Cape Breton's Magazine

MacDougalls and Whittys and Songs Mary Ann MacDougall; I was born in Ingon? ish. And that's where I found Dan R. (Dan Rory MacDougall, her husband). But I was singing before I met him, yes. Most of those songs that I remember were from my mother and father. Then we went north and were down there for a couple of years • and they were wonderful people down there for singing. We did a lot of singing • Jimmy Curtis and MacAskills and the MacNeils. (Did you learn songs off the radio?) No, never. (Did you wonder where the songs first came from?) No. Just picked them up by ear. Would hear my father and mother (Whittys) singing. But dear, I couldn't tell you where they came from, except that my mother's mother and father were wonder? ful singers • I've heard them often say that. I only heard my mother's father sing. And my cousin Bridget Barron. Everything that was going, they'd call on us to sing. Parties and sing in the church. We'd be up and down the road when we were young and that was the only pastime we had, going for miles, singing going and coming. Many's the time people would want us to sing in their homes. And in our own home, after I was married, me and my husband used to sing an awful lot together. Then the kids began doing the same. Evening and the night. Usually it would start off with people coming to the house, want us to sing a song for them. And my brothers • they loved to sing, all of them. They used to come to the house. I had 8 brothers and they're all not too bad singers. So they'd come up amd we'd be all singing together. Weekends. Friday to Sundays. Sunday was a whole day of it. (Are Catholic people al? lowed to sing on Sunday?) Yes. No sin in that. Mike MacDougall: Like the fella says, sing? ing is praying. A lot of them would stay overnight and carry on the next day. Mary Ann; It wasn't altogether for the singing part they'd come. We weren't per? fect singers. But my husband used to play the fiddle and the bagpipes and step dance and carry on like that. Step dance right there in the kitchen. Square dancing as well. We had a big kitchen. Big enough for 8 to get up. That was our entertainment. And with the televisions and the radios and the cars that are around us now • I wouldn't trade the singing and the dancing and the people together in the house for all the other things that we have in the CAPE BRETON'S MAGAZINE, NUMBER TWENTY-THREE WRECK COVE, CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA SECOND CLASS MAIL • REGISTRATION NUMBER 301'