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I am making an attempt at writing down some memories of the past, my life as a child on the farm along with my parents, brothers and sisters. I was born, so my mother has told me on January 30, 1923 on a bitter cold winter's night. Dr. Currie came to attend at my birth in a cutter over the heavy snow drifts, when he came in from the cold his face, head and coon-skin hat were white with frost. We lived in Prince Edward County in the most southerly part near the village of Milford in a large stone house built many years ago by one of my ancestors, Isaac Striker. In the book "The Settler's Dream" it states it was built in 1865 and has been lived in by the Striker family to this day.

There were six children in my family, two brothers, Gordon, who has died, Vernon, myself, the first daughter, my sister's Aldine, Olive and Shirley who died in infancy. As I remember we had a happy childhood, roaming on our farm, going up or down the road playing with the neighbor children. We made our own fun, sometimes walking the top rail of a zig-zag fence, trying our best not to fall off. We didn't play at many organized sports such as baseball or hockey because there wasn't money for equipment. There were no pools for swimming. Our summer exposure to the water was a trip to Lake Ontario, located a couple of miles south of us, where we played on the nice clean, pollution free flat rocks, cautioned frequently by our mother not to wade out too far, as none of us had learned to swim.

Our education came from a one room school house and still feel some of the best education came from these small school houses with one teacher and all grades from one to eight. I went to school at S.S. No. 14, a county school half a mile from our place. We ready by phonics and practiced our writing until it was at least legible. The times tables were drilled into our little memories forever. There was discipline in the schools then, even the strap, which was used when necessary. We walked there in the summer and winter except for an occasional ride on the sleigh when the snow was really deep. We played the usual games at noon and recess like snap the whip, keely-over( throwing a ball over the school house), pick up sticks, turn out jack, etc.

I was not a great student, my marks were average, and I did not try my entrance as I had to have my tonsils out at about that time, but I was promoted from my marks on what we called "May tests" which were written earlier and if you qualified you were exempted from writing your entrance.

In the spring we had an arbour day when we cleaned up the school yard and went on a hike to the woodhouses where most of us usually got our feet wet. The highlight of the year was the Christmas concert, looked forward with great excitement by all the children. We practiced for weeks on our dialogues, songs and recitations which we performed in front of our parents on the small platform at the front of the school. There was a temporary curtain which was pulled back for the performances and hid us when we changed our costumes which were meager at best. Santa Claus, of course, put in an appearance, usually dressed in an old coon coat with a ratty mask and beard to hide his identity from the children. The school was heated by a large box stove with two long strings of pipes which followed along the ceiling to the chimney. If you sat near the stove you roasted and a few feet away by the windows one really felt the cold draughts. Wet mittens and boots were often dried near the heat, when necessary. Food was often heated up for noon lunches. A pail of water with a dipper was our source of drinking water, carried from a neighbor's well. Hand washing was done from one basin in the corner and I am afraid most of us waited until we went home. There was an outside toilet, a two-holer as they were called. The boys had a separate one. A visit out back in the winter was quite an experience, I can assure you.

We walked to school most of the time, but we did enjoy a sleigh-ride when Father would drive us over the huge drifts. One Christmas I can remember him putting straw in the bottom of the sleigh which had side-boards, and snuggly tucked in with buffalo robes, we drove to Grampa and Grandma Dodge's in Milford. Today they have brought back the sleigh rides, unfortunately there is usually a lack of snow which we never seemed to years ago.

Valentine's day was celebrated in a small way with an exchange usually of home-made valentine cards and candy.

Hallowe'en was more trick than treat years ago. We didn't go from house to house collecting all goodies like they do today. We did some tricks, though, I can remember helping remove and carry a few farmer's gates and upsetting some outhouses. It was mostly a fun time with no vandalism or damage like today.

There were always chores for each of us children to do, some I remember were picking up chips for lighting the fire in the woodhouse stove. After the big piles of woodhouse were stacked behind the house, there was an abundance of them left for us to gather in a small peach basket. Chopping cedar for kindling was also another chore, and filling up the woodhouse box in the porch. Helping plant and weed the garden was not one of our favorite chores, but we had to help as most of the food we ate was grown on the farm, and harvesting the crop in late summer and fall was a big chore. I can remember helping to pick up potatoes when they were dug with a fork. We also helped pick strawberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, cucumbers, also lift up the vines of ground cherries and gather the fruit which we didn't enjoy eating.

Mother preserved nearly everything we grew, as freezers were unheard of then, it was a tremendous amount of work with the preparation of the fruit, sterilizing the containers, which were glass sealers, then canning the corn or tomatoes and boiling them the required time in a boiler on the woodhouse stove. They were stored in the cellar, as we called it, on long woodhouse shelves for use during the winter months. There wasn't the great variety of fruits and vegetables available then, as today. Mother had canned several glass sealers of beef, carried it downstairs to the shelves and the extra weight caused all the cans of fruit and beef to crash to the stone floor, she must have been devastated, but I can't remember her crying over it. Our cellar was huge, with a stone floor, always cool, nearly everything was placed down there to cool. I can remember large bowls of washed lettuce getting so crisp it overflowed on the floor. Mother always put jello down there to set and butter was always placed in crocks on the floor. We never had water come into the cellar as so many country homes did.

We helped plant tomatoes, dropping them by hand, as we carried them in a basket, in a hole dug by a shovel by our father or brothers. Later, we carried a small pail of fertilizer which we spread around the plant, not to close, as it would burn. It was back-breaking work, but it was fortunate we only had to do it once a year. We never picked too many tomatoes as school had started by the time they started to ripen.

One advantage of living on the farm was the availability of nearly all our food. We always had some hens, raised from chicks which were purchased and kept warm under a metal hover, heated by kerosene in a small building called a brooder house. I remember vividly once when the chicks were placed upstairs in the woodhouse house overnight to keep them warm and a weasel killed a number of them. When they matured and were ready to lay they were placed in the hen house where the eggs were gathered from under the hens from woodhouse boxes with round holes. How I hated this job because a broody hen could give you a nasty peck. We occasionally picked up lice from the hens which were quickly removed by mother with a fine tooth comb and several shampoos.

The calves were usually born in the spring, the heifers were raised for future milkers, the little bulls sold as veal calves. Farmers didn't milk year round as they do today, cows were usually dried up except for a few who weren't having calves, these supplied milk for the winter months. They were kept inside except for watering when they were driven out to the watering trough and drank while someone manually pumped the water, theirs was long before water bowls. They were fed hay and ground grain, we didn't have a silo as yet. Once the pasture grew in the spring they were driven back and forth from the fields. It was one of our kids' chores to walk back the lane, no four-wheelers then, to get the cows, water them at the windmill well and bring them back to the barn.

Windmills were very efficient at pumping water providing there was wind, it pumped the water into a trough and a float acted as a shut-off. One of our favorite jaunts was into the large woodhouses on the rear of our farm where the cattle often sought the shade of the big trees. It was a magical place in the spring, wild flowers in profusion, adder's tongues, mayflowers and trilliums. In the late summer and fall we would pick wild blackberries. the woodhouses also provided fuel for the woodhouse stoves and it was usually cut in the winter and drawn up to the yard in horse drawn sleighs to be cut up later with a buzz saw, how I hated the whine of the saw, always afraid someone would be badly cut as it was a dangerous chore. We required plenty of woodhouse, as I remember we never burned coal, there were four stoves, one in the main kitchen, a Quebec heater in the dining room and a fancier one in the parlor and a big old cook stove in the summer kitchen.

The crop was all planted with horse drawn implements, ploughing usually done in the fall with a gang plough with a couple of furrows, on which you rode or walked behind. In the spring this land was cultivated, then seeded with a walk behind seed drill. It was then dragged and rolled and waited for the rain to bring it to maturity. It was necessary to have a stable of good horses and my father had a couple of good mares and raised many fine colts. Some of the horses were rather spirited and I can remember a couple of runaways, one with my father on an empty hay wagon, first the load of hay upset and they ran all the way up the lane, around the corner by the shop, and stopped at the barn, how he managed to say on that wagon still amazes me. Another time a frisky two year old ran away on an old democrat, that is a cut down buggy, he tore it to pieces. Another team ran away with a horse-drawn corn-binder, came tearing around behind the house, the horses broke loose from the binder and it ended up straddling a small manitolia maple tree beside the house, naturally the tree came out second best, but as I remember dad patched the wound with a black tarry substance and it lived many years.

Haying season was always a very busy time on the farm, trying to get the crop cured and in between showers. It was all harvested by horse-power, cut with a mower and raked up in windrows with a rake with curved times. It was then forked manually into mounds called hay cacks or coils, then later pitched on a wagon with racks and drawn to the barn, to be taken up to the mows by various means. One I remember was with slings which surrounded the hay and drawn up to the mow by horses and sprinkled with salt to prevent overheating which caused spontaneous combustion, many a barn was burned because of this. When feeding time came hay was thrown down on the barn floor, then forked into mangers for the cattle.

Grain was sown with a horse-drawn seed-drill after the land was prepared. When it ripened in August it was cut with a binder which tied it into sheaves, these were stooked up in groups for pick up later and was usually put in the barn or outside in stacks. Threshing time was busy for the farmer as well as his wife. There could be as many as sixteen men with half a dozen wagons with teams of horses, most of them other farmers who exchanged work for this type of activity. The threshing machine was drawn up close to the barn and was powered by a steam engine in the early days, but later a big tractor ran the separator, as it was called, with a huge belt running from one to the other.

The sheaves of grain were pitched into the machine which separated the grain from the straw. The grain was bagged and placed in the granary in the barn and the straw was blown out the blower into the straw mow or stack. I can remember the large one we had behind the barn with an enclosure built under it which housed an old mother pig and her litter. There was a rail fence built completely around this and the hens often made nests in the straw and we would have to hunt for them. Quite often a nest would be missed and an old hen and her brood of chicks would emerge.

There was much work for mother at threshing time as she often fed as many as sixteen men for three days, some of them stayed for supper. I recall mother making countless pies which were quickly consumed and cooking huge roasts of beef. This was all done on a woodhouse stove too! My sisters and I peeled huge kettles of potatoes, scraping carrots and peeling tomatoes, cucumbers and beets. Naturally there were always lots of dishes to wash and dry. When the men came for meals washing up was done in a large galvanized tub placed outside on an old bench, no doubt the last man to wash had very dirty water, somehow that didn't bother them very much.

I can't remember my mother using a scrub board, but perhaps she did before we had a round woodhouse washer with a handle you grasped and rotated the tub, it worked well, too, took a lot of drudgery out of wash day. The water was all heated on the stove in a boiler, no hot water on tap in the early days. Our father, some time later had a rather primitive water system installed in our home. Water was pumped upstairs by a force pump into a thirty gallon drum and was fed down into a water front in the cook stove, from there we had hot water on tap. The pipes were all on the outside of the kitchen wall in full view, but things weren't so fancy in those days. It was our children's job to keep that tank filled, it came from a large cistern which dad cleaned and whitewashed regularly. Of course we depended on lots of rain to keep it full, but unfortunately we didn't always get it. We didn't bath or shampoo as often in those days. I remember the round galvanized tub used in the summer time, water carried up, and it wasn't changed between each bath either.

Mother sewed most of our girl's clothes. I can see her sitting at that old treadle sewing machine making little cotton dresses out of the pretty little prints she bought for 25 cents a yard. She even made coats and jackets. The ones I can remember were plaid jackets she made for Aldine and I. Aldine's was green and mine red. Every fall there was a large order sent off to Toronto out of the Eaton's catalogue, things she didn't sew, such as underwear, stockings, boots, sweaters and mitts. I've often seen my father bring a binder canvas for her to repair on the sewing machine, how it stood that heavy work is beyond me.

I have wonderful memories of spending my summer holidays at my Aunt Winnie and Uncle Gordon's at Black Creek. They had no children of their own and guess it helped my mother out to have one less mouth to feed. I remember spending many happy summer holidays there, coming with my little suitcase packed with pretty little cotton dresses my mother had made for me, sleeping in a lovely little upstairs bedroom in Aunt Winnie's house and waking in the morning to the song of the martins singing outside, flying around the bird houses which Uncle Gordon had built for them. I remember going down the lane to their garden helping to pick strawberries. There was a stream on their property with a bridge where the cattle watered, we would drive them back to the barnyard where they were milked by hand, staying in the open yard. I marvel how tame the cows had to be. They were always very good to me, strict in some ways, but I am sure a lot of here teaching me about manners and things were beneficial to me. She would dress me up in one of the pretty little print dresses mother had made and we would go to town or visit the neighbors. I loved her old fashioned kitchen, always clean and shiny, she must have painted often. One of my fondest childhood memories was waking up in the lovely little upstairs bedroom to the singing of the martins outside my window.

Up the road from Aunt Winnie and Uncle Gordon's place was Jackson's Falls, a lovely place we would visit, climb down to the base where there was a large pool. In the spring the boys would spear suckers there.

We always went to the United Church at South Bay, it was usually quite long, the service first, then Sunday School. We had several classes, some of which went upstairs in the gallery. We had little books with the lesson and were given an S.S. paper after the class. We learned the usual things such as The Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, Beatitudes and the Apostle's Creed. Usually we received small books or gifts as rewards for our efforts. There was always a Sunday School picnic held at Sandbanks on Long Point. One of the Church members usually took us in the back of his big truck with racks, we sat on boards which were placed around the edge of the platform. We eagerly looked forward to the day and how disappointed we were if it was a rainy day. Sunday School Christmas concert was usually held in the Church, a platform erected and recitations, songs and dialogues were presented. Of course, there was always a beautifully decorated Christmas tree.

We had the usual childhood diseases. There wasn't the vaccinations in those days. We had measles, mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough. Home remedies were made use of in our childhood, every time was had a cold we weren't taken to the Doctor for an antibiotic. Some of the treatments mother used were teaspoons full of goose oil, a piece of fat pork on a sock tied around our throat for a sore throat, electric oil on a teaspoon of sugar, camphorated oil and of course camphorated ointment rubbed on our chests and as a last resort mustard plasters. First aid usually consisted of a piece of clean white cloth wrapped around the cut. Getting stitched up for a cut was unheard of but I can remember my sister getting a nasty cut on her shin which really required them - she wears the scar today. I don't think any of us had any broken bones, dad fell in the pig pen once and broke his elbow. Gordon had his appendix out when he was a young teenager and I had my tonsils out when I left public school. It was as a result of whooping cough that our baby sister, Shirley, died at the age of 13 months. She was born prematurely. Several years later our youngest sister, Olive, was born. She grew like a little weed and we all loved her and helped take care of her, wheeling her around in an old wicker baby buggy.

There was no T.V.'s or V.C.R.'s in those days, only radio. I can remember our first one, really nice cabinet style, quite tall, a regular piece of furniture, and underneath a wet cell battery supplying the power. We didn't have electricity until 1938. Small kerosene lamps were used in the bedrooms and one of my sister's and my jobs was cleaning the glass chimneys every Saturday. We had a gasoline lamp which was lit and hung up high out of reach of the kids, Mother always lit it as it was a bit scary, it gave a wonderful light, though. Portable lanterns were used for the barn.

We were all very fond of our home, a lovely old stone house with a verandah on the west side covered with vines, it has since been removed and one built on the front. The focal point of the house was the big kitchen where most of the family activity was carried on. There was a large table in the middle where all the meals were eaten except when company came when we ate in the dining room. A couch along one wall always came in handy when one of us was sick or dad wanted to catch a nap. There were wide window seats in the kitchen and upstairs bedrooms. I can remember my sister's and I sitting on them, just talking or playing. There was a large pantry next to the kitchen for storing all kinds of things. There was a large dining room used only for company. The parlor consisted of double rooms scarcely used and only heated in winter when the rooms were needed. The upstairs bedrooms were large and there were four of them with a large hall both down and upstairs with eighteen steps leading to the second floor. My sisters and I slept in the room over the kitchen which was nice and warm in the winter because the stove pipe went through. Our brothers slept across the hall in the west bedroom. My sisters and I used to play in our bedroom, especially at night, when we were supposed to be going to sleep, which brought warnings from our parents to settle down.

Social life on the farm wasn't too active, it consisted mostly of invitations back and forth with relatives and friends to Sunday dinners or suppers. One family with two boys were at the house on more than one occasion at supper and when it got dark we had fun chasing bats with brooms. They congregated in the vine on the west verandah, I had mentioned earlier. We usually tired ourselves out after tearing around for an hour or so and came in for a drink, drenched with perspiration.

There was always plenty of milk on the farm, of course, it wasn't pasteurized, but I don't recall any of us being serious milk drinkers. My father, mother and brothers, as they became older, milked 18 - 20 cows by hand in the early years. My sisters and I learned to milk, but never had to very often. The milk was poured into 30 gallon milk cans and lowered by block and tackle into a well to cool, then taken on a horse drawn wagon to the cheese factory which happened to be next door. The factory was built on land given by the Striker family many years ago. When the milk arrived it was dumped into huge flat vats. After it was weighed and tested it was constantly stirred by overhead paddles, and as the curd started to form, after the rennin was added, the waste fluid drained off. Finally it became a solid mass and was pressed into large round presses for the cheese. Some was shredded for curd. After it was pressed it was stored in large round wooden cheese boxes and stored in the curing room. We were always welcome at the factory and often watched the process and were always given some curd. We bought our winter's supply of cheese in one of those boxes, all 90 pounds, farmers ate a lot of cheese.

My grandfather Dodge drew milk for years on a horse drawn wagon and I remember riding back and forth when he made his rounds. After the milk was left at the factory the cans were filled with whey and brought back to the farmers to use in the feeding of pigs, it was mixed with ground grain and made into a mash. Part of the milk was kept at home for making butter, it was separated in a machine called a separator, naturally, turned by hand, the cream coming out of one spout, the skim milk the other. The cream was allowed to sour slightly and placed in the churn shaped like a barret mounted on a steel frame with a foot pedal which you pressed while pulling a handle back and forth. It rotated until the butter arrived separated from the cream leaving buttermilk, which was good for cooking and drinking, but I was the only one who liked it and still do. The butter was removed as a lump and placed in a butter bowl. I can still see my mother working the butter with a wooden ladle, that is removing the liquid from it, if it was hot weather the perspiration almost dripped off her nose. It was packed in crocks and salted down stored in the cellar. She also made prints of butter, that is pounds of butter made in little wooden moulds which were cold.

I have more memories of Granpa and Grandma Dodge when my sisters and I used to spend some of our summer holidays with them. They lived near Milford on a side road across the pond from the village. In the dry hot weather the pond would dry up and we walked over it to get a treat. It seemed like a very steep hill to get down to the pond in a child's perspective, but when looked at today it seems only a gradual grade. In the spring when it was time to tap the maple trees my Grandparents boiled down and made lots of maple syrup. Grandma always made buckwheat pancakes, how good they tasted smothered with maple syrup! Sometimes if there was a bit of snow left in a fence corner, the syrup was boiled down and spread on the snow making yummy candy. This process was called sugaring-off. A small stream ran behind Grampa's barn and flowed west to Scott's Falls on the next farm. I remember wading in the creek many times and in the spring run-off going up to watch the heavy flow of water over the falls, fascinating for a child, as it still is for me today.

It seems that we had many more thunderstorms when we were children, sometimes they would continue all night, these times we would always remember as mother would get us out of bed and we would all crowd on her and dad's bed where they tried to calm our fears about the storm. The thunder and lightning was very frightening to a child. Mother would always be fully dressed in case something was struck, and she would watch out the window to see which way the storm was moving. When it subsided we would be bundled sleepily off to our own beds.

We learned to ride our brother's bicycles purchased second hand, I think, and rode them on the gravel roads taking the usual spills. Once I ran into a neighbor's dog and came off second best, gravel can make a sorry mess of your legs and arms when you go flying off a bicycle.

We never had too much opportunity to skate, never went to the arena, a small patch of ice in the rye field back of our house was our skating rink. Skates were never new, perhaps ones our brother's had outgrown, that were much too large for us. You don't learn to skate very well this way. My brothers were never into playing hockey either. We had wooden sleighs and a bob-sled which was a long platform on top of two sleighs and could hold several of us. We used to take it down to South Bay and ride down a hill there, the ride down was fun, but climbing back up lugging a long sleigh was tough work.

When talking about cattle and milking earlier I didn't mention another part of farming we really did not enjoy, that was driving young cattle up the road and south to the summer pasture which bordered the lake. They were usually two year olds that were not ready to milk yet. It was a tiresome job as some of us had to run ahead, watch every open gate, people's yards, as the cattle wanted to be everywhere but the road. We would finally get them to the summer pasture and thankfully have a ride home. Dad would check them periodically to see if they were alright, in case some were sick or struck by lightening, which happened to a couple once. A water fence had to be erected to allow them access to water, but not allow them out into the lake or up along the shore.

We had pets when we were kids, dogs and lots of cats who stayed mostly in the barn. One dog I can remember was a big black police dog named Bruno. Our father made a leather harness and he would pull us on the sleigh in the winter.

Nearly all country homes had a summer kitchen and woodhouse house, as ours did. Once the warm weather came we would move out there, we cooked the meals, ate there and mother did all the canning preserving there. It was a long narrow room with the stove in the central area, the pump and sink near the door. The kitchen table was in the farthest end of the room near the window and there was usually a nice breeze coming through from the verandah, I suppose the vines helped which were very thick. There were usually lots of flies on the farm and I can remember mother spraying after covering the table before we ate our meals. This kitchen was on the upper level and there was an upstairs area which I referred to before where the baths took place and the baby chicks were kept. I can remember barrels of vinegar up there, apple cider was ground and placed in these to make vinegar. Hams were hung here after they were cured in a smoke-house which was behind the house, actually a part of it. They were hung above a slow fire usually fuelled by hickory woodhouse or bark, then put in empty sugar bags and put upstairs to use. A slice off those hams was certainly tasty!

There was a lower level to this woodhouse-house area where the woodhouse was piled. My father was an expert at this and his piles were always straight and neat.

We were fortunate as little girls to have a playhouse, it was quite near the main house and as I remember we furnished it with everything necessary for play, little table and chairs, doll dishes and beds. We spend many hours there with our neighbor girls when we weren't busy with chores.

Farms had outhouses back then and we were lucky to have two, a winter one just at the end of the cement verandah and one farther away from the house. There wasn't too much toilet paper available, for us anyway, the Eaton catalogue was put to good use. It was always a good place to hide. I can remember my sister and I swiping a peach and going out there to eat it. By today's standards with everything so sanitary that would be unheard of, but it never killed us.

The first car I can remember was a Model T Ford, with side curtains, a very popular vehicle in those days, as nearly every family that owned a car had one. It had to be cranked to start, which proved to be quite a tiresome chore. We came up in the world of the automobile in our next car which was an Oldsmobile, in our eyes, pretty fancy, a far cry from the Ford. It was rather square, at least at the back, and at the front the radiator grill was uncovered, exposed to anything which might fly into it.

Other memories of my childhood concern my Grandparents on the Striker side of the family. They lived in a lovely old brick house in Cherry Valley. It had, I think one of the most unique features ever seen, a small creek which ran under their back wood house and on down into the large one which flowed through the village. It always fascinated us children who loved to throw things into it and watch them come out the other side. We liked to hear the gurgle of it as it passed over the stones and on to the larger one. I can also remember getting into the nettles which grew on their property, they make your skin burn like fire when you come in contact with the prickles.

Gram and Grampa Striker used to grow many kinds of flowers, one variety was the castor bean, a tall plant, much like a sunflower, but mostly green leaves, I once saw a picture of me as a tiny child in front of these tall plants. Grandmother Striker suffered with arthritis, and memories of going to their place and the house smelled like oil of wintergreen, she had a lot of pain which left her when she became an old lady. Grandfather Striker died when I was quite young, he had what they called shaking palsy in those days, I expect it was parkinson's disease. The house looks much the same, but the creek has been rerouted or tiled, but we never pass through Cherry Valley that I don't think of it.

When mother had a baby it was always easy to hire some extra help and when Olive was born a middle aged lady was our hired girl, as they were called then. An incident in which she had a part happened to my sister Aldine. We had geese in those days and a gander who was particularly belligerent, and when my little sister was walking down the path toward the barn, he attacked her knocking her down, his huge wings flapping and his beak pecking at her. When her cries alerted the hired girl she grabbed a broom and quickly put him to rout, my little sister was unharmed but pretty scared.

Another member of the fowl family was quite a scrapper too, a rooster, who, so my dad told us, jumped on the back and shoulder of a cattle buyer who happened to be talking to him in the barnyard.

We had a series of hired men back then, a couple I remember were Herb and Bert Coomb, they were English and no doubt came to Canada as Bernardo boys. These children were sent out from England to work and I am sorry to say many of them were overworked and abused by the farmers they were sent to help. These two who came to our place had a good home, lots to eat, and certainly were well used. They were very ignorant about farming but were eager to learn and soon fit in with our family life as well as the workings of the farm.

The Minaker family lived across the road from us and these were sad memories about them. Mental illness plagued a lot of the family members and attempted suicides were common lace. One son, who was, I suppose, retarded, although we never thought of him in that way, finally did commit suicide, a hard thing for kids to understand. He used to come over to our place, tease us kids and I remember a dog we had at that time growling at him, thinking he was hurting us.

I was able to go to high school, Gordon went, but Vernon and Aldine did not. It was not easy in those days. The first year I rode in with some students who drove in each day, but then I boarded with an Uncle and Aunt of mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Manley Scott. They lived on Paul Street in Picton and I walked to the old high school which burned years later. When my Grandmother Dodge moved to Picton and bought a little house on the corner of Grove and Ontario Street, I boarded with her. I brought food in from home, slept in an unheated room and walked one mile to high school and I always came home for lunch. I was only an average student, rather shy, just a country kid, I guess I never participated in any sports and did not have a lot of friends.

In my last year of high school, I only took four years as I could go into Nurse's training with that. I met Ralph who was later to become my husband. We went together and got engaged, but broke it off after I went in training as it was hard to have dates when there was a 10:00 curfew. I was much too young to be married anyway and really wanted to be a nurse.

Our training was rigorous, to say the least, we had 12 hour shifts with a couple of hours off, but we were always on call. I can remember many times at night we would lie down somewhere if we could find a bed and then we would be called back on duty to help in the operating room or delivery room. We had a good training, except for lectures which were given by some of the doctors and left much to be desired. We learned and worked in all phases of nursing obstetrics, operating room, nursing care, anatomy and materia medica (drugs). Nursing care was important in those days, of course, the modern nurse does so many of the Doctor's duties which we did not have to do. In our third year we affiliated at Ottawa Civic Hospital and enjoyed it, but it was such a big place we just got used to it, then it was time to leave.

Our uniforms were blue-striped dresses made of heavy material with stiff cuffs and collar fastened with a stud. Over these we wore large white full aprons with bibs, long black stockings and sensible shoes. We had to keep our hair in a hair net, there were lots of rules and regulations for us in those days. There were certain procedures we had to do in front of a supervisor and would we ever be nervous. Our pay was not much either in those days, the first four months we did not get any pay, then $5.00 a month for a year and it increased to $12.00 before we graduated.

I graduated in 1941 and won the Proficiency Award for Nursing Care, given by Dr. Walmsley. I was really quite proud of myself as that was the area of nursing I liked and still do.

We lived in residence, three to four girls in a room. It was close to the hospital and we had our meals there. We had a lot of fun and formed many friendships over the years, which I still have.

One incident, in particular, that I can remember was when a friend and I walked down to the dock near the hospital and I fell in the harbour, fully clothed. I was pulled out by a man who happened to be nearby. I feel that my nurses training and those years were some of the nicest of my life.

We had to go to Belleville to write our R.N.'s, I remember staying with a couple. Jean Richardson and I wrote at the same time, she failed and I passed, how, I will never know because anatomy and I never got along too well, it was a miracle! I worked for quite awhile at Picton hospital and was not too well, my nerves were somewhat frazzled, I guess with graduation and writing my R.N. exams, so I was home for awhile.

I started to work in Belleville Hospital, we all wanted to spread our wings a little and get away from the old place where we had trained. I enjoyed it there and it was in the spring of 1945, V.E. Day to be exact, I met up with Ralph again. We had our first date and decided that over the years we really had not met anyone we would have wanted to marry so we got engaged again. We were married on November 17, 1945 and I told of our early marriage years in Ralph's story.

I shall tell as much as I can remember about Linda Mary Pierce (Curtis). She was born on August 11, 1947, seven pounds 14 ounces, with a shock of black hair. She grew well and was a chubby baby, but once she started to grow she became tall and slight. She was a bright little girl, fond of books, and I tried to read to her and expose her to children's books.

She loved animals, particularly cats and played with the kittens we seemed to have a litter of each spring. She was fond of the little calves which were born in the spring and quite often put halters on them to try to lead them. When Eric William was born in 1952, I was very ill before his birth and Linda went to stay with Evelyn and Elmo in Peterborough. I have never been happy with that arrangement because she was away from us too long and when she came back, here was this baby brother. As he grew up she was wonderful with him, baby sat when I had chores to do and taught him many things, I feel she was a born teacher and not surprised she is in that profession now.

Linda was a good student, very bright, her teacher was Miss Rosa Eaton, who taught them well, instilled in each child a good knowledge of grammar, composition, reading and arithmetic. She went to a one room school, we transported them back and forth, as the school in our section was closed. It was a typical rural school with oiled floors, draughty windows and a big stove in the centre of the room. Children were cold around the outside walls and roasted near the stove. Wet mittens, boots and socks were dried around it in the winter. The children washed their hands in a basin in the corner and the bathroom was a little house out behind, which was quite a challenge on a cold winter's day.

The children used to march on the opening day of the Picton Fair. Some of the mother's helped Miss Eaton dress them in their costumes, then they would march to the fair grounds and line up in front of the grand stand to hear H.J. McFarland welcome them and give them all tickets to the midway rides.

Hallowe'en was another event Linda enjoyed, in those days we did not buy costumes, we made something out of what we had at home. Sometimes I drove them up as far as Kellar's hill and they walked back visiting each house, filling up their sacks with treats, ending up at Miss Eaton's where she treated them and made a fuss trying to identify each child.

Christmas concerts were an annual event, the children practiced for weeks ahead in anticipation for the final event. The parents crowded into the school while the pupils performed a series of songs, recitations and dialogues, followed by a visit from Santa Claus.

In the spring another day Linda participated in was arbour day. It was clean-up day around the school yard followed usually by a hike in the woods.

Linda progressed well at public school, was accelerated thus was young when she was ready to go to high school. She participated in a public speaking contest and was a local winner, her subject was Albert Sweitzer. She took piano lessons for awhile.

Linda and Eric both loved to explore the farm and played over the side hills for hours. She and Eric took swimming lessons at Stelmack's Cove, but do not think either of them learned how, that came as they were older.

Linda started working during the summer holidays, she baby sat for Reginald and Bradley Hicks for awhile. After she started high school there were summer jobs at the resorts at "Lake on the Mountain" and "Lakeland". The girls did not make much in wages, but the tips were pretty good.

She graduated from Public School with honors and was an honor student all through high school. Linda loved languages, took French, Latin and was one of the students who studied Russian. She went on a French exchange visit to Arnida, Quebec for a couple of weeks one summer and the French girl came to visit her.

She did not have a lot of friends, but one in particular she visited was Georgia Angelotti, who also came to visit the farm. Lily Gibb and Linda were kindred spirits, both came from the farm and loved animals. They visited back and forth often. Linda was not involved in sports and did not participate in too many of the school activities, of course the kids from the country did not have the same opportunity as the town kids because they were bused home and unless the parents made a special trip they simply did not get back into the special events. She was not too interested in any of the dances anyway.

Linda's grades all through high school were excellent, she had a wonderful memory and was able to get high marks on most subjects. The math's and sciences were the most difficult. She graduated from high school with honors and became an Ontario Scholar, also won a Scholarship, applied and was accepted at Carleton University in Ottawa. She lived in residence and did well the first year, then became a bit discouraged and decided not to go back. We told her we could not keep supporting her if she was not going to school, so she worked at several things, as a domestic in a home, waitress at the Chateau Laurier, a posh hotel in Ottawa and a cocktail waitress. After working for the year she decided to go back and with student loans and our support she finished her course and acquired a B.A.

A lot of her friends had gone to B.C. so she picked up her personal things and left her furniture in Ottawa, which her dad and Eric picked up later, and went to Vancouver. She met some girls there who worked in a home for retarded children, she was able to start work there, and since then has never looked back, has worked and progressed to the position she is in today in special education. She worked in two different homes for the retarded, then decided to go to Simon Fraser University to secure her teaching certificate. She had met Denis Curtis and he helped and encouraged her until she was successful in getting this. Denis was working for Honda in Vancouver at the time, but there was not any job forthcoming for her there, so she accepted a teaching position inland at the Perley School in Grand Forks, B.C. She moved to Grank Forks and rented a small house. Denis came on weekends, no mean feat as it was 365 miles over the mountains, a good seven hour drive. They both liked Grand Forks very much and bought a lovely little house just outside of the town. They were married on October 6, 1979 at a little Church in Grand Forks with the reception at their own home. It was a beautiful, warm, golden fall day. Her father and I and Denis' parents from England were there.

Linda has never stopped upgrading her education, has taken many summer courses and was successful in procuring her master's degree in special education at Gonzales University in Spokane. Denis left his job in Vancouver and worked at a Honda business in Trail, in fact was in partnership with another man. When the economy slowed down, and the business was only able to support one owner, Denis sold out his share and came back to Grand Forks and was unemployed for awhile. He too has took many courses and was then employed with an adult workshop in Grand Forks. They have also traveled considerably went to Hawaii, the first Christmas they were married, to England to see Denis' family. They have been east to see us several times the last time being at Christmas 1982.

Linda has kept in touch with her parents in late years in a rather unique fashion. Tapes are made and sent back and forth between her and I.

Eric William Pierce was born on September 30, 1952, a small baby, but grew very fast. When he was old enough to play, his big sister Linda kept him occupied and taught him many things. His school years passed swiftly, he was clever and had good grades. He was lazy about learning his arithmetic times tables and Miss Eaton would make him stay in at recess or noon to learn them. He has often said he would not be where he is today if it had not been for her drilling him. She also gave them a good foundation in grammar, composition and a great appreciation of books.

Eric was fortunate in having more friends close by than Linda, his second cousins Jean, Margaret and Kathryn McCornock lived nearby and Reg and Bradley Hicks lived next door, David Haney also lived up the road.

He had a bicycle when he was about seven or eight years old and used to ride it up the road to play with the other boys. He was mechanically minded even as a little boy, used to put all the cut outs on the cereal boxes together and was really impatient when they would not work. He graduated to tinker toys and then to a mechano set and built fantastic things like windmills, complete with little motors which would make them run. He had a train set for awhile, but was not as interested in it as a race car set, he added lots of extra track and built hills and valleys for the cars to run on. He had a little steam engine and played with it for hours, was always interested in how things worked. We had given him an electrical wiring kit when he was very young and this stimulated his interest in electricity and radios and televisions. He would take apart and try to put together clocks, televisions, etc. He had a workshop in the middle room of our house where he spent hours and hours working on various projects. There was an upright stove in the room and in the winter a good brisk fire in the stove made it an ideal place to tinker. Reg Hicks used to come over and lie on his stomach on the deep freeze and watch him.

He wanted to play the drums and we took him to Picton every week for lessons from Gary Coulter. He did not have a new set of drums, bought them piece by piece, and became very expert on them. He played in a group during his high school days, when we lived on Centre Street in Picton, his friends came with their instruments and they climbed to the third floor of the house and practiced in the attic.

He was also interested in Hi-Fi's and built several things with Heathkit sets. He also built speakers. He assembled a set for us which we have had several people comment on how great the sound is for such a small set, we enjoy it very much.

Eric was not athletic, but did play hockey for a couple of years. He happened to be on the winning team twice. Eric went all through high school including grade 13. He perhaps did not have as good a memory as Linda and may be his marks were not quite as high, but had a keen ability to reason and figure things out. His best grades were in Grade 13 when he had his highest marks, became an Ontario Scholar, too. He was co-awarded most scholarly student from his work in Grade 13, also was awarded "Salt of the Earth" in Grade 12.

Another phase in Eric's life was a summer spent with the Junior Forest Ranger Program in Ontario's great northland near Ignace when he was seventeen years old. It was great experience for him living with other boys, really roughing it in different phases of forestry, reforestation, tree cutting, etc.

Eric chose to go to Ryerson, a technical school in Toronto, to study Electronics. He lived in a residence, Bond House, for the first year. He graduated in 1972 and we attended the ceremonies in Toronto.

He also took flying lessons after he had a year at Ryerson and got his pilot's license. He took both his father and mother for a flight over the county.

Eric worked three summers at the Outlet for the Lands and Forests. He drove our car and worked shifts, made a fair wage which he used for flying lessons and helping out on Ryerson expenses.

Eric was a good friend of Bill Little of Waupoos. After learning to water ski behind our small aluminum boat, he and Bill spent many hours water skiing behind Bill's father's powerful jet boat. They were extremely good at it. He also learned to ride Bill's motorcycle and secured a license for it.

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