What is your full name?

Nola Eileen Jeffrey

And your maiden name was?

Worthylake

And who were your parents?

Avard and Ingeborg Worthylake.

And what was your mother's maiden name?

Haight. You're going to need Ingeborg too unless you have already looked it up! It is spelled Ingeborg. That was Swedish. I was born here in Nova Scotia.

And when were you born?

1929.

How large was the family that you grew up in?

Three.

And where did you fit in?

Middle child.

Brothers and sisters?

Older brother and younger sister.

What did your father do for a living?

He was a painter and paper hanger. That was his main occupation. He kept meat as well and that was the extra money and then later years, when I was about 15, he went to work at Cornwallis because that was opening up then so he became a painter there until he retired.

Did your Mom work outside of the home?

She did, yes, various things. Mainly she tended the post office. It was my Uncle that had it but she use to tend it for him so he wouldn't have to. That was the main thing, but she sewed outside and that sort of thing.

What post office was that?

That was Rossway.

Could you please explain what a typical day at school was like for you as a child?

Oh my. I don't know. I don't know what I might pick. I would probably pick about Junior High and I think it ran something like this. After the prayer and God Save the King, then by grade 7 or 8 and 9, you were pretty much on your own. The teacher had to teach - I went to school from Primary to Grade 11 when there was a teacher there to teach that many grades. If there was no teacher there to teach that many grades, you didn't have the grades. They usually could teach to Grade 10. So I know I am skipping ahead there. Its related anyway. We knew we could go no further than Grade 10. Now they miss 6 days and it’s a terrible thing! We were going to miss years there. It is amazing to me when I think about it because there was never a time when I thought I wasn't going to go on. Now, I don't know how I ever thought I was going to go on, but I was to go on.

Where would you have gone for Grade 11 and 12?

Well, I expect for most of the time I didn't know, but as it grew nearer, we knew it would be Digby.

Would you have travelled into Digby?

We had to stay in Digby.

Who did you stay with?

Mr. & Mrs. Maynard Denton.

Did you pay room and board?

No, I worked for my board. For two years and the summer in between I stayed and worked for nothing so I could have a place to stay for Grade 12.

What work would you have done?

Housework. I was responsible for doing most of the housework.

After Grade 12 what did you do?

Teacher's College, because I wanted to be a teacher all along.

How many years were you at Teacher's College?

One, Grade 12, that was one year and two summer schools to get a permanent license. Summer schools were at Halifax, - Dalhousie.

And what year would you have graduated from Teacher's College?

1937.

And what was it called?

Normal School.

One year gave you a license?

Made me normal! One year would give me a license - a temporary license. I had to go to those summer schools to get a permanent license. So has my life been strange over the years, too.

You came out with what kind of license?

A superior first class license. The only one higher than that was going to University and that was four years and there was nothing in between then.

Now when you retired, what license did you hold?

Well, I have forgotten the name - but I had two Masters Degrees in Education and it was Guidance. The first Masters was in Guidance at the secondary school level and the second one was at the Elementary school level and that was from Acadia and the University of Maine at Orono.

Who was your best friend when you were at school?

At school, I didn't tell you my day at school either! I think I told you that after the morning exercises then the teacher was occupied with the elementary school grades. She, I can remember two male teachers too, but the rest of the time it was female. She would have to teach, I can remember her teaching reading to everybody below my grade and we would be doing from the beginning of the morning until recess, we would be doing arithmetic, so whatever page we left off at yesterday the next page we started at that day. And if we needed help we put up our hand and she helped us. If we didn't, we just kept going, page after page after page. That was until recess, and after recess, you had to do spellings and that type. Wouldn't take the whole time so I don't know. Can't remember some of those things. But I always filled in the time. I could draw. I like to draw. So when I got my work done, that's what I did. I drew. When I was in Grade 9 I decided I'd write some history so I looked at all the resource books I could get and I wrote history to fill in time. Didn't matter, you just filled in time. Nobody bothered you as long as you were busy and you had your work done. You could easily decide about how much work you should do that day in order to get by alright without anyone complaining. And the main ones I would worry about complaining would be to answer to my Mother and Father. Didn't matter about the teacher, I had to answer to Mother and Dad. Somewhere along the line I would have to answer. And in the afternoon, probably about one or quarter past, quarter past one rings a bell with me but I'm not certain. And then we would have English Grammer- Copperswaithe English Grammer. We did that in Grade 7, we did that in Grade 8 , we did in Grade 9; we usually did a third of the book a year. Now sometimes it meant going back over some of it but it didn't matter - you put in the time. I don't know whether I learned Grammer then or not - I remember learning grammar after I started to teach it. That's when I learned it. We did it then, and we did compositions whatever we had to do - that was afternoons. In the meantime, that teacher would have assigned us questions on our history or our geography and we would have had to do those maybe after recess and in the afternoon. So that when it came time for her to hear our lessons, I hadn't said anything about being taught, when it came time for her to hear our lessons, then we had those questions answered. And as we got in older grades, we just went up to her desk and stood beside her at her desk, and she heard those questions and you had to make sure you knew them. You did. You had just answered them during that day. And you learned to skim. I wasn't the best in the world - students I had later said how did you know we were going to do that, and I said think about it for awhile. And they said, did you do the same thing? And I said, yes. But I learned to skim a lot, because if I didn't get those questions done, I just looked down at the book and found the answer until she caught me then she turned so I couldn't see the book. Then I had to read them. So I learned to read quickly that year. That was the run of the day. She would hear our geography or history, whatever we had for that day, one day it would be geography the next day it would be history, and we would have to stand up in front of her desk and she would hear it. When I was in grade 4, I remember having 14 of us in the school that is now the Community Hall in Gulliver's Cove, and there would be 14 of us and we would be lined up along the wall reading when it was our turn to read. That was when I was in Grade 4. When I was in Grade 7, there was 2 of us. This is the good old school that you hear about. And when I was in Grade 8 there was 1. That was I. That's it. I was the only one from then on.

So who was your best friend at school?

Ann Peters.

Was she from the community?

Yes. From Gulliver's Cove.

What did you do at recess and lunch time?

I don't know. I don't know. When we were younger we played outdoors, of course. Played ball, I always played ball. I was in sports and so - I was a tom boy and I got chosen after three best hitters, I got chosen next. We did that, but other than that it was sort of girl talk and so on. Growing up.

What are your best memories?

I didn't have bad memories of school, as you can see, that was all fine. I did things and got away with them as long as I didn't have to tell Mother and Dad.

What kind of things would you have done?

One time I remember that three of us, my sister and I sat together, and a friend, one of the young guys from Rossway sat behind us and that afternoon we decided we'd have a funeral for a spider. So that is what we did. And that's the afternoon I got the whipping.

From who?

The teacher.

What happened when you got home?

No, no. They wouldn't have known it at home until a long time afterwards. I was always very cross about that. Why was I cross about that? Because I let myself get into it when I didn't have to. I was so scared I was going to get a whipping, I forgot what it was I was talking about and if I had only remembered it would have been fine. He wouldn't have given me the whipping. But he should have for the rest of the afternoon, and he finally got me but it was at a time when I could have cleared myself.

Who was the male teacher, do you remember?

Mr. Warren Doane. I think he is dead. He is from the South Shore area. And I remember him as a good teacher, too. Hilma had lost a tooth in the process of our burial ceremony for the spider, - one of her teeth had come out. And she looked at me and she said, "What will I do?" And I said, " Put up your hand and ask to leave the room and spit it out!" And that's when he caught me. I was so afraid. I forgot what it was I had said, you see. I could have been cleared. So I was always cross with myself. So we had fun at school. We made our own.

What subject was your most favorite?

I can't do anything you've seen me or heard me. I can't do anything, come to think of it. I don't know. The one thing we didn't have was art. And that was what I liked. And so I use to do a lot of drawing when I had my work done. I liked history. Probably history would have been the main one. And I liked literature.

What subject was your least favorite?

There was none. I liked math. There was really none. Couldn't spell very well. I never wanted to do spelling bee's. That would be we would have - Friday afternoons. It would be a little more relaxed and we would have spelling bees. I hated them. I couldn't spell. So therefore I wrote very poorly so people wouldn't know.

How were you disciplined in school?

We had to stay in, mainly, if you did something. You had to stay in after school.

Did the teacher ever use the strap?

Well, I told you the one time I got it. Yes, the teachers used the strap all the time. They strapped all the time.

How were you disciplined at home?

Restricted. Couldn't go out in the evening - this is after we got older. Couldn't go skating, couldn't go out to play ball, restricted that way.

For how many days would you be punished?

As we got older, it got worse. Two weeks. Two weeks - couldn't go out for the evening for two weeks, couldn't go skating for two weeks. You thought a lot about it then. That was the main thing.

What were your daily chores?

You had to help always at home. You had to help Mother. We'd have to bring in the wood - my brother would have to help cut it and all that. But we would have to help carry it in. Maybe get the cows and bring them home if they weren't there. Didn't help with the cooking because we lived with my grandparents and it was much easier for Mother to do it. But had to make our beds and things like that. Keep our room clean. But we were required to study at night - Mother and Dad always required that we studied at night at the dining room table with a lamp and that had to be done every night. Whether we studied or not, you had to sit there so you may as well study.

How long would you have to sit at the table?

Oh, two hours. Or something like that. Mother helped us until after Grade 8. Mother was a teacher too, so she helped us until after Grade 8 and then she said it was beyond her really. It was getting so she couldn't help us anymore. Sounds like the ones now. About grade 4 now, I guess.

After your chores were done, what would you do with your free time?

Oh that was when we could play ball, or go sliding or we could go skating. We had dolls, but I never wanted to play dolls. I use to like to make their clothes. I learned how to sew and knit and those were the two main things. I liked that.

You said your Mom was a teacher. Did she ever teach school?

Yes.

For how many years?

Something like 3 or 4, I think. And she hated it.

So she waited until you were grown before she taught?

Oh no. She was teaching - she left it long before we were born. She left it and went to the States. The same procedure that all did from here. Or many of them did. Grew up here and went to the States for awhile, and came back home.

What was your favorite holiday when you were a child?

I guess Christmas would have been.

Could you tell me why?

Well it was the outstanding one. The ritual of it all. The baking that Mother would do ahead of time and the whole spirit of the thing. Kept a lot of it religious as well. We're Baptist, so that was always part of it as well. But it was just fun. It was a fun day.

Do you remember what you would get for Christmas?

Oh sure. We got, and it was really wonderful as far as we were concerned. We got an orange - that would be the only time you would have an orange. And we had fudge, our own fudge, and Mother made that. And she made filled dates and we would have those. I think those were the main two candies. And we would have cookies - this would be in a dish of our own and we could eat out of it whenever we wanted to and what we wanted to after breakfast. I would get a doll - my grandparents would give me a doll. They always gave us the toys. So that's the toys we got - one doll. And then we got clothing that Mother didn't make and so that was wonderful. As we got older we usually got one thing we had dearly asked for or wanted or expressed that we would like to have. I think we got one watch when we were 15 - I think both my sister and I. We left when we were 15 you see. But we went home for Christmas and there was the watch.

Or whatever.

The clothes you said your Mother didn't make, where would she have gotten those from?

They were probably from Eaton's catalogue. Probably. I don't really know. Yes, I think so.

What was it like in your house when the catalogue came?

Well, we would look at it and look at it but it was much better because we could cut out paper dolls. We used it to cut out paper dolls. And my sister was the one that could really create. She had the whole family - the dolls doing all sorts of - getting married, and wedding ceremonies, and funerals, I couldn't , I didn't have the imagination she did. I would cut out the clothes or if they were the real dolls then I would make the clothes. She didn't do anything about sewing, I did.

What was your favorite toy, do you remember?

We liked books. I don't remember having a favorite toy.

What else do you remember having?

Books. We always got a book at Christmastime and usually for birthdays too we had a book. The thing I didn't like getting were school supplies. We had to have those and they would buy those for us and we didn't want them. And we had Christmas concerts then and we would draw names in school and if the person had our name gave us a pencil, we felt like breaking it! And I think everyone felt the same.

What was your favorite book?

I didn't have any favorite book. I can't remember anything in a series - we didn't read any of those. It was just whatever we could get our hands on to read. Mother had a set of Encyclopedia and we'd read that. Not only did we use it for our homework, and all our friends came in and used it. She was about the only one that had one that I can remember. So we'd read that, read anything we could get our hands on. We always had the newspaper no matter what. So reading was extremely important.

How much spending money did you have as a child?

None! We use to pick blueberries and I would say, "Couldn't we sell this kettle of blueberries Mother?' And she'd say, 'No, you know I need them for winter and you know how good they taste in the winter.' Well, that was a big leap for anyone very young. And when I was young, I couldn't even have 10 cents for that. When I was quite young, I was about 7, we moved from Brighton over to Rossway and that year Mother came over to help her Mother and Father here in Rossway and she brought my brother and sister with her but I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay home with Dad and so I asked if I might and lo and behold they said yes, I could. And he gave me 25 cents that week. And I made three trips to Grants' store down in Barton before I could spend that 25 cents. My girlfriend and I use to keep going down. That was marvelous, you know, staying home with him and having the 25 cents. I can't remember anything better.

Can you remember what you bought with the 25 cents?

Oh, it was penny candy. And 25 cents at a penny store, you know. It took us three trips to get rid of it! Now after that, I worked in my Uncle's store from the time I was 12 or 13 and I would get a dollar a day.

Where was your Uncle's store?

Just about across from where the school in Rossway on Digby Neck.

Do you remember the name of the store?

No, there wasn't any name. It was just Fred's store.

What was Sundays like in your household when you were growing up?

Very quiet. We went to Sunday school in the morning and we went to church and that was that. As girls we could play dolls or read. As I got older we could go for walks on a Sunday afternoon. That was a big break. But it was pretty quiet. I don't remember that we didn't like it. But we couldn't do much.

What influence did your Religion have throughout your life?

Well I don't know about the religion. I think it was the values that Mother and Dad had. And of course that would be part religious overtones, but it would be the value system of my Mother and Father.

How did you keep up with what was going on in the outside world?

How did you get the news?

The main line - communication lines was down Digby Neck - telephones - by that time - but it wasn't always very workable. And the paper. Radio came in, living in Gulliver's Cove we didn't have the electricity until later until I was about 13 or 14 when that came in down there but we could listen to battery radio. We listened to that. 1939 I remember listening to the war, what was going on because by that time - 1940, the young men that we grew up with were overseas. Now we wanted to listen to see what they might be doing and I remember sitting at the radio in the evening and listening to what was happening overseas. I think the BBC was what we could hear, and the papers - always had that. And then word of mouth was always………..

How often did the paper come?

I think we had it everyday. We'd go to the Post Office and get it and the mail would come down and we'd go to the Post Office about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

How did World War 11 affect your community?

Oh, when I think back at it now, my friends who were the boys my age - well they were three years older I was, and they all went. You didn't think about it at the time because they were all doing it. And you were very young. But I look back and I think they didn't have any youth at all. I hear of other men their age that tinkered with cars and things like that. And then I would think, "Well, my brother didn't do that." Good reason, because he was in the Air Force by that time. So all these friends of ours were in the armed forces and one was wounded - the brother to my best friend, Anne, Ralph Peters was wounded. Jay Lewis was killed and these were the ones that had gone skating with us. Of course by that time I was up in Digby, in 1944,'45 & '46 so there was all the base here and that was another part of the story.

How did it affect your family? You said your brother was in the Air Force?

My father had been in the First World War and I can recall sitting in the kitchen at home at a time when the war first started when he was considering going. And I can feel the situation even now. He was quite deaf, he had gotten deafened in the first world war but I guess he must have felt that he had a chance and there seemed to be a lot of concern. I would be very young, you see. But there seem to be a lot of concern that he was thinking about going and then about that time by brother went in and then the thought seem to die down and he wouldn't be going.

Where was your brother stationed?

He was Air Force so it was Labrador and so on.

Did anyone else live in the house with your family when you were a child?

Yes, my grandparents. It was their home.

Was that your Father's or Mothers?

Mothers.

What do you remember about your teenage years?

Well, we always had to work. We had tasks to do and as I said I worked at the store the whole time and that gave me more freedom. We had boyfriends, we use to as a group, as I have mentioned, go skating and sliding in the wintertime, playing ball in the summertime or going for walks. We seemed to have a lot of fun. I don't remember it as terrible years at all. It wasn't fun living with my grandparents. That wasn't fun at all.

Why was that?

It was horrible. We were the grandchildren and it was their home and it was always trying to do what they wanted and I wouldn't want it for anyone.

When you moved to town, how often did you get back down to visit your parents?

Very seldom because it was the weekend I had to do the housework. When I did get a chance to go home - I don't think I went once a month, even - but when I did, it was wonderful going home . Dad would have been working at the base then and he would pick me up on Friday night after work, take me home and bring me back on Monday morning on his way to work. It was then it was terrible getting adjusted - I remember that over and over again. I hated coming back. The whole situation was fine - they were very good to me in every day. There were some that were not good to the students they had, but Mr. and Mrs. Denton were. But it was so different than what I had at home that - oh, it was lonesome and then to have to make that break and come back. I would just as well stay here and I did.

How did your father travel to Cornwallis every day?

Yes. He had a car and no one else used that car. There was never such thing as us learning to drive with it. It had to be for his work, and he would pick men up along the way and that would help with the gas and he did every day.

What were the roads like then?

Terrible. You had to watch - they were unpaved and terrible. I can't remember him ever missing a day. My husband had the same thing afterwards. He never missed a day. I can remember too, for instance, the last Christmas that I was at home, while I was at home, we had a blizzard on Christmas Eve and my sister was working here in Digby. We were both too young when we got through school, we couldn't get to the next training because we were too young. I could because they lowered the age because they needed teachers at the war years. But I was 18 when I got my license but I couldn't get my license I qualified for because I was too young. And that hurt me a lot too. But, my sister was here working waiting for her age to come up so she could go training for a nurse, and she couldn't get home because of the blizzard. And I remember the next morning, Christmas morning, everybody turned out in the cove to help Dad get that car out from where we lived in the cove out to the main road because the main road would have been plowed, to get her home. And she got home by eleven o'clock.

So you had the blizzards.

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

Well, you see, I was up here when I was 15 and it wasn't much fun. That was when I paid for all the fun I had in school before, all those things I did that I shouldn't have done and all the studying I didn't do after Grade 8; that's when I paid for it. Because I knew then, there was no choice, I wanted to be the teacher so I had to have my Grade 11 and 12 and there was no excuse, no choice, no nothing. I can remember asking Dad's permission to take my Grade 11 because I wanted to be a teacher and he said Yes. And then I still didn't know how I was going to pay my way up here, even get it or anything. But after the arrangements were made that I would stay with Mr. & Mrs. Denton, then when I came up, he said Nola, your sister is right behind you. That didn't leave you much choice, did it. Your turn is this year. So that was that. So I did it.

By living in Digby, did you get a chance to go to the movies?

Oh yes. I had a chance to go to the movies before I lived in Digby. It was much more of a chore, but we got there.

Do you remember your favorite movie?

No.

Did you have a screen idol?

No. No. And never did. My sister did. She had them plastered all over our bedroom walls. I never did. I had lots of fun, but it was outdoors. None of that you know.

What kind of music did you like?

I expect it was the cowboy music thing. It was the popular music that we - whatever music that was on the radio, we wrote down all the songs, memorized all the words. I used to write it down. During school hours. You filled in your day anyway, as long as you had your work done.

What do you remember about dating?

Well, I was quite friendly, popular. The main dates we had at home would be when they took us home from Church. We loved going to church as long as they had church at night then the boyfriends would walk home with us. With Mother behind. You couldn't stray. Sometimes she went ahead - that was our lucky times. And you had to be home within a certain length of time after she got home, so you didn't have much leeway for anything. They would walk home with us from skating, they would take us to the movies - one had a truck. If you could get back home before mother got home from Church. And you could. You could always find ways.

How old were you when you got married?

Nineteen.

How did you meet your husband?

The first year I taught school in Sandy Cove. He lived down there. I had met him the year before that - I had met him the year he got out of the armed forces, I had just met him in Digby. And a common friend from Sandy Cove had introduced me to him. She was going to school here in Grade 12. So I had met him once before, and then when I went down to teach, I met him on the hill as I was going to school and he was on his way to pick apples up in the valley. So it was after that when I really met him and started going with him in February, married him the following November.

What do you remember about your wedding?

They were paving the highway on Digby neck and we came in a truck from Sandy Cove to Rossway and then Rossway I changed my clothes, both of us did in Rossway, and then Dad brought us up to Digby and we were married in the parsonage here in Digby. And then we stayed at Mother and Dad's in Rossway for the weekend and that was our honeymoon. And I asked the Trustees if I might have Friday afternoon off because I was being married Friday night and they said yes, so I had half a day off and then I went to school on Monday morning and the children all looked at me and said " Good morning, Mrs. Jeffrey".

How much did you know about the 'birds and the bees' when you got married?

Whatever you picked up from your friends, right or wrong. And by that time we would have been very inquisitive so we would have read. Whatever we could have found to read. It would have been correct - it would have been from the encyclopedia. It would have been the straight forward data, nothing about the emotional side of it.

How many children did you have?

I could have no children, but I had one child, adopted.

A boy or girl?

A boy.

Now is he around here?

No. He is in Stellarton. That's Charles.

Do you know what would happen to a girl if she got pregnant before she got married?

It was just about the end of your life. It was your fault, it was never the guy's fault, and I knew from day one that I may as well jump off the wharf .

How would people treat the father?

Most of the men thought it was wonderful and some of the father's would be cross and so they would make him pay $100.00. That helped a lot. The girl would be sent away to a favorite Aunt if they were lucky to have one. That was the most sensible thing you could do.

What was the $100.00 for?

Well, to show up the guy. To make him pay for it. It was the girl that paid for it.

Once you were married, where did you live?

We lived in what was Ms. Warren, she kept the telephone system in Sandy Cove, central, and she took the teachers boarders. There were two of us. And so she took boarders and so we boarded at her house. And that house was where the highway goes through Sandy Cove now. They had to move it. And that's where we lived when we were married too. We had two rooms in that house when we were first married.

And how long did you stay there?

About three years.

And then where did you live?

The next place I went to Centerville three years later I taught in Centerville, but we still lived in Sandy Cove and we were in the process then of moving to Smith's Cove because by that time Victor had work at the base. When he first came home he tried fishing and didn't like it, anything to do with it. But then he got work at the base as a painter and so we moved then, had a little stay in Rossway and then moved to Smith's Cove. I got the school in Smith's Cove. So we were three years in each place. Sandy Cove, Centerville and Smith's Cove.

Do you remember how much it cost for your first home?

We didn't have a home until we had this one. And this one I think it was $4,500.00 we paid for it. We had two mortgages - one was 10 years and one was 5 years so we had two mortgages for 5 years then it was reduced by half. We had to have two people, two people loaned us money. We had no money. So they gave us money to buy it and we paid them off, the mortgages.

I should say to you too, that my first income was $89.00 a month and they took income tax out of it.

That was your first teaching job?

Yes. $89.00 a month.

Where would people get together to have a good time?

Oh well, we had to get together with just ourselves, our own age groups and some sort of party. I can remember going to concerts and parties at the hall in Rossway when we were young. I can remember you could, after you got old enough to have a boyfriend, you made a pie and he had to buy it. Heaven help him if he couldn't recognize it. The rest would run it up so he'd have to pay for it so he had to make sure he bid on one or two others first so they wouldn't catch on when he started bidding on the pie of choice instead. But we had fun that way. We would go to visit one another that was all. Play games or cards. Weren't suppose to play cards in my house, but we always played cards, whether it was in my house or not was a different thing, but we always played cards. Weren't suppose to but we always did. Went to dances more after I got up here, for those. Use to go down to the Navy league dances - I was too young but I was there! I can't understand today when they say I didn't allow my son or daughter to do so and so. My parents didn't either. So we had dances here, school dances, not many. I can't remember school parties. After we were married and lived here, then the teacher friends that I had or neighbour friends, and they were mainly teachers, we would have parties together mainly on Friday nights or Saturday nights. That was the only time we could. Never went to anything other than Friday or Saturday night.

What can you tell me about teaching school?

About teaching. I loved teaching school. I think I had a wonderful time. I taught lessons. I found out how to teach lessons at Teacher's College - at Normal school, and I taught lessons. Out in the country schools, in Sandy Cove, I had from Grade 7 to 11, about 35 children, and Centerville I had larger classes and that was from 6 to 11 and Smith's Cove it was smaller probably it was about 25 and it was 4,5 and 6. So I was always the principal in these schools, two department schools. Then I came in here and I taught Grade 7 and 8. That was my first assignment here. And that was Math, English and Social Studies. So that was when I started teaching subjects only. Never forgot I was teaching students. I can't ever remember a day of getting up and not wanting to go - never remember. It was hard. Had to be well prepared. After awhile you would get so you could wing it, but you couldn't wing it very much. You had to know what you were doing and what you had planned for that day. Otherwise, the children would take over, and they could. You'd think when you planned it for one year, it would work the next year. It never did. You had to replan it. You had the basics though, if you taught the same subject the second year. You had the basic. And from that you could enlarge upon it and you always did because it was always different. Different students. I loved everything about it. I started taking courses again - 14 years after I started teaching I started taking further courses to have a higher license. I always became very involved at the Provincial level. I would always take part in what was going on in Education at the Provincial level if I could. It may be through the Inspector of Schools and we would have had an Inspector of Schools at that time who came around once or twice a year for supervising us. And toward the end in the elementary school we had a Supervisor for Elementary Education and she always helped a lot. And we would put on in service and I would always take part in that. Quite often in a leadership role, I knew I wanted to go on. I had wanted to go to University when I started but there was no way I could think of it and from what I have said you can easily see that. Just couldn't think of it. And so then, I started University courses. That's how I raised my license, not by correspondence, by extension during the winter and then go to Summer School during the summer.

How many years did you teach?

Thirty eight years, and then I went with the Department for two years after I was through as a consultant.

Did you go to Maine? And how many years were you there?

Five summers. All my life once I started again. After we had Charlie, Mother lived with us a lot. My Dad died when he was 57, and then she lived with us during the winter from then on. So, we had the upstairs rebuilt for her really. But she lived with us every winter. We would plan my going to summer school around Charlie's age whatever it might be. We had him in April and so that first summer I went to summer school because he would be easy to take care of. And then the next summer I stayed home because he was running around then. And then by the next summer I went again. There was no such thing as doing one and not the other, we did it all. I use to think at night I always spent quality time with Charlie before going to bed. That's when we had our time, stories or whatever. And then I would have him settled in bed then come out and start doing history course. And I use to think, 'can't I do something instead of something?'. Never could. Victor helped out quite a bit. He supported me. There was no such thing then even then he would come home from work at 5 and get supper. No. I came home from work at 5 and got supper while he read the paper. There was no great wonderful changes by that time. But he was ill. He had become ill.

Do you remember how old you were when electricity came to your community?

Well, they had it down Digby Neck first and I don't really know that. But I was about 12 or 13 so add that to /29, what's that, 41 or 42 something like that when they came into Gulliver's Cove.

How did it change your life?

I was leaving, maybe I was 14 when we got it. I can remember having a battery radio - I can remember Dad having the ball game on. He had a little radio. We didn't. He did in his bedroom so he had the ball game all hours of the night. I can remember that. He listened to the news.

When you came to town, did the family you lived with have running water?

We had running water in our house, cold water. From the time, we always had it. Mother had it from way back when she was young. We didn't have a bathroom in the house in Rossway until Mother and Dad put it in in late years. They had everything here, everything.

Do you remember what bath night was like?

You'd have to ask that one because you've gotten some interesting stories!. Well it was Saturday night, when we were very young. And there were three of us and poor Cortland got the worst of it, Hilma first, then Nola then Cortland. So he had the dirtest water in the tub. And it was a big round tub that you use to wash clothes in and it was by the front of the stove so you'd be warm in the wintertime. I can't remember the summertime, I can only remember the winter. Maybe we only bathed in the winter, not the summer!! We always had to brush our teeth so we must have. I can remember washing my face and brushing my teeth every day. But that was bath night, that was Saturday, and that was it. Until we got older, and when we got older it was a private bath. We had a basin in our bedroom. Usually Saturday afternoon, once a week.

What did you brush your teeth with?

Well I can remember only toothpaste, unless there was soda for some reason if they were getting yellow. But mainly toothpaste, far as I can remember.

How often would you see your Dentist?

Oh, never. Never. You had no money to, and he was a long ways away. Never. I had no teeth by the time I was 16. We all had the same treatment, but my teeth all went.

How would you have gotten your teeth pulled out?

Dentist. The year I was in Grade 11 I had all my upper teeth out. In the summer after I got through Grade 11 so I would have a set when I came back to Grade 12. And that's all I hoped for was to have that set when I came back. And I didn't have it.

When did you get it?

Like a week after I started school. And that week, the Teacher asked me to read. I never forgave her for that. I did. I read.

What was it like? Did you have them all pulled out at one time?

They had been slowly coming out. The main part was I sat in the chair and had them out.

How far away was the Doctor?

Pretty nonexistent. I never saw one. We had one when we had our vaccination - we went to Dr. Harris in Barton and Mother walked us down to the office like two miles, and we had our vaccination on our leg. I can never remember. I went to the Doctor after I got up here. I had a very sore throats and I can remember I went to Dr. Dorion on the way home from school, and he would swab my throat out and it was fine. I had my tonsils out too when I was here. Must have been the year I got through Grade 12 I had them out. Couldn't get them all out. I had to have it done later on after I got married and lived here. No doctor. Dr. MacCleve was the one that was around but there was no Doctor in our house. Never. If we had anything wrong with us, I would say Mother, I've got a pain in my side . Stop running. They are growing pains. Stop running. And if we were sick in the morning, before 9, it meant we were still sick after supper when we wanted to go out to play ball. Oh, no. You were too sick this morning - you can't go out tonight. You rest until tomorrow. So we were never sick. No reason to be sick. And sometimes we didn't feel well. I missed one half day of school from Primary to Grade 10. Half a day. I was getting water for someone and I fell through the well curb and I missed half a day of school because when I got out I had to walk home and change my clothes. We understood from the first day that we were to go to school, there was no question. When Hilma was in Primary I was in Grade 1 and my brother Cortland would have been about Grade 3 or 4 and I can remember walking to school in a blizzard with Mother carrying Hilma, I had hold of her hand and Cortland going ahead breaking the way. There was never a time we couldn't go to school. Never. So we knew what we had to do. And that was why too, quite often we didn't have the work to do at home. We had to make sure our lessons were done and our work was done for school. And then you see, I was already to play the next day in school!

How old were you when you had your vaccination?

I think we had to have it before we started school, so that was 5 or 6 years old.

How old were you when you had your tonsils out?

Well, that first time I think I must have been 15 or 16.

Do you remember?

I remember that they gave me orange juice in the morning. Did that ever hurt going down. I don't remember much about being in the hospital. I remember, I don't think it was very long in the hospital. I don't remember much of that. I remember being home and lying on the couch and mother had me wrapped up in a blanket. When I get sick, I want to be left alone. I'm looking at the time, I need to go!!! I need to leave.

Did any of your students have any experience with the poor farm at all?

No. I did myself.

Can you tell us about that?

Well, there are a lot of things here you are not getting because, you know like the idea of our background or our history. That type of thing. It was somewhat different maybe than others. And I feel concerned about that.

Your family's background?

Yes. I sort of feel that that is missing here.

You had mentioned last time that we hadn't touched at all on the Family History of your family. You had mentioned that you came from Worthylakes and Haights.

Yes.

So what background did you want to fill in?

Well, I don't know whether I can recall enough now to fill in properly or to begin properly. But I believe you were getting everything said about my young life, things like that. But there was the whole sense of family background that hadn't come out, I don't feel. And because my Grandmother had come from Sweden so that makes us quite unique .

Now, is this your Grandmother on your Mom's side.

Yes, my Mother's mother. And so she had come over when she was about 29 years old from Sweden, and she couldn't speak a word of English and yet came to United States. And so that makes quite a difference in our whole family background. And I found too, as we grew up with that background always there, and a very strong presence in our lives. When I got the opportunity to go to Sweden, it was wonderful to do that. Then I could see after going there and seeing then that side of the family, where a lot of our characteristics came from, our personalities, our independence as women. Mother and Dad nurtured that I feel, here, so that was nurtured here, but I think a lot of it showed up in that Swedish background.

And it was unusual, when you were a young woman, for that independence to be nurtured to that extent.

Yes, and that I give credit to Mother and Dad, but of course with that other background there I suppose it was more natural for them to. Dad would have expected both my sister and I to go on, didn't know where or what, but we were expected to be educated and go on. And a lot of father's wouldn't have.

Now your Grandmother when she came from Sweden, was she all by herself?

Yes. Well I think they were immigrating to the United States then, you see. Because whenever we asked her, she always said 'Well, we understood the streets were paved with gold.' So we came.

She was not a married woman at that time?

No. So she was quite old, about 29 I think when she came. And married my Grandfather whom she met in United States. They worked in the same area.

He was American?

No, he was a Digby Necker. Oh yes, Leslie Haight. The same trend we had with so many from Digby Neck, they had gone to the Boston States and my Grandfather had gone there, my father also went there, father and mother. My Grandfather had gone and he worked at a large estate and he would drive the horses and do that type of work there. She came and in a nearby estate as a Cook and they got together. She had a friend, Aunt Annie we always called her, who was in that same area two or three years before Grammie, and so she use to go to her to get help with the language and to know the recipes. Grampie , Les Haight, had a cousin Bruce Haight from North Range, and he was working up there too you see. And so he and Aunt Annie had gotten together so I suppose then it was easy for my Grandfather, Les Haight to get together with my grandmother.

And what was her first name?

Hilma, and my sister of course is named after her. And we have all the family that type of name goes down through. So, there was that, and I think that had a strong bearing on our lives.

What did she look like, your Grandmother?

A kindly Grandmother. She was old, but very lively and she would beat eggs and she had a tune to beat those eggs as she beat those eggs then she would dance and have this tune. And Mother and Aunt Olga could both remember the lyrics but I can't . I know no Swedish. And neither did Mother and Aunt Olga. But when I went to Sweden I found out they could all speak English.

When did you go to Sweden?

Oh, I don't know. Before I stopped teaching. 1980 or something like that. And we had contact with that family before that. They have come here. Mother's own cousin had come here and her children. And when I went over to Sweden, I visited with my generation of cousins. Saw my Grandmother's sisters grave, I said when I saw it really on her grave, I was joining the two, my Grandmother and her sister. And she had all sisters and one brother. So there were a lot of girls. Maybe 11 and one boy.

So did Bruce and Annie come back to North Range?

Yes, Bruce Haight, they lived there all their lives. And Grammie and Grampie from Rossway use to go Christmas Day over to have Christmas dinner with Aunt Annie and Uncle Bruce and that was by horse and wagon. I said before, that what I remember too, and it is very significant I think. I didn't know it at the time, but I own the house in Rossway and I'm there a lot, and on the diningroom table are three books. One is the Bible, and one is an Encyclopedia, and one is the Kings English, English grammar. And I think that tells the story of our lives.

I had that impression, and I listened to the tape before I came over today, and you mentioned that your house had an encyclopedia and other people would come to use it. And I also got the impression that your parents did set pretty high standards for you.

Yes. We knew right from wrong as far as they were concerned. Didn't always follow it! But yes, we knew.

Where did Hilma and Cortland live when they became adults?

They lived there as well, but Cortland was four or five years older and he went in the Armed Forces from Grade 10 so that was in 1941 or 1942.

So he traveled around then, I suppose.

From there on. And he wasn't really back home only to come to visit after that. He is in London Ontario now. And Hilma of course, lived right there all along the same as I did and she was one year younger so the next year she came to Digby so it was the same pattern for her. And she went in training for a nurse. And you see, our Mother and Aunt, they only had the two girls, and Aunt Olga was the nurse and Mother was the school teacher, so you see we had the role models too.

I have made a note that I wanted to ask you, and you did touch on it, but you mentioned in your previous interview that it was not at all unusual for young people to go to the States to work. And you alluded to it again today. So, how did that work. Why did people do that?

Easy for travelling. You just got on a boat and away you went. If you were further down the neck and of course there was a time when there was boat travel from Freeport, from Tiverton right to Boston so it was very easy to go that way. Mine I believe went by way of Saint John, of course, easy again, by the boat. And then I think a train went right to Boston from Saint John, until very late, until the '30's I think.

And was work more available there?

Yes.

Do you know if there was a difference in the value of the dollar at that time?

I don't know. I never heard of it. Dad went there to work as a - Dad had come out of the army, probably about 1925, course he got out of the army long before that, but after he got out of the army he went for up training, upgrading, and he went to become a highway engineer. And that was given to him by the Government as part of having been in the armed forces. He took that in at Dalhousie, and then went to work on the highway between Windsor and Halifax, in through Three Mile Plains and through there. Macadamized roads they were building at that time, and they had a pilot in that area, and he was on that part there. I always remember it because when we got a chance to go to Halifax with him he pointed it out to us when we were young. And so they were building highways in Maine so he said, I am going there for work. He couldn't get work here so I'm going there. And he did that and they asked him for citizenship and he didn't have it and so he didn't get work. You had to become an American citizen to get work. So he had an Uncle in Boston who had a paper hanger and painting business and he went there and that's what he did and that's what he did when he came home.

Was there enough work for a man on Digby Neck painting and hanging paper to make a living?

Here? No. Dad kept mink and he was a trapper and a hunter and so he didn't have any steady work that I know of until he went to work at Cornwallis when they were rebuilding Cornwallis, in 1939-40.

How important was mink farming to Digby Neck at that time?

There were just a few families that had them. My Uncle, Uncle Fred, Dad's brother had a store in Rossway - he kept them, Dad kept them and Elmer Johnson down in Waterford kept them and I don't know of anyone else. And over in Brighton and Barton, there were one or two.

And how many animals would your Father have kept at any one time?

Maybe 100. Some of them were real pets for him.

So how did it work, how many litters does a mink have in one year?

Well, his main ones that he kept over and over and I said became sort of pets to him, you cannot make a mink a pet, but anyway they knew him well. He had one that he use to get 6 kittens, but usually three or four----

Per litter?

Yes.

And how many litters would they have a season?

Only one. One a year. In November, because the dogs had to stay away, I think in the fall somehow.

And why did everything have to stay away?

The mothers would kill the little ones.

What kind of facility would he keep them in?

A low barn - shed type, he built them, and they had wooden pens - not wooden but wire pens out along the side of that and one to a pen and they were something like 8 feet long by 3 feet wide and 3 or 4 feet wide for running and all of that. And then inside the barn they would have their nest away from the weather.

What would he feed them?

He fed them fish and ground fish and he had a big large grinder and he had an ice house and he use to put ice up in the winter from the lakes and that would last until the next year covered with sawdust and in the center of the ice house would be the box where he would put the meat and fish to keep it frozen. And then it got so you could buy ground meat for them, I think it was rabbits and the remains of the poorer part of beef and so on, and they would come in certain type of boxes and he would buy so many at a time and that would feed them. And Mother made bread for them, a type of whole wheat bread. We use to eat it at times, she use to put carrots in it. It was very course. Everyday she would make bread. I think when the kittens were young, the mink babies.

Did your Father sell that ice that he made to anybody else in the village?

The ice, no, he just had enough for himself for the year.

In those days, how did they kill the mink when it came time to pelt them?

You want to know? He had a type of catching box - it wasn't really a box, it two, the wooden, on each end, with a cylinder wire mesh type of container. And he would catch them in that in some way. It was quite restrictive once they were in it and then they were drowned.

Now I think they gas them or electrocute them.

He took a chance one time on one of his favorite mink - Mrs. Shorty she was and that is the one who gave him so many kittens in a litter and because she had a short tail he called her Mrs. Shorty - and she got out one time and someone else found her and he claimed her and they wouldn't let him have her and he said, well will you let me have her if I put her in one of these boxes and just use my hand to cover the hole. I won't use any material, I'll just use my hand. And they said if you can do that she is yours. And he did.

He must have been a gentle man in his own way.

Yes, very gentle, very stern, but yet very gentle.

How many years did he keep the mink?

Twenty five or thirty. They were always our extra money. Christmas time they were pelted. I may have been wrong when they were born, they may have been born in the early spring, I have forgotten. But they were pelted in the fall because that's why - same as when you trap and he would pelt them in the fall and ship them in November and about the first of December or middle of December he would get the pay for them. Ship them to Montreal. He would do it night after night in the kitchen.

What would happen to the carcasses, I am just curious.

They were dried, he put them on frames, and that stretched them and they were hung to dry and when they were dry, they were turned inside out then and you had the nice fur. He had some very very dark ones. They were the ones that gave him the extra money.

What determined a good quality coat?

I think thickness, and I think there was something about the underhair, but I'm not sure about that. But he always wanted very dark ones. Some of them were almost black and the breeders, you see he would have female breeders that he wanted to keep all the time because they produced the largest litters and then the males, the good males. One was called Mr. Billy.

How long does a mink live, I wonder?

Well, he kept his good ones as long as I can remember them. He had Mr. Billy and Mrs. Shorty. He had them a long long time. But then he made sure he had other good breeders coming on, and I wouldn't know how long they lasted.

There is still the odd one running around up by the wharves in Tiverton.

How would he ship them to Montreal?

I think by freight as far as I know.

So he would just take whatever money they chose to send him?

You had contracts with them - it was a trading house and he knew about how much he was getting according to how they proved out. It seemed to work that way.

And that was a fairly significant part of your family's income?

In the winter. That made our Christmas and that lasted us through until he got painting and papering in the spring. And then of course he trapped as well.

What would he trap?

He trapped up on the Marsh to get mink and muskrat, mainly.

No beaver there?

There were some in the brooks here but he never touched them. He had a trapping line up at the Marsh and any person that was doing that had their own lines and one wasn't suppose to touch the other person's line. But they did.

How often would he have to check his lines?

Very often. I don't know how often but he was gone a lot. In the fall he and my Uncle, my Uncle had a cabin on the Marsh----

And where was the Marsh?

Head of St. Mary's Bay.

And so they would stay a few days at a time then?

Oh yes. The whole season maybe from when the trapping season came along from November until middle of December and maybe then go back after Christmas . Something like that, he was gone a lot and it was trapping.

Now Gilliver's Cove was fishing community, was it not?

Yes.

But your father chose not to fish?

He never was. Of course, he was born and brought up in Brighton and not the fishing there. And then he went in the army and he was 17 when he went in so it was whatever he did after that.

It wasn't part of his background to be a fisherman.

No, no. He worked in the fish some summers down here. They had Maritime Fish down at the end of Gulliver's Cove, a huge factory and he worked there some summers. But very seldom, only when he couldn't get painting.

Was that a canning factory?

Yes, a fish processing. I don't know as they canned them, but fish processing.

Would that have been the biggest employer in Gulliver's Cove?

Yes. Beyond the fishing itself.

Would that be the 20's we are talking about.

No, you see I was born in '29, so it was '39 or '40's. Late '30's and early '40's.

So your Mom and Dad moved in with your Mother's parents the Haights. And that had always been the Haights. My Grandfather had owned it, and his father before him had owned it. And they usually ended up living with one of the family one way or the other as it came down through.

Do you know what year your house was built?

About 1835, along about the 1830's or 1840's. By the Haights. And did I tell you about the log cabin?

No.

Well, that's another part of all this so engrained with that place on the neck. I don't know what I can do, I can't part with it, that's a problem I have now. But at the north corner of the house - that I have now is the third building on that property that belonged to them from the time they came. Rutherfords owned that, the land grants had been given to him here in Digby and Conway and out in the area and that is the same land grant as we have. The first Haights, my great great grandfather built a log cabin and the foundation of that was at the north end of the house that I have. Until I had to do work in the yard you could always see the rock foundation there of the first log cabin. And they moved from that and built a larger one of wood across the road , diagonally across from where the house is now. That burned and when that burned they built the new house, the one I am in.

In the 1830's, that is the new house?

Yes. That's the new one! So that has a lot of history. I took some of the rocks that were there, some of the foundation, I put them in strategic spots in the corner of the home now and let my son know so he will always know that was part of the log cabin. The boundaries are lined with stone walls that were picked, stones and rocks that were picked from that field, and it was terrible for having a garden. There was only one place you could have a garden and my Grandfather always had it in that spot. Anywhere else you had just rocks. They use to say they grew. But they are the stone walls there, I can stand on them and know very well that my ancestors moved them. I found a lot of comfort in that after my husband Victor died. I use to go down and stand , I can remember standing on those rock walls and I had never done that before. I had climbed over them and so on, but I can remember going down and standing there. I also got a lot of solace from out at Point Prim, the water. Looking at that too. It seems like when I want to go and be by myself, whatever, then I will go for a walk in the woods down there.

Did Victor grow up on the neck?

Yes, he was a Jeffrey from Sandy Cove.

Are there still Jeffrey's in Sandy Cove?

Cousins. But his own family aren't there. They have moved away and the parents died.

Now, Hilma still lives in Digby doesn't she?

Yes. Just sold her house now. They are going to move.

Where are they going to move?

Halifax.

Does she spend much time at Gulliver's Cove?

No. no.

It is really your place.

Yes. She has always been away from home, you see. Always has been. And I was the one that stayed. And so when they needed help, I was the one and then, after Dad died Mother deeded the house to me.

Your Dad died when he was only 57?

Yes.

Did he have a heart attack?

Cancer. Cancer of the lung, tobacco. Throat and lungs.

You described your Grandmother beating the eggs and singing -

Oh yes, very lively person. Not as tall as I am. Shorter. Maybe 5'4, something like that. I can always remember a large, large apron and always cooked, a great cook. Cooked at Pines Hotel; when my mother was 9 and her sister 10, Grammie came up and cooked at the Pines Hotel that summer, the old Pines. That would be in 1909, 1910, something like that and the present one was built in 1929, so she was cook there for the summers and she had someone keep house with those two girls that summer and the next summer they were expected to keep house and they did with Grampie there.

So she didn't go back and forth?

No, stayed there the summer.

When we were here a couple of weeks ago, you remembered that living with your grandparents was horrible.

Yes, pretty much.

Why was that?

It was their home. We had no freedom. We couldn't have anyone in, we couldn't have any young people in and we were………I remember my 12^th birthday we had lived in another place in Rossway before we had to move in with them, because they were both blind and they got to the stage they couldn't do anything. So then we moved in with them so Mother could take care of them. While we were out in the other house, I had my 12^th birthday and we had a birthday party and that is the only birthday party I can remember having. But we couldn't do anything about having any young people in our age at all after that.

And your parents just kind of deferred to them then, in that way? That kind of control?

Yes, well pretty much. Well, we just couldn't. We could go skating and all of that. We got out when we could we didn't stay in the house, but there was plenty to do. We had our work in the house that we had to do, and whether it was dusting, or sweeping or cleaning when we were teenagers, before I came up here, but of course I came up here when I was fifteen, so……..But there were things we had to do but we stayed out of the way, that's what we did. We played upstairs in our room, we went to school of course, we studied in the evening and that was at the dining room table. Grampie and Grammie would be in the kitchen. Everybody was in the kitchen in those days. And we would be at the dining room table doing our homework. And then Dad and Mother would be around the kitchen and around as well.

When you mentioned playing upstairs, it was interesting last time when you mentioned at Christmas you always got a doll. What would those dolls have been made of?

Well, Grampie and Grammie Haight were the ones that always gave us the toy and gave my brother a truck. So it was the nicest toy we could have, the doll and the truck. But one year we got two dolls from my other grandmother, Grandmother Worthylake. And they were the two dolls that her daughters had had, Aunt Thelma and Viola, had had these. And they were china dolls. They were beautiful dolls. And we liked them so much, and they got smashed and we were so upset. I can remember how mine got smashed but it was in play. Sort of an aside, we could play around where Mother was and so on, and someone was telling me the other day that the mother really didn't want them around the kitchen, you know, but we could always be around where Mother was and our house, when we played house, it was under the kitchen table. And you could put sheets up and so on, and we were playing house and of course one of the dolls had gone to bed, but that was up on sort of a stand, and somebody hit the stand. So that was that. But we could always be around where Mother was. We weren't under the table when we were down in Rossway where I am now, because the dog was there, and if you went too close he snapped. And I am sure the dog took preference over us!

This is your Grandparents?

Yes.

So the dolls you got from Grandmother Haight, -

Made of cloth and some type of composition feet and head and hands.

Do you have any of them anymore?

Yes, I do.

Do you?

Are they down in Rossway?

Yes, down in Rossway.

Your maiden name is Worthylake?

Yes, spelled just like that.

And they are from Brighton?

Plympton.

Are there still Worthylakes there?

No. None. The boys mainly had girls except for my brother and so the name isn't there. My brother has one so it is a Worthylake there.

When you grew up, you mentioned that you and Hilma had chores that you were expected to do. Did Cortland also have chores?

Oh yes, I can remember Cortland having to saw and chop by hand our winter's firewood. I can remember also having the sawing machine and crew come in in the spring and do that. And I think that is what happened, and Cortland had to split it and pile it. Many many cords of wood. And he always had to get the wood in and get the cows.

You had cows?

We had two. Grampie had a farm so before we went to live with them, they had two cows after we went to live with them. We always had two cows. Ours went with us. But he always had oxen and cows and sheep and two pigs, and then Grammie always had chickens and hens.

Do you have as much land now as they had at that time?

No. no. Mother and Dad sold it.

Would your family have had a woodlot?

Oh yes. And that is why it was sold was for the wood.

On the Fundy side ?

On the Fundy side, next to the north side there is still a lot of land that we always had. That is the piece I still own. It is about 4 acres more or less that I own, and there is a woodlot there, a piece of wood. And then the rest of it above the house, there is a certain amount there, but the rest of it was all sold and it mainly had -----there was an area for gardens and things like that and hay, haying area, and other than that it was woodlot and sold it to a person in the cove who was buying up a lot of land, Edison Speights, and so that was a thing that a lot of people did - he bought up a lot of land. Well then he sold it, I think, to people from United States in turn. Clear cutting has been done on it now. We owned across the highway too, called the ox pasture.

Why was it called the ox pasture?

That is where the oxen pastured.

Was it like a common grazing area, you mean?

Yes. For the oxen. Deer use to like to be down there too!

Would your father hunt deer?

Yes, every year. We lived on that in the winter.

So he was very self sufficient.

Yes. He knew just where they were running long before season and he always went alone. He never took anyone. He said that was twice the chance for being killed.

He was worried about that?

Yes.

Your ancestors built the new house in 1830. Where are they buried?

They are buried in the churchyard in Rossway, the Baptist church yard.

Are their graves marked?

Yes. I think ours was the only lot in the cove - we always noted this - ours was the only lot in the cove that didn't have a family grave.

What do you mean?

The early families, they buried them right on their own property. The next lot that was a brother to my Grandfather, Isaiha Haight, I don't suppose I can now, but I knew exactly where graves are there.

Are they marked?

Well the mounds were there. They were always respected. We always respected them. When they cut hay down there, or whatever. They were always respected.

I imagine there are just thousands on the neck.

I imagine so. Ours are either here or in North Range, you have graves there with some of the Haights in them. But ours was the Baptist Church and the graveyard there is quite old. There are two lots there, three counting Dad's and Mothers. And when Aunt Olga dies, she is going to be buried in one of the.

Where is Aunt Olga now?

Tideview Terrace. 101 years old.

She is Olga Denton! O.k. She is on our list! Goodness, I am sure she is as sharp as a tack!

Well she is, but she …………

We did Sue Bragg.

Yes. She is really alert.

Yes, she is. But I laughed, - we went with our youngest interviewer - she is only 20 and she is very sweet. And she got little flustered because Sue Bragg didn't grow up in North Range, she grew up in New Brunswick, so therefore she just threw all the childhood questions out the window. So, Jennifer comes to the next question which is "What do you remember about your wedding" but instead she says to Sue Bragg with this sweet smile "What do you remember about your wedding night?"

Sue probably told her!!!

So when your grandmother moved from Sweden all by herself, what kind of contact did she maintain with her family, then?

They wrote regularly in Swedish until she became blind, and as I said, her friend Aunt Annie had her sight longer than Grammie did, so as long as she was here too you could get the letters read. But after Grammie became blind, no one could read them. And they lost touch and Grammie had cataracts and she wished for two things. To see again and to hear from Sweden. She would get a letter but they couldn't do anything about it. I don't know why they didn't write back in English, but they didn't . Whether they just didn't think about it but she had a cataract removed and she could see. So she only had the one wish. When she died, Mother wrote to them the only way Mother could, in English. Her cousin wrote back in English. They could have been corresponding all that time. But then they came over to see where Grammie had lived and all that, and spent time at the place, and so connections were made at that time. And then I went over to visit. I went over on course for special education, Denmark and Sweden, and then I said I know what I'm going to do . So I thought maybe I had also given the impression that I had fun in school and there was not the serious side to school.

No, I don't think so.

Because there was a serious side. I didn't do too well, because I had too much fun, but anyway, it became much more serious after that.

Well, if you stuck with it. You were the only one left in Grade 8, was it?

After Grade 8.

And you certainly made it clear that you did expect to go on. You had ambitions.

You had the ambitions to go, but you always thought you were to be married too. I don't know how the two things blended. But I was expected to become independent - there was never anything you see, I can remember, now no one is going to take care of you the rest of your life.

That was unusual.

You have to take care of yourself. And Dad was the same. You must take care of yourself. And so I was very concerned after I got married that I was going to get pregnant before I got my permanent license. I didn't.

I interviewed Mrs. Margaret Miller the other day. She is in Landsdowne. She was a teacher. She taught 6 years but as soon as she got married, she stopped teaching.

They all did that. And I didn't think of that part, all I knew at the time that I can recall was that I had to get that permanent license. My, I had to have that. And when I got the first year in without being pregnant, I knew when we got married that I could get the first summer in and I had to have two summers. Grade 12 and two summers. I knew I was alright there, but boy, I had that other one to go and well, that worked out too.

I am a little confused. You went to Normal school and got your temporary license. Now, if you hadn't decided to go to summer school and get your permanent license, could you have continued teaching another ten years if you wanted to? Why did they call it a temporary and a permanent license?

Well, you wanted a permanent license. I'm not sure how long you could have taught on the temporary. I don't know because it wasn't in my ken - I just don't know. I was so bent on getting that permanent one. And maybe you had only so many years, I'm not certain.

Did you make more money once you got a permanent license?

No. It was based on your years experience and your level of license. And that would have given you an "A", "A" first class. Superior first class. Grade 12, plus that permanent license.

Where did you live when you were in Halifax those summers.

I lived in residence at Sheriff Hall. Both years and walked over - Not Sheriff Hall, Pine Hill Residence. Sheriff Hall is the residence on Dalhousie. No, Pine Hill Divinity College - Pine Hill Residence.

You could have swum in Northwest Cove there?

Yes, it was right on the cove there. We use to walk down all the time. On the arm.

So how long were you married when you adopted Charlie?

We adopted him in 1962, so we were married in1948. So we were married 14 years.

Was it difficult to adopt a baby in those days?

Ours was a private adoption. We kept in touch with the Social Service so it would be above board in every way. I don't think we had to, but we did that. And then we had him a year, and after that we went to court and it was permanent.

Was he a little infant when you adopted him?

Eight days old. We picked him up. Born in Saint John.

A big change in your life, after being married all those years. Pleasant change.

We knew when he was being born. I said I don't know what an expectant mother feels like, but I know what an expectant father feels like. It was great having him.

Did you take a year off from teaching then?

No. No. Not after 14 years. I was going to University then too. About the same time I started back.

What month did you get Charlie?

April. April 20^th.

When we were here last time, Joanne just started asking you if you had any experience with the Poor Farm, and then we ended our interview.

It was a place to stay away from. Very weird. But we went there at Christmas time to take goodies. I don't know if it was something to do with the church in Barton/ Brighton, but Mother took us with her and she was delivering some things for them.

You were very young then.

Before seven, so that was before we moved to Rossway. It was just dreary being there. And I wouldn't want to go back. I was too young. It was dark.

But I know poor people went there to be taken care of if they had no one to take care of them. And if they had difficulty, if they were mentally handicapped they went, so I don't know.

And unwed mother too, I understand. And their children were taken from them. That to me is the saddest part.

Oh, yes, and unwed mothers.

Sue Amero interviewed Olive Hayden. She and her husband ran the poor farm for several years. And she would tell us of a black woman coming, she was going to have a baby, she already had 6 little babies, and they took all of her children and brought them to the colored children's home in Halifax and the mother had to stay at the Poor Farm. I find that heartbreaking.

I don't know the culture at all, usually they took care of them. Whereas in our culture they didn't. They weren't so ostracized in the black culture, that I know about. I wouldn't even pretend to know anything about it. But they had more sensitivity to it. So that is a strange incident. But I know they had a home for them in Halifax. But of course, if she had no one to take care of her, that would be what would happen.

Heartbreaking for everybody, though. Children and the mother.

Yes, it would be for them. But I don't think it was for society. It was expected. That's the sad part too.

When you were teaching on the Neck you wouldn't have had any experience with racial differences, but in Smith's Cove did you have any black students?

No, no. They had Conway, their own school and at that same time they still had their elementary school out in Acaciaville. But they were one of the first groups after that that moved into Digby. The Junior High had already moved in. But they moved in - they had their elementary school - and then the higher grades above Grade 6 were coming into here too. Would have had Hawkins, that would have been part native - first nations. They lived in Joggins Bridge. Oh, there was a black family too - The Francis'. They were closer to the center of Smith's Cove. They came to school. I had one girl. I can see her now. That was the only one. And the Francis' had always come there but only the one girl.

And the other children treated her well?

Yes. I don't - sometimes it's hard to say, because sometimes you weren't sensitive to it, - so many people say they didn't see any of it, and I would like to think that I did. That I was sensitive enough to know. But I'm not sure of that. But to me there wasn't any.

How has the community of Gulliver's Cove changed from your earliest memories to now?

The people have gone. The old families have gone. Some of their descendents are there and the houses look different and the houses are torn down and other ones built, and there is no factory at the end of the cove. Very little fishing activity anymore, the weirs are gone,

They were on the Bay of Fundy side?

Oh yes.

Was that the only community that put them out on the Bay of Fundy side?

No. You had Sandy Cove had them there. I don't know if Centerville did. So that's gone. Now you have the paved road, of course, - many of the homes are just so different. Even mine looks different because Grammie and Grampie let it go down and when I can first remember it , it was in need of paint and mother and Dad changed all of that and they changed the windows, they were small pane windows and now they're just the four panes. And so that changed the whole look of even of that house, but the rest of it has been the same. Nothing has been changed. But the house next to it has been changed - even the look of it has changed. Many of them that are down there now - the shape of some of them are the same but they don't look the same to me and some of the nice old ones are gone.

Has the population changed?

I imagine at times there are more young people there. I don't think there are now. But I think like maybe 20 years ago there were more. I'm not sure of that.

When the factory was there, where would all the employees come from?

Right there. I think Ern Raymond from Centerville would have run it. He also ran the one - that would be Keith Raymond - it would have been his father. And then he took over many of those businesses. But Keith Raymond would have been the main one for Maritime Fish, the same company that owned the one that is down here where Gary Moore has his boat works, right down here at the end of town. It would have been Maritime Fish - all those buildings when you see them in pictures. I think he would have been the only one outside of Rossway unless young people who went to work there in the fish in the summer. I think it only would have been in the summer. But all the young people would work there in the summer. We didn't. Ours wasn’t towards the fishing. I worked in my Uncle's store as I told you before. I think it would have been the young men working there. I can't remember the young women going there to work. But I'm not sure.

What did most of your friends end up doing? Your girlfriends.

Except for a couple of families getting married, and either moving away where the husband was or , but there was the Banks family, the Peters family, they were like double cousins, their parents were first cousins, Peters, Banks and ourselves, who went on to Education. Others of them, by that time the war had started, some of the girls had work in the hostels here. Harvey Peters is the only one in Gullivers Cove from the Peters family. And his daughter married a Carty who is there. So there is like two. Harvey had six brothers and sisters, seven with himself, and he is the only one. And his one. Banks - Keith Banks is on the old property now. And that is on the main highway. But it was the Peters that lived in the cove and their Grandparents Peters lived there too, you see. Lewis' are there now but they moved in from out on the main road. VanTassels weren't there, the Harnish's and Bakers were there when I was young, and some of them are still there.

Harnish is a south shore name too, isn't it.

Yes, that is where they came from and the Bakers . They were related. Mrs. Harnish was a Baker. The Mrs. Harnish that I knew. But a lot of them have moved away. Raymonds were there, and Vivian Raymond is still there and her son is still there in the same house. She is the oldest one down there now.

How old is she?

In her 80's. Then I think Harvey Peters and myself are the next ones. We are both the same age. Something like that I think.

When you were growing up, was it still normal for people to go to the States to work.

No, it wasn't. Not when I was growing up. I can't name you anyone that went there except for a summertime part time job. They went to pick apples in the fall, some of them. There was a bit of time when people on the neck did that. They either went to the valley or the States, and my husband was doing that when I met him. A little later than that they went to Maine or to Mass. To pick apples. But they did that only for a short period of time, about 5 years, and they stopped doing that. No there wasn't a trend to work in the States. I think the fishing became much better, and the weirs. There was always jobs for those that left school. When I was growing up they just went to work. Always jobs.

There weren't many who finished school in those days?

They didn't have to. They all earned a lot more than I did in my lifetime. They probably earned it in 10 years, and if they went into dragging afterwards, they earned very well compared with what I did with all the education I did. But I kept telling my son, just plug away at it, you will come out all right. He use to look at his friends who would go with their dragger fishermen fathers and earn a truck for the summer.

What did Charles end up doing?

He is a computer programmer now with Sobeys. But he had a hard time of it. He had the education but he couldn't get work. The X-generation. The baby boomers plugged them off. He was towards the end of that x-generation, but they couldn't get work no matter how well educated. As a person that had come through trying to get that education, and making it work and having it work, and deciding your children would be that better. And our children could have the education, we could afford to have them go to university , and then they ended up with no jobs. And I don't think I can understand it yet. I can understand all the demographics, and understand all of that, but still can't accept it or still can't quite understand it. And I think anyone, if they own up to it, it is the same thing. Unless you had money and you never knew the difference. And it didn't matter if you had money if your son had work or not. And your daughter it didn't matter anyway, she just had to marry somebody that could keep her. Now I think those people, my friends, some of those families, the Banks', they had come up here to go to school, I would say they led the way because we saw it. And it could happen. And of course, Mother and Aunt Olga did too. And the Bank's, - a Robbins family who are good friends of my mother and Aunt Olga, two girls Helen and Mildred both the same age as Mother and Aunt Olga. They came up here with an Aunt who owned an Inn here and they went to school here and they set the pattern for girls, you see.

So maybe your small community was different even from others on the neck, then?

Yes. I think maybe if there was a pattern somewhere, that probably was what you had the models. The older young women of the Banks family, that was Lorne and Edna Banks, all of them had come up here and some of them are 10 years older than I am and some of them were only two years ahead of me and I had their books. We had to buy our books, by the way, from Grade 9 up. No free education.

I just happened to be reading Olive Hayden's interview this morning, and she told Sue that she left school in Grade 10 because she couldn't afford to buy her books. What a shame.

And you got the second hand books if you could and this was a good source for them. Clide Banks, she is now Clide Foster and living out in Bear River now, I bought a lot of mine from her. As long as you took the same subjects. If you bought the books anyway, because you didn't know what subject you were going to take. I didn't take biology, so I had a book I didn't use. But you bought the books because you could get them second hand.

Do you still have any of those books?

Oh yes. I have them. Hilma used them after I got through them. She came the next year. And my father had said, Nola, you may, when I asked if I could come to school in Digby, he said you may, but remember your sister is right behind you.

Meaning you had to set a good example?

And I had one year.

One year?

I couldn't fail. No failing. That's where the pressure came. This was my chance and I understood it well. That's all he said, but I understood. But he helped me get a place, he helped set me up here, Mother helped to make sure I was getting along alright. All of that. But I was told this was my chance, Hilma was right behind me. She had to come and have her chance the next year. Then there were two of us in here in Digby, so that was hard for them.

Did Hilma board at the same place you did?

No, no. Separate. But then Dad got work at the base at that very time. We always felt that he got work at the base, steady work, good employment, good pay, just at the time we needed to go on. Both Hilma and I. And then before Hilma finished nurses training, he became ill and had nothing. He had steady work long enough to get us underway in education. That's all.

You were still young when he died, I mean in the terms of young adults.

Yes, I was married by then. He died when he was 57, he must have died in '54 and I was married in '48. Something like that.

Was tourism important at all in Gulliver's Cove?

No. no. O.k. We were different that way again. I think I told you that in building the house down there Grammie had roomers came in the summer. That continues on after the Pines. Grammie worked at the Pines, and people came to the Pines and stayed all summer.

Mostly Americans?

Yes, mostly Americans. And then Mother and Aunt Olga as they became teenagers, they worked in the various tourism places that kept the hotels around Digby here as well. So in this process, two families Pilpells and Goodkind, they stayed at the Pines Hotel and they knew Grammie's cooking. And after Grammie got through cooking at the Pines and didn't go back anymore, they came down where she was to get the cooking for the summer. So they came and stayed at our house in Rossway in Guilliver's Cove each summer. So ours was like an Inn. No, they came and stayed the whole summer. To get her cooking.

How old were you then?

The last summer they came, it would have been the year before we moved over to Rossway. Grammie was quite capable - Grammie and Grampie both were at that stage, you see. But the last summer she asked Mother to come over and do the work. She was at that stage that she couldn't. And so Mother took Hilma and Cortland and came over. I think they stayed two weeks. And I didn't want to come. I wanted to stay home with Dad. I was 7 years old. And they said I could. It was so wonderful staying home with Dad. And he gave me a quarter three days, three trips down to Grant's store in Barton to spend the quarter. Three trips. A quarter! I don't know we made out. We cooked, but neither one of us could cook. Dad couldn't either. But anyway we made out. And that was grand because both Dad and Mother let me stay. I was lonesome the first night. I got upstairs, I remember to sleep, and Cortland and Hilma weren't there, so I came downstairs and said "Dad, I'm lonesome, could I sleep with you". Yes, yes, if you want to. So it was a wonderful time.

Is your house in Rossway fairly large, then?

Yes, it is. The ell has two bedrooms upstairs, the kitchen pantry and porch. Then the main house has a diningroom, a bathroom which was a bedroom, and two other bedrooms and a livingroom. So it is huge.

And those two families, Goodkinds and Pilpells, did they always travel together? Were they friends of each other?

I don't remember. They came at the same time when Grammie was younger and able. I have forgotten which ones it was at last - I think maybe Pilpells, but I'm not certain.

Would she get them three meals a day?

Oh, everything. Just like you would at a hotel. Just like that. And they would have lamb for them when them came.

Do you remember where they were from?

No, I would have to look it up. But they kept in touch all along.

If we get to the point where we want to make some copy photographs of old photographs, do you have any at all of the community, or the schools that you taught in, or any of those?

Yes, I have the classes. I don't have the buildings so much, but I have the classes.

When you were growing up you mean?

I don't have any of myself in the class at school. I have when I taught - classes I taught. Sunday school picnics I have as I was growing up.

Can you think of any topics I haven't touched on that you think are important?

Not so much, I think that sets the background and everything else I have done. By the time I had - after 14 years of marriage I was well on my way to further education. But that was when I started further education. But by that time we knew that Victor had emphysema and we knew his life - if we wanted to keep the same lifestyle as we had then we knew one of us had to earn more money.

And you were the main breadwinner?

Yes, he started going back for education too, because there was a lot you could get through the armed forces. But he had had Grade 9 only, and he felt that if he made a low mark, he did it by correspondence, he felt he shouldn't. I think he was comparing to mine as a teacher. But I use to say, Well, Vic you know what marks I made in Grade 10. You've seen them. You're not doing bad, you're doing well. But he couldn't seem make the difference between having a …………..that was straight facts, or writing out - there was a part you always had to have on business and interest and cheques and you couldn't do that to make a perfect mark. Some of the others you could. But he couldn't want to go down to the 70's. He didn't want to do that. Well, we talked about it, and I said well, I'd like to go on if you don't want to. I'd like to. But it means a hard row too. But it would have been worse for him to have picked up and gone. At least I had been in that milieu and so on. And it was never easy, but once I started it was always, I'll get the next license. It was always that. Which meant a year's work at university. And what I was doing, I was doing it in a year and a half. I was taking five subjects - two in the summer and one each in the winter on each side of that summer. Taken by travelling to Acadia or else some of them were put on over here at school because there were about 10 of us that were doing the same thing. Ten teachers from this area. So we would get it put on there when it was those basic courses. After it got to be when you wanted your major, then you had to go your own way. So we would try, there would be four or five, a core of us that wanted a certain basic subject, like history, or physiology, some of the 100 levels, and then we'd put it on because anybody else who wanted it could always use that. And so I did that year after that. But it was hard in the summers, and as I told you with Charlie, Mother and I would arrange, the first summer he was born in April so that meant he could be taken care of easily and so mother said she would stay here. She came and lived with us after Dad died, and so she would stay that summer. She always went to Rossway in the summers, and I didn't want to take that away from her. But she said she'd stay that summer. And so she did. Now the next summer he would be up running around so I stayed home that summer. But after that, I pretty much went summers and winters.

Not much vacation time.

No, never. But that was the way I could do it. Work during the winter and education during the summer. It was always Acadia then. The first two I went to Halifax - that was Department of Education - they put on the summer school. And after that was over, I kept going to the University of Maine. Then Charlie was old enough then. And Charlie would always come over on a weekend. I came home almost every weekend from University of Maine. It was very easy to come from Orono here. Catch the ferry Friday night - the Digby - I'd come to Saint John and come across on the ferry and get here 3 o'clock Saturday morning and Victor would meet me. I'd leave the car on the other side with the wharf workers cars, and I’d come across and Victor would meet me here 3 o'clock in the morning. And then I'd have the weekend here and Sunday afternoon, the boat would leave here at noon and get in Saint John at 2:30 and at suppertime I'd be at university eating supper. It was just as easy in a way as going to Acadia. Then I'd study as I went across on the boat to get ready for the next day.