What is your full name?

Lovitt Edward Raymond Winchester.

And who were your parents?

Lovitt Young Winchester and Mary H. Dowley.

What were your grandparents names?

Charles Edward Winchester and Edith Jane Winchester.

When were you born?

July 30, 1913.

And where were you born?

Smith’s Cove.

How large was your family when you were growing up?

There were five children.

And where did you fit into the family?

I was the second oldest.

What did your father do for a living?

He was a hotel keeper until the first world war and then he was invalid at home and after that he was a patient in Kentville Sanatorium.

What do you remember about your mother’s workday?

Well only what she told us. She worked in the States in a sporting goods family for awhile. And then she came home to Smith’s Cove and married my father and from then on she was a – she just looked after the family, she didn’t work out anywhere.

What was a typical school day like for you?

A school day? Well, the morning hours were from 9-12 with a recess at 11 for 15 minutes and then from 1:30 until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And there was all classroom work. And if you didn’t have your lessons, you had to stay in after school.

How would you say the school would look different than a normal school today?

Oh, all the difference in the world. It was divided into classrooms of approximately 40 to 50 pupils and in some cases the room had two grades in it. Like, four and five, and as I recall it six and seven were together. Eight was separate. But there wasn’t the freedom that they exercise in schools today. You were in a classroom under supervision of a teacher and that’s where you stayed.

Is the school still standing today?

Yes. It’s the one along side of the courthouse.

How would you have been disciplined in school?

Well, you either minded your p’s and q’s or you got a strapping. And what about at home?

Same thing. If you didn’t behave and if you didn’t conform to things or if you, well, if you misbehaved yourself, you were punished. Physically punished.

What were your daily chores like?

Mine? Well, I don’t – I suppose from the time I was probably eight or ten years old, I had to get the kindling and wood in, fire wood. And there was always something to do around the home. One year or two, we burned coal instead of wood and that meant lugging the coal in and the ashes out. There was always something to do.

What would you do with your free time after your chores were done?

Studied my lessons and then probably went to bed.

What was your favorite holiday when you were a child?

Well, no specific holiday. The summer holidays were always welcome.

What was it like at your house when the catalogue arrived?

I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. I just don’t remember I guess.

Where else would you get the things you needed if you didn’t get them from the catalogue?

Well from your local stores. Clothing, mine were always made by my mother. My father died when I was 11, and all his clothes were made over and I wore them. In the summertime you didn’t need shoes, you always went barefoot and it was only when the frost got on the ground that you put socks and shoes on.

How much spending money would you have as a child?

None.

What was your religion?

I was brought up Baptist.

So what would Sunday’s have been at your house?

Well, you’re speaking of my childhood now, are you?

Yes.

I was always sent to Sunday School, always went to Sunday school and I think it must have been 1928, I was 15 years old when I was baptized. And when I started going with Mary, her father had a car and we would go on picnics and or swimming parties with proper supervision and all that you know.

What different things would you grow and raise yourself?

As a child. Nothing.

What would your parents have grown and raised. Like vegetables, cattle?

Nothing.

What different things would you barter for?

I don’t recall any bartering. What we bought we paid for. And what we couldn’t pay for we didn’t buy.

How much of what you needed would you make yourself?

Well my mother was a wonderful seamstress and she made all my clothes and the clothes for the girls until they were, my oldest sister went to college and then of course she had to have what they call ‘store bought’ clothes. And the same with me. I got my first bought suit when I was 14. Prior to that, it was all made by my mother.

Do you remember where you got that suit from?

Yes, I think it was T. Eatons.

How would you say electricity changed things for you and your family?

Oh, you could go on that subject for hours. When I was young, living in Digby, electric lights came on at dark and went on at midnight. And when I went to work for the power board you could get a month’s electricity for $1.50. And if you didn’t pay it on time you were charged 10% interest which made it $1.66 a month for electricity. And today I think my last power bill was somewhere close to $200.00 for two months. Electricity was not new when I was young because electricity had been around for a few years prior to that, but everything was done, all the cooking was done by wood stoves or coal stoves or eventually the oil stove came in. But they were kind of messy and smelly too. I remember having one and I wasn’t too pleased with it. However, electricity has been a great boon to the country. And its improved the life of the ordinary family a great deal because everything you have today practically runs on electricity.

When did you first get running water?

Well, I don’t know when first, but I suppose back before the turn of the century, that is the 20th century. Probably 1880 or 1890. In fact, I was just reading a book there and it has all that information in it. I think that’s when it was. The picture showed the men digging the reservoir up on top of the hill in Digby and they piped it in from a lake out near Broad Cove or Culloden and then they had a reservoir up there and it was extended year after year, I presume, until everyone had running water. And then eventually, of course, hydrants were put in for fire protection, but that would have come, I would imagine, after the 1900’s.

Who was the Doctor when you were growing up?

Well, there were several doctors here. There was Dr. Dickie, Dr. DeVernie, Dr. MacCleave and I think those were the three doctors during my time.

How far away would they have been?

Oh, they were right in downtown Digby. They had their offices there, all of them.

Who delivered the babies in the community?

The Doctors. Sometimes, I suspect but I’m not sure, but I would imagine people in the outlying districts perhaps would have a midwife. They might have a midwife. But very few deliveries were made in the hospitals; most of them were made at home.

What were some home remedies that would have been used when you were growing up?

Home remedies? Well, let me see. Of course there was the old basic one – iodine.

What would that have been used for?

Just for cuts or any open wounds or anything of that nature. Sometimes alternate cold and hot compresses were used like for croup and I don’t know what they used for measles and chicken pox. And it seemed that every young person when through that phase. If you didn’t have all those little childhood diseases, you were lucky. But my Mother always, especially in the wintertime gave us Scotts Elmusion, it was a mixture of cod liver oil and other ingredients. We didn’t have too many illness as children, really.

How would you have taken care of your teeth?

The same as we do today. We brush them with a toothbrush and tooth paste but there didn’t seem to be the many different types of toothpaste as there is today. Probably only one or two, or maybe three. But your mother was always after you to brush your teeth.

How often would you have seen the Dentist?

Only when you had a toothache, I guess. I don’t know. There was no set time like there is today. Today you have an annual appointment and its all taken care of at that time. In fact, I just had my annual last week and I got away without a cavity.

When someone would die in the community, what would the wake be like?

Well, they didn’t have receptions like they do today. It was unheard of, really. The deceased were taken care of by a mortician and they had visiting hours much the same as they do today, and there would be a funeral service sometimes held right in the home. I was talking the other day about one that happened out in Culloden. We went out there, I use to go quite often with the mortician if he needed a hand to help him with the remains. And that was quite a large funeral. The house was packed. As far as I can remember, there was always an ordained minister that took the service which was much the same as it is today except that afterwards, it was only close friends of the family that perhaps loitered and talked with the bereaved and sort of consoled them. But there was never, that I remember, any wake or anything of that nature.

How often would you leave Smith’s Cove?

Well, I left Smith’s Cove when I was four years old. I started school here at that age, and I moved into Digby when my father bought the hotel in there and went to school in Digby. Then in 1921 we moved to Kentville and I went to school there in the Kings County School system. And then when he died in 1924, we stayed on for a year in Kentville and then moved back to Digby. So it was a bit of a, well, transition from one place to another in a short time.

How would you have gotten to Kentville?

By train.

Was there trains that ran all through around here?

Oh yes. They ran from Yarmouth to Halifax and sometimes I’ve known there to be six trains a day. They had two freight trains, and four passenger and baggage and mail. The service was a lot better in those days than it is today. Oh yes, because they drop the mail bags right off at the station, and they stopped at every station all the way through. But the cars were beginning to take over at that time. As a youngster, I remember, cars, they’d lay them up in the wintertime. They didn’t travel in the snow at all because there were no snowplows and if you had to make an emergency trip. Like we made an emergency trip to Yarmouth one winter. We left here at daybreak and we got there at sundown. From here to Yarmouth and we were in the ditch twice and we were pulled out twice by a yoke of oxen. Cold miserable day. Because cars weren’t built for winter travel in those days. They just had side curtains on them. There was no heaters in them. You travelled with buffalo robe over your lap. Stayed as warm as you could but it was still a cold trip.

People would have just gotten the oxen and gone right up and pulled you right out?

Fortunately, this was down the French Shore and fortunately we went in the ditch we couldn’t see where the road was. I wasn’t driving because I was too young. But my brother in law was driving and you couldn’t see where the road was, really except, well everything was drifted level with snow. And the first thing you knew your front wheels were dipped down into the ditch and you had had it. But each time we were very near a home and everybody down there had a yoke of cattle. One family took us in and gave us our dinner, mind you. Pulled the car out, didn’t charge us a cent, I don’t suppose we had too much to pay for it anyway.

Who would have maintained the roads back then?

Well, they had road supervisors and Will Frankland was the road supervisor here. But for fire protection, the men had to get out and shovel the roads out. I worked on that as a teenager time after time after time. Every winter you’d look forward to making a little money. Twenty five (25) cents an hour to shovel snow. And any money I ever made up until I was married, went to my mother to help with the family expenses. But there were no snow plows. The only plow I remember back in those days was a man by the name of Robbins, Frank Robbins had a stable in there just about where Dr. Levesque’s office is, just a little bit north of that. And he had made a plow and he plowed out the sidewalks. That’s about the only maintenance there was. And in the country you had to get out and shovel the length of your property and more and then it was credited to your taxes. They didn’t pay you anything. It was against the law to refuse. You could be charged for refusing to get out and shovel. You were taken to court. Unless, of course, you were sick or maimed or otherwise incapable of doing that kind of work. But it was all like on a common level. You see, money in those days, was at a premium. I remember I’ve, in fact somewhere I have a bill for groceries for my wife, myself and two children, for a month was $13.00. Today you can lug out $50.00 worth of groceries in one hand. It’s so ridiculous, so far spread that….But we never could afford oranges, fruit and stuff like that in a store. It was the basic stuff. Bread and butter, cereal, potatoes and things like that. I use to buy my potatoes out here in Smith’s Cove. I knew a gentleman there that you could buy a bushel of potatoes for $2.00, a barrel of apples for $2.00. I’ve bought many a barrel of apples for $2.00 mind you. Today you get five pounds for $3.00.

What did you expect to do when you grew up? When you were younger, what did you think you wanted to do?

I wanted to be a doctor. But my Mother never had enough money to go to college. I left school when I was 15 years old on a Friday, and I went to work Monday morning.

Was that the reason you left school was to start working? I had to, yes. And I went to work on the Pines Hotel, building that. And from then on, it was just work, work, work. I thought for a while I might take up the plumbing trade. I worked as a plumbers helper for 2 ½ to 3 years with a firm from Halifax. I went down to Yarmouth and worked on the Lakeside Inn, which now is a Catholic home. Head of Lake Milo, there. That great big stucco building sitting there. Well, it was a hotel originally. Then I came back and worked on the new helps quarters at the Pines. After those jobs were finished, I think the first or second year that I was married I made a living by washing windows and mowing lawns and things like that. And finally I was hired by the Digby County Power Board. I worked there from 1934 or 35 until war broke out. Then I enlisted in the Army.

How dangerous would your work have been working at the Pines?

Well, I think if you used your common sense there was no danger to it. But it was in a sense dangerous. We use to use these lead pots, they were nothing like these ABS pipes and things like that. You had to cork every joint and then pour the joint full of lead. And if you dropped any water in that lead pot it would explode. You had to be very very careful that way. And on one occasion, I don’t know how this happened, but we had a shed there where we use to keep the supplies in - quite a large building. Especially oakum that we used to cork joints. And the pile of oakum got afire one day. But they got it out before it got out of control. Fortunately, there were one or two fellows in the building at the time. I don’t know how it happened really. But there wasn’t a great deal of danger, other than well, if you dropped a length of pipe on your foot well of course, that would be dangerous! But I don’t think anyone ever did that.

As a teen, what kinds of things did you do for fun?

Well, I was always althetic. I played hockey, I played with the old Digby Ravens. I’m the only one left alive of that team. I played baseball and I use to do track work – you know, running. And one year they use to hold the high school track meets in Acadia. And one year I won the Nova Scotia championship for the 220. So, I think I went up there on three occasions. Ever hear tell of Earl Anderson? Well Earl Anderson was a very althetic. He was a doctor and a cousin of mine. And one year, he and I, just the two of us tied the Kentville team, they had 17 men on it, and we tied them for third place!

Just the two of you.

Just the two of us. We went into everything. I won a lot of the dashes. But that 220, that was my fond memory because I was racing against a fellow from Halifax and about three or four others in the finals. And the first time that we ran the finals, this fellow and I were running neck in neck, and he moved over into a lane and I moved over with him. And it was called off. They didn’t allow a winner. After about half an hour, we had to rerun it and I beat him. That was something I enjoyed.

So would you say sports was a big part of school back then?

Well, the big part was me. Not the school itself. We represented the school. See I went to play with the Digby Ravens when I was still in High School. I was only about 15 years old. And on one occasion during the winter, they must have got their schedule mixed up because they had two games on one night so they asked us if we could get a team up from the High School and go up to Bridgetown and play them, just to fill in the league game. Which we did and we beat them. A bunch of kids, you know. But we had some good skaters, a lot of good hockey players here in this area. But they are all gone now.

Who were your screen idols when you were growing up?

Oh boy. Tom Mix, Gibson, all those old westerns.

And what kinds of music did you like?

Music? Well, I had a preference for military band music. I played in a band for 25 years and one occasion when I was living in Saint John, I was a member of three different bands. It kept me busy.

What different things do you remember about dating?

I don’t really know. I met my wife in school, grade 9, and we’ve been going together ever since. We just celebrated our 69th wedding anniversary.

How did you meet your wife?

In school.

And how old were you when you got married?

I was 18.

What do you remember about your wedding?

I remember it very well. We were married in the Trinity Anglican Church on November 16, 1931 and my brother-in-law to be was my best man and the witnesses were her father and mother. And the ministers’ name was Mr. Gabriel. I had no money to pay the minister which was the normal thing in those days. My father-in-law gave me $5.00. I gave it to the minster and the minister gave it back to my wife. That was our wedding present. So I remember it quite clearly.

Would you have gone on a honeymoon?

No.

Once you were married, where did you live?

The first winter I lived in - my mother was then running the hotel that my father had bought – and the first year we had a two room apartment up on the third floor. That was the first winter. And then in the spring I rented a place, do you know where the old funeral home use to be there on the corner of Queen Street and Warwick, you know the garage there, and the large building right in back of it. Well that’s where I rented. The ceiling were about, I was going to say 90 feet high! But I think they were 12 foot ceilings. We couldn’t furnish it. We used two rooms out of the whole house and we paid $15.00 a month rent. We had orange crates for stools, and my father-in-law gave us a table and four chairs and we had a little two burner hot plate which we did our cooking on. And eventually I moved from there to another place and from there to where the museum is. That’s where my oldest daughter was born. That was in 1935. And that’s the year I went to work for the power board, 1935.

The hotel that your father bought? Was that around here?

Oh yes.

What was the name of that place?

It was the Winchester Hotel and it was right down at the head of the wharf. You know where Maiden Lane is. That parking lot where the cars park, that’s where the hotel was.

So when your father passed away, your mother took it over, did she?

Well yes. He died in 1924 and mother came home in 1925 and took over the hotel.

So would you have stayed there at the hotel or did she just go there during the day?

Oh no. She stayed right there all the time. She was the cook, and I tended office for her and my oldest sister waited on tables and my two youngest sisters and brother were too young to participate in any work. And then after I was married and spent the first winter there, I moved out and went on my own. Then she built the house where Bernard Daley lives. It’s the one right on the corner. Well, you call it a bungalow, but it’s a twelve room house. She built that and during the war, or when I enlisted, we were living there, and sometime during the war my wife moved out to the Lighthouse Road. I don’t know why, whether she didn’t get along with my mother or what, I don’t know. Anyway, mother was a hard worker. Hard hard worker. She lived to 92.

What do you remember about tourists coming?

Well, I use to tend the train and the boat and canvass for the hotel. We didn’t have too many tourists because we didn’t have any place for a tennis court or a swimming pool. We catered more to the commercial travelers. They travelled on the road all the time with these big high trunks and we had what they called sample rooms where they use to rent the sample room and display their wares and then the merchants would go in and see what was there and choose, give them an order for what they wanted. It was an altogether different thing. As far as the tourists were concerned, they didn’t know anything about Nova Scotia. I’ve seen them come off the train carrying skis in the middle of the summer. That’s true. They thought they were coming north and that’s was all they had in their mind – we’re going north in the land of snow! They knew nothing about it. But I found the majority of them were very nice. Many many of them had permanent homes here in this area. Especially down here at Harbour View. All those cottages down there were filled. They liked the rural areas because most of them were from the city where it was nothing but noise and confusion and they liked to get away from it for the summer. One gentleman, you know where Charlie Haliburton lives? He lives down in the South end of town, you know where the big building is, the old Laura Lodge Hotel, well Charlie lives up just a little bit this way on the opposite side of the street. And there was an American that owned that place and he played the organ in Trinity Church – his name was Channing LaThay and all summer long he would play. He was a wonderful organist. I think he played in one of the churches in New York City. He did this for nothing. But as a rule, I found most of the tourists very nice.

What do you remember about the depression?

Well, that could tell years to tell you about the depression. It was pretty rough going. Nothing was ever thrown out, nothing. Not even string and I say that sincerely. I can remember when I would go home from school and have my supper and didn’t feel much like eating it. My mother would say – eat that up Raymond. Don’t let the Germans have it. We were at war with the Germans and that was the first world war and she’d say don’t let the Germans get it and boy, we ate it up. There wasn’t a morsel left. We were quite fortunate in a way. When I was in Kentville, I sold papers, the Halifax Herald, which is now the Chronicle Herald, for 3 cents a copy and I got 1 cent commission. I had 25 customers. So that was 25 cents a day. I didn’t have to go out on the street and sell them. I delivered them right to their place of work. And I would do that on my noon hour every day and run home and get my lunch, back to school. And then on Saturday’s I would collect the money. I would keep my portion, and the rest was mailed into Halifax and all that money went to my mother. We were very poor, there’s no two ways about it. On one occasion just prior to that when I was about 9 years old, we were evicted from our lodgings for not being able to pay the rent. And all they allowed us to take was the stove, the table and four chairs and four mattresses. No beds, just mattresses. And I remember sleeping with my sisters on a mattress on the floor and my mother was ill, my father was in the hospital and I use to get up mornings and Mother taught me how to make porridge. And I would make a great big pot of porridge for the kids and myself, and then off to school. And then when we moved downtown in Kentville – at that time we were up on the far eastern end of the town called Wickwire’s Hill – when we moved down into the town, my father died there. And he was a pensioner and the Government cut off the pension he was getting. He was getting $110.00 a month for a wife and five children and they cut off his pension and it was the best part of two years before J. L. Ilsley, who was at one time at lawyer in Kentville, got it reinstated. So every penny that I could earn. I would get up in the morning and take a herd of cows to pasture for the next door neighbour. I got 50 cents a week for doing that. I sold papers on the street and one summer in particular, my sister and I picked strawberries for 1 cent a box and if we could pick 100 boxes we were both tickled to death because it was $1.00 each a day. They’d come into town and a truck would come in from the farm and pick us up at 5 o’clock in the morning. We’d go out and pick until noon and the old fellow there provided the tea in a great big cauldron. I can remember this big iron pot. And what were our sandwiches? Strawberry sandwiches. I ate so many strawberries that year I didn’t want to look one in the face again. Yes, that’s true. We could buy the bread, and we carried our lunches in these lard kettles, they were a tin kettle. Made excellent for lunches. And mother would make up sandwiches which were strawberry sandwiches for my sister and I and that’s what we ate for our lunch. And in 5 o’clock in the afternoon, we’d knock off. And if we could pick 100 boxes a day, each of us, we were lucky. And they’d drive us back into Kentville and we’d disperse at a dispersal point. But it was along hard day for kids. I was only about 9 or 10 years old at that time. But I don’t know, it taught us something. We were very frugal. Not mean or tight, but frugal. And of course, if you could steal something without the fear of getting caught you always did that, I must admit. It wasn’t a very good practice, but that’s what we did.

Would you say the majority of the kids when you were younger would have worked hard like you did all the time or were you an exception?

Well, those that were in financial straits like we were. They worked all the time. Because there would be 20-25 of those kids going out to pick strawberries. I use to go over there, there was a couple of elderly maiden ladies who had a lovely big home there right where the Cornwallis Inn is built. They were the Ms. Webster, two sisters. And I would go over there and work in the garden for them for like a Saturday, and the only pay I got was a chance to play a game of tennis on the lawn. That’s what they paid me. Never paid me a cent. But they were sort of neighbours. We lived right sort of catty cornered right across from that. I think there is an Esso service station there now. The building that we lived in where my father died was a MacDonald Motors. They occupied the whole lower floor of the building and we had the second floor where we lived and there was another story above that where another middle aged couple lived. But, I don’t know if we were any the better or any the worse for it all.

What memories do you have of war time?

Well, that’s very vivid, the war time. I was working in Digby on Front street, right along side of the jewellery store there, Fancy’s Jewellery Store. There was a bakery being set up by a Mr. Smith. A different type of building than is there now. And I was installing the hookup there for the lights. And war had just broken out. Canada had just declared war and the recruiting officer came along and stopped. And I was up on a ladder. He said – how about going to Bridgewater with me? That was the training center. I said, oh, I don’t know Pete. I said, why don’t you come over to the house for dinner and we’ll talk it over. So he came over and had dinner with us and we talked. We were then living where Bernard Daley lives, that house on the corner of Maiden Lane. And I was renting it from my mother. I was paying her rent for that. So he came over and we discussed it and of course, my wife wasn’t too pleased about it. I said, I’ll let you know tomorrow. So I called up her father and I explained it to him and he said, well, it would be the last thing I would ever suggest to you, wait til spring. Because they are not prepared. They don't have any training methods worked out, they don't have any this and they don’t have any that. You might just as well spend the winter home where it’s comfortable. They’ve got no barracks for you. So I took his advice, I said o.k. So about a month later, I came in from work one day and my box said to me there’s a gentleman wants to see you and he was up at a house that was situated where the Masonic hall is now on King and Mount. So I went up to see him and he was a recruiting officer from Halifax and he wanted linemen. So I talked with him for awhile, and I says I’m not going to sign up now but I’ll come in in April. Which I did. I went in in 1940, signed up and went up to the barracks and I spent a year or two in Halifax and then I rose quite quickly in the ranks. Most of my parapheniala is in the museum. I took it down to the war exhibit. Eventually I got off the line altogether. I did line work for about two years and I come in from work one afternoon. I was a Sergeant then and I came in from work and the Sergeant Major, I was eating my supper and the Sergeant Major came into the mess hall and he said, the O.C., that’s the Officer Commanding, wants to see you right away. So I got up and left my supper and went into the office. The only thing he said to me, he said, do you think you could handle a company? I said, do you mean as Company Sergeant Major? He says yes. I said, Yes sir, I can. So the next day I was Company Sergeant Major. And then about a year and a half or two years later I went to, I had the choice of taking a commission or going to the rank of WO 1, which is a very very cushy position. So I took that. I didn't go for my commission because I was the top of the non commissioned officers, I didn’t have to buy any clothes or pay any mess dues and even then money was the root of all that made my decisions. When I joined up I was getting $90.00 a month, of which $78.00 a month went to my wife. Was assigned pay. All I got was $12.00 a month. And even with that I sent an extra $5.00 home to my wife and by the time I got through I was getting $5.00 a day because I was getting Class A trades pay, plus my rank pay, which was $150.00 a month which was a big step up from $90.00. That’s why I took the WO1 instead of the Second Lieutenant. As I say, money was the decision maker. But I spend five and a half years in the army. I have very fond memories of it. I met a lot of fellas. I have a picture in at the museum there of our first line crew and they are all dead. I am the only one living. That’s the way with everything, I guess.

So it obviously wasn’t mandatory for you to enlist and yet if you were asked you didn’t have to go.

No I had an exemption for two reasons. A married man, and my work which was essential too. But no, I was quite pleased. I have always been glad that I enlisted voluntarily because…well for several reasons. I had a very close friend who never enlisted and he could have. He didn’t have the responsibilities I had. And he didn’t have a type of job that would exempt him from military service. So, nothing was ever said between us because we were friends but I always thought that he should have enlisted voluntarily. But I had a nice time, I stayed in Halifax for the first two years. It was 1942 before I was transferred out and in the later part of 1942 I was transferred down to Sydney and I liked it there very much. Then in 1943 I was in WO1, no 1942, WO2, Sergeant Major, I took a draft of 18 men out to British Columbia and we worked there on lines getting communications built up and by the time I left there, I had more men under my direction than was on the Company payroll. The company is formed of 120 men and officers, and I had 132 men and they were situated over a 50 mile area. I walked that every week. I had five camps out there with these 132 men in them spread out over the territory. And I enjoyed that very much, there was good fishing and good hunting. And then in the first of January ’44, my wife and children arrived out there. I went down and asked the Colonel how long he thought that that I would be there. He said, you can stay here until the war ends if you want to. So I said in that case I’ll bring my family out. That was January and in March, the 18th of March I was shipped back to Halifax. Isn’t that something? I never forgave them for that because she landed there with 3 children, mind you, from Digby to Vancouver. I was up on the Island, on Vancouver Island. I came down on a duty boat and met her at Vancouver Station. Two of the children were down with chicken pox, and she had a case of blood poisoning. She was a wreck. You look as though you have been drug through a knothole. She said well you try it sometime! Anyway, we were at Campbell River and I that was just a little place not much bigger than Smith’s Cove but it was right at the end of the road. There was no road beyond that. I think it was around 170 miles north of Victoria. And we had double rooms in the hotel with a private bath and that. It was very comfortable. Except the health officer landed there and took the two children up to the Lourdes Hospital. It was up over the hill. So, that was my oldest girl and my young son. He was about 3 or 4 years old, just beginning to talk a little bit. So when I took him up there I said, you look after Rae, won’t you. He shook his head yes. I says, make sure she doesn’t cry. You’re in charge here now. They were there about 10 or 12 days, or whatever time it took to get over the contagion, contagious period. But, I liked it very much. Then towards the end of it I was appointed to the instructional cadre for the 6th division which was going to the Pacific. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it at all. I knew damn well if I went, I’d never come back because that was awful dirty fighting over there. However, I never felt that way about here. Even when I was in England, I didn’t have any compunction about being killed by air raid or things of that nature. But I didn’t like it there I went down to Missouri and I was there until September. And of course by that time the Japs had surrendered so then we came back to Canada, to Petawawa, and from there I got discharged around the later part of October of 1945. Then I had to go back to hospital the first of the year, in ’46 for an operation and I got that over with and took up with my old job at $145.00 a month, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I couldn’t support my family. It was less money than I was making in the army. So this same friend of mine was with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and he offered me a job. He says I’ll guarantee you Bud, that’s my nickname, Bud. I guarantee you Bud, in the first full year you have with the company, your earnings will be around $5,000.00. So I left the power board and I went over to Saint John in October of 1946 and I couldn’t find accommodations for the family until the spring of 1947 and in 1947 my income was over $5,000.00. But I worked 18 hours a day, every day of the week except Sunday and eventually I rose to Assistant Manager in the company. So about that time, my wife and I had always been talking about a motel. We’d like to build a motel. So by that time, I was in my mid ‘40’s. I said, now, if we’re going to do anything about it , we’ve got to do it now. Because another two or three years we are going to be too old to run any motel! Well, we did. We built a motel and in 1958, July of 1958 we opened a motel, 10 units, of which only 4 were completed. And that winter I worked on the other 6 and got them finished, struck up a deal with T. Eaton Company in Moncton and got the other six furnished and about three or four years later I added another 10 which gave me a 20 unit motel. And for 8 years we never had a holiday. We never went anywhere. Never did a thing. We ran the motel. We made the beds, we cleaned and swept and worked our heads off. And until the last, the 11th year, I said I’ve either got to change my mind or sell the motel. So I advertised it for sale, and it wasn’t long before I had a fellow who bought it and in 1968 I sold it and came home. I liked it, I had a pleasant place there. I was in to see the present owners. It has changed hands at least four times, maybe five and this chap who is a middle aged man, just him and his wife, French couple, and they wouldn’t believe them when I told them the first people we had in there we charged them $5.00 a night! Can you imagine? Today you can’t get one for $75.00. That’s terrible. But the fellow I sold it to, of course my rates went up after that, after I got the 10 units going. And I was filled every night all summer long. There wasn’t a night, in fact sometimes we even took in people and let them use our room and we slept down cellar. It was a hard go, but my nerves kind of gave out on me. If a fellow said, well, I only paid $12.00 night before last, I would simply say, well, go back to where you were then. And you couldn’t say that to the public, because you would just ruin your business. And the word spreads pretty fast. And I knew it, so I said I either have to change my attitude or sell the place. But it worked out quite well. In fact, its worked out very well. But I have often wanted to be back there. It was a lovely spot. I bought the land there, about 190 some odd acres for $2,000.00. Hard to believe. But hindsight is better than foresight, they say, and I guess it is.

Describe to me what Smith’s Cove would have looked like when you were growing up.

Well, it hasn’t changed a great deal with the exception of newer houses. I use to spend my summers with my grandfather who lived down here on the point and he tended the railway bridge for a good number of years. And when I first went to school I use to walk from up here to the school which was down beyond the post office. About 2 miles. I was 4 years old when I started. But it didn’t hurt me. And then my uncle owned a farm not too far from here and I spent a summer or two with him. I think Mother sort of farmed us out when things were tough, it was one less mouth to feed. And I always came to my Grandfather’s or to my Uncle Jerry. I loved it on my farm. I thought this is going to be the life for me. But it never materialized. Which is probably just as well.

How superstitious would you say people were when you were growing up?

Well, there was a bit of superstitious around. But I don’t know that it ever affected us really, entered our home. Mother I think, I don’t know just how to say it, but she had a brother that was drowned in Salmon River years ago and she said that one night he came and stood by her bed and told her not to cry, that he was alright. Now, sometimes a persons’ mind will do things like that. To her it was very real, though. But I have never been very superstitious, my Dad was anti-superstitious. He said 13 was his lucky number.

How would you compare life in general today to days gone by?

Well dear, it is absolutely altogether different. Nobody walks anymore, they travel by car or bicycle, not many bicycles, mostly all cars. There food is all prepared for them. They can walk into any store an have a meal just by buying the stuff that is cooked there. They really don’t have to work . Nothing like we use to do. I worked on the town sewer system one summer when they were putting in new sewer lines down Front Street. This was before this main street was paved. And we were paid 25 cents an hour for digging with a pick and shovel and we had to pay to have our own pick sharpened. And that happened about every week. We had to pay 25 cents to have our pick sharpened. And it was a back breaking job, it was tough going. Then in 1935 they paved the front street, they paved from Yarmouth to Halifax actually, they was all dirt roads before that. But I can remember when I use to run behind the water cart that would go up the front street and it would spray water out and cover the whole street to keep the water down. And I’d have my bathing suit on and I’d run behind it and get wet, you know. And we use to swim off the wharves there, right in the basin. One year, this friend of mine and his brother and I. We made a pact, we said we are going swimming every day until the hunting season starts. And the hunting season started the first of October. And we did. Right off of – you know where Joe Casey’s building is there, Juko, there use to be two wharves there and we used this one on this side and we had a diving board on the end of the wharf and of course you had to go when the tide was in. And I went every day. It was cold at first, but after that you got really accustomed to it. It felt so invigorating. And as kids we use to spear flounders down there. And over on the Maritime’s wharves, we use to catch flounders and Maritime’s use to buy them for 1 cent a piece. We’d have nice big flounders sometimes. And smelt fishing, it was terrific. You could go down there in the summertime and within a half an hour you could have all the smelt you could eat. And we use to go out to a swimming hole that we called the Great, but it’s extinct now. They built the road, you know where Victoria Street is, that goes out to the wharf, and as you get down there where that sort of campground is on the right, just this side on the opposite side of the road use to be the swimming hole. It was beautiful there . Kids go down there, never wore a bathing suit, build a fire, great big fire, enough to roast an ox, and go swimming. And the water was just like milk coming up the flats and up the brook. And when the tide was low or out, there was a hole there on the raquet bridge and we use to swim there. Dive off the railing. They drowned cats in there and everything else. That didn’t bother us at all. We still went swimming there.

Could you just tell me your wife’s full name?

Mary Jeannette.

And how many children did your family have, you and your wife.

We had three.