I was a Bruce and my parents were born here. The Bruces came here from Scotland but I don't know how long ago. Willard Ching used to tell me that when they got off the boat, a dog followed them, and when they took the dog back they stayed. Willard used to say that, "If it wasn't for that damned dog there wouldn't have been any Bruces here".

I was born in Kingsboro in 1912. I went to school there and walked the two and a half miles. In the winter, if it was stormy, Dad would drive us but other times, Bernard Mossey would take a horse and box sleigh. We'd put the horse in at the last house to the school and we would walk the rest of the way. We'd walk back and get the horse and sleigh and then walk from Bernard's to home.

I left school after grade seven. We only had reading, writing, and arithmetic. We carried our lunch. My Mom died when I was only three years old, and after that, I was away at my aunt's for a while until my Dad was able to look after me again. He remarried and lots of times my stepmother would be sick. Dad would make big biscuits and we'd cut them and put molasses on them, shove them in a brown paper sack and take them to school. That was our lunch and it was good, I'm telling you. In the summertime we'd take a bottle of milk, put a long string on it and dangle it in the stream to keep it cool.

One teacher would teach all the grades and would stay several years and then we would have another one. They were pretty good. The boys used to get into mischief and do a lot of things to the girls. But they do that all the time, I guess. I was only twelve years old when I went with my aunt and uncle in the summer time. She churned and made butter and we'd take it to the store when it was made and formed in blocks. She had a big family and she'd take me with her and the next time I'd stay home, so, we took turns. She'd deliver it to the different stores. You had no money to buy extras so you grew your own things, milked your own cows, and fished your own fish. You bought flour, molasses, and tea. We used to mix turpentine and goose grease to rub on your chest for a cold. I don't think we ever had a doctor when we were kids, that I knew of. I remember for cough medicine; when I was little, my stepmother would get up and put a little sugar in a spoon with a drop of Sloans liniment in it.

We had hooking frolics, fudge parties, and taffy pulls and making things. Lots of times parents would visit friends who would have children so we could go, also.

In the summer, when we had vacation, I worked on the farm walking the cows to the field, and then went after them in the evening. We milked the cows and separated the milk, and fed them. We'd have a big pile of wood in the yard. We'd be told to get the wood in and we'd be an summer long trying to get it, not working too hard, but we didn't get to the beach.

And then the bugs would come on the potatoes and we had to go and pick the bugs. You'd hang a can around your neck on a string and you'd pick the leaves with the bugs on them and put them in the can. When you got your can pretty fun was the only fun in it. When you'd get to the end of the row, we'd make a little fire and burn the leaves and the bugs. No spraying or anything like that then. And then we'd herd the cows after the hay was cut. It would be nice aftergrass that would come up but perhaps right next to it there was a grain field and you couldn't let them into that. So we acted as the fence. We'd sit around and let the cows eat the clover. And after an hour, we'd try to get them out of there and they didn't always want to go. So, we'd have to fight with them to get them back. That was pastime in the summer; you always had to do something. It was there to do and, once you were home from school, it was your job to do it. Nowadays the kids want to know what they are going to do for fun and want to go to the beach.

Dad had sore eyes and he had to go to Elmira to get the train to the hospital for treatment. We had a little dog and he went out and sat on the house banking and he watched as long as he could see them going. You wouldn't believe the dog would know everything that went on. But he knew very well that Dad went away and he would be sitting there until he came back. Dad was gone for a week or ten days. Every day he'd go out but he never went upstairs - he wouldn't go when Dad wasn't up there. The night they went after him to take him home the dog nearly went out of his mind he was so happy to see him. He jumped up on his back and licked him. We always walked to church. We lived in Bothwell east of Elliot's. There were five in our family and when Dad remarried there were two more. There were just two boys. The eldest was a boy who died in 1990, then Hazel was the second, I was the third, then Wesley, who is dead too, and last Pansy, then Aletha and Emily -the other girls. Families were important, and there was no birth control. When I was young I never heard the word diet or sex. You ate whatever came up; if it was six potatoes it was OK. It was potatoes and fish mostly, anyways, so you ate it. As far as sex went, it was there all right, but it wasn't talked about.

When I went to my uncle Ray's, his mother was in a wheelchair .She was a dressmaker and they had a big family. When the children were born, they were born in the house and you had to have someone there to do the work. I was there for three and a half years and my grandmother showed me how to sew crazy patchwork on a piece of material, and you just sewed patches on every which way. I sewed two quilts while I was there, and I had them when I got married. That's how I started to quilt.

I had a lamb once but I didn't know I ate it. I love a little lamb and I love sheep .We always had them but I couldn't eat mutton 'cause I thought too much of the little lambs. We used to get in the pen with them and sit down and hug and play with them.

I was 21 when we were married, and Charles was 26. We were married up home and everybody was there. I don't remember how many. My stepmother made the meal for us and set the table in the dining room. I remember so many sat first and then so many more, for it was a big meal. And we came home and Roy Rose had one of the few cars around and he took us home. Somebody said, "What do you do on a honeymoon"? I said, "Don't ask me, I've never been on one". When I got up the next morning, I took the milk bucket and went to the barn and milked two cows. I carried it back over to the house and separated it and carried it back to the barn to feed the calves.

We had a half puncheon in the woodhouse for hake. I took one of them in and I cooked it all for dinner. You never see fish that big now. The back on them would be that thick - so you always had fish.

For years after I got married I didn't have time to quilt. I didn't have children for more than three years. A fellow said it was the hungry thirties and we didn't have any money and I worked in the fields. I was the "second man", so I plowed and harrowed and made hay and everything else because I had to .

And then when the kids came there were no babysitters. So we built a little box sleigh and we'd put our son in and tie him behind the truckwagon with the horses in when we'd go to the field. Charles would put the hay up and I'd build the load and I'd drive the horses. I often thought since how dangerous it was if they'd get scared and go in reverse with the young one behind. But that didn't happen. When we picked potatoes we built a little house and took it to the field to put the kids in. Elwood was three years older than Elora and one day, I remember, Nelson Stewart come and wanted Charles to help him to thrash. And I said, "You'll have to finish that building to put the kids in", so I went to help with the thrashing and he finished the building. It was just a little shed and we'd put a bag of straw in to put Elora to sleep. We were picking with a potato basket then, and you wouldn't get too far away. They could nap in there and when Elwood would get up he would play in the clay and look after Elora.

When we came home from the field, we'd milk and do the chores and chum. We had cream and I'd always chum at night and cook potatoes and fish at night so we'd have it the next day. And we didn't come home and stick it in the microwave either! You had to light the kitchen fire and boil water, heat your dinner up and eat it. Shove the dishes in the dish pan, not in the sink, you didn't have one, until you'd come home at night. You'd light the fire and wash the dishes and do what you had to do - churn and make your butter once a week. I got married where I live now. It was an older house that Charles bought. We used to come from home to Red Point school and there was no one in the house and it was closed, so lots of times at school fair times, we would run across the field and be looking in the window - never thinking that one day I would be living there. Charles worked with Garfield Stewart and the house was his wife's father's. She sold him the house. We got the house and the land to the shore and back to the woods for a thousand dollars. That was a lot of money then, and it took a long time to pay for it. I remember when we went we could pay interest, but it was pretty hard to get any more.

Rupert Garrett came out one time when we were done planting potatoes and he said he had a few bags of potatoes left. "I wish you'd plant them". He told us he knew where we could get a piece of land. It was just east of the road where you go down to Roddie Kidson's. So we thought we'd do it. We got the horses and the plow and plowed the land and got it ready. And that fall there wasn't a bad price and that was quite a few years after we were married, of course. So we had enough money out of that extra field of potatoes to payoff the farm. And was I ever excited. I remember the night so well. We went into Mae with the money - usually we didn't even have the interest to pay on time. But that time when we had it we went on time. She said when we got there: "Now this is the first time you ever came on time" .

When you'd make your butter and take it to the store you'd get something - sugar or shortening or whatever you needed. We picked cranberries lots of times. I remember one night we took a potato screen into the kitchen and stayed up all night cleaning the cranberries because some store wanted them the next day and if we didn't have them ready maybe sombody else would have them. And I bought two doors for the house with the money I got for the cranberries and they are still there - the one to the cellar and the one to the kitchen. You worked harder to get things. There just wasn't any money.

There would be one doctor in Souris, if you needed him. You usually had to bring him to your home and take him back again. That's how I got acquainted with Dr. Kassner when he came. His wife was driving him up to the Baltic and they got the car just outside our place and came in. The people took him the rest of the way by horse and took him back again. Mrs. Kassner stayed at our place.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard