Cape Breton's Magazine

A Visit with Nan Morrison, Baddeck My right name or my short name? (What is your right name?) Mary Ann. (Is that how they got Nan?) Well, no. They got Nan on account of the schoolbook--the first schoolbook that came out--the primer. And there was a little girl--her name was Nan-- she had a doll. And of course I was sickly when I was small, and I pouted on a woodbox if I didn't get my own way. And that's how I got the name Nan. (You pouted on the woodbox?) I pouted, yes--I wouldn't answer if they asked me to do anything, unless they called me Nan. (Oh, so you chose the name.) Oh, yes--out of that little primer book. (And were you always very sickly?) When I was 4 weeks old, my sister sat on me in the cradle. She was a bouncing 2 1/2-year child. And they sent for the doctor to Bad- deck. I was down in Breton Cove--Skir Dhu. Sent for the doctor in Baddeck. And it was my Uncle Norman that came down and gave me respiration. (You had stopped breathing?) Well, I was--they thought I was--gone, or going. She sat right on my stomach. You can imagine--a baby 4 weeks old. She didn't know she was doing it, you know. (And did you suffer after, because of that?) Well, I was sickly for awhile. When I went to school, I had to wear shoes. I couldn't go barefoot like the rest did. I had to wear shoes. When they took pictures of the school, I was the only child there with shoes. When they took pictures of the class. (Are you sure it wasn't so everybody would think you were wealthy?) Oh, no! The rest of my family didn't have them on! So, I wasn't well then. And then, when I was 14--maybe not that old--Tain and I were down at my grandmother's at Birch Plain. And they promised us if we'd be good, we could go to a milling frolic that night, next door. So we were trying to be very good. And we were playing hide-and-seek. And when we were running from the big kitchen to the small kitchen--I was the first--my aunt was coming through with a pot of boiling hot water. And it came right down over my head. And I was in bed for perhaps 3 or 4 weeks. My face--my sister thought I was a cow when she came in to see me. I was all blistered up. Do you know what they put on me? My grand? mother went to the barn. They had a young heifer. She went to the barn, and she took some of the heifer's manure. She put it in a pan and she heated it in the old oven-- the old kitchen, you know--they used an old stove there, perhaps to keep the place warm. And she heated it in that old-oven. CAPE BRETON'S MAGAZINE, NUMBER FORTY-SEVEN WRECK GOVE. CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA SECOND CLASS MAIL -- REGISTRATION NUMBER 3014 (1)