I was born in Rustico in 1907. I moved here in 1919 after the war and I went to school here for a couple of years. When I left school, I started working at the lobster factory for a year or two and then I moved to the cookhouse. I worked there until 1927. We fed the fishermen and the crew. In the spring I worked there and then the rest of the time I worked at housework. I worked at Lorne Francis' for four terms. His mother was a school teacher and I used to work in the house.

In 1928 I got married when I was 20 years old. I had eight children, saved five and lost three. I kept busy knitting trap heads and great big mitts for the fishermen so I could get a few groceries. My husband was a fisherman and he drowned off East Point in 1943, and I was left alone. the oldest boy was 14 and the youngest five. The fishermen at North Lake and Naufrage made a collection to help out. And while I had that, it was all right, but I got married young, and had no experience. My husband run the business and I was stuck there, not knowing what to do. My father and mother lived up the road a bit, my brothers worked like myself and had a hard time getting along. People would come over and say why don't you have them adopted, we're all adopted. I said, "No, as long as I can fight, they're not going". I kept doing what I could and I kept them all.

I made a living making clothes and making quilts, matts, turning clothes inside out and putting them together again. For the first baby I had Dr. Gus. He come on Thursday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon, just in time to catch the train. The next one, I had to have the doctor, too, because I had two women there that thought they could handle things but they couldn't, and had to get the doctor at the last of it. My daughter was born while I was eating breakfast. For the last one I had no doctor and for those that I lost, I had no doctor.

A neighbor was going to have a baby and I called in there one evening. She told me, "I got my parcels and I can't get to my mother's to sew and I have no sewing machine. Would you do the sewing for me?" I said, "OK". She said, "You needn't be in a hurry cause you've got three weeks, at least three weeks, to do it". The next morning her husband come on the gallop. "Have you got anything done? The baby has come." I finished her sewing. I done all for my mother-in-law. She wasn't just my mother-in-law, she was a saint. When my husband died, she would come late at night, sometimes eleven or half past eleven, when I'd be up sewing. They tried to stop her from coming but they couldn't.