548 10 13359 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7687773e6a23e44e4edfc2a516c74494.jpg f2442d8940887f7147dc540a4b192705 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/290d21093b9886c879e2eab1d700a82d.jpg 61206998506cc7917065a16211e13733 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 Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society Collection Subject The topic of the resource Finnish-Canadians Life in Thunder Bay Description An account of the resource Photographs collected by the Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society from a wide range of collectors, documenting Finnish immigration to and life in Thunder Bay. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Lakehead University Library 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 Henry Karhunsaar, wrestler Subject The topic of the resource Sports Description An account of the resource Sports (Individuals): Henry Karhunsaar, wrestler 1910s. Came from Duluth, Minnesota to Port Arthur to train local wrestlers. Donors: E. Takala, E. Siren. 2 copies. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context scan# TBFCHS-H213 MG8_D224Hi213 MG8_D224Hi213a 1910 athletes Duluth Henry Karhunsaar Port Arthur Sports (Individuals) trophies wrestler https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/4/852/UG6-AV-I-164.jpg f585e9547977ebd2b431be29829fec3d 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 Lakehead University Collection Description An account of the resource Photographs from Lakehead University's history: people, events, and campus. 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 Henry N. R. Jackman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and Dr. Rosehart Subject The topic of the resource People University Life Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Published in Agora Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context UG6-AV-I-164 Dr. Rosehart Henry N. R. Jackman Lieutenant Governor of Ontario People Published in the Agora https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/0da2e9fd3734190128eb517a2d5d30a7.jpg 0019c129fd12235493c4fb646f5a99d5 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 Ken Armson fonds Subject The topic of the resource Forestry Description An account of the resource A collection of thousands of photographic slides depicting Ken Armson's work in the field of forestry, 1952-1995. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Armson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-1995 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource These images have been digitized and shared on this site with permission. Most are still under copyright. 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 Hercules have developed a system of injecting trees to be commercially thinned with paraquat, making the root collar much more. Subject The topic of the resource Forest Products Industry Description An account of the resource Hercules have developed a system of injecting trees to be commercially thinned with paraquat, making the root collar much more. This modified saw is used. Brunswick, Hercules Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Armson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPEG Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Armson-Silviculture-1733 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant USA-Georgia https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/48224b2c3e82d2e583e081f5aa0a4f4a.jpg 313fbdbcae4e3c2fc80e6da0e1a0ec29 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 General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. 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 Here and there around Port Arthur Subject The topic of the resource Communities in Northwestern Ontario Architecture Description An account of the resource A black and white collection of photographs of various buildings, sights and ships around Port Arthur. Photos display the following from top left to bottom right (along with any descriptions provided): Note: Any references to events occurred at the time the notes were made (est. early-mid 1900s) not present day. 1. S. S. Algonquin - first freighter owned by Thomas Marks, a very prominent figure in the growth of Port Arthur 2. Yacht Clubs - the C. P. R. freight office now 3. Ferry S. S. Kakabeka plying between Fort William and Port Arthur 4. Town Hall - The Masonic Hall was upstairs and the public meeting hall was downstairs. There were many social gatherings here, including the theatre and the opera, the first being El Capitaine, 1905 5. Around the docks - Mary-Ann of Dunnil, number one in the Canadian register, 1867 6. The Dawson residence, Corner Park and Cumberland Sts. "The S. J. Dawson home the present site of the metropolitan store. His old property extended from the old Algoma Hotel to Park Street. Dawson was one of the first property owners in Port Arthur and can be acclaimed as the father of our city." Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context General Archives - 87k Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/9b8c0fae513522586f6e078793657757.tif 4fde4ffa2b784ccdc0bd508ff1018d43 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 Ken Armson fonds Subject The topic of the resource Forestry Description An account of the resource A collection of thousands of photographic slides depicting Ken Armson's work in the field of forestry, 1952-1995. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Armson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-1995 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource These images have been digitized and shared on this site with permission. Most are still under copyright. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo 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 Hereford range near Drumheller, Alberta Subject The topic of the resource Forest Products Industry Agriculture Description An account of the resource Pasture/grasslands field and cattle Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Armson Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Lakehead University Library Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource TIF Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Ken Armson-LandUse-018 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 - Alberta https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/e5d407cafdbc7f34fedb77f5bd7564e9.jpg bbbdccff2c9d23b93bece224dcc0833d 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 General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. 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 Herman Finger Subject The topic of the resource People Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Herman Finger, an American lumberman who immigrated to Canada and founded multiple lumber companies including the Pigeon River Lumber Company in Ontario and the Finger Lumber Company in Manitoba. He served as the first mayor of The Pas before dying in 1929 in his home in Manitoba. The text below the photograph contains a few interesting facts about his life. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context General Archives - 95a https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b172ea6a3ae5cacb42ea5a0070842a55.mp3 c786e3c0165fc869593069ac3cdc6eb9 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/f84c307a1c4f2c2da0a123ee92b03356.mp3 b0d0865d924973847cbb6c5eafc5a1c9 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1f94236a97b6b7885f8e446acd190a8b.pdf cda42e7e7bc45aef30eb2e32a3a1eee3 PDF Text Text Mrs. Jacobson Born in Scotland Came to Canada in 1902 or 3 Lived in Dorion - came to work - knew a family - all bush No roads - CPR wheat freight - once a week Bishops Trail - went to a mine - train delivered groceries Small cabin - little bit of timber 13 children - she was the oldest Mother - Mrs. Whatie? - was a midwife. Men were not allowed to ~ring their wi~es up - her father was the Justice of the Peace and convinced the authorities to let the women come up. Mother went to deliver a bab,. - would celebrate for about 48 hours after. Mother was not trained - read a doctor's book - used ca~bolic acid to sterilize - imx~XENX«s - unpaid ~or task All we ever got was colds. Who delivered your mother's children? My dad. Doctor for the last one. She did not like it. Many miles for a doctor to travel - came from Port Arthur. Tasks as children - clear the bush, got to school for about 3 months. Log school about a mile and three quarters away. Had to walk Consolidated school came for her children. Didn't h~ve any tea chers. 1920 or so worked for the YMCA, cooked, cleaned- mar~ied .round 1938. Went to Schreiber. Was working during the depression - remembers the reight trains being loaded with men. Aroi, nd Hurkett, nm money paid to men - reporter from T. o. Star did story - refer to William Holder. Hurkett and Dorion - active politically. Women attended meetings. Pass on the railroad once a year for working in the Y. Went somewhere each year. - Winnipeg, , Victoria, Seatle, Travellea by herself. Everything went well while travelling. Tra velled alone. Went to Windsor. Relates an incident once when she lost her suitcase on a train. Started at $30. per month and board. Demanded higlier wages. Went to $45. per month. No problem in holding dovvn her job. 0.K. for single women to work. 7 days a week. 8:00 to 5:00 Second World War - not affected by it. Very little communication. Mail regµ.l ~rly delivered. Had to be. Different from today. Mrs. Miller - did not know her. Got quite a chuckle out of her. I cut pu~pwood. 4 foot wood. Used cross-cut saw, axe and chisel. Hauled it to Lake Superior.. 80 chords, in one winter. Summer - vegetable garden, gathered fruit (wild). Went hungry one summer but managed to get a deer. Discuss a friend of the family, - Harry Bxxim,Bryan\, organizer of some labour unions. Entertainment - dances once a week. Dances usuaJjy at someone's house - fiddler - eventually got a tovvn hall. �Mrs. Jacobson - page 2 ~ ■ II House in Do~ion - 1-room log shack - shovel off snow on roof Relates story of Lynx coming to visit house. Used to snare rabbits, fish for trout Kept house warm by cook stove. More and more children came - house did not expand - just the family. Eventually built a bigger house. She did not live in-.the biggeF house. Small ravine with root nose - well wit~ surface waten - dug well. Summer - water turned broyvnJ - mosquito larvae in summer - would touch the water and the laryae would dive under - then they would draw the water. Baths - once a week - barrel cut in half would be bathtub. Friendly community No alcohol - too busy - trying to get a farm going Ha d no cattle - chickens and pi~ they had Hitched pigs up to a sleigh - made a bell for the pig but it did not like it. Pig would follow the kids like a dog. Used to f ollow her to the trapline. Eventually had to slaughter the pig. Indian f a milies - on across the tracks in Hurkett w man had an Indian housekeeper with a wooden leg. Indians were "down the line". Little contact with the whites. Not many ethnic groups in Dorion - mostly from down east Hurkett - Bulgarian population Knew little about other people's backgrounds. 1933 CCF was organized - 1934 she joined Railroaders against the CCF Wm1x~xEaxxxkx~xN~mxsx She was attending the meetings so when she went to vote her name was alrea,dy struck off the list Nothing much you could do about it. Active in the CCF - worked in Gommittee rooms - went to conventions. (Tape is blank here) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Caroline Jacobson Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Caroline (Watty) Jacobson of Dorion, Ontario. The interview was recorded October 30, 1975, as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. Caroline Jacobson (1900-2007) lived along the North Shore for much of her life, working for the CPR's YMCA in Schreiber for a time, and raising a family. She was also very involved with the CCF/NDP. The interview speaks to her childhood in Dorion, time working, and involvement with the CCF. The recording consists of two sides of one cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Please note that this tape includes discussion of settler-Indigenous relations, using language that would not be seen as sensitive or appropriate today. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dorion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-10-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/c8485c0002c9706ed7a6facc42b09cfd.mp3 25f8905b2490c120d946c03575ea96f7 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/a254e34517aef8ba27de9aca11c998f7.pdf cf06c968ba5a3cbf39a65225bb84e344 PDF Text Text Interview of Mrs. D. Murray by Georgina Garrett ---@__MQmen.Ls A: In-s-tlttttes- ... my father and Mr. Cooper were friends, and I knew she was an Institute lady, and that was, I felt, part of their project. There was an Institute in Pearson, but they weren't getting, I mean, they were going along befriending everybody, but again there was no money for the, you know, with them, or for them. raising money, because nobody had any. No way of So I told, wrote to Mrs. Cooper and I told her that I had a family , or two, with children in it and so on and they were lacking this and that and the other. kids outgrow things. Could they help, because often You know how it is still today. So, by golly, they had a shower shall we call it and boxes of stuff I had my present, my husband now, he is at present but at that time he wasn't, pick up the stuff and brought it out, and so we were able to help a number of the families that way. Well then another time, a couple of families were really hard up for food. Really, you'd think living on a farm there was food, but the crops were poor and so they had potatoes and that was about all. So I wrote to her again. some help, can you help us?" I said "We need So, they did. Then jars of fruit, cans of beans, cans--anything and everything, boxes of stuff. into town. - - - - - -I married my husband and we came So east Fort William by that time--and then I was a, had joined the Institute out there. Their Secretary-Treasurer, well, just quit in the middle of a year, so who was going to take iit? And I used to go to �-2the meetings when I could, after school. So, I said, "Well I can't meet with you people at two or two-thirty, 'cause school's on. But what we could do, I saw the Inspector, and he said 'well, if the senior girls want to go to the meetings, where they could have them in the school, teach through the noon hour or give them fifteen minutes for lunch'". So that's what we did, and then the senior girls came, we had it in the school from then on. So that, and then so I took the Secretary-Treasurer for them, and finished out that year, and then as I say, jwe were married, and I catne into town. Eastfort, Westfort were both pulling me. Westfort was easier, I could walk down Brown Street to the homes; the other was way was a longer walk. The younger group in Westfort, my own age. But I felt, well, Eastfort has done so much for me, I just said ''Can you help", and help came. So that's how I got into Eastfort. Q: What year was that? A: Nineteen fourty-one. A: .... practically the same, I would say. Oh sure, each community's going to have something different, or something, but as a whole 2: But you want to get an overall picture, too. It's actually their likeness that comes across, but then that's a good thing too, because it's women united. A: That's right. 2: ... Which is really ..... . �-3A: Which is right, yeah ... Q: It's the similarities that stand out more than the differences. A: Yeah, yeah. Q: I know, yesterday in Dorion, where I was talking to Mrs. Atkinson. She was mentioning that the Women's Institute, the women were very close despite racial differences, ethnic background, whatever. So, I would sort of like to find out, is that true of the Thunder Bay rural woman? I don't really know. How close were, lets say, Finnish women farmers to people from the British Isles, or were they, did the women have to be self-sufficient. A: Well, there again, I'd say, I taught in a, first taught in a Finnish community. There were no English people in that cormnunity. Q: In Pearson? A: No, no. Q: Oh yeah. A: You see, there again, I would say, now at Chabaqua, they In Chabaquao. • didn't have an Institute. They stayed more or less to themselves .......... . Q: Well A: No. we're not just doing Institutes, you know. And there in that area the Finnish people stayed more or less to themselves. Oh there were, down at the station, the section people were Ukrainian descent, talked Ukrainian at home, Finnish ___ there, there was only one And when I was out lady, really, that talked �-4- Englishe, and she had gone to school there, and taught, and not taught but, she married, and they had a store, and so I, that was my companion. with her mother. You see, I boarded The children spoke Finnish, as soon as they--Finn or Finnish,whatever you want-- as soon as they left the school and home. And some of the parents realized that wasn't good and they said to me "Make them talk English all the time. You see, the parents couldn't, a good many of the parents, some of the men could and the odd woman, but they were afraid of putting their subject or their verb, you know, mixing it up. They were afraid of that, and so they were very hesitant about talking English to anyone, not just to me, but to anybody. We And ahm,--that could talk English. Well, you can't follow every child home. yard, I did insist after I them in In the school- Finnish, but even in the schoolyard, see, they would talk Finn. Well, naturally, that's their language. 2: Sure, it would come easiest. A: So I insisted after that, in the schoolyard, that they did. I said, ''You might, as well. you might as well learn." I loved them. You're here to learn, You know we got along well; I was out there three years, and it was just one big happy family. those people, very good. They were very good to me, Well, then when I went into Pearson, well then you had a mixture, well mostly English ... Q: Some were ScandinavianQ �A: ... --Anglo-Saxono Uhm? Q: Some were Scandinavian, the Olsen's? A: Yes, the Olsen's were Scandinavian, but, but, what will I say, as much or more Anglo-Saxon as the Anglo-Saxon. You know what I mean. There was no distinction there. There was one or two Finnish families, but they were, they were accepted, and they carried on with all the right rest of us. Maybe a little bit different ~there, I don't know what it was. But as a whole, they all got along together and worked together, and when there was something on, well they all worked, you know, they all carried on. Like I know, through the school end of it, you know, the concerts and things like that. So the families naturally were more eager to help or something. Q: Do you think the women co-operated a great deal, and helped each other out alot? A: Oh, I think so. Oh, yes. Q: In what ways? Q: Well, when there was sickness, they would help out, ayh, go and help people. Now, in Chabaqua, the lady I stayed with, as I say, it was all, mostly Finnish settlement, she had no nursing training, but whenever there was somebody sick or a baby on the way, there was an English-an Anglo-Saxon lady, young couple, what, three or four miles down the road going to have a baby, so they came ou know with the hand car rail, they borrowed one of those somehow and got her to go there. So it was the same thing in Pearson, although they went into town to have �-6babies, but at the same time, when there was illness or something, they co-operated. When somebody got burned or-- burnt out or something, they all co-operated. a happy situation. yes. It was Oh, yes, they would co-operate. Ah, Well, I don't know, maybe half a mile, a mile away from somebody, that's your neighbour. You don't care what they are, as long as ______________ ou go and talk or you have a cup of tea or something like that, ayh. 2: You know what !mean, . 1.t, . ' 1.t s . . . . . . . . . . . . Yeah. y~t probably people would integrate an awful lot better, simply because of circumstances. A: That's right, yeah, yeah. Q: Do you think farm women were treated, on the whole, as equals to the men, or were they treated sort of somewhat subserviant, next to the animals or something? A: I can only talk for two areas. Chabaqua, I would even think the women were the boss, the head of the household. to do. They sort of told, tell them what they were going No, they weren't treated as aminals or, or ... Q: Not as animals, but what I mean is .... A: No, no, I know, but I mean No, no. So far as I know, they're, and in many cases, I'm just thinking back to, oh, four or five definite families in the area, you know, where the woman was sort of the boss of the house, sort of thing. were equals. And in _?earson, I think they They would talk, any house I was in, they would talk about what they were goinna do or something, you know, and a crop had to be done, or this had to be �-7done. Women helped; they had to. You know, out in the fields and that, because there wasn't always enough help. Not all women, but some of them. this ah, no. But there was none of Not like you used to think. 'Course, I think these ahm, the father and then the mother down in the house were years and years ago. in the rural areas. Before _ ____out And certain types of people, too. Certain races. Q: So do you think the work of women was always valued as highly as that of men. Of course, I suppose the work was somewhat the same. A: Well, I think,like they knew that the--! think it was valued, because the woman did her work in the house, which was necessary to keep the man going, ayh 9 And if the haying time, and she was needed, I think the father or the husband appreciated the fact that the mother went out and helped to - - - - , or whatever had to be done. In any of the communities I were in, yes. Now in the, in the Pearson section where I was, the man would get the potatoes and so on. go out and help. The women would I often used to go after four. Out in Chabaqua, another rural area, Finnish area, the women did that sort of work. That was women's work rather than men's work, and yet the man didn't look down on woman because she did that sort of thing, you know. Q: What did the women do with the children when they did farm work? A: Took them with them if they could, or there'd be �-8- somebody else to look after them, like in the older children. I don't ever remember any child being left alone in the house. And then again, as I say, and some of those times I was there when the children were not tiny little ones. There was a few families that had little ones, but then there always bigger ones to look after the little ones if mother was out in the field or so. Q: Did you ever get the impression that maybe the women were a little disappointed with the circumstances, some of them coming from cities in Britian, or Scandinavia, and then being plunked in the middle of Northwestern Ontario bush? A: Well, there weren't too many--there were some that had come from, whose husbands had good jobs in town, and went out to the farm, because the farm was the thing to do, make a living, get the kids out on the farm, you know, out of trouble, and they'd had lovely homes and so on in town 9 But I never heard any complaints. of accepted it. They sort It was the kids they were coming out for, and they accepted it. It was harder work than in town, because you had a well to get water from and so on, and especially Anita(?) , I don't remember. Pearson it's different now. turn them on. Now again in They have taps and they But when I was out there it was well water or you hauled your water from the___ But there was always a youngster to do that, you know, mother didn't have to do that. But most of them accepted their lot. �-9One lady, of Norwegian descent I think it was, her husband was a housepainter in town. He got the idea the country was the only place, so he went out to Pardee, which is further on than Pearson. And not knowing anything about building a house, he built a house down at the bottom of the hill. Well, in the spring, the water used to leak right through the house. Now, I did hear her complain, but who wouldn't. Not complain, but say "Why did we ever leave?" They came down, they had to come down the river, in the spring when they came there, in a canoe, so they paddled their way down. in a boat, And then, she didn't know anymore about where to build a house than he did, and so as I say. But never again did I hear her ~say, "Oh, I'm going to leave", like today you hear, "Gee, I'm not puttin' up with it, I'm gettin' out, oand if you don't come, I'll go on my own". 'Course, the women didn't do that then, what thirty years ago, thirty-five, fourty years ago. Thirty-seven years, anyway. But yet, every year the same thing happened, until finally they did build another place. years and years. But this went on for No, I can't really ever say that I, maybe because the people that I came into contact with hadn't had moeny or an affluent life in the country they'd come from. I know a lady that came out, her husband went out to Scobol, and she had been well-to-do. she accepted it. Well They didn't stay there long, because I don't, I, well, a few years. She was, when my baby �-10was born, she was the nurse in the hospital. She was a nurse, and she'd had, they'd had a good living ~in ~ England, and came out, and then he got this crazy, you know, I shouldn't say crazy, but the idea your going to live on a farm. He got this piece of land in Scobol where nobody could raise anything. few years they went back to town. But after a Again, I never heard her say, "What the dickens did we do that"--she did say, "Coming from London to here", you know, but never did I hear her grumble about it. grumbling today. Q: I don't know. Were the daughters of the families treated as valuably as the boys? A: I think there's more I know that sometimes that's· ------- Well, agian I say, from what I gathered, yes. I think when you think of that idea, you're going back before my day in the country. Maybe eighteen ninety's or something, or nineteen hundred's, where they wanted boys so they could work on the farm, ayh? But in many cases, where there were no boys, the girls helped the father. So, I mean, they were, they perhaps couldn't work as hard as the boys ·, but still they did the job, too. In fact, one family out in Pearson, there were four or five boys and three girls, and the ,~i:,_: one girl, she didn't like to work in, so she worked as hard as the boys did outside. She loved that, and so she was treated as an equal by her brothers as well as by the father. The mother often used to say she shouldn't be working like that, she should be in the house doing things. But she �-11- she wanted to stay outside. Any that I have contact with, yeah. Q: How did you feel as a woman teacher out in the bush? A: In the bush. And Chabaqua was bush then, because they were just building the highway out through there. Actually, I liked it very--at first, it was a, sort of a frightening experience, because I went in where no one was talked to. You see, where I boarded, the ~l lady could say "Eat, now" or Finnish word for teacher. 0 ).- , f pe,\a.) Ct II , that's the But after the first month, I was very homesick the first month, I didn't want to eat or anything. But after that, I just loved the place. Q: How old were you when you went out? A: Twenty. Through normal school, I didn't go to University, I took University sometime after. came home once a month. And I Department of Highways was working out there, or Ministry of Highways, it's not a Department. They had a true~, and I'd get a ride with them Friday nights and go back Sunday night with one of the men that were going back to the camp. The road was passable. Q: I read that, especially among the Finns, the A women teachers were really highly respected. A: Oh, yes. I was. I didn't want to say that, but oh, yes. And through this girl whose husband had the store, through Laura, she told me that the people, oh, the Inspector told me tooo He said that they didn't know anything �-12about the system of education or any--you know, things like that. So they left it up to me, and they knew it would be all right. And I was very highly respected. And very, very well treated. Gifts at Christmas--now, again, they were hard up, too, and so it wasn't gifts of stockings, or things like that, but jars of fruit to bring home to my mother. me, but through my mother. You see, not only through Chickens and beef, and stuff like that, where in those days we didn't have a fridge, and so it was just the same, that stuff. Oh, no. And yet when I left--and they left the system of education up to me, and I did, I honestly did my best. Because of their trust, too. But then I was, I'm not meaning to boast, but I wanted to do the best I could. When I went out to Pearson, it was different. We had one family in there--it was the system, writing. first the children printed. At Well then the new system, Mr. Mustard the new Minister of Education said they must learn to write. Well it's harder for a child to write than it is to print, so I used to teach so much printing at the start and then write. And I got ever so many letters from pare--from this one particular family, about them writing. You know, (garbled). I guess they'd read the paper, and knew there was going to be writing instead of printing, and so on, in letters. Well, I didn't get any, never got a--'course they couldn't write in English at Chabaqua, but at the same time, they left it to you. For the best results. �-13- Q: Yeah. Ahm. Oh. When did you leave teaching? Did you retire in town? A: No. I taught three years at Chabaqua, five years at Pearson, and then I got married, and that was it. Q: Were you not allowed to teach as a married woman? I know that that was the case earlier. A: Well, it was to a certain extent. Well, I didn't want to, my husband was, it was war time, and my husband was wanting to get in the Air Force. him down. Well they turned So he tried to get in the army, and they turned him down, because his heart. And I had, they had wanted me to come to town, like when I got married, to teach, but at that time, if he'd gone away, I was gonna go too. And that was my, you know, my , what we were going to do. away. So I didn't get into town right And then I felt, well, I had enough to do. I was interested in making his home, and I belonged to the Institute, and you get into other things through the Women's Institute. Well then we had a daughter and then when,--! would never go to work, I said, while she was young, so when she went to kindergarten. And it wasn't 'til she was grade five that I went back to to supply teaching. But only~ two or three schools. I'd be home when she was home. Now I know today, the system was different, altogether. to do. That isn't the thing You go and you get a babysitter . . But I didn't believe in that. And then I supplied at _____ three or four years ago. I could have gone on �-14- teaching, but I didn't want to. Q: Do you think work outside the home is important for women? A: You were a teacher. That's hard to answer. individual, ahy? I think that's up to the You know, like myself,--well, I have these other interests outside the home. no money with it. There's Depends too, on what, whether the woman's working for money to get something, or what. It's up to the individual. Q: Why did you want to be a teacher? A: Uhm? Q: Why did you want to be a teacher? A: Oh, because when I was going to highschool, the depression was on, and there were three places you worked, in a store, or a nurse, or a teacher. You couldn't be--and there was no air hostesses or anything like that, you know. No. And so, I just happened, I went into teaching. I liked children, I liked teaching. We also, every sunnner used to play school when we were kids, and I was always the teacher. So the kids knew their multiplication tables when they went back to school. it. have. Oh no, I enjoyed Maybe if there'd been, if it was today I wouldn't There's so many opportunities, I might have flitted from job to job, because there's so many things that I would loved to have been ino journalist and so on. Public relations, My daughter has the life, had the life until she got married what I would have enjoyed. She went through journalism, then she worked for the �-15government, was up on the hill, you know, - - -oh, boy, and travelled the country. But . . . . Q: ? A: ? Q: So you think things are better for women now? A: Well again, !--yeah, !---they have more opportunities, don't they? Q: Uhm uhm. A: Because of more opportunities, though, do they take life--well, maybe we took it too seriously. I think anybody that was raised during the depression, they used to--ah, you people weren't? 2: ? A: No. 2: ? A: No, I know you don't. But I mean, those who went through Depression find, we took life too seriously, and I think we still have that tendency to compare today all this money back to when you had nothing, or when you had maybe had one pair of shoes; the sole wore out. As I heard the other night on the radio, ----·just stick cardboard in your shoe. Now I'm not meaning that that happened with everybody and so today on, but ahm, oh, opportunities are greater I\ And again, if a woman feels that she wants to be outside the home, I think that's between the--if she's married, between her and her husband, jor something. It's hard to make a yes or no out of that, because j �-16there are different circumstances, different ..... You hear women saying, "Well, I have the brains, why shouldn't I do this if I can still have children and get the babysitter, in?" Well, when they get married, if they both think that way, well .... Q: It's hard to make a (end of tape) This has been Georgina Garrett talking to Mrs. Doreen Murray, June 21st, 1978, in Thunder Bay South. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Doreen Murray Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs Doreen Murray in Thunder Bay, June 21 1978, by Georgina Garrett. The interview is a part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of one side of a cassette tape, available here as an MP3 file. (Click on the speaker logo to play the file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. The interview talks about what farming life was like, the need for assistance, rural Women’s Institutes, and family life in the areas of Shabaqua, Pearson and Scoble. Discussions centre around women’s work, care for children, immigration, language, learning, and the resilience of families who settled into farm life. Mrs Murray, as a teacher in Northwestern Ontario in the bush, travelled out for the week to teach. She taught for eight years before getting married, moving to town, and starting her family. Returning to supply teaching while caring for a family, Mrs Murray shares about what it means for an individual to choose a job outside the home, through the Depression and the war. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-06-21 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/79630ad785398a7e59b9e383198bf04a.mp3 cdd2e0ebe12d13522e5d5261409b8682 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7b179231a7fefa86caffcf00447fd13b.mp3 0455cc167b52cfe671307d8395e7a5c4 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/576834165824b3246194eaefd851dd83.pdf 202dd21a22ed240f6233e34f99926306 PDF Text Text / ! / (-~ This is , Kanen Graves(?) talking with Mrs. Almos in Port Arthuro G: At G: A: G: A: Could we start by telling me what year you were born? 1913 And where were you born? I was born in a little CPR siding, called Melgand. Where is that? Now this would be, Oh, I don't know, past, well half way between here and White River, I think, on the CPR Mainline. My dad was a CPR pumpero This was when they had the steam etiginjs, and they had to take water, you know,every so manyo And¼::here we moved to Cauldwell; he was a pumper there, and then from there, when I was about four, we moved to Jackfish, and he was a stationary fireman there. They took coal in for the docks, the CPR dock there,for the trains, and he worked there till the deasel came in, and then they' did away with the coal, natµrally,then he was.o. No I'm wrong. They did away w~+h bringing it in from the States ~ by _boat, and brought it from, from the eh, provinces, somewhere, by CPR boxcar, and it had to be unloaded by boxcar, so they didn't need anymore fireman or anything li like this, see, to keep things going,to unload the coal, so he was transfered to a place called Britto G: That sounds familiar. A~ - That's down, oh, around Perry Sound, and there he stayed until he retired. G: Did you move with him? A: No, I married, and stayed in Jackfish. G: Had your parents been born in Canada, or were they immigrants? A: No. My grandparents came from Scotland as Hudson's Bay factors, up to Moosonee, and my Dad's family was all born there. And they came down to, by canoe, to, where is it now, the CPR anywayo And then just scattered around. My grandfather on my mother's s.ide had a store in Heron Bay. And the rest of the family fished; on~ uncle had a fishing and tourist business in McDermod. And the others were mostly railroaderso G: What do you remember as a child growing up in a small town? A: Well, I don't know. We weren~t very rich, we were a big family; eleven of us, twelve of us. G: Twelve kids? A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: Uhm uhm. Really! Eleven, and adopted my mother's, be more like a nephew to me, but he was adopted, because his mother and dad had passed away. And I don't know, we just seemed to have enough of what we needed. We never had to go without anything~but we didn't have any frills, that's for sure. But I think we were much happier then, than the children these dayso You appreciated things I guess. Everything just handed to them, ayh? ' What we got we really appreciated. An~ we had to work, you knowp I worked from the time I was~urteen, for, ten dollars a month, I thinko Doing what? Well, I went to help this, he was, Mr. ~ Nichol was the station agent, the gas station agent, there. And she needed 6: \. ~~ somebody in the sunnner, because she had so much company an~1/~0 ~VV that. So I just went and, as a cl-, like a girlc;-~ a y h o ~ . And, that's about all. Went to school until graoeeight, J and How big a school was it? Pardon me? How big a school was it? It was •:up to grade eight. It was from one, there was no kindergarten, ~ rom one to eight ayho And there was just the one teach~r~~ ;.._b,.we had very many happy memories there, because there wasl concerts, and field days, that kids have never heard of, these dayso Arbor d~y, I asked the kids if they had Arbor day. "What's that Nanny?" And, I don't know ._~ This was the centre of activity, the school and the church, ayh. The c~urch, once a month, there was two churcheso So everybody ~fo the, and the Salvation Army cam~ probably once every two months. And strange, I do quite a bit of volunteer �-2- ""~ work, and I do a lot for Home League, or~with them alot. And they knew all these Captains, and that, that came to Jackfish, like 60 years ago. G: What would they have come for? A: The Salvation Army? G: Yes, this is the first I've heard of this. A; Oh, well, just for a service. G: Counselling type? A: No, just a church -- o., meeting at night, you know. And, everybody would bring a lunch, and we'd have a little gathering after. This one chap, especially. He came from the Yukon, and I just heard recently, through a ~ Home League here, that he died in Californiao OThese are just the little things that we'd look forward to. We were fortunate enough that we had a pass, and relatives, that we could travel. Where a lot of the other children didn't ayh, we could go free, we had relatives in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and that. So we were able to goo•• My dad took us pretty often for a trip to Toronto and Montreal if we could afford it. But then I married, and we lived there, it was ,,, I was just saying, some girl came here the other day, said she was tired because she washed the clothes. I said oh, what kind of machine do you have? Well, an automatic, ahy. I said''what if you do like me when Don was, we had one boy, and one still-born child. When ~,Don was small, my husband was a railroader too, so he had to go out and relieve on the different jobso And in the winter I had to snowshoe down a hill like about Hillcrest Park, and snowshoe back up with the water to wash clothes. And I said, "And you push a button, and you're tired? And when my brother-in-law wasn't home, I had to chop the ice, to make a hole in the water,ayho Sometimes it was pretty thick in that bay. And then I'd come up and wash clothes on a board. So, when I look back now, I think, 0 dear, I woT\der how you ... My neighbour across here, she was raised on -Me. farm too. She said I wonder how weJ<l.id it ayh. We sit back~ nd wonder and really, you know, Jhat .. o But like I say, I think we were much happier then than now that you could ... I know when I go down town now and, we were married during the depression, and when I go down town now and think "Gee I wonder if I should, maybe I'll buy this. Do I need it?" That's a throw back from the depression. So it seems strange that life goes on s·o • G: What kind of social things did you do, say in your m_a_r_r~i_e_d_ years? Community dances, and things like this? A: Oh yes. We used to have pie socials,to raise money for the Christmas fund. And bingos, later on we had bingos. But mostly it was, oh, teas, church teas, and pie socials, and cake socials. And what else now, ohJ then we used to have snowshoe parties. We'd all get together to snowshoe out to a certain, everybody had a little, tracking camps, like, you know, and you'd make beans out there, have beans and that. Like I say, I was one of the more fortunate ones, Art always had a job, and we had a free pass, so every year of our life we've always had a holiday. Even if it was, I know !'! come back often, with just enough to tip t~e porter ayh. Or maybe not even that, but we had our pass, and we knew we could get home without any money ayh. But every month, I'd put away maybe even sometimes 50 cents to a travelling fundo And when our holiday came, well that was our money, and when that was spent, we came home. G: That's an interesting way to travel. A: But other than that, like, and ... I think the teacher was the head of the social, like you know, she put on the Halloween dances and ... G: Would these all be held in the school? A: Yes. At one time we had no ibasement in the school, so it was quite a chore to, our seats were on two by fours, and we had to pull them all out, you know. So the, I can't remember, they must have got a grant or something, and they ... I was married then, when they put the basement in the school, and this was were we held all our socials, such as our ... G: How large a community? A: Pardon me? G: How large a community? A: I would say about 35 families. And of course, during the summer the Patterso, you know, these freighter folks, they �-3would come in with coal for th~ ... It was the only industry there, was the coal industry, for the CPR, for the engine'S. And it seems every time a boat came in, they'd put on a dance of some kind,and they'd let us know, and we'd put a sig~ up, and the ladies would bring a lunch, or the boat would bring Q 'lunch. So, pretty nearly every week we' d have a danc·e. G: Then this would be with the people who worked on the boat. A: This was with the, yes, with the Captain and the mates would put it on, like, you see, and everybody that was free~.Rn the boat would come. I guess they'd been out on th~i ~~e~a week, ten, twelve days, and they were happy to get some~recreation. At one time we had a pool room there, and that was part of the, you know, they played pool. But that closed down, too. wheA we built our own skating rink and looked after it. We played hockey between Rossport,and Schreiber, and Jackfish. G: Did you seem to have been a lot more sports minded, a little more active1 A: Yes. There didn't seem to be any cliques. Everybody seemed to get together. Then we bou•ght, there was a general store and the Post Office, and Immigration Department thereo And we had that, we looked after that, til the placed closed up. G: So that would be an office to receive benefits? A: Well, no. The officer had to come here to clear the American ships. You see, the American ships came in, and they had a clearance before they go out. So that office was in the store too, the general store, and the Post Office. So then when that closed down, when Jackfish closed down, my husband got a job as a, went out on the road as, he was 7 of course he's an engineer, this was what he did in Jackfisho But it was more like a~_ ~mergency; he was sent anywhere from Fort William to, oh~~~crwthe Sioux, to Ottawa, to Mattawa, and anyplace that they needed him, ayh. So we lived, we had our own car on the railroad, and we lived there for seventeen years.before we retired. So that was an interesting way to live. I know one weekend,one middle of the week, we were in Rossport, or just out of Rossport, and (interrupted by phone) So whatf was I saying? G: You were talking about living on the rail A: Oh yeah. We were up near Rossport, about Tuesday, and they said to Bart, "Get ready, there's a train picking you up, and they're going to stop at White River, and get your groceries, and you've got to keep going til you get to Mattawa, for the weekend." Because they were building an overhead bridge, and you can only do it on a weekend. It was things like this that made it so interesting ... G: So you just took up your car and,.o A: Well, the train picks us up, ayh. We were on the railroad, like a, like a trailor ayh. And a train would pick us up and the machine that Bart worked with, ayh, and take us all the way down along. And wherever we were, like if we came into a divisional point, where there's a train waiting for us to take us out, so we'd get there in time~ So you never knew what the next job was going to be. G: I guess, you said you just had the one son? A: Yes, and when Bart took this job out on the railroad, he had just started high school here, so he was up here like,you see. And when we were close to home, close around here, he'd come there for the weekend, and if we weren't home, he'd go to Jackfish to his grandmother'so So we were there for eighteen years. G·: You said you were married during the depression. How did the depression affect you? ~ ------- r , I think we were very fortunate because on the job that tiart was, a hoisting engineer's job. In the winter they just had , maybe eight or ten staff, or twelve. And they had .\o ~<.,'-le. time keeper. And none of them could do office work. None of thot+older men, even if they had more seniority than Bart, they couldn't do the office work, with the result that he was never out of a job. As small wages as he had,we were fortunate; we never lost our insurance, or our house or anything like that. So many of our friends did ayh. Other than having to be very careful,you know, make sure that you didn't go off on a buying spree, or somethingo ~d (}.. �-4- G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: - G: A: Did it affect Jackfish, particularly bad? Not too much. Most of the people there were, I would say have permanent positions, they would be, like section men, and in the wint~er, like section men, and then th~v had to keep this plant going, because they had to keep a. coal shute going to keep the coal eh, ready to coal all these trains, all these ... So it was more of a steady thing, except in the stnnmer they brought in these extra men to help with the unloading of the coal for the winter. But we were very fortuna..te. • -~ There was nobody, I ~~bink, out ot work in Jacktisn ouxing the depression, because of this CPR coaling station, see. Maybe the junior fellas on the way, like on the track were laid off, but pretty well it didn't affect them at all. But all around us, terrible. I know friends of ours that had lost their homes and their insurances, and things like this. Did you get a lot of people travelling through on the railway? Oh yes. men in the box ... Boxcars, yes, yeah. In fact there was some of that still when we went on the roado Cause they warned me, I was often alone, you k~ow, out on the siding,and they said not to let anybody in. ~~ t ~is was not like the depression,! think it was just those who were travelling more just to see the, the, cause it was during the war when we were out there, so there was lots of work. How did the war affect you? Pardon me? How did the war years affect you? Ahh, not ... I guess things became a little more prosperous? Yes, yes. Well I know when uhm, when Bart went out on the railroad, when we were in Jackfish, there was no union. So he would have to go, he went to work at seven every morning. And if that company, boat company, wanted that boat unloaded for a certain hour, he would have to work, all those hours, maybe sometimes up for 5 o'clock the next morning. And he never got paid for more than eight hours, ayh. So as soon as he went out on the railroad, on the, on the mainline, he was able to join a union, and he did, and I could never get over him being paid, in fact, this was how we bought this house. All the overtime that he made, I put it aside, because I said "If we, you know, this is just money found, because you'd never have it, if you didn't have this job." So this is how we put money away to buy this house. Because if you travelled, at night, with the crane, then he had to look after it, and he was paid for it. And if there was a mainlinefl and the mainline was busy, then they would have to wait maybe til after 5 o'clock, or 6 o'clock, til the trains were all gone, then go out, and he was still paid. And I can remember my son was, it was during the war, they couldn't get a helper, so the boss asked Bart if he didn't know anybody. So Don said he'd go out. And I can remember the first day Don worked, he had to go out an hour ahead, at six, to get the crane ready, and they couldn't go out til 8 o'clock that night to work, cause the passengers were late (?), it was a mainline job. He made 42.50 that one day. I can remember his dad saying, "This was what I made in a month when I started to work". So it was quite a, it was quite a thing to be able to get paid for what you did. But, and that job in Jackfish, we were paid for eight hours only, no matter how, and you couldn't refuse, ayh. Especially Bart. He was the only who could do this certain job. He had a helper, but he couldn't work when there was men, they emptied these boats of coal, well when they got near the bottom, there had to go men in there to scrape it up and -•~~ put it irlZ0 the bucket so they could get it upo Well the (ljfa"'. _ ~ helper couldn't do that, because they were scared th~-'-=d-- ~ ✓0 swing the bucket maybe, and kill someone o So Owhei:l there was a cleaning job, Bart had to do it all. There was two of them, like two cranes, but they had to do all that worko Was there any talk there of organizing a union? They tried. But, this was the way they got around it. There wasn't enough, uhm, steady members, like. I think �-5there had to be ten or~welve. And the CPR made sure that _ they, (joke and laughter), but the company made sure that they got, you know, that they were kept below that. The steady ones, like, you know. They could have in the SUllllller, but then these were just men that came in for, maybe three or four rr. Jnths, so that didn't count. This is how I think I, I have never voted anything else but social, NDP or, please be careful whatever you ~all it. Because this was when you heard all about it during the depression, ayho And I can remember, uhm, Jack MacEvett, he was organizing, ayh, in Schreiber. He said"I've gone out in the country and preached", and he said "I had to be in a truck, because they'd throw tomatoes at me", ayh, or eggs or anything, if they didn't like him. And I can remember the first, uh, convention I went to in Regina I said to Mrs. Jacobson, " I never thought I'd ever see the day when I'd be coming to Regina, in a hotel for an NDP convention, ayh, the way it started out, because I know many a time I did without things to, to help <-·calm down there, like, you know, the people that came in _e,v~ ) they always came to our place to sleep, or eat or anythi11g. Mr. uhm, what's his name (\t,~Tate, he's an old timer, Jim Caullie, I was just reading about him the other day, and Jack MacEvett, of course, he was from Schreiber, and uhm, there sure was a lot of talk of; you know, political talk during the depression, and I think this was for, because, uhm, when yo,, looked around and saw what was going on, these guys working for five dollars a month, I think,on the highway. So, uh ... Oh yes, I think the whole of Jackfish was, was CCF then. G: I've been studying Dorion and Hurkett a lot, and that was a really progressive ....... town during the depression too. A: Yeso I think all these little towns, you know, that really uh, it hit them quite hard. G: I guess soo Uhm, I wanted to ask you about the early days of CCF. Did you ever think that it would become sort of a credible third party at the time? 11 A: G: A: G: A: G: A: A: A: N .• Did it start off really really small? I Uh ... See I don't ... Oh yes, like I say, I can remember, especially down our way, because uh, oh there was so many other factions against it, ayh. Strong factions, that people were afraid to, to even talk about it, in lots of places, ayh. Uh, and I really can't remember how it, that was overcome, because, like in Jackfish, nearly everybody w~s a CCF, ayho There was the odd one, but uh, they didn't do to much about it, so uh,.o• But they had no problem there. I think Jackfish was CCF ever since I can remember. And uh, everybody worked, helped, and eh, you know, ... Were the women just as active as the men, would you say? Uh, Yes, I think so, uh, 'cause I know I waso And uh, and any of my friends, there was, oh yes. Did you feel that you were, I don't know, taken seriously, that's not quite what I want to say, but you know what I mean ... You were as respected, in the Party1 Oh yes. Uhm Uhm. Oh y~s. ' · Yes, because, uh, what I found, we had so many gooa arguements, that these, the was arguing against us, You know, they couldn't find anything uh,'- come back wi ·:th, really. When we say, "Well, look-et, what's this government doing; five dollars a month, ayho And all, well Canada was, it's a rich country, and, you know, these are the arguements~LJe used to get literature~ t, and study it, you know, and have study session, and that, and uhm, and we really ... No I don't, we never had any problems down there. It was always, uh, it was always, as far as I can remember ... Of course, now, the earlier years I don't know ... 'cause I wasn't old enough to vote, ando•• But uh, ... it was alwasys strong, the CCF, ever since I can remember. 0 �-6G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: Do you, I doo., I think you're probably to young for, to remember women getting the vote. No, not really, no. twenties. Yeah, no, no. It's ahh ... You know, I can remember something about i t , all right, because I remember aguements,,, I can remember ministers come and arguing, and you knowj about ... My dad was very religiouso Uh; I don't know whether really religious, but he, uh,'cause people were very religious, and apparently always had to study the Bible very .. And they used to argue these things forth and back, and uh, and uh .. o This was what he used to, uh, argue mostly with, was because he was figuring that this Bible wasn't quite right., from the things that was said, and then some of the things that was preached, ayh. But like I say, when there's a large family, we all had to get up and do our own chores, and that; there wasn't much to, to, uhm, like ehh, there was chor~s, .and, and then schoolwork, and different things ~that. We never got much into political, uh, arguements at home. But I really took interest in it when Jack MacEvett started to come down. Of course I was married then. I was nineteen when I was married, and of course you couldn't vote until you were twenty-one, theno But I was really into--My husband has always been, 'cause he said that, uh, his dad was from Norwayo And he used to tell them how the big shots took everything there, from the fishermean, no matter how hard you'd worked, you had to ... And uh, And so, he was always socialist, if you'd like to call him that. And I haven ... I've never voted anywhere else ... anything else. So, .. o How about transportation in these days1 How did you get around? ~ Oh you know, this is uh, the strange thin oo ... We have never had a car. We have never had a car. Really? And uh, for the simple reason, that in Jackfish there was no highwe y, when we lived there. Now, uh, the highway came through after we went out o~ ~he road, oh maybe a year or so before. And we had totuhm, I don't understand too much about it, but everybody had to pay so much, then and do . .. If you didn't pay, you had to work so many days on the road that they had cut in, like. I guess the town id it, ayh. Well then, the car was no good to us then, because we were away all the timeo My son had a car right away, of course. But we always travelled by rail, or ship. How about within the community, though. I guess if.tbings.o. Oh. It was all railway, all rail. But the community was, uh, You've never down past Jackfish? No, I don't think I have. Well there's, there's just the railwasy, in the middle, then the lake on one side, and the mountains on the other. So with the result that the, that the cut-in from the main highway was very hard to put in,because it had to come down through this plane, and then over a mountain, and then (cut back to?) And there was no place you cou--There was no place in the town where you could drive a caro You had to drive just to the railway, and leave it there. So it was all railroad travel, when we were thereo And you'd just walk ............. . And just walk,~ yeaho It was av ery small village, somethin' likeo•• Oh, it wouldn't have as much walking space as Rossport, if you've been there. Uhm uhm. Rossport's really small. Yeah. But, see Rossport is, is kind of flat, ayh, and at least you can drive into there. In Jackfish you could just come in behind this mountain, there was just a valley in between this mountain, behind the church, and then right down to the railroado And that's where you had to stop. Oh some people, uh, p~t planks across there, and went across. But you couldn't go anywhere, so there was no point, ayho So, ah, everything was by car, by railroad, and it was so small that you didn't need a car,anyway, to get around. I've been thinking of Thunder Bay standards. �-7A: G: A: Yeal.. Oh, no. I know my aunt, she came from the west, she used to say "I can't breatrehere, like, 'cause she lived in the prairie, ayh. And she said she just seemed like she was closed in because there was just this little place to walk, ayh. Mountains on one side, and the lake on the other, and the railway in the middleo It sounds like it would be really beautiful. Yes, it was, it was a lovely spot. Uh, a very busy spot bsecause, uhm, in the summer they had, uhm,uhm-a, a pulpwood, the pulp boats used to, uhm, how. can I say this? The boats used to come into Slate Island, l that was out quite a way) and load the pulp there, so we had th~, uh, men come in then to, they stayed out there all summer and worked on this pulp business. So it was always a very busy spot, in the summer, very quiet in the winter. But and a good, we had quite a good tourist business when we had the store too--we had a lot of Americans come in there, because beautiful lakes lac~ in there, very, uh, untouched, ayh .. good fishing, and so we haa "')"->.ri. £k C?) quite a good tourist business.there, too. The Americans used to like to come in. But, uh, there certainly wasn't any cars around there was no place to drive them, Everything was done by wheelbarrow, if you had to, uh, .. Move things . Move anything; wheelbarrow in, in the summer, or toboggan or, or sleigh in the wint er,ayh. I know we used to have to, we burnt coal, naturally,-we were on a coal depot, and they used to bring it in bags home, on the toboggan. So, everything had to be moved by hand, wheelbarrow or, that old wheelbarrow outside, that was what we used in Jackfish. An antique wheelbarrow. Yeah. What was life like for your mother, with so many children? Well, you know, we all had our own job, ayh. The older had to look after the younger, and ah, as many as us, there was of us, she has b~ ders beside. Men that used to come and work in the summer, ayh, would come board with us, which she always used to say it doesn't make much difference putting a few more potatoes in the pot, ayh. But we all had our own jobs, and we all had to look after our own clothes, and things seemed very well organized. I don't know, I can't remember tha t;here was, uh, we all had to look after our own rooms, ana beds, and, and uh, we all had our turn to do dishes, and uh, .. o You had to be a lot more responsible. Oh yes, oh my gosh, yes. You know, if we ever got up and we I think there was only two of us that was born in Schreiber. The rest were all born at home with a midwife. Was there a local woman, who acted as one? Yes, uhm uhm. Bart's mom--my mother and I used to do most of it. And before that there was an Italian lady that used to do it. And uh, it was just, one other thing, just another ..... I can remember my last two brothers, they were born in Schreiber, because these women were getting older then, ayh. And uhm, so they, my aunt, she was kind of a midwife in Schreiber, too. So she went there, and had it there. But uh, but uh, I can't remember any, uh, I think today they'd, when I see children, the way they, I think it's just uh, oh, I think it's partly parents fault, today. Because they take the line of~ east resistance, they say you can't do that, and they do it anyway, and they don't do anything about it. I can't understand that. I know with my grandchildren here, I say \\ you do it; and they look at me, and I say "and fast ;; Don't sit and look at me o'r And 63, ayh. You've got a lot of nerve. I said "You justo .. o" Of course I do a lot of kidding, but uh, I, I just couldn't take that. When I said somethin to Don, I said "I want that done", and he went 0ndJ done it, ayh. And if he didn't do it, he just had his privileges taken away from him. And I think this is half the battle. Because they just, just don't seem to 0. G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: �-8bother, I don't know. I can never forget one woman said "I'll be so lad when they're married, when they're out of my way." Oh.9 I couldn't understand that. I said "don't you enjoy them?" And then when I saw the way they acted, I thought, "no wonder", but I thought "lady, it's eour fault" . . I think television has a lot to do with ito A: Oh yes, terribleo Just want and sit and look at that uhm, My little chtm1 was sittin' there yesterday and put the, and put it on for some x sports, and I thought, "I bet you ten years for G: Is this why you workEi_d? A: since we move'l_1ere. We moved, Bart took an early retirement~ e've been here about seventeen years. And he still worked two years, like we bought this house, oh maybe, ten or twelve years before we moved up, ayho We knew that we couldn't go back to Jackfish, we had a house there, but there was nothing there, ayho So l ike I say, we had to buy somewhere, so we , everything_J--;t~~"' got overtime, I put away to put a payment do~house, . Well then we bought it, and we rented it for about twelve years. Well then, the people who rented i~were going to move away, so I said to Bart, "Well whf} t -.f taki n' an early, he, this was how we started~fto Mex. i~ o, in '57, He had an arthritic hip, and they said that, like the winter's a slack time, ayh, 'cause there's no building or anything like that. So, uh, I started looking into going to Mexicoo So we went down there, and then, uh, the . nP.xt winter they'd, the people said they were going to move, so we moved down then, and we didn't go anywhere that winter. Just So we've been here eighteen years, and ah, Like I say, we never stary in the winter, except the, the two years since I've been sick. But ah, we've never had a car either, so we've just ... Like I say, then, but he came up, he worked, he still worked two years, at, summers, while we were here. So I, I just couldn't sit here and do nothing, so I started to babysit first. Babysat for all the doctors, and that, thereo And ~ then ah, this little, this little store down by ah, the clinic, McKay's, they looked, they were looking for a clerk, so I worked there, for ah, five years. Then we were, every winter we ~ .~ away, she'd have to get someone else, so ... This year we're goin'to, summer we're goin up to Alaska, so I said "I'm oing to quit", I said "You911 have to get someone else", 9cause it's not fair to her either, ayh. So we came back in October, and then I knew the woman that was working in, in the uh, what do you call the office down there, employment office, and she phones, and "Would you like to go and work at Burk's ~ itts. I said "What?" So she said "They're looking for someone for Christmas rush',' so I said "Okay, I' 11 go down and try it". So I went down and then I worked every summer then, for ten years. I really enjoyed ito • G: Did you work, uhm, in your early_..y,ears of marriage? A: No, except for our own . bus flies s, when we had, had our own store, like, you·-know; in, in the country. But when we were on the road, we were never anywhere maybe sometimes .two weeks, and then maybe sometimes two days, ayh. So !~ just ah, G: Are this, I that there are3/many opportunities for women to work, in small towns, small ~industry towns. A: Small--No, no,no. Uhm, what there was an :~ an hotel in Jackfish, during uhm, now let's see, that started during the war. But, there had been previously, a hotel before, and it, people died, and they just closed it down. Well then, this family, Spidoni brothers, you've heard of them in Schreiber, I guesso They bought the hotel, and they opened it up, so this was the,really the only place to work, ayh. Cook, or or, ah, upstairs girl, and bartenders. But I never did, I never worked there, 'cause we had our own store, then. G: You had the general store? A: Yes, l the post offic~ and this, uh, other office, that the �--9- G: A: Immigration guys So I worked there., most of the time. But uh, other than that there wasn't, there was nothing in, in smaller places. Do you remember any people, I'm thinking particularly of women, being really lonely, really sort of cabin-crazy? No. No, I don't think so. Not that I can remember. Everybody was too busy. You knowo Like the men worked steady, ayh, and the women just had to do, take over for the men laid off when they had to work,ayh. And like uh, you just didn't come in and turn a button on, and a stove go, you had to keep your stove up and carry your water in. Heat your water on the stove to wash clothes, and it, and iron ) the iron's on the stove, and this all, you know, it took so much more time than it does these days. So I say laugh. · when that girl said she was tired, pushing a button on an automatic washing machine. Ahh, no I can't ... Oh there was lot's around eh, you know, in the 1 . .m re the farming district, I thinko Yeah, I guess women really isolated, in the country. Yes, but we were never really isolated, because we had mail twice a day,ayh, which is something, because the mainline went right through it, and the railroad carried the mail then. And ah, so we had mail twice a day, and we had, uh, we got fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week. From town her~,they'd come down, on the train. And fresh milk every morning, 'cause it came on the train, too. At one time there was seven trains going by there, ayh, passengers. And uh, So we really weren't~ where we were, we weren't isolated at all because we, ~ other than that we didn't get out too much,. Like I say we made our own fun, and, and we uh, oh we were never without anything. And like, there was a doctor in Schreiber, which is, was nineteen miles awayo And if we needed him, we just phoned through the CPR phone, to the station in Schreiber, and he came down on the first freight. So we really were better off than a lot of places that didn't even, when they didn't have a highway~ ayh. We at least had the mainline going right ~ through. And anything happened, well, they were always kind enough to stop a train and pick anybody up that was hurt, and bring them in to whereever was, to Schreiber, or anywhere. I know all the uh, sick people that had to come to town, they just stopped them, put them on a stretcher, put them in the baggage car. And then we came up with them on the baggage car. So uh, and we'd phone the doctor in Schreiber, and say so and so was on the baggage car, and he'd come in and see if they needed a needle or something. He was a CPR doctor then--and a town doctor too. And if they needed help before we got to town, well he'd give them a needle of some kind, like, you know. And we just stopped in time to expect a train here, and took us to the hospital.The, uh, only thing that we found, the younger ones wouldn't stay there to have their babies,ayh. Like, before the babies were born they came up to town here, or to Schreiber and waited. But the old timers used to have them right in town at home. But no, we were, we were very fortunate there, because, like I say, we were just like on the mainline of ah, uhm, lots of places that's all they, the only thing that was, you know, there was no highways in a lot of those places. So uh, we were, we were, I guess, we never thought of it then, but now I realize that we were lucky, much luckier than most people, where they were isolated away back in the bush. What did~ ~u say, that there was a school in Jackfish? Uhm uhmJ_~ rade one to grade eight. And how ~ Mdid many people go on to high school? Yes, quite a few. And they'd have to go to Schreiber? They'd have to come to town hereo Oh, to here? Uhm uhm, Really? Uhm uhm. There was no high schools i ny of the ~~ 0 G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: 0 ± There was high schools in Sc reiber, but, now, I don't �-10- G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: G: A: understand what the ruling was there, I guess you could have gone there, but it, uh, no, I don't think so. 'Cause nobody ever went into Schreiber too. My son took music lessons, and he had to leave, Like he'd leave ot night at seven o'clock to go to Schreiber, which is nineteen miles away,stay overnight, have his lesson, music lesson in the morning, and come back at noon the next day. But he didn't mind that at all. And first he, the first time he went to White River. He started in White River, but then the music teacher died, there, and eh, I thought "well gees it's much easier to go to Schreiber, because I, that was two days to go to White River, ayh. You went down in the morning, and then you couldn't go back until the next nighto So that was the whole weekend, and he, he used to love to fish, ayh, so uhm, this way he went in at night and he was back in the morning. But eh, no, everybody there, I don't know what the reasono You know, I never thought about thato I think that most of them that came up to high school, wanted uhm, to go to technical school, they didn't just want high school. They did their first year, and then they chose their, what they wanted to do, ayh. I think th¾_s was why they mostly all came up here. 'Cause I know Doqhad to come up here. And anybody that came, eh, it was out p, unless they wanted to go to, eh, to be a teacher, then they had to go to North Bay. There was no teacher's college here then eithero And-a, nursing, they mostly all came here,because at that time there was a residence~fhat they could stay in, ayh,o Now it's all, isn't it alJJJniversity and just ... The college, stays there, yeah. Yeah, uhm uhm. And, 'cause quite a few nurses, quite a few pupils come out, ayh, quite a few pupils came up. Do you recall the, uhm, it would be mostly boys who continued on to high school? Or was it sort of half and half? ~~) No,no, no. Half and half--a lot of~girls, nursing, teaching. Like I say, I know they had to go to North Bay to teach, because when we wer on the road, we were in North Bay,working, and this young girl was in college there, and she used to come down to visit us, ayh. And this is how I know they had to go to school,into North Bay to go to school, Oh no, the, the, girls had uh, came out, there was ai many go , as boys. having more, uh, they were, should go first, were the, uh, foreigners . You know, they thought the boys were, should go, and the girls should stay home. But in among our, we, that was never, .uh, prevalent were we, you know, girls, if they wanted to gOf'\iad the same chance as boys, whereas with some of the foreigners,the boys had to go first. Even if they're dumber. You know. They were the, they were the misters. You mean there were. ~~-_·,:~a:.,~~,.. a lot of foreign families? Yes, there waso Uhm Uhm. What nationality would be ,,.,, ----7. (~) Uhh, uho Mostly Italians, there was ah, a couple of Ukrainian families, but they were mostly *alians down thereo And ah, then all, men that came i o work in the st.mnner, brought their families, in Sudbury ?)o But ah, Did the connnunity, uh, did they reach together? Oh yeso Uhm , uhm, uhm uhm. Like I say, there were so few, ayh, that it took everybody to, to get anything going. But as I can remember, we had some good times. We used to ha ve big picnics, you know, in the summer. And ah, pie socials, kids didn't even know what a pie social was. What's a pie social? It's a box social, where you make this fanc, oh no, fancy, and there was at this, uh, most of the time there was such a competition on who would make the best, the nicest box, ayh. And uh, then you'd have to have it auctioned off, and ... You know, you never hear of those things any moreo That was just something you do for ... I must, I must suggest that to Home League sometime, just for fun. 'Cause their always looking for something different to do, you know. We have teas and, and~things, but that\/ was J1~fent:_ ~-~t\\~ ~\) 5~ �' -11- G: A: And they always said they could tell the teachers ' box, 'cause it was always so much fancier, she had so much to work with, ayh. And I can remember this one guy had quite a crush on this teacher, and ah, this, she just put it in a, in a plain brown box with a bow on it, ayho And this great big fancy box came up, and he thought it was hers, and he bid, bid so way up high. And here it was ~ married woman, she had about six kids. And here comes this box, and he didn't bother, and here it was the teacher'so It went for about a dollar, ayh. But, like I say, everybody had to, to chip in, ayh,because it was, but we had, we made our own mi , we had to go and build our own mi shack, put a stove in, to, to change our shoeso We used to do it in the station, and then the officials got mad and kicked us out of there, so ... But everything seemed to, I don't know, everybody seemed to pitch in and, •o• I guess smaller cotm:Ilunities are like that. I don't know, they always like the ... Like I was telling the kids, I think we had just as much fun then--there wasn't G!.any money, but, but we were fortunate enough that nobody was hard up. And, like I say, if anybody had a problem, everybody was there to help them. .c~1:r --\. Yeah, I've also found that places that women~didn't have so many social service agencies as we do now, there was a whole sort of, policing force within the, in the region. If someone was mistreating his wife, or those kind of prob 1 ems . ~ ere.'s· Yes, yes. Oh yeaho I think A far too much hand-outs these days. I know I did volunteer work and I do meals on wheels, too,ayh. But boy, oh boy, there's some funny things going on there too. I know I used to go � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Elizabeth Almos Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Elizabeth Almos in Port Arthur, Ontario. The interview was performed by Karen Graves as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Almos recalls the social and working conditions of Northern Ontario, primarily focussing on Jackfish, Ontario, in the early 20th century, with topics including housing, mining, railways, unions, the Canadian Pacific Railway, community and personal relationships, and the activity of women. Mrs. Almos also highlights the presence of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its eventual successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in small towns in Northwestern Ontario, specifically Jackfish, Schreiber, Dorion, and Hurkett . The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available here as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/60ab5289d6c85aeae7f5d40fad9280c3.mp3 d339c5bc24d7376d30eddd797d792bd5 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/bb5ef2167f96110968675a2d7fbfe8c9.mp3 0627bce914fc4b5ac96ef66943154349 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/163960670b5f385b86195a386ccfe50d.pdf ad8b62432e0209da781bf4e9bc7c40ca PDF Text Text HERSTORY PROJECT T'Irs. Lru-nb interviewed by Helen Lovekin +-AAe.SI'\ J)..\5i1~$i,/ Q, You lived on a farm in Saskatchewan? A. Yes. Q. r7 ere your parents homesteading? A. Yes, my father took the property for homesteading back in Q. Do you have a large family? A. Yes I • and 8 children and Mother and Dad. Q,. T!hen did you move to this area? A. 1924. Q. After you were married? A. After I was married , yes. 18'jQ, Q.. , · ) What made you come here? A, r The dry weather out there, so we decided to come here. And because of the timber - out there ue had no wood , we had to buy coal for fuel. Q, So did you farm here as well? A. TI ell, I guess you could call it farming - hay and we had cattle and horses and pigs and chickens. Q. Jhat did you think of this ·~rea? 'e fell in love with it right a11ay. A. After being on the Prairie, we were about JO miles from the lake and here we got probably right on the edge of the lake, Q. How do you feel about having this papermill here? A. I clon 't know 1-rhat we would do without it. Q, You married in_ Saskatchewan? A, Yes. Q. And your husband was also a farmer? A. Yes. Q. 1 A. At Rscham, north of here - we don ' t pronounce it correctly so they tell us it !here was your farm here? should be pronounced Rikam. Q. 1·!hen you carne here did you have children at that time? A, Yes, I had four of them, two boys and hro f;irls. ~- So your whole family moved here. �A. Q, Yes. A.i A~ ~t [. Q. How did you come down, by train? Yes, we came by train. My husband came in the car with the stock and ·implements and I came with the children in the train. :ere your children very young when you had to be moved up here? 32 and my husband was 36. A. I was Q, So that would be a rather lone jour.aey with children on a train. A. Oh it was, they got very tired ancl the youngest ono, he was 2;~· • he would say everytime the train stopped, "Now come on Hommie, c;et off this rickety old train. " He didn ' t like it at all , he had never been on a train before. Q, What was the home like that you came to here? A. We just stayed with a neighbour we had known before we came doun here. He generously gave us his kitchen to live in until we got a loe; house up on the homestead. Q. How long did that talrn? A. Pive months. Q. So what you had to start off uith in building your home here was pretty rough. A. It was built with rough logs, yes. And there was a small sawmill here and we could get lumber for the floor and the roof. Q. How did you keep it warm? A. By woodstove. Q. ::--,s that very good for heat? A. Oh , yes, wonderful. We had wood stoves out in the Prairies too but He didn ' t have timber so we had to use coal. But here , after being in the country where there was no wood , every chip· and stick was used carefully. f ere you pretty isolated on the farm or did you have neighbors close by? Q. 1 A. Here we had neighbors very close and at the time we came there ·Fere a lot of people coming in here. Q. So here you had neighbors and in Saskatchewan your neighbors 1-wuld be further away. A. They wanted to get away from the dry reL.,ions. You Hould be more isolated? No, about -¼ a mile was the nearest _1eighbor there. That was about the same here. Q. How did the climate here affect you? A, Ue didn ' t find a _:rea.t deal of difference. We had cold winters in the Prairies but He had a lot more rain mre in the summertime. Q. Could I ask. you hou old you are? A. 88 ?Oin~ on 89, �Q. You .:;rew up in Saskatchewan. Your mother also came from England? A. No, my mother was raised in the east . Her parents had come from Scot land ju;:t before she was born. Q. How did she cope with the homestead? A. They f01.md it rather rugged after the east, with all their fruits and nice e;ardens and all that and_ come out to the Prairies where they had to break up the land and gradually work into fruits and vegetables. Of course they started out 1-1ith oxen for p01rer. Q. You would have had a lot to endure, alot of hard Nork and ver-J different from •._,.hat your father ana ::iother uere usGd to. Did she teach you anything about how to cope with life? A. Yes it teaches you patience for one thine;. You just have to be patient and take thini;;S in their stride and as they come. Q. Can you think of any particular incident which demonstrated to you what you would need to have in your later life as a girl? A. i-Je had to make everything. We had to k..l1.it the socks things and make the other clothing from materials. alld mitts and caps and One cliff erence I noticed a great deal now - I remember one time my mother called me in, Eaton ' s in those days used to send out samples of materials for dry goods and my mother got samples and she called me in to pick out a piece that I would like to have for a dress. yard. I chose a nice pink one with little dots in it and it was 5¢ a One year I made the dress - that is something that I have often thought of since the price we had to pay for material now. I wish I had kept a piece of that material. Q. ~an you think of any stories she taught you by her example as a mother? A. She taught the girls all through that we had to take a hand at cooking or dishwashine or getting vegetables prepared. Q. iJhat about education? Was she anxious that you got your schooling? A. By this time, the time I was old enough to go to school, they had e;ot a sort of grant to pay someone to teach in a private home. By the time I was at the school age they had a school building and homemade desks and seats - so they weren't very comfortable to sit on. Q. You had brothers as well? A. Yes, five brothers and two sisters. Q. Were you all encouraged equally to go on with your education? A. Oh yes - I wanted to go on. There was ei€;ht of us all together. But if they i·:rould rather choose some other life - two of my brothers chose railroading engineers. �Q. Did you work before you married? A. Just at home, that ' s all. Q. You are the oldest of the daughters? A. Q. I was the oldest of the family. A. Yes, and I thought that wasn ' t fair. There was the children. You had some additional responsibilities? Too many things I think - she wanted me to supervise and it didn ' t turn out quite right and I got chastized for it. Q,. What kinds of thines were you able to do to brie;hten up your house and make it more into a home? Oh, embroi.elery work and we gathered theso :lowers and bullrushes in the fall and tied them up with - well we would crochet a straie;ht tie and make a little bow on that. Sometimes we put them in a fruit sealer and put them on an organ or something like that. Q. Do you do those paintings? A. I did the center one, the other two are done by. friends. Q. Did you find you had a talent for painting when you were youne;? A. No, this was aft er - my f arnily were pretty near all away when I st a1."t ed to paint. The lady here.was the President of our Women ' s Institute and she was just a natural paintei - she had no schooling on it at all. We were all so keen on her work and she said, ":Jell if you ladies would like to learn, we could arrange for some painting lessons. " So she did. Q. Did you do quilting'? A. Yes, lots of quilts. Q. Did you have one of your children at home? A. Yes, they were all born at home. Q. Who helped you when your time came? A. Just a neighbor lady and then I had the doctor here. Pieces now that we wouldn ' t bother with. There was no hospital like 1101-1. There was a doctor and he had a large community and it was difficult to get him. I just remember my mother telling that when I was born my Dad had to go 20 miles with an ox hitched in a hay. ,,de., to get a doctor. He had a pony of course and could come much quicker. Q. When you were having your children did any of those old stories occur to you about your childhood. Oh, yes, sure. Especially the first one. had gone through. Q. Did it give you more strengh ? It made me think of what my mother �A. ·Jell, I guess it did in a way. Q. you. You would have been brin;;ing your children up in the depression? A. Yes, that was hard because w!?. The things that they needed. You think that if your mother can do it so can couldn ' t get the things that we really wanted. We couldn ' t 6 et the things for their lunch, in fact, that He would like to get. Jhat Hould you be able to get them for their lunch? Q. 1 A. Mostly just a sandwich made of homemade bread and homemade butter and the meat was home cured also. And jam, we picked a lot of fruit and made jam out of that. Q. Being on a farm, I guess you never have to go without food at all? A. No, we were never short of food - we grew our vegetables and I think back now and I see wagon.loads of potatoes and carrots and beets and turnips and things that were cooling in our basement. them all in the winter. Q. We just wondered \how we could get through We irere all ready for next spring and to start again. Would you have to go without or economize on things like clothing or household. utensils? A. Yes, you get one good dress made and that would be handed down from one to another. With my mother, I remember she had her wedding dress, a brown silk, and she had that one for 2.5 years, that was her good dress. Wherever she went she had to wear that. Q. You mentioned the Women ' s Institute. What yeat-: did you join? A. My mother and I had joined to a Homemakers Club in Saskatchewan which is practically the same thing. Q,:. Did you join the Women ' s Institute here shortly after you moved here? A. Yes, in ' 26 we organized our Institute here. Q. Did that help you meet new people in the area? A. Oh, yes. Many of the things we did helped the school and teachers and furniture, The Institute supplied the furniture for the first school. Q. What kind of fund~ raising things did you do? A. We put on concerts and we had a wonderful lot of people here for entertaining. So we put a great deal of thG.t on. Then we made quilts and sold them and we knit caps and mitts and sold them. Q. Did you see the Institute as a club that helped people? A. Oh yes, it Has wonderful. Q. But it was something for yourself too. A. Especially for the Homen. It really raised their lot a good deal. �Q. A. How? By e;etting them all together. ::Xchanging recipes and methods of housework. I don ' t know, perhaps you ' ve heard this story of the lady that first started the Institute. She was just a yotmg girl and I think she was raised near Toronto and she wanted to be a teacher and she became one and in those days they had to teach two or three years in a rural district before they were elegible for a town. So she did this and while she Has putting in her three years out in the country she fell in love uith a youn_:; fellow at the house where she was boarding and finally cot married. She ··rent out ~iving lectures on organizations of the women so after a time - Erlin Lee 1 ·as thon the Minister of Agriculture and he told Mrs. Hoodles'"" that if she 11anted to he would cto all he could to help her. Department. 0 et an organization for women He was the President of the Farmers He did help ui th that a lot because he went ar01md demonstrating and lecturing what the thincs would be like for the women. That is how the or_:anization started and it is still ::;oing. Q. It seems to have cau0 ht on really quickly. A. Our membership now is Q. Did your institute do the T reedsmere histor-J? A. Yes, we ' re doing that. Q. You mentioned that the women organized and you said that 11as a very ___;ood thing, 8½ million. Al~ of course, over the ·world. 1 was there a definite lack of Homen .:;etting together in this community, not sharing things? i. There was lrntil we started organizing the Women ' s Institute. Then they caught into that very readily. Q. How did JOU arrance things so you could have your afternoons or evenings free? Did you leave your children ~ri th your husba..n.d or ... ? A. \e took the children with us. Nothing like a day care centre nouadays, we had to· take our children with us. Caxry them on our backs and go wherever we could. Q. Very often, one hears the idea that women can ' t work together. A. '-le haven't had anything like that - very little. Over 50 years nothing like that has happened that is worth mentioning. Q. It made enough of a difference apparently to the lives of the wom:en to make it ~rnrthwhile. A. It certainly did_. A wonderful difference to women ' s life. Q. 'That did you, what kind of a woman's life did you ~Lead? �A. We had so much work doing, ne couldn ' t get into mis ctt.ef. Q. What kind of work did you do in the farm in Northern Ontario? A. Almost anything - on the Prairies I used to drive the horses and harrow or whatever it waE",,depending on what you had to do. I milked cows, I milked as many as 20 cows at one time. Q. So, in your circumstances, people just did what they could ;md it wasn ' t a matte.I of a man doing this or a woman doing that. A. Oh , . no, doing. If a man iras busy at something else, you took over what he hadn ' t bee:e If you didn't know how you had to learn how,· Q. And the kids would all :~.help too? A. Oh , yes , they were right there to help out. The young people in those days :-rere more willing to do these sort of things. them that 1-fant Today there are very:· few of to do any work. Q. Did you have any time just to sit down ax1d think by yourself? A. Very seldom, sometimes in the evening, especially in the Hinter time. But then you irould be knitting or sewing or something. Q. Did you find that frustratin 0 ? A. No ·rn just enjoyed it. Took each day as it carne along. We had games, we would get together and sometimes in the winter in the afternoon. We all had home- made sleighs for sliding down the hills and we would gather, about 10 or 12 of us, and sleigh r~de for the afternoon ru1d then we would go in and make doughnuts and coffee. timo we played 01. 'rhat was our amusements in the afternoons. tside games all the time. In the swnmer- We would play with the children, "Ring around the Rosy" etc. Q. 1.'ere there dances and things? A. Yes, ue had dances once a month, the difficulty Has to get music for it. Q. TJould it be just local people? A. Just local people. Q. Would the dances be held in the homes? A. Yes. Q. ~That kincl of music - •rould you get accordion, violin? A. Yes , accordion, Violin, ~uitar. Q. Did you use the organ? A. Yes, that was used at many a dance. ~. Did you bring it from Saskatchewan? A. \To , we bought it here - it was the first organ that was sent up to Dryden ... There was no piano. �There Has a teacher here, Mrs.Ryto who came up from the east to teach and in the summer time instead of her ~oing back home, she had her brothers and sisters come out. Also some friends came too. When they. ·went to church here, the Presbyterian Church, and they thought it nas awful because there was no music. You had to have a person Hho 1rould.llead the singing. When they w:int back home they got their auxiliary busy and bought this organ and sent it up here. When they got better off and decided to get a better organ, we bought it from them. It cost $35. I 've been offering *500 now but no one would take it. Q. $500 is not enough. Can you recall when women got the vote? A. Yes, that was a very interestinc; time. every woman to vote. We were very excit·ed and tried to get We had a number of Ukrainian families here and it was hard to get them interested in voting, they joined the Inr;;titute and were _::;reat workers but when it came to voting, they had a different idea. Q. ~Ihat was your iclea about voting? A. I thought the women should have the same opportunities as men. Get the right to vote and excersice your wishes. Q. Do you remember any of the d_emonstrations or speeches on the part of the suffra.a-ettes? A. I don't thinI<; _.we had few of them. Q. How alJout in Saskatchewan? A. Yes, I think there :Tere more than down here. They -rnre more excited about the vote up there. Q. Do you remember the attitude of some of the men a.rouncl here? When women were first allowed_ to vote. A. Oh, yes, the :1en thouc;ht He should stay home and mind the babies - that ' s what they told us. Q. But you didn ' t listen to them. A. No. There was one man who before he got married had_ given h7s lady love a ring with ten little diamonds in it and a pearl in the center. Well, she was look- ing at it and admiring it and he says, "That is ten boys and one girl" and she said, "You ' d better Get an incubator. 11 Q. What did it feel liI:e when JOU ca.st your first ballot - did it feel like you had gotten somewhere? Yes, I had the feeling that Tm were rising a little bit anyway. �Q. ··J ere you :involved in any suffragette activities or the Women ' s Christian Temperance Party? A. Yes, v-re 1-?-Sed to help 1-1ith that too. That was more on the Prairies. Q. Tiow do you feel about the women ' s movement· today? Do you feel that we are still 1--rorking for the same thing? Yes, it seBms that it is the same as me, maybe I ' m old fashioned - it seems that we are going up another step. Q. Thincs toe 1: a lon[., time. A. Yes, that is right. 4-. Has your family affected by either of the wars'? A. rnl.l it goes back to my i:::;reat grandfather , he fought in the Boer War and my grandfather was in the African War and then my father was in the, I can ' t remember nhat year that was because he didn ' t go overseas, he was just training on tho P:iairie and then ny h!o sons were in the last war. Q. Hhat was it lil:e after seeing the First Vorld War and they say that this is the war to end all wars - to have to send your boys off to a Second World War? A. We didn ' t agree with it at all. setting thi1v-s. We thought there should be some other way of Rather than taking a King or a country all the time. Q. r?hat kind of work did the women do here after the rfar? A. Beside homesteadin~? Q,. ]hat about the wo~1en that stayed home? A. They 1rnre working for them and !r.nitting thin__,s to send overseas and caxming ....... . vegetables and fruits and meats to send over. Q. Did that accomplishment make the women feel that they doing something if.re for the covntry? A. Yes, I think that they felt they were really helping with the Q. The more I hear about women Imitting clothes etc., the more I think that the Har. governmeiTt didn ' t issue them. Ue also heard that there seemed to be more of a committment on the civilian women ' s part, to the First World 1lar. They seemed to work harder for it than the Second. A. I ' ve heard that too, but I couldn ' t say that it was so. or dmm here. Either in the nrairi.e Women worked equally as hard in one ·war as the other. I suppose if your children are involved, it becomes much more personal. Hhat do you think was one of the hardest parts of being a farm woman? It is much easier nowadays. The fa:cmwomen have as many household conveniences as do city people. Q. -rould there be a chore that you particularly hated to do? �A. Oh , yes , dish-rashing for one thing. Q. Hating dishHashin 6 sure hasn ' t A. No it hasn ' t, even if I do have a dishwasher. Q. Unlike a lot of women your age , you are not telling us that we should be home 0 one out of style. having babies and looking after them and you are quite interested about the affairs of women. Why do you think you picked that up? From my mother I think. She was very much that waJ. She was very much in favor of better conditions for ,;,rnmen. Q, Was there any pa-.:-ticular reason? A. All the uonen around her, especially on the Prairie, they just did as much work as the nen really. Q, You are prob2bly familiar with the Irene Murdock case out in the Prairies? '-That Hore your vie--s on that? A. I don ' t k.Y101-1 what to think of that. So far we haven ' t got too much information on it, Q. Y0 u told us that most fa...rm women worked hara_ if not harder than the men , so if something happens to their family, do you think it should be divided eq_ually between them? A. I think that Nould be a proper thin - if they worked equally hard. Q. The Homen have to work outside 0:1 the farm as Hell as inside, and often they a.re a man ' s work persay, did the men in your family ever share any of the chores inside the house? A. Oh, yes, some of them did, but f'ome of them 11ould.n ' t take to the housework at all. My crandfather and my father Pere quite willing to take a tun1 at Nash- in~ tho dishes or peeling potatoes. Q. Even noP if you . . an cret your brother or your boyfriend or your husband to wash your dishes it is a real accomplishment. Did your husband help you out with your children? Yes, he was alnays willin2: to do Hhatever he could. I was raised in such a large family that I ~ot used to doing everything in connection ·with If I asked_ him to clo things he was willing to do it. children. Sometimes he -:rould say , "I '11 do it if you shm, me how" . Q. How did you feel about other women who would do twice as much work as their husbands - workin 6 outside and then working inside} _ ,· A. n e had one case like that that used to rile me because he was a school teacher and he wn1.1.ld go out and set out so many yards of land for his wife to clear �vhile he was teaching . Q. Chopping up wood? A. Yes, cutting the :wod and clearin0 the stumps and everything. That used to a11noy me. Q. A. Did you ever speak :-Ii th her about it? No, I never , it 1-1asn ' t my business . I clidn ' t want to make trouble between them. If she was willing to do it for him, I guess it was best just to leave it as it was . .That was it like in a rural community if there was a familJ and sonebody was being mistreated but there were no e:overnment agencies? A. I don't know just how far the neighbors could have gone, but in this case, they didn't do anything. If they - sometimes, some of the ladies Hould co over a.Dd help her, clear the brush etc . Q. A. Q. A. Q. .That about in a case where sO), eone drank too much and Nould 3et violent? In that case, some of the men would interfere. So if somebody was beating their wife, a neighbor Nould come a.Dd oeat them? I don ' t know whether they would l)eat him or not but they would do somethinc;. So you had your mm policing force. How far north Fas the community youllived in? h. Fifteen miles north. Q, So did you get into town much? A. ITo, it 1·as a year and a half before I ever sa1;-: it. our home up and tho ba_rn for the stock and We were too busy :;ottins chickens. Q. .Tould it be a treat if you had to come into town? A. No because you had to ride in a wagon and there was no road. I dread to think .C' 0.L •.J.. l v now. Q. So it wasn ' t something you looked forward to doing? A. No. Q. When your chlldren were grown up did you begin feeling lonely? You ' d worked so hard to establish this home. No because I had some knitting or sewing or somethin.:; to do. time for lonliness. There was no Evelyn , the eldest one , she was only 13 and I had to send her to Winnipe.3 to go to college because she wanted to be a teache:c. Two years later, FraYJ.ces wanted to be a bookeeper so I had to send her to Winnipeg too. I had to pick be::,'.,~ies to pay for their board. Then I got working for some lady who wanted me to be there with her children when she was going out. �I worked for the board &'1.d that helped out a lot. Q. So in the early days you 11ould. pick berrie,... a.rid ··hat?, sell A. No, just sell the bo~cries. ja.1~1. I used to }ick abovt a $100 worth and that rras a lot of money in those days. It was a lot of berries too. long would it take you to' pick a $100 worth? Q. H011 A. All the berry season, as soon as the berries got frozen He couldn ' t sell them ' mymore. Fe would start about the 20th of July but there wouldn ' t be very many for pickine; and later on into Au6ru.st a day, my husband and I. Q.. He could pick maybe three baskets The children would pick maybe two baskets each. So you believe as long as you can keep active and do something useful there is no reason to be lonely. A. That is the way I feel. I've aJ.ways been that way. Q. Aside from your mother, can you think. ·of any other 1romc1.1'1 1·rho affected your life or tho Hay :,rou thouzht? . i . No, unless for my grandmother or mother ' s mother. She was a very proud Scot and I used to have to go stay with her during the winter because my uncle was up at the barn most of the day and she 1-ras getting on in years and they were all afraid she might take ill or something so I had to go and spend my winter months there. I remember one clay, their cattle weren ' t used to children, just :rown ups so one day she as:::ea_ me to take the potatoe peelings out to where the cows were milking. .Ana_ I didn't like to go. I wa.s afraid of those great big long hornecl cattle. She asked what was the matter with me a.rid I said I was afraid of their lon.; horns and she said, "Ah, la.ssie you do not trust your Lord or you Hould not be af ~aid to 6 0 out there. " lone way from me, Hhen those cattle got after me. 0 I thought , the Lord was a Q. So ·a lot of determination Has in your family. A. Yes, on both sides - my mother and father both were determined and I guess that is T;rhat pulled them throush. Q. ;rere they very strict on you as a child? A. Just about the sru.1e as all the children were. The parents were a great deal more stricter than they are today. Q, Were you as strict uith your mm children as your mothGr was? A. No, I a_on 't think Q. Hhat were the sort of thin_;s that you didn ' t want to do to them? A. I always tried to strai..;hten things out without trying to spank them. =1-ras. I didn ' t �like that idea. I think that was just taidnt: the spanking out on them for nothinc:; really. If you start when they are young and make them understand 11hat they should do and what they shou.ldn ' t'"·do, then you don ' t need to do the spankinz that some :people do. Uhat they call child···beating now. Q. How important was the Church in your life? A. Very much so until we did come doim here. Dryden was the nearest church and if you didn ' t mm a tcalfl of horses and a wagon you co1..lldn ' t '-·o in time to t;;et there. So we us Pd to have 81..ma_ay school and every Sunday it would be in a :iiff erent ho:-ne. Ue i-rould have a:.,-1 elderly man take the boys and nen and &"1 older lady for the older ones and I generally had the little one5. Q. 1 Tas the Sunday school important because it brouglt people together? A. Oh, yes, in that way. r'le used to get the missionairies that came in a.11.d they were statj_onea_ at Sioux Lookout and he vrob.ld come up once a HeeI: and l"old service in the evenings here,, at the different houses. Q. Did you ever ~et your mm church? A. r-.rot up there, no. He came out to Dryden and I think He had 7 churches here. Do you live here? A. No. A. I Tras 1-~ondering if you lived here you would I:noN "better the number of churches. Q. If you Trere our age is there aJ1ything you nould like to do? A. I 1 ron ' t say I'd like to do it over a.;ain lJecause I could make a lot of correct- ions. Q. ',Jhat nould A.. A number of thinbs I had to put up Pith a.11.d I didn ' t like. Q. 1 A. Different people coming in to settle here. JOU like to correct? Jould it be too personal to ask 1·~hat. they are? Sone of them would come in and they would be quite socialble and help out Hith everything. be Thm there would others that 1rould come in that would just seem to fight and ·o acainst ··•ha;t you were tryin 6 to do all the time. a lot. That was one thing that bothffced me Q. Here there many non-English spealdng immigrants? A. Yes, there was quite a lot of them. Q. Was there much interaction bebreen those people? And yourselves? A. They tried to mix with them and get them to see their way and try to impress upon them that they were in this country now and that they weren ' t in their ola_ country, and these were new rules that they had to abide by. �.J . .,~\. For instance, when the women __:ot the vote - espel::ially the Russians, they could not see that the women should get a.r1y vote at all. She should just do what he.r husband Hanted her to do. Q. . ould this be the views of the Russian men or the Russian women or both? A. The Russian men mostly, but the ~-~omen too. That is all they ever k..new. As things Hent on and they rr-ot older, then they couJ.d see our views. Q. How involved was the ·romen ' s Institute in wonen ' s rights? A. They ::-eally took a leading part here. Q. What kinds of things, other than the vote? A. Tho lady that or._;anized it - Mrs. Hoodless - she went around and practically cspent the rest of her life going around and lecturing and getti:h 0 women to join,. the Institute. Sometimes I ' d hear stories of women walking twenty miles through the snow dmm East to get to wherever she was lecturing. Q. Do you recall the views of some of the men in your community towards the Insi tutE A. They nere just as ea[;er to see it a success - they did ail sorts of things to help. ~- ~fas that because you did so much social work as well? A. It might be, yes. Q. 'Jhat do you think of the chru.1ge in women ' s roles? A. It is much ea,sier for them al though there is a certain, d e,_;ree of "tryinc to keep up with the Joneses " . ;Je dicii1 ' t do that, we 11ere satisfied wit h oui; :_ l og cabin and woodstove. Q. Insofar as she has changed in society - how laws have chcmged - instead of saying we are asking f o:r things we are fightin9 for then no~-1 and sometimes we set listened to. Are you glad to see this happen? A. I guess we will all be able to ha-rn somebody to carry on the work. ~. I hope so. A. . ........ there are women here who might be able to 6 i ve you more information than I can. Q. You ' ve been very interestins. A. There are 62 residents here. Q. Do you enjoy livin~ here? A. Yes, but when you ' ve been used to living in your try to keep busy. 01m home it ' s different. I . I usually spend the summer out at the farm but this sprin6 I had a call stone attack aYJ.d they wouldn ' t let me rro out there aion-e. Q. You macle dresses and things from A. No, f:~om flour bae;s. tobacco pouches? Tho~r v1eren ' t itchy, they we1."'c smooth after you Hashed them. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Eva Lamb Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Eva Lamb in Dryden, Ontario. The interview was performed by Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview Mrs. Lamb discusses living on a farm in Richan. She moved from Saskatchewan to the Dryden area in 1924, after she was married. She discusses the effect of the wars, raising children during The Great Depression, and women’s suffrage. There is a focus on family life when she was growing up and when she had children of her own. She was an active member of The Women’s Institute in the area and describes the role it had in bringing women together. This recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file). The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dryden Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History