| RALEIGH BATES NOVEMBER 7, 2000 INTERVIEW BY CHRISTINE CALLAGHAN |
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| Q. What is your full name? A. Raleigh Foley Bates. Q. Who were your parents? A. Annie was my mother and Mendel was my father. Q. And what was your Mother's name before she married your father? A. She was a Prime. She was a sister to Howard's father. There was Byron, Hebron, Melbourne, Percy, Cecil, boys, then there was Aunt Cora, Aunt Audrey, they was five girls and four or five boys. Q. Big family. A. Yeh, they was all born and brought up there where Howard's living. Q. Is that so. O.K. And Howard and Stella are brother and sister, aren't they? A. Yeh. Q. So they would be cousins of yours. A. Yeh. And Clifton was another, that fella that drowned down there at Dartmouth. He was a brother to Janet Moore, Rowena, Marion, Daniel, were all her kids. Q. Do you remember what your mother's parents names were? Your grandparents? A. I know, but I can't think of it now. If I was up at the graveyard I could tell ya. Q. Were they still alive when you were a little fellow? A. No. Her father died - he was only about 65 when he died. They a boat come in here down at Haines' wharf, with coal, and he was in the cart dumping tubs out of coal in the cart, something scared the oxen and they ahead and he fell out and it wasn't long and he died. Q. Who were your grandparents on your father's side? A. Gilbert and Cynthia Bates. Q. So Gilbert Bates that use to live here, is a cousin of your, then? A. Yeh. There is Gilbert, Frank and Neil. Three boys. Q. Where were you born, Raleigh? A. You know where Earl Crocker is livin? I was born right up there in that house. Q. And what year was that? A. 1928. Q. And how many in your family? A. Two. Q. And who else is there? You and A. Arnold. Q. And how old is Arnold? A. 73-74. Q. Just a couple years older than you, then. A. Yeh. Q. Did you grow up in that house that Earl is living in? A. No. I was only two years old when we moved down here. Q. And where did you move to? A.Down where I'm living now. Uncle Sam and Aunt Mame lived there, and they gave the old man the place if he'd moved down and took care of them. Q. What was Uncle Sam's last name? A. Thurber - Sam Thurber. Q. He's the one that went away with the North West Mounted Police? A. Yeah. Q. And he was an Uncle of yours? A. Yeah. Q. Do you remember him, Raleigh? A. Yeah. Q. How old were you when he died, then? A. Oh, I was five or six years old. Q. Do you remember him telling you any stories about going out west? A.No, he'd speak about it once in a while. Q. Did he died before Aunt Mame? A. No, Aunt Mame died first. The kids set a grass fire, and they all went out to fight the fire, she went in the house after that and she couldn't walk. Must have done something to her legs or something. Q. And then she died after that? A. She lived two or three years after we moved down here. Q. So the agreement was, if your parents looked after them, they would inherit the house. A. Yeah. Q. What did you call your Father? A. Daddy. Q. And what did you call your Mother? A. Mom. Q. And can you remember what kind of a day your mother would put in, what her work day was like? A. Well, she'd work around the house, churn, mix bread, everything like that. Wash. Q. She would make bread every day? A. About every other day. Q. Would your family have a garden? A. Oh yeah. We had cows and everything. Q. How many cows would you have? A. Two or three. Q. Why would you need that many cows? A. Well, we could sell milk. Q. Oh, you would sell the milk? A. Oh Yeah. Q. Who would you sell the milk to? A. Around the town here. Work all day, come home and milk two or three cows, and bottle that and you'd have to go around town delivering the milk. Q. When you were a little boy? A. Yeah. Q. I suppose in those days you wouldn't pasteurize the milk? A. No. Just sell it fresh. Q. And would you sell it door to door or just to the stores? A. No. Door to door. Q. Do you remember how much you would sell it for? A. Oh, 12 - 14 quarts sometimes. Q. And what would you get for a quart? A. About 10 cents. Q. And what would they grow in their garden? A. Potatoes, squash, carrots, beets, peas, turnip, all that stuff. Q. Where was the garden? A. Out there in the field. Q. Back of Carson's place. A. Yeh, all through there. Q. And what else would they raise for their own food? A. Oh, cucumbers. You should have seen the garden when Mama got through. Q. What do you mean? A. We'd plant it, and make rows, like carrots rows and stuff, she'd go out there and plant everything full of cucumber seed. Then you couldn't get up and down the rows. Q. She liked her cucumbers!. A. Well she done up all she wanted, and different ones come there, and Lloyd Prime came down and wanted to know if she had any cucumbers. She said you wait, I'll get your some cucumbers. She went out, and begin to haul these cucumbers out between the rows and fire them up to him. He says, for God's sake, where are you getting those cucumbers! Q. She was a good farmer. A. Yeah. She was. Lloyd and I was relation. Q. Would you be cousins? A. And Lawrence. Q. I don't know Lawrence. A. No, he died before you fellas come here. Lloyd and Lawrence's sister, Lillian. Q. Lillian Prime. A. Then there was Beulah and Baxter by his second wife. Q. What did your father do for a living? A. Oh, fish and worked in the fish plant and stuff. Q. What would he fish for? A. Cod fish, haddock, anything he could get on the hook. Q. Did he own his own boat? A. Had a rowboat. Q. And where would you fish from? A. Beautiful Cove. Q. Did you have a fish shack, Raleigh? A. Yeah. There use to be 4 fish houses down there under the bank there one time at Beautiful Cove. Q. Who else owned them? A. Oh, I don't know who owned them. But You know that one that use to be next to the bluff there? Well had that one first then Elmer got it. And a, Mike Finigan had one just above it, two story, he use to stay there a week. Q. Where was his home? A. Up where Carman Nase to live. Q. So he would come down and spend a week at Beautiful Cove? A. Yeah. Some of the boys would come down and some would stay home and do the farming. When grub started getting low, he'd send the boy back to the house to get more grub. Q. He just liked living down there! A. Well, see it was handy - baiting trawl and stuff. Q. What do you remember about going to school, Raleigh? A. I didn't go to school that much. Q. You didn't? How far did you go? A. Grade 7. Q. And why did you leave? A. Didn't like the teacher. Q. Do you remember who the teacher was? A. Yeah. Lawrence Hersey. Q. And why didn't you like Lawrence Hersey? A. Oh, he was a bugger. Q. Was he? A. I said it'd either be me or him if I stayed in school, so I quit. Went two days and quit. Q. Just a personality conflict, I guess? A. Yeah. Q. Did you get in trouble with him? A. I would have if I'd stayed there. Q. What do you remember about that school? What did it look like? A. Oh, it was a nice school house. It had four rooms in it. Two upstairs and two downstairs. The lower room downstairs was the primary, then the room up towards the hall was from grade 4 - 7 and the high school was upstair. Q. And how high did high school go? What grade? A.12. Q. So do you remember what your parents said when you came home and said you weren't going back to school. A. Said either go back to school or go to work and I said I'd rather go to work than go back to school. Q. So what did you do then? A. Went to work. Q. Where? A. Down to the point. Q. Fish point? A. Yeah. Q. What were you doing there? A. Oh cutting fish, they never cut fish then, they finned them, skinned them and canned fish. Q. Whose fish plant was that? A. Connor Brothers. Q. And what kind of fish were they catching? A. Mostly hake. All haddock and stuff went out fresh. They use to be boats come from across the bay to get the haddock. Q. From New Brunswick? A. Yeah. Q. And that would be shipped out fresh? A. Yeah. Q. And the hake you would can? A. Yeah, hake and pollock. They canned pollock. They would smoke the pollock and call it smoked finnan haddie. Q. So your job was to what when you started? A. Oh, gut fish, skin fish, fin fish, anything come along. Have to fill the gurry cookers once or twice a day. Q. Gurry is the waste? A. Yeah. Q. And what would happen to that? A. Well, they made fish meal out of it. After it was cooked, they grind it up and bag it up and ship it away. Q. How much would you make when you first started working? A. When I first started work down there I was going to school, and vacation I got 10 cents an hour. Men got 17 cents an hour. Q. Were there women working there? A. Oh yeh. Q. What would the women make? A. About 10 cents an hour. Q. They didn't make as much as men did. A. All they did was pick the fish. Q. Picked the bones out? A. Yeh. Q. How long did you work at Connor Brothers? A. Well I worked there quite a few years, when I wasn't doing something else. Q. Like what? A. Working on the road or something. I went down there one day, and they said they wasnt nothing for me to do. I said, good, I can get job. I wasnt' home half an hour and I was on the road work. Q. Were you, doing what? A. Oh, mostly all I done, was sit on the back of the tractor, the grader they use to grade the roads with, if a rock came out, jump off, had a rake, fire it out of the road, jump back on and keep on going. Q. So what year would this have been? A. Oh, in the '40's. Q. When did they actually pave the roads on the islands? A. Oh, around '58 or something like that, I guess. Q. How often did they have to grade them before they paved them? A. Well, they start and go so far each day. Then they'd be a roller come behind them and roll it down. Q. Would they do that every year? A. All summer long whenever the roads needed it, they would grade the road. Q. Where would they keep that equipment? A. Oh, around different places. They had a grader here and most times it was . truck. Q. This was past the time they'd be using oxen. When you were growing up, how important were oxen still? A. Everybody had an ox . George Young had big yolk cattle, Sam Young had big yolk cattle, Charlie Young had a horse, we had an ox, Q. Just one? A. Yes. Q. What would you use it for? A. Haul wood, plow with and stuff. Mow hay with it. Uncle Perc had big yolk cattle. Q. How did you train it, the ox. A. We use to put it in a yolk when it was about a year old, when we'd turn them out in the spring, strap it on and let them wear it all day and that would get them use to it. Q. And how long would they live? A. Oh, they live a long while, if you didn't get mad at them and kill the buggers. Q. What other animals did your father have for working with? A. That's the only animal. Oh, we had some horses at the last of it. Q. What kind of horses did you have? Big draft horses? A. Yeh. I had a pretty one. Q. What did it look like? A. Black and white with strip down its face. But I was the only one could do anything with it. Q. How long did you have that horse? A. Didn't have it very long. He'd balk. I'd put him on a cart pulling half a dozen bags of lime in, when we owned that field then. We was planting up there and we was going to put lime in - I got up far as Clarence's gate and he balk back. Started backing up, I said back up you want to. I took him down and put him in the yard, went and got a stick about that big around and reached from the cart right up to its leg, forward shoulders. He got up and started walking and I came on to him, and he went up on that flat there above where Webb built that house, start to lay down. When he start to lay down, I came on to him again, I beat him down on the ground and beat him down on his feet. After that, anybody had him and he started balking , and I was around, all I had to do was let a hoot out of me. He'd dig in and go like the devil. Q. He'd listen to you after that. A. See, I conquered him right in the first of it. Fella I got it from, he came down and I told him. Well I got one up there, come up Sunday and see it. So Lloyd Prime took us Sunday to see it. He came down to get the horse, he wouldn't even go to the pasture to get the horse. I went to the pasture and walked up to him and put a rope on him and brung him up to the house. I said here. Take it out and put it in the truck. He said I ain't taking the God Damn thing. Take it out and put it in the truck for me, will ya. He came down after that, and I asked him what did you do with the horse? He said I took it way back the hell in the woods and traded It for a shot gun. Q. What would you make when you were working on the roads? A. Oh, about 50 cents an hour. Q. Would that be considered a good wage then? A. Oh, yeh. Q. Were you still living at home? A. Yeh. Q. How old were you when your parents died? A. Well, the old man died in 1967 . Q. And how old was he at that time? A. 70 odd. And Mamma died in 1979. She was 76 when she died. Elmer died same year, June. He was buried on Saturday, and Malcolm went up to see Clarence Saturday night and Clarence died that same night he was buried. Q. Where are they buried? A. Down there by home. Q. Which is the oldest graveyard in the village, Raleigh? A The lower part of this one up here on the hill is the oldest graveyard in the village. First graveyard. That vestry to the church, that set up there the graveyard. That's where they use to go to church first. They built this church, then they put skids under that and took cattle and hauled that down there and joined it on the church. Q. They actually moved quite a few buildings in this village, haven't they. Do you remember them moving many buildings? A.You know that house down at the foot of school street, that was moved from around the cove. Q. How did they do that? A. Cattle. Q. How long would that take? A. Maybe take them a couple of days. Q. Why do you think they moved it? A. It joined on a house around there, and they didn't want it. Just unhooked it from the house and hauled it around there and made a house out of it. Q. What do you remember about houses along the road to Cow Ledge down here? A. There was 5 houses down there. There was a Thurber house, there where that cement is down there. That was a Thurber house. Then Grampie and them lived just below that, that's where he was born and brought up there around Cow Ledge. And then there is another Bates family down there. You wouldn't know them, she died quite a while ago. Lola Crocker she was. Her and Virginia Swift. They was born and brought up there around Cow Ledge. Then there was a house below them again, then on the side towards the water , they was a Blackford house. Q. Almost like a little village down there! Do you remember that, Raleigh? A. I remember where the cellars and things use to be, but that ..You remember that fellow that built that new house? Well, it is just to the nothered to that , down where the road goes. He came home - his daughter was married to Westport - he went over and stayed the winter with her, came home and put on a fire, put his bed clothes up there on the stove to air, went out somewhere and one fell on the stove and caught fire and burned his house down. Q. Hate it when that happens!!! You dug a lot of graves in this village, haven't you. How did you come to do that, Raleigh. A. Well, Horace Churchill dug the graves first, and he got so he couldn't do it, and he wanted to know if we'd do it. Q. Who's we? A. The old man and I. We dug quite a few. Q. How long would it take you to dig a grave? A. Oh, good diggin, we'd dig one in a day. Good diggin. Q. It would take a whole day though, eh? So when they say six feet under, is that right? A. Four. Q. You'd dig them four feet deep. So when a coffin was put in there is only about two feet of earth on top of that, eh? How would you know where to dig the graves? A. Well, we had a plan. Q. Where is that plan now? A. Oh, don't ask me. Different ones had it. Q. Did you ever make a mistake? A. No. We knew pretty well where all the lots were without the plan. Q. How much room is left in that graveyard? A. Up here? Not too much left up here. Some up on 5 down towards the lower side down towards the woods. Q. How old is the graveyard by Frankie's? A. Oh, I don't know. Been there ever since I can remember. Q. And would you dig graves in all three graveyards? A. Yeh. Q. Just depending on where people wanted . A. Wherever they owned a grave, dig a grave. Q. What would you do in the winter if the ground was frozen? A. Dig it just the same. Get down if there was too much frost, we'd go cut some brush and put down it and set it afire it would loosen the frost up. Q.Do you remember, well I know you remember because Derek asked you about this, but would you tell us about the time the boat blew up off the Islands here. A. It was out here in the bay, Sunday morning. There was a bang. Q. You heard this bang? A. Yeah. Didn't know what it was first. Something torpedoed it, that's what happened. Q. So this was during the war? A. Yeah. Q. Do you remember what year it was, Raleigh? A. About 1947 or 1948. Q. So how did you find out what had happened. A. Well, it was either torpedoed or blown up. That next, three or four days, Sunday afternoon was a beautiful afternoon, calm, smooth and everything, Earl Tibert went from his place to the shore. Went up, he was going up Flour Cove road, and he picked a fella up at Beautiful Cove, he said I seen something off quite a ways in the water and it looked like two things hanging on him. Some of the fisherman took some of the boats and gone out and had a look to see what it was. It was a big long spool that had some rope on it. That must have - that spool we found in Beautiful Cove. You found that in Beautiful Cove? And we picked the fireman up in Beautiful Cove. The fireman? What a body you mean? Yeh. You found the body? Well, Les Finigan, and the old man, Elmer and all of us went down. Didn't expect nothing. There that spool was in that rock about - what they call half tide rock there - he was laying there. Course I had to go tell the Doctor. Who was the Doctor then? Dr. Weir. So, I come and told him and he said where is he? I says he's half tide. Its pretty near first of the flood. He said, you wait, I gotta call the Mounties. He called the Mounties and the Mounties said where is he? He says the fella right here has been down there, he can tell ya. He is half tide. Its about the first of the flood now. I said time you fellas get down, the water is going to be up by his head. They said any place you can put him? I said yes, we'll take him up and put him in the fishhouse til you get there. He said go tell Tibert to help take him up to the fishhouse. So we went down and found him right there. He said he was still alive when he come in there, but he didn't have strength enough to get out of the surf. That morning Elmer and I went clear and down ..and back along the shore and didn't see a thing. He must have been in on the rocks or something. But he wasn't injured? No. All he had on was a pair of shoes, pair of overalls and a shirt. And was this the same day you heard the bang? No, two or three days after. Esrom Thurber and Carol went out around Dartmouth to pick their net, and they picked a fellow up down around Dartmouth. He must have washed off and went right down through the passage. Do you know where the boat was when it exploded? Well, it must have been up off Flour Cove somewhere. Now, when you got that body up to the fishhouse, what happened to it then? Had to leave it there see, til the Mounties came down. They came down and said are there any places to put him. We said Alton, the undertaker, he might have a place to put him. He went and seen him and he said yes, put him up in my building. So in the meantime, they called, Esrom and them called and said they took the body up there. We had to go around and help bring that one up to Alton's building. So, they was there for a week. What time of year was this, Raleigh? In the wintertime. About February, along there. So, last of all, Mounties said is there any place we can bury them here? We said yes. Bury them here. We had to go dig them two graves. In the meantime, one of them was a tall slim fella like the Doctor, so he gave Alton a suit to put on to him, and somebody else gave Alton a suit to put on the other fella. God, you might have tried dressing one of them chairs as dressing them! We had to help Alton dress them. We tried to get the coat on, we couldn't get the coat on. We ripped it right down the back, put their arms, tied the back of the coat back together again. They were pretty stiff were they? Stiff! And half froze. Oh, they had a good service for them. We even had them right out in the church. Did people in the village . Oh yeh, quite a crowd turned out to it. Were they in caskets? Yeh. Oh yeh, they had nice caskets.
Oh I don't know who paid for it. We got the money for digging graves. But the caskets would cost money too, eh? But I think they had a fund or something that paid for that. We had to wait for a month before we got our money. Raleigh, in those days, when there was a wake, and people came to the wake, would they leave the casket open? Sometimes. Sometimes they wouldn't. There was no custom. No. A lot of people had the funeral right in the house. Then if the door wasn't big enough to take the casket out through, they'd have to take out a window and take it out the window. Now, I don't want to get too gory, but I'm curious. Alton was the undertaker. Yes. Would he embalm the bodies? At the last he did, but at the first of it he didn't. So what was his job mainly? When you called the undertaker what did he do? Well, he'd come and lay them out in the house - In the family's house? Yeh. Then he'd bring a casket down and put them in the casket. You'd go pick out the casket you wanted. He'd take it down and put them in the casket. Did Alton make the caskets? No he had them come from Yarmouth. Keith Cann use to bring them up from Yarmouth for him. How many would he have down there to choose from? Oh, he had ten or twelve to a time. He even had little caskets there for small kids. When you were growing up, I don't suppose that many small babies died as Oh, there was quite a few.
Oh, some had heart trouble and stuff. When you were working at Connor Bros. Were there other fish plants around as well? Oh yeh. There was Crocker Bros. Do you know where ferry slip is now, Crocker Brothers had a plant there.. And that plant Danny owns, that last one there, that was running. So there was three at fish point? Yeh. There use to be four at one time. Haines Bros. Had one. You know where Eddie Young built his fishhouse. Well, Haines Bros. Had a fish plant right there. How many people would those people have employed? Those four fish plants? Oh, quite a few. Like can you guess at all? Well, say they use to be 30 men or more worked at Connor's, besides women, ..lets see , they had two dressing tables down in shed, the men, and they'd hold maybe 10 apiece, and they'd be four on the box, the dressing box, guts and things, and then a feller tending the boiler, feller tending the fish meal plant, fella driving a truck. Oh, there was quite a crowd there. And would there be similar numbers in each fish plant? Well, some had less. But still a lot. And the fish would come from where, Raleigh? Boats. Oh, from Freeport? Oh yeh. I've seen them go off shore here haking and come in with 8-10 thousand, 12 thousand hake aboard of their boat. How would they catch those? On trawl. Six tubs of trawl. And would they fish year round? Some of them haddock all year and some lobster.
Lobstering in the summer? No, just in the winter. Well, I'll tell you one thing, the lobstering got so bad here one time there was only two or three small boats at it. Rest of the boats couldn't do nothing, they all went haddocking. You're saying the numbers of lobsters declined? Yeh. Then all at once it spruced right up again. How long were they low, how many years? Oh, eight or nine years maybe. When would that be? Oh, the '40's 0r '50's, along there. Would they fish both Fundy and St. Mary's Bay then for lobster? Oh, yeh. Go in row boats over there. Ed Albright and some men lobstered the Bay of Fundy six months in a row boat. You would? You said you and your Dad fished in a row boat. Was that for lobster or for fish? Lobster and fish both.
Build your traps. How many traps would you put out? Oh, sometimes we'd have 100 sometimes 125. Just the two of you in a row boat? How far along the shore would you go? We'd start from just above Cow Ledge and maybe go to 19 and sometimes up to Tiberts Landing. Where's that, beyond Browns' Knoll? Oh, yeh. You know where - well its just above Flour Cove. You would row all that way? How long would you be out at a time? Somedays all day if it was a good day. And would you always come home at night? Oh yeh. So you didn't have a little camp along the shore? No. I've seen us come down from up above, the wind struck here to the Westard, there is a point that runs out like that, and there are rocks come out just low water, just low water we rowed half an hour just to go by that rock. That's hard work!! Then we went down to Brown's Knoll come back to the ledge, had a rest, and rowed down to Beautiful Cove. It was so bad, there two or three gasoline boats stayed there, it was so bad they didn't dare to take hold of us to tow us down to Beautiful Cove, that's how rough it was.
Yeh. What would you bring for lunch on a long day like that? Oh, sandwiches. Tea. Thermos bottle. If you got time to eat it. What would you wear on your hands? Wool mittens.
Wet. I see icicles hanging on the end of them that long! You must have been freezing half the time. No. Had quite lot of clothes underneath your oil clothes, an that. It didn't get wet or anything. Had two pair of mittens. Who made your mittens? Mamma knit all our mittens. Double mittens. We had some sheep for awhile. And she would spin the wool, we'd wash it and pitch it, and they'd send it over to the French Shore and they'd and make rolls out of it. Then you'd send it back and they'd spin it, and knit it up and sell the mittens and stuff.
Oh, yes.
I guess. So the things she didn't make, your other clothes, where would you get them? Buy them at the store. Which store? Well, Austin Wescott had a store down there right across from that house on the corner, that house where Shirley McMullen's living, well that was his house. Well, he had a store right across the road from that.
Grocery store, and clothes. Anything you 'bout wanted, you go ask Austin for, yeh, you wait a few minutes, I think I've got it. He'd go upstair and dig around and come out with it. How long did he have that store? He had it for years. Is that building still there? No. Connor Bros. Bought it. He got too old to do it, Connor Bros. Bought that store and built that new one across the road there.
Yeh, MacIntyres. And they tore the old store down/ Do you remember what it looked like inside? Oh, yeh. All fixed up pretty good inside. It had counters one counter this way and up around, then there was a walkway in between the two counters one across this way and one up here aways, and the stove in there, and they use to be men there, there's where the men use to collect at night. And what would they do? Oh, talk. And then Norman Perry had that little shop down there in front of where Roy (Phylida) Leeman use to live. He bought it then Norman bought the store, and opened that up, and then the men use to collect at nights there. Were you a man then, were you grown up? Yeh, I fished then. I fished with Lloyd Prime for five or six years up on the north shore in the wintertime for lobster. You did lots of different things. You didn't work in the fish plant all your career, then. No. I lobstered with Robie five or six years, six - seven - eight years. Robie who? Tibert. Isabel's husband. Isabel's second husband. Yeh. So when did you retire? When I was sixty-four. I get some out of the money I paid in compensation and stuff before I get the old age pension. When you were a little boy, Raleigh, was Christmas a big deal?
We use to get a little bit of everything. I got a fire truck on year, had double ladder on it and everything.
I think they got it down to Austin's. I won't say for sure. What color was it, can you remember? Red. So you'd always get toys? Yeh. And any special treats? Oh,, yeh, different things. Yeh. We use to send to Eatons to get stuff for Christmas. Always send for a lot of clothes. Would they come in the mail then? Oh, yeh.
Well, years ago, see that little one is there to Hubie's place? They said that use to be the Post Office. You don't remember that? No. Frank Lent had the Post Office when I got so I remember. Set over on the corner where the Fire Hall is now. Then he give it up and Bernie Bouchie took it and he had the Post Office down in breast of his driveway. Then he gave it up and Sid Hooper took it up and moved that Post Office down to his place, and he give it up and they built this new one and he worked in there for awhile, then he give it up and Linda took it over. Then Franklin around the cove bought that post office and moved it around there in back of her house. They are always moving buildings! Nothing else to do !!! Do you remember - you know that little building Andy and I bought, that Haines Store, do you remember when that was a store? Yeh. What was it like? Oh, it was a nice little store. Who owned that? Ruby Haines. And Mae, that's his sister. And what did they have in there? Oh, groceries, clothes and stuff, and that lower part was a pool room. He built that on for a pool room. How many pool tables did they have in there? One or two. They use to be quite a crowd in there nights. He had a counter, come out this way and up across that way, and he use to serve lunches and ice cream, banana splits, whatever you want. That counter is still there, and the stools. So you've seen a lot of changes in Freeport then. I guess. What do you think the biggest change is? Oh, I don't know. Far as the houses and things go, there ain't been much change. Just the people I guess. How have the people changed? Well, ones died off and somebody else got their houses. Well, what have I not asked you that you'd like to talk about. When you were growing up, Raleigh, did people believe in ghost stories very much? No. Not much eh, no. There use to be a ghost up there at 5. Up there in that graveyard. Carman had his garage down across the road in breast of his driveway. And they said it use to come out there and go up the road behind him. Wasn't no ghost. Somebody with a sheet over them. You wouldn't know who that was, would you? I wouldn't like to say who it was. Did you guys get up to much mischief at Halloween.? All kinds. Like what? Taking fellas carts and hiding them. George Young sat out there in front of the house one Halloween night, half the evening. Eddie Young and I come along and he said come go in the house. We went in the house, we was told to get him in the house and they come and stole his cart while we was in the house. You know that hydro pole down there on the beach, took it down there backed it up to that, took some chains, went and got some rocks, and put the chain around the cart and around the pole and locked these rocks. George was half a day looking for his cart. Somebody said George, what you looking for? God damn bastards took my cart and I can't find it. There is a cart down there by Austin's chained to a hydro pole. He went down and it was his. He went in to Austins and said, Austin, did anybody get any padlocks here. He said, not that I know of. He said give me some a hacksaw and some blades, I'll have to saw the locks off the chain so I can get my cart home. He was about two hours getting the locks off, after he got the locks off he went in the store for something, Austin rigged up and said, here, I believe these keys goes to your lock. Why did they pick on Mr. Young? Oh, they use to take everybody's cart. Irvin had a ox, and left his cart out and they took it. Took the cart. Took it way down on the front road. So, he got down there , and he said now you fellas helped shove this down here, now you can help shove it back. Harder to bring it back again, isn't it. Do you remember when you were a little boy, were there cars on the Island? Oh, yeh. After awhile. Well there was cars here but they didn't use them nights. Very seldom you'd see a car after dark. So much snow. More snow in the old days? Oh, yes. There where Kevin is living, from down home there use to be a bank there on that hill so all you could do is see the top part of the upstair windows. Whose house? Up there where Kevin's living now. Use to ride downhill all the time here. Start up there and go down, down Austin's hill maybe go right down around and start up school street before you got stopped. That was a good ride. Yeh. Or turn and go half way down to Rube Haines' store down the front road before you'd get stopped. Long walk back! Yeh. I don't know if it was Eleanor Thurber or someone from around the cove, went down Austin's hill and the door was open, and she was on a wheel and she went right in along side the counter and Austin said at least you could've left your wheel outside. When did Austin die? In the '50's. That's why that street is called Austin's Lane, then I suppose. Yeh. He is buried up here in the new graveyard. What do you call the new one? Behind my house. What is the proper name for that one? Brookside.
And your parents are buried in Hilltop. No. They are buried up here in the new one, on the upper back fence. Is there a marker for them? Oh yeh. Tombstone there. Goff Prime is buried there too. Brother to Charlie Prime. What religion were you when you were growing up, Raleigh. Baptist , I guess. Use to go to the Baptist church anyway. Was religion important to your parents? Quite a bit. Do you remember what a Sunday was like at your house when you were a little boy? Oh, we use to have quite a crowd some Sundays. I've seen 17 there two times for dinner.
Oh, once in a while. Not every Sunday? Your parents didn't make you go every Sunday. No. Did your parents go every Sunday? Mother went 'bout every Sunday. Who delivered the babies in Freeport? Doctor. O.k. There was always a doctor here. Yeh. Years ago use to have a woman, Ms. Toby or something like that was her name. She use to You don't remember though, because you don't have any younger brothers or sisters. No. Well, Mamma use to go out with the Doctor quite a lot delivering babies. She did. Aha. Do you remember what that was like, someone would come to the door? Oh, they would come see her maybe a week or two before they were going to be sick, and .. And how long would she spend with them? Oh, maybe a day or two. Well, see they had people go in to take care of them. To take care of the new mother and the new baby? Yeh. But the Doctor would be there too? Sometimes, sometimes he would be out on another case somewhere. So those women had an important role in this village. Yeh. How would she learn to do that? Just picked it up, I suppose. What Doctors do you remember? Dr. Weir was the first one, Stokes, quite a few but I can't think of the names right now. Dr. Weir would be Andy Weir's father? Yeh. Wasn't for Weir I wouldn't be here today. Why do you say that? Well, I had a wicked terrible heart. When? When I was born. I was right blue when I was born. What did they tell you about that? Well, they said as soon as I was born, they brung me right by the feet, turned me bottom up and wacked me ass till I cried. That got you going, eh? Yeh. He said to Mum, keep him home til he is about 14 years old and he says he'll never be bothered with it again. So when you were growing up, did you know that you had that condition? Yeh. Did you have to act differently from the other kids? Did you have to be more careful than the other children? No. I'd have a spell with it once in a while. What would happen when you would have a spell? Well, it would kind of hurt when it was coming on, Dr. Weir would take me home and make me go to bed for maybe a month. He'd make me stay in bed for a month? Yeh. I was there in bed, cutting out pictures and stuff, and what a mess I had on the bed. Weir walked in. Mum says, he's got the bed a mess, - Weir says tell me any kid doesn't have a mess in the bed when he has to stay in bed. He sounds like a nice man. Yeh, he was. When is the first time you remember going off the Island? When I was about 12 or something like that.
Digby. Do you remember much about that day? No. How did you get to Digby? By car. Did your father have a car? No. Somebody was always willing to take you. Do you remember what you thought of Digby your first time? I didn't think much of it the first time. See, we never got around much. When you were growing up, how often would you get to Tiverton? Oh, we use to get to Tiverton quite often. Weir use to take us all up to Tiverton. He use to go up to see patients and he'd take us all up to Tiverton. If you'se around and he was going to Tiverton, he'd say go tell your parents where you're going, and go to Tiverton with me. So we go tell our parents where we was going, and we'd come back and go with him. That would be a big adventure.
How often did you get to Brier Island? Oh, once or twice a week. Did you? What for? See, Mamma had a sister married over there. She married Irving Thompson. And they would visit back and forth that often? Yeh. Was there a ferry in those days? Oh, yeh. Use to have a scow they use to tow with a boat. How often would that go back and forth? Oh, whenever it got a load, it would go. Oh, no schedule. Do you remember what it would cost? About 50 cents for a car. Sometimes you wouldn't have to pay nothing, if they took cars and you rode in the boat. So where have you travelled in your day? Oh, Digby and down around the French shore and up the valley. That's about all. Never went over to Saint John on the Keith Cann? No. You said before we started the interview that you knew D.B.Kenny Oh, yes. I knew old Dan Kenny too. Yeh? Did you know the oldest Dan Kenny, what do you remember about him? He was a good man. I worked in the fish plant for him for two or three years. That would have been in the '40"s? '40's and late 50's I think it was. You know where they are building the new place for the lobster pound? That's where his fish plant use to be. That building they used for a bank was his office. It's gone now. Too bad. Yes. That would be the office of the very first D.B. Kenny? Yes, Before the two D.B. Kenny's that are in Westport now. Danny, second one, bought that fish plant up there by the breakwater from another feller. His father's plant was down where the bank use to be. That was his father's fish plant. And then they was a plant down by Raymond's store too. Bowers' Brothers use to have a fish plant there too. And Raymond Robicheau had one up the road. Up pretty near in breast of where his house is. So what happened to all the fish, Raleigh? Draggers. Ruined the bottom. Tore hell out of the bottom. Tore off the feeding ground, spun the ground and everything all up. That's all the that happened to the fish. They was getting cod fish this summer, some of the Westport boats, going way down the bay about three or four miles. Down one day, stay all night and back the next day. They was catching cod fish, pollock and stuff. That's all that's wrong with it is the draggers tore the devil out of the bottom - no place for them to feed or spawn up here in the Bay of Fundy. Do you think they'll come back? Oh, come back in time, yes. If they could cut the draggers out for awhile, it would soon come back. How do you explain the decline in the lobsters a long time ago, like in the '40's. Well, every so often, they go down. Just a natural thing? Yes, Because the boats couldn't have been fishing too hard back then compared to today. No, the biggest string of traps would be maybe 200 or 225 them times - they were gasoline boats. But, What do you think the future is going to be for the lobster fishery now? Ain't looking too good while there's fishing year round. What do you think they use to get for lobsters years ago? You tell me. Make a guess. I bet you you got .50 cents a pound. We got .25 cents a pound. What did you think of lobster those days, yourself? I loved it. You did, eh. It was a treat even then. How often do you have lobster now, Raleigh? I ain't had any for two years or more. No! That's awful. We'll have to get a feed together, won't we. Raleigh, were you ever married? No. I don't know how you escaped! Cause I know you like the ladies! Just played my cards right! So you worked for Connor Bros., and you worked for D.B.Kenny. I worked for Connor Bros., D.B.Kenny, Crocker Bros., I had a wack at all of them. Derek mentioned to me that you were a splitter. Describe to me what a splitter does. You have a proper knife. A knife with a real crook in it for cod fish, see that follows right along the bone. Pollock you can use a straight splitting knife. Why, what's the difference in the fish? Well, see pollock ain't got that wide bone like cod fish got. So, it depended what kind of fish you were splitting. Hake was another good fish to split. You could use a straight knife on them, too. And so you've got this fish in front of you, what do you do? Well, you pick it up, lay it on the table, on a board about that wide and about that thick. Put your fish against that, lift the napes up, and zip. Then you come up a ways, turn and zip on the other side. How fast can you do a fish? Oh, about two or three minutes. How did you learn to do this? Watched people do it, and I learnt down here at Connor Bros. Alley Perry, he use to split. He said, come here, get to that table, I'm going to learn you how to split. And do splitters make more money than the other people? No. Same price. How often do you have to sharpen your knife? According to what kind of fish you're splittin. Cod fish you have to sharpen it more often. But pollock you ain't got to, or hake. And how often if you were splitting cod fish, would you do it like twice a day? Maybe a couple times in the morning and a couple times in the afternoon. You don't let it get right dull, when you see it getting little dull, just rub it on the stone two or three times. That's all it takes? Yeh. We went down here, after Danny got the plant down here, Saturday morning, and we had 8 boxes of pollock, 12 boxes of hake to do. So we went to work at it, and at 11 o'clock we had the fish all split. How many of you? Two. You were too fast if you were getting paid by the hour! We didn't care, Hubie , and Vernon were saltin' and they stood around for an hour and a half and wouldn't salt a fish. Had the hole near full of split fish. Tub. Hubie said to Kevin, Kevin Guier was boss then down there. Put the ..down and help us salt them fish. Kevin said you fellas stood around an hour and a half and didn't salt them, now stay here till you get them salted. Four o'clock Saturday afternoon before we got the fish all salted. Kevin looked at us, said 11 o'clock, we had the tables and everything washed up, cleaned up, said 11 o'clock go home. You're time will go on to 12 o'clock. That is Kevin Guier right up here? Yeh. Working at Westport, you only got paid so much a week. $30. 00 or $40.00 a week, but if you worked overtime, you got double time for it. You must have a healthy bank account, do you Raleigh? When you weren't working, what did you do for fun? Little bit of everything. Getting in deviltry. Summertime, you know that cement walk there in front of Austin's house - Shirley's house - there use to be a big cement doorstep right across the whole bigness of the house. That use to be full on fine night, people talking and singing.
Oh, hymns and everything. Where Shirley has a room there on the front, Austin had a little store in there with Christmas stuff in. Can you remember any of the stuff he had in there? Oh, he had a little bit of everything. Dolls and all kinds of stuff. Pretty exciting, eh? Yeh. They use to be a store on the lower side of school street, right up the head of school street there. What kind of a store? Grocery store. And there was a little store over here where Lloyd Crocker's living, a hat store. A Hat store? Who owned that? People what lived there years ago. I don't remember the name. Ladies hats? Ladies hats and stuff. I don't know what they sold, but I heard them tell about it and they just called it a hat store. Before your time, eh?
Yeh. And then where Dean Lent lives they use to be a store there too. You didn't have to go anywhere to shop, eh? You know that building up back of Barney's house, that's the store use to sit in front of Dean Lents. George Young bought it and moved it over there when he had the fox ranch. How important was fox ranching in Freeport? Oh, it was quite a few - Sam Young had one, George Young had one, Doug Lent had one, Alton had one, Charlie Young had one up on the hill, Lloyd Blackford had one, there was quite a few fox ranches around here years ago.
No, lasted quite a long while. Where would they sell the pelts? Oh, they use to ship them away. Did some people make quite a lot of money doing that? Yeh. I use to help Doug Lent with his foxes. What would you do? Help feed them and stuff. What would they feed them? Oh, you'd have horse meat come up on the Keith Cann from Yarmouth, go down and get fish to feed them and stuff. How many litters have in a year? Just one. How many Oh, five or six or seven. How would they kill them in those days? Oh, they had like a shed like built on a fox ranch, ones they wanted to pelt they use to put in there. Then you'd take a pair of tongs about that long, when you got ready to kill them, go put them around their neck and hold on their hind feet and step right on their heart hard so it would kill them. That was quick? Yeh, quite quick.
Some were black and white and some had silver foxes, few silver foxes too. Were some kinds more valuable than others? Yeh. Which were the most valuable? The silver color ones. So they would try to breed for that color then? Yeh. Would they skin them then? Yeh. Were the pelts stiff when they shipped them out? Yeh. They skinned them and then they had a board about that tall, shove that right up their nose an make it fast then haul the pelt right down tight and fasten it down on the bottom so it stretched, stretch it. They wouldn't have to scrape the inside of it or anything? Oh yeh. Before it dried any fat on it, scrape it all off. How much would they get for a good pelt, do you remember? Oh, a good pelt would be $30, $40, or $50.00 maybe if it was a real good one. Really? Wow! That's big money Yeh. Were there any trappers on the Islands, Raleigh? Oh yeh. They use to trap. What did they trap? Mink, muskrat, all stuff like that. Oh yeh, there use to be quite a few set traps here on the island. Randall Thurber use to set traps every winter. Any bobcats? No. No porcupines either!!! Raleigh, do you remember any Indians ever coming here? Oh yeh. They use to be Indians come down here selling baskets and stuff. Where were they from? Oh, from up all over Nova Scotia. And what do you remember about them? Oh, they use to be good people. Would they come as families? Yeh, use to be some come down to the campground there at Beautiful Cove. For how long at a time? Oh, maybe they'd be two or three weeks. What would they do while they were camping there? Well, some would be out selling baskets maybe, and stuff like that. Did you ever buy a basket? Oh, yeh. A woman and her daughter came around selling baskets one day, 'bout 11 o'clock she come home here. She - Mother bought a basket and they were talking and she says, 'Daughter says she'd like to have a piece of bread.' Mamma says 'She can have a piece of bread. You fellas stay right here for your dinner. I'm cooking dinner and you fellas stay right here for your dinner.' Well, wasn't they some proud of that. Are you ready for some tea a cookies?
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