived and it was ... People came there in the sunnner for their holidays. H: In (Borden?) Mrs. S: No, it was called (Gould)? but it was, like (Bordnu-f)? It was a place like that . where they have people from London and oh the bigger cities come there for their holidays. H: So you lived on a dairy farm in England and you came here to work on your uncles's dairy farm as well? Mrs. S: H: And when you were married? Mrs. S: H: Yah. I was married to ... A dairy farmer? Mrs. S: No. bush. He wasn't a farmer. You know. He used to work in the Everyone worked in the bush here. Well, that's why werwere. His parentskkept, what is the Murillo Hotel now. His mother kept that as a boarding house and it was a big family and she did all the cooking, and a daughter, her grown-up , daughter, they, each had their jobs and they kept their roomers and they kept the schoolteacher and in those days, in those days, they dispatched the trains from Murillo Station instead of Fort William and they had two operators, day operator and night operator and they had .... There was about five men that stayed at Mrs. Stephenson's boarding house �-4- that worked at the station. And take different shifts, you know, and that went on for years and years, and they dispatched the trains from up here and in those days--when I came here, there was no--in the winter, you couldn't go to town with cars, you see, the roads weren't open. The roads weren't kept open then. H: How did you go to town? Mrs. S: With a team and sleigh. And the farmers would all grow potatoes to sell in winter and when it got cold, they would have to make loads. They would start off in the morning with a load of sixty bags of potatoes on and they would build the sleigh so that they would have a lantern or something in the centre to keep the potatoes from freezing, and they would cover them with a tarpolin and they would drive like that from here to town all winter long. Maybe three days a week, they'd do like that and, uh, take fruit and vegetables--fruit! --vegetables rather, potatoes mostly, into town. H: Was that ever one of your duties? Mrs. S: No. Noo for a mano I never did that. That was a day's work It'd start about six in the morning and it would take till about twelve to get there, you know, with a team, and a load of potatoes, sixty bags of potatoes on a load. all heavy horses. You see, and it was They'd have to take their time. And then they would put their horses in. They'd �-5always have a sale on potatoes. They would take them all to one place, to a score or somewhere, and they would put away, they would take their horses to rest and feed and they could unload their load while the horses were feeding and resting. You worked for your money then, you know. I suppose they got about 9Oj cents for the bag of potatoes, after they'd got them in there. K: We have a question about the climate and the environment of Northwestern Ontario. How did you feel that that that made your life particularly different. I guess the fact that you couldn't travel into town. Mrs. S ':' Well, we never knew the difference. I mean, as you got, as times in, as times got a little better, well, you got some kind of a car, or you got a truck, and you, the only thing. You did the same work on the farm, only you could get tinto town every day of the week with your stuff with a car instead of having to go in with horses. K: Did you feel that farming in Northwestern Ontario was comparable to that in England? Mrs. S: Oh no. There was no comparing. sell things like that over there. We didn't have to Over there, you---farming, you sold the one item and you grew the feed and everything to produce it. You know, you didn't have to buy ..... Here ..... You didn't have the winters to contend with over there, you see, you had winter, but it wasn't like the �-6Canaidan. over there. You didn't have snow or ice or that We were too near the sea. The sea helped keep you warm and you could grow something year round there. And your -rops are much better, you know. H: Mrs. Did you find the winters a shock? S: No. The funny thing was I ; dmdn't notice the winter. I was here. For quite a long time in that winter I never even wore rubbers. I wore leather boots the first winter I was here .. And I wore leather boots all winter the first winter I was here. I didn't notice the cold. But the longer you live here, yougget aclimatized to t this weather and you get so used to doing like the rest do I su suppose. Wear the clothes and the things that you wear here. But the first winter you come you don't notice the cold. You can stand the cold better than a Canadian the first winter. H: I notice it. Mrs. S: Hard to believe but that's the way it was with me anyhow. H: And so because you didn't notice the cold, it wasn't as difficult to do your daily chores? Mrs. S: H: No. No. You just lived your life. Mrs. S: You just .... Well I remember the first winter that I wore slacks, which I never did in England. I wore a pair of breeches the first winter, which in �-7England we never wore slacks. that when I left England. It wasn't got to You wore dresses. But the first winter here, I don't know why, but it was about the time when people was going into wearing breeches and that for winter. And of course I can knit because all English people can knit. So I could knit stockings for myself and mitts and things like that which help too, you know, help keep you warm. H: So it was first the effect of the climate on your farming that you found different. Mrs. S: H: No. Not too much different. No. Not much. Mrs. S: Because farming is farming. notice here. out. Only thing you Over there you don't turn the cattle You don't have to take them and break the ice and wait for them to drink. and see they don't fall and drown. You first turn them out and they can drink you see. You don't have to have--you don't have to have running water in the barns, and things like that over there. Here, you get up for that you see, because you have to keep the water from free~ing. H: Didn't you find that made your household work very difficult? Mws. S: Oh no. Because the water would freeze? You'd get so used to it that you don't notice it. You know you have to do it and it didn't seem to bother. �-8- H: What did you do--have a large barrell of water and cut a hole in it every day? Mrs. S: Every day yes. We'd have to go to the cattle. We Had to go to the bush and we had--there was running water in the bush and then in the winter you'd have to go and chop the ice up and make holes so the cows could drink. And stay theEe and see one didn't push the other in, you know, cause there's always a bah in a herd of cows. There's always some--like kids-- some gonna be there before the others, you know. And then after a while, if we get a serious winter, you might have to haul water for them or then it got that we used to try and dig a well in the bush and then we had to go and put a pump in or dip it up for them, you see. And you had to sa stay with them to see that they all drank and came home again. Or they maybe get frightened and one would push theo other in. Something like that. So you was busy all the time. And, I don't know. You got used to it. And that was the thing to do and you did it, I guess. H: Was Murillo a farm connnunity when you came here? Mrs. S: Well yes. Yes. There were mostly farmers here dear. All around, everywhere,-the farms were all a around the township you see and Oliver Township was eight miles square or somebhing, quite a big township, you see, and most of the farms was a hundred and sixty acres. �-9H: That's quite large. They wguilid have to clear that wouldn't they? Mrs. S: Oh yeso They'd have to clear that and when my uncle came, which was before I did, he saiddthey used to clear land. They'd burn over a peice of land, cut the wood, and burn it over to kill the stump and then, the next thing you know, they had another pice of land then, the next thing you know, they had another piece of land ready for the plough. K: I want to talk about the sotial life. stuff did you do? What dind of Maybe acitve community things with your church? _ _ _ _ _ ? Mrs. S: Yes, ! ah, they seemed to have had a lot of fun. When I came here their pass-time, they had a lot of dancing. Ah, you know, going from place to place and going to somebody's house SatufdEi.Jy night or something and have a bash. And they would load up a whole load and go somewhere to a dance. That was the thing to do. And they didn't mind staying up all night to dance. K: Did you go into town? Mrs. S: You couldn't go into town in the winter, dear. You--if you went to town--but there was trains-there were locals, they called them locals and there was a train went west to--where did they go?--Ignace--up the line somewhere. Fort William to ... H: Silver Mine? From �-10Mrs. S: Oh no. No. The train would take them to a station way up the line. Was it Ignace? Somewhere like that--that was the division point--division point, you see. And then it would go up today--there was a local that would go up today and then it would come back tomorrow and there was an operator at the station that you could buy a ticket, and get on the train and it used to go up in the morning one day and come back around noon or two o'clock or sometming and go down to town. into town like that. So you could go And then I think there was a train at night, about e i even o'clock, that if you got into town, you could catch thatt rain in town and it would let you off at a little station. So I can remember if the men wanted to go to a hockey game, they would get into town somehow and they could come home on that ~leven o'clock train to the station, you see, and they could get off, and they'd have to get home from there the best way they could. H: So the women stayed on the farms. Mrs. S: Well the women didn't go so much ehen as they do now. But the men went chiefly because the women didn't veem to want to go in the wintertime. H: Why do yout think they didn't want to go? Mrs. S: Well I think it was too cold, for one thing, dear, and they wasn't that interested in sport as they are today. H: Did the women do much socializing between themselves ' �-11- co-operation on the farm and that? Mrs. S: Well the farm women helped on the farm of course, and of course a lot of them had growing families and the younger ones, as they grew up, they went to town to work. But I can remember when I came they didn't go to highschool like they do today. You went to such a grade here, to about grade seven, was it? Here. Akd if you wanted to go to high- school, you went downtown and somebody would take you and keep you and you'd help in the house, help do the work, and help look after the children for your board and you went to highschool. what they did when I came here. they go to school today. But that's It wasn't like But I think they learned more that way because that was the thing to do and that was the only way they could get that much more of an education, you see. H: They had to work for it. That helps. Mrs. S: That helps, you see. And I think they were better for it because they knew if they wanted to get ahead, that's what they had to do. But today, this is my opinion, that the kids get it pretty easy today. You know. Then some of them did really well because they wanted to, you see. They wanted to go ahead. H: Because of the efforto Mrs. S: K: Yes. They put the effort into it? Was it connnon for girls to go on to highschool? �-12Mrs. K: s: Pardon? Was it connnon for girls to go on to high school? Mrs. S: Oh, the girls used to go too. T think there was just as many girls used to go to highschool as boys. Some of them did And they did very well. real wello it, you see. But that was the way they had to do There's one thing for sure, you didn't have the money to do it dear, and then after I came, then we had what we call "The Hungry Thirties". You didn't have very much then. Only what you worked for. K: How did the depression affect you? Mrs. S: Well, I didn't know then, you see. to it. We was used We was used to doing without for so long. How can I explain it? You see, we had gone through the war and things were hard. things you couldn't get. There was alot of You did with what you could and you made made a lot of things for yourself. know. You Everybody seemed to be able to sew or knit so that you clothed yourself and .... But there was a lot of things that you didn't have that you have today and nobody seemed to mind. You just had to make your life around what you could afford. K: Do you think the depression made people more generous in sharing what little they had? Mrs. S: Oh I think people were very good. figured it out, everybody was good. well. The way I had They got along It was like a connnunity, you see, and every- �-13- body got along just fine with eash other because that's all they had. Their pleasures ... they make their own pleasures and thei r little get-togethers and that were kind of home-made. But they enjoyed themselves, I think. K: If a family was suffering more than another, would there be cases where people would donate things? Mrs. S: Well they would get help. Or somebody ... If there was a case of sickness or something had happened, a disaster or something ... Well everybody would dig in and help. I think. Oh yes, people were good to each other, That's the way I saw them. You belonged to the community so, of course, you helped each other. K: How about the Wars, how did they affect the community? Was there a big affect? Mrs. S: K: The war? Either the first or the second World War. Mrs. S: Well, the first .... ! always told them I didn't know what war was. I mean, here. I didn't know what war was. H: Because they had been in Europe? Mrs. S: They were that far away from it that they didn't know what was was. volunteered. The men that went to war, It was something new. They didn't know what they was going into. H: Did you ever try to talk any of the men out of going to war? �-14- Mrs. S: No. No. It was no use to talk them ou of it. If they wanted to go they had to ... They had to learn what war was. of it. Because you couldn't talk them out Because it got to be in the second War they had to go whether they wanted to go or not. at first, yous see, it was the volunteers. But And in war time one volunteer is worth, at the time that that we thought to make go. practically volunteers. was going into. about. H: So the first war was They didnl t know what they They didn't know what it was all They had to learn that when they got there. Did your husband go? Mrs. S: No. old. Yes. He joined when he was seventeen years And he was in the first waro And he was in France and he came home and he came back. But then thank goodness, he wasn't my husband then. In the second war he was and he was too old to go. But in the first war the youngsters that did join at seventeen, they didn't know anything about war. They didn't know what they were getting into. K: What were some of the women's activities during the war as volunteer? Mrs. S: Well, they begun to take women int the services in the war and they worked chiefly as cooks and things like that. They were in the Women's Army and they would chiefly do women's jobs and that. didn't go to the front. Theyy Not ... but there was alot of things to do. H: How did the women manage to keep the farms with the men �-15gone? Mrs. S: H: Well the way I did I guess. You just did it. You just did it. Mrs. S: But, of cours~ on the farms around here, there was the grandparents. There was grandfathers and there was children in the clan that could help, you see. That was one thmng,--that people did here-- they were great to--like at threshing time--they go from one to the other and help each other. didn't have to hire help. You would come and help . me and I would come and help you. thing you know. That kind of a They did a lot of that. saving wood and things l like that. each other. They And They helped And got along like that. They didn't have to hire somebody to do the work. They did it themselves between themselves. No the people were good to work with each other and helped each other out quite a bit and it wasn't like it is today, dear. You wouldn't. now from then. H: Life is a different thing altogether Then everybody helped each other. Now everybody's for themselves. Mrs. S: Now everybody's for themselves. It's a different idea altogether now. And I don't know. People get along good together. If you belonged to Murillo or you belonged to Stanley 0r which ever place you belonged to you were that groip. together. H: So it was like a family. You got along �-16Mrs. S: Yah, like ... Side 2 Mrs. S: I forget how many years before I had enough money to go home. H: Oh yes to visit Mrs. S: H: Back home. But ____________ ? But you had to come here from such a veautiful clean part of the world into the bush. Mrs S: Oh yeso It was quite a difference you know. I can remember coming up here on the CN and I had to stmp overnight at j Capriole and I didn't know anybody but there's one hotel at Capriole and the hotel manager was used to letting people having them stay overnight, and catch a train the next morning at eight or something like that. And then I can remember catching ahe train and coming on and I suppose it was North Bay that I had to change trains and that was in the middle of the night. And I can remember as long as I live--! was only young you know. I suppose about nineteen. And I had to get off the train that I was on and go across the bridge, the river, and get on to another tBain to take the train to Fort William. SYou travel all day and all night and the next morning I got into Fort William about eight o'clock in :the morning. Then I had to phone my incle that I was in Fort William and had to wait at the station 'til he drove into the station to get me. But you see �-17by the time I came from the time they came, he had got a car and ... But when they came they had to come right on to Murillo and then the train didn't put them off at Murillo and they put them off at a Kaministiqua. And they walked back, they walked the trac~, mmy uncle and I walked the track from Kam to Murillo. is. H: And you know what walking the track I walked the track lots but it was no fun. With all your bags and everything? Mrs. S: Oh they left their luggage. They just walked back. They just left their luggage in the station and told the man at the station to send their luggage back to Murillo, on a train that would come down. K: Was that quite an adventure for you, travelling here by yourself when you were ... ? Mrs. S: Well, it was, yes, dear, because you didn't know the country and you didn't know the people. Bunt I'm one of these ... I'm the one that should go to Canada because I mix with everybody. mind it. I didn't It was quite an adventure but then it wasn't like it is today. You had bunks--bunk up here to sleep on--You didn't mind jt, though. It was something new--something you'd never done beforeo K: We mentioned the Suffragist England. Do you know anything about the Suffrage movement in Canada? Mrs. S: No dear, I don't know very much about the Suffrage movement at all. I wasn't used to it at all. �-18- K: How did you think about it then? Did women discuss it, do you remember?> ? Mrs. S: We never seemed to. I can't remember in my raising we had nothing to do with the Suffrage. Only thing I used to ... the men used to tease the women about being Suffragettes, but they never were. H: Not where I came from, they weren't. From the country rather than the city? Mrs. S: From the country ... they ... no. They might have been in the city or in the bigger cities because, you see, in England--England is a small country, but their cities are big and its cities. Fort William and Port Arthur. It isn't It's cities like Birmingham and places like that where you're really crowded. K: Do you think that, maybe the women in the country, in rural areas had almost an equality with men, then, since they were doing similar work? Mrs. S: There wasn't, as near as I can remember to Murillo, there was nobody that really ... they were just farm people ... They weren't business people--you know what I mean--I'm not slighting them or anything--they were just farm people. H: Everyone was valuable. Mrs. S: H: Yes. Yes. They weren't ... Yes, I understand. Mrs. S: They weren't beeter than somebody else or anythingo They were a nicely closely-knit �-19connnunity. You know, everybody was friends with everybody else. And they grew up together and I think it was an awful nice way to live. So they seemed to get along good together and the kids went to school together and they did everything. H; Together. Mrs. S: Together. It was quite a togetherness. That's the way I figured it anyhow. Yes. I thought it was nice what they used to do. K: So women were happy with their lives. Mrs. S: Yes. They were quite happy dear. They were quite happy to live the life that they were living. And they seemed to have a good time together, and nobody suffered I don't thmnk. Nobody suffered. If they didn't work for it, they didn't have it, that's all. H: And that would be a whole family's fault. And not just one member of the family. Mrs. S: No I don't think so. I think they got along quite well. K: You think a life of a woman an a farm has changed alot? M~s. S: K: Oh yes. In what ways? Mrs. S: It's different altogether dear. know nothing, you see. The women don't They got machinery and most of the women don't have to go out to work. then they got milking machines. And Some women that really want to get along, well of course they help �-20outside. But it isn't like it used to be where everybody had their jobs to do. to or not. it. Whether you wanted If you didn't do it, you didn't have That's all. But now, you see, they all have machinery to work with, and they have cars. Nowg instead of the women staying home and raising the family, the women are out to work and they've got somebody to babysit. K: How do you feel about that? Mrs. S: I don't like it. I think that I wouldn't do it if I had to start out tomorrow. my own family. I would want to raise But now I know there's young people like you girls who get married and they're in town doing a job and they've got a hired girl to Jlook after the house and raise the kids. not right. That's not making a home. has to be home. Well that's A mother If you want a home it's got to be mother at the head of it. H: The mother's the head of the family? Mrs. S: The mother is the one that keeps the thing together. That's my opinion. young tomorrow. That's what I would do if I was If I was young, no matter. husband was working, J If my would be home, looking after the house, and his meals would be ready for him when he got home from work. If he didn't get home to have his meal when it was ready, that would be his fault. Yes because the trouble today--I'm not slighting anybody--but the trouble today with them �-21all, you see, if they go. The trouble is alot of them work in town, come in, and instead of coming home, they have to go and have beer before coming home. A beer gets to two or three and they might come to supper at six o·' clock or they might not get home 'til all hours of the night. Well that would be their fault. If I was keeping house, they'd come home to supper at six o'clock, and the supper would be put away and if he come after, well, that would be ... H: Too bad. Mrs. S: Too bad. They'd have to eat wherever they was visiting, or ... because I don't hold to that. I don't hold to these .... There's kids here in the villages ... I've seen them raised from little. seen them raised from this high. I've Well, now they're old enough that they're married and they're working in town. Well they've got a hired girl to run the house and they're working a computer in town~ and the maid is raising the children and getting the supper and all this crap. Well that's not being a mother, I don't think. H: One thing that always interested me, was that when you live onaa farm, you have a lot of jobs to do. Mrs. S: H: You have a lot of jobs. You have a lot of chores and, how do you manage the children and do your chores at the same time? Mrs. S: Well, of course, I haven't got any kids, but the �-22ones that had them--they take the kids with them-well of course they'll ... And now they don!t do like they used to because, you see, theyhhave machinery to milk the cows. that. The men can do the milking and And the mother can stay in and get the breakfast and get the kids ready for school and things like that--Where the mother used to go out and help some too, you see. But now with the machinery to work with and that, the men could do that without the mother helping. by, they used to go out. But in days gone I can remember when I came, my aunt and my uncle went to out to milk. Then I got that I could go out ando .. When I got used to the cows, in a few days, well I could go and milk. And she could take a little longer to get up and have the breakfast ready when we came in from milking and I took over her place in that business but when I came here it was a little different than I was used to but I was used to working on a farm in the old country for wages, for working for somebody else and being paid for it. But all that I had to do outside was help milk and feed the cows. And usually the boss's wife she would help too and she would look after the chickens and pick up the eggs and all that. H: So on your own farm though, if there was just you and your husband? Mrs. S: You helped each other, yes. �-23H: You split up the work ... Mrs. S: Yes. We each had our chores to do and helped each other, you see. And when it was like planting potataes or digging potatoes, well I was out helping with him. We helped each other. The more you helped each other, the more you got for your-you know--you got more of a something together for yourself. You did that. That's the way you live. other. I r:nnean that is Isn't it? life. Helping each When you get married, well, you help each other and that's the way it was with us on the farm. And I used to love to go to the bush and get wood together. He would cut it down and I could help him bring it up and put it in piles and I'd go and help haul it home with him and things like that. Well it was something to do you see, because you didn't want to be sitting in the house and your husband out working alone all day long. K: You could go and help him. Do you think that made for a happier marriage? Mrs. S: I think so, Yes. You were helping each other. You was doing it for your own good and the more you did the more you got for yourself. the way we used to do. That was And then your friends and neighbours, you'd get up a big pile of wood, and you, d go ... I wouldn't go but the man would go and help your neighbours haul wood and three or four neighbours together, they would be, say at our �-24place this morning, and one • or the other neighbours this afternoon or maybe two or three places in a day. It all depended on the size of the piles of wood. And they get their wood all cut upa and then the woman would stay home. If she wanted tojshe could split a little wood or do something just to pass the time. Or you could sit in the house and read if you wanted to. have to do all the work. You didn't So that's the way we got along in those days. H: You were happy y~ ou were doing it. Mrs. S: We were happy, yes and then you'd go to a neighbours and visit or have a game of cards. was great. a big thing. It In my younger days here, cards played You know, everybody played cards. So you never was lonesome. H: Most people around (to see)? Mrs. S: Yes, say I lived here and you could have lived two or three miles from here--we had a car--and you dould go there and you'd sit and talk for a few minutes, and out would come the cards and you'd play cards, and have a good cime together and tease each other and have a lunch and come home. And that's what we used to do for pass-tmme, and they used to have lots of dances and always they'd go somewhere every Saturday night and danced all night. I used to have a good time years ago. think far better than they do now. The young I �-25people now--You don't see them! Of course, the young people, now, they get on t the bus in the morning here at seven thirty, they go into town and some go to this school, and some go to that, wherever they go to school, and then they're in town all day. You don't know whether they're at school or where they are. school. H: Half of them aren't at They're sunning the street. You talked about every winter, your water being frozen, How did you manage your wash? Mrs. S: Oh, we used to melt snow many years ago and sometimes it would snow and maybe it would pour and you'd save the soft water, and wash that day. I still do it. I can't get over saving myself water. K: It sounds like ... Mrs. S: H: And is it ever beautiful to have a bath ... In soft water. Mrs. 3 In soft water. I know. And does it feel different. It's beautiful dear. difference in soft water. winter There's so much I always- .. and even in the when I wash my hair, if I haven't got soft water, I melt snow. I melt snow for to wash my hair and things like that. H: And I still do it. It's good for her hair. Mrs. S: Oh yes, beautiful. But, on the whole, I suppose we've had our hard times but it was hard in the �-26hungry thirties. H: It was hard in the thirties. In what way? Mrs. S: Well, in the thirties, yous see, my uncle had died and my aunt and I was alone. I think for about eight years my aunt and I farmed alone and I got somebody to--I got a neighbour to help to do my ploughing and the seeding in the spring and I did .. I could cut the hay and everything and I used to cut hay and coil it and then I would get two or three of the neighbours would come one day and help haul it. I had a thing to unload it with and I could build my own stack. I got all kinds of pictures --I don't know where they are now but I always had pictures of eveeything I did. used to build my stack. lightbulb myself. And I Now I can't put up a But then I used to finish up the stack and ride down ... come down the hayfork. H: That's a bit of hard work. Mrs. S: It takes time to do that. Well, it's talent, yes, you have to know how. But I used to do that and I could build my own haystack better than ... I could build it. you see, L,.r,.k I got thekknack. unload a bale of hay. But, You know, you , You build your load so that you can take off a big forkfull here and you take off a big for~full there, and so on and then when the hay gets up on the stack, whenever you're driving out the team, you say, woe, and r you stick your fork in that hay and the stack o �-27might be from here to over thereo If I want to put it over there, I push it there and then I say ''Trip up.'' H: ~lfXXXHXX-i:moqI~~ I see. Mrs. S: And they trip ito And you trip it you see, and you don;t fork lift trip it, you just buildi it.H: Oh, yah. Mrs. S: And the next forful comes up and you put i it over there. If you want to make your corners, you just push your big for~ful. It was up in the air. You could do anything with ito much hard work. There wasn't that You just pushed it. f\11.d then you yelled to them to trip. H: That's a good idea. Mrs. S: That's how you did it. stack of hay. It was nothing to build a It was as easy to make it in a stack as it was to put it in the barn. H: That's a good idea. Mrso S: And then, she bails it, you brought it right up to the }Ast forkful and then I'd have to ride the fork downo I didn't mind. I was young then. I was so j used to it. I don't suppose I could unloose the .................... ? That's the kids you know. I ...... . H: Did you find that .... did you feel freer in Canada than in England? Mrs. S: Oh no. England. I don't know that I was freer than In We were free there. But I was free in �-28Canada. You were free in Canada. with the crowd, you're oKay. H: If you get along You're one of the gang. You didn't have to fit mn anywhere? Mrs.S: -> No. And if ... Well people weren't stm.ck up then, like they are now. They got ... you see--going to town to school--going to town--and they've got to go to town--and they've got to dress. They've got to go to town to go to the show or to go to for dinner or something or they have to dress ~k the eveningo Where--when you would go out together you only had one dress. H: For going out? Mrs. S: So that didn't make me different. That's all you had so you didn't have to be better than Mrs. J llones. I think years ago, they was much happier than they are boday. That's what I notice. It's got to be a little too above themselves. You see in England, you have the different classes. There's the upper class people, the wealthy people and they treat the people that work for them real well. You are treated real well if you work for somebody else because they're born to the gentry. If you're not born in that class, you're not in that class, in England, j you know. I don't know dear, but this is one thing I will always be proud of--that-when the Queen came to Old Fort William, I had a friend of mine, he used to teach school. might--What school did you go to? You �-29H: I didn't go to highschool here. Mrs. S: H: Oh. But Karen did. Mrs. S: Hid you go to Fort William? Mrs. S: Mr. Love--he's a highschool teacher. • ? h 1.In. Do you know Well he's a great friend of mine. friends. We're We've been friends for over twenty years. He used to come to our place out on the farm. loved to come there. tracks with him. He And I used to walk the I said I don't know how he ever wanted to be a schoolteacher, because he loved trains. And I walked miles and miles of tracks with Bob. He hated bricks and mortar. Ref came from--he was s born in the States and New York and Philadelphia and Boston and all those places and - - - - - - - - - - -and he was quite happy here-out on the farm--he used to be--I used to--whenever he wanted to go up the tarack I'd go with him-and Lazzy used ... I'd say to Laz, do you want to go with us? No. My husband. track. He used to work on the track. Laz. No, he didn't want to go on the He'd walked all the track he'd wanted to. So I used to go with Bob and we used to go on the track and he comes here yet. He comes here for his holidays and he comes here for Christmas. And everythmng. you know. H: We're just likeoone of the family, And he has house down in Vickers Heights. Were you able to meet the queen? Did he man~ge �-30something so you could go and see her when she came to Old Fort William1 Mrs. S. H: Who, Bot? Yah. Mrs. S: Oh, well, he comes. wants to. He comes here and stays if he John, next door, I didn't know John. He was from Nottingham and his mother wanted me to come over and visit her because I was so good to John so I went to Nottingham--you know Nottingham forest--it's like it was in Robin Hood's day. H: Smaller maybe, but it's still there. Mrs. S: Yes, and another day I had a birthday and the first phone call. I answered the phone and that was John, from home. And he said, what was it now? He said something and then he said, could I talk to Mr. Brown? And I said, John, where areyyou? knew his voice. Oh, he said, I'm home. I I thought maybe he'd come back to Canada and he was ringing for to come here. well wait a minute. knows your voiceo So I said, I'll get Charlie see if he So I got the cat from sleeping and put him up to the phone and I said this is your pa. And he couldn't understand. He couldn't think that that was John on the phone, you know. He cou ldn't realize it was John. He couldn't realize it was his voice over the phone, you see. But I knew his voice right away. He said that �-31he wanted to talk to Mr. Brown. voice. It was John's He didn't say it was John. He said could I talk to Mr. Brown and I sai4, John, where are you? H: I was hoping he was back in Canada. Do you feel that England is still your home, or have you be ..... . Mrs. S: Oh, England is home. Eng! and will always be home, dear. H: That's your home? Mrs. S: Oh, yeso Because when you was raised there for twenty years that's home. I mean you went through a lot with England. H: Well you did the first world war. Mrs. S: Yes. Oh, yes. And, ~h9 I don't know. English people are.o.they're a wonderful gang too. wonderful. And what they went through. They're Nobody knows what they went through. I mean, we lived right on the coast, you see. We looked out, from where I j lived, we looked out onto the Atlantic Ocean like looking out over Lake Superior here. And you see, we wasn't a bit afraid of the Germans. We wasn't afraid. We wasn't afraid of anything because there was the naby--so far apart. We were surrounded with ships out as far as you co could--you saw them and we as cocky as heck. We wasn't afraid of anything because the Rgyal Navy was guarding us. And sometimes you'd be in bed at night and you're bed would shake under yj ou and �-32you'd hear the guns. Well, that's all right. The Ger .... we, where I lived there was small ships brought food into" • • - - - - - - - - - - -and the Germans you see, they wanted all the supplies. They didn't want the people. didn't want to kill us. They They wanted the supplies and they would catch our little ships coming in with a load of flour or whatever they was coming with and they put ... there was about three men on a motor ship, you know, and they put them in their guns and take their supplies and they didn't want the men, nor the shipo They wanted them to keep bringing supplies to England so they could steal them. H: Do you think that experience of being not afraid and a little cocky, because that was a dangerous place to be .... Mrso S. H: It was but we weren't afraid. I know. Do you think that helped you when you came up here? Mrs. S: H: I think so. Not being afraid? Mrs. S: Because. But you see. We got that. H: We got that in us, too. It's born in us. We can't help it. You're fighting foro It's yours and you're not going to give i it up. That's the way we're made. So you took that attitude to Canada and made a good life. Tape tw8 Mrs. S: And there was an Englishman ~ , ate h acer that he �-33taught with--a teacher that was English born. H: (question inaudible) Do you think that you grew anymore, spiritually, after you came to Canada? Mrs. S: Oh, I don't know, dear. I think by the time you're twenty years old, you have grown to what you're going to be. H: Don't you? Personally I agree with you. Mrs. S: I mean, we will always be English because we were English. We were born English. You're English and that's it. There ! s something. You see, if somebody says something about England ... I don't know about you ... But to me, if anybody says something about England, I'm right up there. Right away. England comes first. H: So you always kept that with you, here? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. Well I was born an Englishman. I was raised an Englishman, and I'm still English. always be English. English people, there's s something in them that's there. It's there. You can't help it ... I don't know. thing about them. war. I'll Yes. There's some- We went through so much in the I can remember when I was only going to school in the first war, when Germany, when they really butchered the Belgians. And one of the head--the head men of Belgiam was shipped out to where we lived, - - - - - - - , he was sent there �-34- for him to be safe. And us kids, we put on a program, you know, put on a real concert, and the money we made was for the Belgians. And I remember--! was thinking about that poor old man last night--! forget his name--but he was only a little man. He still wore his badg--honours, you know, and ... but he was dressed as a gent~ ema.n. And he thanked us kids ... we were only kids and he thankeduus for doing it for his country. eried like a baby, and I never forgot him. And he He was an oldish man, but you see, he was just as true to his country as we were to ours. proud of us kids. his country. H: And he was so We were only kids doing this for I'll never forget him. Well, you came down here, shortly, ahy, not too many years after the war ended. There's people from all different countries here, that might have been fighting each other in Europe. Was there tension between these different groups? Mrs. S: No, I still, I got very good friends that are German. And I treat them as friends. I mean I wasn't fighting 'them--they weren't fighting me. They couldn't help ito H: So people find themselves caught in these situations. Mrs. S: Yah, but you don't let it bother you. friends. Just be They didn't want to fight any more than we wanted to fight. were told, you know. The just had to ~do as they I still got lots of German �-35friends. And some of them are real good, you know, well raised people, too. They're well raised some of them. H: So, in Murillo itself, there wasn't any conflict between people from different nationalities? Mrs. S: No. The only thing, if you said something to them, you know, oh, you bloody Englishman or something like that, well, you just let that slide by. know. You never let that upset you. English. here. You You're still I remember there was an English boy out He married a girl from overseas. He married her and they came over here and they had some kids and then she went home and s~e took the kids home and then she shipped two bask here and she kept two at home. Well, now the one come back here from London when he was a young man and he when he come in the door one day and he didn't even talk like himself. Oh, I s said, oh, for gosh sake, we got a cockney! And he looked at me and he had a good grin and we've been friends ever since. I said, oh, gosh, we've got a cockney and, you know, he talked like a cockney. H: ? K: We've been learning about something called Women's Institute5 that were big in the rural areas. Were you involved ... was there a Murillo Women's Institute? Mrs. S: No, dear, I wasn't. when I came. The Institute was about done I can remember when I came there �-36was an Institute but it was about dying out. K: Do you remember what kind of things they did? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. They did a lot of work for ... you know, they did a lot of sewing and things like when the war was on and they had--ane thing they did have-they had a nice library and Mrs. Merkly kept it-up where our store is now. She had a rooming house there and one little place about like that; she had for a library for the Women's Institute and you could go there and borrow bookso She used to keep account of the books you got and then she put them in and kept track of who had what, you know. But the Institute died out about the time I came. Well, it's like everything else, the old ones got too old and the younger ones wouldn't carry on. Not like it is in our church; I'm an Anglican. And we had a WA, and a WA mid the--the WA in the church, they do all the work that the men won't do. H: Yes, basically. Mrs. S: And you see, we used to put on big meals,--dinners and things like that and make the money and I was the secretary--! was the treasurer. money. They used to say we give her the money and boy she hangs on to it. money. I handled the She knows how to handle So they would put me in the treasurer. There was the president and the secretary and the treasurer. But the money all come to me, you see. I was the treasurer. And I knew how to put it away �-37- im the bank and keep it. H: Keep hold of it. Mrs. S: Yah. Keep hold of it. earn more, you see. I didn't ... and make them Not because you had a few dollars in the bank that you would make. You had to keep on making more. H: You ran your household that way as well? Mrs. S: K: Yah. I ran the household that way too. Was it special for you to have the opportunity to work with other women in associations like that? Mrs. S: Well, I can get along with people, you see. don't care what I say. I I think this is where I get along and if I want to swear, I swear. Now we've got a minister and I think we're going to like him. He said to me the other day--he came to the church, they had the special service when he came. four or five churches under him you see. a minister yet. He has to be ordained. He has He isn't But he said to me--I think we're going to like him because he's one of these mixers. soon as I can. He says, "I'll be out as Have you got lots of children?" On our street, you've got everything. There are kids and cats and dogs and bicycles and I said you name it and we've got it. all right with us. So he's going to get along So the kids they all come here. They all come here, you know. All the neighbours' kids come here and I trust them. them. I buy candies for I go to town and I geep them, and they can �-38have two each. And they help themselves. know where the can is. They They go and get the can and they bring it up and put it on the table and "I want that one" and "I want that one". say "two each". I'll And they take the two each, however many there is there, and they put the can back and put it away. I don't give them to them, they help themselves and I trust them. trust them to take two each. to town with them. I And sometimes I go I got a bus to go to town, too. It's a school bus that takes the kids to school and then it picks us up at twenty minutes to ten. It goes into town to the bus stop outside of Eaton's, and Eaton's are very good to us. We're allowed, j f we are tired, we can sit on those chairs where they try on shoes and that, they let us do that. you. And I said, "Well that's very nice of You're doing that for us. eat up at the dining room. we have a meal in town. I said, we will So we go there, and We go away, you see, about twenty to ten and they pick us up again. picks us up again at two in the afternoon. come there to the hbs stop. body laughs at us. The bus So she And of course, every- You see, and they'll say, "Oh, here comes Murillo bus',' you know,, " There's lots of them, there's about seven of them come all one after the other. And we'll be in between sometimes. "Oh, here comes the Murillo bus". We don't care. �-39We answer them back, that's all. H: As a woman, you never thought of yourself as a specific interest group. You never set yourself apart from what the men were doing. __________________You talked about how you helped each other· Mrs. S: Oh, we helped each other, yes. And we always-- when the boys played ball, it was always as long as I can remember, you know, you went to the ballgame. And the Kakabeka ladies would be behind their team and we would be behind ours and we used to fight like tom cats. Don't you remember going to ballgames? H&K: Yes. Mrs. S: Oh, my godo But you know I've lost interest in the younger generation. They don't play ball like the old ones usedx to. But we had a hockey team and we had a ball team. Every village had a ball team, and of course theirs was the best, you know that. each other. That's how wef got along with And then we always had a dinner or something at the end of the year, the and everybody turned out to that, and everybody gave to it and cooked for the dinner, you know, and you bought your dinner just the same. was the community as a whole. THat It was much better then than it is now. H: You think it's gone down. Mrs. S: It's gone down. The younger people, you see, �-40they get on the bus and go to town to school. They mix with eigy kids. In high school they mix them with a different type of individual and it got to be that our kids have left us. You know, from they're marrying people away where they used to marry, into the families here, and now they've gone to town and they're marrying into people that we don't know and we don't know none of the-of the woman t There waa one of the boys that--Tommy--thatkkeeps the post office. One of her boys was married Saturday night. Well he's married to somebody from town that we don't know. to know her. You know. We've got to get And the boy next door, he's going to marry a girl from town. Well she was out cutting the grass for him yesterday, and she's going to be all right. her working. So I said ... I seen I knew who she was. So I'm out and I said, "Well, you know, this is a funny thing", I said, "When I'm cutting my lawn, there's never nobody that comes to help". But I said, "Allan, he's got a girl to help him''. laughed. And she just I knew who she was, you know. But I said that never happens to me. H: You think she'll fit in better because she's ... Mrs. S: H: Oh, she'll fit in because she's a good worker. She's a good worker. Mrs. S: Yes. She was out and they cut all the grass yesterday. So they're not going to lookaany �-41- worse than the rest of us. Oh, no. And over there, in that house, the boy that lives over there--he drives one of these tractor-trailers. And in· the winter, there was only once in the winter, that it snowed and then it rained and it was all frozen and I couldn't do a thing with the snow, you know. And I thought I heard a tractor closer to me than over on the other side-or there--and I went out to see what he was doing and he got me ploughed out. And I said, "are you Danny?", and he said "no, I'm David". So I said "well, that's good of you to plough me out". I said, "let my pay you for doing it." He said "no. The pleasure is mine". He wouldn't let me pay him for doing it. H: ? Mrs. S: So, you know. This is young people. people are good. H: They're still good. But there ... They're changing. Mrs. S: His wife is from town. Her name is Margo. the lady down there is Sandra. all friends. belong to us. Mrs. Brown. Then You know, you're And the Mias up here is our kids. The Rias on our street is our kids. H: The young They all The don't belong to Mrs. Jones and They belong to us. They're our kids. When they were growing up, before Murillo had more transportation, ah, people weren't living on their farms and just making what they cgumd from it. Were all �-42the kids able to go from farmhouse to farmhouse? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. They used to be friends just the same. And kkate. And they walked miles to get from one place to the other. They had to walk then. They watlldn't do it now, but they did then because that was the only way they could get there you see. H: So if the family was busy--if a baby was being born-or some thing ... Mrs. S: H: Oh_ yes, well somebody would look after them. The ki.ds. Mrs. S: Oh sure, yes. It didn't make no difference if there was six in the bed, as long as they got that sleep. Oh, no--the people in the village--you were a connnunity. I noticed that if you belonged to Murillo, you belonged to Murillo. H: And Murillo belongs to you. Mrs. S: Yah, but if you go to town, you don't know your next-door-neighbour. Well here you know everybody. And you expect to be friends with everybody. And when people come here to live I get a whole bunch of new neighbours. Well, I'm not one to go snooping around to know what their name is, you know, just to be friends . with them. I don't want to bore into their house or anything, but wlll, I let them know to come on up sometime and have a cup of tea, and that's it, and then you're friends. That's what we do in these communities like this. We're all friends and it used to be the same at �-43- home, and where I lived at home, we had three churches, and each church, if one church was having something special, the other two churches closed their doors so that everybody could go to the church that was having the--that's what we used to do and there was Anglican and United Methodist and Weslian Methodist. And when there was something special like there was in war time, there was always something special, it was nothing for all three ministers to be in the pulp8t together. That's the way we got along. H: This is the best way to live. Mrs. S: Well I think that's the way to live. is just as good as another. Because one It's the same--just-- you know, you're all going to the same place one way or the other, aren't you? H: ? Mrs. S: That's what I think. Oh, you girls, would you like a cup of tea? K: Yes please. I meant to ask you a question, your opinion on something that recently happened. You may have read about it in the newspapers, where a woman and man had a farm--a married woman, you know, a couple, had a farm together and they both worked it but I believe he had another job where he put the money down for the farm so it was in his name and then they divorced and they decided that, because even though the woman had worked, probably just as hard as the man on �-44- it, that she wasn't entitled to i it because she didn't put the money in. Did you feel, when you and your husband had the farm, that it was eqally yours together? Mrs. S: Well, I never knowed about it dear, because I came here to live with my uncle and my aunt and I worked, you see, because I had to do a lot of outside work because when he was really sick-you know what asthma is like--you can't breathe and so he had to do the running around jobs that he could drive a car to do, and I used to do his work. But we worked together and we got along together, you see. And then of course when he died, my aunt and I stayed on the farm and we run it, for, I guess, eight or nine years. Then I got married after all that time, you know. K: And it was your farm. Mrs. S: And it more or less fell back to me. just feel back to me. I never--it There was no, well, done by law--it just came to me. K: You think, !m general though, that if a man and woman purchase a farm together or the man happens to pay for it, that it is theirs, do you think? Mrs.~ Well, yes, if the man and the woman wasn't related. If they weren't of the same relatives, relations, I think they should have some agreement, yes. We always got along because you see I was young and they were old. I was young enough to do the work �-45and I mean I didn't grow up with ihe young people of my age here. school with them. So it wasn't the same as I went to Was it? We were friends but ... It wasn't as if it was people that was born and we were raised together. ( end of tape) � 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: Kathleen Stephenson Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Kathleen Stephenson in Murillo, 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. Stephenson recalls what it was like moving to Canada from England, farming, community ties and social life in rural Northwestern Ontario, education, and life during the Depression of the 1930’s. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available as three 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 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 - Murillo Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/cc95d3a6aed99080c47f1f44758a89aa.mp3 4f7a3eb1f17bef36fdafa2def7e44377 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d038e100d90a8e60e75ef8402197634f.mp3 accb5b5a4e2fab9e49efd342aa2328e3 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1119fddeda4826b7ce1c5516866abb3b.mp3 25c30a725aec5d09169d1d0e2f1d04e3 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d38dc9d8b9996fba2635845f4a1e9671.pdf d8de4ce33a011e3636dcd9c33d32c6d5 PDF Text Text Ksenia Dubinsky Karen Dubinsky, interviewer. Inter.: K.S.: I'm going to start off by asking you what you felt like when you arrived in Canada. First time I come to ... First time I come to St. John - New Year Day in 28, New Year Day in the morning. We eat Breakfast and we going to the larlming and that. After that we coming to .. I don't know what place. Then we spent lots of time in the office with paper and everything because it's not one person coming. And I coming in a boat called Mount Rose(?) , English boat (Mount Rose)? In war time that Mount Rose going to .......... and I watch him because German destroyed that. Yhh. I hear that. In fact that day what happened to that boat. You know. In 42. And after that we spend lots of time in that office before x everything else. After that we going to some place. I don"t know what place because it's hard. You don't know nothing. And we stayed to wait. One time for another train - coming in a train. We wait for other train so long.w After we going. And I see Canada. And that make me scared because I see bush and I see big big mountain. Something like that. And that scare me because I coming from really nice place - like Saskatehewan - this (was) really nicer because we got bushes and lots of villages and (the) villages got lots of trees. Beautiful, you know. Something else. And that make me scared. Really scared. And I believe that after that we come into Toronto and I see people through the window, through the train window, you know. Stopped. Just looking. I see nice. Nice. Lomk to me like better. Before I don't know places. I od xx don't 1now nothing. Inter : ~:i~e,im•Mtl!llltD4'1 f'l' Iie!■■..e s~ffJ;JI~c,iz~2t~o e,-.-c .e:;e=;a,..~~-=•G•·iit:t. K.S.: Inter: huh? You took the train up from Toronto to Fort William? K.S. ......... Aftert hat we coming to Fort William You took the train up ... Yes. We going through. And I don't know what (where) we going. We going. Train take us. We got piece of paper. Everybody got piece of paper, address and everything right here ... your address, your name and what (where) you stopped . . . . Because we don't know ·-nothing to speak. We don't know nothing ... ! guess we passed Port Arthur and someone say pretty soon we coming to Fort William. No man coming who's working on the train and say, we coming to Fort William. I think maybe we go 'nother hundred or thousand miles. How (did) I know. And I was think I · got something to eat. I no got much because I no got no money. I no buy nothing. And I no got. Everybody got some parcel in the new year. Some peoP.le give to people parcel. Something. Some candy, something. Some people give to some. Nobody give to me nothing. I no get nothing. I no got money. Got nothing. Some lady got something. I just think - one man, he travelled from Russia. And he's give me some, I remember, he's give me cheese, and I like cheese. Some people no see cheese in the old country . �That's all. You know. Got that system. And I live little bit in the big city. I know. I eat and I liked cheese very much. And he's given me cheese and something. And man coming, that who's working on the train and say to me, and take my hands and say "Come in, that's Fort William." And I coming to Fort William. I coming. He's take me to the station. He coming and say, "sit down here, and o.k., I sit down. And after woman coming and looked in my office and say, "come in". Take my suitcase and take me to that ... to that place. I coming to MacMillan Street, 328, - I coming early in the morning. It's early in the morning. I coming here and some girl going to Murillo, That woman say, if you going to Murillo, come on with me, We going too, I take you to the station. And asked that people, that people take me That people give me eat, Reep me, give me everything and that people say yes. And I no see that people xxx ... I see maybe that man. He's married to my cousin what I show you and say it's here, our son, and he's married to my cousin_and he's in another village and I don't know him. he's an older man that family, that people say yes .... And that's all. I stayed about two, three weeks. And after I asked that people, I see he's working. I say right away I liked to find some kind of job. I can't stay (while) somebody works. You know. It's extra some money. And I get job. First time I get job in Westfort. Ukrainian people. He's from Russia and she's from, Polish woman from Poland . . . . Both talking Ukrainian and some .. and I find, somebody find it ... that going for $20.00 for month. Inter-What kind of job? K.D. In a house. Inter-What, cooking? K.D. Working in a house.Just working in a house with that woman. And I working three weeks. And that was when we got with us Peter, that nice young boy, in Toronto. Because I coming to his father, and he's already here. And he's coming and say to me, if you want, we got better job for you. Not better job. Just little more money. Cloer. You closer to us. Because less work and more pay ... It's right by the bridge on Simpson Street. It's closer here. And he say that, if you want $25.00 ... his house ... uh, wife sick in Toronto hospital, Toronto, she sick in the head. And he's got three children, one just 9 months and three boys bigger -one going to school, and one ' just little one. I say $5.00 more. That's o.k. It's o.k. I quit. Andthat woman say to me, Renia don't go. You know. It's $5.00 nothing. Look at you take everything for your, you know, just taking our house in your hands. And we working, the two of us. We got two children and we got four women and her husband. And four roomers. And two of us. And she just not too, - I think at that time she pregnant. And she want somebody. And she like me right away.She like me. And she say, "why you go because you be sorry." You see. Too hard. And you know it's $5.00. $5.00 more. She think oh that's nothing. Lots of dollar in Canada. Yah, she say, $5.00, it's nothing. Lots of dollar in Canada. And you know, we here, two of us, and if you go(ing) (there), you need to do everything. I say, it's still $5.00. Inter: This man wanted you to move in.to his house. K.D. And I'm going working for that man. He's pay me ,$25.00. I working three months, and in three months, I ~ that. Because every time I coming home and I say, I don't know what that man mean, and he everything think, "god damn, son of a bitch". �-:r And I no understand those words, what that mean. -& coming home I say, home, because, what else? I coming home, I say, that, that woman say to me, listen, leave that that everything. And I say, he says something, he want business. What's that mean, business? And he want business, and she saying, his wife sold before, wood liquor. Maybe he wants you to make the same thing. Wood liquor, or maybe, like, something else. Leave that and that's all. I just left one day, and another day, woman came from Port Arthur. Big car. Nice woman. Talking Ukrainian. Born here. Canadian woman. And say, I hear you know how to cook. I say yes, I know how (to) cook. Becaus~ I know cooking. Cooking. Lots of cooking, I know. Cooking, old country. Really good. No just something. And she say, I give you $35.00, if you going to my restaurant and cooking, with my husband. And I help, and we got girl and everything. Mostly you working with my husband. He show you everything. And you sleep with us and everything. I'm say, "pretty good". You know. $35.00. And I going to that. And this woman, what I coming to, this people, that people expecting - that woman, expecting baby. I say .. ? •. She say she's going to hospital. That time not everybody going to hospital. She saying she going. I say, if something happen, I coming home and stayed here and helping because I no paying to that people nothing, and I just think it's something for me, to do something for that people too. And one morning, that one coming, early in the morning, and say, you coming home or not, because, He say, are you coming, and I say yes. I going. And I working in that, and after, I coming home, and stayed home a few weeks, and aftershe's coming help, eh, going back to work, I going cook again, not same. I going to another. And meet Didi. And married. Right away. That's why is Linda. And Karen too. (Refers to her granddaughters)(Means they should get married too~ Inter:(Karen) Not me. K.D. Not me. That's right. And we married. And Didi going to bush. A few weeks. So I think he's going to bush. In the bush, no camp. No nothing. He's going with xkxHH few people to build camp• and everything else and xkiHgx saying, "I write you and you coming and working, like cookee''. You know those people not called 'waiters' (but) 'cookees', you know. Inter: Where did you live? K.D. With Didi? ~When you first got married? We lived in the same house. And after(wards), that woman started something. I don't know. Started (to) make trouble. She saying something. She saying something. It's not right anyway. ?o today, anyway. I don't know nothing about that. And she saying I took to her husband. ~About old country. That wife. She lived in the old country. (She was) my cousin. You believe me now. I no talk. Because I say I coming here. It's not my business. And she talk. She give me her· new coat if I going to work. She give me everything. How (did) I mix with something crazy like that? It's not my business. My cousin,~~~ husband ~in the old country and he's married here. He's got one baby, another coming. I would be crazy if I do that. And ~he started that. I moved from that house. I no do nothing. I don't know nothing. I just ... and she say, yes. She hear me talking. I say, no, it's not right to (until) today. I would like to see her today. You know, because I just thinking that I owe to these people something. I go lived. (there) And they be good to me and everything el~!e \N And, we married, and going to bush. And working to bush. ~ months. In March time, we working to winter (through the winter). In March time, we coming home, and take (bought) that restaurant. And stayed in that restaurant ten years. In one room. Five people. Five of us. We stayed in a little room. (Beds) That one big one. One small one. Little table. And something else and something else. And I got dress right on the wall (hung) and coat, and something like that, because nothing else. And coming that depression. That depression coming. We take restaurant in '28, - in '29. Because I coming '28 and married '28 and in '29 in spring time, 3rd of March, we take restaurant. �We started to working ready restaurant in the 3rd of March. And we can't make one copper, - we can't make money nothing. Because meal coming to 20¢ and you can't pay rent because you no got no money and Didi going to Murphy and say we can't pay rent and we want sell that. And Mr. Murphy say, "don't do that -wµat (why) you going? Who asked you for rent?'' Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D . You rented the restaurant? Yes. Yes. And you lived in back of it. Yes. We got kitchen and little room. 1YRu know. Kitchen here room here, big one, and livi hg\ room on the other side of the kitchen. And we lived in that. And we got kitchen. We got everything you know. And, because we lived so poor. Because in one room. After all, foutr people, three kids and I slept in one bed. Not too fun. And we stayed until '27 like that. '37. And '37 we 1IIBlllli: built house on Alexander Street, and we moved in war time. And we moved. Still we stayed in the restaurant to '39. In '39, first of April, we sell that restaurant. And we no got no money because we build house. And maybe we make little money from fifty. '35 come a little better because that depression coming. That Bennett Government. And so poor people. So poor everybody. And after that, this little passed, and we made a little money and we bought that lot and built that house and moved to that house. That house not finished. And we just moved. Finished the house. Everything. Just inside not (finished). We moved there. And we no .. ? .. no money and Didi no working. And what we do? And Didi got some job on highway. He working on the highway, come summer. He started working on the highway on Nipigon (highway). And after he's working twelve year in the bush. And after war coming. People started asking, who's going to Canada Car working (to work)? And plane because Canada Car made planes for the war. And somebody want going. Married man, go to school, he got $12.00 for week paying for that and single man $9.00 for week. Yes. People here in Port Arthur started. That people who started that elevators. People built lots and lots of elevators. I don't know why. Some boat elevator. For some time. You know. Not for axkex every time. And lots of people coming to Fort William. And I put, in that store what we got that store in the front, I put four beds ~ I put two people in one bed. Two people. Four. Eight people. Or ten people. Upstairs, five people. Something I put in the house for .. t f i~l eople besides us. Trapped in that store. . . ? . . dining Inter: That was because people were moving here to work. K.D. People coming here to work and people needed some place to live. And I take 10 people to eat in my house. 10 people. And pay me $30.00 room and board. 10 people. I make $300.00 for month. You know. A family from that will eat. I washed for that people, ironed, and made meals. Three meals. If I not make meal, it's because everybody go to work and supper, good supper. and lunch. Everybody got pail, lunch, and I give that everything. And that time, and Didi started school. He's going to vocational\ And for ~three months, coming three, for six weeks, I forget how come that. That school be started and finished. And he's finished that school. And people, somebody saying, government saying, no, still no job in Canada Car. Somebody want to leave that and going to work, some other places for a little more money, �It's O.K. If somebody wants to stay longer, we'll be paying (refers to the school, I believe) and after if some job coming 1 we give you a job. And Didi stayed longer. Didi no going no place. Inter: He stayed at school. K.D. Inter: $12.00. It's helping, you know. He's make $48.00 for four weeks. And I make $300.00. I maybe spend $200.00 and we eat and everything else and still I make $100.00, clear money .. You know . . . And four people not eat. 10 people eat, you know. And I got for Finn people at that time. I work. Were you running the store? K.D. No. I got chickens. I got garden. I do that everything. Everything. And I believe at that time I buy a machine. (I believe she refers to a washing machine at this point.) And still we no got no - no just toilet, in the house. No bathtubs. No nothing. And people coming. Everybody washed face : here. I breakfast make here for 10 people. Breakfast. And people washed face right here, in the kitchen because nothing else. And that's eat he~e. And use pail. And going to work. And after, people move, I finished everything. Didi going to school. And I stayed with kids. And get kids. And it's coming '40, '41, something like that, you know, before that, peoplehworking in the bush. Working on the highway. And, after that, we started working in the Canada Car, and we got, make little money, and we know, war coming today, tomorrow started to army, we no got nothing. And we build that house, and thinking, we build that house,you know, and that corner store and everything. We just built for store. We just thinking right away, we built house. We make a little store. Because what we doing. Didi older, and he's not working no place. Because we stayed in that restaurant ten years. And after this and that. And there's nothing else. We just thinking ... ? .... And uh, after that, this coming later. I say, it's o.k. We got little money. We start a store. And I started that store. Didi still working. I started that store. Still I today not talking very good. I today no understand very good . . . ? .. First time, I make little. I make little money. Not much. They tell me. Did you bring a cheque? I no cash that cheque. I got my own money. Because I got few people in the room. And I got that store. I make that what we eat and what we need for every day. I got my own for that everything. Because I know one time Didi coming to work and foreman coming to him and ask him, hey, Mr. Dubinski, what you do with cheque? Your cheque. Six months already your cheqqe not coming back. And he's coming home and say, "go and cash that cheque". Because we got trouble and that coming and ask why he no cash it. And that's all. After that, DIDI, after a while, Didi changed everything. And Didi so good, you know, he's got even that piece of paper. He's so good on the job. You ~see that. And war stopped. And have to change from .... bomb to buses. In Canada Car. You know. And Didi started working on the buses. He's working on the buees year or maybe more, or something. I don't know. And that's all. And we no got so sweet. We got so sour everything. Because we working so hard. Now look my hands just look like hands, and my hands just like nothing. And my hands, everything look o.k. And something, yesterday, I was sewing. I can't sew. I sewing. I push here under machine. I need this one to push little bit. Pull little bit material and I can't hit that one. (Demonstrates on sewing machine).! just like catching, catching, catching and that machine, something happen. I can't do. I say, "oh, oh". And that's my life like that coming. And after we bought this, and after Wally (son) going to school, Sonny finished, and Lydia want going for teacher to North Bay because we no got in thaqtime here. She want going to North Bay. I say no. You can't. Because we no got no money. Wally going and you can't. And Wariy going by himself help because he's working, for that and everything. And we say no, you can't. Wally's making little and too, going to school, going to work. �Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Was that because, he was a man and- she was a woman, or it's just because he came first in the family? What? The reason Wally went instead of Lydia. No. No. Because. No. Because Wally liked to going and Lydia, after that, Lydia wanted to go. And we no got no money. So it's just because she came after him. Yah. Yes. And after that she's going to work and she' make a little money. And started K~xkbg talking and saying, it's coming little different, everything and she's going away. And after she's going to work, to working, and she no spend mo~8y and she say she's going to, I'm a little scared. I just thinking that she no passed and she spend money, and spend time. I just thinking about that. And not coming after all. Not coming too bad. Not coming too bad because she's finished and coming and now working ready 20years (at the age of 20), After20 years, then she married ... In fact, on August 30. She's got married on August 30 .. Tape I Side II Inter: During the depression, did you, did the different ethnic groups mix with eath other much? Or did the Ukrainian people stick together, the Italians stick together? K.D. Same like now. I don't know. Yes, People stick. It's not because (of the) depression. Inter: Well I mean at that time permod. \~\'<:> ,·,I.\\\.\. ~\~\~ \I\ ' "-\ K.D. And you -know why. Because people can hardly mix if we can't talk one to another one. You know, when I working at that restaurant. To one year, I just, one year in Canada, and I working in the dining room. Boss. I'm boss. Even if somebody help me. You know I'm boss and I no understand nothing. I can't talk. I can't even write order from the man who's know how order and something like that. Because every day something else. Didi make it (for) me. He's write everything what we got today. And lots of time I no understand what's that mean.I'm saying it's O.K. if Russian, Ukrainian, Polish coming. I understand him. And if somebody else come, and want something, lots of time I no understand. And it's hard for me. And I worked in the dining room in the front. Didi working in the kitchen. I working in the front. Lots of time I come to kitchen. I say, "where's my order?"' I give you this one first, and after I give you this second, and third one. I got this one. I give you that first one, third one, and he give me that one, you know, that one. Because he no going He say because you ho going to bring me eat from the other room. You know, you got little ice box, you know. Nobody got in that time freezer, fridge or something like that. I don't know. What people got, I don't know nothing. And we got lots of time something like that. (Like the situation she described.) Even now. Talking with Mrs. who washing. She speak all different languages. Because lots of time she's coming. ~he's got nothing to\-{do. Coming to~~r Elace. And½~ be sick, she help~~ She bring soup, and asking, what you want. Second, what you want to eat. He saying something and she no understand. And she tell me "I don't know what he wants". And I going to him. I understQ-d. "Oh, I don't know what to do. I going to my husband. " I say, go and ask him, because I don't know what you want. ae Inter: Didi understood English, then. That happened to a lot of immigrant women, when they came over. Their husbands would learn how to speak English because of their job and their kids would learn becasue of school and usually it was only the women. �K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: ~.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.B. Knter: That's true. And one time. And no talking. And don't know nothing. That is speak both sides and across the road, Ukrainian~~0 tri'd here,.we~~ Italian, or somebody else, you know. Here, Italian, here Italian, here Italian, - I going to Italian church, I going all over. Ineed Italian because I'm Italian. I talk Italian. I no going. I no working. Corning with husband, or corning to husband. Husband going first, and after he's make a little money and bring wife and kids or sornethiJng. And woman, and woman don't know nothing. Don't know nothilng. That must have been really lonely. Yah, it's really hard. It's really sornethitng. I live in that hard (times) everything. I'm really passed that everything. You know. First time, I think I, man say, "pork, steak and eggs". He's want to eat pork, steak and eggs.It's my best meal. I just saying now. I just figure. It's .. ?: .meal, what you eat. In that time, poor people, You know how people (were) hungry. People eat. You give six pieces of bread. Eat that and asking more. You see what I mean. And he say, "steak ,-pork, steak and eggs". Two eggs and piece of steak lik~ this one. And he's got really something to eat. You know. And I know we going for that, 'pork, steak and eggs'. Two eggs, you know, and that steak. And three of us going to ask him what he wanted. Because Miss? asking first, .... ? ..... How many people could afford to eat in restaurants? What you mean? How many people? Well I would think that during the depression, most people couldn' afford (it). They would rather stay home. People can't eat home because he's not ... Can't eat home. Gouvernrnent helping city. Helping to poor people who got nothing to eat. You know how much people got for one week's ... no government ... it's city, -ehat we calling relief or ... We calling in that time relief. You know how much people got for week? $1.75 What for everything? Or just ... For one week for you to use it. What you doing. So it was cheaper to eat in a restaurant? No it was not cheaper. Got piece of paper exactly like I show you. Here. This paper. Piece of paper and say $1.75 and if you get that, few papers from city, you paying that to house, to store or something because it's city .. It's like Chapples, something. And that man he's got one meal paid, and 'nether meal he's got credit. And he eat just two meal. No more coffee. No more coffee. And he's eat home. Who's want (to cook his meal)? At that time he went home, you couldn't afford woman to make work. He's no got no home. He live in a room. Who's got it for him to make for $1.75 for him meal and need a little fat and salt and everything, else, you know. He would give you the ticket. UH huh. And it's like paying for it. s K.D. Yes. Just bring it Monday that piece of paper. He's going to city hall to get that. To city hall. To police station or something. And he get that piece of paper. And you punch it. You got cards. And still I got cards. And you punch it for him meal. 25¢ you got two 25¢, two 30¢. ~@jj ~. And you punching him ticket. i (\ y "IA" t,·c.ke..+-, t �Anyway. He's coming another time (to) eat, and he's got 25¢ saved and still we got lots of people to today. That people. Lots of people. Ready die. Old people. And we lost that people. We sell restaurant. We lost that people. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D.: Inter: K.D. You gave a lot of people free meals? You know if you give him one meal. He's coming before 12:00, - then people ready coming for dinner, you know. And you give that meal for that people. And he eat one meal. And he's got ready 25¢. Maybe you just take that one day 20¢. Because he got meal. 20¢, 25¢, 30¢. Some days we make chicken, chicken, you know. And I just take chicken, maybe, maybe sometime I just say, I believe it's 35¢, you know. Poor people no take chicken. Just hamburger, sausages, stew, something like that for 20¢ . . . . ? ... He got soup ... I no got (She's searching through her cupboards for a bowl.) two times bigger than this one. Because it's(not) same dishes. That's small one. And lots of time some men asking, "oh, soup so good, please you give me 'nother bowl." Your profit ready gone. You make just one copper. And what you do? And he eat. We give three pieces of bread rye and three pieces of bread, white one. He eat first time - after I find out that - he eat first time that rye, then say, "oh, I like rye bread". "You got more rye bread?" He saying, you know. Like now people count that everythilng._ Not that time. And you bring him three more rye bread, three more rye bread and you coming back. No bread. No white. No rye. He eat all because he's hungry. You know. And people eat and he's not. He got no good meal. Maybe he's coming after for supper, and after supper, I pring a cup of coffee and you believe me, ...... ? ................. 10¢ and he say, "please give me another because .. another cup of coffee". It's 10¢. That .. 3, 4 buns cost 4¢ and two cups of coffee and your profit, everything going for 10¢. What did you make? Nothing. Nothing. Did you .. ? We work for nothing. Ten years for nothing. Your family didn't have to go on relief though? No. You always had enough to eat? . ................... ? ........................... . After Christmas, New Year and that time was so hard because so (few) people working and who's not working, that people coming just with that 35¢ relief and that rest on credit. What you do? You can't speak and yo~~st say, I going try someplace to work~ Maybe I going to work. ' ' . going to Port Arthur. I go too (reminisces) Who's that in Port Arthur? And he's coming home and say Hurry up. Push my ~~,~\ and everything else because I got job. How that job? How that coming? Wash. Hurry. Hurry up because I going to work tonight. How far you going? He's telling me on highway, you know how far your father("s) came (is) - He's going to that highway. $50.00 a month. Cook. $50.00 a month. He leave me not much wood under house. You know. Not much wood. Not much money. Three kids. And Lydia just born. Leave for few months. Two months. Month , and a half. I don't know. And he's going. With Joseph, my dog. And he's put in the kitchen some kind of curtains, drapes or something. I put up blanket and just make a fire in the kitchen and not in the dining room. Because in the dining room we got different. And my friend. Most ladies saying my friend because he's in my place and he bring his family lots of times. And we ask him for (sand)? and he say, no, no ...... and this and that ... and .......... . and need to split the wood and got three kids, Sammy, not three, and Lydia just two. Sammy exactly like that month. Today, give to that Susie, third one. You see what I mean? And he's going to that back yard and split that wood and bring me full kitchen . .... ? ... (he hauled)? that wood. He's not rich too because it's nobody rich. And few days, it's coming few days more and wood would be gone. What I do? And coming another my friend to my place and I talk to him and he's coming and say he's no got no Always have. �one cent.iH He coming from the farm. He just thinking maybe he's get from us money. And I say I no got no money. I can't give you. I got everything else in the house. I got milk. Milkman bring it and bread I got. I got meat. I no hungry. Family. No money. And he say I going to order wood for you in the wood yard. We got wood yard not too far from us, you know. I say I no got no money. I can't pay. And that people- nobody trust you because everybody want money . . . . ? ... for quarter, what he do? Or $4.00 or something then what he do? And he say, you, you need that. You need because you be in prison here with your kids. And he's going ... no and I say, we got one friend that Didi goes, friend to Didi, like to me, And he say, go to my (brother)? and ask him for $5.00. Maybe he borrow. Because he's working. He's working in the brewery. He S working solid, like every time. And I just think. It's o.k. tte going to liMe (friend) and I know he's coming home to dinner. And that man say, "I stay with the kids and you go to Mike", and I see if Mike would borrow me $5.00. And after that I going, and order the wood, because you know at that time telephone was something people, even wood yard, not wood yard got telephone. And I going and his wife said, come on, sit down. She's English woman. I say I want see Mike, you know. And Mike coming home. For dinner. And I say, Mike, I coming .... ? .... I coming to (see) if you borrow me $5.00. And he no borrow me. 1 Inter: K.D. Nothing? I just can't forget that. And he going to 'nether room and he bring me his tooth and he say I going, last few days, I going to dentist and look at this. He pull my tooth. He pull me that one. He's find one he's no got no money. He's working and we know he's got money. He's no got thousands. Got few hundred maybe, maybe in bank, because he's working. He's working everytime. And I coming to that place, just thinking, I going to very close friend. There's no closer friend. Not like that. That who split that wood and that who stayed in my house that night. That's three friends we have. Because we got nobody. And I just coming and thinking, "what I do now?" Still I need wood. And I going to -I going home. I just passed my door and I going to store. I going to store and to butcher shop. ~_ We got mostly butcher shop. And I coming. I say, "oh boy", Canadian born. Polish. I coming to him and say, "Mike, for me $5.00, and he say O.K. Just like this. O.K. And he gave me from the register this $5.00 He give me $5.00. I coming home. And I coming home and that man he going to get me wood, 2, 3 blocks, maybe even more. He going to order that wood and right away bring it. Bring it right away. I just thinking. He's help me. Oh, because he's ordered - that man who cuts that wood - because it's coming 4 foot, 8 feet long. Something like that. I forget. And he's going to catch those people who cut wood and I know that people who cut it ....... ? ....... How I catch (cut) it? I got three kids small in the house. And that everything, ordered, ordered that wood. That wood coming. And that man coming too. -two men. Mike again. Mike and Jack coming and cut that wood. Just finished that wood. Not coming in the house to us. That's not coming. Just finish the wood and leave it and that, and I see Didi coming .. ? .. Three weeks. He working for three weeks. And you know why? He's working - somebody -company called - I forget, no - and that company got long, long time people working for that company and that who's working for that company, that cook, he's working long and he's going to CP, and he's got lots of money and he's drinking it. Now coming back to work. �And Didi come to office and people saying to camp we need cook. Didi coming to office and people say, heh, we need cook. And sent Didi there. After that man, he drink (drank) all his money. He want back his job. He's coming to company and say I want back my job. O.K. Go. And he coming to camp and that boss in the camp say I"m sorry because we got you. I no say nothing about. (I've got no say in the matter). And anyway old cook company send me I take him because it's company (that) laid (him) off. And Didi made $35.00 at that time. And Didi coming. I so happy. I just. And he say, it's o.k. He signed debts, to Jack. And I tell him about that wood, about that Mike, about that Pete, about everything, and he say it's o.k. Take that checque and go to Mike to butcher shop and give him $5.00. He cash -this cheque. All right. I going across the road to Mr. ? He cashed the cheque. I going to .... ? .... Mike and give him $5.00. Mike don't know even what corning and everythingand that man who coming lots of time to our house, especially Mike .... ? .... coming night time to talk to us .... ? .... Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Did you have time for any kind of social activities? When you first came? No. No. What did you do? For entertainment .. did you ... ? Nothing. Inter: K.D. Nothing? No going no place. Inter: No I don't mean going out, but did friends come over? K.D. Inter: K.D. Heh, who's got friends? Mrs. ? (Tuarson) started coming from over there. Didi corning from the bush. Because Didi know Mr. ? ........... ? ........................ . We .~.just bought restaurant and he just married in that time before we coming. From camp. We just married. And we corning. And that people married. I believe this year we got restaurant. And he's corning with new wife - young woman - really nice one, little one. That's all we got friends. We no got no friends. Well how about ...8oing to ... were there Were they built then? halls 7 Yah. We wasn't home much to going. After our kids started growing and we started some. Oh yes. We going. We going. To Ukrainian. We going Sunday for concert. One Sunday, I going. Maybe second, third concert, Didi going. And after our kids growing and kids going to started playing. Started going to school and started going dancing. Oh after that, we going ... ? .. kids going .. O.K. That's family. If you corning and I coming late. Working too late.Kids going to play or something, you know. Because lots of dancing and they play mandolin and then I coming later. I work in the bushes and I sit down and I'm so tired. Because we got some time lots of people. Lots of people. And 'nether time because it's season. In that time we got that restaurant. Season coming. People coming from bush. People corning from highway. Who's working on the highway. We got business in that time and people going to work. Good weather. �People go to work. We no got nothing. We got just let people who do 75¢ for week and they just going to broke with that people. That's all. And if I going and sit down in the front, to that ... ? ... , or play or go to where they play baseball because I sit close to that on the bench, or on the chair because no room. That time people come all around. People sit one to 'nether one. And all are under ball. Under hall. Just people stay by this one in that hall. Not now. Nobody now. Nobody now no. How concert corning nice and everything. And that time. that's all going. Sometime playing BINGO, play BINGO something 5¢. I going BINGO and some times younger and older corning and say if you give something for BINGO. You know what we give. Give pie. Give pie. Eat. Nice pie. Lemon pie. This one O.K. Give pie and I give something like that, you know. TAPE II BLUE SIDE K.D. Smith. Inter: K.D. Tim Buck. Tell me about Tirn Buck. Yes few times is corning here. We going. I no speak ... I don't understand much. Inter: K.D. Tim Buck would come up to speak? Lots of people go to hear him? Yes lots of people. And Smith too. Inter: I never heard of him. I like to go. The family. K.D. Don't say that. (Laughter) You going to picnic. Was there picnic and Port Arthur Bush Woman Lake. And 'nether side you got really nice. Women make something to eat, something like that, some dinner, something and we going to that and kids growing little bigger. Kids like it. Buy something. We buy something. And lots of times some people corning and 'specially whose people corning to that picnic, I even see now. That people got money. Because husband working. I know one working Port Arthur Shipyards. I know one working in elevator and woman bring for picnic, for kids, sandwiches. I just say, ah. You know. You going to picnic. People sell something. Some weiners, hot dogs and some pyrogies, something like that. You know, I just feel how people make that? Kids want something. "I want a hot dog: I want a hot dog:" Shut up: Eat that what I brought. Inter: Were there times where you just thought that you'd never make it? Did you have time to think about it? K.D. Why? Inter: Were times that you were so poor that you just couldn't face another day? K.D. No. Just corning .. I don't know how to say that. It's different everything. Too explain that. You know. It's .. I don't know how to say that. You know a few .. Now this is .. I don't know how that even to ... to say that. How people so .. people poor. People really .. You see, even now that people, even now. Now we got .. we live on that government pension.Lots of people got some little money. People not. Nobody got money because in that time people working for little money. That money gone. Because if he working for that ten dollars, that ten dollars today nothing. Even if he's got. If he's no got thousand, thousand, he's no got no money. You know. And that time we cannot make money. Nobody made money. And even now these crazy people, old people still crazy. Because still people, people got $250.00 just like that and people still looking for loaf of bread, going on sale for 20¢ because it's ready stale, it's ready smell, it!s ready green over, all over in that bread. And people do that. I say how you crazy. And why? Because we corning here and we got �bad everything. People know that and people can't forget that. That time you know. And sometime I thinking it's crazy and 'nether time I think we used to that. We used to that. We used to that but we something ,-little crumb falling, we pick that and eat that, because it's something. That's not right now. You know. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. But you still do it. Because we got now not much. It's anyway not nobody hungry. People thinking how we lucky in Canada. Sure lots of people poor, lots of people(pause). You, 'specially you, you need car you need something more like you got . . . . If you really, really smart you be no hungry, because if you really smart, if you no got nothing else you going to city and city give it to you and that time not. That time we got in Fort William man called Blake. He is boss to that all kind relief. And everybody know whose that Blake. I don't know. I no see him. I just know he's big man, And he's like this one and big man. I hear that and I know that. That's Englishman. And we got after that, Ukrainian people, we got Chihowie, Mr. Chihowie, and Mr. Chihowie he's~oing to that hall what I going. He's going to 'nether hall, to Prosvita Hall. And people going to Prosvita, Ukrainian people going to one hall and the other hall. Was the halls were, sort of different politics? Yes. And he's corning to your honse,Ukranian. You can speak. Nobody going to you and he's going investigation. To you house. You know. And he's going to investigation. And if he's find that you no got nothing in your house. You need relief because you got kids and husband not working and you got in your house you got brother or some 15, 16 years old, people tell you throw him away. Because we no give him. He going to work. Must he's get work. Father not working and neighbour not working. And nobody working and he's corning like that. And Mr. Chihowie going under basement, under floor, because at that time people no got no basement. We got now basement, cement basement. That time just on the post (was the) house. And he's going under basement and he see if you got potatoes and maybe beef and meat or something else, from your garden. And he saying, that's one woman tell me about that, Mr. Chihowie, come into my house (came), Ukrainian woman from across the street, I saw her at Midnight Mass. And he's going to under my house and find potatoes and beets and he say, oh you no hungry. You got potatoes and you got beets in the basement, under house. You see what I mean. How that .. And that people today even thinking about that and still is terrible that And still got that money. That people got hundred dollars to spend. That people got hundred dollars keeping hundred dollars. I don't need keeping maybe dollar now.I just thinking 'nether corning tomorrow, after tomorrow. I don't need hundred dollar. Right or not? Do you think the depression made people angry or just made them afraid? It's something, you know. Like I saying, I got depression two times in life. One, the first time, in the old country. Was depression because I"m too small. (because= when) You can't do nothing. Just you know. Before we growing. �Wegot really depression. That was depressing because was depression for us. And after I corning here. I no find it so bad. I no find it. Just one hing. And we got everything what we need. We got shoes. We got dress. Igot coat. And I got everything what I need like everybody else. You know. If I working in a house, working in this house or if I going uptown, I change that because I got another dress. I know one woman. She's still here and she still nice woman, and ... I know she's got that time one little girl, and I don't know that. That's .. ? .. , her neighbour and she know better, and she told me of husband going uptown, and that people got one sweater in the house. One sweater. When he's got that sweater, she no going outside because she no got nothing else. And if she's got sweater, he stay at home. And Mr. (Warson?) say, O.K. come on with me, in a bushand he say no. I no going to bush. Because I lost (will lose) my relief. Because I think he's lazy or something. And I don't know how working in a bush and I don't know how make that everything. And Larson? say yes and I help you everything. And you make it because Mr. Warson/? working every time, every time he's going to the bush. Work is work and he's working and he's got every time little money. Not much. Just that what I save. Pet (five) dollars, family income. And he's say no he's no going. And you know what happen after all? Mrs Warson? tell that. She's saying we sitting in Minnesota Park, that woman, another woman and Mrs. Warson, . And one man corning, hello, hello, women, what you doing? And he's going to store and bring ice cream everybody for that three women. He's working. I Know that man too. And Mrs. Warson, everytirne she's got money. Because she's no got first few years, kids, and he's working and she's got every time few, few dollars, You know. Not suffer. And she's saying, oh we so happy, nice, we sit in the park and enjoy and nice and warm. And he's bring pop and ice cream. And after that she's saying, O.K. we going home. And he's going. With this wanan, talking, man, just ..... that's all. And she's saying, 'nother day, he's corning, same man and he's got two baskets in the hand. One apples, one prunes or something. Peaches or something. And she looking. Oh he's going to Ann. And after that she saying, oh Ann got already dress. And after that she's got coat. And she say, Mrs. Warson, say once, I going to Zeller's store, In Zeller's store, sell something. Sell material. 10¢ a yard and I buy ten yards and give to that Ann. Ann, make for kids dress and make for that window curtains. Because she's no got even curtains 1 in the house. And after that, she's saying because we talking all that, that woman and that man, and she's saying I no going. I say I no blame that woman what she doing something else. What you do if you hungry! What else? And lots of woman I believe some woman, for 'nother dress, because husband working and woman thinking I got two dresses, from husband and boyfriend. And like I saying about that Ann it's nothing home. If she's no got no dress or she's no got no KKBHKX coat or she's no got nothing and that man, what I saying (that I mentioned), he's working ready in a ... ? .... He's got little money. And he's want woman. That's O.K. He give it to her. Because I talking and Mrs. Warson say that's first time I see how that corning. I no blame her. I no blame her. Because no got nothing. And now I believe she's got the pension and he's die, husband die and she, she's still nice. She's still not too ... she look nice. Not too old. I don't know how she's look. She look really nice. Inter: K.D. Inter: K.D. Inter: Did you come to Canada with high hopes? Yes. And I guess what you found doesn't really ... You didn't find what you were looking for. Or did you? I no speak. ARe you sorry you came? �. make mistake. First time I '!'P1) sppak. I married too soon. I make mistake. Because I got ..... like one man what I know from old country, .~ .. he's find some day I'm here. He write to me. I'm ready married. And I x&iixk:tm believed that I'd be married to him, because he's calling me, he write to me, and calling to me, and I coming to ... if I need money, to come. If I write to him, he send me. And I believed it. And he younger. You know. That's fi~t mistake. And second mistake, I just thinking, I no stay in Canada. That's wmrse mistake. I no stay in Canada because I going to United States. I not coming to Canada. I coming to United States. Because I got lots of people in United States. I got my brother in United States. I just thinking I going to United States. Inter: K.D. How did you end up here? h ~t'CJ And after. I just thinking I coming e\Hae. And I find some better life 'cause I no got so good life in the old country. And I find it in United States, better life. And I not place here. And I know work I know. I know how to do lots of things in old country. I thinking if I not married, I know I be cook for somebody, I know cooking from old country, I be saying I no say that to nobody because I ho want to say that. It's not right talking. You no do that. I just thinking I know how to do for somebody, for some, even rich people, and people pay me good, and I would stay O.K. and something like that. And first time that I coming here, In Fort William, I no like Fort William, because it's too small, I no like Fort William. I hate Fort William. I say, 'Stay here? Here nothing. You make good money. You can't make here good life." And I O.K. I at that time O.K. because I thinking right because it's so small. Twelve thousand, 12,000 people we got that time or 7 or something, you know. If I started xkixki:xg~xxxH&xsxep reading, or after that I know it's twelve thousand people. I say you can't make no ... nothing ... no factory, no nothing. What you do? You know. You need something. Stay just in the house. Or waiter. Or not waiter in the home, just peeling potatoes for Chinaman in the basement? I just see that right away. I just ... first day coming, - I don't know how - I coming from station to MacMillan street I just think. We just going some place just to wait, and after that I hear a song, "I going to the city." I say Oh ho, ho. (Laughter) No. I tell you that. And 'nether third day that boy, my cousin, he's taking me to town, we going to town. He say, come on, we going to town. We going, we going, I believe, to ... ? ... store. I don't know. We going from MacMillan Street, we going to the May Street, we going to Port Arthur. After we c.oming back, Susan Street, and he say, you right in the middle (of the) city. I look at the map and say-, oh. I no say to nobody because, what you say? I just say, oh I hope something coming else. Bigger street like (tha~) that. Because you can't ... you can't do nothing here. You know if you see now not, happy~ know nothing. Sure some people no thinking that now. I :tb6~~ in the city and I know what city means. I know what city mea~ ~fcause lots of girls coming from village to city. That girl~~now nothing. I lived in the city. I lived in other places. I lived all over. I lived (in) lots of places. And I know. And after Didi started talking to me and say something, I say no. Because Didi not believe in church. Didi not believe in marriage. He just thinking, O.K. we like now going and we just take licence, and we leave it like that. And I say no. I don't care for church. I don't care it's anyway working, going through, something coming, I want this make it that, in right way. You know. And after we going to church and take that church marriage. J~u �~ We got that church marriage and didn't make no living, no nothing. First we got that man who's coming and send me for that wood and that man to whom I gming to borrow $5.00 and he's show me he's cheap. And his wife. After to that little apartment. Just in a house. And that people what you see stayed in the house. And after that woman got little baby and I, for that little girl, how was that , calling, godmother. Yah godmother. And anyway, after I say to Didi, every time, we going some place, we no stay here. We no stay if we married. I say going some place, going some place. We going some 'nether place, make a little money. We can't make here money. And he going and buy that restaurant and coming home, what we stayed in the room, and say, I buy (bought) a restaurant. I say, I no want restaurant. I working one month in restaurant, Right close to that restaurant. And I see how that ... you can't make money. Because it's poor restaurant. Poor everythi-ng. You can't make money. Oh we try it. We try it. And we tried it. To spring time, - we take it in March, I j~t saying first, - in springtime, and in springtime, coming here a man and he give us, I don't know. I don't know r4iillwwhat we _paying ( paid) (little more even) for that restaurant, you know, and I say no and people coming. So people coming to our restaurant to eat because we know how cook. We know both how cooking good. You know. And people coming really good. You know. I say to Didi, no we'll stay a little longer. And we stayed a little longer and coming depression, -what we do that time? Nothing. Just nothing. � 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: Ksenia Dubinsky Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission to make this interview public has been given by Ksenia's granddaughter, Karen Dubinsky. Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Ksenia Dubinsky in Fort William, Ontario. The interview was performed by Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available as three MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. During the interview, Mrs. Dubinsky discusses immigrating from the Ukraine to Fort William. She speaks on working in a restaurant during the depression and building a life in a new country during a time of economic turmoil. There are descriptions of how the different groups of immigrants in Fort William helped each other establish themselves. 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 - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/4552c6e5ca2f2a00dac26bf93323aca6.mp3 a1fdbff586041cc6c536102e6d5ca9d3 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/4a9137932a5e50b924250e4b2eba1b74.mp3 330c241cfc414cebf87adae2c4ec6c2a 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: Lillian Wolter Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Lillian Wolter. The interview was performed as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Wolter discusses working as a school teacher in Nipigon. She taught grades one through eight, was a shop-keeper for a time, and also played the organ and piano for churches and events. She details her experience trying to get a divorce from her husband. In order to do this she had to prove adultery, and she almost lost her job since she had moved in with another man before she was divorced. She also discusses community events in Nipigon and how the school would always host events for all ages. The recording consists of two sides of one cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) 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 No rights information Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio 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 - Nipigon Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/8cadf7e791ed91c7c469478069965d8c.mp3 a8d89177b7c29ec37c408aacb5b3eb24 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b824e18344d47ae6a395fabe0a35f625.pdf 25723f3037ec678a7552fa1a4f10192c PDF Text Text The interview of Mrs. & Mrs. W. Hartley Q: Uhm uhm. Mro . H: ... was a bachelor, but most of them had wives. Well, women, anyway. Some could ... well, Lars Olsen was married before he ever left Norway. And if he hadn't been married, he probably wouldn't have homesteaded here. 'Course he wouldn't have raised a family, but, I mean ... Q: They didn't have any children when they came here? Mr. H: They needed, they had to have the female to give them roots. And to have to build anything at all, or settle anywhere at all, they had to have roots. So it all, so in fact it all hinged on women in the final analysis. Q: Did they all want a farm? Mr. H: Q: Did they all want a farm? Mr. H: Q: Pardon? The women? And the men, too. Mr. H: No, no. But I mean, I'm talking in generalities. It fits these cases, but I mean, in broad generalities these ... ah, there was men who went out in the bush and started something, but to be of any permanence, it had to beo .. Q: Yeah. Mr. H: Q: .... social history of the world. Did the ah, did Olson work in a lumber camp or something? �-2Mr. H: Q: The one that originally built house? Mr. H: Q: Which Olson? No. He was .. . Sixty-eight ..... . Mr. H: ... He came from Norway. h he had been apprenticed in Norway as a turner, that's a wood turner. Q: He was married there, but And a carpenter. Is that how he built these hardwood floors, ans stuff? Mr. H: Well, the original structure of the house, the log part of it was done by these Finns, who are experts with logs and broadaxes. it And incidentally, cost a dollar a log to put this house up in those dayso Q: That's pretty expensive. Mr. H: Q: Ayh? I think that might be quite expensive. There are alot of logs. Mr. H: That was alot of money for those days, but no, there's not all that many logs. Q: They're quite .... I guess the wood was thicker. Mr. H: Ah, the wood always come from right around here. It's all Tamarac. It's resistant to rot, and came from all around here. But then, he would have done them--he did the most of the carpentry. Q: Okay, I'm just going to see if this is playing back . ... Do you mind repeating that? Mrs. H: Q: Yeah. Repeating what I said? �-3Mrs. H: Q: Well, Clara was born in ..... . Clara Olsen. Mrs. H: Yeah. Her name was Clara Christianson, and she married Lars in eighteen ninety-nine, and they came to Thunder Bay. She came with two young children, and ..... Q: When did they come to Mrs. H: Canada? Do you know? He came ah, I think it's all in there, in the book, around nineteen o-one (1901), and I think she came out in nineteen o-four (1904), and she brought two children with her. And they lived in Fort William on North Mark Street for ten years. And then he thought that the old PD railway was going to go through here .... Mr. H: Mrs. H: Mr. H: Through there. No, I thought it was down this way. The road was going to come, the piece of road that we got, the road, instead of the road where Belanger's are, this was going to be the road. Mrs. H: Mr. H: Yeah. Right through. Pearson-Pardee road. And PD was going to go along the high ground there. Mrs. H: Well, anyway, Mr. H: Mrs. H: ... they changed the route, and it went through Hymers. And so, for five years, she never left this place. Q: Except to do midwifery, and that kind of thing. �-4- Mrs. H: Oh yeah. Well then people would come to her, her daughter is Mrs. Colson, Mrs. Curtis Colson. Q: Oh, that's right, yeah. Mrs. H: And Gertie Docking is another daughter. She belongs to the south Neebing. And she , lives 7 ~ not too far from the But Gertie was Alpine. born in that corner, in there. But anyway, Clara went out, helped clear--this was all forest, and she would go out and pile things up and clear things up, and leave the children. She had some-- she must have been a marvelous mother. They speak so well of her, because she thought of ways of amusing them. that they had. Walter's found little soft balls You couldn't buy balls, so they had these made out of the old heels of socks. Or she'd tell them about the time when they were to come and call her. She'd be out working, and I guess he was in town a lot of the time. left here. She was And one day, they walked all the way down to around where Shutie's are now. I don't know whether you know that or not. Q: No. Mrs. H: Well you go down 608 ... Mr. H: (Slate?) River. Mrs. H: ... down the Oliver Lake road. The corner of the Oliver Lake road and you can go straight through there, to buy a cow. They were gone two days. They walked all the way there, and all the way �-5back; the two of them, bringing this cow. Q: The children and mother or husband .... Mrs. H: Q: The mother and the father. Oh, husband, yeah. Mrs. H: And who looked after the children, I don't know. Maybe one of the older childreno But she had her share of heartbreaks, but another thing that ... Q: How many children did she raise? Mrs. H: It's all here.(flipped through book) Mr. H; Well, little girls in those days, was six or seven or eight, started lookin' after the house, doin' housework. Mrs. H: ______ But ah ... and she would bring them porridge to bed. Now I didn't hear this until just recently that to get to, some of them slept here, and Alf, the boy, whose store you were at, slept upstairs and she had to go up a ladder. But she'd take his porridge. stove out there. She made it on a And that heated the house all night, and then she made their porridge, and brought them all porridge in bed, before they got up. And they always wanted their porridge warm, so they all sat up and ate it. Q: Breakfast in bed! Mrs. H: But imagine a woman with all that she had to do, and yet she was so wonderful with her family, and they all speak so highly of her. And she was awfully good to all her neighbours, I think. �-6Mr. H: Q: She was a doctor woman, so ... I wonder .... She was what? Mr. H: Down in (Osaks?) they called them doctor women. Midwife, and general sort of .... That book Foxfire, if you've ever read that, it--well no, yeah, Foxfire. In some parts of the States especially, the old English expression is doctor woman. Well it's a midwife and ... In those days, the doctor would come out from Fort William with a horse and buggy out here, twenty-five, thirty miles. days work for him, at least. Half a So they depended-- it had to be very serious before they went to the doctor or went to the hospital, so they depended on the local talent. Q: Naturally. Well, she was city woman, from a big city in Norway, so how did she get these skills? Mrs. H: Well, I think it was just sort of, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. her family. ~ ..... in Ingrid was eighteen when she died. She died of the flu and pneumonia, at the end of the war. Q: With that epidemic, yeah. Mrs. H: I guess they didn't--well, once again, they couldn't get out. here, .. ~nd by the time they did get a doctor o. Mro H: She'd have died in town, anyway. Mrso H; Yeah. And this Mary, one of the~ died of diptheria, Another child, she---the mother had typhoid, and �-7she lost her baby when, well, the baby was premature. And I think it lived two months or so. But it wasn't very well. So there was--out of all these, I think there were five left. Q: What, Mary, Alf,Borfield, Mrs. H: Q: Oh. Mrs. H: Q: Now this Barfield is Mrs. Colson. And the youngest was, well, the baby boy died. Why did they move to Fort William eventually, because Mr. Olson working there? Mr. H: Q: No, no. Mr. Olson died here. What year was that? Mro H: Her daughter Gertie, that lives on 61, was married to a chap named Docking, and they took over the farm. But he was away all during the war. But then he came back, they came back here, and sold-1956, wasn't it, they sold this place? Mrs. H; Yes. Mr. H: And they moved up to the Mountain road. took the old lady with them. And they The old lady died in the house, at least she died on the Mountain road, when they were living on the Mountain road. Mrs. H: But this daughter that was born here, this Gertie, is well worth talking to, because she's had a lot of ... Q: Gertie Docking, yeah. Mrs. H; ... Gertie Docking, and she lives on highway 61, just past the prison farm. Now Murray worked at �-8: :But he joined up, and the prison farm, you see. went overseas, and she and her parents ran the farm. Now she was just a young woman; you'll see pictures of her in here. Until he came home. __husband working at the country club. She's a very capable person. Q: She's sixty now? Mrs. H: Q: Yeah, she'd be sixty, but you'd never know it. And her sister's older than her, Borged? Mrs. H: Borged, yeah. here. Now this is a picture of a Christmas And this very room, when we bought this house, it was practically in the ground. Q: You didn't buy it in 1957, when they moved out, then? Mrs. H: Q: And they had it for how long? Mrs. H; Q: No, a German family moved in here. From '56 to '72. Oh yea, so you just bought it recently. Mrso H: And they really, almost, well, you'd say they abandoned it, wouldn't you? Mr. H: Mrs. H: Well, sure they abandoned it. They were going to tear it down, they didn't think it was worth fixing. Mr. H: Maybe not consciously abandon it. probably draw up some The didn't - - - -they were going to abandon the house, but it was in a state of abandonment and would never have come back and fixed it up. Never. �-9Mrs. H: Q: This is the story of the family.o. I'd like to read it. Mrs. H: Well, you can come back any time you like, or if you want to read it now. This is written by Mrs. Colson for the history book. And every story that is in this book is about families that ... Q: Oh. Are there any pictures? Mrs. H: These are the Deckings. daughter. Q: Yeah. She was the There she is. Oh, what a pretty bathing suit! Mrs. H: And this is sort of a family picture of all the families. Oh, this is the Sedwich's, but they couldn't get very much about them. But this is what this place looked like when we bought it. Q: Where did you come from? Mrs. H: You and your husband? I lived in Thunder Bay. raised there. I was born there and He came from Ottawa, but he was born in England. He grew up in Ottawa, or near Ottawa. Q: Would you say they were a fairly typical family, the Olson's, of this area? Mrs. H: Q: Yes, I would. Because, I know a lot of Scandinavians settled out here. Mrs. H: Yeah. Mrs. H: ....... I don't mean anything derogatory about them, but they're self-sufficient. They've had to be. There only meat would be what they got through hunting, so that ..... �-10- Q: What about cows and that? Mrs. H: Q: Oh yeah, they had cows. Did some of them have sheep? Mrs. H: I don't think sheep would be very practical out here. Q: I know the Kamstra's have sheep. Mrs. H: Maybe they have, but there are too many bears around. Q: Oh. Mrs. H: Even with cows they can be a danger. There's still wolves and bears. Q: What about chickens Mrs. H: ----------- Most of them still have their own chickens, but they have to provide enough to keep them going through the winter. approve of it. their survival. Q: For them, it was necessary for And ... And the women hunted too? Mrs. H: Q: So, hunting--oh, I don't I couldn't tell you whether they did or not. I know my grandmother Garrett used to carry a rifle and could shoot one. Mrs. H: Well, there have been women that have been left to raise families. It seems I heard of someone just heard about recently lef~ woman on a farm without her family and she was left with a bunch of young children, and, what else can you do? Mrs. H: ... logs, and white pine, red pine. And all through that section down where they lived, they weren't �-11- too far from the border, and so you had all these lumbar jacks, and so on. Q: So, where-abouts was the prostitution house, exactly? It says 7 -I don't know where Concession Eight and (Neebing) is. Mrs. H: Q: Well, this is Crooks. So that's closer to Fort William? Mrs. H: No, no. That's down towards the border. The last township along the American border. Q: Oh, okay. Mrs. H: So they were very close to the, not too far from the American border. Well, then you have, the Pidgeon River was used for timber, too, you see. They had all those falls .... Q: So this is woman entrepeneurs catne up from the States? Mrs. H: Q: Cecile McGuire Mrs. H: Q: Yes. McGuire, yeah. Or maybe Sicily, I guess it would be. Mrs. H: So, you see, she had a dance hall, so it was just like, well, the Yukon. They had quite a house. Now whose living there now, - I don't know, but they had all kinds of old clocks, and all kinds of antigues and things. Sunday School. Q: What a change! Mrs. H: Yes. Then it was used as a �-12Q: Is it still standing ------------- , I guess it must be. Mrs. H: Q: Yeah. But their not living there anymore .... The Held's . Mrs.H: .... , they've gone down to ah, they're living in Virginia. place now. So I don't know whose living in that We used to visit the naturalist always, made a point of calling there, because they fed birds and it was very nice, very nice area. But I think that would make a good, well, =-I would be interested . ;..... . Q: If you want to write something on that for us, we'd be glad to credit you for it. You see, what we are, are more editors than authors. We're just trying to, you know, kind of coalate the material. Mrs. H: I don't know where I'd go looking for material. People would be giving me a queer look. Q: What about the Held's? telling, I don't Mrs. H: Maybe they know more than they're know. Well, of course, as I say, they're away down in Virginia, right now. These people are very close. She ah, Mrs. Manaseau's American too. The present Mrs. Manasteau . ... hard time of it really. Q: Why do you suppose they were the pioneers? Mrs. H; Well, I can see what happens today ......... . (end of tape) � 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: Margaret and Walter Hartley 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 Oral history interview with Mrs Margaret and Mr Walter Hartley in Neebing on December 6, 1978. 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. Discussions centre about Clara Christiansen who married Lars Olson in 1899 and immigrated from Norway. Arriving two years after her husband, with two young children, the Olsons lived in Fort William before moving to Neebing, then built the house the Hartley’s live in. Referencing a book, the Hartleys discuss Clara raising a family, and being a "doctor woman" (midwife). One of her daughters died of the flu epidemic, one from diphtheria, and five children survived. In 1956 the family sold the place and moved to Mountain Road. Gertie Docking, (nee Olsen), was one of the daughters who grew up on the farm. Looking at pictures, the house was owned by a German family, the Sedwich’s, from 1956-1972, and abandoned. The Hartley’s bought the house and discuss the history of the farm with cows and chickens; women on the farm raising their families; and living amidst the industry boom of lumber and mines. 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-12-06 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 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/9d0e03c1b6a2becead656fbb5a5657aa.mp3 e50cd4d3bbbf71aa1e89d517371f2fc8 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/228f33ad35ca0e96ab89a3645765c26b.mp3 176c26d76985842bd6259dea59e428b2 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/250e2ceb33cd67407f2655792adcd896.pdf 387d2dcde4afa4919f4b5840770071d5 PDF Text Text HERSTORY PROJECT Mrs. Duggan interviewed by Helen Lovekin Q. Mrs. Duggan, can you tell me when you were born? A. Q. A. May 18, 1891. And you have been a lifelong Thunder Bay resident? No. I was from Renfrew County in Eastern Ontario near Ottawa. Q. A. and I lived there until I was 21. What made you come up to Thunder Bay? I came to live here in 1937, prior to that for 21 years I lived in Sc~eiber / and how I came to be in this part of the country_; I went to normal school in North Bay and under a grant that we got we were obliged to teach in the dtstricts instead of the counties. The districts started east of North Bay and so I went to normal in North Bay and I taught near Sudbury for four years and then I came to Schreiber to teach in 1916. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. I was born there I was married in 1920 and I lived in Schreiber until 1937. So when you moved to Schreiber the war was on in Europe and Schreiber must have been very much a bush town. No, but it was strictly a railroad town. I recall there were six trains a day at that time. What was it like coming from Eastern Ontario into Schreiber? Well, naturally it was a complete change because in the area where I had lived in Eastern Ontario it was mostly farmland whereas Schreiber was strictly business connected with the railroad. It was an entirely different environment. Were the people there homesteaders there at that time? Not in Schreiber, anyone who lived in Schr.eiber, who had come from the east as the majority had, the men came there because of the railway. There was good work and the pay was good. Naturally they brought their wives and families with them. Q. Instead of getting land grants they lived within a town. A. Yes, the majority owned their own home, not on a _large area of land though, ------just on a lot and a garden. Q. When you came up in 1916 you had had previous experience teaching, how did you have to modify your lessons for the children up here? pletely different atmosphere they were living in. It would be a com- �e ... A. We had the Ontario Curriculum we had to follow and I can't say that it was a great deal different from what it was in other places. The only thing is that my early teaching days before I went to normal school, I was in rural schools where I had the full compliment of children, from grade one to grade eight. That was very difficult. After I went to normal school I always had senior classes and I taught grade seven usually and later grade eight. Q. Did you marry in Schreiber? A. No, I married in my home town in the east but I married a man from Schreiber. A railroad man. Q. The romance was all in Schreiber. What was it like for you to leave everything that you knew and branch off into Northern Ontario? A. Well, it was certainly vecy different in many ways - the customs were different. For one thing the people had more money to spend, there was more social life, although it was a small area. One thing that perhaps was a bit outstanding, the men were by far in the majority so of course the school teachers were rather popular at dances and so on. At least we always had a good time. Us- ually we went out a great deal throughout the week. Q. After you were married were you allowed to go on teaching? A. You didn't have to stop, but I did stop, I don't know why I did. At least I thought I stopped - I resigned - and when we were on our return to Schreiber after our honeymoon, we met a railroad man quite a distance down the line, and he said to me that they were waiting for me to get back there. I asked why and he told me that they wanted me to take the principal 's job because the principal had been sick for quite some time. There was a clergyman in charge of the classroom and he didn't like it and I don't think he was much of a compromise. When I went back , it was the pupil's that I had had in former years and of course they Imew what to expect. There was no trouble with discipline. Q. Was that quite unu~al to have a woma:m as a princip.al? A. Well , it was there. from the eve of time. d,ied. The principal who had been there must have been there He was there for a long time and was there until he At times after he died I was once again replacing the principal after I was married. After the original resident principal died, two principals at least took sick at different times so I replaced them. Q. But you were never given the position officially? A. No, but I didn't want it because I had young children after a few years and I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Q. What sort of social activities were present? �A. Card playing was very popular, in fact I was really bored with having to play cards. If you didn't you were a kind of an outlaw. Afternoon teas were also very popular, in fact many of the ladies had their visiting cards that was usual in those days and then dances occured at least every couple of weeks. Then in the summer there was a lake very close and many people had cottages there, and the lake was a great source of enjoyment there. Q. When you came to Schreiber it was 1916, there were still two more years left in World War I. A. What kind of effect did that war have on a small town? I think I should tell you that in 1918, the year the war ended, that was one of the years that the flu was very prevalent. We had an excellent doctor in Schreiber and there was only one person who died of the flu, but there were very few nurses and schools were closed for a while and we were asked to go on a volunteer basis to different homes especially if the mother was sick and the young children had to be attended to. So we went in fear and trembling and everybody that was strong and husky felt they should do their duty. doctor certainly couldn't have managed without the help. The I recall that the weather was dull and school was closed for about six weeks. In that time we went to various places - the teachers and women without children. I think there were one or two nurses and there were some women who had some nursing experience and they rounded us up and got us going on the project. Q. A. So it was a rather important contribut-ion. Somebody had to do it and after all, we were as able to do it a~~~ody else and we didn't have anyone depending on us as did the people with children. Q. In the First World War was there a lot of activity in the church groups, women's auxiliary etc. towards the war effort? A. Yes, knitting and that type of thing. Making of bandages. I don't recall that I had very much to do with that but then it was perhaps because thankfully _there were others with ,,.more experience along that line. We were quite active ~ practically everything that was put on in a social~· line. There wasn't too much going on socially because it wasn't wise for too many people to be in groups. I do recall one boy caine home from overseas and the doctor had issued an order on account of the flu thatfthere were to be no group meetings. This boy's mother had planned a big party for her son's return from overseas and she was ve-ry indigna.n,t to think that that was interfered. with. The doctor was quite strict about the rule and he was right of course. Q. In your teaching career, what salary did you start off with? �A. You'd be surprised - $JOO a year. Q. This of course would be less than the men would be making? A. I suppose, but there were very few men teachers in those days. No man in his right mind would take on teaching unless he was just going to earn some money and then go on to something else. Because if he planned on getting married how could anyone live on $JOO dollars a year? Q. How did you manage? A. The first year I paid $10 a month board and then I went to a different school in a farm area and I paid seven dollars a month fur three years. Later I got a raise of $325, It seems like an impossible way to live but you have to consider that it wasn't only the teachers who were poorly paid, it meant that nobody was making big wages and what you bought was not as expensive, anything like as expensive ... I remember buying blouses for .2.5¢ or ,50¢ and a young girl who was quite a dressmaker would go and stay at a house for maybe two or three days and do all the sewing for that season and she would probably be paid a dollar a day and room and board. It was all relative. Q. Did the climate affect you in any way? The long winters. A. I did find the winters in Schreiber exceedingly cold. On the way to school, quite often you had to face north and another thing, I had a cold classroom and often we would have to close in the morning because the heat didn't circulate as it should and besides I was on the cold side. This didn't hurt the feelings of the children any. Q. In your early years of marria·ge and having children, had you become quite climatized to Schreiber and Northern Ontario? A. Yes, I got accustomed to it and people's habits were a little different you know. In the east where I came from there were more relatives living in the same area whereas in a place like Schreiber it was mostly a young people's town with ha.r.dly any third or second generations. Naturally the older people preferred to live in the east where the climate was better. Q. You came to Thunder Bay in the '30 's you said. A. Yes, 1937 and that was the time of the Depression. Q. Could you tell me a little about that? A. Personally we never suffered very much from the Depression because of the fact that my husband had steady work, which very few people did have. Railroading is determined on seniority and my husband had enough that he always stood for work but quite frequently he would decide to take a day or a couple of days off and that gave somebody else a chance. The railroad peo:p1e are rather LI. �clanish and also very interested in, and sympathetic towards those who are Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. not able to get along. Did you resume your career? Periodically. I don't know how many times I went back between 1920 and when I moved here, but I was back several times. As I say I was back right after we came from our honeymoon for three months and then I was back several times and then we carne here in '37 and I think about two years later I was at the boarding school for a while, somebody suddenly became sick and I was there replacing. I did go back in '43 for a year down at the East End at a separate school - St. Joseph's. In 1945 my husband died and I went back steadily from then on until 1968. I went to the sanitarium to teach in 1945 - a tuberculosis sanitarium on the outskirts of town - and there were a great many children there, mostly Indian children. The odd white child but not too many. Then the adult Indians were just like children because many of them came from places where :they had no education and many of them I taught to write and to do arithmetic etc. I stayed at the sanitarium for seven and a half years and then I was out on Arthur St. for six months waiting for the build:¢ing of a new school on the Indian reservation. I went there in '53 and I stayed seven years. What was it that made you choose the mission schools in particular? For one thing, I wasn't as young as some of the other teachers, when I taught at the mission school I was a civil servant and the government generally pays better than the separate schools - and of course being a Catholic I couldn't teach in a public school. It was quite attractive to me because by that time my family were all away and I was able to live there due to living quarters. I must say that it paid me in the long run because ever since I left there I have been getting a pension. Aside from the monetary aspects of teaching at the mission, you were there for a good part of your career .. ?Was there something that attracted you to that type of work? Yes, I enjoyed it. I found the Indian children very easy to teach - some of them were more brainy than others - you ,find that every place you go. Some of them were more mischeivous than others too. On the whole, I had wonderful support from the parents - naturally because I was a government representative and nobody interfered with my discipline. I feel that I gave them something that perhaps nobody else was willing to give - nobody was interested.. The �majority of teachers, when they start in a city school they stay there, but I was free to change if I wanted so the - Mr. Mciver who died some years ago was the member of Parliament here and so he told me that this new school was being built with all the modern accomodations and that if I was interested., he would help me get it. got it. I suppo-se my record was fine or else I would.n 't have I was there for quite a few years and the one thing I found when I went there was that many of the Indian people had a defeatist attitude that because they were Indian they couldn't get anywhere. I drilled into the children that anybody of any nationality can get anywhere but it has to be through their own efforts. All you have to do is drive out to Chippewa and see the lovely homes and many of those homes are occupied by some of my former pupils. Q. So there is a great deal of satisfaction? A. Yes, I do feel satisfaction. The chief is a former pupil and so is his wife. They invite me to their different activites etc. I feel that I had a good relati:onship with them and of course it's like everything else, you get the kind of treatment you deserve. If you go out there with the snobby idea that you are so much better than somebody else, you won't get very far. I went there to teach the children and I did it as conscientiously as possible. Q. You sound like a person who has a lot of energy and goes into something with a very open mind. A lot of people who did come up from Southern Ontario into Northern Ontario had a snobby attitude and it could be manifested. more severly in teaching the mission schools. Insofar as women's activities went did you have anything to do with the women's organizati01s? A. You mean the Indian women's organizations? The Indian women were not really well organized. but what we did have were the Girl Guides. Guides - the women to come and start the group. I got the Girl We would have a tea every so often and the children learned how to set a table and I had taken a lot of my own things from my own home out there with me, so I had my tablecloths and my silver and the odd things. I showed them how to use them and serve and I think the children got a lot out of that. They got something out of it and they have shown over the years with - I've been invited to various activities and you certainly can tell that they know how to serve and act like anyone else. I don't take the full credit but I mean they do observe how other people do things and naturally they learn from others. Q. You did belong to the Catholic Women's League did you not? �A. Y.e s. Q. Could you tell me something about that? A. Naturally I had belonged to the Catholic Women's League in a smaller town too, when it was initiated.. Then when I caine here - I think the League started in 1921 in this area - we had a League in Schreiber and then when I came here, I'm sure I wasn't here a year when I was nominated as secretary, no,treasurer of the League. I was on the board for years, and I was on the diocesyn which means a larger area. circle. In the league there is the local group and then a wider I used to attend as a delegate the various conventions. At that time the head of our diocese was North Bay and now we have a Bishop here ~ but then we didn't have a Bishop and I was the delegate appointed to go to conventions but I don't think I waslappointed because I was smarter than anyone else, I went because I had a CPR pass. Q. What was the function of the Catholic Women's League? A. The slogan is "For God and Canada", so we tried to do anything we could to help the clergy. Many people teach catechism and I've done that quite a bit. In a small place like the rieservation, one of our projects was to raise some money by carpeting the ............. but that didn't have anything to do with the C,W.L. that was just one of our projects, that we did with the children. With the C. W.L. we had a hand in the Depression by packing clothes and we got a special rate on the railway and sent the clothing out west to the people who were desperately hard up. During the war, people made bandages and did quite a lot to help the soldiers, especially packing kits and parcels so that they got a treat from home every so ofteu. We had the names of all the boys who belonged to the congregation and everyone of them got a parcel. Those were some of the things done in war time and of course there has been a great deal done in giving burseries and awards to children who otherwise couldn't be able to go on to a higher education. Q. Does the C.W.L. set itself any goals that it wishes to achieve for soci.e ty? For instance, you must have had a lot to do with St. Joseph's Hospital. A. Yes, quite a number of the ladies who are members of the C.W.L. and are on the Auxiliary for St. Joseph's Hospital. and helped with teas etc. Naturally they made contributions Right now the C.W .L. are -very active in the abortion :problem - they are very opposed to that of course, it is against the teachings of the Church and so the C.W.L. are strong in opposition to abortion. In every group or in every tmm there are poor people and the poor are helped. We -, . �have rummage sales and people who rave a lot of children and haven't much money can come and get a whole box of clothes - the clothes might be worth $15 and they would pay a dollar. When I was· on the Indian reservation, the clothes that were left over from a couple of the churches were sent out to me and then we'd have a ten cent sale. We felt that having the people pay a little gave them a little more dignity, than to just say 'here, have this" . There again they would pro~ably get a box full of clothes for a quarter. Q. When you were teaching on the reservation and at the same time you were involved in the C.W.L. did you feel a lot of distance between yourself and the Indian women? A. It's a bit hard to get very close to some, fortunately I taught at the sanitarium previous from going to the Indian reservation and one woman from the reservation was a patient at the sanitarium and I got to know her quite well. She had gone to school in town and when I went to the reservation, I felt that there was somebody I knew and her husband was very, very good as far as any repairs or anything like that, I just had to send someone to bring him overrto look at the problem. pairing anything. I am completely useless when it comes to re- One particular item I always noticed about him, he never came to the school alone, he always brought one or two of his children with him. That was for my protection because there were neighbors around who didn't have the best thoughts and no way would he expose me to their criticism. I admired him so much for doing that, I didn't ask him to do that, I never told him that I noticed it, but I certainly had a great deal of admiration for him. He was a lot younger than I was and he and his wife used to come over in the evening to the school and he was very brilliant -in mathematics and I would get him to do rational problems on the blackboard, which I knew he enjoyed doing. Q. What was his wife like? Were you close at all? A. I was fairly close to the wife and she used to do my hair. nice person and ve-;cy socially inclined and friendly. entertainment at Christmas .... ~ ...... then put an imitation flame on it. She was a very We had a beautiful We covered the barrels with red and The people really enjoyed our Christmas pariies and another thing about the Parks Board, Mr. Art Widinol? especially, he was in charge of the Parks Board at the time and he used to bring the treats for everybody, They came from Squaw Bay, from that school and our own, we had two schools in the mission. �Q. How much co-operation was there between the women - you told me about Schreiber and about how the women managed to ward off the flu epidemic by the healthy ones taking care of the sick, you mentioned working with the C. W. L. and you mentioned you worked as a teacher/in the reservation. Would you have wished for more determined co-operation? A. No, I really was surprised by the amount of co-operation. Sometimes - Indian women won't push themselves - so sometimes you might have to suggest, but they were ver:y willing. They would have thier children dressed the way I want etc., so no, I can't say that I ever lacked help. Q. The C. W.L. was quite a unified group? A. Yes. We al.so had a group that would put on skits every so often. It took a lot less time to put on a skit than to put on a real play so often for our purposes we would use skits. al. but many laughs. We would have a skit with vecy little rehears- Certainly were given great encouragement and always asked to come back for more. Q. You found lots of avenues to explore. A. Yes, perhaps I should tell you about the boy when I was at St. Joseph's Boarding School, after I left the reservation. In 1960 I thought that well, I was getting on in years and I really tire, but the sisters had been asking me to go to St. Joseph's Boarding School on account of my long connection with the Indians. They knew I would understand the children. I went and stayed there eight years after I was supposed to retire, every year the Westfort Kiwanis in order to encourage children, and make them aware of the forest, they offered a prize for the best piece of art that showed how to prote·a t the forest. Children of all the schools were asked to co-operate so at the school they had never heard of that before, so I talked to my superior about it and she agreed. We did enter the competition and out of over 2,900 entrants, one was chosen aqthe best. The name of the chUd who did it and the school he attended was on the back and it was not visible to the judges so nobody knew whose work::.it was. The next day I had a call from a man who bel.tnged to the Kiwanis and he told me that one of my pupils won the prize. The boy had drawn a man sitting, and protecting the little animals and he did an excellent job and so they chose that. the Exi bition. The prize was a trip with an adult to Toronto and I was the adult. This boy came from a reservation way up by Armstrong and he was the eldest of a very large family and it just didn't seem the thing to ~~o. For some reason they decided that if he was going to get �very much out of the Exhibition, that I should go with him. They phoned and asked me if I would go and I said that if it was going to be for his welfare I '11 go. Mr. Badani was our member at the time. I wrote to him because I was working for the Federal Government, and I told him what the situation was and the conditions and he alerted somebody in Toronto and next to the Queen, we had the best service. We were at the Exhibtion, everything was handed to us, we· stayed at the King Edward Hotel, we had our pictures taken, and we were on T. V. there. We got plenty of publicity and it was an achievement which I am sure made the Indian children aware of their own potentialities. r,. did something for the whole district, to Imow that one of them could do that. Q. Do you think that women's roles in society have changed very much, and if so do you think that the changes were for the better or for the worse? A. They've certainly changed and of course women are better educated now than when I was growing up. On the other hand, if you judge by results, I think that the women of fifty years ago produced better children, more responsible children. Q. But surely that is not their only function - to produce children. A. No, I don't mean that but if you were to judge them that way I think that well, discipline has changed and that has an awful lot to do with the way the child turns out. I think many women of today are doing an excellent job soc- ially, I don't mean in society, I mean in trying to benefit the underdog. The underpriviledged etc. , I think the younger women are to be greatly admired for the way that they really are trying. Naturally you are going to find a certain number who are self-centered, there will always be that. I think on the wh.ole, women a.re very conscious of their obligation to their fellow men. Q. That is refreshing to hear. Quite often, we have received very negative com- ments as to how young women are today. Circumstances have changed. Criticism of working mothers for .e xample, young women can't afford to stay home if they a.re able to work. A. I think the majority of older people have a tendency to talk about the good old days. I've lived a good many yea.rs and the good old days weren't so good at all. Women naturally didn't get out and do things as today but you see, they didn't have the equipment in the home to make things any easier for them. It took them all day to do their work. I have no patience with women �who spend their afternoons in the beer parlor. But I think that is a minority. When I see my own daughters, they '11 drive their children here, and drive them there, so that they can take part in worthwhile activities and other women are doing the same thing. There are a great many women who are giving a great deaJ. of time to, volunteer work. That certainly is very commendable I think. I do find that it is generaJ.ly older women who sit back and won't do anything, of course you have lots of time to criticize then. Criticism should be con-- structive and if you can see that things should be different why not go and suggest that you will have time and give them help to do it? Q. If you were to become involved as a young woman in a project right now, in something in society right now, what would you like to do? A. As long as it wasn't work - I'm not fond of work. brains and I like to make people happy. I like to work with my rhere are a lot of serious things in this world and I think if you can do something to make people happy that's good. Some women have a pretty tough time, they work aJ.l day and perhaps work at home and often don't get any co-operation, I think that if I had any choice it would be entertainment - but it wouldn't cost anything to produce or attend. Q. Did you know that there was a play just formed recently and it was an aJ.1femaJ.e play and aJ.1-femaJ.e audience as well. 'rhat was just two weeks ago. It was a group of women who had just decided to do something, and I think they are doing it again in August. A. We just recently had the C.W.L. convention here and I was one of the characters and it was really just a show of hats but they introduced me as an 87 year old. I feel that I am young at heart - everybody has pains and aches whether you are young or not so what is the use of talking about them if somebody else has them too. I think that senior citizens today never had. it so good. It annoys me to hear them say that they don't get anything for this or that. There is plenty funded to senior citizens to live on if they are not spendthrifts and foolish with their money. As far as income for senior citizens is concerned, you have to realize whose pocket it's coming from - my children and grandchildren are paying for the comfort that I have here. children and grandchildren are doing the same thing. Everybody else's All you have to do is hear of conditions in other countries and think how fortunate we are. pension is $145 monthly The - they say that the basic salary should be about $300 but you can apply for increases and then of course the rent sidized buildings is geared on income. in these sub- After all, if you have reached retire- ID . �ment age and have never saved any money, you 're not going to start saving it after that either. You take the wages in the last twenty yea:rs or so, they've been good and surely people of 65 must have something ahead of them. My parents had to live without any old age pension and they had to save for their old age. If they are absolutely irresponsible with their money well than naturally the cheque isn't going to last long. Thank you for talking with us. \t. � 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: Mary Erne Duggan Description An account of the resource An oral history interview done by Helen Lovekin with Mrs. Mary Erne (Maher) Duggan in Schreiber. 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 each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. The interview uses language that may no longer be considered appropriate, and discusses the schooling of Indigenous children. In this interview, Mary Erne Duggan reflects on her life and career. She was born in 1891 in Renfrew County, and moved to Schreiber in 1916 as a teacher. She married in 1920 and had children, continuing to teach occasionally after that. She moved from Schreiber to live in Thunder Bay from 1937-1968. In 1945, her husband died and she maintained her career in education. The interview focusses on Mrs. Duggan's teaching and the cultural changes she witnessed through her career. She taught in schools in North Bay, near Sudbury, in Schreiber, and in Thunder Bay at the Sanitorium, the Mission School (1953-1960), and St. Joseph's Residential School (1960-1968). In her interview, Mary Erne Duggan reflects on WWI, the flu epidemic of 1918, the Depression, and WWII, and her identities as a teacher and as a member of the Catholic Women's League. 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 - Schreiber Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interview is released with permission of Mary Clare Massicotte, granddaughter. https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1690071e6b95bcd824a9769e450c4549.mp3 1247d40a046f7a13647619b30603b6cb https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/a8bfe6fa8bb733add91208fa7fe85f9d.mp3 e5dc5c3bb17141deb98c760a67343d23 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: Maryon Kantaroff Description An account of the resource An oral history record from artist and women's advocate, Maryon Kantaroff. The presentation 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 each file.) The tape records a presentation by Maryon Kantaroff at the Northwestern Women's Conference, April 6th 1973. Maryon shares that women’s movements have the potential to change relationships with others and with oneself. Maryon talks about radical feminism in relation to selflessness, and the importance of speaking up for oneself as a woman. The presentation recants her personal experience in joining the Canadian Women’s Movement and consciousness for camaraderie. The talk is a critical look at the history of social oppression and the power patriarchies have to shape identity. Tracing significant historical events through her discussion of gender, sexuality, religion and culture, the talk by Maryon emphasizes the importance for women to work together for widespread cultural change. 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 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-04-06 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d812565a47da4532b8f34f14f825c783.mp3 bba9a61181158e5faeaade3936e42147 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b75d6a16dd4825750cf9d704917046af.mp3 8320be2d79e4c71613bbd11ac4fde03f https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/ed8b4e5887daa92ac1e8349e70d36778.pdf a63701dfa86f6daa6dd2dc5a30abcc9e PDF Text Text Mrs. Stepanik, Kenora Interviewers: ' H.: Mrs. H.: Mrs. H.: Mr s . H.: Mrs. I Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky. When were you born? S.: 1905 in the old country, in a village. In the Ukraine? S.: Yes, I'm Ukrainian. What year did you come to _can.u.iadu..ca,1,-;?~ - - - - - - - - - - - - S. : 1924 ---· Did you come by yourself? S.: By myself. Yes, I come to Canada. I was 17 years old when I came to Canada. H.: Why? Mrs. S.: Because my brother. I walted to. Everybody said that's good to Canada. I come too. H.: What did you think when you came? Mrs. S.: I was not used to it. Not much people come yet who can talk Ukrainian. H.: You couldn't speak English. Mrs. S. English and I go to work to Jew's place. I stay one winter to Winnipeg, and I just have $15. In a month. H.: Where did you live? Mrs. S.: I 1ive to Winnipeg. I have a sister and I 1ike to ~linnipeg. I stay that place where I work. H.: What kind of work did you do? Mrs. X (neighbour): Housework. Mrs. S.: Yah, housework. I make it dinner, and supper and cleaned house and she had the kinds. I think I did not stay too long in Canada. After winter, I come to Kenora. ,ije (the boss) is moved to Kenora because he was working on a supply trade and I come to Kenora. I go to working in a hotel, commercial hotel. ~It's now the Kenwood. After I found more Ukrainian people here down at the Ukrainian -~_ig_s_Sn.d.e.t-y . -·----------H.: Did you enjoy it? ' Mrs. S.: I enjoy it. I go to sing there. Karen: Was there a Ukrainian Hall here? Mrs. S.: Yah, an or~anization. I played in plays there. You know at that time, there was not television not radio . . Neighbour: But plays in other words. Concerts and plays, comicals, of all sorts, you know. K: There's a lot of research in Thunder Bay about the Ukrainian Labour Temple there. Neighbour: Ukrainian Labour Temple is not associated at all with the Ukrainian Labour Society. At all. Temple is a Communist group. Labour Society is all Ukrainians, Catholics, say Greek orthodox, but they're religious. Labour temple does not recognize no churches. K.: But as far as the activities, they'd be similar. There'd be plays and dances. Neighbour: Labour Temple would be more in the Russian style and say they would have meetings which they would bring from Winnipeg that's propagandaLet's put it that you. You know. Instead of the real thing. H.: Tell me what part did you play in the Ukrainian Ladies Society. Did you act in the plays? Did you sing? Mrs. S.: Yes. H.: Can you tell me about it? Did you enjoy it? �Page 2 Mrs. S. Yes. Yes. I was in plays and I was President. N.: She was a president. For how many years? For how many years were you a president? Mrs. S.: 12 years in the Ukrainian Women's Association. H.: Did it make a difference to you? Were you very lonely until this Association. You had friends? Mrs. S.: You know I had small kids and my kids I teach Ukrainian school. Ukrainian school, there and Ladies society. I teached my kids there the Ukrainian. I talk to my kids Ukrainian, because I want to know that my kids talk Ukrainian. My kids told me lots of time, my daughter, you talk to me English and I'll teach you and say to you English. You no talk Ukrainian. You know I was interested. I know I like how eve;Jything 90. I like Ukrainian. Did you see this here? K.: So It was important to you to that your family kept their Ukrainian culture and the society helped you in that. Neighbour: She also is the Senior Citizen president at the moment at the hall too. Mrs . S. : Ya h. N.: And that's the part she takes. She has all her life. Mrs. S.: I like it. And I like people. I like to go out. I like to workin~ for organisationyou know. I like it, miss and I enjoy it. Because I'm not lasted. I have my people. N.: You have your heritage in other words. H.: When you first came out·here, you were single. Not married. (No) and you married in Canada. (In Canada) Mrs. S. : 1926. H.: That's only two years after you came, isn't it? (Yah) And he was a Ukrainian as well? Mrs. S.: My husband, yah, he's Ukrainian. William Stepanik. I meet him in the Hall, Ukrainian Society. H.: In the Hall? Mrs. S.: I meet him there. H.: What was it like then for you to be able to associate with young men? Were you allowed to talk to them openly? How did you see each other? Dancing, or what? Mrs. S.: Yah, -we dancing. This time we have a, you know he was playing in a (how do you say that) Neighbour: He was playing in the plays, in the plays, you know. Mrs. S.: In the same play. H.: In the play. So you were both in the play. I see. Mrs. S.: We believe to there. H.: So you shared a lot of ideas. (Yah) Mrs. S.: 1925 - We, not married yet, and believed (belonged) to that organization. H.: How many children did you have? Mrs. S.: Three - two girls, one boy. One, my daughter, down in ~lindsor, my son in Kenora, L&K grocery. (He have there two blocks from here) (Oh,yes) And my daughter die. You know. She's married and she stay next door. We builded house here and after she's sick. She have some sickness. N.:Hodgkin disease. Mrs. S.:Hodgktn disease. H. : We 11 . Mrs. S. : And she leave two boys, two kids. Helen.: So you have grandchildren as well. Mrs. S.: Yah, I have ten grandchildren. H.: And so. Ten? That keeps you busy, uh. �Page 3 Mrs. S.: No, he is not Kenora here. He is Winnipeg now. That kid's (of) my daughter. He come to see me. (Oh) Yes. Neighbour: He's a doctor of Science in Denmark now. Mrs. S.:WEll, my grandson, -my son's son, he's a teacher, some doctor. He go to Denmark. H.: Did you have your children in Kenora at home. Mrs. S.: Yah, and my son, Billy, and Lascia. Neighbour: But she's asking you if your children were Mrs. S.: Yah, yah. At home. That's right. H.: Not in a hospital. Mrs. S.: Not in a hospital. That's right. Because I'm scared - go in a hospital. H.: You're probably right. Mrs. S.: Maybe might change my babies. K.: Did a lot of women have their children at home? Neighbour: Oh yes. All the time. I had mine at home too. Mrs. S.: It's at home. And ... I live here past 51 years the same place. This house. Just I go married and I stay the same place. That's 51, will be 52 January 26, - I just get married, moving here and stay here and my husband have a mother and father. I stay with mother and father. H.: Did you like that? ----...... Mrs. S.: Yah, I like it. H.: You liked his parents. \ Mrs. S.: Yah, I like it. Mother very good to me because I'm not going to the hospital she's look at (after) me. ' H.: So your mother-in-law delivered your baby. Is that how it worked \ in most families? Did most mother-in-laws help their daughters with the babies? Neighbour: There's mid-wives. There was mid-wives. H.: YQu had the mid-wives as well. But it's better to have it within the family. Mrs. S.: Yah. She looked to me. This time I got to stay eight days in bed. Don't get up. This time just I have a baby. K.: Can you tell us, when you moved to Kenora, you met some Ukrainian people. N.: Two yearsafter she was here. -----Mrs. S.: Just one wintertime stay to Winnipeg. In the summertime, I think June 6th, I moved to Kenora. K.: And did you find when you came here that the Ukrainian people would have much to do with the English people and with the Swedish people and whatever, or did you stay in your own little groups? Mrs. S.: Oh no, you mixed. I meeted. I meeted. Lots of people. I have lots of people in my village from old country. From Kenora. N.: But you mixed with the English people as well. Mrs. S.: Oh yes, I wanted to meet. N.:Sure you did. Mrs. S.: And they are friends. Girls. They are Swedish girls. Zena. I liked that. N.: And worked with her as well. Mrs. S.: And one Czechoslovakian, one Ann. I working and talking and eat. I have lots of fun because I teach myself I want to talk little bit to English and that boss Jew. You know. Katz he's called. A Jew. And he's very good. He's just like father to us. Night time he come to look at that there be not boy in our room, that we sleeping, that _.,,,, we goo some place. \ �Page 4 Neighbour: Guardian in other words. Mrs. S.: Yah. (Laughter) He worried to us. H.: Tell me, can you remember about the depression? In the 30 s? 1930? Can you tell about how it was for you then? Were all your children born then? Mrs. S.: Yah, my one born 1927, and boy, 1928, in the fall time, my boy now, and daughter, 1933, Susie born. Neighbour: That's when I came here. Yah. ~Je came to this house. - - -.. . . And that's when I knew her. H.: So can you recall anything about the depression? Mrs. S.: Yah, I know. My husband working at that time in the mill. Yah. Fl our mi 11 . H.: Did it get closed down? Mrs. S.: No, not closed down, just not much work. N.: (Three days a week) Mrs. S.: You know what I do! I haven't got for kids (how you call it) diapers - yah - and I haven't got so I do with small bag. N.: Sugar and rice. Mrs. S.: Small one, with the flour. You know, we have the small bags. N.: Sugar bags. Mrs. S.: And with sugar bag, I make it for me diapers. H.: I see. I understand. The sugar bags for the babies. And so you had it pretty rough. That's hard not to find diapers. N.: She had cows and she had pigs ... H.: You kept animals. N.: I remember all these things you know ... Mrs. S.: I keeped cows. I keeped chickens. Because this road not road. Just bush, here. And I selled milk for 10¢ a quart and I haved milk for kids, and eggs for kids. H.: So you never had to worry about eating. Mrs. S.: No. Just not money. H.: Just no money. (Yah) But as long as you had a house, then you had this house. And you had food. It wasn't as bad with no money. I K.: Did you ... you never had to go on relief then in the derpession. Mrs.S.: Oh, yah, relief. We had some relief. ~ N.: But did you have to go. Mrs. S.: Not long. (Not long.) Not long. K.: And that would just help you out buying things. Mrs. S.: Just he have the slip to the grocery store. H.: Winter would be very difficult though because the vegetables are not growing then. N.: She had her own. You had your own vegetables from the garden. Mrs. S.: Potatoes. I had some yeah. H.: So for you the depression wasn't as bad as for some people. Mrs. S.: No not so bad because I haved something from garden, milk and eggs. H.: And your husband didn't have to work on the highway. He could work in the mill. Mrs. S.: No he not working that mill. He work in flour mill. Then we go to married. We not go for honeymoon because no money, no time. H.: Stay in the house. Mrs. S.: Stay in the house because next day he had to go to work. H.: Did you like staying in the house all the time. Mrs. S.: Oh no. I like daughter now. The style changed. I don't want it that my kids have the same as just I had. You know. H.: What do you want? Mrs. S.: This better now. My kids had school, grandchild, and he's had money. And he's go for honeymoon when he get married. 1 �Page 5 H.: So he can enjoy his life a little bit. Mrs. S.: Yes. It's better now. (UH HUH) It's better now for me too. H.: How? Mrs. S.:Because. N.: Is it .... Mrs. S. I have a pension now. I am a widow. My husband die. H.: So you have a pension ... Mrs. S.: He made a house for me, you know, my husband. I have a pension I have a little bit money in the bank, you know. Just have to eat and paid everything to my expenses. And just have kids, not too far, and kids come to see me. And go to Windsor to my daughter. (Good) And my daughter married. I am there. And I go to wedding.to my daughter's son to Winnipeg. He just married. He stay to Winnipeg. H.: Well, when you were young, you had to stay in the house. You had your babies very close didn't you? (yah) One right after another? Mrs. S.: Yah, I stay in the house. H.: Did sometimes you feel you couldn't stand staying in the house any more? You had to go out. Mrs. S.: My mother stay. My mother-in-law stay with the baby. H.: Ah, so she was very good with you. And when you went out, would you go and do work with the Ukrainian Ladies Association.(uh, huh) Was this your recreation? Mrs. S.: I leaved my husband with the kids. Sometime the kids. H.: You left your kids with the husband. Good for you. That's good. Mrs. S.: After, he was working in the sheds and they pay better. You know we had money. He wanted to save money for the kids so kids go to school. And he give the music to kids, you know. My daughter, piano. My daughter have it. We keep it here. Piano. You know he go to piano lessons. H.: Did you ever go back to the old country? Mrs. S.: Me? (UH HUH) Mrs. S.: No. Never. H.: Would you ever waat to? If somebody said, ... Mrs. S.: Nah, I just want to go to visit there. H.: Not to live there. Just to visit. But you'd like to go back and see your family. Neighboar:But she couldn't go see her family because I applied ..... Mrs. S.: In my village, Just I born there. N.: But they won't let you. Mrs. S.: And he don't let me go there. N.: You just have to go to the city and they would meet you for three days ... Mrs. S.: Yah, I like to go. H.: Because what I would like to know is how happy have you been in Canada.You think it's been a good place for you . . Mrs. S.: Yah, Canada, good place for me. I am free here. Free country. I like Canada. H.: You like Kenora. Mrs. S.: Yah, and my kids born in Canada. I have my family here you know kids, and grandchild, and I never go stay there. H.: Nevergo back to live. K.: Can I ask you why in the first place you wanted to come to Canada? Was it, you ~eard it was better ... Mrs. S.: Better in Canada, yah K.: As far as you could get a job, that kind of stuff like that? �Page 6 N.: Living was better. Living was better. K.: Did you come here with the intention of staying here or you just wanted to come and visit? Mrs. S.: No I thinking to stay here. This is better than old country. Old country you know, that time, people not have it very good because you had to go work. If you had not got much land, you had to go work for somebody. N.: For 50¢ a day. Mrs. S.: Yah, and here, was better. K.: And when you got here did you think it was better.? Did you like it here, Mrs. S.: I like it here Canada. Canada? K.:When you first got here though. Mrs . S. : Yah, I 1i ke it. I 1i ke it. K.: What did you think of the country? Mrs. S.: What did you think of the country? {Neighbour translates in Ukrainian What did you think of the country) i Mrs. S.: Oh. I think is better in Canada. Just not old country. Better here. Better here. K.: In the winter? I 1 m thinking of stuff like the weather and things like that. Mrs. S.: Weather. Oh, I'll tell you. Weather nice there. And you I have apple trees, prunes, everything, everything, fruit you have it I there. I have it fruit there in old country. I K.: What did you think of the first winter you spent here? That must have been pretty .... I Mrs. S. : Ah, I don I t 1i ke it. Too cold. K.: I guess you got used to it now. Mrs. S.: I'm used to it now. I'm used to it. H.: We've talked a bit about the depression. Can we move on to the second World War? Do you remember the Second World War. Did you have sons that would be old enough to enlist? Mrs. S. : No. H.: NO? Not old enough?yet? 1920's. Oh yes that's right. Mrs. S.: I am ... just war started. N. : Her son is younger than her .jb 1des t daughter. H.: It started in 1939. Mrs. S.: No. No. Nothing. Nothing in Canada. K.: But did you, did, say the Ukrainian Women's Group, I did they do volunteer work in the war? N.: Yes.Yes. Yes. I K. What kind of stuff did you do? Do you remember? I N.: Oh they knitted. and you know .. Mrs. S. : Sewing. N.: Sewing. Gloves and mitts and scarves and stuff like that. Mrs. S.: Look at how many cushions I have. H.: They're beautiful. {I like it.) They really are. N.: During the depression, they had some kitchen set up in the hall. I Yes. For the people who didn't have anything to eat. Mrs. S.: Yah, we had. We had ... You know one time I go to Red Cross and bringed some stuff and we signed pajamas for the kids and the shorts. K.: So there was a lot of {sewing) ... co-operation Mrs. S.: Yah co-operation for everybody. K.: Did you, I guess, through the women's group, you had a lot of co-operation between other women. -i ----- ' I I / �Page 7 Mrs. S.: Yah, yah, we do. K.: Did you appreciate that? Mrs. S.: I'm appreciate. I am like---=--=-----,,-· Everybody listen to me and you I am president, she vice-president and secretary and cashier and we do. We do fine. We do good co-operation. Just go to like it. H. : Good. Do .... Mrs. S.: Are you opened ... N.: Yes, you're on. H.: Yah, we're talking Mrs. S.: Holy Cow. K.: That just helps us remember what you've said. H.: We can't write ... Mrs. S.: You can't write everything. That's O.K. He no talking bad. K.: We'll shut it off if you want to say something juicy. Mrs. S.: That's O.K. H.: And we'll take away her pen. Can you remember though, did you hear anything about the second World War? I Mean like what kind of information were you getting? Can you remember how you felt about it? Mrs. S.: I think was bad. H.: Yes. Well. I bet you a lot of people would agree. Mrs. S.: And uh, and uh, that war started in old country there. You know. I go to the Russia. And German coming. We lived in we village and we go back where is not shooted. N.: But she's talking about Canada. H.: Well, also you know, that would be her village and you'd have feelings about that. Mrs. S.: I'm cry this time. I just small yet. You know. (Oh Yes) We taked clothes and we moved, oh maybe, two villages back, because, You know Zbruch, H.: NO. Mrs. S.: You know that, what you call it, just a minute, ....... . River Zbruch, we not too far from there. And Russia, there. You know where Russia started. I live in a , not far from there, (Near Russia in other words) in my village, you know. H.: So that's close. Mrs. S.: And that shooted from there Russia, my village. And my village shooted back. H.: Oh, so you're shooting back .. Mrs. S.: Yah. N.: You protect yourself Mrs. S.: I know. H.: Did you lose family? They would be involved. They're so close. Mrs. S.: I have my mother and sister. After I'm go to Canada. N.: But not during the war. H. : NO. MRs. S.: Not in the war. Just mine sister to move to Russia. And the other one? Other same I think. N. : ....... . Mrs. S.: You know, is moved to Russia. My sister, my sister and my sister's N.: But did they have to, or were they forced to? Or did they want to go themselves ... Mrs . S. : NO. No. No. N.: They went on their own? Mrs. S.: No we believe to some organization and we moved there, my sister and my sister's son and daughter. N. : Oh I see. Mrs. S.: You know that time, just War started and my father, he is gone �Page 8 -to the other village, maked flour there. We had to (in Ukrainian, she said he went to grind flour) and starts laughing. Ha. Ha. Ha. I can't talked. I explain to you. N. : Fl our mi 11 . Fl our mi 11 . Mrs. S.: Flour mill and my father go there and my father did not come back. Russia take it to him the other ... the other ... N.: He never returned Mrs. S.: He never come back. I never see him again. H.: Your father was gone. Your two sisters had moved to Russia. So there's just your mother and your other sister left in the old country. Mrs. S.: No I haved more sisters. I have in the family seven sisters andthree brothers. H.: Big family. Did your mother teach you anything that you think helped you? In your new life in Canada? Mrs. S.: No. She no teach me in Canada. She teach me in old country. H.: Yes. But what do you think she taught you? N.: Translates question. Mrs. S.: Oh yah, she taught me watch yourself. Don't go nobody. With nobody if you don't know nobody. Yah, yah, my mother teach me that. K.: How did she feel about you moving here.? I guess she was said to see you go. Mrs. S.: She know our brother's here. We stay with our brother's. K.: I ... She figured you'd be safe with your brothers. Mrs. S.: Yah. Yah. My older brothers. K.: What about the voyage across. That must have been pretty terrifying. I would think so. Mrs. S.: Oh well. Lots of people there. I not scared. K.: Did you land in Montreal and take a train ... Mrs. S.: In Montreal yah, K.: And take a train. Mrs. S.: Not land. Goes boat. K.: Oh yes. Boat. Boat. And from there you go on a train. Mrs. S.: After on the train. I had company. Lots of company. Two girls and kept company with those girls. H.: So the three of you, all single girls, no husbands, Mrs. S.: No, no husbands, H.: So the three of you were all going to Winnipeg and you went together. Mrs . S. : Ya h. H.: That was good. Mrs. S.: Yah, that's good. H.: So you think there's ... That's a lot of co-operation again. Mrs. S.: I come to Winnipeg and I stay at a station at ......... (Gabaraith?) because my brother worked in a section at .......... and some lady coming and she see that I stay there and I don't know what I had to do --just stay there to Winnipeg in the station and she come to me and talked to me. �Page 9 N.: She's thinking of women ..... and you're thinking of women's liberation and all that ... K.: Well, women that are working outside their homes N.: Outside the home and not looking after their children like if you had children, you worked, and they get a baby sitter or take it to a .... H.: Well no that's not exactly it. Right now, a lot of people have to work. K.: I just mean in general, I mean women are more active now in public things like yourself. Mrs. S.: Yah. N.: She was always active so I ... you know. Mrs. S.: I know that time, I looked more for kids and now look at the young people .. H.: Good. Mrs. S.: Because I never leaved my kids home and go someplace. I leaved my kids, I know, I leaved with somebody good for them. (In good hands) In good hands. You know and now I hear that lots of mothers leave the kids or give for adoption. I be never give it adoption my kids. I be heared how there's some accident, you know some give, but they never get it. I don't b.elieve that. H.: You see a lot of women, right now, a lot of mothers, them and their husbands, and it's not because they want too much, it's just that they can't afford it.Things cost too much. Both of them have to work. You know, especially the young couples. Mrs. S.: Yah, and spended lots and drink lots and go to the show lots and have a good time lots H.: I can think of people who can't afford to do that, that are friends of mine. Mrs. S.: Why? H.: Because they have children and they can't afford it .. N.: How would you like to live on $160/mo ...... . H.: At any rate, at any rate ���� 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: Michalena Stepanik Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Michalena Stepanik in Kenora, 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. Stepanik recalls her experience immigrating to Canada from Ukraine during the war, life during the depression, her experiences as a mother, and participating with the Ukrainian Labour Society and Ukrainian Women’s Association, where she served as president for 12 years. 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. 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 - Ukrainian 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 - Kenora Ukraine Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [197?]-06-16 Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1316ae3f9efb088b8500f9fd31a47c5b.mp3 bc5ac49c69b252ee1d9d939ae4b3b836 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/96c82d83ccfd9eff271614e094737b37.mp3 1562812d229405a3878d2ed2ecb7ef30 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/e8edbc418dc434a8a4ecb0564e3ae373.mp3 9cdd25ea31faea78501ab1554b0da148 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/22b82481f28a7d852ddbcfb61cd713b0.pdf 1b87802b13a1b16b53a83a5752d01a5b PDF Text Text I ~,.5. L°'"°\ bl ~\()\(\On My earliest childhood memories go away back to the "Homestead". This was a section of wilderness land (in this case mostly rock) on which you had to build a house and clear so many acres of land to get a patent or ownership from the government. The two-story log house stood on the east side of the rocky clearing. I can still see the blackened stumps jutting up out of grass in summer, like monuments to the strong, tall trees that had once stood there.- Those trees .. now shelt;ered the young couple who had crossed an ocean, met here, were married soon after and decided to settle here. My father had left me in the care of a childless couple, after my own mother had died of child-birth fever. They had to work hard and long hours, but always had time and more than enough love for me. chores. I followed them around as they did their The cows, calves, pigs, and chickens had to be fed and looked after, and the eggs gathered and packed into square wooden boxes which held exactly twenty-four dozen. We had a few pigeons who flew right into the chicken house and had their own little nests. I waited anxiously for them to lay their eggs and only once wanted to fry the tiny egg. The big white "Leghorn"rooster had it in for me and would dig his sharp spurs into my legs or back. I would go screaming to the nearest shelter. When we had lots of cream, butter was churned. I could not reach to help with the big wood churns that stood on the floor and had to be plunged up and down. When the butter finally separated into golden yellow clumps, it was scooped out into i �large wooden bowls (these and the wooden spoons or ladles were winter or rainy day projects for the men to carve and smooth out), and washed in cold water, worked with a wooden spoon or ladle until no trace of buttermilk remained. Then it was salted, and allowed to stand in a cool place overnight, unless you were out of butter. It was delicious fresh, but if you were particular, you worked it some more and drained every trace of water. Then you would have nice yellow butter without any discolouration in it. If you sold the butter to the store, it had to be packed into one pound wooden moulds and wrapped in wax paper marked 'butter'. Of course before you had cream, the cows had to be milked, and the milk stained through a clean cloth (carefully washed and dried) into milk pails with lids. large tubs . The pails were then put into of cold water, which first had to be dr~ wn from the well by hand, and the water changed until the milk was cold. If you had a cool place to store the milk, you left it to stand until the cream formed on top. This was skimmed off into glass jars or enamel pails when possible. you churned. at this stage: When you had enough cream, The temperature of the cream was important too, too warm, the butter was soft and hard to wark; too cold and you churned and churned much longer. you had cream separators, of course. (Later on By haad, you turned the crank, and at the right speed). The women in the family worked hard. and ironing were. all done on the wood s~ove. The cooking, baking Flour and sugar was purchased in one hundred pound cloth bags, which were later used for dish towels, sheets for children's cots and underwear. 2 �I liked the smell of the green coffee beans being roasted in the black pans. The black pans were alwys used with wood- stoves, as they baked better. When the coffee beans were nice and brown, they were put into jars, and would be ground fresh every day in the coffee mill. I always begged to do this. In between, I played with my rag doll, and a big red tom-cat who followed me everywhere. In summer I rode on top of the hay loads back and forth from the fields. In winter, if the weather was not too cold, !-. ·would be bundled up in what seemed like yards of knitted woolen scarf, knitted mittens and heavy hose, felt boots or rubbers on wet days that laced up the front and had felt insoles in them. of for girls or ladies. men Ski-pants or slacks were unheard Then I wouldfide to the forest, where called "pulpwood cutters" or "lumberjacks" had cut spruce trees in four foot by four foot by eight foot piles, which was a cord of wood. These were sold to timber companies and then sent by rail or water to pulp mills to be made into paper. Birch cord-wood was cut and piled the same way; people mostly heated their homes with wood. This was how they made a living. It was hard, cold work, but better than the one dollar a day my foster father had earned on the Grand Trunk Railway. The land was rocky and not suitable for farming, but the trees were there; he had the foresight to see this. The "Homestead" and hard work paid off; they were able to buy three hundred and sixty acres of land near the village, which he later sold in ten acre lots and through which the Trans-Canada Highway now runs. It was indeed a happy day when visitors would come for a visit from a neighbouring homestead or from the village. 3 �Roads were not plowed and in spring break-up the dirt roads were bad. The visitors usually had news for the grown-ups, and the children played happily after the first shyness wore off. Blueberry time was a happy time, but the preserving was no picmic for the ladies. However the berries made good pies and desserts in winter, as I hardly ever remember having had fresh fruit in winter. It was nearly all dried fruits from which pies and the "Finnish Sweet Soup" was made. Carrots and potatoes were stored in root houses but there were no fresh green vegetables in winter--not even aabbage after the ones from the garden wilted. The stores in the village were interesting places to go and see. I've been told I turned my first ice-cream cone upside down and lost it. One of our neighbours got a "victrola" which had a big horn attached to it. After you wound it by a handle and put a cylinder-like thing on it called a record, it played music like I had never heard before. Until then I had only heard some of the "1 umbe rj~ks" play on a mouth organ, small accordion, a squeaky violin, and an oboe, and sing their folk songs leanned in their homelands. house. In winter they used the upstairs as a bunk The stories they told were always ·interesting. One poor guy from Finland had never seen pork and beans before. Because he had come in late one day, they had already cooled off, so he put them in a dessert bowl with sugar, and poured cream on them. He bravely tried to force them down, but finally my foster mother went over, took them away, and kindly explained they would taste better warm, and wouldn't he rather have a piece of her pie? He was quite happy to make the exchage. �The men had enormous appetites and needed the extra food to withstand the hard work felling, cutting the trees into four foot lengths, then piling them in deep snow. Suddenly my life changed. for me, with a new mother. I was told my father was coming How frightened I was! I still remem- ber lying curled as far in thecorner of the couch as I could get, with a sofa cushion over my head. Finally I peeked a bit; to my astonishment, this step-mother looked like a very nice lady. In the three years I lived with her, I grew very fond of her, but she was too frail for the harsh life she was living under now. She was expecting when the 'flu epidemic came and she did not pull through. I remember we had a "doctor" of sorts, who didn't or couldn't do anything to save her. me. Seeing her die was hard for The coffin was sent down by railroad and lay on the kitchen floor until the body was put in. opened again. Fortunately the coffin was not T~Q Anglican minister conducted a short service in English, which very few undertood. A big black wreath was hung on the front door, and I used to come up the back lane while we were still in that house, so I would not see the black wreath or be reminded of it. How I missed her! She had made Christmas morning, for the first time in my memory, a lovely day to wake up to, with lovely presents beside my bed--a little doll, wash tub and board, plus a small clothes line with small pegs for the doll clothes and some candy and fruit. ~~d The second Christmas we even Santa come to the house. s �After moving to Nipigon village with my father, I started school in the little United Church, as the one room school was too full and the new school not ready yet. In school I had to learn another language which was called English. The first year in the new school, I was learning to read out of the first Primer--"The little Red Hen found some wheat", who will help me plant the wheat, etc .. (Not long ago, I heard the little "Primer" being ridiculed, but I did learn to read, which I still love to do). As for spelling, a very young teacher taught me a lesson I never forgot. In Grade 3, her class was getting terrible marks in spelling. We were fooling around, so one morning she announced that any= one having more than three mistakes in spelling would get the strap. We were stunned, but we lined up for it. She did not hit hard, but it was the humiliation of having to go home and confess getting the strap. I was back with my foster parents at the time, liuing next to the present clinic and on Bell St. I knew they would only gently scold me, but !". ~new they would be hurt that I wasn't taking school seriously. They had not had the ch ~ nce to go to school of any kind and valued education highly. Needless to say, my spelling improved over-night, and never again, the strap. I could not do things I knew they would not approve of, even though I lived sometimes with them or batched with my father or was boarded out with older couples, where I ate, went to school, and mostly cried myself to sleep. But I loved school; weekends I dreaded. I remember learning to \\ It print 1921. I do not know why it remains in my memory. I , �remember, too, learning to draw the Union Jack, to colour it, and recite "The Union Jack is my flag." How happy I am that my grand-children have the "Maple Leaf", and can call it their very own, and I hope always with pride. I loved winter and s~ow, and skating, which I learned on a small back yard rink, and skiing on the hills. The roads were not plowed in winter, and only horse-drawn sleighs were used. The hill on Bell Street on the way home from school was ideal for sliding with a piece of cardboard when it was well packed and icy. There was a hollow in the hill that sort of catapulted you out - --tha t you couldn't beat for fun. spring, marbles and allies came out. until it was time to play ball. This was a game I enjoyed The C.P.R. field at the back of the station was a favourite spot after school hours. right through to the last year in school. the Lagoon. Twwards I p.bwed We went swimming in Now due to the carelessness of man, it is such a cesspool that even fish can not live in it. In summer we would walk down the C.N. tracks to the bridge to see who was fishing or go rowing in the lago on. Hop-scotch also was a good past -time, and I spent many hours at it. course, a picmic was exciting, with races and games. Of The first one that I can remember was near Lake Helen, about where Bob Matchett has his trailer park. We had sack racing, tug-of-war and egg-on-a-spoon(they weren't boiled ei~ her) races. Years later, there were sports booths etc. down at the far end of the lagoon where Thompson's cabins are. l �The occasional trip on the train to Port Arthur was enough to keep you awake all night--so many people, lights, and street cars. All those stores! Of course years before that electric lights had come to Nipigon. Just by pushing a button, instant light--no more matches or smelly coal-oil lamps. the first cars; my foster parents had one of the first four I was told the horses were under Mode~l T Fords in Nipigon. the hood. Unbelievable! ,, "Gentiles's chairs. Then ob and a nine day wonder was ice cream parlour, with white wire tables and And how could I forget the Player Piano. It was so pleasant to have some ice cream and listen to "Orient" (Gentile) Winfield pump out the music. In summer the big circus under a tent, with real live lions in a cage and huge elephants doing the heavy work was exciting too, with all the glitter and side shows. I remem- ber once seeing one of our oldest citizens bring his wife down to see it. She was half blind, but he held her hand and described to her what was going on and how everything looked. Years later he was criticized for being back at his job the day after she died. Perhaps he was right; life does have to go on. Until his time would come, by keeping busy, the day would go faster until he returned to the lonely house with so many memories. The Black Bay area has a very special place in my memory. My foster parents had by now(Iwas about ten years old at the time) started leasing rights to cut pulp (spruce trees mostly) on government owned or "crown"lands. The men had been busy all winter in the rough bush camps that had been made out of �logs. Rough lumber was hauled in by horse drawn work sleighs for the roof and floors. Rough bunks too were made, usually with douNe huge burlap bags ~£fed with hay . . Cou4rse grey blankets and your own sweater or mackinaw for a pillow served as bedding. A big camp stove, usually located centrally was the source of heat, with piles of fire-wood beside it. dried your clothes for the next day's work. Near it you Rough wash stands were provided with an aluminum wash bowl, and if you were lucky there would be hot water in a tub on top of the stove. One or two coal oil lamps served as light. early to bed and early to rise. It was Quite often saw blades had to be sharpened and the rope made tight on yourwooden buck-saw. Blades often broke or the wooden ends cracked. facilities or motorized saw here. No modern An illustrated book by William Kurelik is the most authentic book I have read on the harsh life of a lumberjack's life. it too, except for the dirt. The Finn lumberjacks were nearly all quite fussy about cleanliness. was built too. He tells it as I rem e ..10\).er Quite often a ste1n-bath However this one at Black Bay did not have one that I can r .em.e be,('. The cook-camp here was built together ui'"°' ~e. \,uV\',:_. house(>"~ tll\d only °"' "•c-\-i t,on be{"'->e.et\ ei,h ,hF Bttftk ~ettaF eni hof enl, s ~etyiyien nPyerPn iJp a ,+ , with a door which was only opened during meal-time. mother was cooking%erself. on the train for a visit. the weigh-freight stopped. My foster One Christmas holiday I went out From the lonely section house where I had a ride to the camp with the supplies that had come on the same train--hay, oats for the horses, groceries to feed the men. dad again (between step - mothers.) I was batching with my After the joy of seeing my �foster parents again, I told them my own news about school and how many of us had been sent home from school and told to wash our hair with some coal oil in the water. My horrified mother had water boiling on the stove and my hair was washed and washed, after first being cut short as a boy's. I was warned not to tell any of the men why . She wasn't taking any chances on any or all of the men leaving. Coming in on a small boat during the summer vacation, I again was a problem to her. I was told to walk or run from the boat over the pulp lpgs to get on shore. They were in a shallow cove, ~ held together by giant logs fastened by chains called "boom chains". I was sure I would drown or at least get all wet, but I made it, safe and sou64 Of cour se I did not know then that it was quite shallow underneath and the logs carried my witht easily. This time there was a boy my age at camp for a few days with his father. we paddled around in it all day. and sore. He had a little canoe,so Next morning I awoke stiff It was my job to fill the wood-box in the kitchen, but I could not bend. I finally noticed a large snow shovel, so I would slide this under the wood and managed to always get ak few sticks on it. Then I pulled it into the camp and let the wood slide off on to the floor. seriously. a red rash. After a few trips, I was taken By night I had a fever and was breaking out in I had finally come down with the measles. The school had been closed for one week during the winter for lack of pupils, but I ~ cl waited til now. Any contagious disease was viewed with alarm by the men in those days and could have meant closing the camp down, so I was covered with a 0 �sheet in bed, while the men ate because the cook and her family as well as any female helpers slept in the cook house. ~ Later we moved to another camp. My mother and I stayed alone there for sevral days while the men all went away some where. The mornings were beautiful. I would sit quietly and wait for the mother deer to bring her fawn for a drink. would play and splash like a young child. ilies came. the alert. It One day two fam- What fun they had, but the mothers were always on The porcupines would fighten us at night--was it a bear or just a porcupine? When the men came back the wood that was left on shore had to be pulled into a boom too so that a tug could pull the raft into the water and haul it away. This meant staying in water all day. get. How hungry I would Then we went to the camp for canned tomatoes in an enamel dish and a slice of cold ham. At the end of the week, I too was given a piece of paper that read'fivedollars'and my name. It was a cheque and with it I could get real money I had earned, ! do not remlber what I spent it on. From here we had to walk many miles on a bush road used by horses during the winter, now not much more than a path. Somewhere I had found a kitten. Carrying it in the crook of my arm, I was gQing up and over logs and rocks quite well until I disturbed a wasps' nest. screamed. They attacked my bare legs, and I A young man ahead of me shouted; "Don't show them the white of your teeth." To this day, I con't know what pos- sible harm that could of done, but a second time that day, I was stung. No one knew how many times I was stung, but by the time we reached the tracks, my legs were so swollen and sore that I sure didn't feel we4~ home. But I still had my kitten when we arrived \\ �My father at this time had very high-spirited horses, and it seemed to me they could run like the wind. We had a sleigh with a canvas cover something similar to a covered wagan. It had a rough floor in it, window in the front, and holes cut so the reins could be pulled inside. He had built small benches on both sides and there was a tiny tin camp stove with a pipe going out to the outside. The heat from it kept you from freezing, plus blankets and the heavy clothing everyone wore. My father would take a load of people up to a neighbouring small community of farmers about ten miles away. They had a one room school where social evenings were held once in a while. It seemed every one that could move was there. Whole families came, and when the children fell asleep they were carried upstairs where the school teachere had her room. There was lunch and coffee served--how good it was after a long cold trip. It was pleasant and exciting with the glow of the lantern (in winter the ·days are short), and the heat of the stove. I loved to watch the square dancers; they were having such fun. The older peole did not get out often and these were rare social events for them so they were making the most of the eventing. Pe cpi e seemed more friendly then or should I say sociable and children were tolerated. Summers I just roamed around bare-footed. I will always feel the warmth of the hot sand on the beach at Lake Helen and on the hill near the cemetary. The white short lillies grew ~(A~l\.' there in such abundance, but I aQ,etr'"t even seen one for years. I have told my family I wish to be buried there in the warm sand when my time comes-nowhere else. One day a friend and I were so busy picking hazel nuts we lost track of time. We found when we fau~~ r~mP hnmo ~~~~ �full bags of nuts that most of the village was out looking for us. We couldn't understand why all the fuss-we were not lost at all. Just too busy. On this same hill years later, when the hazel trees had been cut down, I ahd an experience I have not forgotten; Someone's cow had to be butchered, and they needed someone to Blood sausage was made from this ~ stir the blood from the cow. So I went, not knowing what I was in for, although I knew farm animals were raised for food. the clearing. There was a fence around The poor cow was knocked unconscious, but when the man went near to bleed it, she jumped up and started to run around the field. I headed for the fence and over it. He finally corneded the cow and finished the job. He yelled at me to come and stir, but I was too scared to move. result was lumpy blood, except what he drank warm. The Pancakes were made out of it, using whole wheat flour needless to say. C"~ \l'\O~ To this day, I cnncrt eat them. I remeber while living for awhile in Nipigon a fight with a C\ "c.l friend d-ft.s crying out,"I am going to tell my mother." friend retaliated by saying, "You have no mother". My Speechless I ran home sobbing,to my foster mother to find the truth. Her answer I do not remember, but whatever it was, she remained dear to me until she died at eight-four years. The steam-bath was a Saturday night ritual that no Finn missed if she could help it. The hot rocks spit and spattered when water was thrown on them--no wonder, the large rocks had been heated for hours. The remaing coals were carefully �drawn out because it would be very hard on the eyes if any trace of fire remained as in those days there were no chimneys so the smoke went out through vents near the ceitling or through an open window. As a result the walls were blacked by the smoke, but you came out clean and refreshed. Your clean clothes were laid out ready, the bed's clothes changed, and after the sauna, coffee or mild with freshly baked coffee bread made you ready for a relaxed sleep. Winter was making snow men, building snow forts and snowballs until your mittens were soaked and your mitts and fingers began to freeze. Skiing on home made skis--if you happei\ed to lose one going down-hill, too bad, you had to go down on one somehow, get your ski and try again. � 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: Mrs. Hilja Lange Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Hilja Lange in Nipigon, Ontario on August 21st, [197?]. The interview was performed by Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available as three MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) Text is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. During the interview, Mrs. Lange recalls growing up, going to school, and starting a family in Northwestern Ontario. She discusses the kinds of work she did throughout the years, working as wood hauler, in restaurants, and on her family’s land. She also talks about various other aspects of life in the earlier twentieth century, specifically around illness, war, and the depression years. 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. 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 [197?]-08-21 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 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 - Nipigon Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History