66 10 13233 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/2b9c0c41526740c7ea960c75617fcebb.jpg 6525fbb3b590094b86906f23467e161f 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 W.F. Langworthy 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 Bird's Eye View of Jackfish Bay, CPR, from North Subject The topic of the resource Communities in Northwestern Ontario Description An account of the resource Photograph of Jackfish Bay, with buildings, a ship docked, and people gathered. Likely during CPR construction, 1884-1885. 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 Langworthy-14b-4 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 - Jackfish https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5d631d2cb5f13bcf7dd297b486f10386.jpg 36fc4e8c6f39e32d94057b22ca115ed1 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 W.F. Langworthy 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 Jackfish, Ontario: building of the Canadian Pacific Railway Description An account of the resource An imagine of the rock blasting taking place in Jackfish, Ontario to facilitate building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.). Reads: "Morrison's Cut. Ogilvies Jackfish Contract. C.P.R.". 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 Langworthy-14b-3 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 - Jackfish https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/30c841c9bd40bc8b79edaad9cab212da.jpg 17a49bfb51638331033aa1641bc1f5c3 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 W.F. Langworthy 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 Roman Catholic mission, Fort William: 19th century Description An account of the resource Image of artwork of a Roman Catholic mission in Fort William on the Kaministiqua River, during the mid-19th century. 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 Langworthy-14b-1 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/ca578ae17f0243ce3cf1e9a64a45221c.jpg 30a8c4932dcb104ef651949e63b04199 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 W.F. Langworthy 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 Fort William: Fur Trade Era Description An account of the resource Image of artwork of Fort William on the Kaministiquia, during the Fur Trade Era, early 19th century. 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 Langworthy-14b-2 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/d812565a47da4532b8f34f14f825c783.mp3 bba9a61181158e5faeaade3936e42147 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b75d6a16dd4825750cf9d704917046af.mp3 8320be2d79e4c71613bbd11ac4fde03f https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/ed8b4e5887daa92ac1e8349e70d36778.pdf a63701dfa86f6daa6dd2dc5a30abcc9e PDF Text Text Mrs. Stepanik, Kenora Interviewers: ' H.: Mrs. H.: Mrs. H.: Mr s . H.: Mrs. I Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky. When were you born? S.: 1905 in the old country, in a village. In the Ukraine? S.: Yes, I'm Ukrainian. What year did you come to _can.u.iadu..ca,1,-;?~ - - - - - - - - - - - - S. : 1924 ---· Did you come by yourself? S.: By myself. Yes, I come to Canada. I was 17 years old when I came to Canada. H.: Why? Mrs. S.: Because my brother. I walted to. Everybody said that's good to Canada. I come too. H.: What did you think when you came? Mrs. S.: I was not used to it. Not much people come yet who can talk Ukrainian. H.: You couldn't speak English. Mrs. S. English and I go to work to Jew's place. I stay one winter to Winnipeg, and I just have $15. In a month. H.: Where did you live? Mrs. S.: I 1ive to Winnipeg. I have a sister and I 1ike to ~linnipeg. I stay that place where I work. H.: What kind of work did you do? Mrs. X (neighbour): Housework. Mrs. S.: Yah, housework. I make it dinner, and supper and cleaned house and she had the kinds. I think I did not stay too long in Canada. After winter, I come to Kenora. ,ije (the boss) is moved to Kenora because he was working on a supply trade and I come to Kenora. I go to working in a hotel, commercial hotel. ~It's now the Kenwood. After I found more Ukrainian people here down at the Ukrainian -~_ig_s_Sn.d.e.t-y . -·----------H.: Did you enjoy it? ' Mrs. S.: I enjoy it. I go to sing there. Karen: Was there a Ukrainian Hall here? Mrs. S.: Yah, an or~anization. I played in plays there. You know at that time, there was not television not radio . . Neighbour: But plays in other words. Concerts and plays, comicals, of all sorts, you know. K: There's a lot of research in Thunder Bay about the Ukrainian Labour Temple there. Neighbour: Ukrainian Labour Temple is not associated at all with the Ukrainian Labour Society. At all. Temple is a Communist group. Labour Society is all Ukrainians, Catholics, say Greek orthodox, but they're religious. Labour temple does not recognize no churches. K.: But as far as the activities, they'd be similar. There'd be plays and dances. Neighbour: Labour Temple would be more in the Russian style and say they would have meetings which they would bring from Winnipeg that's propagandaLet's put it that you. You know. Instead of the real thing. H.: Tell me what part did you play in the Ukrainian Ladies Society. Did you act in the plays? Did you sing? Mrs. S.: Yes. H.: Can you tell me about it? Did you enjoy it? �Page 2 Mrs. S. Yes. Yes. I was in plays and I was President. N.: She was a president. For how many years? For how many years were you a president? Mrs. S.: 12 years in the Ukrainian Women's Association. H.: Did it make a difference to you? Were you very lonely until this Association. You had friends? Mrs. S.: You know I had small kids and my kids I teach Ukrainian school. Ukrainian school, there and Ladies society. I teached my kids there the Ukrainian. I talk to my kids Ukrainian, because I want to know that my kids talk Ukrainian. My kids told me lots of time, my daughter, you talk to me English and I'll teach you and say to you English. You no talk Ukrainian. You know I was interested. I know I like how eve;Jything 90. I like Ukrainian. Did you see this here? K.: So It was important to you to that your family kept their Ukrainian culture and the society helped you in that. Neighbour: She also is the Senior Citizen president at the moment at the hall too. Mrs . S. : Ya h. N.: And that's the part she takes. She has all her life. Mrs. S.: I like it. And I like people. I like to go out. I like to workin~ for organisationyou know. I like it, miss and I enjoy it. Because I'm not lasted. I have my people. N.: You have your heritage in other words. H.: When you first came out·here, you were single. Not married. (No) and you married in Canada. (In Canada) Mrs. S. : 1926. H.: That's only two years after you came, isn't it? (Yah) And he was a Ukrainian as well? Mrs. S.: My husband, yah, he's Ukrainian. William Stepanik. I meet him in the Hall, Ukrainian Society. H.: In the Hall? Mrs. S.: I meet him there. H.: What was it like then for you to be able to associate with young men? Were you allowed to talk to them openly? How did you see each other? Dancing, or what? Mrs. S.: Yah, -we dancing. This time we have a, you know he was playing in a (how do you say that) Neighbour: He was playing in the plays, in the plays, you know. Mrs. S.: In the same play. H.: In the play. So you were both in the play. I see. Mrs. S.: We believe to there. H.: So you shared a lot of ideas. (Yah) Mrs. S.: 1925 - We, not married yet, and believed (belonged) to that organization. H.: How many children did you have? Mrs. S.: Three - two girls, one boy. One, my daughter, down in ~lindsor, my son in Kenora, L&K grocery. (He have there two blocks from here) (Oh,yes) And my daughter die. You know. She's married and she stay next door. We builded house here and after she's sick. She have some sickness. N.:Hodgkin disease. Mrs. S.:Hodgktn disease. H. : We 11 . Mrs. S. : And she leave two boys, two kids. Helen.: So you have grandchildren as well. Mrs. S.: Yah, I have ten grandchildren. H.: And so. Ten? That keeps you busy, uh. �Page 3 Mrs. S.: No, he is not Kenora here. He is Winnipeg now. That kid's (of) my daughter. He come to see me. (Oh) Yes. Neighbour: He's a doctor of Science in Denmark now. Mrs. S.:WEll, my grandson, -my son's son, he's a teacher, some doctor. He go to Denmark. H.: Did you have your children in Kenora at home. Mrs. S.: Yah, and my son, Billy, and Lascia. Neighbour: But she's asking you if your children were Mrs. S.: Yah, yah. At home. That's right. H.: Not in a hospital. Mrs. S.: Not in a hospital. That's right. Because I'm scared - go in a hospital. H.: You're probably right. Mrs. S.: Maybe might change my babies. K.: Did a lot of women have their children at home? Neighbour: Oh yes. All the time. I had mine at home too. Mrs. S.: It's at home. And ... I live here past 51 years the same place. This house. Just I go married and I stay the same place. That's 51, will be 52 January 26, - I just get married, moving here and stay here and my husband have a mother and father. I stay with mother and father. H.: Did you like that? ----...... Mrs. S.: Yah, I like it. H.: You liked his parents. \ Mrs. S.: Yah, I like it. Mother very good to me because I'm not going to the hospital she's look at (after) me. ' H.: So your mother-in-law delivered your baby. Is that how it worked \ in most families? Did most mother-in-laws help their daughters with the babies? Neighbour: There's mid-wives. There was mid-wives. H.: YQu had the mid-wives as well. But it's better to have it within the family. Mrs. S.: Yah. She looked to me. This time I got to stay eight days in bed. Don't get up. This time just I have a baby. K.: Can you tell us, when you moved to Kenora, you met some Ukrainian people. N.: Two yearsafter she was here. -----Mrs. S.: Just one wintertime stay to Winnipeg. In the summertime, I think June 6th, I moved to Kenora. K.: And did you find when you came here that the Ukrainian people would have much to do with the English people and with the Swedish people and whatever, or did you stay in your own little groups? Mrs. S.: Oh no, you mixed. I meeted. I meeted. Lots of people. I have lots of people in my village from old country. From Kenora. N.: But you mixed with the English people as well. Mrs. S.: Oh yes, I wanted to meet. N.:Sure you did. Mrs. S.: And they are friends. Girls. They are Swedish girls. Zena. I liked that. N.: And worked with her as well. Mrs. S.: And one Czechoslovakian, one Ann. I working and talking and eat. I have lots of fun because I teach myself I want to talk little bit to English and that boss Jew. You know. Katz he's called. A Jew. And he's very good. He's just like father to us. Night time he come to look at that there be not boy in our room, that we sleeping, that _.,,,, we goo some place. \ �Page 4 Neighbour: Guardian in other words. Mrs. S.: Yah. (Laughter) He worried to us. H.: Tell me, can you remember about the depression? In the 30 s? 1930? Can you tell about how it was for you then? Were all your children born then? Mrs. S.: Yah, my one born 1927, and boy, 1928, in the fall time, my boy now, and daughter, 1933, Susie born. Neighbour: That's when I came here. Yah. ~Je came to this house. - - -.. . . And that's when I knew her. H.: So can you recall anything about the depression? Mrs. S.: Yah, I know. My husband working at that time in the mill. Yah. Fl our mi 11 . H.: Did it get closed down? Mrs. S.: No, not closed down, just not much work. N.: (Three days a week) Mrs. S.: You know what I do! I haven't got for kids (how you call it) diapers - yah - and I haven't got so I do with small bag. N.: Sugar and rice. Mrs. S.: Small one, with the flour. You know, we have the small bags. N.: Sugar bags. Mrs. S.: And with sugar bag, I make it for me diapers. H.: I see. I understand. The sugar bags for the babies. And so you had it pretty rough. That's hard not to find diapers. N.: She had cows and she had pigs ... H.: You kept animals. N.: I remember all these things you know ... Mrs. S.: I keeped cows. I keeped chickens. Because this road not road. Just bush, here. And I selled milk for 10¢ a quart and I haved milk for kids, and eggs for kids. H.: So you never had to worry about eating. Mrs. S.: No. Just not money. H.: Just no money. (Yah) But as long as you had a house, then you had this house. And you had food. It wasn't as bad with no money. I K.: Did you ... you never had to go on relief then in the derpession. Mrs.S.: Oh, yah, relief. We had some relief. ~ N.: But did you have to go. Mrs. S.: Not long. (Not long.) Not long. K.: And that would just help you out buying things. Mrs. S.: Just he have the slip to the grocery store. H.: Winter would be very difficult though because the vegetables are not growing then. N.: She had her own. You had your own vegetables from the garden. Mrs. S.: Potatoes. I had some yeah. H.: So for you the depression wasn't as bad as for some people. Mrs. S.: No not so bad because I haved something from garden, milk and eggs. H.: And your husband didn't have to work on the highway. He could work in the mill. Mrs. S.: No he not working that mill. He work in flour mill. Then we go to married. We not go for honeymoon because no money, no time. H.: Stay in the house. Mrs. S.: Stay in the house because next day he had to go to work. H.: Did you like staying in the house all the time. Mrs. S.: Oh no. I like daughter now. The style changed. I don't want it that my kids have the same as just I had. You know. H.: What do you want? Mrs. S.: This better now. My kids had school, grandchild, and he's had money. And he's go for honeymoon when he get married. 1 �Page 5 H.: So he can enjoy his life a little bit. Mrs. S.: Yes. It's better now. (UH HUH) It's better now for me too. H.: How? Mrs. S.:Because. N.: Is it .... Mrs. S. I have a pension now. I am a widow. My husband die. H.: So you have a pension ... Mrs. S.: He made a house for me, you know, my husband. I have a pension I have a little bit money in the bank, you know. Just have to eat and paid everything to my expenses. And just have kids, not too far, and kids come to see me. And go to Windsor to my daughter. (Good) And my daughter married. I am there. And I go to wedding.to my daughter's son to Winnipeg. He just married. He stay to Winnipeg. H.: Well, when you were young, you had to stay in the house. You had your babies very close didn't you? (yah) One right after another? Mrs. S.: Yah, I stay in the house. H.: Did sometimes you feel you couldn't stand staying in the house any more? You had to go out. Mrs. S.: My mother stay. My mother-in-law stay with the baby. H.: Ah, so she was very good with you. And when you went out, would you go and do work with the Ukrainian Ladies Association.(uh, huh) Was this your recreation? Mrs. S.: I leaved my husband with the kids. Sometime the kids. H.: You left your kids with the husband. Good for you. That's good. Mrs. S.: After, he was working in the sheds and they pay better. You know we had money. He wanted to save money for the kids so kids go to school. And he give the music to kids, you know. My daughter, piano. My daughter have it. We keep it here. Piano. You know he go to piano lessons. H.: Did you ever go back to the old country? Mrs. S.: Me? (UH HUH) Mrs. S.: No. Never. H.: Would you ever waat to? If somebody said, ... Mrs. S.: Nah, I just want to go to visit there. H.: Not to live there. Just to visit. But you'd like to go back and see your family. Neighboar:But she couldn't go see her family because I applied ..... Mrs. S.: In my village, Just I born there. N.: But they won't let you. Mrs. S.: And he don't let me go there. N.: You just have to go to the city and they would meet you for three days ... Mrs. S.: Yah, I like to go. H.: Because what I would like to know is how happy have you been in Canada.You think it's been a good place for you . . Mrs. S.: Yah, Canada, good place for me. I am free here. Free country. I like Canada. H.: You like Kenora. Mrs. S.: Yah, and my kids born in Canada. I have my family here you know kids, and grandchild, and I never go stay there. H.: Nevergo back to live. K.: Can I ask you why in the first place you wanted to come to Canada? Was it, you ~eard it was better ... Mrs. S.: Better in Canada, yah K.: As far as you could get a job, that kind of stuff like that? �Page 6 N.: Living was better. Living was better. K.: Did you come here with the intention of staying here or you just wanted to come and visit? Mrs. S.: No I thinking to stay here. This is better than old country. Old country you know, that time, people not have it very good because you had to go work. If you had not got much land, you had to go work for somebody. N.: For 50¢ a day. Mrs. S.: Yah, and here, was better. K.: And when you got here did you think it was better.? Did you like it here, Mrs. S.: I like it here Canada. Canada? K.:When you first got here though. Mrs . S. : Yah, I 1i ke it. I 1i ke it. K.: What did you think of the country? Mrs. S.: What did you think of the country? {Neighbour translates in Ukrainian What did you think of the country) i Mrs. S.: Oh. I think is better in Canada. Just not old country. Better here. Better here. K.: In the winter? I 1 m thinking of stuff like the weather and things like that. Mrs. S.: Weather. Oh, I'll tell you. Weather nice there. And you I have apple trees, prunes, everything, everything, fruit you have it I there. I have it fruit there in old country. I K.: What did you think of the first winter you spent here? That must have been pretty .... I Mrs. S. : Ah, I don I t 1i ke it. Too cold. K.: I guess you got used to it now. Mrs. S.: I'm used to it now. I'm used to it. H.: We've talked a bit about the depression. Can we move on to the second World War? Do you remember the Second World War. Did you have sons that would be old enough to enlist? Mrs. S. : No. H.: NO? Not old enough?yet? 1920's. Oh yes that's right. Mrs. S.: I am ... just war started. N. : Her son is younger than her .jb 1des t daughter. H.: It started in 1939. Mrs. S.: No. No. Nothing. Nothing in Canada. K.: But did you, did, say the Ukrainian Women's Group, I did they do volunteer work in the war? N.: Yes.Yes. Yes. I K. What kind of stuff did you do? Do you remember? I N.: Oh they knitted. and you know .. Mrs. S. : Sewing. N.: Sewing. Gloves and mitts and scarves and stuff like that. Mrs. S.: Look at how many cushions I have. H.: They're beautiful. {I like it.) They really are. N.: During the depression, they had some kitchen set up in the hall. I Yes. For the people who didn't have anything to eat. Mrs. S.: Yah, we had. We had ... You know one time I go to Red Cross and bringed some stuff and we signed pajamas for the kids and the shorts. K.: So there was a lot of {sewing) ... co-operation Mrs. S.: Yah co-operation for everybody. K.: Did you, I guess, through the women's group, you had a lot of co-operation between other women. -i ----- ' I I / �Page 7 Mrs. S.: Yah, yah, we do. K.: Did you appreciate that? Mrs. S.: I'm appreciate. I am like---=--=-----,,-· Everybody listen to me and you I am president, she vice-president and secretary and cashier and we do. We do fine. We do good co-operation. Just go to like it. H. : Good. Do .... Mrs. S.: Are you opened ... N.: Yes, you're on. H.: Yah, we're talking Mrs. S.: Holy Cow. K.: That just helps us remember what you've said. H.: We can't write ... Mrs. S.: You can't write everything. That's O.K. He no talking bad. K.: We'll shut it off if you want to say something juicy. Mrs. S.: That's O.K. H.: And we'll take away her pen. Can you remember though, did you hear anything about the second World War? I Mean like what kind of information were you getting? Can you remember how you felt about it? Mrs. S.: I think was bad. H.: Yes. Well. I bet you a lot of people would agree. Mrs. S.: And uh, and uh, that war started in old country there. You know. I go to the Russia. And German coming. We lived in we village and we go back where is not shooted. N.: But she's talking about Canada. H.: Well, also you know, that would be her village and you'd have feelings about that. Mrs. S.: I'm cry this time. I just small yet. You know. (Oh Yes) We taked clothes and we moved, oh maybe, two villages back, because, You know Zbruch, H.: NO. Mrs. S.: You know that, what you call it, just a minute, ....... . River Zbruch, we not too far from there. And Russia, there. You know where Russia started. I live in a , not far from there, (Near Russia in other words) in my village, you know. H.: So that's close. Mrs. S.: And that shooted from there Russia, my village. And my village shooted back. H.: Oh, so you're shooting back .. Mrs. S.: Yah. N.: You protect yourself Mrs. S.: I know. H.: Did you lose family? They would be involved. They're so close. Mrs. S.: I have my mother and sister. After I'm go to Canada. N.: But not during the war. H. : NO. MRs. S.: Not in the war. Just mine sister to move to Russia. And the other one? Other same I think. N. : ....... . Mrs. S.: You know, is moved to Russia. My sister, my sister and my sister's N.: But did they have to, or were they forced to? Or did they want to go themselves ... Mrs . S. : NO. No. No. N.: They went on their own? Mrs. S.: No we believe to some organization and we moved there, my sister and my sister's son and daughter. N. : Oh I see. Mrs. S.: You know that time, just War started and my father, he is gone �Page 8 -to the other village, maked flour there. We had to (in Ukrainian, she said he went to grind flour) and starts laughing. Ha. Ha. Ha. I can't talked. I explain to you. N. : Fl our mi 11 . Fl our mi 11 . Mrs. S.: Flour mill and my father go there and my father did not come back. Russia take it to him the other ... the other ... N.: He never returned Mrs. S.: He never come back. I never see him again. H.: Your father was gone. Your two sisters had moved to Russia. So there's just your mother and your other sister left in the old country. Mrs. S.: No I haved more sisters. I have in the family seven sisters andthree brothers. H.: Big family. Did your mother teach you anything that you think helped you? In your new life in Canada? Mrs. S.: No. She no teach me in Canada. She teach me in old country. H.: Yes. But what do you think she taught you? N.: Translates question. Mrs. S.: Oh yah, she taught me watch yourself. Don't go nobody. With nobody if you don't know nobody. Yah, yah, my mother teach me that. K.: How did she feel about you moving here.? I guess she was said to see you go. Mrs. S.: She know our brother's here. We stay with our brother's. K.: I ... She figured you'd be safe with your brothers. Mrs. S.: Yah. Yah. My older brothers. K.: What about the voyage across. That must have been pretty terrifying. I would think so. Mrs. S.: Oh well. Lots of people there. I not scared. K.: Did you land in Montreal and take a train ... Mrs. S.: In Montreal yah, K.: And take a train. Mrs. S.: Not land. Goes boat. K.: Oh yes. Boat. Boat. And from there you go on a train. Mrs. S.: After on the train. I had company. Lots of company. Two girls and kept company with those girls. H.: So the three of you, all single girls, no husbands, Mrs. S.: No, no husbands, H.: So the three of you were all going to Winnipeg and you went together. Mrs . S. : Ya h. H.: That was good. Mrs. S.: Yah, that's good. H.: So you think there's ... That's a lot of co-operation again. Mrs. S.: I come to Winnipeg and I stay at a station at ......... (Gabaraith?) because my brother worked in a section at .......... and some lady coming and she see that I stay there and I don't know what I had to do --just stay there to Winnipeg in the station and she come to me and talked to me. �Page 9 N.: She's thinking of women ..... and you're thinking of women's liberation and all that ... K.: Well, women that are working outside their homes N.: Outside the home and not looking after their children like if you had children, you worked, and they get a baby sitter or take it to a .... H.: Well no that's not exactly it. Right now, a lot of people have to work. K.: I just mean in general, I mean women are more active now in public things like yourself. Mrs. S.: Yah. N.: She was always active so I ... you know. Mrs. S.: I know that time, I looked more for kids and now look at the young people .. H.: Good. Mrs. S.: Because I never leaved my kids home and go someplace. I leaved my kids, I know, I leaved with somebody good for them. (In good hands) In good hands. You know and now I hear that lots of mothers leave the kids or give for adoption. I be never give it adoption my kids. I be heared how there's some accident, you know some give, but they never get it. I don't b.elieve that. H.: You see a lot of women, right now, a lot of mothers, them and their husbands, and it's not because they want too much, it's just that they can't afford it.Things cost too much. Both of them have to work. You know, especially the young couples. Mrs. S.: Yah, and spended lots and drink lots and go to the show lots and have a good time lots H.: I can think of people who can't afford to do that, that are friends of mine. Mrs. S.: Why? H.: Because they have children and they can't afford it .. N.: How would you like to live on $160/mo ...... . H.: At any rate, at any rate ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Michalena Stepanik Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Michalena Stepanik in Kenora, Ontario. The interview was performed by Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Stepanik recalls her experience immigrating to Canada from Ukraine during the war, life during the depression, her experiences as a mother, and participating with the Ukrainian Labour Society and Ukrainian Women’s Association, where she served as president for 12 years. The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English - Ukrainian Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Kenora Ukraine Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [197?]-06-16 Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1316ae3f9efb088b8500f9fd31a47c5b.mp3 bc5ac49c69b252ee1d9d939ae4b3b836 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/96c82d83ccfd9eff271614e094737b37.mp3 1562812d229405a3878d2ed2ecb7ef30 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/e8edbc418dc434a8a4ecb0564e3ae373.mp3 9cdd25ea31faea78501ab1554b0da148 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/22b82481f28a7d852ddbcfb61cd713b0.pdf 1b87802b13a1b16b53a83a5752d01a5b PDF Text Text I ~,.5. L°'"°\ bl ~\()\(\On My earliest childhood memories go away back to the "Homestead". This was a section of wilderness land (in this case mostly rock) on which you had to build a house and clear so many acres of land to get a patent or ownership from the government. The two-story log house stood on the east side of the rocky clearing. I can still see the blackened stumps jutting up out of grass in summer, like monuments to the strong, tall trees that had once stood there.- Those trees .. now shelt;ered the young couple who had crossed an ocean, met here, were married soon after and decided to settle here. My father had left me in the care of a childless couple, after my own mother had died of child-birth fever. They had to work hard and long hours, but always had time and more than enough love for me. chores. I followed them around as they did their The cows, calves, pigs, and chickens had to be fed and looked after, and the eggs gathered and packed into square wooden boxes which held exactly twenty-four dozen. We had a few pigeons who flew right into the chicken house and had their own little nests. I waited anxiously for them to lay their eggs and only once wanted to fry the tiny egg. The big white "Leghorn"rooster had it in for me and would dig his sharp spurs into my legs or back. I would go screaming to the nearest shelter. When we had lots of cream, butter was churned. I could not reach to help with the big wood churns that stood on the floor and had to be plunged up and down. When the butter finally separated into golden yellow clumps, it was scooped out into i �large wooden bowls (these and the wooden spoons or ladles were winter or rainy day projects for the men to carve and smooth out), and washed in cold water, worked with a wooden spoon or ladle until no trace of buttermilk remained. Then it was salted, and allowed to stand in a cool place overnight, unless you were out of butter. It was delicious fresh, but if you were particular, you worked it some more and drained every trace of water. Then you would have nice yellow butter without any discolouration in it. If you sold the butter to the store, it had to be packed into one pound wooden moulds and wrapped in wax paper marked 'butter'. Of course before you had cream, the cows had to be milked, and the milk stained through a clean cloth (carefully washed and dried) into milk pails with lids. large tubs . The pails were then put into of cold water, which first had to be dr~ wn from the well by hand, and the water changed until the milk was cold. If you had a cool place to store the milk, you left it to stand until the cream formed on top. This was skimmed off into glass jars or enamel pails when possible. you churned. at this stage: When you had enough cream, The temperature of the cream was important too, too warm, the butter was soft and hard to wark; too cold and you churned and churned much longer. you had cream separators, of course. (Later on By haad, you turned the crank, and at the right speed). The women in the family worked hard. and ironing were. all done on the wood s~ove. The cooking, baking Flour and sugar was purchased in one hundred pound cloth bags, which were later used for dish towels, sheets for children's cots and underwear. 2 �I liked the smell of the green coffee beans being roasted in the black pans. The black pans were alwys used with wood- stoves, as they baked better. When the coffee beans were nice and brown, they were put into jars, and would be ground fresh every day in the coffee mill. I always begged to do this. In between, I played with my rag doll, and a big red tom-cat who followed me everywhere. In summer I rode on top of the hay loads back and forth from the fields. In winter, if the weather was not too cold, !-. ·would be bundled up in what seemed like yards of knitted woolen scarf, knitted mittens and heavy hose, felt boots or rubbers on wet days that laced up the front and had felt insoles in them. of for girls or ladies. men Ski-pants or slacks were unheard Then I wouldfide to the forest, where called "pulpwood cutters" or "lumberjacks" had cut spruce trees in four foot by four foot by eight foot piles, which was a cord of wood. These were sold to timber companies and then sent by rail or water to pulp mills to be made into paper. Birch cord-wood was cut and piled the same way; people mostly heated their homes with wood. This was how they made a living. It was hard, cold work, but better than the one dollar a day my foster father had earned on the Grand Trunk Railway. The land was rocky and not suitable for farming, but the trees were there; he had the foresight to see this. The "Homestead" and hard work paid off; they were able to buy three hundred and sixty acres of land near the village, which he later sold in ten acre lots and through which the Trans-Canada Highway now runs. It was indeed a happy day when visitors would come for a visit from a neighbouring homestead or from the village. 3 �Roads were not plowed and in spring break-up the dirt roads were bad. The visitors usually had news for the grown-ups, and the children played happily after the first shyness wore off. Blueberry time was a happy time, but the preserving was no picmic for the ladies. However the berries made good pies and desserts in winter, as I hardly ever remember having had fresh fruit in winter. It was nearly all dried fruits from which pies and the "Finnish Sweet Soup" was made. Carrots and potatoes were stored in root houses but there were no fresh green vegetables in winter--not even aabbage after the ones from the garden wilted. The stores in the village were interesting places to go and see. I've been told I turned my first ice-cream cone upside down and lost it. One of our neighbours got a "victrola" which had a big horn attached to it. After you wound it by a handle and put a cylinder-like thing on it called a record, it played music like I had never heard before. Until then I had only heard some of the "1 umbe rj~ks" play on a mouth organ, small accordion, a squeaky violin, and an oboe, and sing their folk songs leanned in their homelands. house. In winter they used the upstairs as a bunk The stories they told were always ·interesting. One poor guy from Finland had never seen pork and beans before. Because he had come in late one day, they had already cooled off, so he put them in a dessert bowl with sugar, and poured cream on them. He bravely tried to force them down, but finally my foster mother went over, took them away, and kindly explained they would taste better warm, and wouldn't he rather have a piece of her pie? He was quite happy to make the exchage. �The men had enormous appetites and needed the extra food to withstand the hard work felling, cutting the trees into four foot lengths, then piling them in deep snow. Suddenly my life changed. for me, with a new mother. I was told my father was coming How frightened I was! I still remem- ber lying curled as far in thecorner of the couch as I could get, with a sofa cushion over my head. Finally I peeked a bit; to my astonishment, this step-mother looked like a very nice lady. In the three years I lived with her, I grew very fond of her, but she was too frail for the harsh life she was living under now. She was expecting when the 'flu epidemic came and she did not pull through. I remember we had a "doctor" of sorts, who didn't or couldn't do anything to save her. me. Seeing her die was hard for The coffin was sent down by railroad and lay on the kitchen floor until the body was put in. opened again. Fortunately the coffin was not T~Q Anglican minister conducted a short service in English, which very few undertood. A big black wreath was hung on the front door, and I used to come up the back lane while we were still in that house, so I would not see the black wreath or be reminded of it. How I missed her! She had made Christmas morning, for the first time in my memory, a lovely day to wake up to, with lovely presents beside my bed--a little doll, wash tub and board, plus a small clothes line with small pegs for the doll clothes and some candy and fruit. ~~d The second Christmas we even Santa come to the house. s �After moving to Nipigon village with my father, I started school in the little United Church, as the one room school was too full and the new school not ready yet. In school I had to learn another language which was called English. The first year in the new school, I was learning to read out of the first Primer--"The little Red Hen found some wheat", who will help me plant the wheat, etc .. (Not long ago, I heard the little "Primer" being ridiculed, but I did learn to read, which I still love to do). As for spelling, a very young teacher taught me a lesson I never forgot. In Grade 3, her class was getting terrible marks in spelling. We were fooling around, so one morning she announced that any= one having more than three mistakes in spelling would get the strap. We were stunned, but we lined up for it. She did not hit hard, but it was the humiliation of having to go home and confess getting the strap. I was back with my foster parents at the time, liuing next to the present clinic and on Bell St. I knew they would only gently scold me, but !". ~new they would be hurt that I wasn't taking school seriously. They had not had the ch ~ nce to go to school of any kind and valued education highly. Needless to say, my spelling improved over-night, and never again, the strap. I could not do things I knew they would not approve of, even though I lived sometimes with them or batched with my father or was boarded out with older couples, where I ate, went to school, and mostly cried myself to sleep. But I loved school; weekends I dreaded. I remember learning to \\ It print 1921. I do not know why it remains in my memory. I , �remember, too, learning to draw the Union Jack, to colour it, and recite "The Union Jack is my flag." How happy I am that my grand-children have the "Maple Leaf", and can call it their very own, and I hope always with pride. I loved winter and s~ow, and skating, which I learned on a small back yard rink, and skiing on the hills. The roads were not plowed in winter, and only horse-drawn sleighs were used. The hill on Bell Street on the way home from school was ideal for sliding with a piece of cardboard when it was well packed and icy. There was a hollow in the hill that sort of catapulted you out - --tha t you couldn't beat for fun. spring, marbles and allies came out. until it was time to play ball. This was a game I enjoyed The C.P.R. field at the back of the station was a favourite spot after school hours. right through to the last year in school. the Lagoon. Twwards I p.bwed We went swimming in Now due to the carelessness of man, it is such a cesspool that even fish can not live in it. In summer we would walk down the C.N. tracks to the bridge to see who was fishing or go rowing in the lago on. Hop-scotch also was a good past -time, and I spent many hours at it. course, a picmic was exciting, with races and games. Of The first one that I can remember was near Lake Helen, about where Bob Matchett has his trailer park. We had sack racing, tug-of-war and egg-on-a-spoon(they weren't boiled ei~ her) races. Years later, there were sports booths etc. down at the far end of the lagoon where Thompson's cabins are. l �The occasional trip on the train to Port Arthur was enough to keep you awake all night--so many people, lights, and street cars. All those stores! Of course years before that electric lights had come to Nipigon. Just by pushing a button, instant light--no more matches or smelly coal-oil lamps. the first cars; my foster parents had one of the first four I was told the horses were under Mode~l T Fords in Nipigon. the hood. Unbelievable! ,, "Gentiles's chairs. Then ob and a nine day wonder was ice cream parlour, with white wire tables and And how could I forget the Player Piano. It was so pleasant to have some ice cream and listen to "Orient" (Gentile) Winfield pump out the music. In summer the big circus under a tent, with real live lions in a cage and huge elephants doing the heavy work was exciting too, with all the glitter and side shows. I remem- ber once seeing one of our oldest citizens bring his wife down to see it. She was half blind, but he held her hand and described to her what was going on and how everything looked. Years later he was criticized for being back at his job the day after she died. Perhaps he was right; life does have to go on. Until his time would come, by keeping busy, the day would go faster until he returned to the lonely house with so many memories. The Black Bay area has a very special place in my memory. My foster parents had by now(Iwas about ten years old at the time) started leasing rights to cut pulp (spruce trees mostly) on government owned or "crown"lands. The men had been busy all winter in the rough bush camps that had been made out of �logs. Rough lumber was hauled in by horse drawn work sleighs for the roof and floors. Rough bunks too were made, usually with douNe huge burlap bags ~£fed with hay . . Cou4rse grey blankets and your own sweater or mackinaw for a pillow served as bedding. A big camp stove, usually located centrally was the source of heat, with piles of fire-wood beside it. dried your clothes for the next day's work. Near it you Rough wash stands were provided with an aluminum wash bowl, and if you were lucky there would be hot water in a tub on top of the stove. One or two coal oil lamps served as light. early to bed and early to rise. It was Quite often saw blades had to be sharpened and the rope made tight on yourwooden buck-saw. Blades often broke or the wooden ends cracked. facilities or motorized saw here. No modern An illustrated book by William Kurelik is the most authentic book I have read on the harsh life of a lumberjack's life. it too, except for the dirt. The Finn lumberjacks were nearly all quite fussy about cleanliness. was built too. He tells it as I rem e ..10\).er Quite often a ste1n-bath However this one at Black Bay did not have one that I can r .em.e be,('. The cook-camp here was built together ui'"°' ~e. \,uV\',:_. house(>"~ tll\d only °"' "•c-\-i t,on be{"'->e.et\ ei,h ,hF Bttftk ~ettaF eni hof enl, s ~etyiyien nPyerPn iJp a ,+ , with a door which was only opened during meal-time. mother was cooking%erself. on the train for a visit. the weigh-freight stopped. My foster One Christmas holiday I went out From the lonely section house where I had a ride to the camp with the supplies that had come on the same train--hay, oats for the horses, groceries to feed the men. dad again (between step - mothers.) I was batching with my After the joy of seeing my �foster parents again, I told them my own news about school and how many of us had been sent home from school and told to wash our hair with some coal oil in the water. My horrified mother had water boiling on the stove and my hair was washed and washed, after first being cut short as a boy's. I was warned not to tell any of the men why . She wasn't taking any chances on any or all of the men leaving. Coming in on a small boat during the summer vacation, I again was a problem to her. I was told to walk or run from the boat over the pulp lpgs to get on shore. They were in a shallow cove, ~ held together by giant logs fastened by chains called "boom chains". I was sure I would drown or at least get all wet, but I made it, safe and sou64 Of cour se I did not know then that it was quite shallow underneath and the logs carried my witht easily. This time there was a boy my age at camp for a few days with his father. we paddled around in it all day. and sore. He had a little canoe,so Next morning I awoke stiff It was my job to fill the wood-box in the kitchen, but I could not bend. I finally noticed a large snow shovel, so I would slide this under the wood and managed to always get ak few sticks on it. Then I pulled it into the camp and let the wood slide off on to the floor. seriously. a red rash. After a few trips, I was taken By night I had a fever and was breaking out in I had finally come down with the measles. The school had been closed for one week during the winter for lack of pupils, but I ~ cl waited til now. Any contagious disease was viewed with alarm by the men in those days and could have meant closing the camp down, so I was covered with a 0 �sheet in bed, while the men ate because the cook and her family as well as any female helpers slept in the cook house. ~ Later we moved to another camp. My mother and I stayed alone there for sevral days while the men all went away some where. The mornings were beautiful. I would sit quietly and wait for the mother deer to bring her fawn for a drink. would play and splash like a young child. ilies came. the alert. It One day two fam- What fun they had, but the mothers were always on The porcupines would fighten us at night--was it a bear or just a porcupine? When the men came back the wood that was left on shore had to be pulled into a boom too so that a tug could pull the raft into the water and haul it away. This meant staying in water all day. get. How hungry I would Then we went to the camp for canned tomatoes in an enamel dish and a slice of cold ham. At the end of the week, I too was given a piece of paper that read'fivedollars'and my name. It was a cheque and with it I could get real money I had earned, ! do not remlber what I spent it on. From here we had to walk many miles on a bush road used by horses during the winter, now not much more than a path. Somewhere I had found a kitten. Carrying it in the crook of my arm, I was gQing up and over logs and rocks quite well until I disturbed a wasps' nest. screamed. They attacked my bare legs, and I A young man ahead of me shouted; "Don't show them the white of your teeth." To this day, I con't know what pos- sible harm that could of done, but a second time that day, I was stung. No one knew how many times I was stung, but by the time we reached the tracks, my legs were so swollen and sore that I sure didn't feel we4~ home. But I still had my kitten when we arrived \\ �My father at this time had very high-spirited horses, and it seemed to me they could run like the wind. We had a sleigh with a canvas cover something similar to a covered wagan. It had a rough floor in it, window in the front, and holes cut so the reins could be pulled inside. He had built small benches on both sides and there was a tiny tin camp stove with a pipe going out to the outside. The heat from it kept you from freezing, plus blankets and the heavy clothing everyone wore. My father would take a load of people up to a neighbouring small community of farmers about ten miles away. They had a one room school where social evenings were held once in a while. It seemed every one that could move was there. Whole families came, and when the children fell asleep they were carried upstairs where the school teachere had her room. There was lunch and coffee served--how good it was after a long cold trip. It was pleasant and exciting with the glow of the lantern (in winter the ·days are short), and the heat of the stove. I loved to watch the square dancers; they were having such fun. The older peole did not get out often and these were rare social events for them so they were making the most of the eventing. Pe cpi e seemed more friendly then or should I say sociable and children were tolerated. Summers I just roamed around bare-footed. I will always feel the warmth of the hot sand on the beach at Lake Helen and on the hill near the cemetary. The white short lillies grew ~(A~l\.' there in such abundance, but I aQ,etr'"t even seen one for years. I have told my family I wish to be buried there in the warm sand when my time comes-nowhere else. One day a friend and I were so busy picking hazel nuts we lost track of time. We found when we fau~~ r~mP hnmo ~~~~ �full bags of nuts that most of the village was out looking for us. We couldn't understand why all the fuss-we were not lost at all. Just too busy. On this same hill years later, when the hazel trees had been cut down, I ahd an experience I have not forgotten; Someone's cow had to be butchered, and they needed someone to Blood sausage was made from this ~ stir the blood from the cow. So I went, not knowing what I was in for, although I knew farm animals were raised for food. the clearing. There was a fence around The poor cow was knocked unconscious, but when the man went near to bleed it, she jumped up and started to run around the field. I headed for the fence and over it. He finally corneded the cow and finished the job. He yelled at me to come and stir, but I was too scared to move. result was lumpy blood, except what he drank warm. The Pancakes were made out of it, using whole wheat flour needless to say. C"~ \l'\O~ To this day, I cnncrt eat them. I remeber while living for awhile in Nipigon a fight with a C\ "c.l friend d-ft.s crying out,"I am going to tell my mother." friend retaliated by saying, "You have no mother". My Speechless I ran home sobbing,to my foster mother to find the truth. Her answer I do not remember, but whatever it was, she remained dear to me until she died at eight-four years. The steam-bath was a Saturday night ritual that no Finn missed if she could help it. The hot rocks spit and spattered when water was thrown on them--no wonder, the large rocks had been heated for hours. The remaing coals were carefully �drawn out because it would be very hard on the eyes if any trace of fire remained as in those days there were no chimneys so the smoke went out through vents near the ceitling or through an open window. As a result the walls were blacked by the smoke, but you came out clean and refreshed. Your clean clothes were laid out ready, the bed's clothes changed, and after the sauna, coffee or mild with freshly baked coffee bread made you ready for a relaxed sleep. Winter was making snow men, building snow forts and snowballs until your mittens were soaked and your mitts and fingers began to freeze. Skiing on home made skis--if you happei\ed to lose one going down-hill, too bad, you had to go down on one somehow, get your ski and try again. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Mrs. Hilja Lange Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Hilja Lange in Nipigon, Ontario on August 21st, [197?]. The interview was performed by Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available as three MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) Text is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. During the interview, Mrs. Lange recalls growing up, going to school, and starting a family in Northwestern Ontario. She discusses the kinds of work she did throughout the years, working as wood hauler, in restaurants, and on her family’s land. She also talks about various other aspects of life in the earlier twentieth century, specifically around illness, war, and the depression years. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [197?]-08-21 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Nipigon Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Port Arthur Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/1accc879249bb199cf359594dc40bfcc.mp3 868e969cf481dac65e618d886983bcae https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/b58aaa98591ccc38cf679856cde41cdb.mp3 c60746aa41276715b834bcefd5457990 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/3631e11906902a6102c112b46ad92cba.mp3 4ce7f442fe5f4ba44de6c3db3b585cb6 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7fe3ed85066373a8901cc760f8e266f1.pdf 9bef97e7822049507657e2ee4f8e8aa6 PDF Text Text r '/ _, Mrs. Stephenson: Interviewer: (exactly as transcribed in handwritten form) Murillo Karen Dubinsky and Helen Lovekin (Children count to 5--fore run) K: We're taling today to Mrs. Stephenson, from Murillo. Could you tell me what year you were born in? Mrs. S: K: Oh, 1904. Yah, and how long have you lived here? Mrs. S: And I have lived in Murillo since I came here in 1924. K: Where from? Mrs. S: K: Really? Mrs. S: K: From England. Did you come straight here? And I came right to Murillo. Yah? Mrs. S: Well I came, yiu know, I landed in Montreal, and came to Fort William and came here. K: Did you come with your family? Mrs. S: No, I came on my own. Well, my mother brought me to Montreal and then I came up here alone, and I came to my Uncle (Lance)? farm. to. And I came up to that That's the picture of the farm that I came ----·------ Out on th~J i § : ~ And I lived there from then until I moved to Murillo, here in this little house, in about 9 years, about 9 years whenn I moved out here to live when I lost my husband. I couldn't live on the farm. I had to seel it and I moved to this little house. H: What did you arise on the farm? Mrs. S: Who me, I was orignially raised in England. �-2H: No, raise on the farm. Mrs. S: H: Oh yes, I was raised in England on a farm. No, I mean your livestock. Mrs. S: Oh yes, we had a dairy farm and sold milk to the Co-op Dairy. K: What dinds of work did you do on the farm? Mrs. S: Oh, outdoors. Well, I had to work outdoors and in, but my, I came to my uncle when my un~le was sick. He had asthma. You know what that is. you can work, some days you can't. Some days So I had to practically do his work and let the easy work for him to do because when you have asthma, on a muggy day, you're just like a wind-broken horse. You know, you can't breathe so I did the hheavy work and he had to j do what he could of the lighter jobs. So that's the way we managed. K: Is that unusual, then, for the woman to be doing the heavy work on a farm? Mrs. S: Well, I was raised in England in the war so in England in the war everybody worked. all--that's how I lost my thumb. on the farm at home. the farm there. And you did everythingo were going to do next. life. H: And there I worked England home. We all worked. Mids and I worked on Everybody worked. You didn't know what you You was fighting for That's all. You didn't go into the cities at all to work? Mrs. S: No. No. No, it was practically, where I was raised, �\ -3a farming district, and it was, it was, it was a little seaside resort and the biggest town was only four miles from where I lived and it was ... People came there in the sunnner for their holidays. H: In (Borden?) Mrs. S: No, it was called (Gould)? but it was, like (Bordnu-f)? It was a place like that . where they have people from London and oh the bigger cities come there for their holidays. H: So you lived on a dairy farm in England and you came here to work on your uncles's dairy farm as well? Mrs. S: H: And when you were married? Mrs. S: H: Yah. I was married to ... A dairy farmer? Mrs. S: No. bush. He wasn't a farmer. You know. He used to work in the Everyone worked in the bush here. Well, that's why werwere. His parentskkept, what is the Murillo Hotel now. His mother kept that as a boarding house and it was a big family and she did all the cooking, and a daughter, her grown-up , daughter, they, each had their jobs and they kept their roomers and they kept the schoolteacher and in those days, in those days, they dispatched the trains from Murillo Station instead of Fort William and they had two operators, day operator and night operator and they had .... There was about five men that stayed at Mrs. Stephenson's boarding house �-4- that worked at the station. And take different shifts, you know, and that went on for years and years, and they dispatched the trains from up here and in those days--when I came here, there was no--in the winter, you couldn't go to town with cars, you see, the roads weren't open. The roads weren't kept open then. H: How did you go to town? Mrs. S: With a team and sleigh. And the farmers would all grow potatoes to sell in winter and when it got cold, they would have to make loads. They would start off in the morning with a load of sixty bags of potatoes on and they would build the sleigh so that they would have a lantern or something in the centre to keep the potatoes from freezing, and they would cover them with a tarpolin and they would drive like that from here to town all winter long. Maybe three days a week, they'd do like that and, uh, take fruit and vegetables--fruit! --vegetables rather, potatoes mostly, into town. H: Was that ever one of your duties? Mrs. S: No. Noo for a mano I never did that. That was a day's work It'd start about six in the morning and it would take till about twelve to get there, you know, with a team, and a load of potatoes, sixty bags of potatoes on a load. all heavy horses. You see, and it was They'd have to take their time. And then they would put their horses in. They'd �-5always have a sale on potatoes. They would take them all to one place, to a score or somewhere, and they would put away, they would take their horses to rest and feed and they could unload their load while the horses were feeding and resting. You worked for your money then, you know. I suppose they got about 9Oj cents for the bag of potatoes, after they'd got them in there. K: We have a question about the climate and the environment of Northwestern Ontario. How did you feel that that that made your life particularly different. I guess the fact that you couldn't travel into town. Mrs. S ':' Well, we never knew the difference. I mean, as you got, as times in, as times got a little better, well, you got some kind of a car, or you got a truck, and you, the only thing. You did the same work on the farm, only you could get tinto town every day of the week with your stuff with a car instead of having to go in with horses. K: Did you feel that farming in Northwestern Ontario was comparable to that in England? Mrs. S: Oh no. There was no comparing. sell things like that over there. We didn't have to Over there, you---farming, you sold the one item and you grew the feed and everything to produce it. You know, you didn't have to buy ..... Here ..... You didn't have the winters to contend with over there, you see, you had winter, but it wasn't like the �-6Canaidan. over there. You didn't have snow or ice or that We were too near the sea. The sea helped keep you warm and you could grow something year round there. And your -rops are much better, you know. H: Mrs. Did you find the winters a shock? S: No. The funny thing was I ; dmdn't notice the winter. I was here. For quite a long time in that winter I never even wore rubbers. I wore leather boots the first winter I was here .. And I wore leather boots all winter the first winter I was here. I didn't notice the cold. But the longer you live here, yougget aclimatized to t this weather and you get so used to doing like the rest do I su suppose. Wear the clothes and the things that you wear here. But the first winter you come you don't notice the cold. You can stand the cold better than a Canadian the first winter. H: I notice it. Mrs. S: Hard to believe but that's the way it was with me anyhow. H: And so because you didn't notice the cold, it wasn't as difficult to do your daily chores? Mrs. S: H: No. No. You just lived your life. Mrs. S: You just .... Well I remember the first winter that I wore slacks, which I never did in England. I wore a pair of breeches the first winter, which in �-7England we never wore slacks. that when I left England. It wasn't got to You wore dresses. But the first winter here, I don't know why, but it was about the time when people was going into wearing breeches and that for winter. And of course I can knit because all English people can knit. So I could knit stockings for myself and mitts and things like that which help too, you know, help keep you warm. H: So it was first the effect of the climate on your farming that you found different. Mrs. S: H: No. Not too much different. No. Not much. Mrs. S: Because farming is farming. notice here. out. Only thing you Over there you don't turn the cattle You don't have to take them and break the ice and wait for them to drink. and see they don't fall and drown. You first turn them out and they can drink you see. You don't have to have--you don't have to have running water in the barns, and things like that over there. Here, you get up for that you see, because you have to keep the water from free~ing. H: Didn't you find that made your household work very difficult? Mws. S: Oh no. Because the water would freeze? You'd get so used to it that you don't notice it. You know you have to do it and it didn't seem to bother. �-8- H: What did you do--have a large barrell of water and cut a hole in it every day? Mrs. S: Every day yes. We'd have to go to the cattle. We Had to go to the bush and we had--there was running water in the bush and then in the winter you'd have to go and chop the ice up and make holes so the cows could drink. And stay theEe and see one didn't push the other in, you know, cause there's always a bah in a herd of cows. There's always some--like kids-- some gonna be there before the others, you know. And then after a while, if we get a serious winter, you might have to haul water for them or then it got that we used to try and dig a well in the bush and then we had to go and put a pump in or dip it up for them, you see. And you had to sa stay with them to see that they all drank and came home again. Or they maybe get frightened and one would push theo other in. Something like that. So you was busy all the time. And, I don't know. You got used to it. And that was the thing to do and you did it, I guess. H: Was Murillo a farm connnunity when you came here? Mrs. S: Well yes. Yes. There were mostly farmers here dear. All around, everywhere,-the farms were all a around the township you see and Oliver Township was eight miles square or somebhing, quite a big township, you see, and most of the farms was a hundred and sixty acres. �-9H: That's quite large. They wguilid have to clear that wouldn't they? Mrs. S: Oh yeso They'd have to clear that and when my uncle came, which was before I did, he saiddthey used to clear land. They'd burn over a peice of land, cut the wood, and burn it over to kill the stump and then, the next thing you know, they had another pice of land then, the next thing you know, they had another piece of land ready for the plough. K: I want to talk about the sotial life. stuff did you do? What dind of Maybe acitve community things with your church? _ _ _ _ _ ? Mrs. S: Yes, ! ah, they seemed to have had a lot of fun. When I came here their pass-time, they had a lot of dancing. Ah, you know, going from place to place and going to somebody's house SatufdEi.Jy night or something and have a bash. And they would load up a whole load and go somewhere to a dance. That was the thing to do. And they didn't mind staying up all night to dance. K: Did you go into town? Mrs. S: You couldn't go into town in the winter, dear. You--if you went to town--but there was trains-there were locals, they called them locals and there was a train went west to--where did they go?--Ignace--up the line somewhere. Fort William to ... H: Silver Mine? From �-10Mrs. S: Oh no. No. The train would take them to a station way up the line. Was it Ignace? Somewhere like that--that was the division point--division point, you see. And then it would go up today--there was a local that would go up today and then it would come back tomorrow and there was an operator at the station that you could buy a ticket, and get on the train and it used to go up in the morning one day and come back around noon or two o'clock or sometming and go down to town. into town like that. So you could go And then I think there was a train at night, about e i even o'clock, that if you got into town, you could catch thatt rain in town and it would let you off at a little station. So I can remember if the men wanted to go to a hockey game, they would get into town somehow and they could come home on that ~leven o'clock train to the station, you see, and they could get off, and they'd have to get home from there the best way they could. H: So the women stayed on the farms. Mrs. S: Well the women didn't go so much ehen as they do now. But the men went chiefly because the women didn't veem to want to go in the wintertime. H: Why do yout think they didn't want to go? Mrs. S: Well I think it was too cold, for one thing, dear, and they wasn't that interested in sport as they are today. H: Did the women do much socializing between themselves ' �-11- co-operation on the farm and that? Mrs. S: Well the farm women helped on the farm of course, and of course a lot of them had growing families and the younger ones, as they grew up, they went to town to work. But I can remember when I came they didn't go to highschool like they do today. You went to such a grade here, to about grade seven, was it? Here. Akd if you wanted to go to high- school, you went downtown and somebody would take you and keep you and you'd help in the house, help do the work, and help look after the children for your board and you went to highschool. what they did when I came here. they go to school today. But that's It wasn't like But I think they learned more that way because that was the thing to do and that was the only way they could get that much more of an education, you see. H: They had to work for it. That helps. Mrs. S: That helps, you see. And I think they were better for it because they knew if they wanted to get ahead, that's what they had to do. But today, this is my opinion, that the kids get it pretty easy today. You know. Then some of them did really well because they wanted to, you see. They wanted to go ahead. H: Because of the efforto Mrs. S: K: Yes. They put the effort into it? Was it connnon for girls to go on to highschool? �-12Mrs. K: s: Pardon? Was it connnon for girls to go on to high school? Mrs. S: Oh, the girls used to go too. T think there was just as many girls used to go to highschool as boys. Some of them did And they did very well. real wello it, you see. But that was the way they had to do There's one thing for sure, you didn't have the money to do it dear, and then after I came, then we had what we call "The Hungry Thirties". You didn't have very much then. Only what you worked for. K: How did the depression affect you? Mrs. S: Well, I didn't know then, you see. to it. We was used We was used to doing without for so long. How can I explain it? You see, we had gone through the war and things were hard. things you couldn't get. There was alot of You did with what you could and you made made a lot of things for yourself. know. You Everybody seemed to be able to sew or knit so that you clothed yourself and .... But there was a lot of things that you didn't have that you have today and nobody seemed to mind. You just had to make your life around what you could afford. K: Do you think the depression made people more generous in sharing what little they had? Mrs. S: Oh I think people were very good. figured it out, everybody was good. well. The way I had They got along It was like a connnunity, you see, and every- �-13- body got along just fine with eash other because that's all they had. Their pleasures ... they make their own pleasures and thei r little get-togethers and that were kind of home-made. But they enjoyed themselves, I think. K: If a family was suffering more than another, would there be cases where people would donate things? Mrs. S: Well they would get help. Or somebody ... If there was a case of sickness or something had happened, a disaster or something ... Well everybody would dig in and help. I think. Oh yes, people were good to each other, That's the way I saw them. You belonged to the community so, of course, you helped each other. K: How about the Wars, how did they affect the community? Was there a big affect? Mrs. S: K: The war? Either the first or the second World War. Mrs. S: Well, the first .... ! always told them I didn't know what war was. I mean, here. I didn't know what war was. H: Because they had been in Europe? Mrs. S: They were that far away from it that they didn't know what was was. volunteered. The men that went to war, It was something new. They didn't know what they was going into. H: Did you ever try to talk any of the men out of going to war? �-14- Mrs. S: No. No. It was no use to talk them ou of it. If they wanted to go they had to ... They had to learn what war was. of it. Because you couldn't talk them out Because it got to be in the second War they had to go whether they wanted to go or not. at first, yous see, it was the volunteers. But And in war time one volunteer is worth, at the time that that we thought to make go. practically volunteers. was going into. about. H: So the first war was They didnl t know what they They didn't know what it was all They had to learn that when they got there. Did your husband go? Mrs. S: No. old. Yes. He joined when he was seventeen years And he was in the first waro And he was in France and he came home and he came back. But then thank goodness, he wasn't my husband then. In the second war he was and he was too old to go. But in the first war the youngsters that did join at seventeen, they didn't know anything about war. They didn't know what they were getting into. K: What were some of the women's activities during the war as volunteer? Mrs. S: Well, they begun to take women int the services in the war and they worked chiefly as cooks and things like that. They were in the Women's Army and they would chiefly do women's jobs and that. didn't go to the front. Theyy Not ... but there was alot of things to do. H: How did the women manage to keep the farms with the men �-15gone? Mrs. S: H: Well the way I did I guess. You just did it. You just did it. Mrs. S: But, of cours~ on the farms around here, there was the grandparents. There was grandfathers and there was children in the clan that could help, you see. That was one thmng,--that people did here-- they were great to--like at threshing time--they go from one to the other and help each other. didn't have to hire help. You would come and help . me and I would come and help you. thing you know. That kind of a They did a lot of that. saving wood and things l like that. each other. They And They helped And got along like that. They didn't have to hire somebody to do the work. They did it themselves between themselves. No the people were good to work with each other and helped each other out quite a bit and it wasn't like it is today, dear. You wouldn't. now from then. H: Life is a different thing altogether Then everybody helped each other. Now everybody's for themselves. Mrs. S: Now everybody's for themselves. It's a different idea altogether now. And I don't know. People get along good together. If you belonged to Murillo or you belonged to Stanley 0r which ever place you belonged to you were that groip. together. H: So it was like a family. You got along �-16Mrs. S: Yah, like ... Side 2 Mrs. S: I forget how many years before I had enough money to go home. H: Oh yes to visit Mrs. S: H: Back home. But ____________ ? But you had to come here from such a veautiful clean part of the world into the bush. Mrs S: Oh yeso It was quite a difference you know. I can remember coming up here on the CN and I had to stmp overnight at j Capriole and I didn't know anybody but there's one hotel at Capriole and the hotel manager was used to letting people having them stay overnight, and catch a train the next morning at eight or something like that. And then I can remember catching ahe train and coming on and I suppose it was North Bay that I had to change trains and that was in the middle of the night. And I can remember as long as I live--! was only young you know. I suppose about nineteen. And I had to get off the train that I was on and go across the bridge, the river, and get on to another tBain to take the train to Fort William. SYou travel all day and all night and the next morning I got into Fort William about eight o'clock in :the morning. Then I had to phone my incle that I was in Fort William and had to wait at the station 'til he drove into the station to get me. But you see �-17by the time I came from the time they came, he had got a car and ... But when they came they had to come right on to Murillo and then the train didn't put them off at Murillo and they put them off at a Kaministiqua. And they walked back, they walked the trac~, mmy uncle and I walked the track from Kam to Murillo. is. H: And you know what walking the track I walked the track lots but it was no fun. With all your bags and everything? Mrs. S: Oh they left their luggage. They just walked back. They just left their luggage in the station and told the man at the station to send their luggage back to Murillo, on a train that would come down. K: Was that quite an adventure for you, travelling here by yourself when you were ... ? Mrs. S: Well, it was, yes, dear, because you didn't know the country and you didn't know the people. Bunt I'm one of these ... I'm the one that should go to Canada because I mix with everybody. mind it. I didn't It was quite an adventure but then it wasn't like it is today. You had bunks--bunk up here to sleep on--You didn't mind jt, though. It was something new--something you'd never done beforeo K: We mentioned the Suffragist England. Do you know anything about the Suffrage movement in Canada? Mrs. S: No dear, I don't know very much about the Suffrage movement at all. I wasn't used to it at all. �-18- K: How did you think about it then? Did women discuss it, do you remember?> ? Mrs. S: We never seemed to. I can't remember in my raising we had nothing to do with the Suffrage. Only thing I used to ... the men used to tease the women about being Suffragettes, but they never were. H: Not where I came from, they weren't. From the country rather than the city? Mrs. S: From the country ... they ... no. They might have been in the city or in the bigger cities because, you see, in England--England is a small country, but their cities are big and its cities. Fort William and Port Arthur. It isn't It's cities like Birmingham and places like that where you're really crowded. K: Do you think that, maybe the women in the country, in rural areas had almost an equality with men, then, since they were doing similar work? Mrs. S: There wasn't, as near as I can remember to Murillo, there was nobody that really ... they were just farm people ... They weren't business people--you know what I mean--I'm not slighting them or anything--they were just farm people. H: Everyone was valuable. Mrs. S: H: Yes. Yes. They weren't ... Yes, I understand. Mrs. S: They weren't beeter than somebody else or anythingo They were a nicely closely-knit �-19connnunity. You know, everybody was friends with everybody else. And they grew up together and I think it was an awful nice way to live. So they seemed to get along good together and the kids went to school together and they did everything. H; Together. Mrs. S: Together. It was quite a togetherness. That's the way I figured it anyhow. Yes. I thought it was nice what they used to do. K: So women were happy with their lives. Mrs. S: Yes. They were quite happy dear. They were quite happy to live the life that they were living. And they seemed to have a good time together, and nobody suffered I don't thmnk. Nobody suffered. If they didn't work for it, they didn't have it, that's all. H: And that would be a whole family's fault. And not just one member of the family. Mrs. S: No I don't think so. I think they got along quite well. K: You think a life of a woman an a farm has changed alot? M~s. S: K: Oh yes. In what ways? Mrs. S: It's different altogether dear. know nothing, you see. The women don't They got machinery and most of the women don't have to go out to work. then they got milking machines. And Some women that really want to get along, well of course they help �-20outside. But it isn't like it used to be where everybody had their jobs to do. to or not. it. Whether you wanted If you didn't do it, you didn't have That's all. But now, you see, they all have machinery to work with, and they have cars. Nowg instead of the women staying home and raising the family, the women are out to work and they've got somebody to babysit. K: How do you feel about that? Mrs. S: I don't like it. I think that I wouldn't do it if I had to start out tomorrow. my own family. I would want to raise But now I know there's young people like you girls who get married and they're in town doing a job and they've got a hired girl to Jlook after the house and raise the kids. not right. That's not making a home. has to be home. Well that's A mother If you want a home it's got to be mother at the head of it. H: The mother's the head of the family? Mrs. S: The mother is the one that keeps the thing together. That's my opinion. young tomorrow. That's what I would do if I was If I was young, no matter. husband was working, J If my would be home, looking after the house, and his meals would be ready for him when he got home from work. If he didn't get home to have his meal when it was ready, that would be his fault. Yes because the trouble today--I'm not slighting anybody--but the trouble today with them �-21all, you see, if they go. The trouble is alot of them work in town, come in, and instead of coming home, they have to go and have beer before coming home. A beer gets to two or three and they might come to supper at six o·' clock or they might not get home 'til all hours of the night. Well that would be their fault. If I was keeping house, they'd come home to supper at six o'clock, and the supper would be put away and if he come after, well, that would be ... H: Too bad. Mrs. S: Too bad. They'd have to eat wherever they was visiting, or ... because I don't hold to that. I don't hold to these .... There's kids here in the villages ... I've seen them raised from little. seen them raised from this high. I've Well, now they're old enough that they're married and they're working in town. Well they've got a hired girl to run the house and they're working a computer in town~ and the maid is raising the children and getting the supper and all this crap. Well that's not being a mother, I don't think. H: One thing that always interested me, was that when you live onaa farm, you have a lot of jobs to do. Mrs. S: H: You have a lot of jobs. You have a lot of chores and, how do you manage the children and do your chores at the same time? Mrs. S: Well, of course, I haven't got any kids, but the �-22ones that had them--they take the kids with them-well of course they'll ... And now they don!t do like they used to because, you see, theyhhave machinery to milk the cows. that. The men can do the milking and And the mother can stay in and get the breakfast and get the kids ready for school and things like that--Where the mother used to go out and help some too, you see. But now with the machinery to work with and that, the men could do that without the mother helping. by, they used to go out. But in days gone I can remember when I came, my aunt and my uncle went to out to milk. Then I got that I could go out ando .. When I got used to the cows, in a few days, well I could go and milk. And she could take a little longer to get up and have the breakfast ready when we came in from milking and I took over her place in that business but when I came here it was a little different than I was used to but I was used to working on a farm in the old country for wages, for working for somebody else and being paid for it. But all that I had to do outside was help milk and feed the cows. And usually the boss's wife she would help too and she would look after the chickens and pick up the eggs and all that. H: So on your own farm though, if there was just you and your husband? Mrs. S: You helped each other, yes. �-23H: You split up the work ... Mrs. S: Yes. We each had our chores to do and helped each other, you see. And when it was like planting potataes or digging potatoes, well I was out helping with him. We helped each other. The more you helped each other, the more you got for your-you know--you got more of a something together for yourself. You did that. That's the way you live. other. I r:nnean that is Isn't it? life. Helping each When you get married, well, you help each other and that's the way it was with us on the farm. And I used to love to go to the bush and get wood together. He would cut it down and I could help him bring it up and put it in piles and I'd go and help haul it home with him and things like that. Well it was something to do you see, because you didn't want to be sitting in the house and your husband out working alone all day long. K: You could go and help him. Do you think that made for a happier marriage? Mrs. S: I think so, Yes. You were helping each other. You was doing it for your own good and the more you did the more you got for yourself. the way we used to do. That was And then your friends and neighbours, you'd get up a big pile of wood, and you, d go ... I wouldn't go but the man would go and help your neighbours haul wood and three or four neighbours together, they would be, say at our �-24place this morning, and one • or the other neighbours this afternoon or maybe two or three places in a day. It all depended on the size of the piles of wood. And they get their wood all cut upa and then the woman would stay home. If she wanted tojshe could split a little wood or do something just to pass the time. Or you could sit in the house and read if you wanted to. have to do all the work. You didn't So that's the way we got along in those days. H: You were happy y~ ou were doing it. Mrs. S: We were happy, yes and then you'd go to a neighbours and visit or have a game of cards. was great. a big thing. It In my younger days here, cards played You know, everybody played cards. So you never was lonesome. H: Most people around (to see)? Mrs. S: Yes, say I lived here and you could have lived two or three miles from here--we had a car--and you dould go there and you'd sit and talk for a few minutes, and out would come the cards and you'd play cards, and have a good cime together and tease each other and have a lunch and come home. And that's what we used to do for pass-tmme, and they used to have lots of dances and always they'd go somewhere every Saturday night and danced all night. I used to have a good time years ago. think far better than they do now. The young I �-25people now--You don't see them! Of course, the young people, now, they get on t the bus in the morning here at seven thirty, they go into town and some go to this school, and some go to that, wherever they go to school, and then they're in town all day. You don't know whether they're at school or where they are. school. H: Half of them aren't at They're sunning the street. You talked about every winter, your water being frozen, How did you manage your wash? Mrs. S: Oh, we used to melt snow many years ago and sometimes it would snow and maybe it would pour and you'd save the soft water, and wash that day. I still do it. I can't get over saving myself water. K: It sounds like ... Mrs. S: H: And is it ever beautiful to have a bath ... In soft water. Mrs. 3 In soft water. I know. And does it feel different. It's beautiful dear. difference in soft water. winter There's so much I always- .. and even in the when I wash my hair, if I haven't got soft water, I melt snow. I melt snow for to wash my hair and things like that. H: And I still do it. It's good for her hair. Mrs. S: Oh yes, beautiful. But, on the whole, I suppose we've had our hard times but it was hard in the �-26hungry thirties. H: It was hard in the thirties. In what way? Mrs. S: Well, in the thirties, yous see, my uncle had died and my aunt and I was alone. I think for about eight years my aunt and I farmed alone and I got somebody to--I got a neighbour to help to do my ploughing and the seeding in the spring and I did .. I could cut the hay and everything and I used to cut hay and coil it and then I would get two or three of the neighbours would come one day and help haul it. I had a thing to unload it with and I could build my own stack. I got all kinds of pictures --I don't know where they are now but I always had pictures of eveeything I did. used to build my stack. lightbulb myself. And I Now I can't put up a But then I used to finish up the stack and ride down ... come down the hayfork. H: That's a bit of hard work. Mrs. S: It takes time to do that. Well, it's talent, yes, you have to know how. But I used to do that and I could build my own haystack better than ... I could build it. you see, L,.r,.k I got thekknack. unload a bale of hay. But, You know, you , You build your load so that you can take off a big forkfull here and you take off a big for~full there, and so on and then when the hay gets up on the stack, whenever you're driving out the team, you say, woe, and r you stick your fork in that hay and the stack o �-27might be from here to over thereo If I want to put it over there, I push it there and then I say ''Trip up.'' H: ~lfXXXHXX-i:moqI~~ I see. Mrs. S: And they trip ito And you trip it you see, and you don;t fork lift trip it, you just buildi it.H: Oh, yah. Mrs. S: And the next forful comes up and you put i it over there. If you want to make your corners, you just push your big for~ful. It was up in the air. You could do anything with ito much hard work. There wasn't that You just pushed it. f\11.d then you yelled to them to trip. H: That's a good idea. Mrs. S: That's how you did it. stack of hay. It was nothing to build a It was as easy to make it in a stack as it was to put it in the barn. H: That's a good idea. Mrso S: And then, she bails it, you brought it right up to the }Ast forkful and then I'd have to ride the fork downo I didn't mind. I was young then. I was so j used to it. I don't suppose I could unloose the .................... ? That's the kids you know. I ...... . H: Did you find that .... did you feel freer in Canada than in England? Mrs. S: Oh no. England. I don't know that I was freer than In We were free there. But I was free in �-28Canada. You were free in Canada. with the crowd, you're oKay. H: If you get along You're one of the gang. You didn't have to fit mn anywhere? Mrs.S: -> No. And if ... Well people weren't stm.ck up then, like they are now. They got ... you see--going to town to school--going to town--and they've got to go to town--and they've got to dress. They've got to go to town to go to the show or to go to for dinner or something or they have to dress ~k the eveningo Where--when you would go out together you only had one dress. H: For going out? Mrs. S: So that didn't make me different. That's all you had so you didn't have to be better than Mrs. J llones. I think years ago, they was much happier than they are boday. That's what I notice. It's got to be a little too above themselves. You see in England, you have the different classes. There's the upper class people, the wealthy people and they treat the people that work for them real well. You are treated real well if you work for somebody else because they're born to the gentry. If you're not born in that class, you're not in that class, in England, j you know. I don't know dear, but this is one thing I will always be proud of--that-when the Queen came to Old Fort William, I had a friend of mine, he used to teach school. might--What school did you go to? You �-29H: I didn't go to highschool here. Mrs. S: H: Oh. But Karen did. Mrs. S: Hid you go to Fort William? Mrs. S: Mr. Love--he's a highschool teacher. • ? h 1.In. Do you know Well he's a great friend of mine. friends. We're We've been friends for over twenty years. He used to come to our place out on the farm. loved to come there. tracks with him. He And I used to walk the I said I don't know how he ever wanted to be a schoolteacher, because he loved trains. And I walked miles and miles of tracks with Bob. He hated bricks and mortar. Ref came from--he was s born in the States and New York and Philadelphia and Boston and all those places and - - - - - - - - - - -and he was quite happy here-out on the farm--he used to be--I used to--whenever he wanted to go up the tarack I'd go with him-and Lazzy used ... I'd say to Laz, do you want to go with us? No. My husband. track. He used to work on the track. Laz. No, he didn't want to go on the He'd walked all the track he'd wanted to. So I used to go with Bob and we used to go on the track and he comes here yet. He comes here for his holidays and he comes here for Christmas. And everythmng. you know. H: We're just likeoone of the family, And he has house down in Vickers Heights. Were you able to meet the queen? Did he man~ge �-30something so you could go and see her when she came to Old Fort William1 Mrs. S. H: Who, Bot? Yah. Mrs. S: Oh, well, he comes. wants to. He comes here and stays if he John, next door, I didn't know John. He was from Nottingham and his mother wanted me to come over and visit her because I was so good to John so I went to Nottingham--you know Nottingham forest--it's like it was in Robin Hood's day. H: Smaller maybe, but it's still there. Mrs. S: Yes, and another day I had a birthday and the first phone call. I answered the phone and that was John, from home. And he said, what was it now? He said something and then he said, could I talk to Mr. Brown? And I said, John, where areyyou? knew his voice. Oh, he said, I'm home. I I thought maybe he'd come back to Canada and he was ringing for to come here. well wait a minute. knows your voiceo So I said, I'll get Charlie see if he So I got the cat from sleeping and put him up to the phone and I said this is your pa. And he couldn't understand. He couldn't think that that was John on the phone, you know. He cou ldn't realize it was John. He couldn't realize it was his voice over the phone, you see. But I knew his voice right away. He said that �-31he wanted to talk to Mr. Brown. voice. It was John's He didn't say it was John. He said could I talk to Mr. Brown and I sai4, John, where are you? H: I was hoping he was back in Canada. Do you feel that England is still your home, or have you be ..... . Mrs. S: Oh, England is home. Eng! and will always be home, dear. H: That's your home? Mrs. S: Oh, yeso Because when you was raised there for twenty years that's home. I mean you went through a lot with England. H: Well you did the first world war. Mrs. S: Yes. Oh, yes. And, ~h9 I don't know. English people are.o.they're a wonderful gang too. wonderful. And what they went through. They're Nobody knows what they went through. I mean, we lived right on the coast, you see. We looked out, from where I j lived, we looked out onto the Atlantic Ocean like looking out over Lake Superior here. And you see, we wasn't a bit afraid of the Germans. We wasn't afraid. We wasn't afraid of anything because there was the naby--so far apart. We were surrounded with ships out as far as you co could--you saw them and we as cocky as heck. We wasn't afraid of anything because the Rgyal Navy was guarding us. And sometimes you'd be in bed at night and you're bed would shake under yj ou and �-32you'd hear the guns. Well, that's all right. The Ger .... we, where I lived there was small ships brought food into" • • - - - - - - - - - - -and the Germans you see, they wanted all the supplies. They didn't want the people. didn't want to kill us. They They wanted the supplies and they would catch our little ships coming in with a load of flour or whatever they was coming with and they put ... there was about three men on a motor ship, you know, and they put them in their guns and take their supplies and they didn't want the men, nor the shipo They wanted them to keep bringing supplies to England so they could steal them. H: Do you think that experience of being not afraid and a little cocky, because that was a dangerous place to be .... Mrso S. H: It was but we weren't afraid. I know. Do you think that helped you when you came up here? Mrs. S: H: I think so. Not being afraid? Mrs. S: Because. But you see. We got that. H: We got that in us, too. It's born in us. We can't help it. You're fighting foro It's yours and you're not going to give i it up. That's the way we're made. So you took that attitude to Canada and made a good life. Tape tw8 Mrs. S: And there was an Englishman ~ , ate h acer that he �-33taught with--a teacher that was English born. H: (question inaudible) Do you think that you grew anymore, spiritually, after you came to Canada? Mrs. S: Oh, I don't know, dear. I think by the time you're twenty years old, you have grown to what you're going to be. H: Don't you? Personally I agree with you. Mrs. S: I mean, we will always be English because we were English. We were born English. You're English and that's it. There ! s something. You see, if somebody says something about England ... I don't know about you ... But to me, if anybody says something about England, I'm right up there. Right away. England comes first. H: So you always kept that with you, here? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. Well I was born an Englishman. I was raised an Englishman, and I'm still English. always be English. English people, there's s something in them that's there. It's there. You can't help it ... I don't know. thing about them. war. I'll Yes. There's some- We went through so much in the I can remember when I was only going to school in the first war, when Germany, when they really butchered the Belgians. And one of the head--the head men of Belgiam was shipped out to where we lived, - - - - - - - , he was sent there �-34- for him to be safe. And us kids, we put on a program, you know, put on a real concert, and the money we made was for the Belgians. And I remember--! was thinking about that poor old man last night--! forget his name--but he was only a little man. He still wore his badg--honours, you know, and ... but he was dressed as a gent~ ema.n. And he thanked us kids ... we were only kids and he thankeduus for doing it for his country. eried like a baby, and I never forgot him. And he He was an oldish man, but you see, he was just as true to his country as we were to ours. proud of us kids. his country. H: And he was so We were only kids doing this for I'll never forget him. Well, you came down here, shortly, ahy, not too many years after the war ended. There's people from all different countries here, that might have been fighting each other in Europe. Was there tension between these different groups? Mrs. S: No, I still, I got very good friends that are German. And I treat them as friends. I mean I wasn't fighting 'them--they weren't fighting me. They couldn't help ito H: So people find themselves caught in these situations. Mrs. S: Yah, but you don't let it bother you. friends. Just be They didn't want to fight any more than we wanted to fight. were told, you know. The just had to ~do as they I still got lots of German �-35friends. And some of them are real good, you know, well raised people, too. They're well raised some of them. H: So, in Murillo itself, there wasn't any conflict between people from different nationalities? Mrs. S: No. The only thing, if you said something to them, you know, oh, you bloody Englishman or something like that, well, you just let that slide by. know. You never let that upset you. English. here. You You're still I remember there was an English boy out He married a girl from overseas. He married her and they came over here and they had some kids and then she went home and s~e took the kids home and then she shipped two bask here and she kept two at home. Well, now the one come back here from London when he was a young man and he when he come in the door one day and he didn't even talk like himself. Oh, I s said, oh, for gosh sake, we got a cockney! And he looked at me and he had a good grin and we've been friends ever since. I said, oh, gosh, we've got a cockney and, you know, he talked like a cockney. H: ? K: We've been learning about something called Women's Institute5 that were big in the rural areas. Were you involved ... was there a Murillo Women's Institute? Mrs. S: No, dear, I wasn't. when I came. The Institute was about done I can remember when I came there �-36was an Institute but it was about dying out. K: Do you remember what kind of things they did? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. They did a lot of work for ... you know, they did a lot of sewing and things like when the war was on and they had--ane thing they did have-they had a nice library and Mrs. Merkly kept it-up where our store is now. She had a rooming house there and one little place about like that; she had for a library for the Women's Institute and you could go there and borrow bookso She used to keep account of the books you got and then she put them in and kept track of who had what, you know. But the Institute died out about the time I came. Well, it's like everything else, the old ones got too old and the younger ones wouldn't carry on. Not like it is in our church; I'm an Anglican. And we had a WA, and a WA mid the--the WA in the church, they do all the work that the men won't do. H: Yes, basically. Mrs. S: And you see, we used to put on big meals,--dinners and things like that and make the money and I was the secretary--! was the treasurer. money. They used to say we give her the money and boy she hangs on to it. money. I handled the She knows how to handle So they would put me in the treasurer. There was the president and the secretary and the treasurer. But the money all come to me, you see. I was the treasurer. And I knew how to put it away �-37- im the bank and keep it. H: Keep hold of it. Mrs. S: Yah. Keep hold of it. earn more, you see. I didn't ... and make them Not because you had a few dollars in the bank that you would make. You had to keep on making more. H: You ran your household that way as well? Mrs. S: K: Yah. I ran the household that way too. Was it special for you to have the opportunity to work with other women in associations like that? Mrs. S: Well, I can get along with people, you see. don't care what I say. I I think this is where I get along and if I want to swear, I swear. Now we've got a minister and I think we're going to like him. He said to me the other day--he came to the church, they had the special service when he came. four or five churches under him you see. a minister yet. He has to be ordained. He has He isn't But he said to me--I think we're going to like him because he's one of these mixers. soon as I can. He says, "I'll be out as Have you got lots of children?" On our street, you've got everything. There are kids and cats and dogs and bicycles and I said you name it and we've got it. all right with us. So he's going to get along So the kids they all come here. They all come here, you know. All the neighbours' kids come here and I trust them. them. I buy candies for I go to town and I geep them, and they can �-38have two each. And they help themselves. know where the can is. They They go and get the can and they bring it up and put it on the table and "I want that one" and "I want that one". say "two each". I'll And they take the two each, however many there is there, and they put the can back and put it away. I don't give them to them, they help themselves and I trust them. trust them to take two each. to town with them. I And sometimes I go I got a bus to go to town, too. It's a school bus that takes the kids to school and then it picks us up at twenty minutes to ten. It goes into town to the bus stop outside of Eaton's, and Eaton's are very good to us. We're allowed, j f we are tired, we can sit on those chairs where they try on shoes and that, they let us do that. you. And I said, "Well that's very nice of You're doing that for us. eat up at the dining room. we have a meal in town. I said, we will So we go there, and We go away, you see, about twenty to ten and they pick us up again. picks us up again at two in the afternoon. come there to the hbs stop. body laughs at us. The bus So she And of course, every- You see, and they'll say, "Oh, here comes Murillo bus',' you know,, " There's lots of them, there's about seven of them come all one after the other. And we'll be in between sometimes. "Oh, here comes the Murillo bus". We don't care. �-39We answer them back, that's all. H: As a woman, you never thought of yourself as a specific interest group. You never set yourself apart from what the men were doing. __________________You talked about how you helped each other· Mrs. S: Oh, we helped each other, yes. And we always-- when the boys played ball, it was always as long as I can remember, you know, you went to the ballgame. And the Kakabeka ladies would be behind their team and we would be behind ours and we used to fight like tom cats. Don't you remember going to ballgames? H&K: Yes. Mrs. S: Oh, my godo But you know I've lost interest in the younger generation. They don't play ball like the old ones usedx to. But we had a hockey team and we had a ball team. Every village had a ball team, and of course theirs was the best, you know that. each other. That's how wef got along with And then we always had a dinner or something at the end of the year, the and everybody turned out to that, and everybody gave to it and cooked for the dinner, you know, and you bought your dinner just the same. was the community as a whole. THat It was much better then than it is now. H: You think it's gone down. Mrs. S: It's gone down. The younger people, you see, �-40they get on the bus and go to town to school. They mix with eigy kids. In high school they mix them with a different type of individual and it got to be that our kids have left us. You know, from they're marrying people away where they used to marry, into the families here, and now they've gone to town and they're marrying into people that we don't know and we don't know none of the-of the woman t There waa one of the boys that--Tommy--thatkkeeps the post office. One of her boys was married Saturday night. Well he's married to somebody from town that we don't know. to know her. You know. We've got to get And the boy next door, he's going to marry a girl from town. Well she was out cutting the grass for him yesterday, and she's going to be all right. her working. So I said ... I seen I knew who she was. So I'm out and I said, "Well, you know, this is a funny thing", I said, "When I'm cutting my lawn, there's never nobody that comes to help". But I said, "Allan, he's got a girl to help him''. laughed. And she just I knew who she was, you know. But I said that never happens to me. H: You think she'll fit in better because she's ... Mrs. S: H: Oh, she'll fit in because she's a good worker. She's a good worker. Mrs. S: Yes. She was out and they cut all the grass yesterday. So they're not going to lookaany �-41- worse than the rest of us. Oh, no. And over there, in that house, the boy that lives over there--he drives one of these tractor-trailers. And in· the winter, there was only once in the winter, that it snowed and then it rained and it was all frozen and I couldn't do a thing with the snow, you know. And I thought I heard a tractor closer to me than over on the other side-or there--and I went out to see what he was doing and he got me ploughed out. And I said, "are you Danny?", and he said "no, I'm David". So I said "well, that's good of you to plough me out". I said, "let my pay you for doing it." He said "no. The pleasure is mine". He wouldn't let me pay him for doing it. H: ? Mrs. S: So, you know. This is young people. people are good. H: They're still good. But there ... They're changing. Mrs. S: His wife is from town. Her name is Margo. the lady down there is Sandra. all friends. belong to us. Mrs. Brown. Then You know, you're And the Mias up here is our kids. The Rias on our street is our kids. H: The young They all The don't belong to Mrs. Jones and They belong to us. They're our kids. When they were growing up, before Murillo had more transportation, ah, people weren't living on their farms and just making what they cgumd from it. Were all �-42the kids able to go from farmhouse to farmhouse? Mrs. S: Oh, yes. They used to be friends just the same. And kkate. And they walked miles to get from one place to the other. They had to walk then. They watlldn't do it now, but they did then because that was the only way they could get there you see. H: So if the family was busy--if a baby was being born-or some thing ... Mrs. S: H: Oh_ yes, well somebody would look after them. The ki.ds. Mrs. S: Oh sure, yes. It didn't make no difference if there was six in the bed, as long as they got that sleep. Oh, no--the people in the village--you were a connnunity. I noticed that if you belonged to Murillo, you belonged to Murillo. H: And Murillo belongs to you. Mrs. S: Yah, but if you go to town, you don't know your next-door-neighbour. Well here you know everybody. And you expect to be friends with everybody. And when people come here to live I get a whole bunch of new neighbours. Well, I'm not one to go snooping around to know what their name is, you know, just to be friends . with them. I don't want to bore into their house or anything, but wlll, I let them know to come on up sometime and have a cup of tea, and that's it, and then you're friends. That's what we do in these communities like this. We're all friends and it used to be the same at �-43- home, and where I lived at home, we had three churches, and each church, if one church was having something special, the other two churches closed their doors so that everybody could go to the church that was having the--that's what we used to do and there was Anglican and United Methodist and Weslian Methodist. And when there was something special like there was in war time, there was always something special, it was nothing for all three ministers to be in the pulp8t together. That's the way we got along. H: This is the best way to live. Mrs. S: Well I think that's the way to live. is just as good as another. Because one It's the same--just-- you know, you're all going to the same place one way or the other, aren't you? H: ? Mrs. S: That's what I think. Oh, you girls, would you like a cup of tea? K: Yes please. I meant to ask you a question, your opinion on something that recently happened. You may have read about it in the newspapers, where a woman and man had a farm--a married woman, you know, a couple, had a farm together and they both worked it but I believe he had another job where he put the money down for the farm so it was in his name and then they divorced and they decided that, because even though the woman had worked, probably just as hard as the man on �-44- it, that she wasn't entitled to i it because she didn't put the money in. Did you feel, when you and your husband had the farm, that it was eqally yours together? Mrs. S: Well, I never knowed about it dear, because I came here to live with my uncle and my aunt and I worked, you see, because I had to do a lot of outside work because when he was really sick-you know what asthma is like--you can't breathe and so he had to do the running around jobs that he could drive a car to do, and I used to do his work. But we worked together and we got along together, you see. And then of course when he died, my aunt and I stayed on the farm and we run it, for, I guess, eight or nine years. Then I got married after all that time, you know. K: And it was your farm. Mrs. S: And it more or less fell back to me. just feel back to me. I never--it There was no, well, done by law--it just came to me. K: You think, !m general though, that if a man and woman purchase a farm together or the man happens to pay for it, that it is theirs, do you think? Mrs.~ Well, yes, if the man and the woman wasn't related. If they weren't of the same relatives, relations, I think they should have some agreement, yes. We always got along because you see I was young and they were old. I was young enough to do the work �-45and I mean I didn't grow up with ihe young people of my age here. school with them. So it wasn't the same as I went to Was it? We were friends but ... It wasn't as if it was people that was born and we were raised together. ( end of tape) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Kathleen Stephenson Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Kathleen Stephenson in Murillo, Ontario. The interview was performed by Helen Lovekin and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Stephenson recalls what it was like moving to Canada from England, farming, community ties and social life in rural Northwestern Ontario, education, and life during the Depression of the 1930’s. The recording consists of three sides of two cassette tapes, available as three MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Murillo Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/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/285dba208206fc0bfe4aefafcbc9e876.mp3 70a5ce426b5c2428430727363d248869 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/46a69a71f9f5e652e07d531449f0a86a.pdf feb2208a5fad6cb1805e2d4c99a9571f PDF Text Text ' i . l J '--'<'. ~ j HERSTOTIY PROJECT \ Mrs .. Forrester interviewed by Georgina Garrett Q. .Jhen did you start at Canada Car Mrs. Forrester? A. January, 1941. Q. How old were you? A. 16. Q. Why did you start working there? ·A. My stepfather was sick, he couldn ' t work and I had to quit school and get a job. Q. What made you choose Canada Car? A. They were hiring in those days and needed all they could get. Q. I know a lot of women worked there - were most of the peoply you worked with women? Q. Uhen I first started there were 200 men and 5 women. Did you like it?" A. Oh yes. Q. How did you feel abo.ut doing something that was kind of unusual for a woman A. Not at first. to do? A, I enjoyed it, I really did. Q. What did you do at first? A. I went into riveting. Q. ]ho taught you how to rivet? A. Bill Williams and Doug Holchak. Q. :Afhat did you work with? A. They are air guns and rivets. Q. TJhat were you building? A. The plane wings. Q. What kind of planes were they? A. When I first started they were Hawker Hurricanes, and then it was the Curtis How do you rivet? Helldivers for the States. Q. A. Was there a patriotic feeling about building these planes? I don ' t think so, it vras just a job. �Q. A. Was it mono~onous, riveting? No, I really enjoyed it . There are so many different sizes of rivets and sizes of guns and full of different things and parts of the wings. I worked on the whole wing , not just one piece of it. Q. tras it highly skilled? A. No. Q. In this picture you are standing across from another woman. A. Sitting, she was riveting, I had the gun on this side and she was bucking the bar on the other side to flatten th~m out. It took two to rivet, she was my helper. Q. Was there a close feeling amon€:, the women? A. Yes. Q. Why was there a close feeling? A. For one thing, the people were from right across Canada who worked there, we Of course there was a whole department, there was no fights or anything. rqet people from every province. Q. i!hat was there about the plant that .... ? I still write to them and go to see them. Has there any co-operation among the women? Did they teach each other dif- ferent skills? A. No, I had helpers that were women but we had a lot of boys coming in. about me? But what They got higher pay because I was a woman and yet I had to teach them. Q. Didn ' t your union ever complain about this? A. Nothing you could do about it. The women got paid lower than the men. Even when I was there for 4 years, the boys came in and they were younger than me but they got higher pay because they uere boys. And I was teaching them how to do it. Q. This was pretty -:"1ell universal in the plant· then. A. Yes, all over women were paid lower. Q. Did the women ever talk about complaining? A. No, not really, the odd one but one can't do anything about it. Q. Did you belong to a union? A. Yes. Q. And the union didn ' t .... ? A. That was the wage rate and that was it. Q. That ' s really awful. A. Yes it is. was. Now I wouldn ' t put up with it but those days this was the way it �Q. Do you think tha:.' s one reason so many women were hired? A. No, the men had gone to the services so they had to hire women. Once you worked there you couldn ' t even quit unless you were pregnant. Q. Why not? A. They needed people to build the planes during the war. Q. What, where you on a contract then? A. No. Q. Well why couldn ' t you quit? A. This was where you started work, you couldn ' t work anywhere else because you started working there because they needed you. Q. So you wouldn't be hired anywhere else if you .. had quit? A. Well you probably would because during the war years, you couldn ' t stay out of work. Q. Can you describe what a typical day was? A. No, I lived in F. W.. Did you live on the site? You would sign out your tools - your motor and a gun and light and get the rivets. Then you ' d start riveting and find where your job was. Q. Did you get any breaks in the day? A. Oh yes, a lunch and coffee breaks - one in the morning and one in the afternoon of 10 minutes each. Q. Did you associate after work hours with any of the other women? A. Yes, on Sunday the whole department wouldlmead down to the show at the Capitol Theatre so in the shows on Sunday night was all of Canada Car. Dancing on Sat. Q. Did Canada Car supply the clothes? A. Yes, at first we had one-piece overalls and after that there were two-piece overalls. We had to wear those two-piece blue uniforms with these hats to put our hair in. Q. How did the men treat you? A. Good. I was only 16 and I was pretty green. A couple of married guys gave me a book on sexs marri,,ge and birth control and I never thought about it and I read the whole book between lunch breaks. was awful shy but not after They explained it all to me. I 5 years in there. Q. Why was that? A. I don ' t know, they never treated you like girls or women. Q. fellow employee, that ' s all. So other than wages, you didn't encounter any discrimination? A. No. We were just another 3 �Q. "Why did you stop working there? A. The war ended and that was it, everybody was.: out the next day. Q. What about the men, were they laid off? A. Yes, we all were, some wer.e hired back for the buses they were building. My husband ' s brother was hired back to make buses, he stayed there two more years and then he went to the paper mill. Q. So you met your husband out there. Were you familiar with what the barracks in Canada Car were like for the women? A. I was just there once visiting a girl friend. The walls were like paper is all I could say about it. Q. Did you try to get another job after Canada Car? A. Yes, I was a telephone operator in the Fort William Telephone Exchange. Q, How was that different from working at Canada Car? A. The wages were better but I enjoyed Canada Car more. The straight work in the afternoon was split-shift. Q. The telephone operators were mostly women I guess. A. It was all women then. Q. Did you encounter discrimination in wages there? A. No. Q. Did any woman play a role in the union at Canada Car? A. Q. A. Q. There must have been but I forgot now. A. It didn ' t really affect me at all. How did you feel about the union? I couldn ' t say - I paid my union dues and that was it, Had the odd meeting. How did the war affect you in other ways besides going to work? I had no brothers to go or relatives that went overseas, it didn ' t affect me. Q. Did other women talk about it? A. Yes, a lot had their husbands killed or their brothers. Q. Do you know of any other war industries in Thunder Bay? A. There was a shell plant on Mission Island. Q. Did you move up the ladder when you were working since you worked for 4 years. A. No, I started at .42¢ and at the end of 4½-years I was getting .83¢ an hour They called it starch work. and we ·worked 12 hours with overtime most of the time. time Q. We felt bad about it. 4:30 from the afternoon to 4:30 in the morning. income tax at first, just the last year or two. Would you say it was satisfying work? On Sunday was double We didn ' t pay any �A. Yes, I enjoyed it. It wasn't boring.:, it wasn ' t sitting in one spot. You could walk around .. At the telephone excha?:lge you always sat in one chair for 4 hours, and that was it. This was different ..... . Q. Why did you walk around? A. Jell in that job I finished one part so I moved around to the next. Q. So you would rivet in all different parts of the plane. A. Yes, the wings and other parts. Q. Was there any kind of risk involved in it? A. Not really, on my 17th birthday there I was bending over and was drilling with the rivet. spot. My hair was hanging down and it caught that and I had a big bald A lot of times, for fun, somebody would pull out your three-pronged plug and put it in upside down and you woiu.d get a shock when you put the mot or on. It was fun - it I-mocked you on your rear end but it was fun. . Q. Uas there· a feeling of camaraderie? A. Yes. Q. Why do you think they had that kind of atmosphere? A. Made of the --kind of people - people from all over. The bosses didn ' t come and sit and watch you, you could joke with them. After the war we went to Winnipeg and we just stood there and everybody said "Hi Canada Car". You didn ' t know their names but you recognized their faces. Q. Was it the fact that you were all working on a project for the war? A. That had something to do with it but at the time it did.11 ' t enter our heads. Q. Do y ou think there should be more jobs like that for women? A. Yes, I liked my experience. Q. 6,800 yes. The paper said 700 but 7,000 worked there. Did you ever want to go back. Did you apply to work on the buses or street cars? A. No, I 1-1orked at the telephone exchange before I married and then I had two kids to look after so I just q_uit working. But I ' d go back tomorrow if I could go back to the- way it was then. Q. Is there anything else about working at Canada Car you can tell me? I heard there was a woman president or manager, because she had been an ene;ineer of an aircraft - McGill I think was her name. A. I don ' t remember her at all. Thank-you very much. There probably was ..... � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Jean Forrester Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Jean Forester in Fort William, Ontario on July 21, 1978. The interview was performed by Georgina Garrett as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Jean Forester recalls her time working for Canada Car from 1941 to 1945. Jean reflects on the discrimination in men and women’s pay, the role of the union, the types of planes she worked on, her relationship with her co-workers, and her usual work schedule. She also reflects on her time working as a telephone operator at Fort William Telephone Exchange. The recording consists of one side of a cassette tape, available as one MP3 file. (Click on the speaker logo to play the file.) Text is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-07-21 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Fort William Canada - Ontario - Thunder Bay Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/849bad08f25eaf67ea34a9e1fd3ae8b6.mp3 041fe7b05310e670d47f2ead744077be https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/8673e186adf0d05f622da3aff97115b2.mp3 6b9839eb83d6f8785d27601b3cd7b274 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/7c230f580ca8894a1bf08a3d9b77905d.pdf 51f2125e6728db6754373a8bef79af6c PDF Text Text I \ HF,RSTORY I P10JECT Mrs. Helen Atkinson interviewed by Geore;ina Garrett and Karen Dubinsky G.G. You were going to tell a story about Mrs. Miller, the b~acksmith in Dorion. A. She wasn't really known as a blacksmith but she always had a lot of horses on her own farm, back in the valley, up in the Ouimet Canyon area. In the early '20's you had teams of horses, particularly heavy horses - this is what they used to haul pulp in the bush camps. Mrs. :Miller and the hired man, Alec Boisie, they both hired on to t he Provincial, I think that was in F.W. the Abitibi was a few years ago, was the Provincial Timber Co. - I don't think it was the Provincial Timber Co., I'm not sure whet it was really called. Anyway, they went back into camp and of course she took one teai~ and Alec took another team and the shacks they lived in in those days are a far cry from the type of things they live in today, in bush camps. It came time to go to bed and of course all the other men in that particular sleep schack were all a little wary about ~etting undressed because a woman was in the camp but she couldn't load her - I guess it would be sleighs because they did most of the hauling in the winter time on sleighs. Q. A. Did she hire herself to haul lumber? This wasn ' t lumber, this was pulp - ther's a difference. She had to load it and it was 4 foot sticks and you would load it from the piles the cutters had cut and they were all cut with ordinary saws in those days, not power saws. She turned around to the men and she said, "Look fellows, you might as well go to sleep .... " (she was already in bed) " .... all I came for was to haul pulp like the rest of you." And she turned over and went to sleep. I al- ways thought that was so 2.propos - women's lib. away back 58 years ago. She was g_uite the old girl, I just loved Mrs. Miller, she was really a darling person. Q. Where was her husband at this point? A. I don ' t know, I asked about this the other day because I thought of this story. I've got two or three of these, of these old stories, with these old time c:;als �with women's lib ideas. A lot of people nowad.ays figure that they went along with everything their husbands said. They did to a point but sometimes they could dig their toes in and make things pretty miserable, in a very subtle manner that a lot of girls nowadays don't do, can ' t do because once they had the training how to do it. But her husband, I don ' t !mow whether he died or she left him, I really don't know. Bill Holder might be able to tell you that. She stayed one winter with old Bill Holder down there, and she was an old lady when she died - she was way into her 90 ' s. She was the most beautiful cook and it used to be cute to go and visit her and old Alec Boisie, he had been the hired man, but by this time you're both getting old and he had his not his part of the house exactly, but he had a sort of sittinG room bedroom and it ·was quite large because it was a fairly large house - and she had her end of the house. I remember the last time I was there. They had no power back there yet, there wasn't sufficient population for the expense and they each had their radio and we were there one Saturday afternoon. We had gone out - my husband had to get something from Mrs. Miller - however ::he turned on the radio, this wasn ' t that many years ago, I don ' t think T.V. 'shad come up yet, we were johnny-come-lately's as far as T.V. reception was concerned, with Thunder Bay. So we had to listen to the radio and Alec, he comes to the door and he says, "If you think that is a good one, come and hear mine." Well, I wasn't going to say that this was better. It wasn ' t exactly a feud but it Has a sort of one-upmanship all the time. It was really charming. I don't think a lot of people were aware of it but it used to really tittilate me because my grandfather and grandmother were very much the same - always Q. one up on each other, but that pulp story I thought was beautiful. How did she get a reputation as a blacksmith? A. She did do her own blacksmithinB so far as I know. Long after I came out to Dorion she riould come out to the store, to Bratten ' s store, it used to be up on the side road, ana_ then they built the big new place and they sold it 3 or 4 years ago. She came out with a buggy - she was still coming out with one of them. Q. How did she survive financially? A. She farmed back there and that uas exactly why you go back in the bush with the horses in the Hinter time, because He used to have this cash, I don't know what they goi, but it shouldn't be that hard to find out. �Q. A. She'd cut her own wood? No, she wouldn't be cutting the pulpwood, she was just hauling from somewhere out to a landing which would usually be on a lake so they could raft it down in spring. Q. A. You must be from the east. No. If you've never seen them form a raft, they haven't been doing that for a A. long time. I've seen it in Lake Nipigon. Yes, you see the big rafts there. Q. too. Does she have descendants that are still living? Q. A. 'l. A. Not that I know of. She never had children then? I couldn't even tell you that. Used to raft down here on the Black Sturgeon Never heard it mentioned but I'm not saying .... when I first met her she was a woman in her 60's and you don ' t ..... When I first saw the house, and it was a log place that they had built, it was really nice, I always wished we had had it. It was a really beautiful place with a great Q. A. big lot - they are the "in" thing now. This is your husband's mother. Yes. But mousy places because mice could get in. Oh, boy, there were mice. They had come from England in 1910, Joe wasn't born until they got out here. They lived in F.W. for perhaps a year or two and then they got the place fixed, the farm. They bought the property down her, or homesteaded it. That's somethine; I'm not sure about, there is a difference. I think it was bought. They were in it together - Grandpa Atkinson and Grand.ma Atkinson who has been dead for years and years and her brother, Foster, was his last name. Anyway, when they got off the train, when they came from F. W. and they had everything loaded into one box car - they landed out her out on Station, so they had to walk up the track a mile from the station just beside the ____ to the ______ which is not too far from the track. It is right across the highway from where the track is and where the highway is now. The sister was about 4 when they got to this farm and the house was just rounded logs with the cracks because they don't fit smooth like timbers do. There were even the chips lying around - this is a family story told over the years although Joe was only a baby - about 3 months old - he wouldn 't remember but he has heard it often enough. It was just a rough building and this �is what you're supposed to live in with a 3 or 4 month baby and a 4 year old daughter. Bessie, the 4 year old - Elisabeth - she looked around the place and said to her mother, "Do we have to live in this woodshed?" I found out anyway by asking members of the family - Bessie in particular -.how you could get a place like that liveable. You can imagine walking int.o a rough log place, what would you do with it? She said they used mud and sawdust and anything you could get to chink it for the winter because it was about June when they came in. They got it all chinked up and then they used gunny sacks in which the animal feed came in and I think perhaps one cow·was all they had, and you would tack that to make a smooth finish, as smooth as you could 5et it and then you would, later on if you could afford a few rolls of wallpaper, then you made home-made flour paste and glued it on. It took several years to get tse place into something decent, when I first saw it in 1938, it was Q. A. really'a charming place but when you think of how it at first was. tlhat did they do for furniture? Theirs was with them, in fact there is a walnut rocking chair - it is really beautiful, I think it's called a Queen Anne style - I ' m not saying 1t's a real Queen Anne, I don't even Imow where the thing came from. I just gave Q. A. it to my daughter-in-law and my son because we used to use it in our summer cottage. There is quite a few things like that - the clock they brought with them was a wedding present from England. There was also china. Did they want to farm? Is that why they came here? In those days in England, if you owned 160 acres of property, they were always Q. relating it to what it was like in England. Where would you ever buy that property yourself? Anyone in a working class atmosphere, themselves would never be able to buy it in England - they can't yet I don ' t think. You 're a large gandowner if you own 100 acrs. A. Right - Grandpa owned more than that - he owned 320 acres, 160 anyway, that would be safe to say, and a grandson has it now. Q. We found that so many people when they came to the middle of the bush in Northern Ontario, would always bring something likecchina etc, to represent the good life. A. That's right because, they were perhaps a little different then all the settlers. Joe has pictures of when they were just kids ·- all of the pictures of Joe and the younger brother, Ben, who owns a garage over here and is living in a fantastic house, shows them with their white shirts on on Sunday with the ties on and always the white linen tablecloths on the table. So you brought your culture with you, even though your environment was a little crude like it would be in the bush at that time, but you did have a certain amount~ �of culture, especially the people from Britain. Q. Do you think they were disappointed? A. I don't think so, Joe's mother died 4..5 years ago and Grandpa Atkinson went back to England - the first time he went back - Joe and I 1xere already married and you used to hear these stor~es about England and you used to think you ' d never want to see the place because everything was super. I asked him how he found things and asked him if everything was better than Canada because this was how we always used to rib him. He said "Oh, Blast. They are so blind over there, some of the places don't even have electricity !" That shut him up, I never heard anymore about England. Q. ~Je talked to a woman - Catherine Stephenson. A. Oh, yes, she was a war bride. Q. No, she wasn't because she came over here as a young girls anddstayed with her aunt and lLY1cle. She has been here since 1924 and. she would say "home" meaning England. A. They do talk like that because my people are Scottish from Manitoba and it ,;•ms "home" and when you get to see those old Scottish people together. I remember not too long before Dad and r1other died there were a few Scottish people and they uould all go back to the brog11e like they had only come over a year ago and they'd been out here since ... Dad since he was 17 years old and that Has 60 years and they could go back into that easily. In fact my brother and I used to be able to do it too because you hear it for so long. ~. Do you knm-.r if there was any i:nvolvement here on the part of the Women's Institute in the suffrage movement? A. That I have never heard of. Ontario were johnny-come-lately ' s women-wise, as far as separtism was concerned. Manitoba was the loader in that. Q. It seems most of the rural communities were ......... . A. Have you any idea how many women it doesn't mean a damn thine: to as far as the vote is concerned now? You know what one woman told me at the last election? She said, "I'm not too sure who I'm going to vot for but ....... " I can rem- ember one girl telling me, "There was a big dance and I wanted to go and I didn't have a decent dress" so she dug out some flour sacks, nq sugar bags, and "I dyed them and I macle myself a dress. I cut buttons off old shirt·s that were in the ras bag until I had enough" and she had it buttoned all down the front 1--rith a belt to match. new to wear. I was 16 and you had to have something �told me how her mother would make dresses out of flour sacks - Q. they bleached them so that all the writing on them caJne off and then made A. dresses. And pants, underpants. I remember when I first came to Dorion - you were just getting out of the Depression in ' 39, I came that fall and the war started in September. I remember a friend that lived a mile from us, making kids' underwear - slips - but she put lace on them, little panties with lace, so Q. A. Q. A. there was this little bit of culture. It's funny, now they sell flour sack tops in stores and leave the writing on. You're kidding. Oh, yes - Robin Hood. I doubt if it is real flour sacks .... . ... That was 1904 .... but I do rememner that because 74 years ago I was even surprised when I read this, that they actually elected a woman a treasurer, when there were all the men, . . . .Nrs. S. Holder .... Q. A. I thought the pr~iries had long, severe winters. They do, but not as lonr as ours. You go out there in April and the grain is up all around, where you are not plantine; anything here at all. We just plaated our tomatoes this morning, and I think that has a lot to do with it. Also you were greatly dependant on your gardens for a lot of your vegetables, because those old girls used to can stuff and you had root cellars and that. If you had early frosts and frosts during the summer which are very prevalent in this part of the country, in Eastern Ontario. So if your earden is damagQ. ed to any extent ..... I remember reading about a pioneer and the first year everything was wiped out. A. It was all wiped out with frost. problem. Getting meals ready must have been a real Take your potatoe crop, suppose you had an extremel~· ~,;ret fall and you couldn ' t bet them picked up or harvested and you lost half of them. You ;-rere dependant upon your own potatoe crop because if yours was damaged with some of those diseases, 9 times ou:t; of 10 your neighbors would have the same problem. If you were lucky enough and you always had to save potatoes from last year's pla11ting for next year's seed in this part of the oountry because shipping Has pretty grim in those days too. one? Q. A. Doctors - how would you eet to A lot of children died uith diseases. Did you know any mid-wives in this area? Yes, Mrs. Watty was a midwife, and Joe's sister in the ' JO ' s. She was a e:-raduate nurse in St. Joseph's and she used to work in with the Department �of Agriculture - you've heard of their extension services - and she would go around giving home nursin:; courses which is the "in" thing now. Keep the penple·home and go and take care of them there because the hospitals are running on shortened money and the more severe cases go to the hospital. In those days, suppose you had a very ill child and you were living way back in the ______ area where we lived for JO years and the roads Here blocked in the winter, how would you get out? You had to depend on yourself and whatever medicines you had or old fashioned remedies. That pulled a lot of them through but a great many died too. Q. Do you think the women down here learned anythine; from the native women who A. had a lot of skills in living in this kind of "nvironment? Dorion? Perhaps no, because it wasn't a real bic_; Indian area, not for a long • time. In Hurkett there were a lot of Indian people. They interreacted in - the smoking of fish, now a lot of people did smoke fish, especially the suckers that ran heavily in spring and you could get loads of them. Q. for the winter. People ate suckers? That was fish In Th1mder 13ay they don ' t eat suckers - they are wormy fish. A. They are notaall wormy. cake out of them. I canned them too. You can make a beautiful fish And they learned a great many things about canning. The men were pretty fair hunters and even during the Depression in the offseason, there were loads of times that a moos or deer - that ' s where your meat came from. Q. Do. you think women developed the skills as they lived or did they come here with some kind of Imowledge of medicine etc? A, I think both of your suggestions are correct in some instances. Also a 0 reat many of the women did get their information from older women - learn things from neighbors like cooking - recipes go from first to last. In this area not too many ethnic groups came in from Europe until after the First World -rar so that a lot of those women wouldn't have too many of those skills unless they were rural women but rural women have always had a lot of these types because it is learnt from mother to daughter etc. I had an extremely good neighbor - Mrs. Reno - they were very early settlers in 1910 and she had slews of relatives left, sons and daughters and grandchildren. But mentioning the medical skills, in those days Mrs. Watty delivered several of Mrs. Reno's 1 �family. My oldest son was very sick with diarrehea and I had him into see a specialist in town and he gave this prescription but nothing worked so Mrs. Reno came over one day - she said she could sive mef something for, that. He was about 18 months and was he sick, he lost a lot of weight. She sent one of the daughters over with raspberry bushes - just the cane - and told me to cut them up and boil them and simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain it carefully through several layers of material so none of the thorns came through and bive it to him in a bottle or anyway he ' s going to drink it. In two days he was all cleared up. :She said her mother had told her that trick. I remember telling that to a child specialist and he said he wouldn't doubt it and that some of those old girls had marvellous treatments they think of. Q. Have you ever heard of lemon juice being used widely as a birth control method? A. You were talking to Bill, I ' ve got sheets of stuff that he sent me long ago. How about mountain ash berries, have you ever tried them? Q. I hear they're poisonous. A. No, they aren't. You've heard of Pete ____ from the Ministry of Natural Resources, well his wife asked me if I had mad it and I said I had twice. Jello from mountain ash because I read it was good. I don ' t doubt that it ' s loaded with Vitamin C but, it ' s just like wild plums, can ' t get enough sugar in to cut the sharpness out of it. Q. A. What about baking soda? Never. Do you know if that was a good ...... . Q. Fill capsules up with baking soda and lemon juice. A. That sounds like a placebo. Q. Do you think there is a lot of co-operation between women in Dorion and the Hurkett area? A. Q. There is some interaction but not really. Hhy didn't they mix? A. I don't know, I've often wondered. I can remember seeing that done as a placebo. They were always friendly and if anyone got burned out, now I ' m thinking of a long time ago, you'll find there are always more people in Dorion that settled as families than what there were down there. Old families as compared to what there is in Hurkett. Because a lot of people down there were ori,:inally, their families were from Dorion. There was an institute but with a little interractiion. Q. I don't mean between women of Hurkett and Dorion, I mean the women in Dorion itself. �' . A. Yes, there still 1s, to a great extent but a gr;eat extent of the people 1n Dorion have gone to school together which gives you a sort of - a great many of' the families are related through marriage. In fact i t took me three y8&'C'S to get it aJ.l strai~ened out when I first came. You didn't. say anything about anybody because i t could be a sister-in==law, a cousin or an aunt or an uncle etc., so you said nothing because after you'd get caught they'd say, "Oh• yes, that's my brother's wife or she's my aunt on my father's side." Get pretty leery about sqing anything. Q., What about in the older ~s? A. Just the sams.. there was just as much. whan they were Church that doesn •t stand anymore, the Anglican Church and the Baptist Ohurch had something also and then the 'l'he Anglicans perhaps would h:.e a _ _ _ _ an Fricuey building the Baptist had an annual. picnic Catholic Church too. ~ t and you could Q. depend on the same people being on that one as would be on the Catholic one because they intemixed. a great deal, no never ulnd as far as religion was concemed. Do you think ·the relationships bet-ween women overcame etlmic and religious boundaries? You've heard of the Intemational Da.y that the Institu·t.es have? Well, we had one ~t the haJ.l quite a f'ew years ago and i t made no nwer :nind he:re. I was really surprised when I first came to Dorion. I had been brought up that w~ m;rsel.£ because when I went to school we had the League of Nations. One thing I rsaember the first year I started public sohool, I was going on 9 and I didJ1't even know what the poor tea.chllr was talking about. She toldus we shollldn ~t eat garlic before we came to s~hool. Especially in the wint~ time when the roams would be just sick, these were first generation Canad1ana like JI\YSelf' and theyt'J. have strings around their 11eck. On old woman lived in Dorion and my sister-in-law, for the oldest boy, that was just what she tol'- rJ.m to use - you couldn'•t. get, near the poor little guy. Garlic was a cure all for everything even then, they used to put turpentine on brown paper and .put i t on your chest £or a <..~ or on the soles ot your feet. What your . feet had to do with your chest I don~t Imow. Was the Wamen•s Institute the only organizational format? Yes and 1.t did a tremendous amount o£ good. V e1.vy tiue of a lot of places. A. Almost ever.y-where. Q. A. Q. A. �Why do. you think that was? I Q, A. Q. A. You're too young to realize there were not too many women's organizations. Actually it is the largest one in the world ~th the grea.tes number of members, at last count.....it was about 7 million. The ~icanadian Women's Club was an old club but it was, ~trlct~y urban und th~ sam.e with the Canadian W(>Dlen•s Press Club but it •s called Median Club now. It is also old but- strictly urban. There was .not~ in th~ rural areas - II183'be the famer•s Association and the _women were invited especially a £aw times in Ea.stern Ontario. You m..,an the United _F armers Part,y tha.t won the election? l'lo. Mrs. Ho?d.less - Izvine Lee is the man I was thinking of. He was responsible for get.ting it started. He invited. her to go a..1:oim.d with him and do the first speaking at this fa.1.111ar's meeting and ·t;he women had been invited. I oan•·t remember what it was C"~cl. I've aJ.wqs heard va.n~e things about it over t.ha yeaxs and nEJV'er could pin anyb~ dmmo There were the Junior Famers and there was alweya the Woodlands ~ch groups. I don•t think there was a Catholic Womens• Leac,~e but I think there is now in Hurkett, Dorion and Pearl but that is very contampera.ry_. Where do ~.QU think that 1 t wa..'3 the Women •s Institute that too!t off? Why is it so extensive? When i·t first stuted. in Ca..?lada. - and it is ver:, big 1n a ,l ot of oth~ countries where a lot of what we have leaJ;ned 1n t,he :N.rst 25 to 30 years of it ,s being o:r6dnized. in Canada - food production and preparations and preserving food etc. _,. -they are just wor~ on that in a lot or areas now. In the developing countries - and some develop but there is a very great dif;l'erence between - beca.1.tse most of those countries don tt µave a midc!le cl~s such a~ t-1e .do,. They have the very rich or the very poor - there is .1 very thin line of' in-between where t'1.e masses of Canada and t~e U.s, . and even J3%'1ta1n are ma.de .up of the middle class. Fduca.tion had never ~een too big in some of th, .. countries. Ou.r's was the one that ssid women should be educated and they did the best to educating tlte women - maybe mor~ in the line of housekeeping skills, cleanliness and things people take for granted. no~. Pasteurizing milk,. public hea1th service, educattn~ women - if you read any of those stories about the first woman doctor .. sh~ ~ ter.r:1ble times getting t:t,eough tmiverei.;.y because they didn •t feel she wo~d have the a.bllity, the brains, etc.. You were al.wB.¥S class.e a a.s a second-cl3Ss citizen 1t· not fourth-class �,. after the animals if they came off a farm. I think that's what it was and Q. the women were aw:.i., of j t • We looked at the Le~~~ b<;'ok from ~ - Hymer's area 1·Jomen 's Institute and it is really good. It gave outlines of some of the topics discussed at meet- A. ings. Some of them are very interesting. Laws pertaining to Ontario women - and that is a contemparary issue - was in Q. 1913 discussed. A. It's like everything else you get - you oute;row things. But there have been a ,ireat many things that have been brought into law as far as women and children are concerned. One of the big deals here is the family laws. four years ago a_nd still is, Some of the women had been cut off 1-:ithout a dime. The husband diecl and left half of it to the church or J/4 of the women worked Q. like dogs. Mrs. Hymers, my neighbor, considered herself to be a very independanrfi, strong woman - do you think their husbands treated them as equals because they worked so hard on the farm and work in the bush etc., or do you think that even though they had these skills they weren't ... A. It depends entirely on the man-woman relationship. My mother was a very independant woman, she and dad got along very well. I think it depends on the people themselves. Fith all the talk etc., it takes two if you're going to be married - it takes a certain relationship but it depends on you as much as your husband. Q. A. What was the attitude of the men here, to the Women's Instutute? I'm a fairly new member compared to others because it had been operating for years before I ever heard of it, although my grandmother belonged in Manitoba. I think they kind of made fun because you actually do get that attitude even yet with a lot of women's groups. so. Chatter and stitch type of thing but not I think women do a lot of talking but men do too, all you have to do is go to conferences these days - they talk and talk. Maybe not so much modern vromen - the use of the husband in your family came first even though you worked outside, and loads of them did, held down a full-time job. interested in your family first and then the job. You were First you have to be an individual yourself and an independa.nt type of person. You can't do a good job on those two, I don't care Hho you are. If you can't carry on a good relationship Hith yourself. If you can't be happy with yourself you won't be LI �happy with anybody. I think a lot of pioneer women learned how to live with themselves first ru1d then the rest comes easy. I ' m thinking of all the women I knew who had been active all their lives, have done.all those things, have been married and are still married to the same person. I ' m not counting the friends who have been divorced two or three times because they could be married 49 times and they ' d go and do the same thing everytime. First you learn about yourselves, I think that is something a lot of younger women aren ' t aware of. This finding yourself that you're always talking about is not a thin~ to talk about, it ' s a thing to do because no one can do it but you and it comes from inside not from all the blah blah. I don ' t care who you are . . . . . . . Invariably you take lunch with them, so they served coffee and sandwiches. Q. But women never did the firefighting themselves. A. No, but some of the younger women now, because women have been incorporating Hith some of the fire departments, especially the volunteer groups because of the men beini:;; away all day. I think i:aka beka - they had the first women who actually drove the truck, they are trying to do that now here. But there is al Hays enough men around here that work right in within the community . . . . . . . we didn ' t 3et any grants or anything - they did the whole thing themselves. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Herstory Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herstory: Helen Atkinson Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Mrs. Helen Atkinson in Dorion, Ontario on June 20, 1978. The interview was performed by Georgina Garrett and Karen Dubinsky as part of the Women's Decade Council Herstory project. During the interview, Mrs. Atkinson recalls the social, material, and working conditions of Northern Ontario in the early 20th century, including housing, farming, furniture, pulp hauling, clothing, medicine, community and personal relationships, and the activity of women. Halfway through the second audio file, Mrs. Atkinson speaks about the Women's Institute and other women's organizations of the early 20th century. The recording consists of two sides of a cassette tape, available as two MP3 files. (Click on the speaker logo to play each file.) The transcript is available by clicking on the image thumbnail. Please note that there is brief mention of Indigenous peoples in the area of Dorion, Ontario that make use of language no longer considered appropriate. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-06-20 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada - Ontario - Dorion Canada - Ontario - Fort William Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Release form was obtained by the Herstory project, allowing the recording to be shared and used. Subject The topic of the resource People Women's History