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!

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This is

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Kanen Graves(?) talking with Mrs. Almos in Port Arthuro

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Could we start by telling me what year you were born?
1913
And where were you born?
I was born in a little CPR siding, called Melgand.
Where is that?
Now this would be, Oh, I don't know, past, well half way
between here and White River, I think, on the CPR Mainline.
My dad was a CPR pumpero This was when they had the steam
etiginjs, and they had to take water, you know,every so manyo
And¼::here we moved to Cauldwell; he was a pumper there,
and then from there, when I was about four, we moved to
Jackfish, and he was a stationary fireman there. They took
coal in for the docks, the CPR dock there,for the trains,
and he worked there till the deasel came in, and then they'
did away with the coal, natµrally,then he was.o. No I'm
wrong. They did away w~+h bringing it in from the States
~ by _boat, and brought it from, from the eh, provinces,
somewhere, by CPR boxcar, and it had to be unloaded by
boxcar, so they didn't need anymore fireman or anything
li like this, see, to keep things going,to unload the coal, so
he was transfered to a place called Britto
G: That sounds familiar.
A~ - That's down, oh, around Perry Sound, and there he stayed
until he retired.
G: Did you move with him?
A: No, I married, and stayed in Jackfish.
G: Had your parents been born in Canada, or were they immigrants?
A: No. My grandparents came from Scotland as Hudson's Bay
factors, up to Moosonee, and my Dad's family was all born
there. And they came down to, by canoe, to, where is it now,
the CPR anywayo And then just scattered around. My grandfather on my mother's s.ide had a store in Heron Bay. And
the rest of the family fished; on~ uncle had a fishing and tourist
business in McDermod. And the others were mostly railroaderso
G: What do you remember as a child growing up in a small town?
A: Well, I don't know. We weren~t very rich, we were a big
family; eleven of us, twelve of us.
G: Twelve kids?
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Uhm uhm.

Really!
Eleven, and adopted my mother's, be more like a nephew to me,
but he was adopted, because his mother and dad had passed away.
And I don't know, we just seemed to have enough of what we
needed. We never had to go without anything~but we didn't
have any frills, that's for sure. But I think we were much
happier then, than the children these dayso
You appreciated things I guess.
Everything just handed to them, ayh? ' What we got we really
appreciated. An~ we had to work, you knowp I worked from
the time I was~urteen, for, ten dollars a month, I thinko
Doing what?
Well, I went to help this, he was, Mr. ~ Nichol was the
station agent, the gas station agent, there. And she needed 6: \. ~~
somebody in the sunnner, because she had so much company an~1/~0 ~VV
that. So I just went and, as a cl-, like a girlc;-~ a y h o
~ .
And, that's about all. Went to school until graoeeight,
J
and
How big a school was it?
Pardon me?
How big a school was it?
It was •:up to grade eight. It was from one, there was no
kindergarten, ~ rom one to eight ayho And there was just the
one teach~r~~ ;.._b,.we had very many happy memories there, because
there wasl concerts, and field days, that kids have never
heard of, these dayso Arbor d~y, I asked the kids if they
had Arbor day. "What's that Nanny?" And, I don't know ._~
This was the centre of activity, the school and the church,
ayh. The c~urch, once a month, there was two churcheso So
everybody ~fo the, and the Salvation Army cam~ probably once
every two months. And strange, I do quite a bit of volunteer

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work, and I do a lot for Home League, or~with them alot. And they
knew all these Captains, and that, that came to Jackfish, like
60 years ago.
G: What would they have come for?
A: The Salvation Army?
G: Yes, this is the first I've heard of this.
A; Oh, well, just for a service.
G: Counselling type?
A: No, just a church -- o., meeting at night, you know. And,
everybody would bring a lunch, and we'd have a little
gathering after. This one chap, especially. He came from
the Yukon, and I just heard recently, through a ~
Home League here, that he died in Californiao OThese are
just the little things that we'd look forward to. We were
fortunate enough that we had a pass, and relatives, that we
could travel. Where a lot of the other children didn't
ayh, we could go free, we had relatives in Saskatchewan and
Manitoba and that. So we were able to goo•• My dad took us
pretty often for a trip to Toronto and Montreal if we could
afford it. But then I married, and we lived there, it was ,,,
I was just saying, some girl came here the other day, said
she was tired because she washed the clothes. I said oh,
what kind of machine do you have? Well, an automatic, ahy.
I said''what if you do like me when Don was, we had one boy,
and one still-born child. When ~,Don was small, my husband
was a railroader too, so he had to go out and relieve on the
different jobso And in the winter I had to snowshoe down a
hill like about Hillcrest Park, and snowshoe back up with
the water to wash clothes. And I said, "And you push a
button, and you're tired? And when my brother-in-law wasn't
home, I had to chop the ice, to make a hole in the water,ayho
Sometimes it was pretty thick in that bay. And then I'd come
up and wash clothes on a board. So, when I look back now, I
think, 0 dear, I woT\der how you ... My neighbour across here,
she was raised on -Me. farm too. She said I wonder how weJ&lt;l.id
it ayh. We sit back~ nd wonder and really, you know, Jhat .. o
But like I say, I think we were much happier then than now
that you could ... I know when I go down town now and, we
were married during the depression, and when I go down town
now and think "Gee I wonder if I should, maybe I'll buy
this. Do I need it?" That's a throw back from the
depression. So it seems strange that life goes on s·o •
G: What kind of social things did you do, say in your m_a_r_r~i_e_d_
years? Community dances, and things like this?
A: Oh yes. We used to have pie socials,to raise money for the
Christmas fund. And bingos, later on we had bingos. But
mostly it was, oh, teas, church teas, and pie socials, and
cake socials. And what else now, ohJ then we used to have snowshoe
parties. We'd all get together to snowshoe out to
a certain, everybody had a little, tracking camps, like, you
know, and you'd make beans out there, have beans and that.
Like I say, I was one of the more fortunate ones, Art always
had a job, and we had a free pass, so every year of our life
we've always had a holiday. Even if it was, I know !'! come
back often, with just enough to tip t~e porter ayh. Or
maybe not even that, but we had our pass, and we knew we
could get home without any money ayh. But every month, I'd
put away maybe even sometimes 50 cents to a travelling fundo
And when our holiday came, well that was our money, and
when that was spent, we came home.
G: That's an interesting way to travel.
A: But other than that, like, and ... I think the teacher was
the head of the social, like you know, she put on the
Halloween dances and ...
G: Would these all be held in the school?
A: Yes. At one time we had no ibasement in the school, so it
was quite a chore to, our seats were on two by fours, and
we had to pull them all out, you know. So the, I can't
remember, they must have got a grant or something, and
they ... I was married then, when they put the basement in
the school, and this was were we held all our socials, such
as our ...
G: How large a community?
A: Pardon me?
G: How large a community?
A: I would say about 35 families. And of course, during the
summer the Patterso, you know, these freighter folks, they

�-3would come in with coal for th~ ... It was the only industry there,
was the coal industry, for the CPR, for the engine'S. And it seems
every time a boat came in, they'd put on a dance of some kind,and
they'd let us know, and we'd put a sig~ up, and the ladies would
bring a lunch, or the boat would bring Q 'lunch. So, pretty nearly
every week we' d have a danc·e.
G: Then this would be with the people who worked on the boat.
A: This was with the, yes, with the Captain and the mates would
put it on, like, you see, and everybody that was free~.Rn the
boat would come. I guess they'd been out on th~i ~~e~a week,
ten, twelve days, and they were happy to get some~recreation.
At one time we had a pool room there, and that was part of
the, you know, they played pool. But that closed down, too.
wheA we built our own skating rink and looked after it. We
played hockey between Rossport,and Schreiber, and Jackfish.
G: Did you seem to have been a lot more sports minded, a
little more active1
A: Yes. There didn't seem to be any cliques. Everybody seemed
to get together. Then we bou•ght, there was a general store
and the Post Office, and Immigration Department thereo And
we had that, we looked after that, til the placed closed up.
G: So that would be an office to receive benefits?
A: Well, no. The officer had to come here to clear the
American ships. You see, the American ships came in, and
they had a clearance before they go out. So that office was
in the store too, the general store, and the Post Office.
So then when that closed down, when Jackfish closed down,
my husband got a job as a, went out on the road as, he was 7
of course he's an engineer, this was what he did in Jackfisho
But it was more like a~_ ~mergency; he was sent anywhere from
Fort William to, oh~~~crwthe Sioux, to Ottawa, to Mattawa, and
anyplace that they needed him, ayh. So we lived, we had our
own car on the railroad, and we lived there for seventeen
years.before we retired. So that was an interesting way to
live. I know one weekend,one middle of the week, we were
in Rossport, or just out of Rossport, and (interrupted by phone)
So whatf was I saying?
G: You were talking about living on the rail
A: Oh yeah. We were up near Rossport, about Tuesday, and they
said to Bart, "Get ready, there's a train picking you up, and
they're going to stop at White River, and get your groceries,
and you've got to keep going til you get to Mattawa, for the
weekend." Because they were building an overhead bridge, and
you can only do it on a weekend. It was things like this that
made it so interesting ...
G: So you just took up your car and,.o
A: Well, the train picks us up, ayh. We were on the railroad,
like a, like a trailor ayh. And a train would pick us up
and the machine that Bart worked with, ayh, and take us all
the way down along. And wherever we were, like if we came
into a divisional point, where there's a train waiting for
us to take us out, so we'd get there in time~ So you never
knew what the next job was going to be.
G: I guess, you said you just had the one son?
A: Yes, and when Bart took this job out on the railroad, he had
just started high school here, so he was up here like,you see.
And when we were close to home, close around here, he'd come
there for the weekend, and if we weren't home, he'd go to
Jackfish to his grandmother'so So we were there for eighteen
years.
G·: You said you were married during the depression. How did
the depression affect you?
~ ------- r , I think we were very fortunate because on the job that
tiart was, a hoisting engineer's job. In the winter they just
had , maybe eight or ten staff, or twelve. And they had .\o ~&lt;.,'-le.
time keeper. And none of them could do office work. None
of thot+older men, even if they had more seniority than Bart,
they couldn't do the office work, with the result that he
was never out of a job. As small wages as he had,we were
fortunate; we never lost our insurance, or our house or
anything like that. So many of our friends did ayh. Other
than having to be very careful,you know, make sure that you
didn't go off on a buying spree, or somethingo
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Did it affect Jackfish, particularly bad?
Not too much. Most of the people there were, I would say
have permanent positions, they would be, like section men,
and in the wint~er, like section men, and then th~v had to
keep this plant going, because they had to keep a. coal
shute going to keep the coal eh, ready to coal all these
trains, all these ... So it was more of a steady thing,
except in the stnnmer they brought in these extra men to
help with the unloading of the coal for the winter. But
we were very fortuna..te.
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There was nobody, I ~~bink, out ot work in Jacktisn ouxing
the depression, because of this CPR coaling station, see.
Maybe the junior fellas on the way, like on the track were
laid off, but pretty well it didn't affect them at all. But
all around us, terrible. I know friends of ours that had
lost their homes and their insurances, and things like this.
Did you get a lot of people travelling through on the railway?
Oh yes.
men in the box ...
Boxcars, yes, yeah. In fact there was some of that still
when we went on the roado Cause they warned me, I was often
alone, you k~ow, out on the siding,and they said not to let
anybody in. ~~ t ~is was not like the depression,! think it was
just those who were travelling more just to see the, the,
cause it was during the war when we were out there, so there
was lots of work.
How did the war affect you?
Pardon me?
How did the war years affect you?
Ahh, not ...
I guess things became a little more prosperous?
Yes, yes. Well I know when uhm, when Bart went out on the
railroad, when we were in Jackfish, there was no union. So
he would have to go, he went to work at seven every morning.
And if that company, boat company, wanted that boat unloaded
for a certain hour, he would have to work, all those hours,
maybe sometimes up for 5 o'clock the next morning. And he
never got paid for more than eight hours, ayh. So as soon
as he went out on the railroad, on the, on the mainline, he
was able to join a union, and he did, and I could never get
over him being paid, in fact, this was how we bought this
house. All the overtime that he made, I put it aside,
because I said "If we, you know, this is just money found,
because you'd never have it, if you didn't have this job."
So this is how we put money away to buy this house. Because
if you travelled, at night, with the crane, then he had to
look after it, and he was paid for it. And if there was a
mainlinefl and the mainline was busy, then they would have
to wait maybe til after 5 o'clock, or 6 o'clock, til the
trains were all gone, then go out, and he was still paid.
And I can remember my son was, it was during the war, they
couldn't get a helper, so the boss asked Bart if he didn't
know anybody. So Don said he'd go out. And I can remember
the first day Don worked, he had to go out an hour ahead,
at six, to get the crane ready, and they couldn't go out til
8 o'clock that night to work, cause the passengers were late (?),
it was a mainline job. He made 42.50 that one day. I can
remember his dad saying, "This was what I made in a month
when I started to work". So it was quite a, it was quite a
thing to be able to get paid for what you did. But, and
that job in Jackfish, we were paid for eight hours only, no
matter how, and you couldn't refuse, ayh. Especially Bart.
He was the only who could do this certain job. He had a
helper, but he couldn't work when there was men, they
emptied these boats of coal, well when they got near the
bottom, there
had to go men in there to scrape it up and
-•~~ put it irlZ0 the bucket so they could get it upo Well the
(ljfa"'. _
~ helper couldn't do that, because they were scared th~-'-=d-- ~ ✓0
swing the bucket maybe, and kill someone o So Owhei:l there
was a cleaning job, Bart had to do it all. There was two
of them, like two cranes, but they had to do all that worko
Was there any talk there of organizing a union?
They tried. But, this was the way they got around it.
There wasn't enough, uhm, steady members, like. I think

�-5there had to be ten or~welve. And the CPR made sure that
_
they, (joke and laughter), but the
company made sure that they got, you know, that they were
kept below that. The steady ones, like, you know. They
could have in the SUllllller, but then these were just men that
came in for, maybe three or four rr. Jnths, so that didn't
count. This is how I think I, I have never voted anything
else but social, NDP or, please be careful whatever you
~all it. Because this was when you heard all about it
during the depression, ayho And I can remember, uhm,
Jack MacEvett, he was organizing, ayh, in Schreiber. He
said"I've gone out in the country and preached", and he
said "I had to be in a truck, because they'd throw tomatoes
at me", ayh, or eggs or anything, if they didn't like him.
And I can remember the first, uh, convention I went to in
Regina
I said to Mrs. Jacobson, " I
never thought I'd
ever see the day when I'd be coming to Regina, in a hotel
for an NDP convention, ayh, the way it started out, because
I know many a time I did without things to, to help
&lt;-·calm down there, like, you know, the people that came in _e,v~ )
they always came to our place to sleep, or eat or anythi11g.
Mr. uhm, what's his name (\t,~Tate, he's an old timer,
Jim Caullie, I was just reading about him the other day, and
Jack MacEvett, of course, he was from Schreiber, and uhm,
there sure was a lot of talk of; you know, political talk
during the depression, and I think this was
for,
because, uhm, when yo,, looked around and saw what was
going on, these guys working for five dollars a month, I
think,on the highway. So, uh ... Oh yes, I think the whole
of Jackfish was, was CCF then.
G: I've been studying Dorion and Hurkett a lot, and that was
a really progressive ....... town during the depression
too.
A: Yeso I think all these little towns, you know, that really
uh, it hit them quite hard.
G: I guess soo Uhm, I wanted to ask you about the early days
of CCF. Did you ever think that it would become sort of
a credible third party at the time?
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Did it start off really
really small?
I
Uh ...
See I don't ...
Oh yes, like I say, I can remember, especially down
our
way, because uh, oh there was so many other factions
against it, ayh. Strong factions, that people were afraid
to, to even talk about it, in lots of places, ayh. Uh,
and I really can't remember how it, that was overcome,
because, like in Jackfish, nearly everybody w~s a CCF, ayho
There was the odd one, but uh, they didn't
do to much
about it, so uh,.o• But they had no problem there. I
think Jackfish was CCF ever since I can remember. And uh,
everybody worked, helped, and eh, you know, ...
Were the women just as active as the men, would you say?
Uh, Yes, I think so, uh, 'cause I know I waso And uh,
and any of my friends, there was, oh yes.
Did you feel that you were, I don't know, taken seriously,
that's not quite what I want to say, but you know what I
mean ... You were as respected, in the Party1
Oh yes. Uhm Uhm. Oh y~s. ' · Yes, because, uh, what I
found, we had so many gooa arguements, that these, the
was arguing against us, You know, they couldn't
find anything uh,'- come back wi ·:th, really. When we say,
"Well, look-et, what's this government doing; five dollars
a month, ayho And all, well Canada was, it's a rich
country, and, you know, these are the arguements~LJe used
to get literature~ t, and study it, you know, and have
study session, and that, and uhm, and we really ... No I
don't, we never had any problems down there. It was
always, uh, it was always, as far as I can remember ...
Of course, now, the earlier years I don't know ... 'cause
I wasn't old enough to vote, ando•• But uh, ... it was
alwasys strong, the CCF, ever since I can remember.
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Do you, I doo., I think you're probably to young for, to
remember women getting the vote.
No, not really, no.
twenties.
Yeah, no, no. It's ahh ... You know, I can remember
something about i t , all right, because I remember aguements,,,
I can remember ministers come and arguing, and you knowj
about ... My dad was very religiouso Uh; I don't know
whether really religious, but he, uh,'cause people were
very religious, and apparently always had to study the
Bible very .. And they used to argue these things forth
and back, and uh, and uh .. o This was what he used to, uh,
argue mostly with, was because he was figuring that this
Bible wasn't quite right., from the things that was said,
and then some of the things that was preached, ayh. But
like I say, when there's a large family, we all had to get
up and do our own chores, and that; there wasn't much to,
to, uhm, like ehh, there was chor~s,
.and, and then
schoolwork, and different things ~that. We never got much
into political, uh, arguements at home. But I really took
interest in it when Jack MacEvett started to come down.
Of course I was married then. I was nineteen when I was
married, and of course you couldn't vote until you were
twenty-one, theno But I was really into--My husband has
always been, 'cause he said that, uh, his dad was from
Norwayo And he used to tell them how the big shots took
everything there, from the fishermean, no matter how hard
you'd worked, you had to ... And uh, And so, he was always
socialist, if you'd like to call him that. And I haven ...
I've never voted anywhere else ... anything else. So, .. o
How about transportation in these days1 How did you get
around?
~
Oh you know, this is uh, the strange thin oo ... We
have
never had a car. We have never had a car.
Really?
And uh, for the simple reason, that in Jackfish there was
no highwe y, when we lived there. Now, uh, the highway
came through after we went out o~ ~he road, oh maybe a
year or so before. And we had totuhm, I don't understand
too much about it, but everybody had to pay so much, then and
do
. .. If you didn't pay, you had to work so many
days on the road that they had cut in, like. I guess the
town id it, ayh. Well then, the car was no good to us
then, because we were away all the timeo My son had a
car right away, of course. But we always travelled by
rail, or ship.
How about within the community, though. I guess if.tbings.o.
Oh. It was all railway, all rail. But the community was,
uh, You've never down past Jackfish?
No, I don't think I have.
Well there's, there's just the railwasy, in the middle, then
the lake on one side, and the mountains on the other. So
with the result that the, that the cut-in from the main
highway was very hard to put in,because it had to come down
through this plane, and then over a mountain, and then
(cut back to?) And there was no place you cou--There
was no place in the town where you could drive a caro You
had to drive just to the railway, and leave it there. So
it was all railroad travel, when we were thereo
And you'd just walk ............. .
And just walk,~ yeaho It was av ery small village, somethin'
likeo•• Oh, it wouldn't have as much walking space as
Rossport, if you've been there.
Uhm uhm. Rossport's really small.
Yeah.
But, see Rossport is, is kind of flat, ayh, and at
least you can drive into there. In Jackfish you could just
come in behind this mountain, there was just a valley in
between this mountain, behind the church, and then right
down to the railroado And that's where you had to stop.
Oh some people, uh, p~t planks across there, and went
across. But you couldn't go anywhere, so there was no
point, ayho So, ah, everything was by car, by railroad,
and it was so small that you didn't need a car,anyway, to
get around.
I've been thinking of Thunder Bay standards.

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Yeal.. Oh, no. I know my aunt, she came from the west, she
used to say "I can't
breatrehere, like, 'cause
she
lived in the prairie, ayh. And she said she just seemed
like she was closed in because there was just this little
place to walk, ayh. Mountains on one side, and the lake
on the other, and the railway in the middleo
It sounds like it would be really beautiful.
Yes, it was, it was a lovely spot. Uh, a very busy spot
bsecause, uhm, in the summer they had, uhm,uhm-a, a
pulpwood, the pulp boats used to, uhm, how. can I say this?
The boats used to come into Slate Island, l that was out
quite a way) and load the pulp there, so we had th~, uh,
men come in then to, they stayed out there all summer
and worked on this pulp business. So it was always a very
busy spot, in the summer, very quiet in the winter.
But and a good, we had quite a good tourist business when
we had the store too--we had a lot of Americans come in
there, because beautiful lakes lac~ in there, very, uh,
untouched, ayh ..
good fishing, and so we haa "')"-&gt;.ri. £k C?)
quite a good tourist business.there, too. The Americans
used to like to come in. But, uh, there certainly wasn't
any cars around
there was no place to drive them,
Everything was done by wheelbarrow, if you had to, uh, ..
Move things .
Move anything; wheelbarrow in, in the summer, or toboggan
or, or sleigh in the wint er,ayh. I know we used to have
to, we burnt coal, naturally,-we were on a coal depot, and
they used to bring it in bags home, on the toboggan. So,
everything had to be moved by hand, wheelbarrow or, that
old wheelbarrow outside, that was what we used in
Jackfish.
An antique wheelbarrow.
Yeah.
What was life like for your mother, with so many children?
Well, you know, we all had our
own job, ayh. The older
had to look after the younger, and ah,
as many as us, there was of us, she has b~ ders beside.
Men that used to come and work in the summer, ayh, would
come
board with us, which she always used to say
it doesn't make much difference putting a few more
potatoes in the pot, ayh. But we all had our own jobs,
and we all had to look after
our own clothes, and
things seemed very well organized. I don't know, I can't
remember tha t;here was, uh, we all had to look after our
own rooms, ana beds, and, and uh, we all had our turn to
do dishes, and uh, .. o
You had to be a lot more responsible.
Oh yes, oh my gosh, yes. You know, if we ever got up and
we
I think there was only two of us that
was born in Schreiber. The rest were all born at home
with a midwife.
Was there a local woman, who acted as one?
Yes, uhm uhm. Bart's mom--my mother and I used to do most
of it. And before that there was an Italian lady that
used to do it. And uh, it was just, one other thing, just
another ..... I can remember my last two brothers, they
were born in Schreiber, because these women were getting
older then, ayh. And uhm, so they, my aunt, she was kind
of a midwife in Schreiber, too. So she went there, and
had it there. But uh, but uh, I can't remember any, uh,
I think today they'd, when I see children, the way they,
I think it's just uh, oh, I think it's partly parents
fault, today. Because they take the line of~ east
resistance, they say you can't do
that, and they do
it anyway, and they don't do anything about it. I can't
understand that. I know with my grandchildren here, I say
\\ you do it; and they look at me, and I say "and fast ;;
Don't sit and look at me o'r And
63, ayh.
You've got a lot of nerve.
I said "You justo .. o" Of course I do a lot of kidding,
but uh, I, I just couldn't take that. When I said
somethin to Don, I said "I want that done", and he went 0ndJ
done it, ayh. And if he didn't do it, he just had his
privileges taken away from him. And I think this is
half the battle. Because they just, just don't seem to
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�-8bother, I don't know. I can never forget one woman said
"I'll be so lad when they're married, when they're out of
my way." Oh.9 I couldn't understand that. I said "don't
you enjoy them?" And
then when I saw the way they
acted, I thought, "no wonder", but I thought "lady, it's
eour fault" .
. I think television has a lot to do with ito
A: Oh yes, terribleo Just want and sit and look at that
uhm, My little chtm1 was sittin' there yesterday and put
the, and put it on for some x sports, and I thought,
"I bet you
ten years for
G: Is this why you workEi_d?
A:
since we move'l_1ere. We moved, Bart took an
early retirement~ e've been here about seventeen
years. And he still worked two years, like we bought
this house, oh maybe, ten or twelve years before we
moved up, ayho We knew that we couldn't go back to
Jackfish, we had a house there, but there was nothing
there, ayho So l ike I say, we had to buy somewhere, so
we , everything_J--;t~~"' got
overtime, I put away to put a
payment do~house, . Well then we bought it, and
we rented it for about twelve years. Well then, the
people who rented i~were going to move away, so I said
to Bart, "Well whf} t -.f taki n' an early, he, this was how
we started~fto Mex. i~ o, in '57, He had an arthritic hip,
and they said that, like the winter's a slack time, ayh,
'cause there's no building or anything like that. So, uh,
I started looking into going to Mexicoo So we went down
there, and then, uh, the
. nP.xt winter they'd,
the people said they were going to move, so we moved
down then, and we didn't go anywhere that winter. Just
So we've been here eighteen years, and ah,
Like I say, we never stary in the winter, except the,
the two years since I've been sick. But ah, we've never
had a car either, so we've just ... Like I say, then, but
he came up, he worked, he still worked two years, at,
summers, while we were here. So I, I just couldn't sit
here and do nothing, so I started to babysit first.
Babysat for all the doctors, and that, thereo And ~
then ah, this little, this little store down by ah,
the clinic, McKay's, they looked, they were looking for
a clerk, so I worked there, for ah, five years. Then we
were, every winter we ~
.~ away, she'd have to get
someone else, so ... This year we're goin'to, summer we're
goin up to Alaska, so I said "I'm oing to quit", I said
"You911 have to get someone else", 9cause it's not fair to
her either, ayh. So we came back in October, and then I
knew the woman that was working in, in the uh, what do
you call the office down there, employment office, and she
phones,
and "Would you like to go and work at Burk's
~ itts. I said "What?" So she said "They're looking for
someone for Christmas rush',' so I said "Okay, I' 11 go down
and try it". So I went down and then I worked every
summer then, for ten years. I really enjoyed ito •
G: Did you work, uhm, in your early_..y,ears of marriage?
A: No, except for our own . bus flies s, when we had, had our own
store, like, you·-know; in, in the country. But when we
were on the road, we were never anywhere maybe sometimes
.two weeks, and then
maybe sometimes two days, ayh. So !~ just ah,
G: Are this, I
that there are3/many opportunities
for women to work, in small towns, small ~industry towns.
A: Small--No, no,no. Uhm, what there was an :~ an hotel in
Jackfish, during uhm, now let's see, that started during
the war. But, there had been previously, a hotel
before, and it, people died, and they just closed it
down. Well then, this family, Spidoni brothers, you've
heard of them in Schreiber, I guesso They bought the
hotel, and they opened it up, so this was the,really the
only place to work, ayh. Cook, or
or, ah, upstairs
girl, and bartenders. But I never did, I never worked
there, 'cause we had our own store, then.
G: You had the general store?
A: Yes, l the post offic~ and this, uh, other office, that the

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Immigration guys
So I worked there., most of the time.
But uh, other than that there wasn't, there was nothing
in, in smaller places.
Do you remember any people, I'm thinking particularly of
women, being really lonely, really sort of cabin-crazy?
No. No, I don't think so. Not that I can remember.
Everybody was too busy. You knowo Like the men worked
steady, ayh, and the women just had to do, take over for
the men laid off when they had to work,ayh. And like uh,
you just didn't come in and turn a button on, and a
stove go, you had to keep your stove up and carry your
water in. Heat your water on the stove to wash clothes,
and it, and iron ) the iron's on the stove, and this all,
you know, it took so much more time than it does these
days. So I say laugh. · when that girl said she was tired,
pushing a button on an automatic washing machine. Ahh, no
I can't ... Oh there was lot's around eh, you know, in the
1 .
.m re
the farming district, I thinko
Yeah, I guess women really isolated, in the country.
Yes, but we were never really isolated, because we had
mail twice a day,ayh, which is something, because the
mainline went right through it, and the railroad carried
the mail then. And ah, so we had mail twice a day, and
we had, uh, we got fresh fruit and vegetables twice a
week. From town her~,they'd come down, on the train.
And fresh milk every morning, 'cause it came on the
train, too. At one time there was seven trains going by
there, ayh, passengers. And uh, So we
really weren't~
where we were, we weren't isolated at all because we,
~
other than that we didn't get out too much,. Like I say
we made our own fun, and, and we uh, oh we were never
without anything. And like, there was a doctor in
Schreiber, which is, was nineteen miles awayo And if we
needed him, we just phoned through the CPR phone, to the
station in Schreiber, and he came down on the first
freight. So we really were better off than a lot of
places that didn't even, when they didn't have a highway~
ayh. We
at least had the mainline going
right
~
through. And anything happened, well, they were always
kind enough to stop a train and pick anybody up that was
hurt, and bring them in to whereever was, to Schreiber,
or anywhere. I know all the uh, sick people that had to
come to town, they just stopped them, put them on a
stretcher, put them in the baggage car. And then we
came up with them on the baggage car. So uh, and we'd
phone the doctor in Schreiber, and say so and so was on
the baggage car, and he'd come in and see if they needed
a needle or something. He was a CPR doctor then--and a
town doctor too. And if they needed help before we got
to town, well he'd give them a needle of some kind, like,
you know. And we just stopped in time to expect a train
here, and took us to the hospital.The, uh, only thing
that we found, the younger ones wouldn't stay there to
have their babies,ayh. Like, before the babies were born
they came up to town here, or to Schreiber and waited.
But the old
timers used to have them right in town
at home. But no, we were, we were very fortunate there,
because, like I say, we were just like on the mainline
of ah, uhm, lots of places that's all they, the only thing
that was, you know, there was no highways in a lot of
those places. So uh, we were, we were, I guess, we never
thought of it then, but now I realize that we were lucky,
much luckier than most people, where they were isolated
away back in the bush.
What did~ ~u say, that there was a school in Jackfish?
Uhm uhmJ_~ rade one to grade eight.
And how ~ Mdid many people go on to high school?
Yes, quite a few.
And they'd have to go to Schreiber?
They'd have to come to town hereo
Oh, to here?
Uhm uhm,
Really?
Uhm uhm.
There was no high schools i ny of the ~~
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There was high schools in Sc reiber, but, now, I don't

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understand what the ruling was there, I guess you could
have gone there, but it, uh, no, I don't think so. 'Cause
nobody ever went into Schreiber too. My son took music
lessons, and he had to leave, Like he'd leave ot night at
seven o'clock to go to Schreiber, which is nineteen miles
away,stay overnight, have his lesson, music lesson in the
morning, and come back at noon the next day. But he
didn't mind that at all. And first he, the first time he
went to White River. He started in White River, but then
the music teacher died, there, and eh, I thought "well
gees it's much easier to go to Schreiber, because I, that
was two days to go to White River, ayh. You went down in
the morning, and then you couldn't go back until the next
nighto
So that was the whole weekend, and he, he used to
love to fish, ayh, so uhm, this way he went in at night
and he was back in the morning. But
eh, no, everybody
there, I don't know what the reasono You know, I never
thought about thato I think that most of them that came
up to high school, wanted uhm, to go to technical school,
they didn't just want high school. They did their first
year, and then they chose their, what they wanted to do,
ayh. I think th¾_s was why they mostly all came up here.
'Cause I know Doqhad to come up here. And anybody that
came, eh, it was out p, unless they wanted to go to, eh,
to be a teacher, then they had to go to North Bay. There
was no teacher's college here then eithero And-a, nursing,
they mostly all came here,because at that time there was
a residence~fhat they could stay in, ayh,o Now it's all,
isn't it alJJJniversity and just ...
The college, stays there, yeah.
Yeah, uhm uhm. And, 'cause quite a few nurses, quite a
few pupils come out, ayh, quite a few pupils came up.
Do you recall the, uhm, it would be mostly boys who
continued on to high school? Or was it sort of half and
half?
~~)
No,no, no. Half and half--a lot of~girls, nursing, teaching.
Like I say, I know they had to go
to
North Bay to teach, because when we wer
on the road, we
were in North Bay,working, and this young girl was in
college there, and she used to come down to visit us, ayh.
And this is how I know they had to go to school,into
North Bay to go to school,
Oh no, the, the, girls
had uh, came out, there was ai many go , as boys.
having more, uh, they were, should go first, were the, uh,
foreigners
. You know, they thought the boys
were, should go, and the girls should stay home. But in
among our, we, that was never, .uh, prevalent were we, you
know, girls, if they wanted to gOf'\iad the same chance as
boys, whereas with some of the foreigners,the boys had to
go first. Even if they're dumber. You know. They were
the, they were the misters.
You mean there were.
~~-_·,:~a:.,~~,.. a lot of
foreign families?
Yes, there waso Uhm Uhm.
What nationality would be ,,.,, ----7. (~)
Uhh, uho Mostly Italians, there was ah, a couple of
Ukrainian families, but they were mostly *alians down
thereo And ah, then all, men that came i o work in the
st.mnner, brought their families, in Sudbury ?)o But ah,
Did the connnunity, uh, did they reach together?
Oh yeso Uhm , uhm, uhm uhm. Like I say, there were so few,
ayh, that it took everybody to, to get anything going.
But as I can remember, we had some good times. We used to
ha ve big picnics, you know, in the summer. And ah, pie
socials, kids didn't even know what a pie social was.
What's a pie social?
It's a box social, where you make this fanc, oh no, fancy,
and there was at this, uh, most of the time there was
such a competition on who would make the best, the nicest
box, ayh. And uh, then you'd have to have it auctioned off,
and ... You know, you never hear of those things any moreo
That was just something you do for ... I must, I must
suggest that to Home League sometime, just for fun. 'Cause
their always looking for something different to do, you
know. We have teas and, and~things, but that\/ was J1~fent:_
~-~t\\~

~\) 5~

�'
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And they always said they could tell the teachers
' box,
'cause it was always so much fancier, she had so much to
work with, ayh. And I can remember this one guy had
quite a crush on this teacher, and ah, this, she just put
it in a, in a plain brown box with a bow on it, ayho And
this great big fancy box came up, and he thought it was
hers, and he bid, bid so way up high. And here it was
~
married woman, she had about six kids. And here
comes this box, and he didn't bother, and here it was the
teacher'so It went for about a dollar, ayh. But, like
I say, everybody had to, to chip in, ayh,because it was,
but we had, we made our own mi
, we had to go and
build our own mi
shack, put a stove in, to, to
change our shoeso We used to do it in the station, and
then the officials got mad and kicked us out of there,
so ... But everything seemed to, I don't know, everybody
seemed to pitch in and, •o• I guess
smaller
cotm:Ilunities are like that. I don't know, they always
like the ... Like I was telling the kids, I think we had
just as much fun then--there wasn't G!.any money, but, but
we were fortunate enough that nobody was hard up. And,
like I say, if anybody had a problem, everybody was there
to help them.
.c~1:r --\.
Yeah, I've also found that places that women~didn't have
so many social service agencies as we do now, there was a
whole sort of, policing force within the, in the region.
If someone was mistreating his wife, or those kind of
prob 1 ems .
~ ere.'s·
Yes, yes. Oh yeaho I think A far too much hand-outs
these days. I know I did volunteer work
and I
do meals on wheels, too,ayh. But boy, oh boy, there's
some funny things going on there too. I know I used to
go

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                    <text>/)Jo. ~~ ~~/4 .,

/}fl~ ~~ ~ ~~v ~
-

:;;~

~~-~p
2:{)
,~()/t/3-t

,I read your bookletoon Silver Islet history and you indicate on

!"

'µ\,,

,~

. VQ IM..i......

the label set but I don't want to leave XH anything in that area but what
I would like to do is to go back into your own life in the early

~

part of your childhood and talk about as you remember growing up,
~hat i~ ~our personal life story.

-A

Well among the first things that I remember of course living in
Port Arthur, there were board sidewalks all over the place.

I imagine

they were made of good white pine planks, all over the place, there
was no cement at all, and there were cracks and if you happen to
drop a nickmm or a penny why you could see them through the light
of the crack but then it was to get an older brother with a
not~s

~itx

and get it out.

p=

a pick or something to hook up this plank, you see,
It was quite something that all the young people

did as they walked along to see if there be a glint, and if there
were xexx why then finders xsssexs is keepin you see, aM ~f course
there was just one public school.

Now the first public school mind

you there were two or more that were run by xke just Miss somebody
or other that would gather a group of children but finally there was
a school set up and was two rooms and it was divided, I don't know

ex~~ii¥ what grades went into which rooms but anyway that's all there
was.

Q. What year was this?

A. It was before my time because that

school is now a double house or else four suites next to the Baptist
Church in Port Arthur, but when it got too small then a front was
put on and that's the front of the Central School over in Port Arthur
up on by Gore Park.

Well then when the ... and the two rooms were at

the back of it joined on and when that became too small th~setwo
rooms were moved over by the back of the church somebody bought it
and made into two or four suites or a double house and then the

�present addition I think 8 rooms was put on the back of it and
that was the only school there except the Catholic school.

Well

then about 65 years or more ago there was a new Methodist church
being built which is Trinity and the old church was moved down the
hill and down Bay Street now Algoma Street to where Secord School
is and it made two rooms and that was the first school, what do
you call those schools not the central school (primary) anyway it
was the first school other than the central school in the city
and everybody,everybody had to go to Central school first and
then the people that crowded in and built up the south end of
Street
Port Arthur had this Secord/School to go to. Then I think the next
school that was built St. James Street school way down Court Street.
Q. Of all

first, Thunder Bay North, Port Arthur,

preceded Fort William development?

A. Oh no, Port Arthur was

or Fort William was first, it was the fourth.

xxxsx

Q. What we call the

East end now must have developed then was what was called Fort
William then, near the old Fort?

A. Yes, that's why down in the

East End there are McLaughlin Street, McTavish and all those Scots
names, named after the Hudson Bay men, the whole place most of it
has Scots names because most of the Hudson Bay men were Scots.
Port Arthur you walked to school of course.
then, in what area?

In

Q. Where was your home

A. Well the first home was at this end of

Court Street before Bay, there was nothing from Bay Street on
(just wilderness) Yes, just wilderness, just swamp, cranberries.
Q. Even in the 40's when

Jix

moved up here that was still swamp

Intercity was largely swamp there?

A. Oh yes, well you see in

prehistoric time this was a great bay than rairup as far as XR&amp;HEekH
Kakebeka Falls and then they claim that there was a Afpping and
the water drained here and piled up over on the south shore of
Lake Superior but however, it drained out and only wiggling Kaministiqua

�River was left to drain it and x it was all swamp right from the
height of land at Port Arthur to the mountain, it was all swamp
and they declared they could never build a town or a city here because
it was, they called it"Frog Town" it was full of frogs, it was a
real swamp.

lands and of

Well they started in to build

course the draining just kept on in some part down in the coal dock
they pumped the sewage and the ...

Q. All of waste that has to be

A. Up and out you see EHRKHSe but of

pumped because of

course Port Arthur is on the hillside so they had to

around

as well there but Port Arthur was wooden sidewalks and mud or gravel
~
or earth t.hrowed. Q. When you were very young some of the 11e1x very
well established society in the Lakehead Thunder Bay was very elegant
in comparison to the outliffing areas?

A. Well you see all the

settlers came from the east and most-of them came from good homes
down there and they E~H~ brought some very nice furniture with them
and as they could they built their own homes.

At first there was

just the peek-through wooden houses everywhere 7well then nice homes
were built on what they called the Court Street ridge that is from
made by the hillside there and the

Court Street and
very nice homes were there.

It was many, many years afterwards, I

IVl. {,U-u,(~

suppose, ~ow 60 years or so, when they began to build up in Maragay
and those parts they were operft-y

men that would buy great

space and of course up in Mar~y it was swampy~ it was a great
blueberryppatch up there.

Q. This area here out in McIntyre River

and out towards Chippewa Park was designed to develop originally as
the
in?

~

area of the Twin Cities.

Industry has crept

A. I guess those sections outs there were finally left to the

mosquitoes and roads and they had to think of the centre of the
little town or village because after-all the stores were there.

d

�So they just kept building houses.

Q. Yet there were streetcar

tracks moving out to Chippewa Park and streetcar tracks right ijtx~ 0
Rosslyn?

A. Well the idea was that they would take them out to

Rosslyn and you know that bridge that goes xx~kx over the Kam River
has an upper structure. y ou drive through in the lower part, well that
was built meaning to have the streetcars go right out through there
the
and if the top deck is on a level with/hills on each side. There
was to be a high level xa

~

and go over the bridge right through

and span the immediate valley but then trucks came in and the farmers
didn't need the/railway to BHiX~ bring their produce in and in fact
there wasn't such a tremendous population to encourage large farms
with the selling of produce in the town,

...s.Q

i

understand it .tfo be

~laced before very long but that bridge must be oh I suppose that's
70 years old or more.

Q. There's a story that a woman designed the

first bridge across the Kam River~ so far its only a myth, I haven't
been able to track it down?

A. No, I couldn't tell you of that.

Near that bridge, the first bridge that went across and into Flint
River Valley and all was there.

You turned lQ~scorner and go across

the bttdge and you went straight on and it was a level on a river
level bridge. Q. Bigger families ~
llectio~ ~J here's
~ I
) -- ~ - - U ~ IJ..R.Arff)-4p i ct ure S of 80for 9~t.Q Oeta5ie 1golhg to Silver Islet for Sunday picnic
and very elegant thing5 ~~each other packed and so on.
ever a part of the excursion for Sunday afternoon?

Were you

A. No, we

strictly went to church and Sunday school, we wouldn't go on excursions
on Sunday but when we first were out there, Capt. Malloney xaxke~
would leave the Port Arthur dock at 10:00 on Saturday night and the
men would scramble to be shut up their stores and get it, and XHB¥X tgen
they

would reach Silver Islet by midnight and the wives would meet them
there, and help them carry home the basket of fresh meat and so forth.
The men would stay then until 8:00 o'clock Sunday night ~

the

�tugs would leave and get into town around 10:00 o'clock Sunday night.
It was oh some time after that I suppose what 65 years ago anyway
it became a grand spot, Silver Islet.

It was theonly place where

there was a dock ax decent dock and there was no highway, no #17
I

either way, you couldn't get out of town except by water and so these
sailing boats w~re old boats that were bought down east and brought
up here one at a t i m e - /44ien it was wrecked or scrapped another
one would be bought.

There were daily excursions

Ji Silver Islet

because that was the only place you could go and the old carpenter
shop was fixed up and a hardwood floor put in it and they had dances
and then for picnicing why they picniced all over the place whexerever
they wanted to open their basket.
picnic consist of in those days?

Q. What sort of food would the
A.

potato salad,

cabbage salad, but not any of the frillies pretty baking now-a-days,
sandwiches, cake and pie in the original baking dishes.
you have a bottle of wine?

Q. Would

A. Oh, I never heard of that, I suppose

some of them might have, it wasn't the outside drinking that there
is now.
changed

Q. Has the attitude xx~a towards

d~I½

in Fort William

in these past fifty years?
IA,M/'

A. Oh ~ea~

~~,,(~

ya, you see in the olden days t h e r e ~ they tell a saloon on every
corner of Cumberland Street, four corners and four saloons and right
from Arthur Street down to well Pearl Street~•- cnrd"J:t was a different
type of person that drank, drank abundantly, it was the men that
came and worked in the bush and then they would come in and they would
spend a good part if not all axx of their winter's earnings on just
getting drunk, and what they haven't spent somebody would relieve
them of.

Oh it was terrible, and a lot of drunkeness but not

educated people, not the kind now,well then when how many years ago,
Lt-'1v7

~alcohol was entirely outlawed and then it got to be considered
smart to find a .-----blind keg or be able to sneak in and then the

�/. ,. educated people they should have had more sense t ~

n'-

1'

-.le 1,,.
~~

and it§ continued, I hear so many well educated people that could

,.
be fine citizens and therjust alcoholics and the poor people, well
I guess there's a good deal of drinking of there.&amp; beer, but you
don't hear so much about that, except in the way of crime0 J tk
generally drinking RH~ that brin~s on the crime.

So it would look

as if were headxH~ed for many years that it would be outlawed again.
In catalogues see all of the paraphanalia

xf~

making wine and beer.

b

�J

Q.

A. Well the important point is love, but then people
their own home have inner thoughts and

in
and they save

the dining room, the living room has an arch way between where the
is wooden why because of taste and some people had quite
large living uh
dining room.

This is

you know and across the hall

from

MRS

there large

I think

a comedy

thing

and they would send to Toronto

would have a first

in those days and they would send

I think it was coal that was

food sent up by Train and coal into the cubic

form and

Mrs. Mccullen

showed me a big form that just looked like a big piece of wood, but
that's what she said it just was sent up the other way the coal would
be boned

at KxxkxaHa and separatea with a fontth meatand put a

jelly in

XH sthis

form and have

H

some radishes and different

things imbedded in the jelly and then they

cook
and then the whole

this was xke a coal you see this was

thin~ was sort of levelled itself and that's what turned up here by
train and then the night of the diner party I suppose
and it was turned out onto
it would be dipped into
a
R
plack oh huge one HHa no Houbt, and then Mxss Mr.

i

great

there was no bone in it, and he would just slice right down
and leave the outside room with jelly and
be ice cream and
70 years ago. This was a terrific
maid or maids
maae/and others borrowed

Then there would

before cherries that's about
and we had axxxs girl

and they had all this cleared away and after the ice cream, and the

�cake and the cheese cake, and pie oh the cooking would be tremendous
Graham
and then there's a dance. Well George Rxa~ now they and the
McTabish were the leading socialites in Fort William and this George
Graham's first home was down on the river like the McKellar home
just way down here out straight down and they had lawns and a lovely
that goes
home ~xase down to the river and they had beautiful and they were
very nice.

When the~ the railway

tracks were moved from down in the East end up here, all those houses
were either raised or moved and her's was moved out to the corner
of Archibald and

Metcalfe?

? and

on the south corner of Archibald and

quite a large

house well there's

after he built everything on this side and he built a
great big park

and when the other

of the old house there's a garden decorated with
big parlour and then Peter had an
office there
interested and

Died off and I was no longer

xx

he came down just a meeting about once a year

or once every two years or so, and when he

and

there's all the papers were brought to me one time to digest and write
but I was ill

and I was ill for a long time

but I happened

for whatever I could be any worth

on my bed the box could be geared over and Mr. Langley had brought
so
this here to skaH when I was
so he
took the

one day when he was home and gave it to Bill

Langley in his office.

They had them kept in a trunk in the basement

of the library, the old library, well it got to be oh not many years
ago somebody wanted to know where those papers were, so I told them
in the libaary.

Well they hunted in the library and then
thing.insi'd e out cou ld n I t f'in d t h e
turned thexaaxxH~

trunk and in the mean time Mr. Langley had just died

and one of

I

�daughters
oh was I thrilled because I did my part xax~ex he

~~x

gave them right

back to me because he had brought thmmx to me and I couldn't tell
John go xi~kx &amp;Hgk find whoever had the key to this trunk and whoever
finds xxwa ix the key I would do my part.

Oh that's what happened.

Well the older people those thatw were left, when those older people
had joined to form what we call ..... they would alternate the
meetings but would be very well attended because there xaliieae more
people wka maxe«

and there were some in Port Arthur

really new comers although they were elderly and then they progressed
to having a building and my mind simply thought well at xeHxx these
meetings were over the library and this is why the ... and then you
see these new people which was all
revitalize the

wanted to
and do the museum and have about

up and coming things was in my surprise I said would become of these
Port Arthur people where very impressed, they

outside

and I said well my goodness are you going to do it?
its wonderful to have some a~iside that are going to revitalize it,
they didn't even sayH anything, however,
but you see the end of these between these two towns, but of course
they're one now but I mean

in the west xi«e end isn't died

off, it takes a generation of folks to die off.

Mind you in the

olden days it was a «ixxiii~x thing because they MaHx« were quite
isolated in the winter, cut off, entirely isolated
cut off still and they had good fights just tremendous fights that
brought often HH« xkex any other day and this kept them alive.

Q.
weren't enough.

A. Oh yes, because there

Q. There wasn't enough

A. Yes ae~HHXe if they want they could have it, you were

�/0
in Port Arthur and they were very
friendly, those people
? A. Yes, you see

Q. Do things like that
their grandfather came to Ontario when everything

a long time ago to the land
if you took the land and you were told that only mining was sss xke

~~xsxKHsx~~HXkKs

KHSX~~HxkKsxx~ x~ took a fold and you had to hope

cariboo and also to the California gold and therefore be
something a miner and you just sent by the Allie Mining Co. who their
representative here and they kKs have prospectors all through the
bush.

I would expect there would be a thousand prospectors all

through the bush, mind you it would be so many miles out where they
were

and I suppose they were out about xke all the

substance where they win but .... Q.

A. Yes, maybe forty years ago, a long time ago, ...

Q. Would

A. Well they, yes, that was established by a

:f:xxm called a

i~~,

they had six xliii and the grandmother and he and my aunt they
then
had six sons KHs, then there was
and/they had three
daughters.

Then grandmother and grandfather and the girls at that

why the sons were all fixed with tradeaown east
machinist
and father was a IIXKHSX and they weren't just ordinary tradesmen

time were

they were really sHpex supper, I guess all of them had two trades
before they were
a handyman.

, and of course in those days you were

There was a University in Toronto father wanted to
us and back home there was

what we found in Toronto.

So father

from
and

my mother and brothers like a
another one has a foundry now and also coal mine next to the one

�II
who has a foundry and something else, and the oldest brother has
something call

RH~

end of an old building

~ln'.HXXH

not an archway,

oh my goodness that was very long ago, but only he would
he would be back and also with a potter maker and that's very still
Well they had all these things,
the brothers, and m¥ grandmother thought that this was going to be

arain city
•
a ~xeax
an d t h ere way you h a d to come h ere an d th e west wou ld
come here

and they

coming into this
they would set

now but she just told the boys

up and they would all go inx~ =together, so the day came when they
guilt the Port Arthur Iron Ore
all

under one roof, and they were

BR

?
and it was
A. The year, well 92 years ago, 1873, and father was married/before
Eva
lffRthe first child was born so he stayed down east and he knew the

Q. What year did

Indians?

He bought them food and came up

in July of that year and the Crothers had been here putting up buildings.
there~was

The CPR was coming through and it was going through

RR

~x~

no

foundry between Toronto and Winnipeg and there was so many
being done so father would that they
would be working night and day to settp the

and get the

He had this xi~ little engine that they had set up a
boiler to give them the power to run the little engine, it would run
all over

in the machine shop.

to put up a

Now in the foundry they had

and all kinds of things there and

in the blacksmith's shop

fordge and all this.

Well iMewas the

machine shop that was taking xkeixx~x~exs the longest and they
were trying to get this boiler to get it started but in the meantime
.
as
it was hard for them to get the material so they set them up XR a
line and if you know anything about a steam shaft why they
or electricaR~&amp;they had a ~zezz¥ great

�overhead and they had leather belts over those between downhill
heal on their

and they would sew the machine

belt,,would be to turn the machine

this rubber thing would be
on.

and

and then he put extended

So they set them up

and he put a great big candle and would ....

the

long

enough for two or three men to stand, but those men could and turn
it was a

the handle of this forget the word,

anyway

they came back then they could release the strap came on from a small
wheel to a large wheel the large whe~l and then back again and
they could turn, I don't know how many men, they could turn
the

and then before you have the boilerJ~He engine boiler
they
then you have the cooler working
and then ¥~H would
matter
i~rkx~most of the night to fill th e
then
r-X ~-xH
/boiler and that was no easy
they got the little engine going and its a kooky engine but you
and
but it was an old man who
know the staff/they were well
would start as long as I could remember but it was a grave price
so much noise, so much going on after
shop
blacksmith/ around

school there were always boys who

town that would need men well the blacksmith would RH ask him to
help with the fordge you know this sort of
A. Yes, and X

Q.

KR

I

ix was awful after school and on Saturdays this nice old boy and I
found out

that he was one of the men
he worked

I guess
he kept track of everything and

like the handyman

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                    <text>.·, 1

MRS. GER~RUDE DYKE~-Norah Street
The first thing she remenbers is living in Port Arthur
and that there were board sidewalks all over.
She thinks
they were made of white pine planks, there w s no cement at
all.
The boards had cracks in them and for fun they used to
try and get money that was dropped between the cracks out they
used pliers or a pie or anything to hook the board so the \
0

could get the money out.

There was just one public school and

she doesn't know the date this was.
It had just two roans and
they were divided.
It is now a do 1ble house next to the Baptist
Ghurch in Port Arthur, this is the ori r. inal building they did
build on to it and it is now the front of the Central School
near Gore Park. About 65 years a g o there was~ new Metho ~ist
Church being built and the dld one wa s moved down the hill
and down Bay 0treet to where the Secord Schoo1 is and that
was the first school besides the Central uchool, the next
school was on St James Street. Port Arthur and Fort Nilliam
were built fourth the first to be built up was the East End
were l 1cLau ·· hlin and McTavish Streets are.

The first home w·s

at this end of Court Street before Bay from there on there was
just wilderness.

In the forties inter~ci ty was still swamp area.

The} s~id they could never build anything on it, it was full of
frogs and when the~ did try to build the sand just sunk and it
dr2.ined.
When people settled here they broucht t _e best furniture
as they did come from good families ~own East.

The nicehomes

were built on Court Ridge and many ~, ears later they started to
build in Mariday and it was swampy this was out towards Ghippewa
Park this was suppose to be the residential area but industry
crept in.

When she was young she was never part of the e~cursion

that went to Silver Islet for Sunday picnics.
There was no hi 6 hway or any other way to get out of town so they had to use old
boats that were sold down East and brought her~.

The picnics

used to consist of potato salad, cabbage salad, sandwiches, cakes
and pie.

In her day there was the usual drinking, there were four

�saloons, and it was men that worked in the bush that used to
drink all their wages up in one ni c ht of drinking.
Ste said
it was outlawed to drink and it wasn ' t educated people who drank
then but she thinks there would be better people if they didn't
all drink so much, crime wouldn't be as bad if there was no
drinking.

Around the year 1875 0PR was coming thro ugh.

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                    <text>7/ J..~ lI
✓

•!

I

' I.

\
HERSTORY

PROJECT

Mrs. G. Dyke interviewed by Helen Lovekin
Mrs. Dyke:
Q.

Now what do you want to know about?

First I would like to ask you some general questions and then some specific
ones that we have come across in our research.

How long have you been in

Thunder Bay?

A.

All my life.

Q.

Uhat did your family do?

A.

My grandfather came 130 years ago and at that time his mail was addressed to
Thunder Bay.

I was born in Port Arthur.

He came to Thunder Bay as representative of a mining company,

he had gone to the California Gold Rush and to the Caribou (Canadian Gold
Rush), so he knew quite a bit about minerals.

His sons all lean1ed trades

so four of therncombined and came to Port Arthur and built Woodside Iron
~1 orks.

The company still exists in P.A. .

It is

9.5 years ago, this July since

my father and mother came because the boys stayed down east when their father
and mother came he.:ie, and they learned their trades.

Then there was the black-

smith and the machinist and the pattern maker and one was a carriage maker

an:i painter.

They all seemed to have two trades and they were all master mech-

anics in whatever they undertook.

So their mother thought that the Lakehead

would be the Chicago of the north, before there was any C.P.R. running through,
So they came up - four of the six boys - to the Lakehead and with their
father they built the first building and had that all ready and father was
buying the machineT"J down east and making it because he made the first engine
that was used in the shop, and it was

8.5 yars ago, the 19th of July.

I don't

remember dates but my oldest sister was 6 weeks old when they came up; they
crossed the lake in a sidewheeler and one of father's oldest brothers was
settled in Port Arthur and so they started up right away.
inery in rie;ht away, as soon as it came up with father.
ing towards P.A.

9.5 years ago bu£.\ is wasn't up to P.A..

and so they could cast iron things.

I

They put the mach-

The C.P.R. uas buildThey hall a foundry

The C.P.R. was desperately in need of

foundry and ma&lt;:!hine work sas well as blacksmiths.

The blacksmith Hasn't so

bad because you can move a blacksmith and a foree and an anvil, but you can't

/

�move a machine shop and a foundry.
work at once.

So they set it all up and commenced to

Father was tryine; to get the boiler in place and get the engine

so it would do the work and there is a shaft overhead. with the machines
underneath and you pull a lever and the belt that is up top will turn the
machine you are working on.

This one shaft will turn all the machines, if

there is two rous, then there are two rows of shafts.

Well, father couldn't

get it up at once and there was such a need for it that father put a great
big iron thing which could fit 3 or 4 men and put it at the end of the shaft.
These men turned the shaft by hand to run these different machines.

Uhen

one was winded he would step out and another would take his place - and they
worked until all hours of the night because there was such a demand for
their work.

There was an old man in the shop and I remembered old Ned Hill

and he was always kept on and when I knew him he was old but he had the job
of just Imowing where everything was and he also turned the crank and a man
that endured that, father kept him on.

The other men had gone of their own

free will but Ned had a family and he stayed.
Woodside Iron Works.

That was the beginning of

There is really a great story of the beginning of the

shop, when they had the place set up, men uere married and had their homes the brothers, and then there was grand.mother and there was the three girls that
Here 13 yea.rs younger than the 6 boys.

So there were a lot of women and they

decided they would have a pink tea dmm at the shop to celebrate the opening.
Q.

What is a pink tea?

A.

It was called a pink tea in those days just for a little decoration I guess.

But the women had pink teas at church - we say they had teas nowadays - wHl
they added pink and gave it an air.

So they had a pink tea, they brought

cups and saucers and the baJdng and all arid the work stopped for a half hour
and they had pink tea to celebrate.

This brother who was in the other molding

room or shop as was the case, had cast a horseshoe, a little horseshoe.
There was a patten1 made of it in the pattern shop and then you put it in
sand - you have to see a foundry to know how it's done.
shoe for every woman there.

And he cast a horse-

As a child I remember that every kitchen had a

horseshoe with a li ttl e bit of - not canvas but anyway, yuu put a piece of
cloth on the back and you made this little pouch and it was a matchfolder.
I don't know where our's went, I don't know if my brother keeps it or not.
Anyuay, that was a souvenir of the opening of it and they had a lot of things

�like that, and they a.re really a story nowadays.

Q.

Could you tell me a little bit about your education?

A.

In p. A. we had the Central School which was the only school in the whole
city and then we had the high school which was the only school in the whole
district.

They came from Fort Frances a.rid Murillo if any of them wanted to -

I don ' t remember that any of them did though - and Fort William and Westfort.
They came to this four roomed high school.
Q.

Where i-ras it?

A.

It was where the gym is at the high school on the hill - P.A. C. I.

Q.

So they were quite close - the two schools.

A.

Yes and the high school was torn dmm and the big one built then, they added
the gym.

It was just four rooms and two teachers and finally they got a

woman teacher which meant three.
Q.

Do you recall what yea.:r that was?

A.

I don 't Imow.

Q.

But you were at school at that time?

A.

Yes.

Q.

Did that cause any sensation?

A.

Of course most of the teachers were women but in the high school there had
just been the two men always.

That a woman was teaching?
Then I think this woman was buffeted around

by the two men but she stuck with it.
from the east.

Niss Achison was her name, she came

We had a e;reat many teachers who came from around Sarnia

because they could come direct by boat.
Q.

Has she a young woman when she came?

A.

She seemed young to me - she may have been JO.

And I think she taught history

and geography and the principal was a Scotchman who had taught boys ' school
in Scotland and why he came out here, I don't know.

Except that he drank

once in a while.
Q.

Perhaps he was just another black sheep that was shipped off?

A.

I don ' t lmow, but he was a very superior teacher.

The other man was l\'Ir.

Morgan and he taught physics and chemistry but he had learned German and at
the most unexpected time we would have a little lesson in German just when
the principal wouldn't know anything about it.

Everybody picked up a few

German words.
Q.

So you feel you got a ue2..l rounded education?

A.

Yes - . and a great many Hent to Toronto University which was something.

•

It

1

�would take on the part of the teacher, a lot of real teaching to get them
so ambitious as to go on.

Q.

Did you finish hieh school at all?

A.

In P. A . ?

Q.

Did they have Grade 13 at that time?

A.

T-J ell,

Yes .

they didn't have grades - in the public school it was the book - Junior

and Senior 1,2,3 and 4 and then in high school, I guess it was the year, 1,
2 and
Q.

J.

There was just the three years?

Hm1 old would you be if you graduated each

year you passed?
A.

I started school 1-1hen I was 4.

My father was chairman of the Board of Educ-

ation or a member of it, years and years.

This time they were short one

pupil to get the goverrrn1ent grant so they said, "Tom, you have lots of children, you can just spare one."

Well, I Has tall and big for

4

and so I was

sent to school and my aunt Ann, his sister, was the kindergarten teacher.
And she taught up to the end ofthe first book I guess.

So I was strorg and

nell and I uas just 10 or 11 uhen I Has in high school and I got through high
school and we had teachers college in P.A.

Q.

You became a teacher?

A.

Yes, for L~ yea.rs.
1h .

So I went through that and when I graduated I wasn ' t quite

And they couldn't Grant me a certificate, I was too young .

Q.

You had to lJe 21?

A.

You had to be 18, however they grru.1ted me a special dispensation and I went
down east to mother ' s old hqme ru.1d taught there for a year.

Q.

~Jhich town would this be?

A,

Out of l'ieai'ord, near Owen Sound.

Then I came back and because they bad done

this, allowing ne to teach, I was obliged to teach one year here, so I supplied in the different schools in P.A. -well, there was just the Central
School.

Then they built the south ward and I took the principals place, she

was sick or uent on a trip and I think that was when I was 16 that
principal of a south ward school.

But I was

5' 10½"

I .was

so they didn't argue

:'1ith me.

a.

Q.

This was

A.

Yes.

Q.
A.
Q.

Because you went through teacher ' s college rather than normal school?

secondary school?

Yes - because they didn't have a normal school/
And you taught, married, raised your family - how did you become interested

�in becoming an historian?
~:

If you grew up here, naturally you saw it all happen so you couldn't ~elp
but be interested.

You might say I just stumbled onto it or grew into it.

Q.

It has become for you a career?

A.

No.

Q.

Do you look at it as more of a hobby?

A.

Hobby, yes.

Goodness, I hadn ' t time.

You raise a family - these women that

work and raise a family are braver than I.
Q.

How many children did you have?

A. ;

I raised 3 children, but I had a lot of company.

Q.

Company with friends or with your children?

A.

Both, and relatives - we had relatives all the way from Halifax to Dawson
City, and they all stayed on, on trips.

Q.

Hith both your career as a teacher and a historian, did you find any discrimination?

You mentioned that Miss Achison had a bit of trouble with the

men but you were able to hold your
A.

01-m?

Yes , but it was the first lady teach er and if any pupil had to stay aft er 4
she was delegated to stay too.

Q.

But you were the principal in the south ward - how many teachers were under
you?

A.

Just one - of course don ' t mention that - I was principal at 16.

That ' s

why I was young when I was teaching, because I started at 4.
Q.

Was this a lady teacher as well?

A.

Yes.

Q.

You would have had no experience between wage differential?

A.

My goodness, I think the teacher got $32 a month or so.

Q.

Regardless of whether you were a man or a woman?

A.

No, I guess the men got more because they were the principals and sub-principals and they had families - they would have to have more - but $32 and

$35,

There were some of the girls that had a special permit and taught,

that saved money and went on to university.
Q.

Was a teacher paid according to whether he was married or not?

A.

I think there was a set wage.

Q.

For a man or for a woman.

A.

Yes, but the man was al ways married and the woman wasn't.

Q.

This was before women were allowed to have a career after marriage.

A.

You didn ' t dream of anything after marriage, other than scrub bare floors
and scrub clothes - you hadn't time for ...

Q.

No married ladies taught, even if they didn't have children?

s

�A.

I don't think so.

They didn't here anyways.

There were widows - that was

Q.

different.
As a historian, I have come across some of your works which are extremely
competant and have you ever had any trouble with the - there is quite a few
male historians about kn-ocking anything you might have to say.

A.

I have never had any trouble because whatever I wrote I had printed myself
and they didn't consider me a full scale historian - I was just a woman that
was writing down a few things.

I don't know whether anybody wanted to have

any trouble with me or not but I never did.
Q.

A.

I wrote 3 booklets and I have

the .. ........... .
lfaat about the organizations and co-operation between women and their org-

anizations?
I really can't recall any dirty work, they seemed to have - well you can't
say they have worked together always because they haven't always. There
have been women - some girl teachers who came from down east who were stirring
the teachers up to go on strike, years ago.

Such things had never been

heard of - teachers going on strike - too bad because teachers have a wonderful influence on their pupils and they don't have an influence through

It sets them down a bit I think - for the pupils. :Bu:-:t I think
that this one that was the leader in all this, wasn't hired _in the second
year and things were done gently, they did.~'t have a fist fight.
What was her proposition? Hhat was she upset about?
Wages, and she was principally upset about it, everything that a strike would ...
So you felt your wages were high enough?
No, the wages were always low.
And yet, you would not consider strike action as the course to take?
Not ...
She was upset about wages, she was upset about what else, hours?
One thing they were upset about was that we weren't pr0ducing teachers of
our own and these teachers had to come from down east and of course, in those
days, the girls were very glad to get a position and so they came from Petrolia and Sarnia because it was close to the boat. So, one thing she was
going to strike for was that the Board of Education would pay their boat
fare here. There were people in the town who boarded teachers - they were
well cared for and were honored citizens in the churches and all were fine
strike.

Q.

A.
Q.

A.
Q.

A.
Q.

A.

�women.

Some of the finest women we ever had are teachers,

~:

Can you recall, as a young girl, the suffragette movement being discussed?

A.

Yes,

Q.

Was there a suffragette organization withing Thunder Bay?

A.

Of sorts.

It wasn ' t very strong but of sorts.

The suffragettes had many

cartoons in papers of the suffragettes and I think some of them were accused
of wearing pants and you could be run in, you could serve a term if you appeared in pants.

It is not many years ago since my husband told me that I

could~..go to his tailor and order a tailored suit with pants - any material
or any cut - and he would pay for it.

He knew perfectly well that I would

never wear pants and out here it is just the kind of thing because it's cold
and keeps your ankles warm.

It's not so many years and now we don't think

anything of it at all.
Q.

Must have been auful hard washing long dresses and ...

A.

Yes , washed by hand.

Q.

After the suffragette movement of sorts, do you recall the organization that
also had something to do with that movement?

A.

Miss Black who was one of the first librarians in Fort William wasn ' t a
fighting suffragette but she was quite in favor of that.

Mary J. Black,

Q,

Unfortunately, all her people were lost when she went out to B.C.

A.

Yes, she had a brother that she went to when she was sick - before she died,
and I suppose like. so many people, they cleaned up everything thoroughly.

Q,

Too bad that she hadn't given evecy ...

A.

I suppose, like many people she was going to write it up herself.

Q,

I believe th?.,t the Homen 's Christian Temperance Union supported suffrage?

A.

Yes, they weren't fighting about it but ...

Q.

They gave support.

A.

Yes.

Q.

They sent petitions and endorsements.

A.

Mother believed and belong ea~ to the WCTU for years. We were a big family but
mother always had help - always had a maid and hadra washwoman, that came
Monday all day and Hednesday for a half a day.

That was the day when our

dresses and our underwear were washed but not the sheets or pillowcases.
That was once a week.

She was president of the Ladies Aid and a member of

the Mission Circle and the Miss WCTU and the Mother's____

Anyway,

mother went to that and the one thing I remember abo~t it - she came home

�and mother was the kind that she never looked for an argument, she was a very
wise, sw~et uoman, but this night ~he came home and we sat down .... had not
experience keeping house for a man and had no family and never did but she
undertook to tell the mothers how to bring up their families and Mrs. Dr.
Smelly had 8 and Mrs .. Neelan had 7 and they had big families and here(wRet
was this woman telling them how.
Q.

What sort of things was she recommending?

A.

How to dress your children and how you fed them an.d what you taught them and
everything - ;gh'e knew how.
answers.

These women with no children who knew all the

Mother and Mrs. Smelly talked it over and they agreed that they did

the best they could at the time.
Q.

To get back to the WCTU - you mentioned it in your book so I wonder - you have
never heard what happened to Ricobs or anything - nobody seems to know.

A.

Young fQlks organization - The White River Band - and we had the record books
for them but Dr. John Ritchie of Regina - he was a surgeon· there for years he is an uncle of Ken Ritchie the doctor in P.A..

A very fine man - well he

was secretar-J for years and years and he was a pure wit and his minutes you got there early so you wo:i.aldn 1 t miss John B's minutes, it was lovely.
So we had them - it had closed dmm for years and finally my sister sent them
to him and of course he wrote back - he was delighted - he said many of the
words he didn't know what· they meant but he had used them.

So that is were

that ·went, and as for the rest I don't know but Mrs. Hamlet -

Q.

I found several books in the library that were minutes.

One of the more

notable was a report of a social survey by the Department of Temperance and
Moral Reform in the Methodist Church.
a great amount of detail with it.

It is rather complete, they went into

TJas that a woman's organization or was it

just church members?
A.

I don't know for sure but I would say it was an organization within·__. the church
not necessarily all church officers.

Q.

What was it called?

The report was called the Preliminary and General Social Survey of Port
Arthur, March 1913, Directed by the Department of Temperance and Moral Reform
in the Methodist Church and the Board of Social Service and Evangelism of
the Presbyterian Church.

A.

So, you can take your pick there.

Q.

Yes, it is rather - so detailed, I was wondering if it had been a notable
organization.

�A.

Q.
A.

Well, I think it was like so many organizations that just are born and flourish
for a while and then go. They were doing good work in getting that written
down.
The statistics were very good.
In my letter I told you to contact Mrs. Hamlet who lives in Waverly Towers.
She is still
there is a little nuclei of the WCTU - she and her sister,
who is now in Westmount or Grandview in Fort William. Let me see, did she
die just lately? Anyway, Mrs. Hamlet will know - she•s a little birdie woman

Q.

a very nice woman, a widow.
I have noted on my studies of the English suffragettes - they were the prime
movers~ that they allied themselves with temperance movements, for the
rather obvious reasons. Nellie McClung was very closely allied with the
temperance movement. Although it wasn't a militant movement, literature was
circulated for women's rights and this went along with temperance, which was

A.

because women couldn't afford to ....
I don't think so, it was the same women largely in all organizations. King's
Daughters and all of these - oh, mother belonged to the K.D. or the Queen's
Daughters - it was the Queen's Daughters in Victoria's time and then it was

Q.
A.

the King's Daughters.
Could you explain the function of the Queen's Daughters?
It was an organization that fostered patriotism and when any noteworthy person
like a Govenor-General etc. came, the Q.D.looled after them and they had
meetings and showed the flag, like the Imperial Daughters - but they were
older women - younger than lots of the IODE.

Q.

It was just a patriotic formation.

There was also another book I came across - a report on the Local Council of
Women - The West Algoma Local Council of Women.
didn't you?

A.

No, I didn 't .

Q.

There was a Mrs. Dyke.

A.

It might have been my mother-in-law.

You convened that JO years

But I attended - I don't know whether
I held any office in it for q_uite some time. But I wasn't a leading light but I think my mother-in-law was and she was a member of a hospital aid before
the RMG hos pitaJ. was built and during which time, mother and Mrs. Dr. ~1Smelly
and Mrs. Neelson and Yi.rs. Mical. Quite a bunch of them that were very friendly and they enjoyed their friendship at these meetings and once the RMG
started - once a week they went to the hospital and mended the sheets and
pillowcases and towels. Mother always had a good maid, woman or girl, so that

�her children

were in e;ood hands and mother was up early so that in the a£ter-

Q.

noon she could go and bring word back of what they did.
This would be the ladies social contact I suppose because they didn ' t work
out of the homes. If you didn 't belong to an organization, you wouldn ' t go

A.

out very much.
Yes, that is so.
I did come across the minutes from 1894-1950 and I wrote a list of all the

Q.

proposals and the ammendments that the coucil had made for the wanen.

They

strongly pushed for women sitting on various boards, particularly the School
Board and in 1917 they wished to have at least two women appointed to the
Taxation and Organization of Homen Labor Boards. Although they were interested in hospitals, they seemed to have suggested - in 1930 a pre natal. clinic
in Port Arlhur - all sorts of things that women are still asking for. It
seems that they were thinking along feminist lines - did it strike you that
A.

way at the time?
That ' s why they organized - to have mightier say in things than they have had
before because they were supposed, just to run their homes and bring up
their children. And now they bancled together and asked for some things like
the RMG hospital. There was just St. Joseph ' s Hospital and women didn ' t go
to the hospital. to have their babies. The RMG hospital., the women urged that
until they got it and the primary idea was for it to be like a maternity
hospital. They had wards .and private rooms for maternity but it was RMG that was General, The Railway, Marine and General Hospital.

Well, in those

early days there was a great deal of typhoid, and they had a lot of typhoid
wards and men ' s and Nomen 1 8; And my oldest sister went to the RMG to have
her baby and there was a night nurse on for the men's typhoid ward - she crune
across the hall to ansuer the bells of the young mothers. To have a nurse who would be far more interested in gabbing all night with those men than

Q.

A.

bothering washing and scalding her hands before coming to the mothers and Eva
went home with typhoid fever.
Did she survive?

A.

She survived but she was ill for a long time.
The baby as well?
Yes.

Q.

They were both very lucky.

A.

Yes and lucky too there was a Scotch nurse - a married woman .

Q.

You see any

lO

�trained nurse was scarce and this woman married and came with her husband
to Port Arthur and someway, I think my brother-in-law knew them well enough
to have her come and look after Eva.

She was Scotch - trained and we had

very few trained nurses in those days.

That is what started the RMG - to be

Q.

a maternity hospital.
Were you also a member of the Women's Institute?

A.

No, that was a rural organization.

They made - two or three years ago - the

word went through all the institutes : "Have your district written up." and
Mrs. Oliver did it for Slate River.

Each area had it written up and I pre-

sume all those books and papers are kept at the headquarters.
Q.

We are having a difficult time extracting the Hymers book from a Mrs. Thatcher.
She has it and she is not giving it out.

A.
Q.

Well - and hasn't had it published yet?
No.

I know that the Women's Institute did some valuable things including

setting up libraries and providing rural women with what they needed - a
place to go and be with other women. The council is more politically orientated - was there any tension between the two or did you co-operate?
A.

I don't recall any tension.

Q.
A.

Was there any co-operation between the two groups for projects?
Some.

Q.

Can you give me the areas?

A.
Q.

I just have the feeling.
Did you hear of the Dominion Women ' s Franchisement Association?

They did

change their name to a much easier one which was the Canadian Suffrage Association.

I talked to Mr. Russell Brown and he said he remembered but he

couldn't remember anything about the suffrage movement other than they wore
pins.

A.

They tried to be militant to stir themsel~es up and to head up a slight war
but they never got that far. Each strove a little bit and all together they
have got some very good things for women.

Q.

After looking at the minutes I am findin 6 so many things that we are still
fighting for. Looking back, do you think we have changed very much?
gotten anywhere?

Have we

A•

They have really done very well. Slowly and without making big distresses.
They quietly accomplished a good many things.

Q.

Have you got something that you had worked on then, that is still not an accomplished feat, that you would very much like to see happen?

\l

�A.

I don't think I can pull that one out of a hat. Because there ar~ so many
things that they just have quietly gotten. Nellie McClung - she used to come
and speak.

Q.
A.

Her father-in-law was Presbyterian.

She came to speak here?
In P.A. and F.H.. The men loved Nellie McClung, she was witty.

I used to go

with father, and to hear her speak in the evening, there was lots of laughs
in it.
Q.

A.

She was very diplomatic and very kindly but she made a point.

lfas she an inspiration for you?
Yes and she had some experience with liquor and so she was out and out for
WCTU.

I remember her speaking in the Presbyterian church in Port Arthur -

St. Paul's - and there would be as many men as women because she was worth
going to hear and you quite agreed with what she had to say because she put
it quite nicely. She spoke this evening and I think there was some big ~ I
don't suppose it was a war, but something was on and the Archbishop of Canterbury had said that he couldn ' t do without his wine because it helped his
digestive system and stomach do it ' s work.

And the way she would state it

and she had a little twinkle in her eye and everybody was laughing about this.
The Archbishop uasn ' t an out and out prohibitionist, he liked his wine.
was a very fine woman.

She

She went west - her father-in-law was one of the

earliest ministers in P.A. - Methodist, because Robert McClung, who she married
taught a Sunday school class of boys as a minister's son was expected to do.
My aunts were all teachers and my grandmother taught the Bible class and my
uncle was a Suuday school superintendant, and his wife played the organ in
church.

These were unrilly boys that Bob Mcclung was teaching.

young man, 19 or so,

He was a very

Hell they would sit around him with their row of chairs,

heads tight together listening to him.

And they discovered that he had a copy

of Robinson Crusoe in a Bible cover and he was reading that to them and they
just~ loved him and loved his stories.

Nellie went west to teach in those

early days and she fell so in love with Mrs. Mcclung and there was a young son
and she was so disappointed because if she could marry a son, she would be
Mrs. McClung's daughter-in-law.

To her great amazement and joy, this bo:;y sh(n1red

up one time - he was a druggist - and here was a ready-made son of her own age.
So she said that she - well, she would say it of course - she simply said her
cap and he couldn't get out of it.

So they married.

led a great deal and was acclaimed wherever she went.

She lectured and travelShe was well-known and

one time she heard that her husband was objecting to her being away so much

\2

�without telling her.

So she went home and she had been honored in Toronto and

Ottawa and he felt she was getting beyond him so when she got there in the
evening and they had tea, she said to him, "Would you please pass.the brown
bread?".

That was the staple food, brown bread, and she wanted him to under-

stand that she was still staple.

So it went on from there.

She loved Mrs.

McClung and Mrs. McClung loved her, more than any of her own children.
Q.

Was she treated well by the papers here?

A.

Yes, wherever she went.

Q.

Did they print up any of her speeches?

A.

Oh, yes.

Q.

So, if I go through the microfilm - you don't know the years she was here?

A.

No, I couldn't tell you .... If you just get up and give dates and times, it
just bores you to death.

I see you have read "Plane Down" , that story in there.

It is pure fiction but this is the house they crune to.

They came in that door

tumbled down their goods there, and went into the livingroom and we made fires
in the kitchen and the back shed still has the great woodpile.

Ann Caaslet,

the Dickinsons were really pioneers, her great grandfather ran - r·don ' t know
whether it was the first paper published in P.A.

e

His granddaughter is Mrs.

Ann Causelet and she lives in this cottage where old Captain Marrin lived,
Ann Dryna - my mind went blank, what was I going to say about Ann Dryna?
,a/,.

'· 1 e

A.

. .... Oh yes, that "Plane Down" and they have been here for ever and ever and

were talking about Nellie McClung.

Ann speaks very slowly.
morning.

She lives back again in F.W. and she phoned this

She said, "Mother and I have racked our brains trying to think of

the year that plane mishap and we can't remember it at all.
pen?"

When did it hap-

I said, "Imagine, have I convinced you?•, "Convinced me of what?".

"That's pure fiction" and she said, "You told it too well, we thought it was
true,"
Q.

You have been very active in women's organizations all your life, and so has
your mother.

A.

How do you feel about the women's oganizations now?

I'm stric~ly a temperate woman, Father called it the "accursed stuff" because
he had such trouble with th.e,~:men, especially the foundry men.
fines and hauled them out and got them back to work.

He payed their

He and mother were

strictly temperate and one thing I o1;&gt;ject to is that these organizations now there is wine and cheese - well, it doesn ''t seem to dawn on them that they
don't need to have this wine and cheese business but they think they've got
to do like some of the others do.

There are other less outstanding things

�that they are also embracing and it used to be that now the Canadian Club was
a splintered organization, it was for the most part made up of cultured,
educated women, and I don't say that they aren ' t educated now, but I don't
like some things and I feel that the women ' s organizations should stand forth
for the best in Canad.a and you can't bring up children to avoid alcohol if
you belong to these organizations that serve it and take it.
to be on one side or the other.
didn't need it.

You have got

We didn ' t serve it and we didn ' t miss it and

And then, after all, women have a place that is separate

from men and women are dressing like men and their doing so many things that
men do,
Q.

Do you mean working?

A.

No, I mean in every way.

For example, car racing and boy, the women are driving

the cars along with the men.

They have to do with all the sports.

Q.

You think that 's wrong.

A.

I think the men like them to be women.

Q.

Nellie HcClung had a saying:

We were t~J.king to a woman who preferred to have

her coat taken off and the doors opened etc. and Nellie McClung referred to
that once as "wantin 0 to eat the icing rather than the cake."

And that goes

right along with her brown bread saying, where yoy. have to be recognized for
your ability, and whether they open the door or ill.at shouldn't stand in the way.
To me, this is the goal I 'm trying to work towards, and I think a lot of other
women that I work with would agree with me on that.

It is the cake that I

would rather eat, you get too many cavities eating icing - too many holes in
it.

Do you have a daughter?

A.

Yes, in California.

Q.

Do you think that it is a better life for her than it was for you?

A.

It was pretty rugged and we didn't know it because it was where we lived and
what we were used to.

They have sidewalks and roads now that you can go

without going down to the axle and in my day, in Fort lilliam especially.
we have coveniences now in the house and travel etc.

And

Yes it is much easier.

I was telline; somebody of a classmate of mine who got to P.A. from the States
and came to high school.

I don't know how she got to P.A. and her father had

died and her mother was lecturing for something.

She and her brother and, I

don't know how they jerked themselves up but anyway they both got to P.A ..
She was poor and had no ml':biley or \~achl.ng
worked her way.

but she got up to Collegiate and she

She got up for this English woman who had 2 girls and she

�washed and dressed them and got them breakfast and eot them to school and
did the beds and dishes and left the house tidy - to come to school herself.
I didn't think she paid and as for clothes, she gave her her cast-off clothes
and this woman was two sizes smaller than Lula and Lula I remember had no hat
so she wore a bonnet every winter and it was all she had.
jolly well take· h er with a bormet or leave her.

And you could

She went through public

school and went to the teachers college which we had for a few years and then
she went up the line to teach and married the first man that asked her.
hadn't had a home, so just to have a home.
about him.

She

She wasn ' t asking the man much

He had a farm but it had been bun1t over and when I saw her after

some years of marriage, her hands were like horns - she was still using this
burnt over wood and she had 5 children and somebody said "one every Friday" .every year, anyway. Her husband wasn't interested except to feed them - that
was his duty done.

She wanted them to have an education so she sewed and she

proclaimed herself a barber and then she got a second hand chick hatchery an incubator - and turned one of the two bed.rooms she had into an incubating
• room and hatched chickens and sold them around the district.
tomatoe plants and sold them and sent her children to school.

Then she raised
Then they had

to go into town for the hi¢gh school - her oldest daughter went first and
she got babysitting - had a room but I don't think her board, but did that
and it was enough to bring her cash.

Then she went home Friday night and

her mother did the s~wing, washing and ironing, fixed her up on Saturday and
then she came back Sunday night and brought a big basket of food. Her brother
was ready for hig9.school and they just put a sheet up in her room with a
bed on each side and she managed the food for them.

He eventually became a

teacher and she trained in HcKellar Hospital and she had the money that they,
paid the girls - $2.50 a month or $J.OO and if she broke a thermometer, it ~as
a disaster and she had clothes her mother made out of old clothes. Stockings
and those button - on shoes was all she had and she learned like her mother:·
that was what she had and she wore •-il and she was thankful.
denims so she could go hiking with the girls.
RMG and had a bad time.

Had a pair of

The next girl went into the

The matron didn ' t approve of her - a poor girl in the

class with some of the girls that had more - so she dismissed her on the first
pretext she could find and she herself was dismissed for cilsmissing the girl.
They all managed and were splendid children.

How many are doing that nowadays?

\S

�If they haven't silk stockings and all the rest of it, they sit down and howl
at the moon, but these youngsters didn ' t.
Q.

I feel sorry for the girl you went to school with who married the first man
who caJ.11e along to get a home and live with a man - probably not a very happy
life.

A.

Oh, I'm sure, but she wouldn't cheep, there would be no squabbling, she made
her bargain and she kept it.

Dad finally died and he had a thousand dollars

life insurance in some organization - very little.

Now that is five $200 ' s

well the youngest girl had died so there were four and she was the fifth so
they each got $200 and that was just touching the •::louds.

She came to F. W.

and two or three times she came representing the Women ' s Institute and they
would pay her way down and then she would stay with me and she told me "I
just went on a regular binge, I bought an electric iron and an electric kettle"
and then she bought enough black silk or rayon and a neighbor helped her make
a dress and a jacket and she had $.50 left and she put it in the bank - so she
had a bank account.

The others - it was spent the same Hay - had to give a

good account of every nickel.

She died long since and at Christmas time I

write one of her daughters and this daughter - her son and another boy in the
neighbqrhood were going to play PeeW ee hockey in F. W. , so they stayed with ll!e.
Youngsters love to see through a house so when they had been there a little
while .I suggested that the boys go on and look through the house and see everything.

One youngster went home and I guess he nadn 't been in a big house

before and he told his mother all the details - the furniture, what they had
on the beds, how they took a bath . in the bathtub.

He is now a grown man and

married long::::since but she still gives me a little of his history and she
and her sister were fine women and well thought of in the community and the
one boy is a teach er and the other is head of the highways in Kenora and I
don't knou whether he is still there or whether he is retired or not.

They

have always accepted any help - so nicely - no embarrassment, just thank-you
very much.
Q.

Uas there any help for a woman uho wanted to leave her husband - perhaps if
he physically beat her or the children?

Has there anyone she could turn to

if she had no family?
A.

1

tfell, they turned to the church and the minister and his wife.

went into housework - that was her refuge.

Of course, she

�Q.

Would she be able to take all of her children?

A.

If there Here children that would be different.

Q.

She would have to put up with it.

A.
Q.

Yes, many of them did.

A.

There was often a ver-J nice neigbor map. who would beat the daylights out of

This is one of the things we are still trying to work on.
him - which he well deserved.

Q.

I asked an Italian lady in Italy what a wife would do if the husband beat her
and she said that generally they never moved from the original village and
she had her brothers protect her.

It would take on&lt;f.'•• thump and generally he

got the message.
A.

There was an early priest - Father Baxter in P.A.

He was a great big burly

man and if he heard of any man that had been beating his wife, he ' d talrn off
his clerical black gown, "nightg0vm" as they called it, and he ' d just give
him such a thrashing that he wouldn't forget it.

Many a man stopped beating

his wife when he had a beating from Father Ba,'Cter.

He came out here in the

early days and said mass and that white house down there is built on the old
foundation of the old Catholic church - the Sellars live in it.
quite a family of them.
in the Lakehead.

There was

They were the early elevator people and grain pe ople

Hr. Al Sellars bought it but it was in such disrepair and

it was finally torn down and then the foundation was. remade and he built the
same size on thesame foundation.

It was during the years I was away from

Silver Islet that it was finished so it took some arguing on Ethel Sellars '
part to convince me that it wasn ' t the old Catholic Church.
Q.

Do your remember WWI?

A.

Yes. '

Q. ·

I am a history teacher - do you remember after the Har, in your experience,
if the attitude towards working women changed much?

A.

Yes, it commenced a change because the women had irnrked so hard during the uar.

Q.

At jobs that a lot of people didn ' t think they could do.

A.

1-J ell,

Q.

Did it progress further after WH2?

A.

Yes and after WWI and especially after WW2, the people had learned to go out

there were more stenographers and bookeepers and things like. that .

and enjoy themselves and people had learned to leave their children and go out.
They took their families lightly to what they had been before,

A mother wouldn ' t

\7

�leave her children and go gabbing.

They think nothing of leaving them and

they can pretty much bring up th ems elves, the youngsters.
Q.

Do you see no discrepancy between a woman hiring a girl t.o feed her children
breakfast and lunch and do their clothes and send them out to school, even
though she lives withinl. the house, to women who have to use daycare centres
to do the same thing? ·no you see much of a difference?

A.

Of course daycare - Miss Michaels has now set up her evm school in the Salvation Army Eall and has the daycare.

That is a real profession.

She has

a real degree and education.
Q.

The point I ' m getting at is the effect on the children,

Why would it be more

acceptable to have a girl living in your home to do that?
A.

Because they are home - that's the only differ-~nce.

These daycare centres,

where the girl has to Imow a lot and the child must learn a lot.
Q.

Yes, they are very careful with them.

A.

There was a couple married in Hesley Church a11d they were quite active, they
were both teachers.

They had a child and they didn't show up again and it

was some time before one of the ladies went to call and found that· this
beautiful little girl baby had an enormous head - it was terrific.

There

nas something wrong with the children a11d so from that, they banded together
and Wesley let them have a room and they met every mon1ing uith a different
mother looking after these 5 or 6 children.

It meant a holiday for the mother

-l~ days a week and 5 mothers, and 5 children and they did simple ~ai.11es and

things and looked after them and the mother would be refreshed and rested.
I went d01m for about 26 years.

I was the relief officer - that is an at-

tendant to the second-hand clothing and people would come to my house, I had
a trunk that was never empty and never full. ....... I would then send overseas twice a year there were greatshipments.

I" remember one time .we sent 850 lbs.

a.nd that is a lot to pack a.nd Hr. Gerr'iJ would come and help us rope and the
McKenzie dray came and took it, shipped it, a11d paid tho shipping charges and
just charged us for the shippinc charge - they never charged us for their
dray and went on for years and yea:cs ... I would often be at the church in the
morning~ after school and these children - the little girl with the great big
head, I don ' t know how she held it up - it must have taken a long time to get
it

O

o

I•

Q.

How long did she survive?

A.

I think she was 9 or 10 when she finally died.
shapen and mongoloid.

The others, they were mis-

I always stopped and talked to them and told them a

story, so that they got to know me.

l3

�•
Q.

A.

Aft er the war, when ladies had been working in factory jobs and that sort of
thing, when their husbands came home, did they expect them to go back to the
way they had been? What sort of conflicts Callle from the change?
They expected it. Women often went out without any squabbling, they get their
own way and they had more money than they had ever and they weren ' t going to
give that up right away.

Q.

A.

So there was difficulty.

The majority of women

stayed with their husbands.
And the husbands learnt to live with liberated women?
It wasn't so easy for the men to get jobs and there are a few sensible men
that would see that their wives really had to bring in the bread and butter
and they had to work at home themselves.

You saw quite a few, but also you

saw the one that wasn ' t going to have it.
going to stay so.
ironed out.

He was king of the castle and was

That was the unfortunate few but it is wonderful how many

There was one English girl that came out - the men came home

first - well they sent the women home first - anyway, she was-______
and she married and Indian from the mission over here and in England they are
not so concerned about the color of their skin as we are.
them marry from the Near East - red and brmm skin.

A great many of

One of our ta,-ximen was

at the station and this girl came to him and wanted to be taken to the mission,
and he was shocked. She was a fine looking :I!nglish girl, so he said "Are you
sure that is the right address?"

She had married a native Canadian and was

going to stay with his people until he got here.

H2 very nicely tried to

persuade her not to but she was going - he took her for quite a long ciistance
and then you turn up tolthe reserve and he said he noticed that her chatter
ceased when he turned up because it was pretty crummy in those days, they've
decent houses now. He told her that this was the house and he told her he
would wait and for her togo to the door. So she did and a big, fat, very unclean looking squaw came to the door - the mother of this boy she married.
She just threw up her hands and came back to the taxi and said for him to
take her away from there.

He told her he knew and had tried to tell her but

he decided she had better see for herself.

He told her he would take her to

his house or to the Salvation Army, 1-1hichever she wanted and she could get
help from the Red Cross to go back home.

She chose to go to the Salvation

Army and reported to the Red Cross and they came and helped her.
went right back home.

She just

They would have been marrying boys from all the colonies

so she ..... now they are very fine, smarl Indian men that are working on the
highways and worki:pg at machines.

They've had a tough time, our native people.

/9

�.,·

•
Q.

A.

We have a lot to account for.
They used to scalp people and shoot them down with arrows and burn them and
do all kinds of things.

If we had a hoard of p~ople come in and take over

our country - they had it for thousands of years - of course they ' d fight.
Q,

As far as scalping goes, it was white men that taught the Indians - they used

It was easier to bring in a scalp, they thought of ears for
a while but a guy could bring in two different ears and say they were ears
from one person and so, the scalps.
A.
More power to them - fight for their land. If somebody crune along and put
me out of this house, .....
Thank-you for your help Mrs. Dyke,
it for bounty.

l.C

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