Cape Breton's Magazine

(What's your earliest memories of living there?) Oh, I remember we used to--we had a clothesline running from the end of the house over to the john-house. And we used to sit on that clothesline to swing. And they'd get after us. That's the only first memories I had--they'd get after us, scold? ing us off the clothesline. I remember go? ing to school there--just a one-room school. The teacher would board on the mainland during the summer months. And then when the ice was coming in, and they couldn't get across, she'd board then on the island. Till the spring, and then she'd go back to the mainland again, and she'd finish off her term. I only went to school 4 years in my life. (Why did you stop?) Well, I was the young? est of the kids over there, and when the others were old enough to leave school, they left school. Then there was only one to go to school, and you couldn't get a teacher for one person. They wanted me to go to the mainland, go to school on the mainland, and I wouldn't go. They were telling me, you'll be sorry--in 10 years' time, you'll be sorry for that. Well, 50 years has gone by, and I'm not sorry yet. (So the two uncles brought you up.) Yes, the t:wo uncles brought us up. (What did your grandparents do for a living?) Just farmed. Fished. That's the only thing they were doing. Farming--they'd plant enough to take them through the winter, and they'd have a pig for the winter, and they'd butcher a cow, and they'd have that for the winter. They'd have all their own vegetables. They'd sell the potatoes and turnips and whatever, and get flour and the things they'd need, tobacco and tea and sugar. They'd just trade groceries. Take their stuff to North Sydney. Well, even when we were growing up my brothers used to have to walk to North Sydney, a- bout 12 miles, with the stuff off of the farm, and get the groceries. My oldest brother, he left the island and he went to work in the lumber woods when he was 14. And my other brother John, he went to work on the railroad when he was a- round 15 or 16. My sister, she went to work when she was 13, she went to work to Leitches Creek, to housekeeping, when she was 13. And she left there, and she went to work to Boularderie for awhile, house? keeping. Then she went from there to Syd? ney Mines, and worked there for awhile. And she died there. Of pneumonia. Nineteen. I think she went to work too early, and she--she was too young when she went to work, and she worked too hard. I think mostly that was the cause of it. (But there was no way of getting her to stop?) Oh well, she wanted the money. It's not the work she wanted, she only needed the Serving Industrial Cape Breton and North Victoria Real Estate & Insurance ~~ "If you''pe thinking of selling your home, give us a call." R.Hickey&Co.; P.O. Box 96, B2A 'North Sydney 3M1 Gerald Brennan, Mgr, Residence: 794-4564 "And remember: No sale, no charge." 794-3119 m0 FESTIVALS AND EVENTS 1985 C June June ; June : June ; July July I July July July ; July Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. -Sep. Sep. FESTIVALS AND Naval Reunion Parade, St. Peters L'Ardoise 4-H Achievement Day Rocky Bay Mini Festival Lobster Supper, St. Peters Fire Hall Canada Day, St. Peters Canal Horse Show, L'Ardoise Strawberry Festival, Johnstown Down Home Fun Days, Sampsonville Family Sun-Day, Concert & Barbecue, Martinique ' L'Ardoise Acadian Festival Harbour Fest '85, D'Escousse St. Peters Come Home Week Petit-de-Grat Acadian Festival Hydroplane Races, St. Peters Marina Family Sun-Day, St. Peters Battery Park Johnstown Milling Frolic River Bourgeois Annual Community Days Louisdale Fall Fair Located in southwestern Cape Breton, Richmond County offers its visitors miles of ocean shoreline, numerous lakes and rivers for fishing and canoeing, spectacular hiking trails, and country roads ideal for bicyclers. Bell Buoy Restaurant SEAFOOD "Fresh from the Shoreline" ' Steaks * Poultry * Sandwiches Luncheon Menu * Children's Menu Two Separate Dining Rooms * Fully Licensed Baddeck, N. a 295-2581 Isle Royale Beverages Ltd. It's the realfhmg. Cote. &ia;' Your authorized COCA-COLA bottler 564-8130 * 245 WELTON ST., SYDNEY, N. S. * 526-4439 P' SYHNEYS The Official Drink of the'SYDNEY BICENTENNIAL (75)