Other voices:

ST: Stella Titus (Elwood’s wife)

CC: Chris Callaghan

Q: What is your full name?

A: Elwood Leslie Titus.

Q: And who were your parents?

A: Leslie Titus was my father, and my mother was a Woodman. Mabel Woodman.

Q: Do you remember what your mother’s parents’ names were?

A: Mm hmm. I guess I do. Ah, John…. John Woodman, and my grandmother was a Bell. That’s on my mother’s side. Mary, her name was.

Q: And where were they from?

A: Joggin Bridge.

Q: OK.

A: Smiths Cove, or, right there where you….

Q: Yep.

A: On that road to go in to Smiths Cove.

Q: And how about your grandparents on your father’s side?

A: Well, my grandfather was born on the old road. And my grandmother was a…...was an Irishwoman. She was a D’Arcy.

Q: OK, what year were you born?

A: 1917.

Q: And….

A: September, the twenty sixth.

Q: September what?

A: Twenty sixth.

Q: I’m collecting these dates.

A: Hmm. Twenty sixth of September, I was born.

Q: And where were you born?

A: Right here.

Q: In this house?

A: Yep.

Q: Who delivered you?

A: Hm?

Q: Who delivered you?

A: Oh boy. (Laughter) Well that would be way back…..I don’t know what doctor that was. The only old doctor I can remember was Dr. Rice.

Q: Yep?

A: Whether he was right here at that time, I don’t know.

Q: I don’t know either. How large was your family? How many brothers and sisters?

A: Let’s see. I had two sisters and , boy, seven brothers. Two died babies, brothers.

Q: Can you run through their names?

A: Hm?

Q: Can you run through their names?

A: The oldest brother’s name was Truman, and the oldest sister was Effie. And the next one was Madeleine. Then there was one died between me and Madeleine. Name was Charles. He was a month old or something like that. Then I come along. And, I had another brother. His name was Douglas. He only lived to be a day old. He died. And then after that there was Harold, and Glendon, and Carl. Carl was his name. And I guess that was it…..all.

Q: What about….OK, What did your father do for a living?

A: Well, he done everything, I guess. He was fisherman, carpenter, and he repaired boats, worked on boats, he always….repairing boats. And he used to do mechanical work. He had a small mill here once to saw the laths [for] lobster traps. The building’s gone now. It was right there but….

Q: That’s the only thing it milled, was laths for lobster traps?

A: Yes, yeah. All the stuff that you needed for lobster traps.

Q: What can you remember about your mother’s typical day? A typical day for your mother?

A: Well, she brought us all up, and she put a bag of flour through that oven every ten days, a hundred pound bag of flour.

Q: A hundred pounds! I was going to say fifty.

A: No, a hundred pound bag.

Q: Did she make bread every single day?

A: Just about. She used to make something, she used to put everything in it. It was kind of a brown bread, like.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And a loaf was…..(laughing), enough to feed the army. And everything she done was by hand. Washing.…‘n’…. plus lookin’ after us brats. (laughter)

Q: Can you remember when she made the bread, did she start it the night before…..

A: Seems to me she….

Q: ….Did she make a sponge or something?

A: ….She used to make a, oh, what would you call it, with yeast cakes.

Q: Yes?

ST: Whole wheat bread?

A: Hmm?

ST: Whole wheat and brown bread?

A: Well, but she always used them old fashioned yeast cakes.

Q: Yes?

ST: Those square ones.

A: And you had to make a sponge, I guess.

Q: Yes.

A: And, of course, I wasn’t much of a cook, but I could eat what was cooked. (Laughter)

Q: Did she have….did anybody else live in your house besides your parents and you children? None of the grandparents lived here?

A: Well my sister lived here for a while in the other part.

Q: Yep.

A: And Carl….Carl lived here for a while in the other part there, when he got crippled up. And he ah, started a….he couldn’t fish anymore so he started a store, and he built a house across the road there.

Q: How did Carl get crippled up? Did he get injured, or he just….

A: Well, I don’t know if…. arthritis or, or what. After he come out of the army he got crippled up. He got, kind of got hurt in the army trainin’, and that could have started it. And they always thought that he had arthritis, but ah, some, we always thought he had muscular dystrophy….some….

Q: Oh yeah? Muscular dystrophy? Yeah.

A: ‘Cause it twisted him all up.

Q: Yeah. And he was younger than you?

A: He was the youngest one.

Q: He was the youngest, yeah. So was there anybody around to help your mother with any of the chores, like um, minding the kids, or assist her in any way, or she had to do it all?

A: Well, my sister, when she was home, yeah.

Q: Because she was older.

A: Yeah. She was older than what I was. And ah, she used to do that and she used to even work on the fish flakes.

Q: Yep. Your mother.

A: Yeah. Go down in the morning an’ spread ‘em out, go down at night and pile ‘em in little piles, the way they done it. Yeah.

Q: Was that working for your own family or was it working for….

A: No, that was the fish company.

Q: Fish company? Was that Shaw and Gidney then?

A: No, no, it was ah, Lunenburg Sea Products then.

Q: OK.

A: Ones down in Lunenburg. They bought it from I don’t know who….Charlie Morton, or after Boutilier failed up.

Q: OK.

A: It changed hands two or three times.

Q: Yeah. Were many other women working on the fish flakes?

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah. All women around her age, you know.

Q: Yes.

A: They worked on the fish flakes.

Q: That wasn’t a full time job though.

A: Just the summer time.

Q: Yep.

A: The flakes used to be where Keith Raymond’s house is now.

Q: Old Keith?

A: Yeah.

Q: Yep.

A: Down the road. And then there was another company bought fish. Ern Raymond and them. They had fish flakes, oh, right behind, ah, well, it was the freezer on top of the shore hill there….

Q: Mm hmm.

A: In there, right across the road from the Raymonds there.

Q: So what company was that?

A: Well that would be Maritime then….

Q: OK.

A: Fish Company. Ern used to buy fish for ‘em.

Q: Yep.

A: That was when Keith was only….young.

Q: Yep.

A: Then they kind of went out of business and moved to Digby, and Keith went to Ontario. And he worked out there, I think in an airplane factory for a while. And then he come back home and got in with the feller runnin’ the Maritime there in Digby, ol’ Frank Anderson, I think is his name…..and bought fish down here. That’s before he bought that plant they just tore down there.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And when the Lunenburg company stopped buyin’ fish here, why, he bought that.

Q: I’m going to ask you some more about that later. Lots more. Ahm, what was going to school like? Where was the school? I actually don’t know where, exactly where the Centreville school was. It was…. on this road, or on the main highway?

A: No, it was right here.

Q: Yeah?

A: Ah, see that camp, that trailer over there?

Q: Yes?

A: It was the other side of that….see that there pine tree?

Q: Mm hmm.

A: It was right the other side of that.

Q: Yep?

A: There’s a driveway right in there.

Q: So you didn’t have too far to go?

A: No. It was too close. (Laughter)

Q: So….

A: Get in trouble….Mum was right here, and Dad was right….

Q: So you started…..when did you go to school? When you were about five years old like it is today?

A: Yeah, six years old, somethin’ like that.

Q: Yes? And what do you remember about going to school?

A: Oh, I don’t remember too much about it…..but what I mean was, I was too busy raisin’ hell.

Q: Like, so, for example, what would you be doing?

A: Oh, skipped school, and, sneak away from school…..

Q: And go where?

A: Oh, anywhere, as long as, where they couldn’t see ya. (Laughter) And, different things, get in squabbles, and perhaps get, land in the schoolhouse, with the teacher with the strap, puttin that on….

And if my father got wind of anything like that, I got another one when I got home.

Q: So how often would you skip school?

A: Oh, I don’t know. Couple times a week maybe. Often as I dared to.

Q: Yes. And ah, who would skip out with you?

A: Well, most always go alone somewhere, you know, down amongst the people, long as I could stay out of sight.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yep.

Q: So how long did you last in school?

A: Well I went, only went far as grade seven I guess.

Q: Yes.

A: And I didn’t want to go so, my father said, "Well, I can’t have you runnin’ the roads. I got a place for ya."

Q: So what was that place? Working where?

A: In the boat with him.

Q: Yes. What was he fishing for?

A: Hake and haddock and lobster, everything. So, I went fishin’ with him. I…when I was fishin’ with him, I didn’t get away with nothin’. Then, when I got….the other ones got old enough, they went with him and I went with somebody else, yeah, some other fisherman.

Q: But when you went with him, it was just the two of you on the boat?

A: Yeah, a little 35 foot boat. One lunger engine in it.

CC: Is that what they call a make an’ break engine?

A: Mm hmm.

CC: Yeah.

A: Yep. Some of ‘em was Acadia engines, an’ some was Hartfords, some was Fairbankses, an….they was only five, ten horsepower.

Q: And were these relatively new to fishing?

A: Hmm?

Q: Were these new to fishing at the time? Was it not long before that that they had no engines?

A: No. They used to use sails and row….and oars, row. Take a sailboat, they had to be awful careful with ‘em. ‘Cause they always had a lot of ballast then, and if you got water in them, why, they’d sink just like a rock. Had a place there where you could bail water out. But they knew how to handle them. There was a few accidents got….people got drownded, you know. Ah, feller from down here, Willie Dakin’s grandfather was drownded out here.

Q: Yeah, what is….what happened there?

A: Well, somehow they filled her, and she sunk. And ah, then a feller from top of Seawall hill got drownded down here, a Robicheau fella. Somehow he toppled overboard and course, they couldn’t get him…. Yeah, they used to have accidents….

Q: So when you started fishing for your father, about how many other boats were there in Centreville?

A: Oh, thirty. Twenty five, thirty, small boats.

Q: All pretty much the same kind of boats….

A: Yeah.

Q: …. fishing for the same thing?

A: Yeah. For a long time, there, the boats, the biggest boat would be about thirty six feet long and then maybe six, seven feet wide.

Q: That’s pretty narrow compared to nowadays.

A: Yeah.

Q: And what did the wharf look like then? Did they have the three wharves then?

A: Yeah, they was a little bit different than what they are now. Before, there was, ah, local timber in ‘em. They cut all the timber and they hewed it out and ah, built the wharves that way. Used to be one right at the foot of Shore Hill where that one is now…..well, it was a little bit over from that. And, the big one there, that’s where the first one was built.

Q: Yep?

A: There was wharves built here before that, but….I think that was built in, first one around 1912, something like that.

Q: And whose job was it to build them?

A: Well, as far as I can remember, the man that built….. his name was Reid. Contractor.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And ah, it was a little bigger than the one’s there now. A little longer, and ah, had a big warehouse on it, and a slipway in it….you could move up and down it with trucks or carts or you could put boats in there and haul ‘em out back then, and a yoke of cattle, or somethin’.

Q: So how did they build them without heavy cranes and things like that?

A: Hmm?

Q: Without the heavy cranes, and….how did they do it?

A: Handled them by hand with peevees and oxen. Dragged them down on the wharf.

Q: Was there a crib with lots of rocks in it, or did they do it differently then?

A: Cribs and rocks. In the bottom they’d have well, stringers close enough together so that the rocks wouldn’t go through, and then they’d fill it full up, and then they’d have another bunch of stringers in it, and fill ‘em up that way until they got to the top. Then they’d bore out all the holes by hand with an auger. You’d bore the holes, and somebody’d come along behind you with a pin maul and a bolt, and bolt ‘em down. It was a lot of hard work though, buildin’ those wharves then. I heard my father say, on the other side of the brook there, they was buildin’ one there….See the first one was built was Boutilier’s. That’s across the brook.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: Used to lay the little steamer to it. It was called the Centreville, the boat’s name was.

Q: It was called the Centreville?

A: Yeah. And the fishermen built a piece on the end of it. And, ah, after they got it built, puttin rocks in it. They’d get boat loads of rocks up alongside of it. But when the tide wasn’t right, they’d go down on the beach. One of them would turn around with his hands behind him, lock his fingers together, and another fellow would put a rock on his back. He’d lug it up, drop it in the….yeah it was a lot of work.

Q: Yeah!

A: Sometimes it was all they could lug, a rock.

Q: So nowadays, I know we have these harbour authorities, but so, some fishermen themselves took it upon themselves to build something that would work for them….?

A: Well, they always had….the government, when they first built the wharves, they had what they called, a kind of a wharfinger….

Q: Mm hmm.

A: He would keep track of things, you know. And they always had somebody ‘round Centreville, kind of representin’ for the government.

Q: Yep.

A: And ah, well they’d find out what they wanted, then they’d give somebody in Digby what they wanted, and then they’d go from Digby, it would go to Ottawa….

Q: But even then that’s what I was trying to get at, even then….

A: Oh yeah….

Q: That’s how it worked….

A: Yeah. We had MP’s in Digby there. I remember hearin’ ‘em talk about one. His name was Short.

Q: Short?

A: Short was his last name.

Q: Yeah?

A: And ah, different things. One was one some big lawyer in town would be into it too so…. well they made sure they made the money. And ah, there used to be a big shot there in town, a Graham fellow that lived in town and ah….

Q: A Graham?

A: Hmm?

Q: A who?

A: A Graham. His last name was. I can’t think of his first name, but Dr. McCleave married his daughter anyway, back then.

Q: OK.

A: Then there was a lawyer Theriault, and he was a big shot in the Liberal Party, and then you take, perhaps some other big shot would be in the Tories, and well, they’d have a big squabble you know, one accusin’ the other of doin’ somethin’ they was doin’ themselves. (Laughter) Yeah.

Q: Were people here interested in elections?

A: Well, oh yeah, yeah. Boy, you’d go down the road and they’d haul you to, and they’d preach to you, and oh, what they was doin’ and what they was going to do and…. Course after the election was all over with, didn’t know ya. (Laughter) Oh there used to be some awful squabbles sometimes down there….they’d get in a hair over somethin’ and….Tory against the Liberals and….that’s all it was then, there was no other parties, just the two of them. Come votin’ day, they’d take you out somewhere and perhaps slip you a quart of whiskey or….us young fellas watching, and if they’d hide it we’d steal it. Yeah it was all kinds of, oh boy, shines that they would do, you know. Yeah, it used to be fun. They’d all get around a lawyer talkin’ and we’d sneak around where they couldn’t see us, and listenin’ to them, you know, and by and by they’d spot us and they’d put the run to us.

Q: Alright, I’m interested in this whole picture of Centreville, completing the picture of what it looked like when you were growing up around here.

A: Not really, but ah, back in the old days…no….I got a picture of Centreville from ah, the Baptist Church to the shore. It was took from the air, I guess. I’ll get it in a minute.

Q: OK. Was it always called Centreville?

A: Yeah.

Q: Where did this Trout Cove come from?

A: Oh, ah, Trout Cove, when you talk about Trout Cove, you’re talkin’ about the shore.

Q: OK.

A: And its always been called….even the government, the work they done there was Trout Cove then. Whoever settled there must have caught a trout down there or somethin’ That’s the only way you know….there used to be a lot of sea trouts come in here, the brook here, before it got well, poisoned er….they don’t come now like that way, but….Oh, my great, great great grandfather, whatever his name is, yeah, he was the first one settled here, Captain Isaac Titus.

Q: Titus?

A: And ah…..

Q: That was your great great grandfather?

A: Yeah….my grandfather’s grandfather.

Q: OK.

A: 1780, somewhere along there. Whenever they had that tea party there in Boston.

Q: Yes?

A: They come down here. They always called it a tea party.

Q: Yep. The Boston Tea Party.

A: He was down here twice. He come first, and he went back. Then he got in a mix up there with the army and ah, he had to leave, and he come down here. And they had to improve on their properties, you know, build their houses, then they'd get a grant.

Q: Yep.

A: And his first house was built up here. Tore down now.

Q: Yep.

A: And he had, what, six hundred acres, I guess it was. And the one over there they always called Cutler’s house….

Q: Yes?

A: Well that was one of the first houses ever was built. Not the one that’s there, but it got burnt. And ah, that’s where my grandfather was born, over there. Him, and oh, I don’t know how many brothers he had. One of them moved to the Island. And ah….name’s Loce.

Q: Loce?

A: Hmm. Moved down to Central Grove. Ah, [to Chris] you ever around the Island?

CC: I live on the Island. I live in Freeport.

A: Freeport?

CC: Yeah.

A: You know where….I can tell you where he settled.

CC: Yeah?

A: You know where Lilly Small’s place is?

CC: Yes.

A: This side of it, you remember there used to be an old house there for a long time?

CC: Might have been before my time.

A: No, oh no, it’s only been about ten, fifteen years.

CC: That would be before…..I only moved there in the past five years.

A: Oh!

CC: Yeah, yeah.

A: Well, this side of Lilly’s, ah, comin’ up the Island, it would be on your right, I guess, and goin’ down it would be on your left.

CC: OK. Yes, yes.

A: And, I forget who….they built some houses in there.

CC: OK, yeah.

A: It was an old, old house there for years. And after awhile they tore it down. Well, that’s where he lived.

CC: Really? Wow.

A: And ah, oh, let’s see, what ya call him was I think, born there. Bill Titus is his name. He lived in Gran….ah, Victoria Beach. He just died here….

CC: OK.

A: ….oh, three or four months ago. And ah, well, let’s see. Bill had a brother. He died here a few years ago. His name was Alton. He died of a heart attack. They found him….he lived there in a camp, there, fishin’. But ah, Bill’s father was crippled up with the same thing Carl was. And ah, him and Alton had to go fishin’ when they was twelve, fourteen years old. ‘Cause he was so crippled he couldn’t work. And his mother was from Centreville. Bill’s mother. She was a Graham. And ah, you heard tell of Diney? Lloyd Graham?

Q: No, I don’t think so.

A: Lived right on the corner.

Q: Yeah?

A: The house on this side with the windows beat out of it.

Q: Yes

A: That’s where he lived.

Q: Yep.

A: And, he moved off the old road up here. He had a big barn there. They cut it in two. One brother took half and the other brother took the other half. And one lived, ah, built that house where David Lombard lives in right there. That would be ah, and old Henry Graham, his name was, he brought that house off the old road, I think. They said that some Dorsey built it there, but I don’t know whether he did or not. Henry, his name was. Well that would be Conrad’s [Graham’s] great grandfather I guess….

Q: Yes?

A: ….something like that. And, they lived right where you, goin’ down the old road, right where you turn to go down to Boer’s Beach.

Q: Yep.

A: There’s an old cellar in there.

Q: Yep.

A: And ah, when everyone was up here, well the old people I guess died and somethin’….. There’s houses the whole length of that old road, right straight….Well the houses on this side of the road come from off…. over there.

Q: Yep

A: Yeah.

Q: So the original Isaac Titus, when he first came here, he was like the first of anybody in Centreville?

A: Yeah.

Q: And they settled up on this end though? Nothing….there was nothing towards the shore?

A: Well, only fishin’.

Q: Yep.

A: And there was a Dakin come here from over New Brunswick, settled there in the Jago place, in a log cabin then.

Q: At about the same time?

A: Well, a little while after, you know.

Q: Yeah.

A: And after a while they built a house. That old part on Ms. Jago’s was built in…..used to be a thing up on the house….1869, I think it said.

Q: Did Isaac come with the intent to make a living fishing, or fishing and farming, or just farming?

A: Well, he had to farm and do both back in them days.

Q: Mm hmm. But they did fish?

A: Yeah.

Q: Definitely.

A: Oh yeah. Yeah. Old Loce used to own that place of Guy’s [Morehouse] where Guy lives.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And the house is gone now. It was down across the brook. And ah, and the other, a little ways from the road, that old house down in there….that was another Titus lived there.

Q: Yep.

A: And ah, his wife was a Ward. They had that and…. they had…girls. But the old feller that lived on Guy’s place, Loce took it over when he got old. Most of his family went back to the states. His name was Edmund….not the Edmund I knew or anything but….

Q: No.

A: Then he sold it to Tut. Tuttle Graham.

Q: OK.

A: And that house of Guy’s, was down the road…..they took it apart and brought it up there.

Q: They thought nothing of moving houses.

A: Oh they’d move….well a horse, and a thing, a horse with a (inaudible) and blocks. If it was too big, the way the houses was built, they was all wooden pinned. Mortise and pin. You’d take a pin out, you’d take a whole wall right out. And ah….

CC: Could you explain how they moved them with the horses again, please, Elwood? What do you mean?

A: Ah, turnbuckle we used to call ‘em.

CC: Right.

A: It had a thing on it, tie the horse to it, like a (inaudible) and that horse would walk in circles, and the rope was on that….

CC: Right.

A: ….And all blocks and tackles and stuff.

CC: Yes.

A: Oh, perhaps they’d move it a couple hundred feet in a day or so.

Q: In a day, yep.

A: And if it was a little too big to move, they’d take it apart and move it that way.

Q: I’ve heard people say that the men in Centreville were like giants of men….

A: Well, I guess so.

Q: Can you remember men seeming really big? Like you’re big. You’re a big man.

A: Yeah, there was a fellow that lived down there. His name was Edmund. He was a great big man. He was around pretty near seven feet tall. A regular giant like, you know. Regular bull….big, strong. Course they worked daylight ‘til dark, and, clearin’ up all this here, oh boy, the rock piles back here, I guess they done the work, some of ‘em. So when they hauled the wood out and made the road, we used the rock piles to make the road. Course, don’t make no difference. Don’t do no farmin’ now, it’s just growin’ up. Had a hurricane, it blowed the barn down over here, and…. 1950-something.

Q: Did that have a name? Did that hurricane have a name?

A: Yeah, Edna.

Q: OK.

A: That was the name of the hurricane.

Q: Was there something called the Saxby Gale?

A: Yep.

Q: What was that?

A: Yeah, that was the big hurricane.

Q: Earlier?

A: That was way back, 1927 or anyway, somewhere back along there. And I heard the old man tell about it. Used to be a lot of willow trees there….

Q: Yes?

A: ….And they used to have ‘em along the fences, you know, on the lines.

Q: They must have planted them.

A: Well I don’t know, they must’ve. And ah, where the schoolhouse is, across the road, they was all willow trees, right down along John Graham’s line there, and ah, Farnsworth’s. And after that they started dyin’ after that big gale. And my father told me it looked just liked they’d been burnt. It was, ah, whatever it was, that gale, and ah, they died. Now I can remember an old willow stump that was right on the corner ‘tween Mrs. Berry and the school hall.

Q: Yeah?

A: We used to climb up on it, you know, when we were goin’ to school there. And ah, it died anyway, the big willow tree. And it ain’t been no willows around much since.

Q: No, never see them around here.

A: Come a few, there was a few silver maples around. Them great big trees, they used to be there in front of Arnold Banks’s, used to be a couple of ‘em there. And used to be one across the road here. And the Farnsworths, they, they moved down here from Digby.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: Well they bought that land I guess from an old Titus feller. And the Grahams over there, they bought a piece in there used to be a Dorsey lot. They used to buy fish here once, the Dorseys.

Q: Dorseys? I haven’t heard that.

A: D’Arcys.

Q: OK. D’Arcys, yes.

A: That was, ah, in Ireland, the southern part was Dorseys, the northern part was D’Arcys. Religion.

Q: Yes.

A: The northern part was Protestant and the southern part was Catholic.

Q: Yeah.

A: Fight like hell….

Q: Yeah.

A: ….still fightin’ there. Yeah, my grandparents on the D’Arcy side come from Waterford, Ireland.

Q: Yeah? I wonder if that’s how Waterford got its name? Naming it after Ireland. I just assumed it was because it crossed the water there, but maybe that’s the connection.

A: Yeah, it could be. Because ah, as far as I know, ol’ Captain Isaac, he’s buried over there.

Q: In Waterford?

A: There’s an old stone there. But we’ve been trying to find him for quite a while. They’ve been comin’ here, and they can’t find him in the cemetery up here.

Q: No?

A: See, there’s an old cemetery up here. The first Baptist minister on Digby Neck, I guess, is buried up here. Crandall. The stone’s there, but it got broke. It’s layin’ there.

Q: That’s not in….that’s not the Waterford cemetery?

A: No. The one that’s here in the field.

Q: Yep.

A: Half it’s on Mrs. Berry and half of it’s on me. Oh there’s Dakins and Morehouses and oh, all kinds you know, buried in there, up here.

CC: Does anyone look after that cemetery?

A: No, it’s growed up. There’s a fellow from Scotland comes here every once in a while. He was right here this summer, an’ took pictures of the stones and everything like that. His mother was related to the Tituses. And ah, he works in some kind of a college er, some kind of a professor or somethin’.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And ah, he’s been there different times. There’s a fellow in Digby who comes down here with him. He’s from Westport. Titus feller. Blair is his name. He’s lived in Digby quite a while, but he’s from Westport. He lives right there, Kentucky Fried Chicken, goin’ through toward Digby Neck, second house….

Q: Yep.

A: …..on that same side as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Used to drive a taxi in Digby for a long while.

Q: Yep.

A: And ah, the young feller that was doin’ it, is from Westport. The book [Captain Isaac Titus of Trout Cove, Nova Scotia, by Jerry Titus], you know, and he had it all wrote, different things and…... There was few mistakes in it, but it was the best he could do. He’s only a young feller, around thirty, thirty-five.

Q: Yep.

A: And ah, he’s livin’ in Yarmouth now, but….

Q: And did he pass that out to all the Tituses or….

A: Hmm?

Q: Did he sell that book or did he pass it out to all the Tituses?

A: Yeah, yeah, he sold….I got one of ‘em here.

Q: Yep.

A: And, ah, in fact I got pictures of that cemetery up here, different things on it, somewhere in the room there. I’d get unharnessed, I’d go find it.

CC: A little later.

Q: Let us know if you want to take a break at any time.

A: Yeah, I’ll take this off, I’ll go get that.

Q: Want to take a break? OK.

[Break]

Q: OK, back to this ah, house moving and barn building. That barn you had that blew down, the barn that was back here that blew down, who would have built that?

A: Well, my grandfather and his grandfather, Captain Isaac.

Q: OK.

A: And they helped build this house. I think they finished it in 1950. [sic] My grandfather started to get it, he got the land and things….he was only a kid, fifteen, sixteen years old. And he built the barn and he built a big building out here, used for like a workshop, and to put dories and things in, to work on. And a hen pen in one side and a pig pen in the back, and ah, they always had a big bunch of cattle, oxen and everything there. And Grandfather was in his thirties ’fore he got married. And he had a big family after that. I don’t know whether he had rabbit blood in him or not. My father always said, when the Tituses here moved to the Island, after they got down on the Island, they bred like rabbits. Great big families…. twelve, fourteen to a family, so it don’t take long to populate.

Q: Right. Who were some of the other builders around here? Were there some people that were noted for building, and some that were noted for other things?

A: Well, there was boat builders there. Old Ken Lewis. He built a boat right in to Arnold Banks’s yard. A small scallop boat.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, he built another one right across the road from ah, well you know where Taylors live.

Q: Yep.

A: The house is gone now. It was right in that yard they built one. And Boutilier built the Centreville down to the shore, and then he built another one named after Angus’s mother.

Q: Which was….?

A: Frances.

Q: Frances.

A: Frances A. or something like that. That was when he got….he was getting’ pretty old then, you know, he….I think he developed Alzheimer’s or something. They used to call it softening of the brain.

Q: Yes.

A: And ah, Charlie Morton’s wife was that way when she got old, you know. But ah, Charlie Morton’s mother, old Adelaide, I don’t know, she was crawlin’ on to a hundred I guess ‘fore she died, and she was just as smart and everything….. And Darrell was her pet, Darrell Morton. She spoiled him good. Played cards and drank booze. But Allen was the other way. That would be ah Daniel’s mother and father. Daniel’s father. He was the other way. He was all business, you know. I don’t know if he drunk anything or not. I never ever seen him do it.

Q: I gather….I was trying to sort them all out the other day. So, in the Morton family, going back as far as you can go, there was, what was the oldest….no, say….

A: The oldest feller of all that lived there…..his name was Daniel.

Q: Daniel?

A: Yeah. And he was buried right up close to Harry Stanton’s house on that hill. And when they got the cemetery down there [Union Burial Ground, Lake Midway], about 1860 somethin’ they started this one down here….

Q: Yep?

A: They dug him up. His box and everything was there. They took him out to bring him over there, and someone got newly and they opened it. He was there for a minute then he went right to dust. So they tell me and….I don’t know whether it’s right or not but they took him up anyway from down here. And there’s ah, two Dakins buried going back to the lobster pound.

Q: Yes.

A: You seen them tombstones there?

Q: Yep.

A: There should be a woman there. When Hearst Dakin come here with his wife, she ….was buried there somewhere. And ah, right in the cemetery down to the lake, there’s a rock there with a tombstone or somethin’ else settin’ on it….

Q: Yeah.

A: ….with all kinds of stones and things in it. Well that was down here on the beach. And they, the Dakins towed it up in the yard and old Fred Dakin had it when he moved down there, and I think he put a tombstone on it. They don’t know where it come from. They don’t know whether it was a meteor or whether it blowed up from Centreville, or it was made, or….whatever. But you take ah, where Willie Dakin’s old house is, there was clam shells in the bottom of that well when they dug it, so the tide must’ve been up in there sometime. And, ah, the old man, the way he talked and the way they figured, the water went clear up the whole road here, the new road there, up in that valley. Come right up through. And whatever happened, somethin’ blew up and filled the place in, same as Seawall, up there, Gulliver’s. If that ever got started through, there’d be no Gulliver’s. It’s only about three feet difference one side to the other. They claim it’d be an island. They say Sandy Cove, same thing happened.

Q: Yeah, I can picture it sweeping through there.

A: It was all island ‘til she blew up. I don’t know what happened, but she left lots of solid ground underneath of it. Just solid rock. It must’ve been melted and just hardened…..so…..We have a well fourteen feet deep right on top of a ledge, and you don’t know how deep it might be. Water comes in through from way back somewhere in the woods. The vein goes that way [pointing East] because, ah, there used to be an old well over there and the farmer in them days, and ah, they used to put creamers in it to cool ‘em down you know, and they upset one. And the next day the milk was in this well. That was on the same vein.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah. It’s all filled with rocks now. When they took all the houses…..that old house and barn was gone, why they didn’t leave the well, they filled it with rocks, in case you know, so nobody could get in it. And my father helped them do that, fill that up, put the rocks over there. We always had two, three cows. When we was young fellas we had to tend ‘em. Sometimes we’d go back, they wouldn’t come out in the woods, we’d go back and couldn’t find ‘em. And this day they come out, came home, and milk ‘em.

Q: Did you have fences or did…..?

A: Oh yeah. See the pastures were fenced off, but somehow they’d get out of sight and us young fellas, well we didn’t hunt too far. More scairt than anything else back in the woods. Always used to have a (range?) right to the…..and they used to go back, they used to come right out, come right out behind the barn, had a yard there.

Q: OK, more about growing up. When you ahm, got home from school, when you were going to school, the days you went, what were your responsibilities before you could go out and play?

A: Well….oh I don’t know. Come in the house, get a big slice of bread and fool around and….Mum would do it ‘fore she’d make us do it. Get the kindlings in and wood, and be up in the pasture five o’clock, fetch the cattle home. Milk ‘em. Yeah….

Q: Were your parents pretty strict with all of you children?

A: Hmm?

Q: Were your parents pretty strict with all of you children?

A: Yes, yes. Get into any deviltry, we knew it.

Q: Ahm, when you went fishing with your dad…..After you finished school, you went fishing with your father…. What was your life like after that? How come you left fishing with him to fish with somebody else?

A: Oh, I had another brother come along behind me….

Q: OK. It was his turn.

A: ….And took him….

Q: Yeah.

A: ….To learn him.

Q: Yeah.

A: And I went with somebody else, and they learnt me what they knew, besides what the old man learnt me and…..Everything was by hand then. There was no machinery then.

Q: No.

A: And it was two, three o’clock in the morning, put a tub of trawl on your back, walk way down around from the fish houses to the end of the wharf, lower them down aboard the boat, and your gas and…..Well you’d have to make two, three, couple of trips or so. After a while, someone’d get an old horse wagon and rig it up, pile trawl on, haul it around on the wharf and…..Go fishin’ with a little compass about that big, an old lantern…..thick fog goin’ out across there, wide open. Good thing nothin’ come up ahead of us. I went out one mornin’….I was fishin’ with an old feller up here, John Robicheau. We come out of the fog and there was a great big fish….old American dragger out there. Boy oh boy, we wasn’t very far from him. And one time I was fishin’ with my father, and he was layin’ to the trawl. And I could here this "whrooo" you know, steamer comin’ up the bay. Every so many seconds he’d blow, you know, blow. And the old man was settin’ there and by and by I seen him put the compass down, he was watchin’ the compass, and ah, by and by he says ah, "Put a charge in the engine," he says. See if….so she’ll go. Rock her back and forth, suck some in her, try her, and she’d start right off, stop her, sit there. And he had a long gaff that he would hit on the washboard ….sound, you know….

Q: Yeah?

A: And, by and by, he’d say, the engine was already….just…..Get up on the bow, he said, "The rope, take it off the stem and just take a turn and hold it." And by and by I seen him reach down and start the engine. He said, "Let her go!" And he just backed out of the way. She come out of the fog, oh boy, big as a house. He was a watchin’ and must a heard the engine when we started it. And they sheared….but we wasn’t very far from it. My hair stood…..

CC: No kidding.

A: I was only about fifteen…..

Q: You were pretty young.

A: …..wouldn’t go too far….’cause we’d ah, miss, wouldn’t see our buoy. We had a buoy on it and we chucked it over. And ah, had to keep it so we’d go back and pick it up when it got by. And when it went by, I could see this rowboat behind the steamer. That was his ah, thing you chuck overboard to get your mileage and your speed….

Q: Oh yeah.

A: ….They tow it, you know.

Q: Yeah.

A: It looked like a little torpedo.

Q: Uh huh.

A: And I could see the rope. And sometimes if they’d catch it they’d part it. They’d lose it. And sometimes, there’s different ones that’s pulled ‘em up on their trawl, where they lost ‘em, you know. Yeah, it give ‘em their miles, their speed.

Q: It was like their log.

A: Hmm?

Q: It was like a log for them. It would log everything.

A: Yeah. I forget what they called it.

Q: Must be a name.

A: It had a log to it, and ah…..

CC: Did you fish year round?

A: Hmm?

CC: Did you fish year round?

A: Yeah. ‘Bout the middle of February we’d stop for a month or so. The fish would be gone by you know, haddock……Lobster boats, they didn’t fish too much in the winter time. Course it was all by hand. They only had thirty, forty traps, you know. It was all they could handle out here in the tide.

Q: And to get into lobster fishing in those days was….. Anybody could get in?

A: Oh yeah, long as you had twenty-five cents to go buy a license. That’s all it cost. First license I had… I was over in St. Mary’s Bay, twenty-five cents, over to Boer’s Beach there, we fished out of there. We’d go over there last of October, about like now, or a little later, a week or so, and we’d stay there?

Q: You fished out of Boer’s Beach too? I didn’t know that.

A: Yeah. We had the upper camp…..

Q: Yeah.

A: And that Groundhog Day blowed, tore it out. We built that one. Lawrence’s….Aury’s was next in the middle, and the lower one was Lawrence’s. [Lawrence Graham]

Q: Who was in the middle?

A: Aury, Lawrence’s father.

Q: OK.

A: And ah, and Russell, his brother, fished it. They stayed in that one, and we was only about from here to there from the tide, ‘bout all the room there was between the rocks.

Q: Yeah.

A: Then, after I left there, my brother went with my father. I went scallop fishin’ In them days, the big boats, you couldn’t really handle ‘em down here, you couldn’t hold ‘em. Be a big swell, you know. Used to take ‘em to Digby. And nobody had any cars much. You went to Digby and stayed, a week or so. Live right aboard the boat, raise hell around Digby. Used to be a place right next to ah….where…..there’s a restaurant there and there was a store right just below Chinaman’s, er….

Q: Was it called Pyne’s? Not Pyne’s Market?

A: No. Pyne’s Market was down close to the Royal Bank. But this was going down….Jew Cove we called it.

CC: Not Tupper Warne’s place?

A: Yeah, ah, used to be a fellow there from Broad Cove had a store there, right…..

Q: Called Jew Cove?

A: Huh?

Q: What was it called?

A: Jew Cove.

Q: Jew Cove.

A: Yeah. And ah…..just before you get to the Courier office.

Q: Yes, I’m picturing that’s where it would be.

CC: There was a Margolian’s….

A: There’s a couple of buildings gone out of there now but, used to call it The Big Apple. There was a restaurant and had a dance hall in the back and everything. That’s where all the fishermen would crowd in there, getting’ the seats, watch the people dancin’. And by and by there’d be a big fight start. And they’d cheer either one or the other. By and by (Mick?) Daley would come, and throw them outdoors. He run it. Daley. We called him (Mick?) Daley. And ah, you ever hear tell of Helen Daley? In Digby?

Q: I know the Helen Daley that’s in Tideview right now.

A: That’s the one. She run it.

Q: Yes?

A: Yeah. Her and her husband.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yep. She’s Guy Morehouse’s daughter.

Q: Oh. So when did you first ah, start leaving the Neck and going to town?

A: Oh, I don’t know…..

Q: Probably you stayed….it was a long time before you actually started leaving?

A: Yeah. I was fifteen, sixteen.

Q: Yeah.

A: Come home in the back of an old truck or somethin’ and…. town or somebody goin’ to town, ten cents. If you had a dollar in your pocket, you was well away. Bottle of pop was only five, ten cents. Hot dogs, ten cents. If you had a spare quarter, you’d go to a movie. That old Bijou.

Q: That’s in Digby?

A: Yeah. Right where Ricardo’s is now I guess.

Q: Yeah.

A: Used to be right there. It was a great big post office there once. The Capitol Theatre, right alongside of Gabriel’s Flower Shop there….

Q: Yeah.

A: Right there, used to be a Capitol Theatre right there.

Q: That was there until not that long ago.

A: That there, where Gabriel’s is now, used to be a hardware. And they used to build tanks and all kinds of stuff in back. Some Hadley Dakin was his name, used to do all the work, but Benny (Oickle?) owned it. Hardware store.

Q: Built tanks for what?

A: Boats….gas tanks.

Q: Yep.

A: You know, them rounded, hold five ten gallons of gas and stuff like that. Yeah, and…..

Q: When you stopped fishing with your father, did you still live at home?

A: Yeah.

Q: You still lived here?

A: Yeah.

Q: But then, who’s the person you went to fish with after him?

A: Harold. Brother Harold.

Q: OK.

A: He was next to me.

Q: But who did you go to fish with?

A: Oh, let’s see, the first one I started with, I guess, was John Robicheau. An old feller that used to live up here.

Q: Yep.

A: And two, or three o’clock in the morning, they rolled us out of bed. Mum always got up, got our breakfasts there. And, sometimes, I was just gettin’ home. (Laughter) Funny eh?

Q: From what?

A: Yeah, chasin’ girls. You wanted to go anywhere, you walked.

Q: It’s a long walk home from Digby.

A: Yeah, walked from Gulliver or Seawall Hill, and down Lake Midway…. And, there was three or four houses more there then. Used to be….that big house, used to….Den lived in it, and Rosetta [Denny and Rosetta Titus].

Q: Yes.

A: And right across the road, right up the hill there, you see and old bachelor lived there. Old Everett Walker. And up the road a ways they was just people lived in it, used to rent it, there was a great big barn there once, ‘fore you got to the house, between the house and road. Morehouse…..an old Morehouse place it was.

Q: I had heard of a fellow in Centreville that was known as a barn builder…..who worked all winter getting the material to build barns, and then in the spring he’d build these barns. Do you remember…..and somebody told me that Mrs. Berry’s barn was the last barn he built.

A: Well, I don’t know just who it would be, unless it was some old Dakin feller. You see, ah, they used to live, the Dakins, used to live there on side of Daniel [Daniel Morton]…..

Q: Mm hmm.

A: ….And across the road there used to be an old feller that lived there, a Westcott. Charlie…. Charles Westcott. He had a stiff leg. And he always kept his cattle in Lee Westcott’s barn.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: See, Lee’s house wasn’t there then, and ah, that’s where their family was. And ah, there was a house there where Percy’s [Percy Walker] is, before Percy built that one. And I think that was….might have been an old Dakin. And anyway, they moved….they built that house of Johnny’s over here….

Q: Yeah.

A: Then they moved down. He was an old Justice of the Peace or somethin’ like that. And ah, (Win?) Dakin’s wife was his daughter. Old Tut’s wife was his daughter. They used to do his business, you know, one thing and another. And right on the corner there, used to be a Graham. Old Solomon Graham. He’d be a brother, older brother to Tut and them. He had two, three children. They moved out west and they never come back. And down the road used to be a, oh, Captain Rob Graham. That house ah, burnt. Where Weezie [McCormick] used to live one time.

Q: Yes.

A: Where Donald Tidd lives there. The house below. It’s gone now. It burnt. Used to live there. Used to run the Centreville. He was Captain on her. And ah, some of ‘em lived down there somewhere, the lake. Well there’s two different families of Grahams, you know.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: One family come from Digby. That’d be Tut’s family and them, and the other family was here, was down on the old road…..they was mixed up somehow with Grimes’ in the old days you know and ah…. A lot of people changed their name. When they had that squabble there in the States, they come down here, and a lot of them just changed their name around. And ah, Eldridges….their real name when they first come here was Foster.

Q: Yes?

A: Yeah. And ah, that’s the way with ah, one part of the Graham family. They were Grimes’. They was Dutch people, you know like, or somethin’ like that and ah….. Anyway, one bunch of Grahams has a lot of Dutch and stuff in ‘em and the other bunch is Scotch in some. But down that old road, somewhere close to where the Graham house was, farm there….there was a couple graves there, and ah….somewhere right there. Well there’s a lot of people buried along that old road. But Jimmy Gidney and Richard Titus come across two built up with rocks, you know, so long, so big. And ah, they started lookin’ you know, and they started kinda movin’ rocks, you know, lookin. In the end it was all hollow in there. Well Richard says, "This is as far as I’m goin’." He said, "I’m a goin’." And they put the rocks back. And he says, "I’m not lookin’ any farther," he said. "There’s somebody buried there," he says, "And I’m not lookin’, I ain’t lookin’." That was somewhere close to where that old cellar was….

Q: Yep.

A: …..Where you turn….I guess where you turn to go down to Boer’s Beach….

Q: Yep.

A: ….Right there somewhere. Somewhere around there, and the Walkers and…..Yeah, that house that Angus’s livin’ in now I think come from the old road, come across, hauled it across.

Q: I think the house that Murray Ross used to live in…..I always heard that came from the old road.

A: Yeah that come off, yeah….Walker. They say the Walkers, when they first come here, their name was York. And they had a fella with them, that come with ‘em…. He was a Walker. And they dropped the York and took Walker.

[Interruption at door]

Q: OK, I kind of forget where we left off, but ah, how much interaction was there between the kids in Centreville and Lake Midway? Did you go as far as Sandy Cove?

A: Oh yeah. We used to walk down there sometimes, and get in a squabble…..used to go down there, Graham boys, ah, Bud, Henry was his name….

Q: Yes.

A: And Jim, and go down there, and we’d meet a part the bunch comin’ up. They’d come up here and chase girls, we’d go down there….. And when we’d go we’d meet down there somewhere….

Q: So, the squabbles were about the girls.

A: Mmm.

Q: Did you ever meet on the ice at Lake Midway and duke it out in a hockey game?

A: Do what?

Q: And fight it out in a hockey game? Did you ever have big hockey games?

A: Oh yeah. We used to have a rink here once.

Q: Here in Centreville?

A: Right…..ah right across the road from where Charlie Morton is now.

Q: Yes?

A: Over across the other side of the brook.

Q: Yeah?

A: They had a rink built there once.

Q: Who built it?

A: Oh the bunch here and the hockey players. They used to have a hockey team here once….and they used to go way up in the Valley playin’ hockey, mostly to raise hell, I guess. I don’t know whether we ever won very many games or not now. I don’t remember.

Q: Did the boys from Centreville have a particular kind of reputation?

A: Yeah….in some ways. There always was a bunch that went somewhere, they was always in squabbles, fights. Old Edmund Titus, used to live over to the corner, he’s dead now….I don’t know how long it’s been, ten, fifteen years. He was always in a squabble somewhere. He moved away from here when he was young. His father built that house right here. And ah, lived in Lynn, I think it was, or somewhere in Boston…..

Q: Massachusetts?

A: Mmm.

Q: Yeah.

A: ….Used to tend the city’s fire….heatin’ systems.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah he was in the American Navy for quite a while. And when he got out of that, he come down here and he got in the navy here when the war started. He was all through the war, and he was aboard of Corvettes and stuff. Well fellas like that in the war, you know, they was always in fights. One defending the reputation of his regiment and somebody else…..(inaudible). Some of them had some pretty hard times over there, boy, I’m tellin’ you….went through a lot.

Q: You were basically a baby at the end of World War I, so then you would have been too old for World War II? You weren’t in the armed forces?

A: No, I wasn’t. I was….went down and examined for it….

Q: Yes?

A: ….But ah, I had a bad ankle.

Q: Yes.

A: And they wouldn’t….the trainin’ and things, it wouldn’t stand it. But Harold, he was in it. He was a Sergeant when he come out…..He ah, was supposed to go overseas two or three times. He was in the gun corps or somethin’. He was a repairman, a gunsmith. And ah, everytime he was ready to be shipped out, his senior….his officers would fetch him back. Couldn’t get nobody to run it the way they wanted it. And he was already to go over again when the war stopped. And Carl, he was a cop, a ProvoST, in the army, and….

Q: So that was two….two in your family…..joined the armed forces.

A: Yeah. Glendon…..there was somethin’ wrong with Glendon, couldn’t get in.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: And ah….I think it was in his back, because he had two or three operations on his back.

Q: Were you disappointed?

A: Hmm?

Q: Were you disappointed that you couldn’t get in, where a lot of the younger…..

A: In some ways I was, in some I wasn’t.

Q: Yeah.

A: Likely if I’d a been in it, I’d a never got back. Isn’t likely. But when I was in Halifax gettin’ examined….I was down there twice. And they told me, if I…. go through your basic training, you’re headed for the Provost. They’d put me right in the police force. ’T’aint what I wanted, but, pretty hard have to go arrest somebody, you know…. (inaudible)…..put him in jail or somethin’ but….

Q: I wonder why they figured that would be the place for you right off the bat. Was it because you were big?

A: Mm hmm. Yeah, I was big then. Six foot four, two hundred fifty pounds. At that time I was twenty two, I guess.

Q: Yeah. OK, yes, you were plenty…..I gotta do the math here.

A: I didn’t get in anyway.

Q: No. But a large number of young men from Centreville would have enlisted?

A: Hmm?

Q: A lot of men from Centreville would have enlisted?

A: Well, Lorne Titus was in it.

Q: Yeah.

A: Emerson Hersey….they used to call him Jesse, and ah, Victor Titus. Victor was in the Engineers. He was overseas. They had to build bridges ahead of the army. Boy they had a hard, hard time. ‘Cause you’d be workin’….whatever you was workin’ on sometimes blowed right up under your feet. John graham was in it. He was overseas. Willie Dakin. I don’t know if there’s any more or not. I forget now.

Q: So what was it like back here during the war? What was it like in Centreville?

A: Well just about the same as it is now. It wasn’t much difference outside ….Course you was workin’ all the time, you know.

Q: What was the……What would you say was the heyday for Centreville? Its busiest….the busiest years in Centreville? And what were the hardest years?

A: Well….it’s pretty hard to say. We was busy all the time, see, year round here. Wasn’t doin’ one thing, we was doin’ another. We’d get fishin’, well we’d fish up ‘til way after Christmas. Got through that, come home, you sharpened up your saws and axes and you’d go back in the woods cuttin’ your firewood. And, got that cut, you’d get it hauled out…..We always used to have a sawin’ machine, a machine to saw wood. Used to go around sawin’ wood for people, so much you know. We’d saw ours and then you’d split. Some old fellers would have a lot of wood…..they’d have a frolic, they called it.

Q: Yes?

A: A whole bunch of people would go there…..they’d have a big supper ready…. and split wood.

Q: Yeah?

A: So, that was just, to get your supper.

Q: And have a good time.

A: Hmm. Sometimes they’d have a dance in the house and different things like that. If they wasn’t too religious, why, could be a pretty good party sometimes.

CC: What would you do for music?

A: Oh, local music. Used to be a couple fellers here…..Darrell Bunker…..he used to live in Whale Cove, yeah Whale Cove. He had a couple sisters married up here. And Lee Farnsworth, he used to live ….(inaudible)….Accordions.

Q: Yeah.

A: And boy they could play, them two. And oh, Arch Hersey or some of them would have a fiddle, you know, guitars, and….’Bout the first guitar we had around here was a….. that I seen, was a Dimmock. Carl Dimmock. His father was a minister here once. And he used to play the guitar, and Roy Graham used to play the fiddle, and different ones like that. Used to be a feller come here, his parents were born here, Young, from Montreal. He used to play the banjo and stuff like that. He….quite a musician, he was. Yeah, they used to have pretty good….. And down the road, there’d be some old fellers down there. The old store used to be there, Billy Titus was his name, be ah, Alvy’s father, and Freemie and them.

Q: Yeah.

A: And them old fellers’d get in there and they’d get in an argument. Oh, argue like hell. You’d think they was goin’ to kill one another, pretty near.

Q: Right in the store?

A: Huh?

Q: Right in the store?

A: Yeah, you could hear ‘em a hootin’ and hollerin’ for a half mile. They wouldn’t get in no fights, but if he was wrong, he wouldn’t admit it. He’d argue like hell. Bill Robicheau, Clare Dukeshire, different ones. Then every once in a while they’d get a freak on, they’d get in arguments over the Bible and religion and who was right and who was wrong. Oh that old Bill Robicheau, you could here him for a half mile, lettin’ the bellers right out of him, arguin’ you know. With a right big pipe in his mouth and smoke’d be comin’ out…..you’d think it was a train coming. Oh, Arn Holmes down here….he used to argue a lot but he never ever…..

Q: Who was that?

A: Huh?

Q: Who was that?

A: Arn Holmes.

Q: Never heard of him.

A: He used to live there where…..the house is gone now, but…..where Floyd Comeau lives.

Q: Yes.

A: There used to be a great big house in there and two barns. And he’d be settin’ there with a big chew o’ tobacco in…..and sit there for I don’t know how long, when he’d reach over, by and by, had an old…(inaudible)….. He’d haul the damper off and he’d spit in that and put a (bucket?) of tobacco in, and then he’d get in arguin’, ‘til he got too much spit in his mouth, and he’d have to shut up. And old Billy Titus, he was quite religious. Yeah. That’d be Alvy’s…..

Q: He’s the one that owned the store?

A: Huh?

Q: He’s the one that owned the store?

A: Yeah, yeah. That building right along side of Freemie’s there….

Q: Yes.

A: That was the store. He had an ice cream parlour on one end….on the side of it there, too.

Q: Who ran the ice cream parlour?

A: Oh, different ones. Ah, about the most, the one that used to tend it was ah, a Dakin girl. Reba was her name. Willie Dakin’s sister.

Q: Yes.

A: Older than Willie. The oldest girl, I think in that family. She used to run it a lot. Until she got married and then…..ah Etta, that would be Alvy’s sister and them….they got big enough, they tended it. We used to call it the Blue Room.

Q: The Blue Room?

A: Yeah, he….it was painted kinda blue, you know. Old Billy would somebody out there preachin’ to ‘em out of the Bible. They used to call it the Blue Room.

Q: So you would go to get ice cream….

A: What?

Q: So when you went to get ice cream in the Blue Room, somebody would be preaching at you.

A: No, he didn’t bother preaching while he was doin’ business.

Q: No…..might hurt business.

A: Used to laugh. He was only short, about like Alvy, but he had a great big belly.

Q: Was….that wasn’t the only store in Centreville?

A: No, ah, there…..where you go into …..Henry Graham’s…..

Q: Yes?

A: That building there. Shaw had it. It used to be a great big store there. It had two stories, an ice cream parlour upstairs and ah…..steps goin’ up the side….

[interruption while guest leaves house]

And ah, used to….the girls…..they used to have girls run that and…..used to get up there, gettin’ up and down them steps, and somebody would push somebody, somebody would go end over….down the steps….I almost….That’s where I hurt my leg.

Q: Yes?

A: They come out after us and I jumped over the rail. I was going to slide down and I slipped. I went down and my foot landed right on top of a big tire and just rolled it, like that. Who was it, Day Titus, got my foot and hauled it back and twisted it back to its place. Used to be an old fellow in back, old Archie Weir, an old bachelor. We always used to land there. Used to play poker quite a lot, different things.

Q: Used to land at the Shaw store?

A: Hmm?

Q: At the Shaw store?

A: No, in back of it.

Q: OK, in back of it.

A: In back of it. On the….it was on the property where Lyndon Raymond lives….

Q: Yeah.

A: Right ahead of the fence. Used to have a building there. An old feller…..we used to go in there. And there used to be ah….after that they closed that one up and Charlie Morton’s store ah…..Cassie was her name….Morehouse. She run the store for Mortons a long, long while.

Q: What was her name?

A: Cassie Morehouse.

Q: Cassie?

A: Cassie.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then, ah, she built one right on the end of the house, where Lyndon piles wood there….

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, Allison, after there, had a girlfriend…..he ah, she used to run it until him and…. her and Allison broke up, and then ah…..do you know where Dorothy Raymond lives?

Q: Mm hmm.

A: Well that was it. That was an ice cream parlour.

Q: Another ice cream parlour.

A: Yeah. And ah, Allison moved to Freeport. I dare say you might have….Was he there when you moved there?

CC: What’s Allison’s last name?

A: Morehouse.

CC: Morehouse, boy….

A: He worked on the hydro then.

CC: Right. I don’t think so Elwood. I’ve only been there like in the past ten years.

A: Well….

CC: Yeah, but I’ve been living there full time since ninety six. So that’s only four years since I’ve really started to get to know people.

A: Yeah, well he could’ve been gone. He ain’t been dead that long.

CC: No.

A: He lived where you turn down to Pleasant Point there…..

CC: Beautiful Cove?

A: Yeah, Beautiful Cove.

CC: Oh!

A: He lived right there somewhere.

CC: OK. I should know him.

A: And I almost believe he’s got a son down there.

CC: Well there’s Peter Morehouse lives there.

A: Well I think….

CC: He works on the ferry. They’re from East Ferry originally though. I think Peter Morehouse grew up in East Ferry.

A: Oh that could be ah, I know who you mean.

CC: Do you? Yeah.

A: His father used to run the mail.

CC: Oh…..yeah, Guy…..

A: Guy would be his grandfather.

CC: OK, OK.

A: Ah, his boy….what the devil is his name? I knew him…..Used to live, goin…. in East Ferry, comin’ down and go over…..

CC: Across the Meadow.

A: Yeah.

CC: Yeah.

A: Used to live over in there. Huh!

CC: It’ll come to you. Softening of the brain.

Q: No!

CC: Just teasing, I’m teasing.

A: Yeah…..it’ll say…..used to say, "It’s on the end of your tongue, but you can’t spit it out."

CC: Or, I have a good memory, but it’s short.

A: Yeah, but I know who you mean. He used to run that boys’ place there in Sandy Cove for a while.

Q: The camp?

A: Hmm.

Q: Yeah.

A: After some Elliott had it once upon a time. And he took over…. Somehow they got mixed up in the finances and…. The feller that lives in Jago’s house down there owns it now. [Paul Bouchard]

Q: Yep. Yeah, that’s Peter Morehouse, yep.

A: He’s always walkin’ and when he walks he’s got quite a swing.

Q: Yep.

A: Paul was his father’s name.

CC: OK.

Q: Paul Morehouse.

A: Yeah. Was quite a boozer. Well it killed him in the end.

Q: Yeah.

A: That was really the cause of it.

CC: Yeah.

A: Well Guy Morehouse…. I remember him. I remember one time, it was a big snow storm…..He had a big bus…..

CC: Right.

A: ….And he always had a snowplow on it. And Guy Outhouse down here had appendicitis, just right in that storm. Well they got a hold of Guy. He come up, and a whole crowd was here. I was with ‘em. We had to shovel him if he got stuck….and we called ahead…. well over to the Wescotts over here, they met us when we got up there. Well when we got up by there through to Seawall….where ah, Wayne Andrews lives….

Q: Yes.

A: You know right there. Well that’s a Hutchins used to live there. His name’s Maynard. He was boss on the road. He met us with a bunch of fellers. Well then we had a whole bus load of shovelers. And she’d get stuck, we’d shovel ‘em out, and he…well boy I don’t know….it’s a wonder we hadn’t ruined that bus to get to Digby. And Guy was….

Q: And Guy aboard with appendicitis.

A: Yeah. And he’d get them pains, you know. Boy oh boy. Well it was dark when we got to Digby. But we got him there. All day gettin’ up there in a northeast blizzard.

Q: He probably could’ve died.

A: Oh he could’ve. Yeah. We just got him there and that was all.

Q: Yeah.

A: Good thing it wasn’t any longer.

CC: Really?

A: Yeah.

Q: So there was Billy Titus’ store, then there was this….

A: Morton’s.

Q: …..Other store. Morton’s. OK. Daniel Morton was the father of….?

A: Elwyn was his father, Daniel’s father.

Q: OK. But the older Daniel….

A: Oh, older Daniel would be his great grandfather.

Q: OK. And who were his children?

A: Charlie Morton.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, Charlie Morton had a brother, went to the States. He worked for…..I don’t know just what his name was….but he worked for a big fur company up north. He used to come down here every once in a while. And that’s about all I know. There could’ve been girls or somethin’ I never ever knew but….I worked for old Charlie there for a while. Tendin’ his cattle. He had a big barn up back of Richard Walker’s, used to be a big barn there.

CC: Yeah.

A: Seventy-five cents a week. Milkin’ cows and puttin’…..takin’ them to pasture and fetchin’ them back home. Seventy-five cents.

CC: Amazing.

A: Well I worked down to the shore for fifteen cents an hour in the fish. That’s when I wasn’t fishin’, I was….worked in the fish too. And right across the road from ah…..oh, nobody’s living in it now…. Where Irving Titus’ old house down there.

Q: Yes.

A: Used to be a great big building there, right on the bank. And they used to call it the old Caan [can?] house. After Dorseys owned it. They bought fish there and had a store in it and different things. You could live in it too, upstairs. It was a hell of a big building. And after a while they kinda went bankrupt or done something anyways. Different people’s bought it, or Boutilier bought it. He used to keep cans in there, make cans and stuff. We used to can fish down here once. And then….

Q: That would be Angus Boutilier’s father?

A: Yeah.

Q: What was his name?

A: Well I think his name was Angus….

Q: Angus also?

A: No, wait a minute. Alfred.

Q: Alfred Boutilier. Yeah.

A: Ah, Angus is named after his grandfather Gidney.

CC: Right. The politician.

A: Hmm?

CC: The politician.

A: Yeah.

CC: Right.

A: He was a member of Parliament down here in Halifax, or Legislature, or whatever. And Angus’s mother was the politician’s daughter. She was a Gidney girl. Alfred, Angus’s brother, older than him. And he was in the army for a long time. He was Major General or something.

Q: That’s Angus Gidney’s brother?

A: Angus Boutilier.

Q: Angus Boutilier’s brother.

A: Yeah.

Q: What’s his name?

A: Alfred.

Q: OK.

A: His name was Alfred. He was way up in the army anyway. He was….when they went overseas, he was in England then, Alfred was. I know….a boy down down the road about my age, Dukeshire boy, got in a little bit of trouble over in England. And they brought him up in front of the commanding officer. It was Officer Boutilier. And they got talkin’ ‘bout different things, and he said ah, to the Dukeshire boy…..he says, you know, he says, "How come you’re gettin’ in this trouble?" or somethin’, I don’t know just what it was….that’s when they was bombing in England then. Well he said to Alfred, "If you’d seen as much stuff coming out of the sky, exploding around you, well you’d do most anything." It made Alfred mad. Alfred gave him, what, a week in jail.

CC: No sympathy for the hometown boy.

A: Yeah. But Alfred never….he never forgot it when they got back home, that Dukeshire boy, when he’d see him. He’d tell him where he fitted.

Q: Yeah, you’d think twice if you remembered you had to come home someday. So Angus’s father had a canning…..canning factory down there.

A: Yeah, where they tore that one down there.

Q: Yeah.

A: Well that was big. There was two hundred people worked there.

Q: And you said something earlier about how that, after that failed….

A: Well different people bought it…..

Q: Yeah.

A: …..and then the Lunenburg Sea Products got a hold of it.

Q: Yeah.

A: They run it for years. There was an old fella from Lunenburg, old Captain Whynot, he was the manager. Esther around here used to be a bookkeeper there.

Q: Yes?

A: Esther Sproule.

Q: Sproule, yeah?

A: And ah, she worked there for quite a while. He used to board to Miss Boutilier’s, the old Captain Whynot his name was. An old sea captain he was, aboard a fishing vessel. Oh, wouldn’t he snort. That old pipe in his mouth….he’d….the smoke was flyin’, he’d stamp his feet. Used to laugh at him.

Q: So it sounds like maybe that was the heyday in Centreville, when the…..

A: Yeah. They was from everywhere, they worked down here. Oh, way up around Annapolis and off the Island.

CC: Really?

A: They all worked down here in that factory.

Q: People from Grand Manan? Did people from Grand Manan come over here?

A: Well, not so much.

Q: No.

A: Mostly people from around here worked there. Down from on the Island and everywhere. Yeah, there was a lot goin’ on. They had a big cooker in there, a big generator. They had electric lights down there then. That was way back…..cripes we never seen nothin’ like that until they got that big generator from the steam engine, you know. They’d flicker, but they was lights.

Q: Did they run this cannery around the clock, or just a daytime shift?

A: Just a….mostly daytime shift.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, mostly like that. Course I never ever thought about whether they worked twenty four hours, but I don’t believe they did, back in them days, why….There was always somebody there at night who kept lookin’ out for the machinery, have it ready for the next day….Used to can tomatoes, sauce, and all stuff like that, herring.

Q: Where did all the stuff come from? Where did the tomatoes come from? Locally?

A: Well they used to fetch it to Saint John.

Q: Yeah.

CC: The people who worked in the plant from the Island….would they stay here all week?

A: Yep. They’d board here with different people, you know. They had ah, buildings down there you could live in if you wanted to. You know, camps, and do your own cookin’ but….

Q: How many years did that last?

A: Well, I really don’t know. He got sick on the last end, old Mr. Boutilier. I think he went bankrupt or somethin.’ So he built that house where Henry lived there, Bud.

Q: Yeah?

A: He built that. And ah, then Mrs. Boutilier, afterwards, bought that stone house over there, that old Colonel Gasch got there….

Q: Yeah.

A: They lived in that for years and years.

Q: This was after Angus’s father was dead?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Yeah.

A: Angus ain’t lived down to the lake too long. Twenty five, thirty years. He bought the place from Henry Cossaboom.

Q: Yeah?

A: It was a….I don’t know, I suppose he….he just sold the house….the land right there in front and then a little bit in back and he kept up over the mountain, he kept….here a couple of years ago he sold it. It was easier to farm down to the lake than it was up there on that mountain.

Q: Yeah. What became of Angus’s brother?

A: Well I don’t know what happened to him, but he lived in Digby. He’s….him and his wife is the ones that started that Gabrielle’s Flower Shop in Digby.

Q: OK.

A: And ah, he lived for a while where Walker lives.

Q: Audrey?

A: Not Audrey. The one below.

Q: Philip.

A: Philip, yeah. He had that whole field planted with apple trees….

Q: Yes?

A: And the pear trees and stuff. And I don’t know what happened to ‘em but they never grew. And somebody said that somebody cut ‘em all down, or done somethin’, but they didn’t seem to grow.

CC: No?

A: You get any rabbits around an apple tree won’t survive. They’ll chew the bark off of ‘em, you know, around the stump.

Q: Yeah, mice too, I think.

A: He lived there for quite a while. Her name was Gabrielle.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yeah. And ah, I don’t know what happened to her. She got sick and, I don’t know if it was from cancer or just what, I don’t know, but…..Angus I think had a heart attack…..or not Angus, but Alfred, down in Florida I believe now…..

Q: So he’s no longer alive either?

A: Oh no, no, he’s been dead for quite a while.

Q: Did Gabrielle come from England or something like that?

A: She was an Irish girl.

Q: She’s an Irish girl.

A: Yeah.

Q: Did he meet her overseas?

A: Yeah.

Q: Yeah. So she wasn’t from here but she came and lived here.

A: Yeah, yeah. She came over with him. They didn’t have no children.

Q: No? And neither did Angus.

A: No. So Angus, I don’t know, he’s down there all alone. I don’t know who’s with him…..whether his last wife’s boy, I think is down there quite a lot.

Q: Yeah.

A: He just lives right over here. What the devil’s his name?

Q: Louis.

A: Louis, yeah. He used to work in Digby there for quite a while, the garage there, right across from Simpson Sears there.

Q: Yeah. And also at the Conway workshop for a while. I don’t know if he’s still there or not. Ahm, speaking of Gabrielle, reminds me for some reason of the wreck of the Robert Cann. Can you remember anything about the wreck of that boat at Riley’s Cove?

A: Oh, yeah. A Cann boat. Yeah.

Q: What was the name of it? Was it the Robert Cann or something else?

A: There was three or four of ‘em named….There was a Keith Cann and a Robert Cann…..

Q: And a Matthew Cann maybe?

A: And ah….she was an old boat. There was two or three fellas….There was two captains from Westport drownded. And ah, old Captain Ells was the captain on her. I don’t know how many people he drownded. I don’t know, it’s a wonder they hadn’t hung him. He was from up in, around, way up the head of the Bay of Fundy somewhere. And ah, it was a big, oh, cold blizzard that night, and they really didn’t want him to leave Grand Manan…. I think that’s where he was when he left. And they hadCaptain Peters from Westport and some other fellow there…..he just got out of the hospital, had pneumonia or somethin’ and was on his way home. Well anyway, somewhere off Grand Manan in a big westerly…..cold, oh, right bitter cold, she ah, sprung a plank or somethin’. But I don’t know how they lived in that….got over here in that….blow, oh a livin’ gale of wind. And I always said I didn’t believe she sunk there, myself, because there is wrecks out here we never knew about….got fish draggin’ we fetched up in ‘em. But anyway, they landed there. It was ah, seven or eight….five or six men, and a woman, cook. And ah, Captain Peters, he was sick….he give the woman his coat, his sheepskin coat….she had nothin’ on much, you know, just workin’ in the forcsle, you know, in the kitchen.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, anyway, he, he found a wood road….that was there, and he left, followed that, and he come out to Audrey Wescott’s….Audrey….

Q: Walker.

A: Walker’s house. And then they got around, got people down there. Robert Hubley, used to live over here, took his cattle and went back and a crowd from here went down. They was all dead but one fella….And the Mounties got there. They found him up in the rocks tryin’ to find his way out….and ah, I don’t know whether it was right or not….it was cold and everything…..and one of the Mounties, Acker was his name I guess, give him a great big drink of whiskey. Thought it would warm him, you know or do somethin’, but he never survived. They said he should’ve never done that…..

Q: Given him the whiskey.

A: ….Really.

Q: Yeah.

A: He was so bad that he….anyway they hauled him out in the ox cart out there to Audrey’s. And the woman, and one big colored feller. Beecher Pyne lived here. He was runnin’ around in the ….he was in the rockweed, stepped on him. When he did, you know, he was dead, but you….(groan). Beecher said, "I didn’t have much hair, but what I had stood right straight in the air." Anyway they got ‘em all out and went back the next day and made, you know, made sure. That’s when they found the other fella, next morning. Well it was two or three o’clock in the morning when they come ashore there. And Carl Dimmock made a big plaque with all their names on it and a big cross. He put it there, but he didn’t have it far enough back in. Got a big gale of wind northeast, it washed out. Well they got it again and put it up again, back, but it went somewhere, I don’t know.

Q: There’s still a cross there now….

A: Is it still there?

Q: But it’s just a crude, two big sticks, you know, like driftwood.

A: Yeah, about four by four? But there used to be a plaque on it with all their names on it that was on that boat. But I don’t know whether somebody got it and never said nothin’ about it or what. But fishin’ out, off there, you could look in, you could see it, you know.

CC: Yeah.

A: Well Riley’s Cove….used to be an old feller there, his name was Riley. I don’t think he….he might have been married, maybe he wasn’t. He had a cabin there in Riley’s Cove. And they say there was a ship come ashore there once, on the point. With gold aboard of her and ah, kegs of white lead.

Q: What’s white lead?

A: It’s what you mix paint with….

Q: Oh yes.

A: ….That stuff that’s in paint.

Q: Yep.

A: In the keel of her. Now I don’t know whether that’s right or not, but anyway, she smashed and everything. And ah, different ones said, Len Hubley said there’s a rock there that’s got a big place in it about so deep, it’s like a cave under it like….And he said he got a gold coin out of that hole in that rock….now I don’t know.

CC: Wow.

A: Anyway, there was people come here after he died….the house where, before Philip [Walker], that burnt….

Q: Yep.

A: ….Up in there. Thompsons….

Q: Thompsons, yeah.

A: ….Lived there. And ah, they come, they stayed there, and they’d go back to Riley’s Cove. They was down there for a week or two.

Q: Looking for gold.

A: Well I don’t know what they was lookin’ for. All at once they packed up and left.

CC: Oh.

A: And they figured they found somethin’. But people has hunted, divers has been there. Course if the kegs broke up, that would be mixed up in the rocks….you wouldn’t, you know….They figure that some of that come ashore and that old Riley got it. And somehow they knew about it, the people from over in New Brunswick, probably Saint John over there somewhere. Anyway, they left, they didn’t come back. They left with stuff that they didn’t have when they come here.

CC: Hmm. Buried treasure.

A: Hmm.

Q: What about some of the other coves. How did they get their names? I never knew that’s why Riley’s Cove was called Riley’s Cove.

A: The Old Maid’s Cove.

Q: What’s the Old Maid’s Cove? Don’t know that one.

A: Well, there’s ah, Tar Cove….

Q: Yeah, I know that one.

A: …..Where a steamer come ashore. And old Liefy Smith and her brother lived there. I don’t know whether there’s anything left of the old camp that was there or not.

Q: Would that kind of be behind Arthur Bull’s, or farther up?

A: Yeah. Well that road, across from Jimmy Gidney’s. You go back and you come right out to Riley’s, or Tar Cove.

Q: Yeah.

A: And just up in from the shore there used to be a camp there like. That’s where Benny and Liefy lived, in that.

Q: So Ben was her brother, not her husband.

A: Brother, yeah. And ah, somebody’s got a picture around Centreville. Just who it is I don’t….I seen it, I had it here lookin’ at it.

Q: Why did they choose to live way back there?

A: Hmm?

Q: Why did they live way back there, on the shore?

A: Well, just squatters, I guess.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah.

CC: What was the picture of?

A: Huh?

CC: What was the picture of?

A: Of ah, Liefy Smith and Benny, her brother, standin’ in the doorway. And a bunch of women there, from either….some was from here, some was from Sandy Cove.

CC: Right.

A: But they was awful superstitious people. If they seen you before you seen them, you didn’t see ‘em. No way.

Q: They just disappeared.

A: No. Same way, he’d go to Sandy Cove, old Ben, shoppin’, if he seen somebody comin’, and they didn’t see him, they never seen him, he just…. And ah, Liefy, if she come out, you know, if she come out right there to Jimmy Gidney’s, across the road there…..

Q: Yeah.

A: ….And if there was any tracks in the road goin’ back, she wouldn’t ah….if she got back in there and seen them tracks, she wouldn’t go over ‘em. She’d come way out to the road and she’d go on the other side of ‘em and go back, yeah. She wouldn’t cross nobody’s path if she figured somebody was in there ahead of her.

Q: What made them so superstitious, do you suppose?

A: Well, years ago, the old…. all the old people was. Different things…anything like that….she would….oh boy.

Q: Was your mother superstitious?

A: Oh I don’t know.

Q: You don’t know.

A: No. I know they claim there’s somethin’ buried or somethin’….That brook that runs across the road there by ah, Sydney Gidney’s and Mister Taylor’s….

Q: Yeah?

A: Down in that brook they claim there is somethin’ buried there and they buried a big dog on top of it. Nobody’s ever found it.

[End of audio tape]