My mother was busy; she'd sew every stitch of clothes that we had on. When my brother went away to Halifax, she made the first suit for him on her old-fashioned kind of sewing machine. She knit and everything was done at home by the mothers. But I never could learn to knit because I was left-handed and everybody who would try to show me were right-handed and I was going the opposite way.

We kept animals - we had cows and horses, I don't know if we had sheep, and pigs - and everybody had their own meat and you had your own vegetables. If anybody came unexpectedly, you always had plenty to put on the table. Now, I cook one potato for myself. Now, you have to telephone and say, "Would you mind if I came to visit you this afternoon?" No trouble at all in those days; anybody would come in.

My mother had her rest every afternoon and then she'd get up and she'd wash her face and comb her hair and put on a clean dress and an apron. That was the custom then, everybody had to put on an apron. I always remember her sewing and cooking. We learned to cook a little bit, not very much. I can remember she used to make what you called bannock in a great big pan just like biscuits. She would cut it in squares and it tasted beautiful. We could eat; we all had good appetites. She made butter and soap, but not cheese. We learned a lot from Mother that's for sure. In those days you had to go away and work. The boys did and the girls did too.

My father was a blacksmith with very poor eyesight. That was one great drawback to us. He was shoeing the horses and we used to love to watch the sparks in the place where they made the horseshoes hot, then plunge them into the cold water and nail them on to the horses feet. He could build things like sleighs and - in the Madeleine Islands they used to grind the herring - he made the machines to grind up the fish and shipped them down to the Madeleines. For grinding the herring there were two sides to it and there was something inside that went round and round and there was teeth in it. The ground herring was put in the lobster traps. Of course some of them never paid for them. They were poverty-stricken down there.

My childhood was very uneventful. I had to study and get through to be a teacher. There were 12 children in our family. The younger people always played, you know, and went for sleigh rides. We had hooking parties, that's another thing we had and then quilting. But you know, there was no such a thing as people not getting along. If anybody was sick, the neighbors all rushed in to help and do whatever they could. Going splitting wood - great big piles of wood - that's the only thing you had. I often think if older people could come back now and see the means we have - push a button and away goes the television and the same with the washing machine and dishwasher. I can remember when I scrubbed clothes and washed clothes and used a scrubbing board in a tub of water. You'd haul in the water and heat it on the stove and then empty that water and rinse the clothes. They'd be rinsed white, too.

We had one teacher, a Kickham girl from Souris West, the first teacher I had was Eleanor Kickham and I'm left-handed. She'd whack my knuckles hard to make me use my right hand. She'd just turn her back and I'd be back with my left hand again. I always said that if I ever got to be a teacher and there was any of the children left-handed, they could write with their toes as far as I was concerned. I can remember we had a teacher from Souris, Hughie Maclntyre was his name, and was he ever cross. Colville Bay was right along the side of the school and you were never supposed to go on the ice cakes but I can remember this day we went out on the ice cakes and there was a great big fellow from Newfoundland who was a nephew of John Kickham's wife. He was an awful creature and he fell on top of me and down the both of us went in the water. I came home and I didn't dare go in the house. I stayed in the porch behind the door till it was half past three and then I could go in home. I'm telling you, you weren't supposed to be there, and that was it.

We used to go on wood sleighs down a high bank right over the edge of the river. It's a wonder we weren't drowned. That is one thing I do remember. We went to the beach, couldn't swim for beans but we went before I was married. We would go across Souris West bridge over to the beach and go in to bathe in the water and feel so good afterwards. There was always something to do. I went to school in Souris West first, then I went to the Convent School terrified of the nuns. In grade ten, Mother of Mary Justin - I was sure she could see right through me. I never went into the classroom but I was almost sick to my stomach I was so frightened of her. She was just plumpin' plain cross. I had one sister who died with spinal meningitis when she was 16. Could she ever learn. She went to the Convent and, my glory, but the words that girl could learn. The Lord didn't intend her to stay in this country and this life. Boy, was she ever smart.

We took Grade X exams, and if you passed - you had to make a 400 mark - and then you went to Prince of Wales College and got your teacher's license. I went on to the school because I had nothing else to do. In 1926 I went to Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown and it was the first time I was ever on a train. And then you set out to teach in the school, and glad to get a school because teachers were pretty plentiful in those days. Horses and sleighs were the only way we had to go; no cars then. I remember the first car I ever saw. It's a long time ago; I can't remember the date. It came over from across the beach in Souris - now it's the road you go over to Souris West. In the evening the man, he was from Charlottetown, drove across and we saw those two lights coming. Oh, everybody was out, it was a big deal. My sister and I, I don't know whether we were going to school or coming from school, and we were so terrified we jumped over a fence and there was hawthorn trees and I can remember the thorns went through our clothes.

My father would be working late and early in the morning. Then, we had a windmill and ground grain for five cents a pound. At ten o'clock he'd come in for his tea. He'd have his breakfast early and I'd probably be in bed. Never failed, Mother would have a pan of biscuits made by then and it was a cup of tea and a biscuit.

I met my husband, Charlie, at a dance and I guess he took me home and that was the start. I was married in 1934, but I had started teaching in 1926. I taught school in Fairfield and that's where I met him. Of course I married him and we lived on the farm first. He fished and farmed in Fairfield, about four miles from St. Columba Parish. In the early days, my husband fished and he didn't have traps at all. You had, like a net, to catch the lobsters. I remember the first lobster factory I was ever in at Campbell's Cove. Oh lord almighty, all the lobsters and all the girls would be working in there. Everyone had their own job.

He fished at Campbell's Cove in the dory. That's all any of the fishermen had were dories, and they could get as many lobsters as they liked, three cents a pound. We went to his farm. We lived in Fairfield at Campbell's Cove and we were a mile from the road, from the main highway. You just couldn't afford to get the electricity through. Then there was a chance came for a house for sale by a man in the hospital named Dominic Harris. Charlie went down to the hospital and he sold it to him right away for $1500. There was the house and the barn and 12 acres of land on Elmira Rd. Some of the Baileys were related to my husband. We moved to Elmira in 1954.

I used to see a lot of girls over at the Manor in Souris that went to school to me and it's amazing how many you meet. I taught in the Baltic for four years. The longest period I taught was up at South Lake - I taught there six years. The students weren't too bad but you had to help the kids in school. You gave so many pages to learn and we'd have spelling bees. They were one-room schools and I had as many as 42 pupils. I wondered how we taught Latin and Frencht geometry and, well at the higher grades you would do it after school and it wasn't very pleasing for the pupils. They never wanted to stay and if you missed a day from school you had to put it in on Saturday. It was a job to get the kids to go to school on Saturday, I can tell you. We had two weeks in the Fall for potato digging and you had your summer vacation four or six weeks. You had to have every lesson in, and it wasn't just like the high school now. You began the morning with reading and then writing, spelling, arithmetic and the other subjects. Grades IX and X could go together, you know, you'd double up the grades. They could be studying while the younger grades were having lessons. There was no such a thing as organization then. You went ahead and did what you could. You had to keep your eyes on them, you really did. In the summer time the school was all cleaned. The older pupils would come and clean the school, scrub the floor and the desks, I don't know if the walls got anything or not.

Later on in the years, I'd get a bottle of some kind of stuff from school supplies. It was like gelatin and I used it to make copies of lessons. Many the one of them I did after school at home. You'd lay the piece of paper on top of it and press it down and take it off and there it was. And then you could put a lot of papers on one at a time. It saved a lot of work, a lot of writing.

Well, I can remember my first day in school; we did rapid calculation. And it wasn't like when I went to Prince of Wales, the first 45 minutes, that's what we did. We wouldn't say seven and two are nine, nine and one are ten; we combined the numbers. And I could rhyme off a whole lot of them and the kids used to just love to hear me do it. In our day we would say,"three and two are five, five and one are six, and two are eight". You would combine the numbers. The kids would say, "Please teacher, you do it". When I think of it, it's just like making change now in the store, just about the same thing. I taught for 22 years.