The midwife said "Lottie," my mother's name was Charlotte but they always called her Lottie, "You've got a red-headed girl." Mamma said "I don't care if her hair is green as long as she lives." 'cause Mamma had lost three children at childbirth and she saved me. I was born in Souris.

I often think I broke her heart; just as well if I'd gone down too. I was just a tomboy. She tried to make a lady out of me and I'd be out with my father in the woods and this rough stuff. We had horses then, too. I was a regular old tomboy. Still am.

In them days, for clothes, it would be ripping an old coat that someone would give you and Mamma would make a coat out of it. Then we used to wear those caps I see around now with the eyes and the mouth cut out. I was the only poor one in my class and I'd have the big home-made socks and the old fashioned bloomers all lined.

I went to school at the Souris High School until my teacher gave me a licking and I went to the convent. I liked it pretty well at first. In the first and second grade we'd sit in the little tiny closet on little chairs when we was bad. We studied mostly reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar .The MacLean fellow would come from town, that done all that fancy writing. We was supposed to learn how to do that. We couldn't, so we just did the big old fashioned script.

My mother used to take the calendars when they were done, and she'd sew them together . That's what we done our homework on in the night-time. And we'd save our scribblers too, you know. The waste that people have now when you look back and think of it. No toilets then - go out to an old toilet and the Eaton's catalogue or Simpson's catalogue hanging there on the nail. There used to be the chamber pot, the big pitcher, and the jug. You'd get up in the morning in my home to go to wash yourself and you had to break the ice off the water before you'd get your face washed. I guess the conveniences we have now we don't appreciate.

I liked school when I was young but when I was in my teenage years, I didn't like it. I must of been fourteen or fifteen when I went to the convent. They used to call us a bunch of gangsters - all my friends were just like me. We'd be down when the train would be stuck in the banks of snow. And the nuns would just give us a little lecture and wouldn't touch us.

In the other school the principal would hit us with the cat-o-nine tails and I wouldn't cry for spite. He'd say, "Hold out your hand." and he'd take that strap with all the little tails on the end and he'd wallop your hand. Your hand would be as red as could be. Afterwards, we'd all gather together and we'd say, "We'll get even with him, we'll get even with him." You know what we done? We upset the toilets come Halloween and me a girl! A bunch of boys and a couple of girls turned over the boy's toilet and the girl's toilet. I was a regular tomboy. None of the boys are living now. Billy Fitzpatrick, Ronnie Cheverie, the Pettipaw boys, and the Gallant boys are all gone. Not one soul of all the old boys but the women are around.

I quit school early. I was only in grade seven - I guess I was up to fourteen. Then I went to the fish plant and worked. I worked at potatoes at 50 cents a day; imagine the wages they are getting now. And I went over to the McLeans to look after Bob. I was there for a long time. She was wonderful, wasn't she? I walked down to the wharf to work for 35 cents an hour and it would be ten below. And you'd get down there and they'd send us home cause the pipes were froze.

We went to the Matthew-McLean's store all the time and Stern's store. I was born in Souris next to Mel MacPhee's home. We walked to school and didn't mind. You got the bad winters. Some people have told you about our bad winters with the snow right up to the electric light wires. And we were told not to touch a wire or you'd get electrocuted like. I love walking and looking at those bright nights. If I had someone to walk with I'd be out there. It's beautiful with the moon shining on the white snow.

Pappa was born down in Winsloe and Mama came from down there too. Mama was a Bryenton. Some say the Holmes came from England. Mrs Vesey with the seed catalogue is one of my cousins.

Adele told me years ago that I should have written a book when I was going with all the sailors with my tomboy actions. Not those fellows with the brass, they were smarties. We'd just go with the crew. What did we do? Not the things they do nowadays! We just walked around by the beach. The Cox Hotel had a grand place for their tours. And that's where everyone would gather. That house was on the sand dunes; they used to call that the grand manor. All the girls and boys would be sitting around. The boys, them days, you could trust. You know what I told someone? If you went out with the boys today you'd have to wear tin pants and have a can opener. We'd be down around the wharf and be smelting. We used to sing and have a mouth organ and one boy had a violin. You could trust the boys in them days but I had no use for the brass.

You should have been here when we took over this house. I always loved Joe. He was twenty years older than I. I was married at 27 and he was 47. And everyone said I loved Joe because he was more like a father than like a sweetheart - but no, he was a pet. Everyone knows his reputation. He drank a lot but he was good to Preston and me.

Adele and I used to pal around here. There was no woods then, just fields. And I'd wander around looking in the windows. Not a glass, the windows were broken, no doors. And I used to say to Adele, " Joe and I are going to live here some time". And you know what Adele says some times when she comes to visit me? "My God, Bernice, when you'd say that and the look of the place!" There were no windows, no plaster, no nothing. Joe lived right across the street and then their house burned down. We bought this place when we got married and fixed up one room. You know what was on the floor when I came here? You talk about poverty! Black tar paper and the people who lived here before made a checkerboard on it. And you know, I think I was happier then than I am today. We did an awful lot of work here and when Joe died, I had to get welfare to look after me. And then I took in tourists and, but for that, I wouldn't have come this far. Preston was married then and couldn't give me assistance. He was my only child and it took a good many years to get him.

We used to barter in them days. You'd take produce down to the stores and get items of food. But even the fishermen would sell fish to those stores and they'd get their molasses and sugar and flour .

Don't worry, I'm not afraid to talk about my poverty and all. My father would go down with the big molasses puncheons, you know that they put rain water in it and you'd get a whole bucket of the nice sugary molasses stuff at the bottom. With molasses in them days we made gingerbread and ginger cookies and put it on our biscuits. I still love molasses. The women nowadays don't go into the old fashioned baking no more - you know, the old corn bread and corn meal muffins.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard