Emily Bernadette Kennedy: Mom's Memoirs, Written by Vicky Gaul The memoires were written by me in 2006-2007 taken from the notes mom wrote over a few years

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Mom's Memoirs, Written by Vicky Gaul The memoires were written by me in 2006-2007 taken from the notes mom wrote over a few years

Well Mom You look great.

We miss you already but i feel your love with me.

Thanks for the Memoirs.

Mom's Memoirs, Written by Vicky Gaul

2 comments:

Cobblestone Theatre said...: Dedication

This is my description of the way of life from 1917-1938 in the out ports of Newfoundland when I was growing up.
Dedicated to my children, Bill, Vicky, Gayle, Keith, and Cindy, all of whom I love and cherish very much.
Especially dedicated to my son Keith, whom I admire so much for his intense interest in the culture of days gone by.
I would also like to dedicate this to my wonderful husband and father of my children, William Harold Kennedy. One day soon, please god, I will be by his side once more. I miss him more than one could imagine.
Also to my daughters-in-law Linda and Lynn, my sons-in-law Bryan and Lynden, you all respected and loved me and Dad as if we were your own parents, thank-you.
To my Granddaughters Melanie, Andrea, Jaime, Ashleigh, Katelyn, Emily-jean and my Grandsons Christopher, Jesse and Scott, you filled our lives with pride and joyous memories. Thank you.
To my Great-grandchildren, Matteo, Dante and Kaleb, I regret that I will never get to know you very well due to my health and that I will never know my unborn Great-grandchildren.
Now that I have had time to sit and think, I find myself wishing that man had not overstepped his knowledge or at least had been slower in making changes that has had devastating effects on all mankind. What devastation the world has seen in the past 60 years.
Ours was a very simple and loving way of life and for the most part, a very healthy lifestyle. We were not plagued by the temptations that exist in today’s world. The curse of drugs, alcohol abuse and killers such as aids were not part of life in my village and sex was not thrashed around like an old worn out shoe.
Looking back on life today at age 68, I feel we have a lot to blame on our generation. Life was changing to fast from the 40’s to the present day for us to hold the tight reigns that my parents and grandparents held in their time.
It was called the “modern era”. Don’t stand in the way of progress, everyone going in all directions trying to “find themselves”.
Close family ties were overlooked in the rush to keep up with the Jones’s. The daily prayers in the home and going to church on Sunday were replaced by the modern version of going to the cottage on the weekends. Everyone seemed to be doing his or her own thing.
In plain words, the maker of this beautiful universe was forgotten, and the good life as it was being called, took over. How sad! Each day I pray for the present generation and the ones to come. I know in my heart they will never know the good life that I and my forefathers had. Namely, honor your father and mother, praise god and then what ever is left, use it for good clean living.
God love and protect you all. Please give those beautiful grandchildren of ours the very best example that you can.
Your Father, Grandfather, Great-grandfather and I will watch over you and pray for you always.
Love from the bottom of my heart, Mom xoxo
Lawn

Lawn is situated at the most South Eastern point of Placentia Bay with a coastline of about thirty miles long and juts out into Fortune Bay.
Lawn Harbor is an inlet of water about one and a half miles long, three quarters of a mile wide and very deep. It was known as one of the safest harbors for boats to run to shelter and ride out the storm. In those days I can remember many times seeing our harbor blocked with boats and I have experienced seen many serious storms.
Lawn Harbor, being so deep, had another advantage. The fishermen that owned schooners flocked into Lawn to use the fishing grounds during the summer fishing season, which lasted 2 to 3 months. They would moor their boats, live in them and set their traps in their designated births.
The fish had to be gutted, washed and dried in the sun and cured with salt before being stored in the hole. If the fishing was very plentiful they would make a run back to their village, unload and return to fish again. It was a very busy time and the work was hard.
Many marriages were a result of those repeated visits to our village. When I was only 8 or 10 years old I remember the harbor being packed with Schooners. Their lights would light up the harbor in the evenings like a Christmas tree and on Sunday evenings the Philharmonic orchestra had nothing on them. The men and their wives and children would come up on deck with all their instruments, violins, accordions, mouth organs and flutes. Everyone would play and sing and the voices would ring out and the harbor was always filled with life. They always attracted quite an audience. Everyone in the settlement came out with their musical instruments, and joined in the fun. Those were magical days.
After the tidal wave in 1929 our cod fishery was ruined and it no longer made economical sense for them to fish in our harbor. The cod fishery was dwindling away and the fishermen just stopped coming. We missed them so much; it was like our tourist’s season had ended forever. I remember how wonderful it was to see them arriving and how lonely and desolate the harbor seemed when they would leave.
The French Islands, St. Pierre Miquelon, were about thirty miles by water from Lawn. In order to travel there you had to obtain a clearance from the government’s official, as the Islands were known as a foreign country. You were only allowed to visit, no trading or bringing back merchandise of any quantity. Everything had to pass through customs, declared and duty paid. Alcohol was strictly forbidden. In prohibition days it became a well-known spot for rumrunners and paid extremely well.
The government boats patrolled the waters continuously and would confiscate everything including your fishing skiffs, dories or whatever if they came aboard and found anything unlawful. One could be charged with a jail sentence as well.
St. Pierre was controlled by government boats and they would seize your goods, vessel, skiff or whatever you had on the high seas.
There was a Magistrate and a Tide Waiter stationed in Lawn. They granted licenses to travel to St. Pierre and upon arrival you had to report to the Gov’t officials for clearance.

There were certain commodities you could declare and bring back by paying the minimum of duty such as household items, footwear, and beautiful French serge material for sewing and so on. Alcohol was strictly forbidden and if you were caught with it everything you had on board was seized including your vessel. If you could not pay the
fine, you lost it all.
Mr. Benning was the Magistrate, I think his first name was Joseph but I am not sure. He was loaded down with educational honors. Mr. Benning was the grandfather of the well-known Professor Allen Frecker of St. Johns. He died recently. I remember him as a boy of about 12 wearing his knicker bockers. He used to visit his grandfather in Lawn and my father used to take him out to his fishing traps on summer holidays. Out to see the traps being hauled and every time we went, oh what codfish. The motorboats and dories were loaded to the gunnels.
My father, your grandfather, told of a few narrow escapes he had and some really funny stories.
Our village consisted of about 750 people I would guess. Everyone knew each other and most of the time it was like a big happy family. Everyone owned his or her own home. There was no indoor plumbing and electricity never came to Lawn until I was about 12 years old. The dam was built in our village and driven by big turbines. We called it the powerhouse and waterfalls generated the electricity. This was a big step forward from reading and studying by lamplight to electric light.
A shiver goes down my spine when I think of our plumbing or lack of it. I cannot figure out how the whole village was not ravaged with typhoid fever. However, tuberculosis was raging and it sure doesn’t surprise me under the unsanitary system that existed in every home. That was just the way of life and you lived the life you knew.
Every bedroom had a chamber (pee pot) and most of them had a cover. Those things were emptied every day in what was called “the slop pail”. The slop pail was emptied into a pit (a hole dug in the ground) and covered up, or thrown into the sea, or thrown in open meadows, uncovered, where the hens fed off it and the flies flew up by the dozens. I have seen it disposed of in many ways. It was very unsanitary indeed, but everyone went on his or her merry way. Why or how we survived is a mystery. The clean families were exposed in many ways to the careless dirty people and hygiene was left to the mercies of god. He did a good job I would say in sparing our lives eh?
There were about 2 or 3 small general merchandise stores in Lawn, owned and operated by family members.
Everyone did his own work. Plumbers, carpenters, painters or electricians for hire were unheard of when I was growing up.
The men were employed all summer and fall, catching enough fish to sell and pay for their winters “grub” as it was called. Our grub consisted of beans, peas, rolled oats, molasses, flour, baking powder, baking soda, yeast cake, butter by the tub, I remember the name yet, “Silver Spread” sold in 10 and 20 pound tubs.

Cod Fishery in Lawn

The main industry in Lawn was the cod fishery. Why only cod was mentioned is beyond me because the gorgeous lobster, huge salmon and several other types of fish were in abundance and enjoyed very much in our diets.
The fish were caught in cod traps. The traps were very large nets that everyone knit for themselves with heavily treated twine.
The season began in early June through late September. Your grandfather always set out his traps on my birthday, June 13th. They had designated berths and used the same area every year.
Caplin was the main bait for cod in the summer and in the winter they used squid. Oh, those lovely big codfish caught in the fall. One of the flakes from its back was almost enough for a meal and so delicious.
The fall fish were caught by lines, each hook baited with squid. It was not unusual for a fall cod to weigh twenty pounds or more, glutted from the summer feeding on caplin.
My father had a lot of fishing equipment and property. He had his Captains license and owned his own schooner, a two masted schooner named the Margaret Mary, equipped with an engine and she could operate under sails. When the inshore fishery was over in the fall the Margaret Mary made it possible for my father to take advantage of the offshore fishery. This gave him the opportunity to earn a better living than the average inshore fisherman.
As well as the Mary Margaret dad had two cod traps, two motor boats operated by engines, (I think they used Acadia Engines) trawls and lines, two large fishing wharves, two stages, two large flakes and two stores that were all built by his own hard work.
In the fall, after the fishing season, my father would go into Marystown and cut timber. Marystown is in Placentia Bay about thirty or forty miles from Lawn and incidentally, that is where he met my mother many years before. He had timber sawn by the mill in Marystown and he transported it to Lawn in his schooner, the Mary Margaret.
Your grandfather’s property was very sturdily built and well kept. As you will read further on, when the tidal wave of 1929 demolished most all of the fishing property belonging to the other fisherman, his was still intact. He was known as one of the fisherman that always got his extra quota each year and through hard work we were considered one of the independent families in our settlement.
During the winter the men were busy gathering wood for the stoves to keep warm during the cold winter nights. They kept busy repairing fishing gear, knitting twine for new traps and mending torn gear.
When spring arrived they were busy with their land. They would prepare cattle manure to fertilize the land for the growth of hay, to be used in the coming summer.
A couple days in the early spring were set aside by the men so they could “tar and tan” their fishing nets. They used to have huge big pots. Oh they were so big! They filled the pots with tar, pitch and oakum and built a fire underneath them. When the mixture came to a boil they put their fishing nets into the pots. They would wait for the pot to boil once again and then pull their nets out of the pots and place them on a fence to dry. Everyone helped each other until their nets were cured. The curing prevented the nets from rotting while sitting in the salt water all summer and preserved them for the winter lying up.
I remember we would be walking home from school in early spring and the nice smell of that boiling pot was an indication that the summer holidays were close. They were really carefree days, if you were a kid.
They had very little time to be idle.
The women were kept equally busy, if not more so. Preparing berries picked for jam, spinning the wool to knit a great deal of the winter clothing. Mitts, hats, scarves, sweaters, stockings, you name it they knit it. They made quilts, hooked mats, baked bread; hand washed all the clothes, did everyday general cleaning, took care of the children and cooked 3 meals a day. I often sit and wonder where in god’s name did they get time to sleep!

My Mother

My Mother was born in Marystown, Newfoundland and all of her family lived there. Moms’ brothers were all very talented and hard workingmen, 7 in total if I remember correctly. They were first class carpenters and coopers.
A coopers trade was a tricky one. Slabs were sawn from trees cut on their land and out of these they made barrels fastened with hoops. These barrels were made for transporting dried salt cod and other dried and salted fish to ship to Portugal and other countries. The salt fish trade was by now booming. Refrigeration was not heard of back then so drying and salting fish was the safe way to preserve and transport perishables.
My mother made all our clothes. She was a very good seamstress and sewed for the whole village including wedding dresses and most of the time she would not charge for her work. The payment was generally a “thank-you Lizzie.
She hooked all our mats, we call them rugs now, and they were very large. She taught me and I was considered one of the best “hookers” in the village. That is, mat hooker. Don’t get it confused with today’s terminology, ha, ha.
My mom used the wool we sheered from the sheep to make our mitts, socks, caps, scarves, sweaters and my father and brothers underwear. We always kept 1 or 2 black sheep to color the wool taken from the white sheep.
Mom had a spinning wheel. The wool was washed, picked loose, carded and rolled into skeins ready for the spinning wheel. She was considered an expert spinner. She could spin that wool so fine that our stockings looked as good as the ones you buy in the finest stores today. She taught me and I became very good at it and was considered a very good spinner.
To make different colored wool we picked the moss from the rocks, we called it “glouger.” I have no idea where the word came from. We put the moss or “glouger” in a pot of boiling water, let it boil for a while and then strained it to get rid of the moss. When you put anything in that water, oh boy what a pretty orange color it would be. In those days colors were not considered important, comfort and functionality came first.
I always thought of my mother as being frail and delicate with a beautiful figure.
She could however apply her hand to anything and she taught me so much. She was an excellent seamstress and knitter and her fancy work was beautiful. Mom was a great cook and a meticulous housekeeper. My father adored her.
At a very early age I remember always trying to help her. I would turn the wheel of the sewing machine for her as there was no electricity then.
I remember her giving us our baths on Saturday nights and as we grew she would always help us with the preparation.
The water was warmed on the stove in large containers. The big washing tub was carried into the kitchen and placed beside the stove. When the water was warm enough the water was poured into the tub and the bath would begin. We used sunlight soap, no fancy smelling soaps or bath powders, only clean smelling sunlight soap. The bath was a chore and quite time consuming.
My mother made her own soap for washing clothes and bed linens etc. I used to help her make the soap and form it into squares. No bleaches could have gotten the clothes any whiter. Looking back now I can understand why. One of the ingredients was Gillette’s lye which was extremely caustic and probably stronger than bleach.
I remember during the dark dark days of the depression we often had to use that soap on our faces and bodies. That could be the answer to why I never had many wrinkles, ha, ha. At 73 years old I have almost no wrinkles and my hair is still naturally medium brown. But then, my beautiful sister Minnie did have wrinkles and she used that soap as well. So, there goes my theory down the drain. Too bad, it was a good thought. I do no that the Gillette’s lye was a good preservative.
Here is her recipe for soap.
Mom had a big can where she saved all the cooking fat. Pork fat, beef fat, whatever. She would buy two or three tins of Gillette’s Lye and a bit of salt and away she went. The container was put on the stove and the lye and salt was poured into it very slowly. It had to be watched and stirred constantly because if it ever boiled over it would cause a fire. You stirred it until it came to a boil and thickened. Once thickened you would remove it from the stove and let it cool to a consistency that allowed it to be poured into a square flat about 2 inches high. The next morning it was cut into squares and put away to dry out. It would dry very firm and when used for washing gave a real good soapy lather.
I was only beginning to really know her when she died. I was 15 years old and needed her direction. She was missed so much by all of us and it took me almost a year to recover from the loss.

My Father

My dad was the oldest of his family and when his dad died he was only a very young lad. He helped his mother keep the family together and provided for all of them. When he got married he was no stranger to providing for others, we were the second family he was to be responsible for.
Apparently your great grandfather, my dad’s father, died at the Asylum Mental Hospital in St. Johns.
Dad used to tell me that when he was in his early teens he had to take over and provide for his siblings and his mother and father, 7 in all. Quite a responsibility for a young fellow, eh?
He said his father became “low minded” as it was called then. He was never violent but always scared and nervous. When dad and his brothers would go fishing his father used to pace and stare out the window, sometimes pulling out his hair and crying, fearing his sons were going to be drowned. He couldn’t sleep at night and there came a time when he was too afraid to let his son’s leave the house to earn a living.
In desperation a decision had to be made. The only alternative was the Mental Hospital in St. Johns. I shudder when I think about it but what else was there in those days? There was perhaps 1 Doctor for 8 or 9 settlements. You may have seen a Doctor once or twice in a lifetime if that. Dad told me it was the hardest decision he ever had to make. He took his father to St. Johns and had to leave him with strangers.
Knowing the conditions that existed at the Psychiatric Hospital during my training in 1939 I cringe to think what it must have been like for him some 25 years earlier. I only hope and pray he was not treated cruelly. I think dad said he lived a few years afterwards but I am not sure how long.
I can’t remember my grandfather and vaguely remember my grandmother on my father’s side. I can picture her somewhere. She was dressed nicely in a dark dress and she was pleasant and soft spoken with nice hair. That is all I can remember. I think she died when I was very, very young.
My father and mother met in my mother’s birthplace, Marystown, Nfld. They courted for a year and then married on October 8, 1908.
Dad was considered one of the hard working independent men of the settlement. He was kind, determined, pleasant, proud and very handsome.
He was not able to stay in school to complete his education but boy did he have a good head on his shoulders. He was self educated and could add figures in his head faster than I could do it on paper, and I was considered a whiz with paper and pencil. I have always thought that he would have been quite a force for the working man if he had held a government position. He was so smart!
He told me I think that he was only eight years old when he had to leave school to go fishing with his father, as he was the oldest son. He had by then learned most of his alphabet and taught himself to read and write.
My father had a lot of fishing equipment and property. He had his Captains license and owned his own Schooner, a two masted schooner named the Margaret Mary, and another vessel called the Elizabeth equipped with engines and able to operate under sails. As I have previously written, when the inshore fishery was over in the fall the Margaret Mary made it possible for my father to take advantage of the offshore fishery giving him the opportunity to earn a better living than the average inshore fishermen.
As well as the fishing vessels my dad had two cod traps, two motor boats operated by engines, (Acadia engines) trawls and lines, two large fishing wharves, two stages, two large flakes and two stores that were all built by his own hands and hard work.
In the fall, after the fishing season my dad would go into Marystown and cut timber. He would have the timber sawn by the mill in Marystown and transport it to Lawn in his schooner, the Mary Margaret.
He could speak with the best of them. He used to help people write letters to government officials stating their needs.
He had his two masted vessel called the Elizabeth, after mom, and he could navigate as good as any mate today.
My brother Joe was the engineer. He could take that engine apart and have it going in no time flat. My father could always depend on him.
Dad used to let me steer the motor boat and oh boy did I feel proud. He used to teach men how to navigate and I could map off a course as good as any of them. This was a big deal for my dad and he used to show me off by telling the men that his daughter could use a parallel as well as he could. And of course I had to do it then to let them see that he was telling the truth. As I got older, I could feel my face burning while I was showing off. Dad used to call me, his bestest girl.
My father used to catch real big lobsters. Not the ones you see today, they were thrown back into the sea. When I was a little girl dad came home from hauling his traps, with a big lobster and laid it on the kitchen floor. Being an innocent little girl, I ran over to it and was about to put my fingers in its claws when my mother or father pulled me away. They said those big claws could have pinched off all my little fingers.
We used to feel so sorry for the poor lobsters turning red in the boiling pot. They sounded like they were crying. We soon forgot about it when we were sitting down with a succulent piece of lobster on our plate. Millionaires living, we just took it for granted. The beautiful sockeye salmon weighed about 20 lbs. and what wonderful eating, I can taste it now.
Because my father had a lot of fishing gear and property, he hired men in the summer to help him and I remember he used to give them living quarters in one of his nice fishing stores on the first level. They had a stove and bunks and as children were always so curious and we wanted to go visit them. Mom and Dad made it very clear that visiting was strictly forbidden. They knew best.
Dad dried every kind of fish he caught in his traps that were edible. We were never in want of a good meal. We had plenty of vegetables, grown in our garden and stored in our vegetable cellars. I have seen dad supply half the village with fish. He used to make special barrels for the neighbors. With the onset of spring many families would be running short of food and they knew to “go to Uncle Vince, he’ll have some” and he always did.
On Good Friday, dad’s fish store was equal to bargain day at Zellers, ha, ha. Only difference was, there was no money required to get your loot.
As children we always felt good that mom and dad cared so deeply about people. I used to think that dad manufactured poor hungry people to bring home and clothe and feed. I hope and believe that god has rewarded both of them for their generosity and kindness.

Our School Days

My mother and father were very serious and strict about our (schooling) education.
Uncle Joe, my brother, hated school and was often caught tearing the page out of the book he was supposed to study and give that as an excuse to my mom or dad why he could not do his homework. But eventually he was caught. Ha! Ha!
Aunt Elizabeth, my sister, well she is another story. She was too busy with her good times with all the kids. She also had no interest in school.
Aunt Minnie, my sister, was a very good student.
I remember my first day at school. We were living in Marystown that winter. All of my mothers’ family lived there and Dad was having logs sawn for his fishing stages.
We all went to Mooring Cove School that winter. Being my first year, my sister Minnie was very protective over me. I remember it so well. The new kids had to sit on a long seat and a little boy sat next to me. His name was Willie Joe. I was so shy and when my sister brought me home that evening they were telling everyone that I had a new boyfriend. (I didn’t like him anyway) I was embarrassed to tears and did not want to go back to school ever again unless they made him move away from me. So my Sister asked the teacher to separate us.
I often wonder what ever happened to the poor guy later in life. It was the end of my first romance, as it never had time to flourish.
We had great fun that year with all of Moms relatives. They just loved us kids and we had a ball together. We had umpteen first cousins and we felt sad to leave.
I remember one great Aunt, Aunt Sue, and her husbands name was Uncle Beu. She stands out vividly in my mind dressed in her black dress and spotless white apron. Every Sunday they would invite our family for evening tea as they called it. Well, this was a visit all us kids really looked forward to because we played games and then the feast arrived. She was an excellent cook and baker. Her cakes, cookies and pies were out of this world. I can still taste her freshly churned butter and buttermilk buns. mmmmm good! And we ate and ate because there was always plenty. They loved to see us enjoy it; they had no children of their own.
A memory I have every time I see rolled oats being cooked is of my Uncle Bern. Uncle Bern was Aunt Mary’s Son and Mrs. Sally’s husband. I used to run down to get milk if our cows were dry or ready to calve. All the neighbors supplied each other in those cases, that way we always had milk. I was waiting one morning for my milk bottle to be filled and Uncle Bern was sitting by the stove cooking rolled oats in a frying pan. I watched as the bubbles came to the surface to break. Every time I see rolled oats doing that now, I say a prayer for him.
There were so many relatives on my mother’s side of the family. When we went home to lawn we missed them a lot because on Dads side there were a lot fewer relatives. We did love to go home though because we had great fun with our friends.
Our summer holidays rarely consisted of a long vacation. In those times we were needed at home to help with the chores. There was haymaking, berry picking, fish drying and growing vegetable to name a few. Household chores such as cleaning, washing, bread making etc. left little time to get bored and even less time to play.
I just loved school and on the stormy days when we could not attend I felt as if I was missing another day of learning something wonderful. I felt rejuvenated when I had a book in my hand.
Now, our educational system left something to be desired, but it was the best that could be offered in that day and age.
Our school was a medium sized building with two rooms heated by a potbelly stove and an outside toilet called an outhouse (a little house built over a hole dug into the ground, with a seat built over the hole). May I say that it was damn cold in winter.
Our teachers consisted of friends of the merchants and priests. Some of them were to stupid to know whether they were coming or going. It was not what you knew, but whom you knew. Unfortunately, most of that trend in life still exists eh?
My former description of the sanitary system may be giving you a question about general cleanliness. Well, that was a different matter as I look back on our daily routine, over half the day was spent on cleaning, dusting etc.
Our schools were swept, tidied and dusted every evening by two students. We all had to take our turns. They were kept immaculately clean. Every two weeks the parents took their turns in scrubbing the schools unpainted wooden floors. No floor coverings like today. They got down on their hands and knees with scrubbing brushes and scrubbed their hands off. Ha! Ha!
Every student brought fifty cents per family for coal and we had to supply the wood to light the stoves in the morning as well. One hour before school opened the bigger boys
would light the fires to have the place warm before the rest of us arrived at nine am. Well, it went like this…some of the boys did not like school and quite often would decide to make the stove smoke so thick you could not see the other guy in the next desk. He would do it and there was no alternative but to give everyone a holiday or the teacher may decide to let the fire burn out and make us sit in a cold classroom with our coats on.
I have seen it so cold that when you spit on your slate to clean it, it turned to frost. Really, I am not exaggerating one bit and I have seen some kids with the cuffs of their coats worn out from cleaning their slates with their sleeves and spit. Shiny! We did however have a little bottle of water and a rag for cleaning our slates. Sometimes we had to thaw it out by the stove where it had frozen in our desks the night before.
There were some very poor families in our village and I remember one family had 6 kids in our schoolroom. All 6 slept in 1 bed, wetting themselves or getting wet by the younger ones. They would get up and come to school in the same clothes. When the heat really got going you could see the steam rising from their woolen clothing. They all sat together at the back of the room on benches. The stench was nauseating; we used to call them the Skuki doo’s. I have no idea where we got that name. As an adult I realize how mean that was but we were young children then.
They say that if you are to warm it is hard to think. I am surprised that Einstein’s did not emerge from our school. Many could have gone on to pursue brilliant careers but that was not the way things were done, boys were expected to join their fathers in the boats when they were old enough. Many of the girls were expected to go into service. This meant that you became a maid at the ripe old age of 10 or 12, placed in homes anywhere from St. Pierre Miquelon to the United States. Slavery was alive and well in Newfoundland back then. It existed where I grew up.
There was one guy in my class that always sat beside me when we had to take our places for debates. He was one of the poor kids. Three of us were in competition. Eliza Ann Edwards, Jim (the stink bomb) Edwards and me. I don’t mean to brag but I always managed to finish in first place. Lost in concentration to keep ahead, one was inclined to forget the stench.
We all walked home for lunch. The walk for some was about a mile and for others as little as a quarter of a mile. We were fortunate; we had lots of nice warm woolen clothes on, a comfortable clean home to go to and a nice meal awaiting us because my mom was always there. If it was stormy my dad took us back.
We had lots of fun to, putting off school concerts, snowball fights, building snowmen, making snow houses, riding on our sleighs and the list goes on and on. We never seemed to be bored like the kids are today because we always knew how to make our own fun. It was like this…. we had to do our homework under watchful parental eyes, do our chores in the house and when we were free to go we were all so glad that any game was fun and enjoyed.
In those days, the teachers (as they were called) had everything coming their way. If you happened to go home and say anything about a licking you got from your teacher for whatever reason, you more times than not got another licking from your parents because the priests and the teachers were never ever wrong. I did on occasion see a few fights in school when the bigger boys and girls had had enough and threw fear to the wind, grabbing the teachers strap and giving her a taste of what she was dishing out. Nothing more ever came of it because she was scared and I think she knew she was wrong.
Favoritism was ridiculous. The priest always stayed with the General Merchant of the village. The General Merchant always kept the villagers poor, never giving them honest value for their catch, over charging etc. He always stayed very close to the priest, going with him on his visits for Mass Confessions and Retreats. Meanwhile back in the village his children were getting away with murder, doing whatever pleased them with never a fear of punishment.
One day one of the merchants daughters was late for school and the teacher told her that it was okay and that she was to take her seat. A few minutes later my sister Elizabeth came in asked if she could go to her seat. The teacher said no, that she should stand for a while and that she would have to stay after school as punishment for being late. Well, that just wasn’t right! My sister Minnie spoke up and asked, ”Why would you punish one and not the other for being late”? The teacher said to my sister, “okay, now you will come up here and take your punishment after school”. Well the tussle started and I can see the teacher now just as vividly as if it were yesterday.
She was wearing a tasseled cap and her face was red with spite. Minnie grabbed her and tore off her cap. With that, the merchant’s daughter and the teacher left my two sisters standing there and went to tell my parents what had happened.
My sisters never got punished and from that day on I never heard one more word about the incident, but this I do know, she never again picked on my sisters. My dad was a very kind and very wise man. It would not have taken him long to read the situation and say his piece.
The school system was ridiculous when I was in grade nine. The teacher was useless. We had to help her teach the grade seven and eight students and practically had to teach ourselves. Someone got the brainwave to nail up the school doors late one evening, with six-inch nails. It was like a barricade. We all assembled at the school. The sign read…DO NOT ENTER! WE WANT A NEW TEACHER! Well, what a goings on. The priest arrived and like I have already said, when he spoke everyone jumped and asked, was that high enough? The priest blamed my father, the merchant and another man, all of whom knew nothing about it.
My father was not a man to be blamed for an act he did not commit, even if it was the priest doing the blaming! Father Thorne, my dad spoke up, if I were going to nail up the school, I would have been man enough to do it in broad daylight. For a long time after that my father never went to church. Years later a dying villager confessed to the deed and Father Thorne publicly apologized to my father and the other men. There were always strained relations between the three men and the priest. Too bad, in a small village everything is open news.
There was one teacher I have always remembered and will be forever grateful for. She was special, very intelligent with personality plus and a college degree. She was with me for my eleventh grade.
She knew what she was doing. She taught me French and Latin and she taught in a way that really allowed me to learn. I was the first student from Lawn to write grade eleven. She was so interested that she wired me (sent a message by telegram) with congratulations on my passing the exam. About a week before she was to arrive to take up her teaching position again in September, news came that she had drowned. Everyone in our village was shocked. She was a wonderful teacher and I felt very sad. We heard that she was going to a dance by motorboat and that her hat was found floating on the water. I hope it was accidental but it all sounded so suspicious. God have mercy on her soul. Many years have passed and I know that I will never know exactly what happened.

My Childhood Years

I was born in an out port in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, called Lawn on
June 13th, 1917, the second youngest child of Vincent Charles Edwards and Elizabeth Ducey Edwards. My Mother and Father were married on October 28th, 1908.
There were 5 children in our family. Joseph Patrick, born September 14th 1910, Mary Ann, born September 14th 1912, Elizabeth, born September 15th, 1914, Emily Bernadette, born June 13th, 1917, and Bernard, born December 4th, 1919. Bernard died when he was 2 ½ years old of the mumps.
I look back on my childhood years with warm feelings, full of secure feelings. Whenever we came in from playing or school Mom was always home to greet us.
I was the baby of the family, a little spoiled perhaps, but we were all assigned chores to help with the household. There was no time to be bored.
Our house as I remember it was a 2 story, 4 bedroom house with a large kitchen. The kitchen in houses those days were generally large because that is where you spent most of your time. A parlor as it was called, living room nowadays, a large pantry where the provisions were stored, 2 large porches, washrooms and a basement. There was no running water; we got ours from the well. No indoor plumbing, only outhouses.
Water for baths, dishes, cooking, clothes washing etc was all warmed on the stove. A large coal burning stove in the kitchen was kept going all the time.
The house always looked and felt so cozy especially in the cold winter days. The floors were covered in linoleum of all colors and it always looked so clean and shiny. Home hooked rugs were present everywhere and they were gorgeous, an art in itself, rug hooking. The walls were either painted or papered and home made curtains were hung. Every Easter and Christmas the kitchen had to be papered so we were never bored with the scenery. We were excellent housekeepers and I think now, one was kept busy trying to out do the others.
The parlor was furnished as the best room in the house. It was off limits to us kids and everyone else for that matter and only used for special visitors. It was a big treat to be allowed in there. Oh, we used to open the door and look in, it was so cozy but no way could we use it. There was a cute little stove used exclusively for parlors and when this was going combined with the parlor surroundings and the smell of food you felt you were living a very fancy lifestyle. We wanted important visitors to come every day just so we could be in that room.
I guess you are all wandering how we managed to go to the bathroom at night. Outside toilet? Oh no! Progress had taken care of that. There were special china containers with covers, called chambers, in each bedroom. That is what you used to relieve yourself. Every morning they were emptied into a special enamel pail with a tight fitting lid, used solely for that purpose, and that was emptied into the outdoor toilet. Sounds gross to you now but in the clean, well kept home this was a well-organized hygienic procedure.
Washstands with a jug and basin were in every room. Each morning these were filled with water used for sponge bathing. They were neat!
Mom bathed us in large tubs brought into the kitchen and then filled with warm water from the stove. I guess once a week or more often depending on the necessity. What a time consuming procedure. Can you imagine living under those circumstances today? When we reached an age where we could bathe ourselves we would be assigned a night and then left in privacy to attend ourselves.
Washday fell on Mondays, weather permitting. I used to hate that! That was almost a full days work in itself. Washtubs were taken into the kitchen and filled with hot water from the stove. Every piece of clothes was washed with a scrub board, by hand, and then hung to dry on clotheslines. Our nice organized kitchen used to look so uncomfortable with all that going on.
We never had a bakery we could run to for a loaf of bread, and if there was, where were we going to get the money to buy it? We made our own 2 or 3 times a week. That was time consuming as well, but the luscious smell and the taste of homemade bread was worth every second of preparation. I liked those days much more than washday. We made our own rising ingredient out of a cake of yeast, we let that rise and added it to the flour, mixed it all with warm water and let it rise again, kneaded it and let it rise again, and finally we formed it into loaves and placed them into a loaf pan to rise again. After the final rising they were put into the oven to bake. The results were heavenly. In the winter making bread was great but on a hot summers day the kitchen would get so hot that you felt you were suffocating to say the least.
Your Aunt Elizabeth, god rest her soul, was the only person I remember having the kitchen umpteen degrees and be able to survive it, the rest of us had to leave. She made excellent bread, we were all taught how to do those chores and had to help do everything.
The first time I was allowed to make bread I was 12 years old, I felt wonderful and so grown up. You see, we all helped out.
We were very proud of our house and our parents. They were very independent people. God fearing, loving and wonderful parents, very protective over all of their children. We had a very strict religious example, reciting the rosary every evening after supper. My father always knelt by a couch that was covered in beautiful soft leather with shiny tacks on its ends. The couch was made especially for this purpose. He knelt with his arms resting on the couch and prayed very seriously. My mother sat in her rocking chair and read the rosary. Now, you weren’t supposed to talk, only say your prayers out loud. Aunt Elizabeth always wanted it over so that she could go out and play. The monkey, she made sure she was kneeling somewhere facing us and the devil may care kind of person she was, tried her best to make my mother and all of us laugh. If she were successful in doing so, my dad would send us kids to our rooms for the remainder of the night. She never learned, she used to try her best to make my mother laugh. Dad would look up and sometimes we just could not keep from bursting out with laughter, off we would go to our rooms and early to bed for punishment. Oh, many, many times she was cute enough to get us laughing and when my father would look up, she would be looking so innocent and get off scott free to go out and join her friends. Aunt Elizabeth was always so anxious to get out with her friends but she played these tricks that always got her into hot water.
We had a lovely winding staircase in our house, carved out so beautifully and made of the finest hardwood. Well, many an hour was spent sitting on those stairs, because who ever was responsible, (Aunt Elizabeth of course) for causing the laughter at the rosary reading, was sent to sit on the stairs to listen until the reading was over. Then we all joined her at the stairs on our way up to our rooms.
There had been a reason all along for trying to get me to laugh. If I was sent to my room she was free to go out with her boyfriend with no fear of being snitched on. Stupid me as a kid, eh.
All the water we used came from our well. It was dug very deep into the ground and was surrounded by walls of cement or rock and treated periodically with lime. A little house was built over it to keep out kids, flies, rodents etc. Water was drawn with a special bucket, used only for this use and poured into our water pails. Boy that used to get heavy. The water was carried back to the house and placed on a special stand in the porch. We had no taps to turn on or sinks to dispose of used water, we did all that.
Many an argument broke out between us if those buckets were empty. It’s not my turn to get the water, well I’m sure it’s not mine either and so on until mom or dad would intervene or give the order to any one of us. Go get some water, they would say to one of us, and there was no answering back, you just went, pronto. You never made the mistake to look back, the victorious grin on the faces of your siblings would make you even angrier than you were already and upon returning with the water you might just throw it over their heads. But Mom and Dad were always there to save the day.
I guess it would be safe to say we were self sufficient in our childhood days. Our parents, thank god, carried on the traditions of their ancestors.
Oh, I am not knocking the system we have today, in some respects. I really enjoyed my comfortable and convenient way of living and would never have gone back to some of the more primitive ways of life. I only wish that things had not changed so quickly. A lot of things were not well thought out before they were implemented. With progress we plum forgot about nature and what an impact it has on our lives and I am not only talking about the breathtaking beauty of it. I, like everyone else has let you down where this is concerned.
Today when I look at the news and see the Native Indians trying to hold on to their land to preserve it and it’s nature, I feel thankful that they might open some peoples’ eyes to the reality of an ever-increasing bleak situation.
I am also thankful that people of different color and nationalities are beginning to be respected the way we all want to be, as is their right.
I really feel proud as I write this that I instilled in you that all human beings are equal. It is pretty simple really, if someone treats you nice, then shouldn’t you treat them the same?
Bill, this is a story I remembered as I wrote the last few words. Do you remember the black couple we had at the cottage for a weekend when you were just a small bay? She was a nurse and they had twin girls. Oh, you were really struck on one of them. Believe it or not, you had your prayer book with you that weekend, and you were very religious. Her parents were also church going people and you and your little girlfriend were like preachers. I remember that so well.
Oh, I am glad you didn’t turn out like Jimmy Baker or Jimmy Swaggert! It was so cute watching the two of you walking up the road reading your prayers.
Well I am getting carried away, so back to my childhood years.
I just loved our house; my dad built it himself with the help of his brothers. It was very well built and my dad once told me that it cost him $1000.00 dollars. That was an awful lot of money in 1914 to 1917. I remember the lovely carved wooden doors. The very best of hard woods.
I felt so protected and cozy all tucked in to my little bed with no worries whatever, always showered with love and care.
Our lighting consisted of kerosene lamps. Every day we would wash and shine the glass globes that covered the wicks that helped to reflect the light around the room. We would cut the wicks and fill the base with kerosene so they would be ready for the evening. What amazes me now, and always did, was that there were very few accidents, burns or fires caused by those lamps. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few. You had to be extremely careful.
I can’t remember exactly how old I was when we got electricity but I do remember that it was a very big day, what a difference, it was amazing.
One memory that is very comforting to me even today…our winter weather was very cold and we experienced many stormy days. When it got really bad school would close and only the men would be seen outside shoveling the snow from the roads. Visibility was often non-existent. However, inside our house was so comfy. The lovely warm kitchen, the stove almost red with the lovely coal and wood fire. The windows on the inside of the house had a lot of ice build-up on the large panes and we had a ball drawing all sorts of designs on them with Moms’ thimbles. And talk about art! The things we drew were wonderful, and the ice was so thick that everything you drew left a
deep impression.
I remember some very cold, bitter storms. It was hours and hours before we could see outside through our windows, the ice on them so thick.
We had no problem entertaining ourselves. The re-assuring feeling of being protected in that wonderful house, away from the storm and all it could give, was a tremendous feeling of love and family.
Sunday was a day steeped in tradition. The priest came every 2nd Sunday for Mass and benediction in the evening. Everyone rose and dressed in his or her Sunday best and attended Mass. I always felt that it was a way of supplying all the nosey people with the gossip for the rest of the week. Some of the people that attended church could quote verbatim and tell you what each church goer wore, right down to the shape of the buttons on an outfit. The priest also came to the settlement on Saturday evenings to hear confessions.
One person always stayed home on Sundays to cook dinner. That was a family get together and Sunday dinner was enjoyed to the fullest.
On the menu… salt beef, potatoes, turnip, carrot and cabbage all boiled in the same pot with a big piece of fat pork. It tasted so good. After the main course was finished we enjoyed steamed pudding in a bag with fresh berries of the season. Sometimes it was made with raisins, blueberries or partridge berries. Whatever berry was used, it always tasted great. The pudding had been boiled in the same pot with the meat and vegetables.
As always, when dinner is finished the dishes have to be done. Aunt Elizabeth as usual always had a plan to get out of chores. Mom and dad assigned Sunday night dishes to her and the minute dinner was finished her friends would arrive at the door and they would all chip in and help. The dishes would be done in no time and she would be on her way, out with her friends. She was always so sociable. Her children grew up to be like her, very beautiful, inside and out.
In the afternoon we either went for a motor boat ride or a walk up the harbor taking in all the sights and if you were lucky enough to have a new hat or dress this was the perfect opportunity to show it off.
Supper was served around 5 o’clock and that was a meal you never missed. Usually jello and custard, tinned bully beef, beets, buns made with some type of berry, perhaps a raisin cake and always fresh bread and butter. It was a feast in itself.
When the meal was finished and cleared away it was time to go to church again for the evening prayer meeting called the “benediction”. I just loved that service. The alter was lit up beautifully with candles and the choir would sing their hearts out. Add all of that to being allowed out after dark and it was always a special night.
The priest used to preach a sermon and needless to say he could really hold your interest, he was an excellent speaker. Father Thorne was his name, from Torbay, Nfld. It was a wonderful secure feeling, sitting there in the family pew, surrounded by you parents and brother and sisters. Very often I fell sound to sleep only to awaken suddenly by the sound of the priests fists pounding down on the alter rails, trying to send his message home. And he usually did, send his message home I mean, he had quite a way about him and kept even the most troublesome fellows in check.
Coming home after dark was a big treat for us because we were never allowed out after dark.
The only unpleasant thing about the entire day was the bats. Leather Winged bats.
I don’t know how they got that name, old tales I guess or omens.
Every Sunday evening as we were coming out of church, they would swoop down and get tangled in your hair. We were frightened to death of them and we would scream and run for shelter under my mom’s shawls or big skirts. They were really mean looking things.
Sunday was strictly a day of rest and prayer. Oh, how times have changed. This gives me a chance to ask you all to forgive me if you think I failed you in a religious sense. There is really no excuse, I was taken up with the “don’t stand in the way of progress” thinking. I hope and pray that your father and I taught you all good principles to use as a guideline throughout your lives.
As I previously wrote, kerosene lamps supplied our lighting. I remember all of us kids discussing how many new electric lights we would be getting. We were among the fortunate families that could afford to have them installed. The night we were to turn them on for the first time was quite an event. It was just incredible, the difference between the lamp light and the electric light.
Homework was so much easier to do and with much less eyestrain.
One very funny incident comes to mind. We had a family, the Hennebury’s that lived about 8 miles from Lawn in a settlement called Lords Cove. We were very close friends and we visited each other frequently.
There son, Vince, always came to Lawn for the Saturday night dance, looking for girls. This happened the first time he visited since we had the electric lights installed. Dad always showed him to his room to see that he was comfortable. This evening he did the same but also showed him how to turn the lights on and off. Vince mustn’t have been paying much attention to the lesson. He was in his room and presumed in his bed for a long time after the door was closed but you could see the light was still shining from under his door. Dad called out to him to see if he was okay. Vince answered back, “I’m okay Uncle Vince but the light is still on and I don’t know how to doubt em.
Well, he never lived that one down. When he would visit us afterwards we would say, “oh here comes doubtem”. Kids can be so cruel. He knew we all liked him though. We used to travel back and forth from Lords Cove by motor boat and they did the same. We used to have so much fun with all the kids up there.
Our milk was pasteurized just like it is today but by a little different method.
The cows were milked into clean buckets used only for milking. In addition we had enamel pans for sterilization purposes.
The milk was poured into the enamel pans and placed onto the back of the kitchen stove and kept at even heat until you could see the cream forming. It used to take all sorts of shapes and waves and it was so intriguing to watch.
When the cream was all formed it was taken to the pantry and covered and left to stand for at least a day.
Oh what a taste, skimming off the cream and using it on whatever kind of berries were in season. Bake apples were my favorite with cream. Most of the cream however was put into a large container and made into butter for the table.

How to Make Butter:

The cream was collected for a batch of butter and poured into a butter churn. The churn looks much like a skinny barrel with a cover and something that resembled a long handled plunger inside with part of the long handle extending through a hole in the lid.
The plunger was moved up and down by hand until the butter separated from the milk. The milk from the butter was called buttermilk and it was a most tasty drink. We used it for buttermilk buns as well.
We all looked forward to the butter churning but did not look forward to our turn at the plunging, especially if we had planned a game with the kids outside. You rarely gave excuses or put up a fuss because in order to eat, the work had to be done and shared.
I remember a painful experience. One evening I was sitting in a chair by the stove while my mother was removing the pans of boiling milk. A procedure we had both followed many times. Well this time the pan of milk tipped over and the scalding milk poured down over my leg. Oh, it was painful. My mother applied the usual remedy of baking soda to help with the pain of the sting followed by Vaseline for the healing. I couldn’t go out for two weeks and needless to say it was a long time before I sat there again.
We used to have the best sleighs! I can see them now. They could take 2 or 3 kids at a time. The older kids used to take the younger ones up really high on the steep hills. The idea was that the older kids steered the sleigh away from danger. To start the down hill ride the older kid would stand at the back of the sleigh, give it a real good push off and then jump onto the back of the sleigh and guide it to a great ride. Well, I remember my older sister pushing off so fast that she could not jump on with me and I was plummeting down the hill all by myself. I couldn’t stop it and I was going so fast that I was afraid to jump off. I hit a tree and split my knee cap open. I was in the house and away from school for almost a month.
Aunt Minnie got in trouble for that but we were fortunate, it could have been much worse. I think the hardest part of it all for me, was missing school.
During summer holidays we were kept busy washing and drying fish, getting it ready to sell. We used to make hay and store it in our barns for the livestock for the fall and winter. Our firewood had to be replenished and we needed to collect boughs to keep the fires going through summer. We picked all kinds of berries from the hills and made jam for the winter. We made up games and had lots of fun while doing these chores.
The things we did for fun would be enough to be put us into detention homes today.
I remember an old couple, Uncle Joe and Aunt Jane. Uncle Joe used to cut his hay every evening and gather it up and place it in high pooks (pyramids). Well just after dark we would all assemble in his meadow and the race was on. We would run and jump in those little pooks until the hay was as flat as a pancake. The next morning the poor guy would get so angry. We had jumped the hay to pieces and it had to be untangled before he could even begin to spread it. We made sure we never got caught because we always had a look out.
Well I guess we finally made him so angry that he did a very dangerous thing that could have been tragic. He placed 4 prong pitchforks in each pook. The next night when we started our fun, the first kid to reach the hay let out a pitiful cry. When we reached him we discovered the pitchfork. He had not been hurt badly thank god but the old man had been successful in scaring us off. We needed to find other entertainment.
We decided we would have fun with the cows coming home in the evenings to be milked. I think this game of cruelty would have us doing time at Alcatraz.
The milking cows came home every night to feed their calves and be milked by their owners. They attracted oxen and sassy bulls along the way. They walked the long lane just above our house, far enough away for us not to be seen. But as added protection we always placed a lookout on both sides of the lane. The lanes were long and very narrow which made it even better when the stampede began.
Under the direction of our older cousin we were each given our posts and an ample supply of rocks. We would sit and wait for the fun to begin. (How cruel it was now that I look back). We would see the cattle coming home and at just the right moment we would start throwing rocks at them. They would go crazy, jumping on each other and using their horns etc. By the time they reached the settlement they were ready for a stampede.
The neighbors always thought they were running home because their udders were so full that they were in pain. They were in pain all right, but not from the pressure of milk, but from the sting of the rocks inflicted by the secret army hid away in the hills.
One day a tremendous fight broke out, cows jumping fences and jamming themselves against picket fences. One cow got her eye knocked out and broke her horn. She was in bad shape, bleeding all over the place.
Our leader called off the army.
Aunt Sally had a suspicion that there was some unknown force behind the stampede of cattle and she blamed me for knocking her cow’s eye out. With all the army throwing rocks at the same time you couldn’t know who threw that rock and even if we did know, we were all so loyal to each other in combat that know one would ever tell.
We were all so scared that our parents would find out that we decided to abandon that game for a while.
Another favorite past time of ours was seeing how many Flat Fish we could make scamper for their lives by stabbing them with the 2 or 3 prong fish forks our fathers used on the codfish. We made sure all the men were gone out to haul their traps, and then we would climb down the rungs of the warves and hold on to the piling with one hand while we swung out with the pitch fork in the other and start stabbing. There were so many fish that you could not miss. Those prongs were so sharp that the minute you touched the fish they would take off, unhurt, but swimming for their lives. The dangerous part of all this was that none of us kids could swim except our leader, my cousin. It is hard to believe that none of us ever fell into the sea. God was watching out for us and the fish.
There was an old woman named “Mrs. Mary John” who lived with her bachelor son. They were equally contrary and eccentric. They had a huge dogberry tree in the front of there house and it was laden down with lots and lots of big luscious berries. We all took turns climbing up and raiding the tree. When we heard them coming we would all scatter. The minute they went back into the house we would return and continue the raid. When we’d had our fill of berries we would all line up in front of their house. Someone would knock on the door and then we would all shout, “Old Mary John” and run. Some evenings we would keep that up until we almost drove them crazy. They went so far as to threaten us with sticks and guns.
Today we might be hanged for tormenting poor innocent people like that. Well, hanging might be a little much, but we would be punished.
During the summer holidays one of our chores was to help dry the codfish on flakes so we could sell it in the fall. The general store was directly across the road from our fishing property. We would all take part in the swindling of our poor parents. I would say that the store keepers contributed to our delinquent habits as well by accepting prime fish for little or nothing.
The general store had a variety of candy. One of our favorites were marshmallow men, oh were they ever good. I can almost taste them now. They were the size of small ginger bread men and had a pink and brown coating. I think they cost 1 cent each, expensive then. We liked the large peppermint candy to. You can still buy them in Nfld today. They are a little smaller but just as tasty.
Here was the plan…We all went down to turn our fish, (everybody did the same thing for a living) and when no one was looking we would drop the really nice big ones through the boards on the flakes to the rocks below. One of our bandits was assigned to go around and pick up all the dropped fish. When our parents would return to their homes all of us children met, loaded up our arms with fish and went off with our loot.
Poor stupid kids taking our parents hard earned money, making the scavenger merchants rich.
We had the fish weighed and bought bags of chocolate men and peppermint candy and stored our loot somewhere safe for our feast later on.
We had probably exchanged about 20 dollars worth of fish for about 2 dollars worth of candy. That fish would probably be worth a thousand dollars today because we wouldn’t throw down any fish but the best.
Later we assembled in a safe place to eat our fill. It wouldn’t take long before the leader would develop a scheme to get the rest of what the younger kids had left over and give it to the older ones.
They would say to us, “o.k. lets play shopkeeper”. Oh boy, we would all get excited and we would run around collecting small rocks to use as make believe money.
A large flat rock was selected and the shopkeepers, the younger children, would go behind that and wait for the customers to come. The older children would come and ask for candy and would pay with small rocks. We were so innocent that we sold all our candy and chocolate men for rocks. The older kids would take off with the candy and devour it. We were so naïve and trusting and never learned. They did the same thing to us, over and over. I guess it was just so much fun being a shopkeeper for a while that it was worth the loss of our candy.
When I was growing up it was considered a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday.
We all decided one day that we would have a feast. Robin red breast stew. Our older brothers and sisters planned it all.
Our older boy cousins set snares to catch the robins and the older girls borrowed utensils from our parent’s kitchens. The day arrived for the feast and we were all sitting around devouring the delicious meat when someone piped up and yelled, “Its Friday”.
Now we were all in grave trouble. We had to run off to confession and tell the priest that we had committed a mortal sin. The penance the priest inflicted on us was, “go home and tell your parents what you did”. We couldn’t seem to win! We were reprimanded for killing the little robins and for eating meat on Friday.
I think the robins were the big winners in that experience. We were not to eat them again so now they were free to fly around our village anyway. But they sure tasted sweet and so tender.
My older sister Minnie was very religious as a child and apparently still is. Following in my mothers footsteps she went around each night shaking holy water everywhere.
I remember how comforting it used to be when mom would come into our room during a thunder and lightning storm, spraying holy water on everything. I could take my head out from under the blankets and finally feel safe. Faith is very powerful.
One evening my sister Minnie discovered we had no holy water left just as Elizabeth and I were going out. She asked us to fill her holy water bottles in the church before we came home. We forgot until we had passed the church and it was too late to go back.
So Aunt Elizabeth, the dare devil looked at me and said, “now Em, don’t tell Min, but I am going to fill her bottles up with water from the well”. We arrived home and just as we came through the door Min called out, “Did you get the holy water Elizabeth”? Elizabeth told her she had the water and handed the bottles to Minnie and she went on her way blessing me and Elizabeth and everything in the house. Elizabeth and I had to hide our heads in pillows so she could not see us laughing.
Elizabeth made me promise that I would never tell Min about it. But my sister’s conscience kept bothering her and she decided to tell the priest because she was afraid she had committed a mortal sin. The priest told her that it was just as good as if it had been blessed by the church; it was Min’s faith that counted.
Years later Elizabeth confessed to Min and they both laughed their heads off. We were really lucky that no spirits came around.
We played hide and seek, ring around the rosy, blind man’s bluff, pit pat and many more games. We played house and baked mud pies in a make believe oven for hours.
We made our own fun and I would not change my childhood for all the millions this world could dish out. They were priceless. The memories and all the love and trust are my valued treasures.
I loved to work in my garden. A few of my favorites were pansies, daisies, and poppies. If I close my eyes I can see the exquisite colors. Little did we know the amount of drugs worth millions of dollars, growing so innocently for our pleasure. Good thing our army leader didn’t know about the poppy’s value to some unscrupulous people in the outside world.
When mom died I grew vegetables with the help of my sisters. I am so pleased I occupied my time thus rather than being off with the gang, most of whom became pregnant at a very early age. They were children themselves and tied down now with family responsibilities.
One of the scariest memories of my childhood is centered around my Great Aunt Mary’s wake. I remember it just as vividly today as if it were only yesterday. I had night mares re-living that frightening experience.
Aunt Sally, the women who’s cow had its horn broken and its eye punched out, was Great Aunt Mary’s daughter-in-law. They never liked each other much.
So Aunt Mary was dead and waking in their parlor. It was tradition that the corpse was never left alone, more out of respect than fear that the corpse might get up and run away ha, ha. No honestly there was a 24 hour vigil.
I was there visiting when Aunt Sally decided that she should go and milk her cow and that I should stand vigil. I WAS LEFT ALONE WITH THE CORPSE!! A little girl about 8 years old, too scared of Aunt Sally to say I was afraid.
It was customary for the blinds in the entire house to be pulled down for nine days of mourning. Even in broad daylight the house was in darkness except for the odd candle or lamp.
Off Aunt Sally went to milk the cows and I went in with Aunt Mary. She was just laying there surrounded by candles. I sat there with my eyes fixed on her face. As the candles flickered up and down you could see the shadow of her face on the wall next to her coffin and it looked as though her mouth was moving. I was frozen with fear, too foolish to get up and run home. I just sat glued to that chair for the half hour it took Aunt Sally to milk her cows and I died a thousand deaths.
When I finally heard her coming it was as though the heavens opened up and delivered me from that horrible place. When I arrived home and told my mother she was very annoyed and surprised Aunt Sally would do such a thing. She may have been getting even with me for her cows eye I often thought. I don’t know why she was so mad for so long, I tasted the cow’s milk after she lost her eye and the milk tasted just the same to me.
One of my first accomplishments that I recall quite clearly is when I discovered how to open doors by turning the doorknob. I was ecstatic. I went in and out, in and out. I guess I must have driven my parents crazy that day.
Shortly after I celebrated a birthday and mom and dad gave me cute little brown-buttoned boots. I can remember even today what they looked like.
The very first thing I did was set out to visit my Uncles, Aunts and cousins to show off my new boots, I was so proud of them. I would go in and sit down making sure my boots were in plain sight and on display. When anyone asked, “did you get those boots for your birthday” I felt so special. I remember one Aunt never even noticed them and I felt so badly that I cried.
We raised our own chickens and hens and had an endless amount of fresh eggs. I remember the tradition on Easter Sunday morning. The hens started laying eggs after the winter break. It was a race to see how many eggs could be collected for Easter Sunday breakfast. I can still taste the flavor of fresh eggs and home made bread; it was out of this world.
We had to be as self- sufficient as possible. There were only one or two grocery and general merchandise stores in the settlement. No fresh fruit or meat to buy because without refrigeration it would spoil.
When you needed meat you killed a cow, calf, sheep or hen etc. I guess we got our vitamin c from the berries we picked on the hills. The blueberries were so abundant on the hills that as far as the eye could see the color was indigo blue. What a sight. The berries were the size of small grapes and grew in gorgeous large clusters.
You could fill your bucket in no time. We could get to the berry fields in 15 minutes and depending on the time of year we would bring home bake apples, partridgeberries, cranberries and of course blueberries.
Picking berries was a holiday in itself. All the cousins would plan ahead and we would pack a lunch of bread and molasses and cake or buns. We didn’t need to bring drinks because we drank the spring water that was flowing over the rocks.
We rose and left for the hills around 10 or 12 o’clock and off we went, equipped with our little buckets and a cotton bag made especially for carrying the berries home. I have seen many a large size bucket packed with luscious berries lost in a hurry if one happened to trip over a twig or stumble into a hole. In order to avoid that we put the berries into the cotton bag and carried the bag home on our backs.
Once the bags had been filled we would eat and eat the berries until our mouths were sore and our stomachs ached. Then we would lie down and sleep in the beautiful outdoors with the wind blowing in our faces.
We were smart enough to know that if we arrived home to early in the day there would be lots of chores waiting for us. We timed it just right and made it home early enough for mom to make up a pie or buns with our berries.
Berry picking had its scary moments as well, the hornets were huge and their sting was really painful and sometimes poisonous so you needed to kill it right away.
There were huge dragonflies. We called them “horse stingers” and we were so afraid of them that we would gladly drop our berries if it meant we could run faster to escape them and the flies bit so hard we were sure they had taken chunks of our skin. But all of that didn’t matter and we kept going back for those wonderful berries.
It was a fun day, telling stories, singing songs, playing games and getting away from the other not so pleasant chores.
On August 15th every year come rain or shine our annual Garden Party was held. More planning was put into that day than there was for “expo 67”.
Everyone got out that day dressed in their very best. There were games and prizes galore, a big dance, lots to eat and lots of fun to be enjoyed by all. When I was eight or nine years old Winnie Edwards and I were in a race and we were both very good runners. She was bigger and older than I was. The prize was a beautiful necklace, absolutely luminous and I really wanted that necklace. It probably cost at least 5 cents and was really worth running for.
Well, we started at the sound of the bell and I beat Winnie by quite a few lengths. I won the gold ha,ha. Not with quite the number of spectators as the Olympics but just as exciting. I had that necklace for years after.

Memories of Christmas

Christmas was a very special occasion in our lives both spiritually and celebratory. Everyone started to prepare early in November. The Christmas cakes were made as early as October. The baking being done, oh my god, I can still smell the delicious odors as soon as you walked in the door.
Bread making was special for the holiday season. Sweetbread was made with all kinds of spices and molasses. It was delicious.
Everyone papered the two most used rooms in the house for this joyous occasion, the kitchen and the parlor. The decorating was a ritual every year on two occasions, Christmas and Easter. Apart from decorating your own home everyone took turns decorating the church. I can picture it all in my mind as I write this accounting for you. We gathered branches from fir and spruce trees and arranged them in arcs or arches. We made lovely wreaths and bows out of red, green, and white stretchy crepe paper. The crib on which the baby Jesus laid surrounded by the shepherds and Mary and Joseph was beautiful. Walking into church for midnight mass was a feeling that was indescribable.
Being allowed to stay up until midnight was a treat in itself. Waiting and wondering what Santa Claus was going to bring was almost more than one could stand. Getting to sleep was impossible. It was indeed joyous for families in that day and age.
A single present was all that your parents could afford and many families could not afford that.
I think it was one of the saddest days of my life when I found out there was no Santa Claus. You may chuckle at this, but the only time we had apples, oranges, grapes or candy in any amount was Christmas time.
Christmas lasted for 12 days. Old Christmas day was the last of the 12 and that was the day the Christmas tree came down, putting an end to the feasts and presents for another year.
Mummering was great fun. Everyone young and old used to dress up in any old outfit you could make. Everyone wore a mask they had made themselves or had enlisted the help of a sister, mother or brother. Durable paper masks, all marked up with crayon. You then traveled from door to door in the settlement, knocking and shouting, “let the mummers in”. If you were admitted you would be served cake and lemonade. Someone would start playing the accordion; violin or flute and the big hoedown of a dance would start. Sometimes the crowd got so noisy that the house would shake. Many times I have seen dishes and pictures falling and breaking up and it was all taken in the spirit of Christmas.
Now, if you were not allowed into the home you were asking for trouble. The masked rascals would do all sorts of devilish pranks. I remember one such time when the pranksters climbed up on a roof and put everything they could find down the chimney. The stove began to spew smoke, blinding everyone inside and they had to run out doors to breathe. You see, there were no policemen or any such law in each village at that time, and masks disguised the perpetrators so no one knew whom to blame for the trickery. Needless to say, most every house granted you access so they wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences. Oh, it was fun.
The adults went from house to house, partaking of the big “feed” as it was called. They drank rum, sang songs, got drunk and returned home in the wee hours of the morning. This party lasted 12 days and nights and once it was all over there was no more alcohol until the following Christmas.
I remember some of the Christmas presents received by family members over the years. Spats, winter coats, winter boots etc. The main highlight of Christmas day before dinner, was showing off your new clothes. Lemonade and cake was a must on this special day. We used to be stuffed; I could not believe how much lemonade and cake a person could eat.
I remember when I was a very little girl; Mom and Dad got me a beautiful china doll. Dad bought it in St. Pierre on a trip to get his Christmas supplies. He came very close to drowning in Fortune Bay. He was in his boat on his way home when a storm came up. He always tied himself to the tiller (the steering apparatus). A large wave washed him overboard and thank god one of his men pulled him to safety. It was in December so you can only imagine how cold that water must have been. He went overboard with my china doll on the inside of his coat. He hadn’t wanted customs to see it. His clothes were just like a stiff board when he came into the house. He was chilled to the bone so they poured him a few shots of rum and put him into bed.
My Dad never got so much as a cold from that. The man that saved him said he was going down for the third time when they rescued him.
I had that doll for years. She was so cute and dainty. She had a crack on the side of her face from the fall but she was still beautiful.
A main event in entertainment was the Christmas concert. A private cast that practiced for months usually performed it and it was excellent. My sister Elizabeth and my uncle Fonce were the two main characters and I can safely say Clark Gable and Lucille Ball had nothing compared to their talent.
My Uncle Fonce was the director and he couldn’t even read. We had to read the parts for him and he would memorize it all. They took their concert to other settlements, oh boy, they were the greats!
The concert cost 50 cents and in those days that was like 500 dollars. The only way I got in was to coach the players. If they missed a cue I would fill them in. It was a hard way to get in to the big event but it was worth it and the dance and refreshments at the end were lots and lots of fun.
We never had money but we had lots to eat and drink and we had nice warm clothes to wear. A cozy comfortable home with lots and lots of love and I can safely say we had everything that money can’t buy. Money could never buy the secure feeling we had as children.

The Depression Years

1929 to 1938 were known as the depression years. They were devastating. No jobs and therefore, nobody had money.
The cod fishery, which was the main industry where I lived, was a disaster. The fish was plentiful but not worth a plug nickel. I felt fortunate to have been in school, for the most part, while it lasted.
My father was a very energetic man and could use his head, so he found ways to make a dollar. He never hesitated to travel outside our settlement to make ends meet. I’ve seen my father walk 8 miles to build houses for 10 cents an hour during the depression. Remember that he was a darn good carpenter. One fall in late October he built a house over his motor boat and he and my brother set out for St. Pierre Miquelon in search of work. That small boat contained sleeping quarters, provisions and a cooking stove among other things necessary for the endeavor. They had to travel 30 to 40 miles by treacherous sea in Fortune Bay, and believe me; those storms could blow up in a hurry. That time of year was particularly dangerous and unpredictable.
That fall my mother was not well. Every day and night for the 30 to 35 nights they were away it blew a gale. You have all heard the wind whistle and moan; well that time in my life comes flashing back to me every time we had high winds. Mom, my sisters and I were so worried for them. In those days there was no way to know they were okay because there was no means of daily communication. One never knew their whereabouts. Were they on the open sea returning to us, or safely moored in a harbor somewhere? The only means of communication was by wireless and that took 1 to 5 days for delivery and was very expensive. My father would not have seen fit to waste his money in that way.
I remember going up to the Mission Cross and saying three lots of Novena’s, praying for something to do to earn a few cents to help my Mother and Father. The parish priest looked after the merchants and the V.I.P.’s. For a priest to have favorites it was very unfair and unfathomable to us all. May god forgive him for that now.
I was lucky to have been given the opportunity to get out of Lawn and go into nurses training in St. Johns.
We always had food but not a red nickel to spend. We also had nice warm clothes but no one could afford the nice dresses every young girls dream of. That was the great thing, we could still dream, and because everyone was in the same impoverished situation, there was no competition. Well, the Merchants daughter was the only exception and I don’t think we were jealous of her because we were all good friends. We knew our parents could not afford such luxuries.
I remember we used to get the Eaton’s catalogue from St. Johns. We were only interested in looking at the catalogue and dreaming, actually visualizing ourselves in those beautiful clothes.
We had one good dress and we knew how to take real good care of it. It was only used for special occasions such as church on Sundays and dances etc. My Mother was a good dressmaker. I remember a cute little cape style dress I had when I was about 10 year old. It was very pretty and floral patterned. Aunt Minnie, Aunt Elizabeth and I had the same dress. It was really neat.
I guess poor Aunt Minnie was down on her hands and knees cleaning the floors while wearing her new dress, the day after she got it. She never ever looked after her clothes.
Everyone dreams of all sorts of things they don’t have, but want. One thing we always had plenty of was love, showered on us every day. It was a good clean life. The main thing is to honest, be kind, and be respectful, the way you respect yourselves. Never hesitate to give praise or a kind word whenever possible and remember, a smile is worth a million dollars.
The depression lasted almost 9 years. It was horrible to see people hungry, cold, sick, and undernourished, all of these causing illness and death.
In 1934 on April 27th my Mother died. I still remember that day vividly. I was 15 years old. I stayed up with her all that night, sleeping in her bedroom. All the family took their turn keeping vigil with her. She was always such a gracious and kind women.
I remember just as the dawn was breaking that morning and the first light was shining in through the bedroom window, she looked at me and said, “Soft over the mountain breaks the day too soon”. That was the name of a song. She passed away at 3 pm that afternoon.
You can only imagine how sad that was for all our family gathered by her bedside.
That summer I became very tired, no energy and things as simple as walking up a hill made me retire to my room for rest. I lost weight and needless to say the entire family was concerned. My Father, god bless him, poured the “Scott’s Emulsion Cod Liver Oil” into me any chance he could get. It was mixed with a very nice white base. I think they called the base, “maiden hair berries” but don’t quote me on that. All I know is that it made the horrible taste of cod liver oil bearable.
I can’t remember how many 8 oz. bottles I drank that summer but it did the trick. That was expensive medication in our day. It wasn’t until after I arrived for nurses training in St. Johns years later, that I learned more about how lucky I had been. I began to perk up and was able to return to school in September for my tenth grade
I graduated from grade ten and took a 6 months position as governess to a family in our village, then returned to school to get my grade eleven.
My oldest sister Minnie, married on June 24th, 1934 and moved to St. Lawrence, a settlement about 8 miles from Lawn. Alfred, her husband was born there and returned to work in the Fluorspar Mine, underground.
My dad and I went to St. Lawrence to live with them and my dad got work as a carpenter and I took my commercial course from the Sisters of Mercy Convent. How angelic those Sisters looked to me then. I had almost entered the convent when a school mates mother and teacher told me of an ad in the paper seeking young women with a grade 11 education to apply to enter nurses training in St. Johns.
What a feeling of deliverance! Oh, I knew it was going to be hard work, but I was never afraid of a little hard work. I made up my mind that I would not let my family down if accepted, and I applied.
My father and I returned to our home in Lawn.
Soon after Minnie married, my sister Elizabeth went to St. Johns to work for the Cowan’s on Topsail Rd. They were considered upper class folks. I remember that even as a young girl, class distinction used to bother me a great deal. All gods’ children are created equal. Aren’t they?
With both sisters gone and my wonderful Mother passed on, I was left to keep house for my father and brother. I was accepted for nurses training in St Johns and my father convinced me that he and my brother would be fine if I left. He really wanted me to go follow my dreams.
My brother married very soon after and he and his wife came to live in half our house with my dad. Our house was large enough for two families.
I later learned that my father spent hours by himself. The loneliness was too much and he re-married. A very nice and kind woman. I was later told that my brother and his wife were not very friendly to her but I was in St. Johns and only know what I was told.
The exposure to the fluorspar was the cause of death for most of the young men in St. Lawrence. They all died of one form of cancer or another. My brother in law was no exception. The devastation all happened within a few years of the mine opening. There were no measures in place or precautions taken because very little was known about the hazardous conditions under which they were working. The American based company was much more interested in the mines production than the safety of the employees. It took years to close and even longer for the widows and children to receive compensation.
I don’t think my sister pursued it because she re-married. I feel strongly that she should have gone after them, after all, the mine had killed her husband and her children’s father. I encouraged her to go after them for years, but to no avail, as far as I know, she didn’t even apply.

My Nursing Years

In 1938 in the midst of the great depression (1929-1938) there was nothing for young people to do. Jobs were non-existent, and after school was finished, for anyone with ambition the future looked bleak.
I will admit that I used to go to the Mission Cross (a big cross, mounted on concrete steps and platform just down from the church where people could go to pray and worship) and make Novena’s to get something to do to help my dad and me.
One day while walking home, an ex-teacher, the mother of two of my former classmates called me into her house. She showed me an advertisement in the paper for the General Hospital in St. Johns. The hospital was looking for young women to train as registered nurses. Grade eleven matriculation and good health were the requirements. You have to imagine what a big decision this was for a green horn that never knew anything of the outside world. It sounded good, this was a challenge and I was game to try.
Making the decision to go meant leaving my father and my brother to fend for themselves at home. When I told my dad he said, “child, I want you to go into training. I never gave you an education to stay home and scrub floors all your life”. I knew he meant what he said and Mrs. Edwards wrote the application for me. A short time later I was notified that I had been accepted for the September class. I was sent a list of what I had to have to enter. It was a long list, twelve bibs, aprons, uniforms, shoes, underwear etc. My father managed to get enough money to set me off on my journey equipped with every requirement and I, was supplying the eager mind for learning.
I was in another world all that summer preparing for my training. There weren’t words sufficient to describe the feeling of being given the opportunity to try and fulfill my dreams.
The day arrived, September seventh, nineteen thirty- eight. The coastal boat arrived and seeing that I knew no one in St. Johns, my father had made arrangements for someone from the nursing home to meet me at the St. Johns station. When I look back, and think of the nerve, spirit and enthusiasm I had. To set out on a career where I was going to a place that I would have no one familiar to turn to. It makes me shudder now to think of it. I have god to thank for helping me make it.
I received well wishes from the majority of our friends and relatives and naturally you get the odd one saying, ” oh, you will be back soon because they will require a lot from you”. Little did I know that that pessimism would give me strength in the years to come!
As you can imagine, the hardest thing was to say goodbye to my father and my brother. They had no housekeeper now that I was gone. Brother Joe wasn’t married but did so not long after I left. Sometimes I think it was because he had no one to look after him. I left my father with a heavy heart, knowing he had to fend for himself, but he really wanted me to get my nursing career.
A couple of days were spent on the coastal boat and then I boarded the train from Argentia to St. Johns.
I still remember the hospital driver attendant that picked me up. His name was “Stamp” and he had red hair. When we left the station for the General Hospital I thought he was taking me somewhere out in the country because we were on a road lined on both sides with beautiful tall trees. It didn’t take me long to ask him quite strongly, what was he doing and where did he think he was taking me! Well, many times during my training I was reminded of how I never trusted him and needless to say, it made my face red. Ha! Ha! Apparently he had mentioned my comment the next day to the staff. My face would turn red when someone would mention it but I was not ashamed because he was a stranger and I was determined to look after myself.
The night Sister on duty met me at the hospital and showed me to our student quarters. I was impressed and overjoyed to see a real toilet and a bathtub with running water.
The nurse’s residence looked fantastic. And only two students in each room. One student, Mae Pomroy, from St. Anthony had already arrived when I got there. Mae
developed tuberculosis and had to leave training. I heard that she did come back years later and graduated. She was a lovely girl. There were twelve students in our class, one of the largest classes to that date in the history of the hospital. It was so exciting with everyone arriving and becoming acquainted with one another. All of us eager for adventure, all a big happy family.
When I arrived at the hospital it was my first experience ever of seeing a patient in a hospital bed. I remember it was Shea ward and all of the patients looked so clean and comfortable sleeping in their beds. Oh, and to see all the nurses in their white uniforms. I felt ten feet tall to think I may be like them some day.
You will never believe this but without any orientation or class we were fitted into uniforms and on duty on the wards right away. I’ll always remember the first thing I ever did was take a breakfast tray into a patient. Oh boy, I figured I was a nurse right away. Ha! Ha! Twelve-hour duty with two hours off. The two hours off were to be spent in the lecture room!
Most of our time was spent in the lecture room for our theory classes. What a different life style than what I was used to. I was so happy that the time used to fly by each day. The meals were excellent and after working those long hours we really looked forward to them and enjoyed them immensely.
In the first weeks of training we all assembled (my classmates) to relate our experiences and talk about all the things we were doing. It was hilarious! Once you graduated as a registered nurse you took on the title of “sister” and I would be putting it mildly if I was to say that the sisters sure kept us busy. I guess that was a good thing because we never had time to get homesick.
We were busy ordering uniforms and buying shoes, and not just any shoes; they had to be Dr. Conroys orthopedic shoes. They were just lovely. White leather nurses shoes. Expensive for the day and age, but good! Two pairs, one wouldn’t do because it helped to change them periodically throughout the day. Personal hygiene was very important. We had to polish our shoes and wash our laces every night. Oh boy, did they ever look smart. They shone so much you could see your face in them.
I was in seventh heaven. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Little did I know that every fibre in my body would be put to the severest test of endurance. I would have to take everything thrown at me without comment or be sent home for insubordination or suspension. Out, and that was that!
More than once over the three years in training I felt like throwing in the towel but then everyone at home would say that I was sent home because I was not qualified to finish. The most important reason for my sticking to it was that I did not want to disappoint my dad.
For three years the discipline of the army had nothing compared to our training days, and I must add that my classmates and I had a lot of fun together along the way.
When we entered training we were on probation for six months. Our uniforms were pink with white bib and apron, very smart indeed. If you passed every test, health and academic wise, nurse theory etc. you were given your nurses cap at six months into your training. That was a memorable day! I can still see us all in our caps, so proud knowing that we had been accepted. Accepted, but under very strict scrutiny.
Our day began at six am. Awakened by a buzzer going off non-stop. We had to be up and ready for roll call and first inspection at six-thirty am. Every part of your uniform had to be one hundred percent or you would loose your days off and your late night leave once every two weeks until further notice. When breakfast was over we all had to stand in the corridor before going on duty for the final inspection. If our scissors weren’t in our band at the back of our apron we were in hot water.
Our white cuffs attached to our uniforms, were fastened by two pearl covered cuff links and likewise two larger white pearled buttons buttoned the apron. Our collars were attached to the collar of the dress. All of this was starched to perfection and I must say, we looked pretty sharp.
When the final inspection was given, off we went at seven am. to work like little slaves until seven pm. We weren’t allowed to sit down any time because when the sergeant majors (sisters) weren’t on your back the patients kept you busy on your feet. You could not win either way, ha ha. Funny now but there were times when you felt like collapsing. Believe me, it wasn’t easy but how does the saying today go…no pain, no gain?
The housemother made sure we were in by ten pm. and at ten-thirty a head check was done and lights were out. She was like a sergeant major, nothing escaped her.
When I look back on it all, as I write this I just can’t imagine any situation being more frightening. Being in an environment and not knowing one person. Entering a large hospital with doctors, nurses and patients all watching your every move because you were the new trainees. Youth and ambition are great assets because all of that didn’t faze me one bit. I guess I know myself better now than I did then. I thrived in that situation because I loved adventure and the thrill of new experiences. I seem to function very well when meeting new people and being in unfamiliar surroundings.
Duties on the wards varied. In our first six months, each Monday morning after the patients were served and fed their breakfast we washed all the lockers and beds to have them ready for inspection by ten am.
Making the patients beds was something else. There were different types of bed making such as the open bed, closed bed, anesthetic bed, orthopedic bed etc. You had to make them just perfect. You may think I am being funny when I explain this but it wasn’t funny to us. The nursing supervisor came and watched you perform all of this with a ruler in her hand. She would measure and if you had a sheet half an inch too short or half an inch too long you had to remake the damn bed all over again.
The patient’s meals were served from a kitchen off the wards. The meals came from the main kitchen in electrical carts. In our first year the asst. nurse stood by the cart and dished out the trays to the probationers. We, the probationers (1st year trainees) would then deliver the food to the patients. In our second year we were allowed to dish out the meals. That was great because you had been promoted and the poor little “probies” relieved us of those lesser and lower duties. Every day we were becoming more independent with heads full of knowledge. It felt great! It makes me laugh now because it is only after you graduate that the real learning begins.
In those days they did not believe in rehabilitating a patient after surgery. He or she just lay there like a log in bed and you had to do the whole bath. This was appropriately called a “bed bath”. Most of the patients were stronger than us poor kids that were being run off our feet. One thing I was thankful for, because I can only imagine how embarrassing it would have been, is that we did not have to bathe our male patients private areas. We washed so much and then called an orderly in to finish their bath. As we advanced to the procedure of catheterizations, we were taught how to catheterize female patients only. Intern Doctors and orderlies attended to the males. In those days things were different and we were grateful for the way these things were handled. Looking back I think it should have been part of our training.
During my tenure we only had two orderlies and they were better than some of the intern Doctors. The orderlies were meticulous in their appearance and spotless with the equipment and supplies. I still remember their names, James Gardener and Jack Denee. They treated all of us students with respect. I have reason to believe they both retired from the hospital in the late eighties.
Time flew by. In the nurse’s residence we used to sit and talk and get excited over every new procedure we were allowed to do, for example, take blood pressure, give hypodermics and intramuscular injections etc. Oh, we were really on our way!
Our hospital equipment was obsolete by today’s standards but we managed to give our patients excellent care. Much, much better care than we have today.
In order to give a patient hypodermic medication such as morphine, Demerol, codeine etc. for pain after surgery we had to do the following. We had Bunsen burners on the wards. Bunsen burners were stainless steel containers filled with alcohol. Coming up from that was a wick. Then, you had a spoon sitting in a container of alcohol. We would light the lamp, put sterile water in the spoon and bring the water to a boil. Next you placed your morphine tablet or whatever medication you were using into the spoon of boiling water and waited until it dissolved. Once dissolved you drew the medication up into the hypodermic syringe. The syringe had been sterilized in an electric stainless steel sterilizer that was kept on each ward. The entire procedure would take five to eight minutes. At any given time we had thirty-five to thirty-six surgical patients. Each patient was administered pain medication three or four times in a twelve-hour shift so this may give you some sense of how busy we were.
Tubing, needles, bottles and solution were prepared under sterile conditions in the operating room. The operating room staff started the intravenous and our job of course was to see that all the equipment was working and kept warm. Intravenous solutions were not administered cold, as they are today. I guess now I have you all wondering, how did we keep it warm? We did it with two hot water bottles filled with boiling water extended from the stand over the intravenous bottle of solution or blood etc. Again, a lot of hard work with umpteen i.v.’s going. Running, filling hot water bottles every three quarters of an hour. Crazy, but the thinking was, that cold solution going into the veins could put the patient into shock.
It made me wonder sometimes as nursing advanced and I worked with all the new equipment and methods, how we ever got through it all.
I have been on duty on the busiest surgical wards, only one nurse to do all that work and god help you if you left anything undone. We would be summoned before the tribunal and probably sentenced to death. Ha! Ha!
I remember being called up just as I had crawled into bed after a busy twelve hour shift. I left an empty medicine glass on one of the patient’s bedside lockers and the nurse in charge insisted that I come and remove it. Only cruel or insane persons would act like that. I had to get up, dress in full uniform and go back to the ward and remove it. Then you all wonder why I have such patience? Well, being able to do that without taking the medicine glass bottle and shoving it down her throat is the answer. Needless to say, I was so angry that I never got back to sleep for a long while that night.
Often we would get so angry we wanted to strangle some of the incompetent supervisors we had as role models. They were so scared themselves that they used to blame a lot on us young students. Somehow, we survived.
This is true but you may find it hard to believe. We were all in our third year, about a month or so before we graduated. Jean Goudie, an excellent student, a really good nurse and a very sweet girl was on night duty on Crowdy ward. Crowdy ward was the urology ward and was where all the prostalectomy’s were performed. And that was an awful operation.
I saw many fine men hemorrhage to death due to that procedure. They inserted a large tube into the bladder through the abdomen. Sometimes it was hard to keep them dry due to the leakage around the tubes. As I have said, Jean was on night duty with one month to go. She changed this man just before she went off duty and when the day shift took over they reported that the patient was wet. Jean was called out of bed, taken down to the matron’s office and dismissed. She was devastated.
Her parents were well-respected people in St. Johns and they went to see the Superintendent of Doctors. Nothing could help. Jean was let go and never graduated after three years of studying, slavery and what have you. And an “A” rating student at that! Oh Boy, she was smart!
We spoke up on her behalf, even back then we had a little woman’s liberation in us. The whole class went to the Matron’s office and we were told that we were acting like insubordinates and to watch our behavior or the same thing could happen to us. What could we do? Our hands were tied. Today that hospital would be sued for incompetence and injustice eh?
I had all my night duty in for my three years and only had two more weeks before I was finished. I was put on that ward, the urology ward and everyone said to me, “ Edwards be careful or you will be next. It was tough but at the end of each shift I made sure that the head nurse coming on duty checked each of the patients with me. A lesson like that sure came with its price!
The hospital wards were so impeccably clean and spotless. Long wards with patient’s beds on each side and in the center were the nurse’s desks, screens etc. Thirty-six or more beds according to the emergency and then we would settle for beds in the center. The linen was spotless and when the patients had their baths and were dressed in their pajamas everything looked great. We had green, white, yellow, pink and blue bedspreads and on every bed, a fine Hudson’s Bay red and black striped blanket. By ten am. we were supposed to have everything regarding the am. patient care complete. I remember that all the blankets were to be folded at the foot of the beds and made sure that the casters on all the beds were in perfect alignment. The matron made rounds at ten am. and I must say everything looked perfect. I was glad to be part of such procedures and felt good about it.
The hospital had no private rooms only large open wards. Now that was a real challenge. When we bathed a patient we pushed the screen around their bed. When they needed to use the bedpan we pushed the screen around the bed again. During the day it wasn’t too bad but try pushing those big screens up the ward at 2 or 3 am, now that was something, waking up the sleeping patients and as soon as they saw you they all wanted something. I often thought they used to make up things to ask for because in their minds, nurses were supposed to go, go, go and then some.
They kept operative patients in bed for ages after surgery, and those patients needed constant tending. That was a nightmare! The night orders and tending the patients pain killers; hypodermics and intramusculars left no time for you to take a break and rest. If a patient had exceeded the prescribed dosage for a 24-hour period we had to get a repeat order. The intern on call visited the wards at 10 pm accompanied by the night sister. We met them at the entrance of the ward and copied the orders that he would prescribe for the night. There was nothing signed by the doctor that he had ordered such and such a medication, only the nurses notes where she had copied it all. Luckily and thank god, I never heard of a wrong medication or narcotic being given. That was sheer luck! Can you imagine taking serious orders like that today? God was definitely with us.
Coming from a small outport into the big city of St. Johns was quite an enjoyable experience and a huge adventure. I thought it was the best thing in the world. The wide streets, large buildings and streetcars, (If you could call them that now) busses really. And to go downtown to the department stores, now that was really something. The sad part about it was, you had no money to spend, but you had fun looking. There was so much for me to see in the movie theatres. I was enjoying it all. And Bowring Park was great!
We sure looked forward to that day off we had every second week! We were exhausted. One of our classmates always brought you breakfast in bed and you had a whole free day just for yourself.
We didn’t have much free time for ourselves. We did a 12 hr.duty, one day off every two weeks and 4 ½ hours off every Sunday. We were on duty from 7am to 7pm and had to be in residence at 10pm. When we were on night duty we were not allowed to go out until 4pm and had to start duty at 7pm. So, as you might well think, our spare time was of the utmost importance. Late leave was allowed once every 2 weeks and that meant we were in by midnight.
The hospital and nurses quarters seemed huge. Lovely bedrooms so clean and neat. Every night I bathed and got into my pajamas. It made me feel so clean and nice. Large sitting rooms and a library. Sometimes I couldn’t believe that I was so fortunate to be part of all this.
The dining room was lovely and the meals were superb. We had snack kitchens in our sleeping quarters and different snacks were brought to the floor every-night. We’d all assemble for our snack and chat before retiring. We all looked so smart in our uniforms and we were growing sure of ourselves, filling with confidence and feeling like real people.
Almost a year from the time we entered training the war broke out putting the city of St. Johns in a spin. The Canadian soldiers arrived (NFLD did not become part of Confederation until 1949) and shortly after, the American soldiers. All hell broke loose because the Americans had everything. No shortage of money or supplies etc. Needless to say we were never out after dark unless we went in numbers. The rivalry started between the soldiers. The cities girls were all leaving their local boyfriends for the big spenders, the Yanks, as they were called. The fighting and hard feelings ran high and the local police had their hands full.
Our second year of nursing was really great. The new class had arrived and we were no longer junior nurses. This class was much bigger than ours had been, 25 students if my memory serves me well. I think the war had a lot to do with the larger class. Progress was being made at our nursing school. New trainees were now being given 3 months of theory and practice, as an orientation. The nursing school was preparing for the addition of a fairly large hospital. The new wing was under construction but was not opened until I had finished training. It was a lovely modern facility. In my third year classes numbered 50-100 students. We were well on our way to modernization.
The war was really going rough for the allies. Adolph Hitler, the German Chief was taking everything and the future looked grim. Our city was in a blackout, meaning no lights of any kind could be visible. Hospitals, large buildings, private homes etc all had special window coverings that were pulled down at night so that the city was in total darkness.
Even the cars and busses had hoods over their lights so they couldn’t give light or cast a reflection that could be seen from the sky and provoke an attack. Submarines were lurking off our shores and a ship loaded with iron for our allies was moored at the wharf at Bell Island. A submarine sank that ship. That was too close for comfort.
We were supposed to keep an eye out while on night duty for any lights visible on the outside. Someone in our hospital detected unusual lights signaling from the Nfld. hotel. The people responsible were caught and punished.
She was a wild city and some of our nurses went crazy over the soldiers. You just weren’t safe out alone at night.
One night Beatrice Bull and me were coming home before curfew on a lovely summers night when we realized that two soldiers were following us. Were we ever scared! We started to run. We ran up Forest Avenue where the streets were lined on both sides with tall trees. They had begun to chase us, which I think made us run even faster. We ran right up to the door of the residence where the strict housemother was waiting to check the nurses in. The two soldiers came face to face with her and she gave them quite a goings over. We could here her talking to them but we didn’t stick around to watch, our feet just kept on going until we reached our rooms, thankful we were safe!
One of our nurses eloped with one of the American soldiers over a weekend and another, Bonnie K. was checked and she had contracted syphilis. Her kahn test was positive, oh that was something. She had been living in high society. Her boyfriend, a General, used to come by the hospital on his horse with another horse in tow for her. Off they would go in their riding outfits. Naturally she was the talk of the hospital. Old gossipers! I don’t know why, we were all benefiting by the General’s generosity. Each night when she returned she would be loaded down with silk stockings, pajamas, you name it, she had it and she was more than generous to us all. Nylons as you should know were just being manufactured and they were welcomed even more than the invention of white bread.
Back to my story… the soldiers were being tested regularly as we were. Blood tests every 6 mths for general health purposes. It was found that one or more of the soldiers at base headquarters were infected with syphilis. All hell broke loose and they had to name all the girls with whom they had contact. Bonnie K. was named. We were all called to a general meeting and told we had to have another kahn test and we were questioned privately and asked if we had been out with any of the American soldiers. The officials at the General Hospital were disgusted. Bonnie was immediately dismissed upon testing positive. Her professional career finished.
We were scared; we all lived together in the nurse’s home. I think she was found in the early stages of the disease. She received treatment immediately and was cured. That was considered such a disgrace and a real shame because she would have made a very intelligent, clever nurse.
Bonnie was very good looking with a wonderful personality and we all felt so badly for her. I did hear many years later that she was doing some private nursing, not professional of course. More of a companion to the rich.
I know as I write this that that was disclosing personnel and confidential information. The situation should have been handled in a discreet manner without the whole hospital knowing about it. She could have been let go for personal health reasons. We didn’t need to know the testing was being done to check for syphilis. All they had to do was tell us to get blood tests and we would have done it. God knows, if they told us to go have our heads cut off we would ask which way it was to the guillotine. That was the name of the game, discipline without question.
We were now in our second year, with a lot of our classroom lectures, exams and practical behind us. Ahead of us, 9 months affiliating.
We spent 2-3 months in each hospital outside our own. The Grace General for maternity training, the Mental Hospital for psychiatric training and the Sanatorium for chest diseases, tuberculosis etc.
The Fever Hospital is where we learned about communicable diseases and techniques and where we came into contact with diphtheria, scarlet fever, you name it, and we saw it. I really enjoyed all that immensely. It was exciting and educational and it was preparing us for the real world that we were going to have to face, on our own, soon.
It was simply amazing, oh yes, we had our inoculations, but to go from one patient with diphtheria to another with scarlet fever and so on meant your hands had to be washed so often that the skin was actually raw. They supplied us with oodles and oodles of cream to ease the pain. I remember that I had to keep my arms on top of the covers, which was uncomfortable. I liked to sleep cuddled up under the sheets.
The techniques learned in that hospital was excellent. It was looked upon as a disgrace and a break in technique if you contracted any of the diseases and you were sent back to training school. We had to make doubly sure that we carried out every letter of he law!
At the time we thought they were really horrible supervisors, but looking back, they were only trying to teach us how to look after our own health and the health of those we came in contact with.
In every hospital that I have worked since my graduation, I have been proud of my training. It could stand up to any in the country or the world. Some nurses I have worked with over the years hadn’t a clue as to what sterile technique was.
Even in this day I make doubly sure to wash my hands before I perform any procedure whatsoever. You kids used to ask me why I washed my hands so often? Well now you know, self-protection and the protection of others.

The Sanatorium

Tuberculosis was rampant in Nfld. in 1939. I must admit I was scared going into that setting and worried all the time whether I would contract it.
This special hospital was built away outside the city in a beautiful country setting. Both the supervisors and the staff were excellent.
We enjoyed our affiliations. It made a nice change getting away from the mean miserable old maid supervisors we were used to, of course there were a few that weren’t so bad, a very few! And it gave us a sense of freedom.
Tuberculosis was spreading so fast and in its wake leaving entire families wiped out.
It was a real depression. People were undernourished, and so hungry. Their diets were inadequate and the poor hygienic conditions people were forced to live in, only added to the spread of the germ.
Tuberculosis is a respiratory disease, so as soon as a spot was detected on the lungs, we contacted the Sanatorium. Thank god for x-rays. The folks living in close vicinity to the hospital were fortunate in that they could have x-rays done quickly and start treatment in the Sanatorium or the San. as we called it.
Drugs were at a minimum for TB. and surgery was in its initial stages. We treated the disease with cod liver oil, bed rest and nourishing food.
We taught patients how to protect them and us because we were always in close contact with them.
We wore masks near the more acute cases, their sputum was very contagious and for the most part they were taught to look after themselves. The more severely ill patients had everything done for them.
The surgical wards were where you had to be extremely careful.
Fresh air was a must and I have seen snow on the big Hudson’s Bay fire blankets at the foot of the patient’s beds. We wore heavy white sweaters and dressed the patients in warm caps, mittens, sweaters and what have you. We were providing a healthy setting but sometimes very cold. When the meals were served and the treatments administered we closed the windows of course. One gentleman turned to me one day and said, “girl, hell isn’t looking so bad right now, at least it’s warm”.
Everyone seemed so cheerful, both the patients and the nurses. There was laughter and music playing and we looked forward to going there for our 3 months training.
By the way, we stayed in boarding houses close to the San. and that way we had much more freedom than in residence at the General Hospital.
Inoculations helped us build up immunities against all the communicable diseases and if you had ever been in contact with them prior to training then you built up your own immunities.
My mother died when I was fifteen years old. I am not sure what the cause was but from my professional standpoint, I think it was TB.
The year she died I was very sick, as you would have read in a previous chapter. When I arrived for training they took x-rays, did blood work and put me through a physical workout. All these tests had to be passed before I was given final acceptance.
I was called into the office and given my chest x-ray results. There was a shadow on one lung, not active, but scar tissue where I had come into contact with TB. sometime in my life. I was fortunate to have warded it off. I guess my dads treatment of cod liver oil and with god’s help I made it through.
I had to go into the San. for an additional screening and my final acceptance would depend on those results. So naturally, I said to myself…oh I guess this is it, I thought things were going to well to be true.
Off I went to the Sanatorium, certain that my days in St. Johns were numbered and that I would never be called “Registered Nurse Emily Edwards”.
I remember the chest surgeon, Dr. Bennett, we came to call him Breezy Bennett because he could breeze in and out of a room before you had the chance to turn around. He was a pleasant man and full of vigor. Anyway he looked at me and asked, “Why are they sending a good looking, healthy girl like you in here for special x-rays? That comment gave me hope because health wise I was feeling terrific but scared to death about the x-rays results. I didn’t want to be sent home.
Well the x-rays came back and confirmed that there was scar tissue on my lung but no evidence of TB. This was great news, and an asset because I had built up immunity against the germ. So you see what I’m getting at? I felt fairly secure and re-assured that I had a better chance of not contracting anything in the course of my San. Training. I also knew that it was an uneducated way of thinking at the time, and I, like my classmates, was scared.
And Listen to this. Dr. Bennett advised my superiors that I was not to do too much night duty. 3 months night duty was a requirement for each year of training. I was not to be overworked. Big Joke!
We had 6 months check-ups as a precautionary measure.
I did much, much more night duty than my quota and I could never sleep in the day. I would sometimes have to go on night duty with hardly any sleep at all. I remember going to sleep when we came off duty in the morning, for about 3-4 hours. I would wake up, toss and turn all day and watch as the other girls slept. The night nurses had a special dormitory for themselves away from the routine noises of the day. A supervisor stood watch to see that we did not get up and go out before 4pm.
They never hesitated however, to call us anytime in the morning to attend class lectures or write exams.
I reported to the supervisors that the sleep I was getting during the day was insufficient to get me through a 12-hour shift.
At around 5 am when we would start the am care, I would die 1000 deaths trying to stay awake. I’d see the patients sleeping so comfy, all wrapped up in their cozy warm blankets.

The Psychiatric Hospital

The ‘Mental Hospital’ or the ‘Mental’ for short.
Now here was a completely different setting entirely.
It was sad, and seemed like cruel and callous nursing. It seemed like an endless endeavor with little communication and no visible results.
Immediately upon arrival we were taken to the wards and given a lecture. One thing the instructor said that always stuck with me was “Never turn your back on a mental patient, they are watching every move you make while nursing them, and may try to injure you at any time”.
Orderlies escorted us on the male wards. They watched over us and helped us perform our procedures, so we felt safe.
We worked in pairs on the female wards and could always call upon the male orderlies if needed. In addition, a supervisor was in the office and ready to summon help in case of an upset. Believe me, she had her work cut out for her because there was always plenty of action!
Often, things got pretty scary. Fortunately for us, but not always so fortunate for the poor patient, we had medication to administer PRONTO. This would calm them down and therefore have less chance to cause themselves or anyone else harm.
When I say cruel nursing I am recalling how they administered ‘shock treatment’. So very different from how it is done today. And I speak from first hand experience.
In 1983-84 I suffered a severe depression. So severe in fact that my professor in psychiatry had to administer shock as a last resort. All the other medications and anti-depressants had failed. I thank god for this Dr. His expertise and knowledge and the almighty god enabled me to get the treatment I needed to get well quickly.
I was given the option and told of the side effects. Loss of memory may occur on either side of the brain. Unlikely but a probability. Nausea and vomiting, and severe headaches after each administration.
I needed to fast from midnight until the procedure the next day. I was taken to an operating room and given an anesthetic. The next I knew I was awake, unaware of what had happened. I felt great! The nurses and Dr.’s were amazed that I had suffered no side effects whatsoever.
I received 6 treatments. Never any discomfort or side effects. A complete restoration of my mental health. All the depression gone and I was a whole person again. Naturally the Dr’s and staff were delighted not to mention the joy of my family.
In 1938 it was a different case altogether. Patients had no control over their own destiny. They were diagnosed as insane and the Dr’s prescribed what they thought was best for their comfort or cure.
The patient fasted from midnight until the procedure was to be performed. They were taken to the shock treatment room. They were then put into an insulin coma. A huge dose of insulin, administered by way of intravenous put them into the coma. Out completely! Unconscious for so long. We had to check the blood pressure, pulse and temperature continuously. Doctors, nurses and orderlies were present during the entire procedure.
To bring them out of the insulin-induced coma, a massive dose of glucose (50% sugar) was administered intravenously. This is when the strong orderlies and staff were necessary. As the patient was gaining consciousness the body would start convulsing and jerking. Oh, I never witnessed anything so cruel in all my life. They were as stiff as boards, the whole body jerking and moving. They practically had to be sat on to keep them from breaking their bones. This state only lasted a short time and then they were awake. They were immediately given a really cold shower and immediately after that, a warm one. They were then dried, dressed and served a meal very high in sugar. Apparently they did find that the whole procedure proved to be of some success, but to me it left a hell of a lot to be desired.
The poor patients were all so scared whenever you mentioned they were going for their shock treatment. Could you blame them?!
You could pick the Mental Hospital staff out anywhere. They were a rough, callous group and yes, I guess they had to be strong and protective of themselves. But, like everything else in life, a little bit of power in the wrong hands can be dangerous and in many cases those poor mental patients could have been handled more humanly.
The “strait jacket” was a source of restraint. It was a canvas jacket with long, long sleeves. A patient was put into it and the arms would be tied around the waist several times to keep them from hurting themselves and others.
The bath method was a method whereby the patient was placed either in a really hot or cold bath, the hot bath being used more frequently than the cold. When I was visiting St. Johns a few years later there was a court case involving two orderlies and a deceased gentleman named Mr. Miller. They had been accused of giving Mr. Miller such a hot bath and leaving him in it so long that he was scalded to death. I heard that they found the orderlies and the hospital to be at fault and action was taken. I can only pray that it was a good lesson to those people in charge or responsible for the poor mans death.
While I was affiliating at the Sanatorium I had the cap torn off my head, my apron ripped and a cup thrown at me which fortunately missed and went through the glass door in one of the cubicles, glass crashing down around my feet.
So many incidents that I cannot recall them all but I have given you a synopsis of what it was like back then.
If you recall, I mentioned that we were told never to turn our backs on a mental patient? Well, many, many years later we returned to St. Johns to live. I was married with a family. I was nursing in the psycho geriatric unit; believe it or not it was at the old sanatorium where I had affiliated for my tuberculosis and chest diseases. The hospital in later years was used for long-term patients or the burnt out mental patients. They were deemed to be non-violent but still needed to be under lock and key and still needed their medication.
Well, I was in charge of an all male ward with 60 patients. The charge nurse was getting ready to administer the medications. I had just left my office with the medicine cart. On it were 60 little plastic containers filled with oodles and oodles of pills in each one, 2 large jugs of water and juice for the patients to wash them down with.
One patient present had been sent to us from the Active Mental Hospital because he had been deemed placid enough for our unit.
This was the one time I turned my back and it was on the wrong patient! I had just given one of the patients his meds and was holding the jug, pouring a glass of water so the man could swallow his medication when I felt those two big hands around my neck! I managed to get a scream out and the charge orderly came running to my aid. The patient got scared and ran away but the medicine cart with pills, juice and water was all over the floor. The staff was very concerned about me; the marks from his big hands were very plain to see on my neck. I was really shaken up. If the charge orderly had been in the bathroom etc. god only knows, the patient may have choked me to death.
All that evening I went about my duties, all the staff watching to see that I was okay.
Anyway, that just reinforces that, “YOU CAN’T TURN YOUR BACK ON A MENTAL PATIENT”! I know, because I came close to paying the ultimate price.
Probably it was a good thing that it happened under the circumstances it did. Apparently he was not well enough for our hospital. The patient required stronger observation and was sent back to the mental hospital.

The Boarding House.

This was a subsidiary of the general hospital and used for the Sanatorium and Mental Hospital affiliates, we, the student nurses.
The married couple running the house treated us like Royalty. They respected us as young people instead of machines. They made us feel like people, human beings once again, and it felt great!
Bowring Park, the park in St. Johns was kept so beautifully in those days. It was beautiful and full of nature. I had never seen such beauty all in one setting before. The park was about a 5-mile walk from either hospital and we would go there often in our free time or on our way from a shift in the morning or evening.
Like I have said, they treated us like people and saw to it that we were in at a reasonable hour but not right to the letter. When we were on night duty we had ample freedom. No restrictions. They left it up to us to get up when we wanted. That was great, right up my alley. When I could not sleep I could explore the city etc.
We walked everywhere we went. Oh yes, there was an old rattle of a street car on water street but that cost 5 cents a ride and who in heaven could afford that? Not us students. We never got one red cent for our labor.
As I write this I laugh and I guess you will never comprehend how we lived. But remember, that was the way life was then and we lived, enjoyed and just accepted it, just as you have to live with and accept the high prices of everything today eh?
I enjoyed my psychiatric theory very much. I could see there was a lot to be done towards the care of the mental patient. The case histories were pathetic.
Our lectures and theory were really interesting but as I have already written, the nursing care and procedures left a lot to be desired, in my opinion anyway.
An hour a day was spent in the chart and case rooms reading case histories. 50% of our final exam would depend upon our presentation of results.
We were getting the royal treatment in those affiliating hospitals and were gaining confidence and reassurance in our chosen profession every day.
The Sanatorium, the Mental and the Fever Hospitals were all operated by the Nfld. government, as was the General Hospital so the food and accommodation was all top notch.
The Grace Hospital however was a different cup of tea. We had to attend the ‘Grace’ for our obstetrical training for 3 months. The Salvation Army operated the Grace.
Oh what a difference in the overall picture. The food, equipment and supplies, were inadequate and it was hard to believe the frugal way it was operated. I guess we did not know how lucky we were at the General Hospital until we got out to see how the other institutions were operated.
A grant was given to the Grace for each student undergoing training.
The food was ridiculous and not half enough. We used to go back to the General on our days off to get a bite to eat.
The hospital supplies were not half enough to do the job properly. We were placed amongst the ward patients and the Grace hospital nurses were given the easiest patients and the private room patients. The Grace had plenty of private room accommodations where as the General only had a few beds designated for that purpose. Thank god!
Well, we had all been trained in obstetrical theory and lectures with most of our exams completed in that field but now, the practical was about to begin.
Oh, what a revelation, seeing a baby born for the first time! It was truly indescribable. It was fascinating, amazing and scary at the same time and some of the students fainted. The others just looked on in sheer amazement, wondering what in gods name is next?
Our old supervisors and Dr.’s in the delivery rooms were kind, understanding and patient with us.
I remember the old nurse in charge, Miss Thomas; she was very cheerful and happy.
She far surpassed any obstetrician I have ever worked with.
We had to do nine deliveries all on our own under her supervision before we were qualified to write our obstetrical finals.
She was like a mother to her students. She could see that we were all frightened to death performing such a procedure for the first time.
We learned a lot under her care, all types of deliveries.

Breech delivery. When the baby’s feet come out first.
Cord delivery. When the cord is wound around the babies neck one to several times. Shoulder presentation. Now that is a tough one, trying to maneuver the baby before the mother collapses or the uterus ruptures.
Placenta Pravia. When the placenta presents itself first, causing instant hemorrhaging and sometimes death for the mother if a caesarean section is not performed in time.
Caesarean Section. When the baby is taken through the abdomen under surgical conditions.
Hydidaform Mole. Very rare. I was fortunate to have helped deliver one when I was doing duty in the cottage hospital in Bonne Bay. Instead of a baby being born, she delivers a mass that looks exactly like a bunch of grapes. A birth like this puts the mother at great risk. The women in charge was a super qualified mid-wife with 2 degrees. Her registered nurses degree and 3 years mid-wifery degree from England.
She was perfectly qualified to deliver the women. The doctor in charge had never seen this type of birth. As I’ve said, it is very rare.
There was not a lot of pre-natal care then. It was just beginning to come into play and 9 out of 10 times you may not see your patient until she presented herself at the hospital, ready for delivery. So you had to expect anything. Apparently, with a hydidaform mole pregnancy a mother can go full term. It was amazing as I have said and I consider myself fortunate to have had the experience. So many nurses and doctors have never ever seen one. What an experience!
Every day we were maturing and gaining knowledge. It was fantastic. You felt as though you were utilizing your time in a very beneficial way.
The outside world was barely thought of. There was so much to learn about in my chosen profession. I was so proud to be part of it.
The obstetric ward was not always a fun place to work. I loved the delivery part. I could have done that all day.
My memory is still vivid in regards to some of the more obese patients. When you are large to begin with and then add pregnancy to the mix, well lets just say, it was no picnic for us nurses. Those big fat women being tended on hand and foot 9 days after a delivery! We were in worse shape than they were because our nerves were tested to the brink of collapse.
Complete bed baths and they just lay there soaking up all the attention. Getting bedpans in bed. You just try and get 200lbs of dead weight onto a bedpan, it isn’t easy and it sure isn’t fun. Giving peritineal care and using bedpans for bowel movements and urination, thank-god even in that day and age we had bedpan cleaners. Hoppers they were called. You would take the bedpans contents and pour it into flushers. The bedpans were then put into bedpan sterilizers.
Peritineal care was when you cleansed the vaginal area by pouring a sterile solution over the area and then drying off the area with sterile swabs. For patients with sutures after delivery this was especially important.
Going into those wards all dressed and starched up in the month of July, having to face all that, as well as changing their vaginal pads, some days I thought I would never make it. I wonder now why we never made them do their own personal care. Oh no, complete bed rest and make no mistake, they took advantage of it, at our expense!
Treatment for Pre-eclampsia, now this was a dilly. This is a condition where the patient starts to retain fluid in their tissue during pregnancy. If not treated in time, the patient becomes toxic and goes into convulsions resulting in both the mother and the baby’s death.
I witnessed a few sad cases. I remember one young woman having severe convulsions and she died instantly. We never had time to perform a caesarian to save her twins. She was such a sweet person and her husband was great. Giving him the news was awful. He had just gone home after visiting her all night.
I remember she arrived on the ward one night out of the blue. Blood pressure 220 over 120 and full of fluid. Her feet, legs, hands and face were swollen out of proportion and she was in her 7th or 8th month. She weighed about 220lbs or more and by my guess; personal hygiene was never one of her greatest assets
We treated her as follows… Complete bed rest and daily bed baths. Epsom salts every morning to try and get rid of some of the excess fluid. Diuretics to get the kidneys working. B/P taken every 3-4 hours. Restricted salt diet and a lot of nursing care.
Most of you know what Epsom salts is and for what purpose it is used but for those of you who are wondering I will explain. It is a very strong laxative given to empty the bowels. The taste is (horrific) awful.
The result from this is gross and the bedpan had to be very close to them. Oh, I can still get the odor after 51 years. Ha! Ha!
Can you imagine, spotlessly dressed gals having to do that? We used to sneak gloves and masks from the operating room but you remember me telling you that the Grace was frugal? Well we were not supposed to use gloves and masks for such a task but when the old sergeant majors back was turned we managed to get a few.
Well what is the old saying? There is light at the end of the tunnel? Thank god it proved to be true for our deliverance from the obstetrical wards.
We were off to the nursery and eager to be going. We had had more than our fill of Obs. nursing.
The nursery was both interesting and sad. The healthy infants were a pleasure but the infants with all different abnormalities were very sad. We saw some very pathetic cases.
I am sure that when you see those poor children and what they are going through that you have a different outlook on life. It made me so thankful for having healthy and beautiful children. I thanked god every day for our children. We just sailed through life with no serious illnesses.
But as I write this, June 28th 1991, I must write that our gorgeous son Bill suffered a severe accident in 1987. Today he is a quadriplegic. He is in a wheel chair and I think you all know how I feel about that. His spirit and courage has helped me survive through each day and I thank god every day for helping him do the things that he can do. He has no brain damage. That is a blessing. Often when you break your neck the way he did, brain damage is common.
Seeing all the tragic things in my nursing career, I thank god we are so well and as lucky as we are. And it really did help me to understand everything. Well, almost everything.

The Grace Nursery

The nursery was fun and after being on duty for only a day or two I thought to myself, we just graduated from adult poop to baby poop, ha, ha. Oh yes, we had lots of it in the nursery but at least we could forgive the babies because we knew they were helpless and unable to do for themselves.
They came to us from the delivery room all shapes and sizes. Small ones, medium ones and huge ones.
I remember one baby weighed 14 lbs. The son of a big policeman and the mother was equally as big. The poor kid never had a chance; he looked like a toddler at birth and boy could he ever yell. I’m afraid we had little sympathy for him, he was enormous.
Some babies were born with black eyes caused by high forceps during delivery.
There were two types of forceps, high and low. These stainless steel instruments had long handles and curved in a semi-circle at the top. Forceps were used when the mother had no more desire to push or the uterus became tired (inertia).
To save the mother and child a prolonged labor forceps were inserted into the vagina and gently clamped around the babies’ head on both sides. The Dr. then pulled the baby out. I have seen poor kids with bumps so big it looked like they had two heads.
Bumps in all shapes and in every direction, caused by forceps. Very sad looking but funny enough they were usually gone before the mother and child left the hospital. After all, in those days their stay was between 9 and 14 days. That was for an uncomplicated birth!
The premature babies were nursed in a nursery all to themselves.
One chore nurses do not have to do today, thank-goodness, is prepare all the formulas on the unit. That took oodles of time with all the measuring, mixing and sterilization. The experience came in mighty handy when we were alone in the district doing public health nursing.
We only spent a month in the nursery and then off to the labor and delivery room for another month. The experiences here were something else.
This was action and then some. It was incredible to see the teamwork that went into the procedure.
I told myself many times that oh no, this was not for me. I will never ever have children if it means having to go through this. But I did have children and I managed to get through each birth without complication. They weren’t easy but you were all worth
the discomfort.
We had to observe all the births and procedures and as I have written earlier, we needed to deliver 9 babies on our own, under supervision of course before we could get our credentials to write our R.N.
Preparation for delivery was a ritual and sometimes you had to work under speedy conditions.
First the patient was prepped. This means that all around and just beyond the vaginal area were shaved then cleansed with sterile soap and water. Prior to this a soapsuds enema was given to clear the bowels, helping to make the delivery easier and the area as clean and safe as possible for the babies arrival. The enema also sped up uterine contractions so we needed to work fast.
The genital area was then painted with a 7% antiseptic tincture of methapen. Once the cervix was dilated or there was presentation of the head etc. the patient was placed onto the delivery table with both legs up and in stirrups that were attached to the table. The whole area was draped with sterile towels of course and the Doctors, nurses, nurses to attend the baby when born, were all present and in the delivery room.
The nurses and doctors in attendance scrubbed their hands and dressed in sterile gowns, caps, masks and gloves, getting ready for the big event. The patient was given a light anesthetic because by now she was experiencing extreme hard labor.
Every time I delivered or witnessed a delivery it never ceased to amaze me.
I may have painted a grim picture of our obstetrical training but it is really not meant to give you a bad impression. Through all, we did have lots of fun and amazing experiences. We used to relate our stories to one another in the common meeting room after each duty.
I think the point I am trying to make in regards to the Grace Hospital is, we were affiliates from the General Hospital in our 3rd year of training. The Grace was receiving a good sum of money from the government for each student trainee. We were all being treated like probationers in our first term, and we were not happy about it. We knew our general nursing from A to Z and if I may say so, our high standards of nursing at the General far surpassed the training received by the Grace Hospital students. I hope none of my Grace H. friends read this or I am dead meat!
I remember the old nurse in charge on the obstetrical wards. Her name was Miss Tait. A rather robust spinster. She was quite pleasant enough but always gave the Grace nurses all the privileges.
Although the food was ridiculous in quality and quantity, we still needed to eat. Miss Tate made sure the Grace nurses were called for 1st lunch and diner. A familiar ring in our ears…Ok, the Grace nurses will go to lunch first and the GINERAL nurses will take the patients temps. That is how she pronounced it, just the way I spelled it. Many times when we were finally able to go for our lunch, only scraps remained.
We were glad when we left Miss Taits' ward. The nursery and delivery room training was much, much better because the other nurses in charge treated us like the 3rd year students we were. There was only the least bit of favoritism for the Grace nurses so we were feeling like intelligent people again.
Our 3rd year flew by. We had calendars in our rooms and after 5 or 6 months to go before we graduated, we would tick off one more day each morning. How many mornings left before the sound of that buzzer every morning at 6am would be behind us forever?
Now as I look back on my life, I don’t think I was ever released from that buzzer. I woke up around that time every morning since my training. The big difference is, now I plan my own time.
With our affiliating year completed we were once again back at the General. We were accepted now as mature senior nurses with lots of experience and we were working under less supervision.
But as is always the case wherever you go there are some that just have to give you a hard time. For us, it was the stupid old maid supervisors. But the difference now was that we knew a whole lot more than they did. Whereas they were quite familiar with their own wards, we had been extensively trained to nurse in any ward. They stayed in the same place forever, no lecture or affiliating programs, becoming quite stagnant. They were tops in their own wards but were narrow minded and reluctant to progress or make changes.
These supervisors never had to write an RN. State exam but received their RN. Certificate as an honorary degree. I have to say with conviction that most of these women were not equipped with the right frame of mind or possessed the qualifications to teach young, eager, intelligent students.
We were very sure of our selves and not half as naïve as we had been as probationers.
It was only a matter of time for us, so we watched our performance very carefully and took a lot of their nonsense with a grain of salt.
The last thing I did in my training was give a subcutaneous hypodermic injection and then I walked away feeling proud that I had survived three years of hard training. I now felt qualified to do some good in the world.
It was now time to start thinking about getting a job. Well, we were graduating and we knew the profession we were choosing. But in what field did we want to nurse?
There were no openings at our hospital. Not for the girls from the out ports. The graduates from St. Johns were given those positions.
Public health nursing was going ahead in leaps and bounds and they were looking for District Nurses and nurses for Cottage Hospitals.
Cottage Hospitals were being built in isolated areas around the Island to lighten the load of patients in the St. Johns hospitals. Patients now had access to medical and nursing care in their own communities.
These hospitals consisted of approx. 30 beds or so and every kind of nursing would be administered. You name it they did it.
In 1941 these hospitals were staffed with 1 Doctor, 2 Registered Nurses, 3 nurses’ aids, and a kitchen and a maintenance staff. It was a great set up with an out patients facility as well.
They were a godsend to the poor people that never had the privilege to have a Doctor or nurse help in their lives. In that day and age we were really considered something.
I was accepted to go and work in the Cottage Hospital in Bonne Bay as an assistant nurse. Older nurses from England had been hired as the Charge Nurses. They were very well trained and well qualified to be District Nurses and Midwives. However, to my dismay, they were not all that good in handling many areas of hospital procedure.
Anyway, the English nurses were chosen as supervisors and the young nurses just graduating were second in command.
We were delighted to start nursing as graduates and actually being paid for it was super! After 3 years of nothing, it was time.
In the 3 years of training I only had the money my dear father could send. God bless him. He was always there for me and he was the biggest reason that I worked so hard. I studied hard so I could accomplish what I had set out to do and I know he was mighty proud of me as I was of him. Rest in peace.
We never had a graduation ceremony because world war two was on and all gala events were put on hold. To this day I feel we were cheated out of a great day with our friends and families. But that was the rule and nothing could be done to change the torn, frustrating years of war.
Our class had started training the day we arrived at the nursing school and that was the way we finished. Our last day of training was our final day at the hospital.
Fortunately I had no sick time in my 3 years so I finished 3 years to the day that I began. There was only one other nurse that accomplished that. Not that I wasn’t sick enough at times, but you had to have a high temperature or fall on the floor with pain before you were sent off duty. Ha, ha. Some joke!!! I have a sub normal temperature reading therefore 98.6 degrees for me would be 101 degrees. So to my sorrow, I never qualified when I was ill. Yep, you just had to go on duty and suffer it out.
September 9th 1941, I was 24 years old when I was called to the Matrons’ office and presented with my 3 years nursing diploma and my gold nurses pin. It was then and only that they treated you like an intelligent person and you were told of your many good qualities. By that time you had your doubts as to whether you had any. There was no such thing as a pat on the back as you did your 3 years training. It felt very good.
You were then given a hearty handshake and sent on your merry way to face the world. We were to return in November of the same year to write our State Exams to obtain our Registered Nurses Degree.
So you see, although we were graduates from our school of nursing, we were not Registered Nurses until we had written our exams. Those 2 months passed very quickly because of your new position and you were kept very busy, you had no time to dwell on that final day.
Well, November 1941 came and all of us young graduates had to travel to St. Johns to write our examinations. We had a very intense week, studying. Going over 3 years of lectures and so on. It was tense in the exam rooms. We had a lot at stake.
We would not know our results for weeks after we wrote so, filled with anxiety, we returned to our nursing posts.
Lo and behold, the results were out and I got my Registered Nurses Degree. That was a very big accomplishment in those days.
I really do not regret one moment of my training days. Naturally there were rules and supervisors that took you to the brink of madness some days! But on the whole I feel I benefited a great deal and it helped me tremendously during every phase of my life. They were times of fun, times of learning, times of unforgettable experiences and a time of good friends. My classmates and I were like one big happy family and I missed our times together for a very long time after we parted.
A few cases really stand out in my mind so before I close this segment of my life I will tell you about them.
Victoria Ward. I remember one burn patient in particular. A female of about 40 years. She came to us with severe 3rd degree burns all over her body; only her face had been spared.
We dressed her wounds frequently using a medication called acriflauine, a yellowish mixture to promote healing. Her body was horrible to look at and the stench from the dressings wasn’t very easy for us to take, in spite of our masks.
We used to give her injections of painkillers before we started to dress her wounds. Even then you could hear that poor woman’s’ screams all over the wards and up and down the corridors. It was pitiful. It used to take 2 nurses or more a good hour. The bandages and dressing we used was phenomenal. You could almost feel it yourself when you were ever so gently peeling off those dressings. She would be screaming and the wounds would be bleeding. As I write this it takes me back to her bedside, when I would be taking care of her.
She was with us for months and months. She did heal and went home. Her follow up would have been done in her Dr’s office.
Skin grafting was only done in Montreal and then only for the chosen few. The healing of burns was a long drawn out and painful process. It was very common for the wounds of burn patients to become infected so unfortunately, many died. But that was the way it was back then.

Carson Ward

Another severe burn case. A male patient in his late 30’s. He was working in the mines on Belle Island when there was an explosion. He had 3rd degree burns all over his face and hands.
His face was just awful. His ears were gone, he had slits for eyes and his fingers were burned so very badly. The mining company paid his way to Montreal for skin grafting and he was back with us to await more surgery.
God forgive when I say that it was hard not to throw up when you saw him. He needed to be fed his meals and needed nursing attention. He could walk around and he had some sight but again, they were doing everything in stages.
At that time I was a probationer and designated to serve him 3 meals a day for months.
I did not feel good about that but I had no choice in the matter. I felt it should have been divided among all of us.
We did 12-hour duty then so the day staff had all the meals to serve and we had to feed the patients that needed to be fed as well. On my one day off every two weeks he would ask for me, apparently I made him feel very comfortable. God help me but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Poor fellow, he was sad to look at.
As I remember him now, he was very positive and cheerful.
He went back and forth to Montreal and I heard that they did a very good job on him. He returned to work, got married and had children.
I was told he was living a very normal life and had very little scarring.
I was pleased for him. I had played a large part in his well-being. He had a very large appetite and I was the one that kept him filled up, and that man could eat, but ever so slowly.

The Tidal Wave of November 18th, 1929

I’ve made reference of the tidal wave and want to give you a little more information. I was twelve years old at the time. The sea was acting and sounding differently for hours before the tidal waves came. I remember a tension in the village. We were all getting ready to sit down at the supper table when we heard a horrific moan coming from the direction of the sea. When we went out to investigate we saw that the water was emptying out of the harbor. My father yelled for us to run to high ground and of course we just did as we were told and we started to run. We were not the only ones running. It seemed as though the whole village was running in every direction. But what were we running away from? I found an accounting of the events in a ballad.

THE TIDAL WAVE

Now twas nineteen hundred & twenty –nine
On the coast of Newfoundland
A little girl from Point Aux Gaul
She lived a tale so grand
The sights and sounds and miracles
And wonders that they gave
And how her life forever changed
The day of the tidal wave!

She was playing on the hammock
That November afternoon
The sky was clear, the air was cold
Awaiting the full moon.
She heard a moan come from the sea
Like something from the grave
When an earth quake shook her to her knees
The day of the tidal wave!

The land was moving like the waves
That roll upon the sea
But she was only six years old
With curiosity
The adults gathered on the green
To speculate the rave
But no one knew what to expect
The day of the tidal wave!

Then Uncle Joe the Madaleau
He crouched down to the ground
His ear was on a small drain pipe
And no one made a sound
They waited watched and listened
Closely to that worldly knave
Till at last he arose and there proclaimed:
“We’ll be havin a tidal wave!”

But no one knew what that might be
Though they were sure he’d know
For he had traveled on the sea
A schooner’s Madeleau
And though she heard and saw and felt
The worldly speech he gave
Maisie wandered what it really meant:
“We’ll be having a tidal wave!”

With supper done the evening followed
The Family rosary
When Maisie’s high strung sister cried
“I hears the moan of the sea!”
So Grandpa said “don’t worry chil’
Be still now and behave”
But the kitchen carried water on
The night of the tidal wave!

Out side she saw the picket fence
Lift up and wash away
The wave had gone but three would come
Before the light of day
And Maisie saw the sea withdraw
A mile out like a cave
Till it all came roaring in again
The second tidal wave!

She saw friends and houses washed away
Never to come ashore
They ran and looked for loved ones
Searching frantically for more
And Maisie’s brother Terry
Searched the sea bed grave
Just in time for him to run
From the final tidal wave!

Well Point Aux Gaul was purged that night
Of eight poor village souls
Yet underneath a fallen roof
Were apples in a bowl
And everybody stopped and stared
At that which had been saved
And Maisie laughed in wonder
The night of the tidal wave!

It was nineteen hundred & twenty-nine.
On the coast of Newfoundland
A little girl from Port Aux Gaul
She lived a tale so grand
The sights and sounds and miracles
And wonders that they gave.
And how her life forever changed
The day of the tidal wave.

The Governor sent the S.S. Meigle with relief of Doctors, nurses, members of the cabinet, medical supplies and food.
The disaster occurred as a result of an earthquake. Cables were smashed and it was three days before the first news came into St. John’s in a wireless message from S.S. Portia.
The tremors lasted for approx. four minutes. People ran from their homes. Two hours later a drastic noise from the sea sent them in panic to high ground. The roaring of the waves, the smashing of everything in the way and the shouts of people were terrifying. By 10 o’clock in the night the destruction was complete.
Point au Gaul was worst hit. The expedition found homes, stages, wharves, boats and barns smashed. Gardens were covered by large rocks that had come in with the powerful waves.
In Lamaline they came upon a small house uplifted some yards from its original spot. Downstairs they found a mother and three children dead. Upstairs they found an unharmed infant.
A Nonia nurse came out from Lamaline to visit the settlements. She tried to get there by car but the bridges were washed out. She then tried to reach her destination on a horse without a saddle and rode to within eight miles of the end of her visitation. When the horse was too exhausted to travel further, she continued on foot. The expedition from the Meigle found her in a state of collapse.
On November 23rd a delegation from Burin arrived via Argentia to lay the matter of assistance before the government. They told of fishermen who climbed floating houses searching for survivors in the darkness and chaos.
While a house of ten occupants at Stepside was being swept away rescuers shouted “jump”. When the tide came back, they jumped to safety and the house was swept out to sea.
At Port Aux Bras a fisherman saw his home being swept away and ran to save his wife and children. He was blocked by another floating house. He was helpless and he watched as his imprisoned family whirled away into the darkness of the sea.
The tidal wave was different from one harbor to the next. In some places it was a wall of water 50 feet high which swept everything clear from the land. In other places such as St. Lawrence, it took a rotary motion which moved large buildings from one side of the harbor to the other.
Along the beaches packages of winter provisions lay smashed. They were surrounded by household furniture, hay from cattle barns and parts of dwellings, stages and wharves. The damage was estimated at $1,000,000. Greater still was the economic problem it presented.
Perhaps the most devastating harm the tidal wave inflicted was that its marine growth was swept clean away effecting our way of living drastically. The fishing was never the same. We lost our tourist trade as a result as well. Many years went by before this life returned to its habitat.
On November 25th, two days before the return of the S.S. Meigle, a public meeting launched a movement to aid the suffering. The Evening Telegram opened a subscription list and had over $10,000 in hand in less than five days. Committees were formed all over the Island and house to house collections were made in St. Johns. Money poured in from Newfoundlanders far and wide.
We were very lucky. We were safe, with no injuries or casualties. My father only lost a few provisions and one of his flakes.
The total loss for Lawn when all tallied up was $30,842.25.

I will give you an explanation of a few things you may never have heard of and that may not exist anymore.

A Stage. A big wooden building, built over the water and divided into cubicles where the fish was cured by salt before it was washed and then dried by sunlight. A huge splitting table was built at the front of the stage on the sea side. The splitting table room had to be waterproof and ventilated. The fish had to be kept cool at all times so it would not spoil. When the fish were brought to the wharf a pitch fork was used to pitch them up onto the splitting table where the heads were cut off and the entrails and the sound bone removed. The fish was then washed and laid in tiers to be salted. It remained inside the stage for 2 or 3 weeks and then dried by the sun for at least 3 days. Once dried it was stacked and put into stores ready to be sold in the fall.

A Store. A wooden building built on land at the back of the stage and wharf. The roof was covered with wood and felt, making it waterproof. The store had to be constructed well so that absolutely no water could seep through the roof or otherwise. The stores were used primarily for dried fish, flour, beef, and pork, all of which were stored in barrels.

Flakes. Large platforms built high off the ground and constructed of logs. After the cured fish was taken out of the splitting room it was washed and laid on the flakes to be sun-dried. The flakes were well ventilated for easy and thorough cleaning.

Wharf. A wharf is attached to the stage, jutting out to deeper water. A vessel, skiff or dory etc. can be tied up to it and the fish can be thrown from the boat onto the wharf. It is made strictly of logs and securely fastened to the ocean floor. In the centre, under the wharf is a cage like affair filled with huge rocks called a ballost. The ballost prevents the wharf from being taken away by tides, ice or whatever else might get thrown its way. Logs are fastened to the front face of the wharf making a ladder for the fishermen to get up from or down to their boats. The wharf was covered with logs, close enough together to make it easy to walk on but far enough apart so that it was easy to clean many times a day after each unloaded catch.

Pit Pat (game). We used to play a game that could last forever. All the kids in the village could participate, no one was ever left out. That is why it was so popular I suspect.
Equipment ; 1 long stick, 1 short stick, a deep hole dug into the ground and 2 teams.
Rules: Each team took its place on either side. The small stick was placed over the hole and you held the long stick in both your hands. Using the long stick you flicked the short stick to the opposing team. If a player on the opposing team caught the short stick you threw, you were out. The short stick was put back over the hole and you handed the long stick to another player on your team for his or her turn. If the opposing team did not catch the short stick you went on to the second step:
Second step: Now you stood the short stick on its end in the hole and you hit it again with the big stick. If it was missed again by the opposing players you went on to the third step.
The third step: You hit the short stick to the opposing team and they were supposed to catch it and throw it right back to you where upon you were supposed to hit the returning stick in mid air. If you were lucky and hit it you scored a point for your team.
There was no referee as such. Many a fight broke out and everyone was disqualified. It was something like baseball I guess but without all the equipment. We made the game up ourselves and had great fun playing it.

A Remedy for Age spots.
Wipe the age spot daily with mixture of 1tsp. onion juice and 2 tsp. cider vinegar. Use a soft cloth. The spots will disappear in a few weeks.; March 19, 2008 at 10:16 AM
Youpicks said...: These stories capture my ❤; August 18, 2018 at 8:00 AM

Emily Bernadette Kennedy

Edwards Kennedy Newfoundland Heritage

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Mom's Memoirs, Written by Vicky Gaul The memoires were written by me in 2006-2007 taken from the notes mom wrote over a few years

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Emily Kennedy 1917-2008

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Emily Bernadette Kennedy 1917-2008

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